Diclaimer: I don't own the characters or the series. Amano Akira does. I'm just playing with them for a bit.

A/N: My NaNo 2010. Yes, it will be long.

Soaring

Chapter 1

I wanted to give you so much

I wanted to teach you to fly

So close I wanted to clutch

My beloved and tell him why

All I could leave was a touch

And a look at the open sky.

~S~

"You're being very childish now, Hayato."

"No, I'm not." He couldn't believe Bianchi was even following him. Couldn't she just get a hint? Usually, 'storming away' would be read as 'don't follow me if you know what's good for you'. Instead, his darling sister apparently took it as the perfect prompt to follow along, and he couldn't even look over his shoulder to tell her to get lost, if he valued his own health at all.

"Yes, you are." Bianchi's steps were persistent after him. If he really concentrated, he could almost smell her perfume drifting towards him. She'd apparently gone all out to appear 'nice' as she came to terrorize him. Well, nice try, but it wasn't exactly successful. "You're stomping away like a little child."

"You're the one who's following me!" Hayato pointed out, seething. And of course she didn't even seem to realize just what her presence did to her. Though he'd never thought he'd think so, he almost missed the future Bianchi. At least she seemed to have caught on to the effect her face had on him. ...That, or this present one just enjoyed torturing him too much. He certainly wouldn't put it past her, not at all. She was definitely sadistic enough to do something like that.

"Because I'm trying to get you to see some sense." Still following him. Hayato wasn't even really paying attention to where he was going, now; anywhere away from her was good enough. There were a few other students afoot, apparently at the start of a recess right now; however, they all stepped quickly out of the way when they saw the look on his face. At some other time, he might have been almost amused at how it made him think of Hibari patrolling the school, but at the moment he was rather busy being just too angry to care much.

"What sense is there in any of this?" he spat back at her. "You show up at school and proceed to humiliate me in front of everyone! I knew you're a bitch, but isn't this a bit too much?"

"Hayato, don't be ridiculous!" Well, at least she wasn't scolding him for his language. That'd have been just the last thing needed to make him snap completely. "It's a parents' day! And because your parents are too far away, of course I had to come. Obviously I would be interested in my younger brother's education! I do care, you know, even if you don't believe it."

"Funny way you have of showing it," he murmured, hitting yet another staircase. He had pretty much given up any hope of shaking her off, but at least as long as he continued to walk away, he wouldn't have to face her, meaning he wouldn't have to suffer any more pain. For now, anyway. "First off, interested or not, you're not my mother! My mother is dead, as you well know. And secondly, just your being here is enough to ruin my day! How am I supposed to protect the Tenth from all these strange people invading the classroom if I have to concentrate on getting away from you?"

"Maybe if you weren't so difficult, you wouldn't have to worry about such things," Bianchi sighed. "Seriously, Hayato. It's not like I came here to poison you or anything. I'd just heard you're doing even better at school than before and wanted to see for myself if it's true. Is it really so bad to be proud of my smart little brother?"

"Yes, it is, if it's you." He frowned, speeding down yet another corridor. Her steps followed him intently. "And you flirted with the science teacher! Well, you tried to. I don't think he really got the idea. Aren't you supposed to be dating the baby, anyway?" Not that this particular thought was any more pleasant, but at least it wasn't as traumatizing as thinking of his sister giving any kind of gazes to any of his teachers. Well, not that he'd gotten a very good look at the gazes they had been exchanging, since the moment he turned to look what had caught the teacher's attention, he'd had to double over in pain at the sight of her face. Was there no way to get over his stupid condition?

"Oh, please, Hayato," Bianchi sighed. "Of course I love my darling Reborn! But an adult woman has needs that a baby like him just cannot properly fulfil. I wouldn't expect you to understand, you're so young and innocent, still, but -"

"If you say one more word," Hayato gritted out through clenched teeth, "I'm seriously going to be sick." Or he could just look at her. It would work just as well. "I know very well what you mean, thank you. Do you really think I want to think of you doing - doing that kind of things? With anyone?"

"Well, I don't know. You are a hormonal teenage boy, after all." Not that sigh. It was the, 'oh my, these young hearts are so difficult to handle' sigh she used when she was trying to give some - usually fairly useless - love advice to the equally empty-headed girls. "Now stop running away. What are you, two?"

"Maybe I just don't want to talk with you. That ever cross your mind? Like, the last damn ten times I've told you to stop following me already?" Oh, of course she couldn't take a hint. Nobody around him could, it often seemed. It was infinitely frustrating, being surrounded by such thick-headed idiots.

"Well, maybe this would be over already if you'd just stopped to talk with me properly in the first place!" Bianchi pointed out a bit snappishly. "You're such a difficult boy, Hayato. What do you think your teacher and classmates will think when you just stormed out of the classroom like that? I'll have to apologize in your stead later. I rather doubt you're going to do it yourself, after all... really, such a difficult boy."

"I stormed out because I couldn't take one more second of being in the same room as you," he replied. Oh, another staircase. Great. Staircases were perfect for stomping up angrily, and he certainly felt like stomping, right now. Preferably someone's head, but he'd take the stairs for now. "And I think I made it pretty damn clear, too!"

"Oh, yes, you did. I don't even know where you've learned such language." Her heels clicked against the stairs in rhythm with his own heavy steps. Heels. What kind of a woman dressed in heels and a miniskirt and a little top for a parents' day, anyway? Well, a teenage woman, perhaps, but then teenagers weren't supposed to come to the classroom on a parents' day. She was just his sister! She didn't even live with him, not that he'd have wanted that; instead, she freeloaded in the Tenth's house just because his mother was so nice and welcoming, she couldn't turn an ax murderer away. Hell, the woman would probably just start making tea and ask the madman to stay for dinner.

"Oh, I don't know. Maybe in the fucking streets. You know, after I ran away? Because even the damn maids were talking about my mother? My real one?" It was something of a low blow, he knew, especially since he now knew the truth about his mother's death, but... it was still true. And they hadn't even looked for him during those years. He'd grown up all alone, and now she had to show up and try to worm her way into his life again. It just wasn't fair.

"That's not very nice, Hayato." Her voice was quiet. "Are you blaming me, perhaps? I was just a child, myself." Yeah, just a child. A child who could already make concoctions strong enough to melt solid metal. So very innocent, yes she was.

"Maybe," he replied, a bit petulantly. The stairs came to an end, but they did not lead to a new hallway; instead, he was faced with a door. A door that, now that he thought about it, led to the roof. Which would have otherwise been a great place to go and vent, except it was the customary spot of the one head of the disciplinary committee... and the last thing he needed right now was a run-in with that damn tonfa freak. Stopping with his hand just inches to go to the door handle, he stared stubbornly at the door, hearing her come up to him.

"Hayato, don't be silly." He felt her hand on his shoulder and somehow managed to keep himself from shivering. He knew she had to be so close behind him... "Turn around and look at me so we can talk properly."

"The Hell I will," he grunted. "What, do you want to send me to the infirmary?" Which probably would have been preferable to this entire conversation, but still, he wasn't quite ready yet to voluntarily make himself sick.

"What on Earth are you talking about?" She sighed. "Do you really think I would attack my beloved brother? ...Well, aside from training, anyway?"

"Are you really that stupid?" he spat. "Have you really never even noticed what you're doing to me?" He shook his head. "I just don't fucking believe you! What kind of a person can fuck up someone's life so badly, he can't even look at his sister's face without being sick, and then demand him to start acting all full of family love and compassion?"

"...Just your big sister," Bianchi said, somewhat quietly. "Hayato... is it really that bad?"

Had he really never even told her? Or was she just acting stupid? Honestly, with her, either was possible. That or she'd just simply forgotten it. After all, it had nothing to do with her precious Reborn. "Is it that bad?" he echoed. "Hell yes it's bad. Ever wondered why I sometimes faint near you? I'm not just being a lazy little boy and taking naps on the damn street, you know!"

"...Hayato." She sighed. "That... I never..."

"Exactly!" He closed his eyes, hitting the door with a fist. It stung a bit, but not quite enough. "You never even thought about it, did you? You never cared. Because you never even think about me. You just think about yourself. You want to play family and be all loving sister and whatnot, and I have to deal with your cooking and your insanity and your damn ugly face!"

"But I only cook for you with all my love..."

"Are you an absolute idiot?" hissed Hayato. "I know what you claim all the time, but no, love is not fucking enough to counter your damn poison cooking! You're contagious! You just can't make anything anywhere near edible, because anything you even as much as look at turns fucking lethal! Your cooking is poisonous, your presence is poisonous, and you don't even care enough to blink in surprise if I happen to double over in pain at the mere sight of you!"

"Hayato..." her voice was rather quiet. "Perhaps... we should continue this conversation later." He heard the click of her heel as she took a step backwards on the stairs, her hand finally leaving his shoulder.

"How about never," he murmured. A very small voice inside his head, one that sounded rather much like the Tenth, tried to tell him that he should have been nicer to her; after all, it didn't look like she was being mean to him on purpose, and perhaps he should be a bit more understanding, too. However, the much louder voice that sounded like his own drowned it out, reminding him of all the pain she had put him through over the years. At this point, the thought that she didn't notice was almost scarier than that she didn't just care.

A step, another. After a while, he actually dared to look over his shoulder. Her back was turned towards him, her head hung, hair shielding him from even a glimpse of her face. Good. And no, he was not about to feel any sympathy for her right now.

He watched as she walked down the stairs, one slow step at a time. The Tsuna-like voice in his head said he'd hurt her far too much, while the louder, more familiar voice just kept insisting she was only being slow to be mean to him. Surely she could have left faster.

He didn't quite see what happened. Perhaps she tripped, perhaps she just missed a step, perhaps it was just another sign of why high heels were one of the worst inventions ever known to man. All he knew was that suddenly she started to go down far too fast, she was falling not walking, that couldn't be good and she was still in the stairs for fuck's sake.

"Aneki!" he shouted out, hurrying towards her, not even pausing to think that doing so in the stairs might get him hurt, too. Of course, he didn't get to her in time. He could just watch as she fell down on the stairs with a rather sickening sound as her head hit one of the hard concrete steps. She lay quietly after that, not moving an inch.

Reaching her side as quickly as he could, he reached out to shake her shoulder. "Oi, aneki! Wake up!" he called out. This didn't make any sense. She'd taken worse hits than this before, right? Surely she couldn't get unconscious simply from something like this. She was probably just faking it and planning to surprise him, at least her hair was strewn all over her face right now, oh he almost hoped she was just faking it...

However, for all his attempts, he could not get any kind of a response from her. She just lay there, silent, her arm in a rather nasty-looking position under her body.

He had to get her some help, and fast. Head wounds could be dangerous; you didn't even have to be a genius like Hayato was to figure out that much. But he probably shouldn't move her too much, that wouldn't do any good if she'd hurt her neck, but then how could he get anywhere...

"...Gokudera Hayato." The cold voice behind him made him freeze momentarily. Of course. His day just wouldn't have been quite ruined enough without all the noise alerting Hibari. "What is the meaning of this ruckus?"

"My sister fell on the stairs," he said, not even turning to look. He already knew Hibari was glaring at him from behind. He'd seen the look often enough to know exactly what he'd see if he did turn. It wasn't exactly worth it. "She hit her head and now she won't wake up, and I don't dare start carrying her in case I hurt her even more..."

"What is she even doing here?" the disciplinary committee head asked coolly, his light steps approaching Hayato slowly down the stairs. "I do not believe she is a student here. I do not take well to trespassers." Oh, great. As though they didn't have plenty of trespassers on an almost daily basis, between all the allies and enemies and whatnot who seemed to fill their lives. Hell, Dino Cavallone probably visited the school grounds more often than Bianchi, and he at least lived in Italy more or less permanently.

"It was parents' day in our class," Hayato replied. "She wanted to see how I was doing at school. Now could you please just get her some damn help? Isn't it your duty or something, protecting the safety of people on the school grounds?" He almost bit his tongue as soon as the words were out. Oh, great. Now he'd get an irate psychopath beating him to death, too. To his surprise, though, the only response he got were some light steps as Hibari passed him on the stairs, pausing a bit at his side to look down at the unmoving Bianchi.

"I'll get the doctor," Hibari finally said, his voice as void of emotion as always, his expression equally unreadable. He appeared like he could have just as well been watching the weather report on the TV as looking down at an obviously and possibly dangerously injured person. "I don't exactly want dead bodies littering the school grounds... even if she is Vongola."

There were quite a few choice words Hayato could have said at that. However, for once in his life he somewhat wisely refrained from voicing them. For one thing, he knew Hibari well enough to know that the retaliation would have been instant and violent, and for another, a glance down the empty hallway told him rather clearly that the friendly neighbourhood psycho was currently his only hope of getting some help for Bianchi without either abandoning her or moving her. Therefore, he just literally bit his tongue, keeping his eyes on her until he had safely disappeared down the corridor.

Ah, well. He'd say those things some other time. It wasn't like he was afraid of the violent, reclusive little freak or anything. It was just that right now, his sister was more important.

After all, the louder voice in his mind reminded him, if something happened to Bianchi now, the Tenth might think he had deliberatedly caused it, and that would make Tsuna quite upset. And the last thing he wanted to do was making his boss upset. That would have been quite a failure from a right-hand man, and he wanted to be the best one that there was.

The smaller, Tsuna-like voice kept whispering that maybe, just maybe he actually cared about what happened to his sister, maybe he was actually concerned or worried for her sake, but the Hayato voice was quick to shout it into submission. That was most certainly not true.

Like Hell he cared about the bitchy woman one bit.

~S~

Bianchi did not particularly enjoy being examined by Doctor Shamal.

Certainly, the man was a skilled doctor; nobody could possibly deny that, however quirky he often was in practising his craft. For all that he often seemed entirely useless, Bianchi was all too aware of his true skills and abilities. However, she was just as well aware of his less than wholesome activities, most of which involved women and flirting with them. Shamal was simply put a pervert, successful or not, and thus she was obviously not very eager to give him leave to put his hands anywhere near her.

It didn't appear as though she had much of a choice. If Hayato was actually worried about her, she had to find out just what was wrong, if only to put her dear little brother at ease. That, and she was rather concerned herself, given what she'd heard from Hayato. Her last memory of walking down the stairs after her argument with Hayato; next thing she knew, she was in the school infirmary with Shamal crouched over her. According to her brother, she had suddenly fallen on the stairs, hitting her head, after which they had moved her to the infirmary once Shamal had made sure her neck was not injured. Now Hayato had been sent outside, leaving Bianchi alone with Shamal.

To something of her surprise, though, the usually so suspicious doctor was behaving rather professionally now, hands never wandering outside the areas they were supposed to be examining at any given moment. After first checking her head for injuries as well as asking her some questions to determine the state of her consciousness, he'd then started asking more general questions about her health. By now he had moved on to a rather more thorough examination, even taking some blood samples. There was a slight frown on his face, one Bianchi did not particularly like. It could hardly be promising if your doctor seemed unhappy.

It didn't make sense, she thought. She understood having her head examined after it had hit the stairs, she understood even the other questions. However, far as she knew, she hadn't said anything too discriminating, certainly nothing that would warrant such a thorough search. She would have assumed it was all a mere ruse for the opportunity to touch her, if not for the fact his hands hardly strayed, focusing on the current task instead. It was almost worse than any of the other things, she thought to herself. If Shamal could actually behave, things had to be serious. And if things were serious concerning her health... well. It didn't particualrly make her hopeful.

Finally, Shamal stepped away from her, straightening himself. "Well," he said, sighing. "It seems the hit gave you a concussion, nothing too scary but still enough that you should probably rest for a couple of days. No driving, no strenuous activity, and it would be good if you could get someone to check on you a couple of times during the night to make sure you haven't fallen unconscious. Also, if the symptoms get any worse, I want you to contact me straight away."

Bianchi nodded. It wasn't the first concussion she'd had in her life, she knew the drill well enough. "And the rest of it?" she asked. "And don't try to tell me there's nothing. Diagnosing concussion doesn't exactly require a blood sample." She wasn't a complete airhead, after all.

"Yeah, well..." Shamal sighed, scratching the back of his head. He didn't quite look her in the eye. "I'm not exactly about to hide things from you. Would rather go against my ethics to let the patient be in the dark about their... condition."

"Condition?" she echoed. "What do you mean by that?" No, this most definitely did not sound very good. Rather to the opposite.

"As I said, the hit gave you a concussion," Shamal replied. "That would explain any headaches and possibly difficulties to concentrate, which seem to be the only symptoms you're showing right now. However... it doesn't exactly explain why you fell in the first place."

"Well, Hayato seems to think I might have tripped," she replied. "That hardly is a very mysterious occurrence, is it? My heels were probably a bit too high for walking carelessly in stairs."

"That may be what your brother thinks," Shamal pointed out. "However, I'm afraid my theory is quite different." He shook his head. "Have you always had a mole at the base of your neck?"

"Huh?" Now that she thought about it, he'd spent a while looking at her back and shoulders... she'd wondered about it at the time, but then she'd wondered about most aspects of the examination. "I, ah... I don't think so. I mean, obviously I don't see that part all the time, but..."

"Let me put this another way. Said mole... is blue. Have you taken a small tattoo of a dot at the base of your neck?"

"...I'd think my previous answer covers that." Bianchi narrowed her eyes just a bit. A blue mole? That was... not exactly normal, now was it? Certainly not in her past experience.

"As I feared." Again with the head-scratching. If it'd been anyone else, she might have thought he just didn't know something, but this was Trident Shamal. If there was something he didn't know about diseases, it wasn't worth knowing anyway. "My dear... I'm quite afraid you've somehow managed to catch the Thirteen Tears Fever."

"The what?" She frowned. The name was not familiar. "Thirteen Tears Fever? What's that?"

"It's a rather peculiar syndrome," Shamal explained. "The most characteristic symptom is the mark, which in its complete form is a ring of thirteen blue dots at the base of the neck. They appear roughly at the pace of one dot a month, giving the entire disease a duration of thirteen months. The first couple of months are mainly marked with very few other symptoms, aside from occasional dizzy spells, which seems to be the culprit behind your little fall today."

"And... after that?" She did not like the sound of this. At all. The more bizarre a disease sounded, the more dangerous it usually was, or so she'd come to understand from her previous experiences with Shamal.

"After that, the symptoms pretty much disappear around the third month," Shamal sighed. "Your general health will be fine. I mean, strenuous fighting and so on will be pretty much discouraged later on, but you should be able to live an otherwise normal life for most of the duration. During the last few months you'll experience increasing weakness, nausea, and more dizzy spells, until the end of the thirteenth month."

"And then?" She probably knew the answer already. Didn't mean she was going to enjoy hearing it.

"And then," Shamal said quite seriously, "your body will collapse due to lack of strength, and you will die."

Well. There. That was it.

For a long time Bianchi was silent. Almost instinctively, she reached a hand up to the back of her neck, testing the skin there. She didn't feel anything special, yet if she was to trust Shamal, there was a mark there. A mark that worked more as a countdown to her life. "...And there's nothing you can do?" she asked, startling even herself with how quiet her voice was. "I mean... you have all those cures..."

"Sadly, I've yet to find a disease that would counter the effects of the Thirteen Tears Fever," Shamal replied. Of course. He'd have probably already told her if he had the cure. Most likely asked for a kiss in return for it, yes, but he would have told her. "And, well, usually I'm happy to say this, but... if I don't have the cure, nobody else in the world does."

"...I know." She did. Shamal was the best there was. Trident Shamal, even more legendary for his assassinations than for his skills as a doctor, yet certainly among the top few in the world in both. "...Are you really sure about this? You're not just joking or something?" It wasn't like she could check to see the dot for herself, anyway. Not without a mirror or two.

"I wouldn't joke about something like this. Not to a pretty woman like yourself," Shamal assured her. "And I am quite certain, yes. I mean, I can't be absolutely sure before the second dot appears, but since no other condition spontaneously forms such a mark... I'm sorry. I cannot offer you much more than this."

"So that's it, then," Bianchi said, more to herself than Shamal. "Twelve more months, and I'm dead. Forever."

"That's the gist of it, yes." Shamal nodded gravely. "I'd advise you to make the most of your time until then... preferably before the weakness of the last couple of months, too. That can be rather crippling, I'm afraid."

"I... understand." No, she screamed in her mind. No, she did not understand. This wasn't fair. She was still a teenager! She wasn't supposed to get some fatal disease with no known cure and a set duration. This wasn't anything even resembling fair, it was a death sentence, a cruel little punishment life had given her quite undeservingly. Except prisoners on the death row lived longer.

"I'd like you to keep in touch with me," Shamal said. "I'll be sure to keep you posted if any discoveries are made, or if I find out anything else about the matters. Also, if you have any concerns, please don't hesitate to call me at any time."

It was, Bianchi found herself thinking, almost comforting to realize he was trying to pat her on the bottom on her way out. Of course, she still slapped him for it, but it was still almost comforting. It gave some semblance of normality to this strange world that had suddenly taken over reality.

Hayato was waiting for her outside in the corridor. The hallway was otherwise deserted, and there were no sounds of students from the outside, either. She hadn't realized it was quite that late already.

"So, what was it that made you trip like that?" Hayato was very stubbornly not looking at her, starting to walk as soon as he heard her stepping out, eyes firmly fixed forward. "Damn woman, can't even walk down stairs without getting herself killed..."

"Oh, nothing important," she lied, giving him a smile he wouldn't see because he wouldn't even look. "Just a tiny bout of anemia that made me faint. You know, having your period can be so tough on us women~" If that didn't discourage him from asking any more questions, nothing would.

Indeed, Hayato fell silent now, and she even spied a tiny flush on his face as he stuck his hands deeper into his pockets, drawing his shoulders forward. It was almost cute, the way he got all defensive at such silly matters.

She couldn't tell him, Bianchi thought. Not now, not while everything was still all right. She would tell him eventually, of course she would, it wasn't like she could keep it a secret forever... but just a little more. Just a little bit more, until she couldn't hide it.

He'd lost his mother to a slow disease, a young woman in her most beautiful age. She couldn't let him know he'd lose his sister the same way. Even if he didn't like her particularly much, he had most definitely liked his mother, and she wasn't about to remind him of her in such an absolutely cruel manner. Better let him be ignorant for a little bit longer.

It was perhaps for the better that Hayato was so careful not to look anywhere near her face as they walked out of the school, because at the moment, she could just not keep up a calm, happy face. A frown marring her expression, she recalled Shamal's words over and over again, looking for details and hints in any and all of his words. Surely there was some form of a hope. Surely it could not be that simple a matter for her to simply... die.

She couldn't die. Not yet. Not now, and not in another twelve months. She was too young for it!

Troubled as she was with her thoughts, she never noticed the dark figure standing on the roof of the school, looking down at them as they left the school grounds.