Takes place after Chapter 5 of "Who Says You Can't Go Home Again?"

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Kyoya was bored.

He was perched on the steps of a small set of bleachers in Namimori Middle's baseball field. The baby's pet chameleon nestled on Kyoya's arm. Snow was everywhere with cool, thick clouds hanging overhead. The baseball field was a disorganized battle ground for all the herbivores to drown their meaningless snow ball fight in.

"No!" shouted the foreign whip wielder as he, trapped in a gigantic snow ball, rolled down a staircase. "I completely missed it!" He barreled into the baseball player, Yamamoto. The two of them were now both stuck in the giant snow ball and effectively out of the game.

"Takeshi!" yelled the female Sasagawa. She popped out of the cover of her snow mound and trekked toward Yamamoto and the whip wielder. "Cover me, Hana!"

"How?" replied the Kurokawa girl. Somehow, she managed to trap herself down into the snow field with only her head above the surface. "I can't move! Get down or you're going to get hit!"

The female Sasagawa did get hit and was incapacitated fairly quickly. The little Chinese girl positioned at the tallest snowy hill was relentless with her attacks. Kyoya mused that she'd be a decent opponent once she grew older, especially if Fon was apparently her sensei.

"Damn it!" the Kurokawa girl swore. Her competitive side was showing. If only her enthusiasm had matched her physical capability and combat prowess. "Hayato! Ryohei and Kyoko are both knocked out. Get back to our team and take out I-Pin!"

"I told you that I was a double agent working for Don Vittorio all along!" The Italian herbivore released another hail of dynamite. Tetsuya's drinking friend, Romario, avoided the explosions and escaped into the snowy mist that followed them.

The poison herbivore dashed in front of the little Chinese girl to deflect the snow balls the boss herbivore threw at her. "That's right, Hana," the boss herbivore teased as he readied another snow volley. "Don't be a sore loser about how I had the foresight to send a spy in your ranks and you didn't."

"I did have the foresight," the Kurokawa girl replied, "except then Takeshi got himself eliminated! What's wrong with you, Takeshi? What good is the star baseball player's throwing arm in a snow ball fight when he can't use it?"

"Sorry!" Yamamoto called out happily. "Can't be helped."

"By the way, guys," the whip wielder added, "it looks like I dropped someone into the snow that was melted by all those dynamite explosions."

A giant turtle suddenly rose from the depths of the snow.

"Ah, what the fuck!" exclaimed the boss herbivore. "Dick move, Dino! Dick move!"

The boss herbivore's little brother, the cub, glanced at the giant turtle and gasped in amazement. "Wow!"

The Italian herbivore began to shake uncontrollably. "Why is the mountain god here? We're nowhere near the forest we went to for the camping trip! Does he have teleporting UMAs under his command?" The cub rambled about numbers and rankings while the Italian clasped his hands together and against his chest. "Stop doing that and start praying!"

As the boss herbivore finally took out the Chines girl with a well-placed snow ball hit, the poison herbivore started sprinting to the Italian herbivore's location. "What are you doing?" she demanded. "Run away, Hayato, or you'll get crushed by the mountain god!" The woman removed her goggles, and the Italian herbivore promptly choked and keeled over in pain.

The giant turtle collapsed as well. Just about everybody was buried under him.

Kyoya yawned tiredly. While that last move did a good job in lessening the crowding in the area, it was still another lackluster moment in an overall dull affair. If the baby hadn't asked him to guard the chameleon for the duration of the fight as a favor, Kyoya would be off handling NDC business. There better a good fight awaiting Kyoya after this entire ordeal is over. Otherwise, Kyoya is going to have to double his quota for deaths bitten this week.

Who is he kidding. Kyoya doesn't have a quota for biting people to death. He does his biting at his own leisure. The snow ball fight was so uninteresting that Kyoya was replaying old conversations with Tetsuya in his head.

A few of the herbivores avoided getting squashed by the turtle. Romario was sending a continuous barrage of snow balls at the last two members of the poison herbivore's team: the cow child and the boss herbivore's concubine.

"Don't stop throwing, Romario!" the whip wielder giddily commanded.

"Tsuna!" the concubine shrieked as the cow child wailed with overflowing tears. "Save us!"

"You gonna defect to my team, then, Haru?" the boss herbivore called out from his hiding place over a distant snow ridge. When the only response he received was another panicked yelp, he sighed. "Fine. Let's do this, Fuuta!" The cub and the boss herbivore scampered toward the concubine's position. They jumped and dodged and weaved under more snow projectiles from Romario.

When they finally reached their destination, Romario tossed a humongous snow ball that appeared to explode on impact with the rest of the surviving herbivores. Thinking that he was seeing things, Kyoya rubbed his eyes. Was that supposed to be pinkish, purple smoke emitting from where the big snow ball had hit?

Once the smoke cleared, Kyoya spotted the older cow child grimacing and dusting snowflakes off his person. "So, I've been brought back to the time of our first annual snow fight," he said to himself with a lackadaisical tone. "Man, and I was on a date in the future. My younger self is going to scare her off, too."

The concubine – not aged older – suddenly popped out of the snow like a gopher. She gasped for air as she erratically looked around the snow field. "Tsuna? Tsuna! Where are you? Are you okay?" A hand burst out of the snow beside the concubine. Kyoya could vaguely here the boss herbivore's muffled groans. The concubine immediately began trying to dig him out.

Another figure pulled himself out of the snow. Kyoya initially didn't recognize him. The newcomer was dressed in grey slacks and a green vest. The sleeves of his white dress shirt were folded up. His hands were enveloped in black leather gloves. He also wore a thick scarf around his neck.

Then Kyoya realized who he was. It was the older version of the boss herbivore's cub.

"Wow," the older cub said in a similar tone his younger self had used when saying the same word. "This is the first time I've visited the past. So, this is Namimori back when we were kids? Look at it all, Lambo! It's barely changed!"

"You get used to it," the older cow child dismissed.

The poison herbivore's voice abruptly rang out. "Romeo!" With that angry, heated declaration, she and the older cow child were gone from the baseball field as a chase ensued.

The older cub laughed. "Man, I forgot how much Bianchi-nee hated how Lambo looked. This is just great! It's like looking through an old photo album, except in 3-D!"

Kyoya noted that Romario slipped beside the giant snow ball trapping the whip wielder. Romario asked, "Should I try going for the chameleon, boss? Or should I take out the rest of the opposing teams? Or maybe I should help free you?"

"Take out the future Ranking Prince, first," the whip wielder suggested. "He might try to interfere if we just ignore him."

The older cub gasped when he saw the giant turtle. "Oh my God! Enzo, is that you?" While the older cub was distracted, Romario tossed a speeding snow ball at him.

Without even looking up, the older cub held up an object to protect himself. The snow ball shattered into a million snowflakes as it made contact with the older cub's tonfa.

A tonfa with a design that resembled Kyoya's own signature weapons.

"Right," the older cub murmured to himself, smiling as he turned toward Romario's direction. "Snow ball fight. Leon's supposed to be the prize, right? Since I'm here, I guess I'll play along."

The older club closed the distance between himself and Romario in seconds. Deflecting further snow projectiles with his tonfa, the older club finished off his assault with a cross to Romario's face. The impact sent Romario into the same giant snow ball holding Yamamoto and the whip wielder. The latter two yelped as their ball started rolling down a small snowy cliff with Romario in tow.

"Sorry!" the older cub shouted to them over their screams. "Now, if I remember it right, the one who's in charge of guarding Leon is supposed to be..." He turned his head and made eye contact with Kyoya.

That was a taunting smirk the older cub was sending him. Kyoya has never fought anyone from the future. Perhaps this new herbivore can bear a challenge and entertainment that the rest of his crowding herbivores lacked in providing.

Kyoya nudged the chameleon on his arm. "Don't get in the way," he told the animal. It changed shape into an armband on the arm opposite the one holding Kyoya's NDC armband.

Wordlessly, Kyoya and older cub charged at each other. The resounding clang that echoed once their tonfas hit one another was a gratifying sound. It meant the older cub could handle the weight of Kyoya's weapon and the strength behind it. As such, Kyoya pulled out his second tonfa and went on the offensive.

The pair exchanged blows. Kyoya pushed the older club back, but it seemed as if the cub was letting that happen. He chose to remain on the defensive, dodging and weaving, and let Kyoya exert himself. Still, the playfulness of the cub's smirk wavered as sweat started to drip down his temple. The cub's overconfidence waned as his nervousness increased.

"Hey, now, Kyoya," the older cub said, and Kyoya felt his eye twitch. "You don't have to be so intense about this. It's just a game."

Kyoya slammed the edge of his left tonfa right into the cub's gut. As the cub gasped and fell forward, Kyoya dropped his right tonfa onto the cub's back. The cub dropped to his knees, his imitation tonfa getting kicked out of his grasp by Kyoya.

With the exception of his family and Tetsuya, no one was allowed to refer to Kyoya so casually by his first name.

"I thought you would be a strong fighter," Kyoya said, "but from the way you moved, you only recently learned how to fight with a tonfa."

The older cub – no, not a cub. This was more an adolescent herbivore – grunted as he forced a polite smile through the pain. "Is it that obvious?"

Kyoya wasn't quite sure whether the adolescent had honestly thought that he could hide his inexperience or whether he was trying to taunt Kyoya. Either way, Kyoya hit him again, this time on the head. Surprisingly, the adolescent took the hit without keeling over. His skull was thicker than Kyoya had thought.

The adolescent snickered. "You know something, Hibari?" he asked. "In terms of raw strength, you've always consistently ranked highest out of all of us. It's because of that that Vito made you my primary caretaker here in Japan after he and most of the others moved to Italy."

What impossible scenario was this herbivore talking about? Kyoya Hibari didn't nurture or care for cubs, and it was unlikely he'd start doing so as he matured and got older. There would be too many NDC matters and crowds to be bitten to occupy his time.

"But as for your capability in tutoring," the adolescent went on, "you ranked the lowest. That's partly why you've only recently started to teach me how to use a tonfa. However, Vito and all of the other Guardians were ranked at decent enough levels for them to show me a few things over the years." Slowly, the adolescent raised his hand. His fingers were poised to give a snap. "Ten years from now, I rank highest in adaptability. People stopped calling me the Ranking Prince after I hung up my ranking book. These days, I go by my new moniker: the Star Jackal."

When the adolescent snapped his fingers, he sparked a short flame. Kyoya widened his eyes when he saw the fire follow an invisible wire into the snow. This was when Kyoya realized that the adolescent had pushed their fight to where the Italian herbivore had dropped his unused dynamite sticks after he had lost consciousness earlier.

The explosions were almost instantaneous. The adolescent must have used some sort of accelerant to swiftly burn up the dynamites' fuses. A circular uproar of snow rose into the air and surrounded Kyoya. He readied his tonfas and waited for the adolescent to make his presumed surprise attack amidst the chaos.

Kyoya saw something green moving through the snowflakes. He lunged and thrust his tonfa at it. Kyoya found out too late that it was just the adolescent's forsaken scarf fluttering in the soft breeze. Turning around, his tonfa blocked a punch from the adolescent that nearly hit Kyoya's cheek.

The jackal had a renewed smirk on his face. Kyoya recognized the stance he was using. The way his fists were held up with his knees bent slightly and his elbows tucked in were all aspects of a boxer. The male Sasagawa boxer's usual boxing stance, no less.

The male Sasagawa, for all of his nonsensical screams and dense mindset, tended to deliver powerful punches at key moments of vulnerability to defeat his opponents. Of course, all of Kyoya's attacks were more than powerful enough to overwhelm the boxer before he had the chance to do anything more than the basic barrage of punches. The jackal, on the other hand, was more apt at evading the Kyoya's attacks than the male Sasagawa. Still, if the jackal believed he could tire out Kyoya with the persistent dodging, then he was sorely mistaken.

The jackal tried to surprise Kyoya by kicking his leg out at him, but Kyoya easily parried it. As the jackal drew back another fist, Kyoya did the same with his tonfa opposite the jackal's hand. They each thrust their choices of weapon forward, Kyoya intending to shatter all the bones in the jackal's hand. However, instead of colliding with the jackal's knuckles, he caught Kyoya's tonfa against his palm. With his grip secure, the jackal tossed Kyoya over his shoulder.

After flying a good distance, Kyoya regained his sense of balance and forced himself to land. His feet slid against the uneven floor and made two long indentations in the snow. Looking up, Kyoya saw the jackal fiddling with Yamamoto's duffle bag near the bleachers. Kyoya charged him again. This time, the jackal used Yamamoto's baseball bat to defend himself.

While doing a fair job in mimicking the male Sasagawa, the jackal failed to resemble Yamamoto's fighting style. Yamamoto always swung his weapon like the baseball player he was, yet the jackal used the bat more creatively. His hands weren't limited to the handle. He applied pressure to the bat's barrel to better push back against the crushing weight of one of Kyoya's pummels. He held the bat one-handed as a distraction to throw a sucker punch at Kyoya's side. The jackal even slimmed the end of the bat along the floor and brought the bat upward to kick snow towards Kyoya's eyes in an attempt to blind him.

The only tactic that the jackal employed that truly caught Kyoya off-guard was the swing of the bat that Kyoya blocked with a tonfa. The swing was much harsher and faster than the other swings. Though Kyoya put plenty of his own pressure against his tonfa, the bat continued to follow its course. Then, in a span of time so short that Kyoya barely noticed it, the bat transformed into a sword. The blade managed to draw blood along Kyoya's left cheek and ear before Kyoya managed to shove the sword away.

Finally, Kyoya allowed himself to mirror the jackal's smirk with his own fervent leer. Most of Kyoya's noteworthy opponents in the past were school club captains or herbivorous crime bosses who specialized in one particular weapon or combat strategy. The male Sasagawa had his boxing, the latest Momokyokai Yakuza head had a liking for twin sai, and the boss herbivore had his fists and his gun. Meanwhile, the jackal was more than proficient in utilizing different techniques and flawlessly transitioning between them. From the tonfa, to the boxing, to the sword; this was a fight that was more than making up for boredom Kyoya suffered through during the snow ball fight.

Trapping the sword between his tonfas, Kyoya snapped the blade into two. The jackal backed away and flung his half of the sword at him. Kyoya whacked it away and rammed a hit into the side of the jackal's knee. The jackal winced, and he gasped in pain when Kyoya hit him again on the head. Sidestepping the next attack, the jackal got behind Kyoya. As Kyoya turned to face him, the jackal placed a hand on Kyoya's shoulder. The jackal pushed down on the NDC head in order help propel himself up in the air over Kyoya.

Still flying in mid-air, the jackal reached into the back of his pants and pulled out a handgun.

Kyoya recognized this move. It was the same one the boss herbivore had used when he first defeated Kyoya. The maneuver was simple. Kyoya's attention is drawn to the reveal of a firearm. As Kyoya knocks the pistol out of his opponent's hand, the opponent's other hand has already formed a fist and is well on its way force Kyoya's face. The fist suddenly blindsides Kyoya with no hesitation. During the fight with the boss herbivore, Kyoya was sufficiently drained prior to that moment to be thusly knocked out. For this fight, however, Kyoya was ready.

While the jackal was successful in prompting Kyoya to disarm him and to shove the gun away, the jackal's follow-up punch failed as Kyoya met it with his tonfa. The satisfying sound of shattering bone was Kyoya's gift for his efforts.

The jackal lost his playful smile as he bit his lip. A tear began to trail from his eye down his reddened face. Seeking space for himself, the jackal kicked off of Kyoya's tonfas so that the two fighters were standing apart from one another. Kyoya allowed himself time to breath while the jackal nursed his broken hand.

"Jeez, Hibari," the jackal grunted. "I'm surprised you're still so eager to keep going like this. The Hibari from my time probably would have already knocked me out or simply dismissed me for being an inadequate foe able to keep up with him, but the you from this time must be having too much fun to stop now."

The jackal wasn't wrong. Kyoya was enjoying this fight very much. There would likely still be some time until the jackal is properly bitten to death.

"Honestly," the jackal said with a sigh, "the more I think about it, the more I can't believe how you managed to relax and mellow out in the future. I mean, in comparison to the way you are now. I guess your wife really made an impact on you."

Kyoya had a mate in the future?

Irrelevant information. Whether or not some mate tries to tame him in some faraway and foreign timeline, the here and now of this exhilarating fight was all that mattered. Kyoya readied himself again to begin the next round of pummeling the jackal with tonfa strikes until he was brought to his knees.

"I probably don't have much time left, now," the jackal mused. He reached into the pockets of his vest and pulled out a few thin poles about the length of his thigh. He connected them together and topped the end of the now longer pole with a three-bladed prong. "Since this is the first annual snow ball fight, I guess you haven't met the last Guardians yet. Regardless, I don't think a little sneak peek for what's in store for your future will hurt."

Kyoya and the jackal stormed across the snow, ready and eager to meet each other in the zeal and fervor of combat, Kyoya's favored tonfas against the jackal's spear-like weapon.

Unfortunately, the jackal exploded into the same pink smoke from before. Shooting out of the mist was the original cub. He was screaming in terror as the momentum from the jackal's run drove him forward.

Halting his own rush, Kyoya slowed to a stop and lowered his tonfas. The cub was a cub, so herbivore or not, Kyoya had no desire to bite him to death unless he purposefully crowds or breaks Namimori Middle law without any sanctions from the Disciplinary Committee.

The cub hit Kyoya flatly in the chest. Kyoya let himself fall back to the ground. His jacket cushioned the fall. While Kyoya quietly sighed in disappointment at the disappearance of the jackal, the cub looked around his surroundings with some confusion.

"I'm back in the present?" the cub asked himself. "But I wanted to try Adel-oba-san's tea..." The cub soon realized that he was sitting atop Kyoya. Moving quickly, the cub snatched the chameleon armband off of Kyoya and ran away. "I got Leon! Tsuna-nii! Tsuna-nii! Look!" The cub stopped short as he watched the concubine still struggling to dig out the boss herbivore. The boss herbivore's arm was mostly freed now, and it gave a thumbs-up to the cub, prompting a proud smile to widen across his face.

Kyoya observed without a word as the baby arrived. After dropkicking the boss herbivore's hand, the baby congratulated the cub on a job well done.

The baby was speaking truthfully when he had said that strong fighters would come to Namimori as time passed. The jackal was a member of the boss herbivore's, herd as well.

Tetsuya keeps advocating for the complete destruction of the boss herbivore's criminal organization, but if more invigorating combatants continue to flock to Namimori because of the boss herbivore's activities and the baby's tutorship over him, Kyoya will stay his hands for now.

Let them crowd to Namimori by the droves, and Kyoya Hibari will bite all of them to death. The jackal, the boss herbivore, and anyone else who sees fit to step into Hibari's home territory.