Chapter 4: No Good With Words

"Your boyfriend is in Italy," a teasing voice whispered as its owner slid himself down to sit on the grass beside Chrome Dokuro.

"Mukuro-sama," the woman greeted before turning her gaze back to the still waters of an illusory lake. "He's not my boyfriend, not anymore."

Rokudo Mukuro chuckled. "My sweet Chrome. I'm just teasing."

Chrome offered no reaction. Sometimes, she was not so sure if Mukuro was truly only teasing. "How do you know Hibari-san is in Italy?" She asked, giving in to curiosity.

It had almost been five years since her failed attempt to break Mukuro out of prison. That had been big news in the Mafia world, and she was certain that Kyoya had heard of it, which only made her all the more apprehensive to check on him herself. The man probably hated her, and it made her squeamish to imagine finding out for real.

"I saw him. Glo Xinia has taken a special interest in the Vongola after his supposed defeat of its Mist Guardian." Mukuro's mismatched eyes sparkled with unrestrained amusement.

The newly-formed Millefiore family was on the rise, and Mukuro knew from the smell of them that they were going to be bad news for the Vongola. "I couldn't care less if the Mafia families went to war with one another and wiped their kind off of the planet once and for all," he had declared, "but I still have to claim Sawada Tsunayoshi's body. I don't want damaged goods."

So Mukuro devised a strategy that would serve to get him in a position to gain intelligence from within the Millefiore and at the same time get himself and Chrome out of their radar. With her help, he planned to execute a well-disguised feint that would have the whole Mafia world speculating that Rokudo Mukuro had been defeated, that while his body breathed inside the Vendicare, his soul and real power were gone.

The complication they met along the way was that Glo Xinia took quite a perverse liking to Chrome, far more than any of them had anticipated.

After Mukuro's trident grazed the Rain Owl's wing, the contract was made, and all that was left to do was fake Chrome's death. She would pretend to slip up and take a fatal blow, then replace her real body with a well-made illusion before it blew up into smithereens. Only, it turned out that Glo Xinia had no desire to kill Chrome. He wanted to keep her for 'tasting'.

Chrome shuddered at the memory. Glo Xinia was a disgusting man, and no matter that her physical body still sported numerous injuries from having recklessly dived out the window in desperate escape, she was glad she had not risked staying a second longer in his presence.

"My poor Chrome, you're still haunted by that memory, I see," Mukuro remarked. "My apologies, I should have expected that he would have that kind of reaction to an exquisite thing like you."

Chrome shook her head. "It's not your fault." Not wishing to dwell on the memory any further, she brought them back to topic. "Where did you see Hibari-san?"

"Outside the airport, and pretty much everywhere else he went to after that," Mukuro replied.

Chrome gasped. "Then the Millefiore also knows…"

"Come now, Chrome. Do you really think me so naïve?" Her companion asked with an amused smile. "Glo Xinia knows Hibari Kyoya had been spotted at the Palermo Airport but no more than that. I found out the rest through my own… resourcefulness."

A sigh of relief made its way out of Chrome's lips. "Oh, I'm glad," she breathed. Then, with the question of Kyoya's safety out of the way, a new thought entered her head. "Mukuro-sama… you followed him the whole day?"

Mukuro plucked wildflowers that suddenly started sprouting in the grass around them. "Of course," he said. "I even perched myself outside his hotel room for some time. I wanted to make sure he wasn't picking up other women while you're away."

"Mukuro-sama!" Chrome exclaimed, her cheeks heating up in embarrassment. Mukuro hid his smile behind a growing bouquet of yellow flowers before he magically turned it into a bird that resembled Kyoya's pet.

"This little one made it easy to track Hibari Kyoya from the skies." They both watched as the Hibird imitation flitted about their heads.

"Mukuro-sama, you shouldn't have checked on Hibari-san anymore," Chrome murmured after a while, staring at her toes. "He's free to see other women if he likes."

Mukuro laughed. "Don't worry, my sweet Chrome. It would take a woman of extraordinary tastes to even consider him as a partner. You have no immediate rivals."

"… you mean to say that you didn't see him with other women?" Chrome asked, trying to keep her voice neutral.

"Yes, that's exactly what I meant," Mukuro answered with a smile.

Despite herself, Chrome felt relieved and a little bit happier.

"But more importantly, Chrome," Mukuro cut into her internal celebration in a sober tone. "He noticed my presence and sent a message for you."

Chills settled in her stomach, and blood suddenly went roaring in her ears. Her one visible eye huge with alarm, she studied her companion's face for any sign of jesting. Finding none, she asked him wordlessly for clarification.

A small sheet of paper materialized in Mukuro's hands. "I was peering into his hotel room window. He was at the desk, typing. Then he suddenly paused, grabbed a notepad, and scribbled this." He handed the paper to Chrome. "He sent his pet bird to fly this note to me."

The note was in Japanese. "Return home as soon as you hear about Sawada's death. Waste no time."

Chrome let the piece of paper fall as she brought both her hands to her mouth. It was gone before it hit the ground.

"Death… Wh-what…" She struggled to form words. "Wh- what does he mean… Boss… Mukuro-sama? What does this mean?" Chrome all but screamed out the last part as she turned to Mukuro for help.

"Calm down, Chrome," Mukuro ordered in a firm voice. He reached out to hold her steady. "Listen to me. Don't jump to hasty conclusions."

Chrome tried to ease her breathing. She closed her eye but a tear managed to squeeze its way through. Mukuro pulled her gently into a loose embrace and spoke soothingly by her ear to help her collect herself.

"Chrome, I believe they have a plan. I highly doubt that Sawada Tsunayoshi plans to die, or that any of the Vongola would let him."

Chrome pulled away from Mukuro's hold to look at his face. "What could they be thinking?" She asked, still shaken from the panic that had consumed her upon reading Kyoya's note.

"That, I still don't know," Mukuro admitted. "But whatever it is, it seems that they will be needing you."

"I have to go back to Namimori, then," Chrome concluded, her voice ringing with urgency.

Mukuro shook his head. "Not yet, Chrome. The plan is to wait until Sawada's 'death'."

She tried to protest, but Mukuro silenced her with a look. "I still need you to do something for me, Chrome. A prison break."

That gave Chrome pause. "Prison… break? But the Vindice…"

"Not at the Vendicare this time, Chrome. Just a normal prison." Mukuro's mouth stretched into a mysterious smile.

"Why? Who are we breaking out?" Chrome asked, her face creased with confusion and worry.

"An ally… or rather, a pawn," Mukuro confided. "A young criminal named Guido Greco. Make a contract with him for me, and I will take care of the rest."

Chrome nodded slowly, not understanding fully, but too distressed to dwell on it. "What about Fran? Do I take him along?" she asked.

Mukuro's new protégé had been living with the Kokuyo Gang since the passing of his grandmother a couple of years back. He possessed, according to Mukuro, a natural talent that they were lucky to have found before others did. Fran was among the only three illusionists in the world with Mist flames so strong that he could potentially fool even the Vindice. Locating him had been the rewarding result of Joshima Ken and Kakimoto Chikusa's years of earnest research and espionage.

With the help of M.M., who was a French local, they tracked Fran down to the Jura region in France. Mukuro took him in as a reluctant student, and now the boy had grown so immensely in talent that even the Varia had been heard expressing interest to recruit him.

Mukuro grimaced. "No need to bring Fran. He will only be an unnecessary annoyance in this straightforward mission."

Chrome nodded. "I understand, Mukuro-sama."

"Don't worry about anything else for now, Chrome. I assure you that when the time comes, you will be standing with the Vongola to protect Sawada Tsunayoshi." He smiled. "After all, I still have a claim to make on that body... "


Chrome kneeled on the tatami, hands folded on her lap, quite uncertain as to what to make of the situation. As soon as she had finished her speech about now being available for him alone, Kyoya had stood up, made his way stiffly to the cabinet in the corner of the room, and proceeded to make tea.

Neither of them had spoken a single word since.

Chrome watched as Kyoya sipped from his ceramic cup, looking as stoic as he always did and in no way like he was planning to address her unspoken proposition any time soon.

Or did he not get it? Chrome mused to herself. Was it not obvious what she was getting at? That she wanted another try at their relationship, and that this time she promised to bring in no third party?

Out of habit, she almost reached into her mind's sanctuary to seek advice from Mukuro, but then she stopped short. 'Oh, that's right, we're not supposed to be seeing each other,' she remembered glumly.

Shaking off the thought, she decided to finally speak. "Hibari-san…"

The man directed a casual gaze at her.

"You… you haven't given your answer," Chrome muttered.

"I don't recall you asking me a question," he replied flatly.

"It wasn't a question exactly…" she tried to explain.

"Then it doesn't need answering," he concluded.

Chrome stared, wide-eyed and insufficiently skilled with words to express her incredulity. Kyoya sipped his tea, unperturbed. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, unsure how to explain her point.

Kyoya carefully set his cup down. "Mukuro is on his way back to Italy, I presume."

Chrome was taken aback but quickly recovered. She affirmed his statement with a nod.

"I see… so he's going to revoke CEDEF's protection."

Chrome nodded again. "Mukuro-sama doesn't want to be affiliated with the Mafia in any way."

Kyoya gave an insolent snort. "A criminal doesn't want to be related to criminals."

Chrome did not indulge him with a reaction. Mukuro had often been the subject of their many disagreements in the past. She did not intend to start an argument now, of all times. And besides, it was not as if she still had any delusions about Mukuro being a clean man.

Kyoya spoke again, his tone slightly different, more cautious. "What about you?"

His eyes bored into hers. He already knew the answer, she could tell. He only wanted confirmation. Kyoya preferred to be direct and specific.

"I'm staying as the Mist Guardian."

"Then Mukuro isn't free of the Mafia, not as long as you work under Sawada Tsunayoshi."

Chrome shook her head. "No. Mukuro-sama and I… we're not going to be in contact with each other." She paused to collect herself as she felt tears rushing through the ducts in her eye again. When she had blinked most of them away, she continued almost inaudibly, "Tonight was goodbye."

Kyoya's face registered surprise. A regular person would not have noticed, but Chrome had learned to be observant of the minute changes in Kyoya's expressions.

"It was his idea," she explained. Chrome had always known that once Mukuro gained his freedom, he would disappear, and she would have to choose whether to go with him or go her own way. "I thought we would still be able to meet in our dreams at least."

She had not expected a complete separation. For a second she had almost feared that Mukuro was somehow punishing her for her decision, but she immediately banished the thought. There had been nothing in his gentle expression that suggested even a hint of malice.

"Keeping me around will only cause you to lose sight of your goal, Nagi," Mukuro had said soothingly, shaking his head slowly amidst her protests. "What has it all been for, that you struggled to live using only your power, that you worked so diligently to stage my perfect escape, that you have chosen to stay with the Vongola?"

"I want to be whole," Chrome told Kyoya, repeating the same words she had whispered to Mukuro earlier that evening. "I want to be more than someone's shadow, more than just one half of an identity."

A fat teardrop spilled from her eye and followed the curve of her face in a warm streak. It stopped at the point of her chin, and hung for a second before giving in to gravity and landing on her creased indigo skirt. She busied herself fruitlessly trying to rub away the wet spot with her fingers, but it only grew bigger as Chrome's tear ducts loosened in the wake of being reminded of the vacuum in her soul that Mukuro used to occupy.

She could feel Kyoya watching her, but she refused to look up to catch his gaze. She heard the gentle slushing of liquid as Kyoya carefully poured himself more tea from the pot that rested on a tray between them.

He spoke as he poured. "If you regret your decision, it's not too late to catch a plane to Italy."

His voice was even. A person less familiar with him would have mistaken it for apathy, but to Chrome's ears, the strain from applying too much effort on sounding aloof was audible beneath the level overtone.

Chrome shook her head and wiped her tears with the heels of her hands. "I'm not changing my mind," she announced as firmly as one could with a voice still tremulous from weeping.

She allowed herself a few more seconds to get her sniffling under control. Then, as if nothing happened, she brushed stray purple hair out of her face, folded her hands in her lap, and drew her lips into a grim slash.

"I'm not changing my mind," she repeated, more convincing this time. "I waited five years to finally take this path. I'm not turning back now."


Early in life, Chrome had been taught that good girls stayed invisible. Her mother was a celebrity; beautiful, popular, and too preoccupied with her own life to bother with Chrome's.

"Play quietly in your room. Don't be a bother," she always scolded whenever she caught her daughter looking wide-eyed in her direction.

Nagi, as Chrome was then called, would obediently scuttle away. She often felt like a ghost in her own house, and the feeling only increased in magnitude when her mother remarried. Nagi's stepfather never treated her badly, but he cared about her very little.

It was the same in school. Her classmates were neither kind nor mean to her, never including her but never deliberately excluding her either. It was simply as if she did not exist.

Nagi did not mind. After all, good girls stayed invisible.

It was only when she met and fed her first stray that Nagi learned how it felt to matter, to be needed. The kitten had jet black fur and gray eyes. It was perched on top of an apartment's concrete fence and meowing in a tinny voice at Nagi's general direction.

Nagi glanced behind her shoulder. When she saw no one else, she turned back to the kitten and pointed an index finger to her own nose. "Are you talking… to me?"

The kitten meowed again, stretched, then leapt nimbly from the fence to settle by her feet. She then noticed how thin and small it was. "Meow," it repeated, butting its head against her shoe.

On that day, for the first time, Nagi made a stopover before heading home from school. She walked to the nearest 7-Eleven, the kitten held gingerly in one hand, and bought a can of cat food to serve the starving creature.

Nagi sat on her heels by the sidewalk and watched with wide purple eyes as the kitten indulged in its meal. When it finished eating, she reached out to tap a finger on its small damp nose. "I can't bring you home," she told the kitten. "Mama doesn't like animals. But I'll see you again tomorrow."

As if understanding, the black kitten purred and rubbed against her ankles. Nagi felt an unfamiliar sensation on her face as a soft blush graced her cheeks and a timid smile stretched her lips.

Nagi's routine with the kitten, to whom she never resolved to give a name, continued up until the kitten grew into a handsome cat. It made her somewhat happy to be depended on. Nagi used to feel like nothing much in the world would change even if she died or went somewhere far away, but now, she knew that if she disappeared, there was a cat that would go without dinner. This cat made her feel a bit important the way no one else had before, and Nagi resolved to be its hero.

So one evening, with only milliseconds to decide on a course of action, Nagi chose to shield the cat from a speeding car with her own body. She never saw the cat again, but heard that it was taken to a local shelter, where it would be fed and taken care of until someone came along looking to adopt it. It would never again need Nagi, but it was just as well, because Nagi was about to die from her injuries.

It was there, at the threshold to the next life, that Nagi met the person who taught her what it was like not only to be needed, but also to need in return. The mysterious young man called himself Rokudo Mukuro, and he promised Nagi the means to live again, if she agreed to lend him her body. It sounded like a dubious deal at best, but the man's charisma drew Nagi in. She reached out to clasp the hand he was offering, and she abruptly woke up feeling completely healthy.

The hospital staff stared in horror. They had been, at the instructions of Nagi's parents, about to pull the plug on the life-support machine that kept her breathing. She had been in comatose for almost a week already, not to mention missing an eye and a multitude of internal organs. Even if she somehow recovered from the worst of her injuries, she would never be able to live independently from machines that cost a considerable fortune per hour; her parents had decided to cut everyone's suffering short by letting her die.

But then Nagi sat up, missing an eye though otherwise healthy. The hospital staff clamored to call her parents. She rose from the bed, but it was not her will that moved her body. It was Mukuro, she realized, and oddly, she felt no fear or apprehension anymore.

From the backseat, she watched as Mukuro gently pulled out the needles that connected her body to various beeping machines. "You won't need these anymore," she heard his voice whisper in her mind. He led her out of the room, through the throng of people in panic who did not seem to notice that the miracle patient was out of her bed and about to escape. "You won't need them anymore," Mukuro murmurred, and though she could not see his face, she could feel him smiling. "From now on, I am the only one you will need to live."

Unlike the case with the cat, Mukuro and Nagi's relationship centered on mutual benefits. Mukuro needed her to traverse the physical world, and Nagi needed him to create functional organs for her to survive on. They needed each other. Their lives would never be the same again without each other. It made Nagi, who re-styled herself as Chrome Dokuro, very ecstatic to be part of such a symbiosis.

Several years later, however, Chrome would learn that 'need' was not similar, or even a prerequisite, to 'want'. Two people could live separate, unrelated lives, but that would not stop them from desiring each other.


"Geez, Kyoya! This is the fifth time you made the same mistake!" Dino let himself fall heavily into his chair. "Learn from Chrome, will you? She already speaks Italian like a native, and you're still stuck at basics!"

He flashed a charming grin her way, and Chrome felt her cheeks heat up a little. She smiled shyly back at her tutor, but her good mood was quickly ruined by her only classmate's unsolicited opinion.

"Hmph, maybe you need to be a herbivore to master the language," Hibari Kyoya commented, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wall.

"Now, now, Kyoya…" Dino began, but Kyoya seemed to be in an even less amicable mood than usual. He silenced their tutor with a sharp glare, then turned his attention to Chrome, who instinctively backed away a little.

Standing up from where he sat on the floor, he continued to appraise her silently. Chrome averted her gaze and looked everywhere except directly at Kyoya.

"You are one, aren't you? A herbivore?" He asked her, his voice malicious and impatient.

Chrome fumbled with her hands and mechanically smoothed the skirt over her knees, nervous about being interrogated. "A-a-a h-herbivore?" she stuttered.

"Yes, a herbivore. Grass eater. Weak animal. Bottom of the food chain. Prey." Each term came out of Kyoya's lips with condescension and contempt.

Dino tried to intervene again. "Oi, Kyoya, stop it. That's nasty. Chrome, don't take him seriously. Kyoya here is just a problem child…"

Kyoya ignored him completely. "You're a herbivore," he repeated. "You can't even live on your own. You're always relying on that man."

Cautiously lifting her eye from the ground to look at him, Chrome managed to softly declare a defense. "Mukuro-sama creates the organs that keep me alive. I can't help—"

"Exactly why I say you're a herbivore," Kyoya interrupted, but somehow, he sounded more angry than satisfied to prove his point. With a final huff of disdain, he grabbed his jacket and stalked off, leaving Dino exasperated and Chrome unsettled.

Hibari Kyoya was an enigma to Chrome. He was silent, mostly stoic, and belonged to a world that brushed hers only because of the Vongola, and even then not by much. Chrome's life could go on without consequence even if Kyoya disappeared, and the same was true the other way around. Chrome did not need him, and she did not need to ask him to know that Kyoya did not need her either.

And yet, Chrome could not shake off a vague but persistent interest in Kyoya, beginning on that day when he accused her of being weak and useless for her dependence on Mukuro, which she had never before thought of as anything other than simply matter of fact.

Mukuro changed, too, after Chrome mentioned the incident to him. Whereas once he provided her with limitless support, Chrome noticed that he began to withdraw his power little by little, so that she was forced to make up for the deficit with her own illusions.

When she apprehensively brought the matter up in one of their conversations, an odd pensive look occupied his usually playful eyes, and he asked, "Don't you want to get stronger, Nagi?"

It was not a question that sought an answer, but Chrome found herself thinking about it and eventually nodding slowly in affirmation, even after Mukuro's gaze had left her face in favor of their imagined horizon.

Yes, she wanted to get stronger. She wanted to be more useful to Mukuro and the Vongola. She wanted to be able to fight for them and protect them. And, truth be told, she also wanted to be seen as their comrade and equal, not as extra baggage or burden, and especially not as Kyoya had called her, a herbivore.

So when one afternoon, Dino noticed her unusual pallor and immediately jumped to the conclusion that Mukuro had withdrawn his illusions, she felt more than a little proud to be able to confirm his assumption.

"It's okay, Dino-san. I'm just not used to maintaining the illusions completely on my own yet," she reassured him. Her lips, though almost white with the strain from using up so much Mist Flames, curled into a small meek smile, which grew wider when she caught Kyoya suddenly eyeing her attentively.

For some reason or other, it gave her a pleasant feeling to have earned positive attention from the usually aloof Guardian. Chrome realized that it felt good to simply desire someone, even better than it felt to need them, and in the succeeding several months, Kyoya would also teach her that it felt just as good to be desired.


"I waited five years to finally take this path. I'm not turning back now," Chrome declared with an intensity that made Kyoya stop drinking his tea mid-sip.

Realizing this, Chrome flushed the reddest she had been that night and softened her voice again, though the conviction remained. "So Hibari-san, please tell me… tell me…" She faltered, unsure as to how she should phrase the question. "I want to know if…"

Chrome had never been good with words, and Kyoya was not known for being considerate. She was certain that he already knew what she wanted to ask, and yet he remained silent, his face blank and slightly bored as he inspected his cup of tea. He would not volunteer the answer without hearing the question from her, she knew, but that only made it more difficult for her to blurt it out.

She felt her cheeks burn badly. It was no good; there was no way she could ask him so boldly, especially with how he seemed so unaffected. It was no good; she might be forced to retreat…

Chrome breathed deeply through her mouth and then called out firmly, "Hibari-san".

In the instant it took for him to raise his eyes from the cup to look at her, she covered the space between them, knocking over the half-full teapot in the process. Chrome felt a familiar delight spark within her when Kyoya's eyes widened and his mouth parted by a hair's breadth, sure signs that she had caught him by surprise, as she pressed her lips against his.

She had waited half a decade to confess that she wanted him and to ask if he still wanted her back. There could be no retreating now. Words were no good, but a kiss might do the job.


- Author's Note -

Just a short one this time. I thoroughly enjoyed creating a back story for Chrome and the cat she saved! As a cat lover myself, I like to imagine that Chrome's first friend was a cat. :)