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

Warning: Character death.

Setting free

Dino was forty-two when it happened. Too young to die, as he knew many would have said. Certainly far too young to see his even younger lover die.

He had always known this would happen one day. It couldn't have been any other way, after all. Just because Kyouya had avoided all those traps and dangerous situations before didn't mean he was going to do so every time. Pride came before a fall, after all, and the greater the pride, the harsher the fall.

However, he had never quite expected it to happen like this.

A strong opponent, certainly, one who could finally bring the man he loved down to his knees. Perhaps superior numbers, overwhelming Kyouya where attacking him in more fair a manner would not work. A sneak attack, even, one delivered from behind or a hidden spot, assuming they could do so without Kyouya immediately sensing the killing intent. All of those he might have expected. Would have accepted. Speeding cars and crushed metal... this just wasn't something he could accept.

It was such a mundane manner of injury, he thought, feeling a bit numb as he watched his lover lying in a pale hospital bed. So very unsuited for Kyouya, who had always preferred bloody battles to the pain and death. Had he been awake now, Kyouya would probably have expressed his distaste for finding himself in such a vulnerable position after something as civilian and inelegant as a car crash.

He would never wake up, now.

Kyouya had always despised being helped. Being weak. If he couldn't fight by himself, he'd once told Dino in all seriousness, he would just as soon accept defeat as the aid of another. Yet here he was now, hooked up to monitors and machines that could only barely keep him living on, could only barely help him hold onto the escaping shreds of life. There would be no recovery, the doctors told him. It didn't matter how stubborn or strong he might have been, even if Kyouya's body could be stitched back together, his brain was already dead. His mind was gone. He could not come back.

Dino swallowed. He knew what he had to do, much though he hated it. Knew that he owed Kyouya at least that much. Knew the promise he had made years ago, the promise they both knew even if neither of them had ever dared to actually say it aloud. Kyouya was depending on him to say it when his own lips could no longer move.

"Switch them off," he said quietly, his own voice foreign in his ears. "Let him go."

Dino was forty-two when he killed Kyouya.

He never even noticed as Romario held the umbrella over him. Then, he had never even noticed it was raining in the first place.

It hadn't been raining during the funeral, he thought quietly. Throughout the wake and the actual ceremonies the sky had remained clear, bright, almost as though mocking his numb sorrow, his inability to cry. It wasn't until hours later, long after they had bade their goodbyes, that the actual emptiness of his situation had kicked in, flooding his senses where previously he had found himself almost unable to feel anything at all.

He wasn't at the grave. The grave hardly mattered; he knew Kyouya would never allow himself to be bound into such a small place. No, he had come to Kyouya's beloved school, climbing up to the roof, looking over the school grounds. Here, he was sure, was where Kyouya's presence would still linger if it indeed was left anywhere. This had been the place Kyouya had loved the most, after all, even in his adulthood. The place where he had loved the most. Their first kiss had been shared on this very roof, secretly, almost ashamed, long after the school hours were over, their skin sweaty and heated from a good spar. This was where they had first made love, even, late at night when they were certain nobody could see, Dino's coat spread under them for some minimal comfort, Kyouya's dark hair mixing with the light fur on the collar. Not that Kyouya would have ever called it making love, of course; to him, sex was sex, no matter how or when or where or how long their relationship had gone on. He never used the word love. Not aloud, anyway. He only said it with his eyes and his hands and in that weary little smirk he sometimes gave Dino right before falling asleep by his side, almost touching but not quite.

Now Kyouya was never going to come back here again. Not in flesh, anyway. He was sure Kyouya could still visit his beloved school. He wouldn't let even death prevent him from going wherever he wanted, after all.

Dino never noticed that Romario held the umbrella over him. After all, his face was wet regardless of the rain.

"I want you to have this."

Dino shook his head. "I cannot accept it, Tsuna," he said quietly. "It belongs to the Vongola family, after all."

"Not anymore." Tsuna's eyes were sad, even if there was a faint smile playing on his lips. Tsuna always managed to smile, no matter how bleak the situation might have been. He had always been strong like that. "It used to belong to the Vongola family, when it was but a ring. When it was formed anew by his flames, it became his. I could not pass this on to a successor any more than I could pass on his name."

"Still." Dino swallowed as he looked at the bracelet offered to him, the silver and deep purple as pristine on the black velvet of the box as they had been against the black sleeve of Kyouya's coat. There were a few scratches to the metal, marks of years of use and abuse, yet the stone had stayed as pristine and pure as ever, without a single mark to its surface. "He belonged to your family."

"We both know he never belonged anywhere," Tsuna said quietly. "If he ever wore my crest, it was through mutual understanding that it was not by choice. The ring chose him and not the other way around. He never wanted to belong anywhere... but even then, I do believe his heart belonged to you."

The bracelet seemed to shine momentarily, the stone catching light that should not have been there, but then it might have been just the tears in Dino's eyes obscuring his vision.

"Dino! Dino!"

Dino looked up, seeing the little bird perched on his shoulder looking at him questioningly. "What is it, Hibird?"

"Hibari?" The little bird tilted its head to the side, then suddenly took flight, heading to the door of his office and circling a couple of times in front of it before coming back to Dino. "Hibari? Come back?"

"...No, Hibird," Dino murmured, reaching out a fingertip to caress the small head. "I'm afraid Kyouya is not coming back anymore."

He supposed he should not have been so amazed that the bird was still alive, over two decades since Kyouya had first taken it under his care. After all, Hibird had long since ceased to surprise him with its intelligence; living long certainly couldn't be that much more miraculous. Nevertheless, it seemed almost unfair that this little creature would still be sitting there, looking at him curiously, while Kyouya was... gone. Gone, and never going to return.

"...Dino sad?"

"Yes, Hibird," Dino murmured, looking down at the little creature. Its feathers were soft under his touch. "Yes, I am very sad to have lost Kyouya." He wondered if the bird would even understand what he was saying. There were times when Hibird seemed so very intelligent, always knowing just what to say, but also times when it was painfully clueless to the actual gravity of the situation.

Hibird was quiet for a moment. Finally, it spoke again, chirping as innocently as ever. "No cry," it said. "Find Hibari!"

If only it were as simple as that, thought Dino, swallowing around the lump stuck in his throat. If only.

There was a skylark flying overhead.

It was kind of funny, wasn't it, that once he could not have even named the bird. Now, though, he knew exactly what it was, knew it even though it was flying up high, far too high for him to make out any details. He heard the singing, after all, heard the clear voice even from so far above, coaxing him to turn his gaze up.

It was peculiar, he had once told Kyouya, how the skylark was known for its solos. If something was capable of singing so beautifully, why would it do so while flying so high, so alone, away from everything? But ah, Kyouya had responded, he was thinking about it entirely wrong. It wasn't that the skylark was able to sing, and chose to do so while it flew above anything and everything else. It was because it chose to fly so high that its song was so beautiful. It was, Kyouya had told him with a smirk, the song of freedom, and then Kyouya had disappeared for two months only to return with one more scar to add to his old ones and an excited glint in his eyes.

"You just wanted to be free, don't you?" Dino murmured, looking up at the bird so far above. "And now you are, aren't you, Kyouya. Nobody can tell you where to go or what to do, anymore. Not ever again."

A tear almost entered his eye, but he wiped it quickly away. Kyouya would not have wanted him to cry, after all. Kyouya always thought it a weakness.

Had he not known better, he could have sworn he saw a flicker of purple around the small dot high on the blue sky.