Uragiri no Unmei

Hibari had never been this angry in his life, never had he ever felt like simply bitting someone to death was not enough.

He knew that had he had his way, Tsunayoshi would have been long dead by now, bleeding dry onto the oriental red carpets of his office. But as it was, he did not have his way, mostly due to Reborn's presence hovering a few meters behind the Tenth Vongola Boss, and so Hibari had to settle for storming out of the office, hands clenched so hard at his sides that his knuckles were turning white.

Capture him. That had been the mission, but Hibari knew better than anyone that Reborn - and possibly Tsuna as well - never did expect it to go nearly so easily. The fate of traitors was one worse than death, and there was no doubt in his mind which Mukuro would choose.

And Hibari was the only one who could deliver it.

In his left hand, the sharp edges of the mist ring cut into his palm in a mocking reminder, and he knew somewhere deep down that there were more reasons for why Tsunayoshi - or Reborn - would choose him for a mission like this. More reasons than they made out to be and what he told himself to believe.

Stupid herbivore, he mentally seethed, but that did nothing to calm him down. The feeling in him was something different from his usual anger, something more bitter, more resentful.

Like poison. And had he not known better, he would have been convinced that he had been drugged. How else could anyone explain why he was trembling? Why he was suddenly finding it so much more difficult to keep himself under the tight control he had become so used to?

He hated it, hated the knowledge that this was a weakness, but there was no one around who could have drugged him, and Hibari would never have allowed it to happen in the first place. He was too proud for that, too proud to ever be bound to anyone or anything. Too proud to be controlled.

And so he convinced himself that he was not.

Tsunayoshi might not have thought to question if he could accomplish a mission such as this, and Hibari knew without doubt that it was because he simply cannot fail. Even if he was simply being manipulated, even if his success would only bind him further to the very organization he so detested - just this once, he would not rebel.

After all, the Vongola had no place for traitors, and Hibari had no tolerance for them. He would finish the mission as he had been instructed. Finish it and forget it and never look back at it again.

Besides, what was the difference, replacing one gilded cage with another?

He told himself that there was none.

It had been seven years since Hibari came to Italy, and in those seven years, he had never left. He did not expect to stay so long when he came, but things happened. Crisis after crisis emerged, and between all the battles with rival families and formation of alliances, he found that there was simply no time to leave.

That was not to say that he liked the country though. The people were too carefree, their laws too negligent, and their language too foreign. In other words, they reminded him too much of Mukuro.

In those many years, he barely left the Vongola headquarters if he could avoid it, and even when he had to go out, it was never for long. But even still, the little reminders persisted. Not always Mukuro himself - although he had been freed from Vindice a year after he had arrived - but just small things, often innocuous enough on their own. A flash of long hair, the mist at dawn, and most irritatingly still, the sakura which blossomed in his garden in spring.

The sight of them was almost mocking, but Hibari never did anything to get rid of these reminders, and he never wondered why.

The last time he had seen them, the sakura petals had rained down upon his head, humiliation burning through him more harshly than the pain of a trident drawing red patterns of blood across his skin. But even though his thoughts had been filled with anger and rage, his limbs had lain at his sides in a twisted betrayal and submission.

He had become stronger then. In that moment when he finally understood defeat, he also knew that until he could triumph over the one who had caused such defeat, he would always be bound by his own weakness like any herbivore would.

And so he watched the sakura fall, their gentle drifting never allowing him to forget his own fallibility and also his resentment.

He would kill Rokudo Mukuro one day, Hibari told himself, and bury him with the sakura he loved so much.

Almost to himself, he allowed his lips to pull into a smile, but his ashen eyes remained cold with fury.

The mist ring fit strangely well on his finger, next to his own. It felt no different, not really, there were even times when he forgot that it was there at all, until a chance glance as his right hand would remind him again.

In the beginning Hibari refused to use it, merely keeping it on to please the baby. Indeed, he had even told Tsuna himself once that he would not be keeping it for any longer than necessary and that the herbivore should begin looking for another Mist Guardian soon. Tsuna had merely given him a strange look then, as close to disbelieving as he was ever likely to get.

As such, Hibari managed to more or less ignore the ring's existence for five months, during which time he managed to track Mukuro to a small city just outside Namimori in Japan. The irony of it all had almost made it laugh.

It was sometime in the middle of autumn that he found himself in a fierce battle with a rival family in which he was severely outnumbered. There was no doubt that he could defeat the enemy easily one on one - they were barely worthy of even being herbivores - but not when they were all coming at him at once. That was something not even he could accomplish.

What he had needed was a distraction. An illusion. His eyes had drifted to the Mist ring on his finger then, and as much as his pride detested the very idea of fighting in such a cowardly manner, five wounds down his back later, he realized he had no choice.

Casting the illusion had been surprisingly easy. He had always suspected that he had more of the mist attribute within himself than he had been willing to admit. The likeness of himself had flickered into existence somewhere down the corridor and drawing nearly half the enemy forces away from himself, he had been able to take them down easily afterwards.

Hibari had slashed his tonfas through each of the enemies mercilessly, even more relentless than usual, and when the blood had flecked his face and his dark hair, all he did was smile, cruelly and triumphantly.

Standing in the midst of all the carnage afterwards, the sheer simplicity of it had quietly, quietly shaken him. He knew clearly that the old Hibari would not have been capable of something so coldly brutal and so ruthlessly elegant like this. But he also knew that the old Hibari was not afraid to die.

Looking into the mirror back in the peace of his base later that night, he had not been surprised to see what appeared to be a glitter of red where his gray right eye had been, and his mouth curved into a familiar, mocking smile. The image had only lasted seconds before it disappeared, but the momentary glimpse had been all he needed for him to resolve to never again use the Mist element he both possessed and hated.

Never again.

Already, he was becoming more like him, and if he was not careful, then he would find himself reduced to nothing more than a herbivore as well.

The number of rings made not difference, really. No matter how many he wore, he would forever be bound to the Vongola by the same foolish allegiances and obligations which he had once believed he would never be subject to. But it was perhaps the silent knowledge that even accepting another ring was the same as allowing the herbivores to put further claim on him that had him afraid somewhere deep down.

Afraid of what he was becoming, and looking at the mirror again - what he would become.

One week later, Hibari found Mukuro at Kokuyo just as he had a little more than ten years ago. The barely veiled mockery was not lost to him. The infuriating man had even conjured up sakura trees as a welcome.

Mukuro had been standing next to a broken window and turned when Hibari arrived, the latter not bothering to silence his footsteps on the wooden floor.

'How nice to see you again,' Mukuro had smiled. 'I was beginning to think you had forgotten about me.'

Hibari tightened his grip on his tonfas. 'Shut up. I am not here to visit.'

'Oya?' The other let out a mock sigh. 'And here I was wondering if you had missed me as much as I did you.'

'I said shut up!' Hibari snarled, lunging forwards at the other man.

Mukuro countered perfectly with his trident. 'I even prepared such a pretty scenery for you. Nostalgic, don't you think?' He gestured with one hand around the room even as his other slashed out at Hibari with a merciless and deadly accuracy.

The sakura did not affect Hibari anymore. They had not for more than a decade. He knew with a certainty that he had become stronger, and he knew Mukuro knew it too.

His tonfas flashed through the air, slicing a stray petal cleanly in half and just brushing against the side of Mukuro's neck before the other ducked to one side and attempted to sweep his legs out from under him.

'How do you like it,' Hibari asked, leaping backwards, 'the sight of your own blood?'

Mukuro laughed, not even bothering with the wound down his neck. 'How do you like it,' he echoed, 'being an Illusionist yourself?'

Hibari's gray eyes narrowed, tonfas raised to attack. 'I have no idea what you mean.'

'Now, now,' Mukuro said. 'No need to play coy. I never expected that Tsunayoshi-kun would make you of all people my replacement, but it is a most interesting development.'

His only was answer was a tonfa aimed straight at his throat. It was easy to dodge, but rage had made Hibari savage, and the next thing Mukuro knew, Hibari had him face first to the floor with a tonfa at his back.

'Do not,' Hibari hissed next to his ear, 'ever mention that again.'

'Denial?' Mukuro laughed. 'I expected more of you, Hibari Kyoya.'

The pressure on him increased ever so warningly. 'I could kill you, Mukuro,' Hibari said, free hand fisting in dark hair to pull his head back so that the end of the tonfa dug ever so painfully into him.

'Nostalgic, don't you think,' Hibari said, voice low with something that was not quite anger.

'I believe some call it irony.'

Hibari looked at him strangely after he spoke, and for a moment, Mukuro thought that the other was finally going to get on with killing him for his interruption.

Then suddenly, the pressure on his back was lifted and his head was allowed to fall unceremoniously against the floor.

'Why?' he asked, as Hibari turned to walk away, leaving him very much alive and surely very much against Tsunayoshi's orders.

The gray eyes that turned to look at him were both angry and contemptuous, but Hibari's voice when he answered was flat.

'You are not afraid to die,' was all he said. And then he disappeared again.

It did not add up. Nothing added up. Hibari, as much as it deeply irritated him to admit this, knew Mukuro too well to simply accept that the man had been so easily defeated by him that day in Kokuyo.

That was not the Mukuro he knew. That was not the man who had had him on his knees more than a decade ago. Certainly, a person who was being ordered dead by the Vongola boss himself for having massacred an entire allied family in a blatant act of betrayal would not be so easily defeated by a single Guardian.

Hibari knew that something was not right. Mukuro had been too willing to die, and their brief confrontation had been nothing but a half-hearted pretense the other had put up.

Why?

It annoyed him to no end to think that even after so long, Mukuro would still look down at him and think him easily fooled. Hibari had become stronger in the last ten or so years if only the other would care to find out. But Mukuro of course, never did. Never would.

The illusionist kept too many secrets, and Hibari hated secrets. It was a cowardly move - only herbivores felt that they had to preserve what little advantage they had by telling lies and deceiving others. At least Hibari had learnt never to be taken in by them, lies and illusions alike. He knew, just as surely as he knew that he would someday kill Mukuro, that lies, for all their beautiful veneer, were nothing more than weaknesses. Just like the way even sakura blossoms would too rot should one only wait long enough. If Mukuro was unwilling to offer the information he wanted, then Hibari could always find out for himself.

Reborn had given Hibari a strange look when the young hitman came across him sitting in the Vongola library researching the Roscuro Family Massacre from half a year ago - the Massacre whose perpetrator was reportedly Mukuro. Neither of them said anything and Hibari knew Reborn was not pleased.

But Hibari was not here to please Reborn. After all,the Vongola had never had much jurisdiction over what their leader of CEDEF decided to do, guardian or not, even Reborn never really had much hold over him. Besides, they both knew that Hibari had always been his own and Mukuro had always been his.

His to kill, and also his to save if he so chose. There had never been any other truth so certain in his world.

And for once, there was nothing Reborn could do.

It was another half a year before Hibari saw Mukuro again. Information regarding the Roscuro Family had been harder to find than he had expected and it had required him to pull quite a few strings before there was any real evidence he could use.

He had been lying on his back on the Namimori Middle School roof watching the clouds with Hibird nestled contentedly in his hair when something distinctly pineapple shaped decided to enter his line of sight.

'What brings you here, Kyoya?'

Hibari narrowed his eyes. 'What bring you here, herbivore? This is my school.'

Mukuro smiled. 'At your age?' The teasing in his tone was barely concealed, and Hibari frowned.

'Shut up.'

A laugh. 'You never change, Kyoya.' Mukuro tilted his head to one side. 'How did Tsunayoshi take to the knowledge that you failed?'

Hibari's slate gray eyes narrowed. 'What makes you think I failed, herbivore? Or do you really believe that I would let you go?'

Mukuro smiled. 'Of course I do. Besides, can you kill me, Kyoya? Or can you not?' He leaned in closer, one hand closing around Hibari's wrist to keep him from drawing his weapon.

'Don't remind me,' Hibari smiled dangerously, tonfa flashing as he brought his other hand up to press it against Mukuro's throat. Not yet hard enough to wound, but definitely warning. It appeared that he had come prepared, and Mukuro was not surprised. 'You still owe me something.'

Mukuro gave him a look of polite confusion. 'Well now, I certainly do not remember. The last time we met I believe we parted most amicably.'

For a moment Hibari did not reply. Then, 'Why?'

His tone was demanding, fierce, but in his gray eyes, Mukuro saw a hint of something he never thought he would see. Uncertainty. There was something Hibari wanted to know desperately, something only Mukuro could tell him.

The illusionist smiled, leaning a little closer despite the tonfa still at his throat. 'You will have to be a little more specific than that, Kyoya.'

'What is the meaning of this?' Tsuna asked confused, looking at the two rings laying neatly on top of a thin folder on his office table, all of which had not been there the night before.

When Reborn did not answer, he looked up to find that the other hitman was still standing near the door, the expression on his face displeased in a way Tsuna had not seen in many years and which instantly made him wary, a little afraid even.

'Reborn?' he asked, feeling a sudden, inexplicable sinking feeling.

'A peace offering,' came the answer. 'And also a threat.'

Tsuna's eyes narrowed fractionally. 'For me?'

There was a pause. Then, 'No. For me, I think. Why not you see for yourself?'

With a deeply suspicious glance, Tsuna reached for the two rings first. They were cold to the touch, and he could not help but wonder how long they had been there. Since last night? Or this morning? On them were carved the familiar symbols of Cloud and Mist, both in sharp relief.

'Hibari...' Tsuna found that could not finish his words as the true enormity of the situation finally began to settle. A Cloud guardian, a Mist guardian and the head of CEDEF. Did Hibari even know the consequences of his actions?

Picking up the folder, he was surprised to see 'Roscuro Famiglia' printed in sharp black letters on its cover. The allied Family which Mukuro massacred half a year ago. What did they have anything to do with this?

Opening it, his eyes landed upon a mission report, filed carefully as the first page and covered with a clear divider. Looking for closely, he saw that it was a mission to destroy the Roscuro Family on counts of amassing weapons and the possibility of intentions to stage a rebellion against the Vongola. A mission he never gave.

'Reborn?' he said, feeling a bad premonition about things. 'This classified mission, who ordered it?'

A pause, then, 'I did of course, dame-Tsuna. It would be foolish to leave them be under such conditions. They would think us weak, and a reputation like that is never good for any family, especially not the Vongola.'

'And you sent Mukuro on this mission without asking me?'

'He was certainly the most qualified, but you would have argued and I wanted to avoid that.'

'You knew I would order for him to be killed as a traitor!'

'Mukuro was someone we could afford to lose, Tsuna.'

'And it was you who decided that?'

'Yes.'

Tsuna was surprised to find his hands trembling at Reborn's indifferent answers, but whether from guilt or anger, he could not tell.

'What do you want me to do now, Reborn?' he asked, his voice nowhere near as steady as he would have liked. 'How can I bring them back? How can I make it up to Mukuro - to both of them?'

'You cannot, dame-Tsuna,' came the reply. Stepping forwards, Reborn picked up one of the rings, idly examining it. 'The former leader of CEDEF has left us a clear enough message.'

'But-'

'He is probably in Japan now. Mukuro too. It is best to just leave them be. As long as either is alive, they can spread this information to the other families, and for the sake of the Vongola name, such an act must be avoided at all costs.' Reborn looked up, gaze meeting Tsuna's from beneath his fedora. 'You understand, Tsuna?'

'... Yes.'

'I knew Tsunayoshi would send you to kill me,' Mukuro said. 'Had I returned and attempted to proclaim my innocence, Reborn would have me silenced before I could even speak.'

'So you escaped,' Hibari accused. 'Like the coward you are.'

Mukuro shrugged a little, leaning away. 'Not really. I merely wished to choose the person who would end my life. After all, I doubt dying by Reborn's hands or even those of any other guardian would be quite as thrilling, dear Kyoya.'

'Your games are perverse, herbivore.'

'Actually, I find them quite amusing.'

Gray eyes flashed, and the next thing Mukuro knew, he was on his back, having been slammed quite forcefully backwards. You really never change, Kyoya, he thought, as a tonfa smashed dangerously close to his head in what seemed to be a very painful manner, and before he could find a way to escape and then retaliate, Mukuro suddenly realized that Hibari kissing him.

Well, this is certainly unexpected, Mukuro thought, letting out an involuntary gasp as Hibari pressed himself closer and moved to brush his mouth against the bruise he had left on Mukuro's throat earlier, more gently than either ever thought he was capable of.

To be completely fair, of course, Hibari hadn't expected himself to kiss Mukuro either. What he had wanted to do was to kill the annoying illusionist for all the, sometimes pointless but always irritating games, he had been manipulated into participating all these years. But his tonfa had missed its mark and before he knew what he was doing he was kissing Mukuro, and Mukuro made the most wonderful sounds when Hibari bit him and licked just behind his ear, intoxicating in a way that made it hard for Hibari to pull away.

'Kyoya-' Mukuro gasped. 'Kyoya, what are you doing?'

Leaning back just slightly, the look in those gray eyes was one so fiercely possessive that Mukuro was momentarily stunned.

'You're mine now, Mukuro,' Hibari said, his smile dangerous, yet still impossibly beautiful.

'What do you mean?' Mismatched eyes narrowed in confusion.

'The Vongola will never come after you again,' Hibari answered. 'As long as Reborn knows that I hold the truth about what they did to you, they will never lay a finger on either of us again.'

'The truth?' Mukuro asked.

'Yes,' Hibari said, leaning closer, eyes dark and intense. 'The truth you still would not tell me but which I found out anyway.' He lifted his hand to push stray strands of violet hair out of Mukuro's eyes, fingers brushing lightly across his mouth and throat. From the peripherals of his vision, Mukuro watched him, before suddenly realizing that something was wrong.

'The rings!' Mukuro said, startled, for the first time noticing that Hibari's hands were bare. 'What did you do with them?'

The other merely leant down to kiss him again, almost without consciously thinking about it. 'I gave them back to the Vongola.'

There was a pause during Mukuro tried to concentrate on Hibari's reply instead of kissing him back. '...Why?'

For a moment he thought Hibari would not answer, then, 'They were a peace offering... and also a threat.'

Down below, the sakura trees swayed lightly in the winds of spring, their petals dancing through the air like memories from long ago. Involuntarily closing his eyes, Hibari thought for the first time in seven years that he was finally home, and that the feeling he felt somewhere in his heart which he still could not name, was perhaps the knowledge that across six realms and countless lifetimes, they always returned to where the sakura bloomed.

Him and Mukuro both, to where it all began.

END.

A/N: Author is now very tired. This is the longest fanfic she has attempted in years, which just goes to show how much she loves MukuHiba. This oneshot has been ongoing for many months and is finally finished.

Hopefully the other ones will not take quite as long. She still has lots of ideas.

Drop a review/comment.

Se-kari