It was the end of an entire world.
The abyss from which the Vongola Famiglia drew their power seemed to have finally reached its floor, its end; opposition materialized from the shadows to lunge every moment a member of the family slipped up and bared a sliver of throat.
The greatest force in the Cosa Nostra, the gathering of lawless gods, had fallen, and the underworld in reflex began to twist and morph into something completely different, something equally morbid to suit its new deities.
As it writhed and changed, it shifted slowly away from the faint glimmer of hope that the Vongola Decimo had lit for it-because the Vongola Decimo was no more.
And those who once called themselves Vongola could only drop their pride and scatter to save themselves.
Bianchi forgot how long they ran for. Ages, it felt like. Centuries. But perhaps it had only been weeks.
She hadn't had to.
You could go back to our father, her brother had reminded her time and time again, and she had considered the choice of words (our) to be a small victory.
He was right. But the man before her was no longer the Vongola Storm Guardian, the Vongola Decimo's right hand. He wore his titles like armor when he'd had them, and now, when he was simply Hayato, she could not bear to leave him to his own. He was her brother and she loved him, and so she followed him, his silver hair as her beacon, and avoided the topic of their parentage.
Eventually, he dropped it. She was relieved.
Eventually, they were caught.
Bianchi was the daughter of a mafia don, and therefore untouchable. They discussed this, after the siblings had been disarmed and shackled and disarmed again. But the man was a mutt with no place to go and a target branded across his name-
He was more than fair prey.
It became a game for them, to see who could get him to stop snarling long enough to look pathetic. They made him bleed and made him break and threw insults at his mother that Bianchi knew could only hit home. They could taunt the both of them, but it was only Hayato that they could kick at or stab through, as Bianchi watched, chain to the wall of the opposite room.
The glint in his eyes never quite faded, Bianchi would take note, and despite the blood and dirt, his hair still always shone so silver.
If it was hard to say how long they had run for, it was impossible to judge how long they were at room before the day those men came barging in, more enflamed than ever before, and beat her younger brother half to death, screaming all the while about secret schemes.
The Varia, it seemed, had decided that the Vongola was too precious to let break, and were slowly gathering the shards to mash them together into its former glory.
The men only left after they realized that Hayato truly knew nothing-but that even if he had, he would have done the same as he had, and merely laughed in their faces like a madman.
What a nice smile, Bianchi had thought, and she'd admired the way his hair shone, spread like a dove's wing across the dirty floor.
They'd taken Hayato away.
They'd gotten so worried and worked up over the Varia that eventually, the beatings stopped, and they'd simply taken Hayato away and left a red and brown corpse, too blood-coated to be truly recognizable, in his place. It was nauseating, to have her brother suddenly be gone-there was nothing there, no shining metallic strands, to assure her that he was alive and well and that she was alive and well and that yes, there could still, even now, be beauty and love in the world.
Bianchi thrived on beauty and love. In their absence, she stewed and grew anxious and broke the heel off of one shoe, itching to ram it into a chest and watch someone bleed before her own death.
The men did not come again, however. Nor did Hayato.
The Varia did.
Bel hesitated at the sight of the carcass (how odd, she'd thought, for a murderer to be bothered by another dead body) before crossing the room to free her from her chains. She staggered out of the room, him following with a small laugh (or perhaps she had simply imagined it, because it seemed so strange with him not laughing) and they began to make their way through the manor.
Bianchi didn't even have to lift a finger; the men they passed were child's play for a Varia assassin. When they reached the foyer, the loudest member was there, shouting orders and- oh.
Her younger brother's hair.
But not her younger brother with it-had it been stolen? She needed to get it back, she knew. She walked unsteadily towards the man, intent on retrieving it-she had to retrieve it-and as she stumbled, malnourished, into his back she remembered the heel she still held in the palm of her hand.
So she drove it into his neck.
He screamed, loud enough that it hurt her ears, and jerked around to swing at her with his sword arm, but the pain and blood loss put him at a disadvantage to her own unrelenting instability and she wrestled him until she was pulling his hair across the edge of his blade and sawing it off. There were other people shouting and moving behind her, in front of her, but she could see them no more than she could see the life leaving the eyes of the man beneath her as she watched the silver slide across her fingers, silk, perfect silk.
She brought it to her face and there was love again, there was beauty again. Oh, her brother's hair.