I'm still working on everything else, I swear! I know what I want to happen, it's just that none of it is coming out right!
Some characters might seem OOC, but I hope that I've implied the why of that efficiently enough for it to seem rather natural.
Please enjoy!
Oh! Sorry! There's a whole page-long justification for it, but the timeline has been shifted forward five years.
Also, SlightlyWicked pointed out something that was intentionally misleading, but then I thought about it and decided to change it. So thanks to them!
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Asterion walked towards the gates of Nami-chuu with a bored look on his face and turmoil brewing in his chest.
While he was somewhat excited about attending an actual school, he was also anxious. What if I lose it and hurt someone? What if I have a panic attack and have to go back to self-study because I'm too different to be in a school with normal teenagers? What'll happen if I have to go to the Nurse's Office and have a flashback?
All these thoughts and more were swirling around in his head. His anxiety was so prevalent that he was seeing black in the edges of his vision and his body felt like someone had tried to microwave him and failed, leaving him uncomfortably hot but still frozen at the core.
Asterion made it just past the gates that framed the entrance to the grounds and nearly crumpled to the ground as a wave of apprehension crashed over him.
Since he was early, (because he knew he was going to have issues with this, plus Yoko-sensei and Shamal had both recommended that he arrive early enough to work through his anxieties at his own pace), he moved to the side and leaned against a tree. The brisk April wind was soothing for all that it was chilled as he closed his eyes and tipped his head forward and ran through his breathing exercises.
As he forced his breathing pattern to stabilize, Asterion tried to direct his mind to focus on facts.
He had to be in his classroom by eight-thirty for Attendance. He already knew that he was a part of class 2C, so his homeroom classroom was on the southwest end of the building. His homeroom teacher, Kentaro-sensei, was also the Social Studies teacher.
Asterion took a few gulps of air and furrowed his brow in determination as he tried to battle his anxiety into submission. If he couldn't get himself to even out soon he'd have to take one of his 'panic pills'. While he didn't really feel shame for taking them anymore, he did feel like such an action was a personal failure when he did have to take one. Asterion had no intention of starting his Middle School life on a low note, (a personal one, anyways), so he dug deeper and tried to find more facts for his mind to grab ahold of.
Today was April 13, 1998. It was Monday. That meant that the school-wide Assembly would be taking place after Attendance was taken. The Assembly would last about fifteen minutes, with the school Principal addressing them. Then they would attend their first class. They had four classes before lunch. Lunch lasted about forty minutes, and could be brought from home- though the school provided lunches- and students were allowed to eat wherever they wanted as long as they stayed within the school's grounds. After lunch there were two more classes. After their last class all of the students performed their cleaning duties before they were released to their after-school Clubs.
Asterion felt like crying with relief as his maelstrom of what if's slowly died down to a manageable whirlwind. Almost there. He told himself as he dug a little deeper. You've almost made it.
School was held from Monday to Saturday. Though Saturdays only held the four morning classes. There were eleven mandatory classes. Most classes were held Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and then Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday. The Monday/Wednesday/Friday classes were called 'Water Schedule' while the Tuesday/Thursday/Saturday classes were called 'Fire Schedule'.
The names were from the traditional names for the days of the week, as Tuesday was sometimes referred to as 'Fire' while Wednesday was sometimes referred to as 'water'.
Asterion's breathing pattern finally settled into calmness as he tried to pull his thoughts the rest of the way into a semblance of order.
There are eleven mandatory subjects, but six classes per day with only four on Saturday. We have 'Guidance Hour' with our homeroom teacher on Tuesday and Thursday for an hour. Each Term two classes are chosen to rotate being 'short' each week, as Saturday only has four classes instead of five. This Term it is English and Health. We are given projects in these classes to compensate for lost lecture time. Asterion finally felt the ground level out underneath him and he checked his watch. Seven forty-five. Still have plenty of time. The teen detached from the tree and began making his way towards the school building at a leisurely pace.
Everyone is required to join a Club in Middle School. However, magic students like me also have night classes. The Imperial Ministry of Magic holds classes on Wednesday/Thursday/Friday evenings, for four hours per evening. Asterion cringed as he thought about all the hours he would be putting in with his schoolwork. Fortunately, we are allowed to use the Time Rooms twice a week. Meaning that twice a week we are allowed to turn back time and sleep or do homework while our 'present' selves are at school. They recommend using the Friday and Monday time slots, as you have to sign up for the Time rooms as only the senseis are allowed to operate them.
Asterion had successfully made his way into the school at that point, sufficiently distracted by his thoughts of homework and impending academic doom.
At least the magic classes are designed to go hand-in-hand with our nonmagical ones to make things a bit smoother. Asterion thought as he changed his shoes and made his way to his classroom. And once we reach high school we are allowed to use the Time Rooms three times a week.
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Fortunately for Asterion his therapy and his classes with Sensei counted as his Club activity.
Since he was quiet, as he was still hesitant about speaking Japanese, he was largely ignored by his fellow classmates, save for when they needed his input with a project. Some of them talked bad about him behind his back, about everything from his gaijin looks to his clothes, but after he sent the first few idiots to the Nurse's Station after they tried to get physical with him, most simply stuck to verbal abuse. Asterion was mildly impressed with the amount of thought they put into their insults as they phrased things to seem slightly condescending as opposed to outright insulting.
He never realized that he was worth such effort. Who knew?
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It was when he was walking through the gates on his seventeenth day of school that he met Hibari Kyouya.
Oh, Asterion had heard rumors about the boy who had forcibly taken over the gang of delinquents who used to use Nami-chuu as their headquarters when he was still in Elementary. But as Asterion kept his head down as he tried to muddle his way through his day he'd never before been introduced to the violent Prefect.
On that morning, however, his phone call with Shamal had run a little longer than expected and so he was just passing through the gates as the bell rang.
"You're late, herbivore." A young, but frigidly cold, voice spoke harshly from his left. "Prepare to be bitten to death."
There was the lightest sound of rustling cloth, but Asterion's combat training already had him in motion. At the slightest prick of threat he'd dropped his bag, rolled to the side, and settled into a fighting stance facing his opponent without actually consciously considering his course of action.
For a moment he mentally cursed himself- you're in a civilian school in a Mafia Sanctuary, idiot! Stupid instincts!- he saw that his attacker had strange bar-like weapons in his hands.
….good job. He mentally sent to his instincts as the taller-than-him boy with dark hair and grey eyes looked at him consideringly. Asterion had been mentally composing a sentence- his spoken Japanese was still a bit rusty- when the other boy grinned savagely and surged forward.
Asterion began to dodge and weave around the other's strikes, firmly tamping down on his need to retaliate. His constant mantra of 'do not kill the civilian on accident' being disrupted by the punishing blow the other landed to his upper arm and back with one of those metal weapons.
Screw this. Asterion snarled inside his mind as he relaxed the effort he was exerting to keep his body's responses minimal. I'm going to kick this brat's ass.
Asterion began to push back, putting the other on the defensive with a series of lightning-quick strikes that were aimed to bruise and cause discomfort. The other's eyes widened for a moment before a half-frustrated, half-exhilarated look overcame the boy's face. "Wao." He muttered to himself as he began to attack Asterion even more viciously.
Asterion hadn't spent five years as an Estraneo test subject for nothing, however, and he gave as good as he got. Time blurred and fell away as the two continued their violent conversation. In fact, they were so absorbed in their exchange the bell that signaled the end of First Period startled them both.
The other jumped back and stowed his weapons, giving Asterion an assessing look before nodding sharply and spinning on his heel. "Get to class, herbivore."
Asterion's eye twitched, but he said nothing as he jogged over to his forgotten bag and made his way inside the school. Once inside he quickly switched out his shoes and slipped into the flow of students, ignoring the rather awed stares directed his way with practiced ease.
At least I have PE Third Period. He thought as he took a careful sniff and was pleased to note that he didn't reek, but he did smell of sweat. I'll be able to shower then.
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April faded to May and then May gave way to June. The weather also transitioned. From the slightly cool mornings and warm afternoons of the early Spring to the blatantly hot days of early summer. Asterion grew more confident in his ability to speak Japanese and slowly he managed to move from being a point of interest to his peers to mostly being a nonentity.
Well, other than his position as Hibari Kyouya's favorite target, that is.
Neither teen had decisively 'won' one of their encounters, and other than Hibari's opening line about breaking rules or bite you to death, they really hadn't exchanged any words. However, as time went on and his workload grew, Asterion came to appreciate these exchanges.
They weren't structured spars with Sensei, they were no-holds-barred fights. Asterion had learned early on that Hibari did not enjoy it when something unexpected happened, and that was the type of fighting style that Asterion excelled at. So while Hibari probably was the better fighter in terms of technique Asterion levelled the playing field with tricks and traps and feints that frustrated the other into making mistakes.
Something about the exchanges helped Asterion think clearer. His Flames and his magic flowed better and he always felt as if he accomplished something amazing when the other would learn to dodge that extra step to avoid a trap or when he swept dirt up into his hands and flung it in Asterion's direction. Hibari's growth in front of Asterion's eyes- because of Asterion's influence- somehow tasted like a victory.
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Hibari Kyouya was frustrated.
Well, perhaps frustrated was the incorrect word to use.
Kyouya leaned against the fence that ran along the roof of his beloved Nami-chuu's main building as he watched Vasaio Asterion allow himself to be bossed around by herbivores. His brows furrowed as he watched the pathetic herbivore purposely speak slower- as one would speak to a toddler- to Vasaio while the 'captain' outlined the 'plan' to the other boy.
Kyouya didn't have the foggiest idea why Vasaio accepted this sort of treatment with nothing more than a blank look and a bored expression.
Vasaio Asterion could keep up with Kyouya in a fight. He was a Carnivore. Why was he allowing the herbivores so much leeway in how they disrespected him? It made something deep inside Kyouya lurch unpleasantly as he watched the 'captain' go back to his herd and snicker as Vasaio began to do the 'tasks' that he'd been assigned without complaint. Kyouya's hands tightened around the fence's rail as a sharp surge of anger swept through him.
It should bother him, he knew, to be so fixated on a single person. But Vasaio was different. Kyouya's lips tilted down into a frown as he tried to reach for the conclusion that seemed just out of reach. It wasn't just how the other boy fought or the fact that he could keep up with Kyouya that made Vasaio interesting. There was a sense of brotherhood that they shared when they fought that eased a pain that Kyouya had grown used to. Well, not really a pain so much as a-
Kyouya snarled soundlessly and whirled around sharply, snapping the roof door shut behind him as he walked away. Kusakabe materialized by his side not three steps passed the stairs and his Second-in-Command began to dutifully fill him in on all the relevant information without being prompted.
And as patrol routes and problems that needed to be solved began to fill his mind he was able to shove the frustrating enigma that was Vasaio Asterion to the back of his mind. However busy he kept himself, though, he never truly forgot about the strange boy whom seemed to be able to ground him when he felt as if he was on the brink of self-destruction- on those days when Kyouya's greatest enemy was himself.
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A few days later, Asterion sighed as he placed the last of the sport's equipment back on the rack. He'd gotten stuck with doing more than hi share during cleaning duty as the other boys who had been assigned to this unit goofed off. Technically he could make a scene and either Tatsuo-sensei or the Disciplinary Committee would fix the issue, but he was tired and just wanted to go home.
While he had greatly improved since the start of school, being around so many others his age and trying to 'act normal' still took a lot out of him. It was a physical, emotional, and mental challenge to wake up each day and force himself out of bed and through his morning routine. Once he'd made it inside the school and gotten into the flow of things it wasn't so bad, but some days he needed Yoko-sensei's morning threat of bodily dragging him out of bed, (which she'd followed through on a few times), to get him out of bed at all! It was especially bad in the first few months, but as his steps brought him closer to Nami-chuu he'd think of a thousand perfectly reasonable, logical reasons why he should just call Yoko-sensei and have her have him excused for the day. They'd had a few phone arguments that had ended with him frustrated to the point of tears.
Then Hibari Kyouya had happened, and the battle-addicted other boy had continued to pop up out of absolutely nowhere every single day. The fight that would inevitably ensue would shatter the doubt and gloom and fatigue that weighed Asterion down as the thrill of battle flowed through him. Fighting Hibari helped Asterion feel alive. Because he could look forward to his daily dose of battle it made it easier to get up and start the day at all.
However much fighting Hibari helped him face the day, though, it was still exhausting to deal with everyone else. It wasn't even that they were overly mean or anything, either! Sure they whispered some and a few outright hated him simply for being a different ethnicity, but most of his fellow classmates were neutrally polite, at the very least. So, instead of complaining to Tetsuo-sensei or alerting the Disciplinary Committee, Asterion would much rather do more than just his share of cleaning in peace and be allowed to go home.
It probably wasn't the best way to deal with the situation, but it was the easiest for him. Besides, he still had to meet with Yoko-sensei every evening and he did not want to be late.
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It wasn't until nearly the end of term that Asterion stumbled upon the reason why his thoughts seemed to circle around Hibari Kyouya.
Asterion had been meditating, an exercise that he'd been taught in the Labs and then re-taught by Yoko-sensei and Sensei. It helped him feel his magic and his Flames and to center himself before and after a long day. It was when he had been meditating that he had decided to do his weekly upkeep on the single Harmony that had been left from his time at the Labs. He hadn't told anyone about it- not Shamal or Yoko-sensei or anyone- because it wasn't entirely intact. Asterion feared that his caretakers would decide to sever the fragile Bond completely. A fractured Bond affected the Sky more than the Element due to the Sky constantly pushing out an excess of Flames in order to mend it, it was part of the Sky Flame's Harmony factor. The Element would be unable to support their part of the Bond because they would not fully comprehend the issue without being physically near the Sky in question, and Asterion had no idea which one of the people he'd Harmonized with this particular Bond was connected to. It was the one thing that he held entirely to himself, because he didn't think the person on the other end would be able to hold on without his support.
Shoving those thoughts to the back of his mind, Asterion directed his Flames- his pure Sky ones- towards the Bond and gently pushed as much of them through the frayed connection that he could. He could feel moment the person on the other end began to feel the Sky Flames through the connection and he mentally cheered at the thought of being able to help someone else for once.
It was when he had pushed as much of his Flames through the connection as he could and was withdrawing from the area where he visualized where his Bonds were housed that he noticed it.
There was not just the one connection in the area where he envisioned his Harmony Bonds existing.
There were two.
Asterion's panic had snapped him out of his meditative trance. His breath had quickened and he fisted his hands in the squishy pillow that he used as a cushion while he meditated and panicked.
I can't. He thought fuzzily as his mind was suddenly too loud and his body felt both on fire and frozen. It's not possible. We haven't even spoken. For there was only one person that he was acquainted with that could possibly match the Bond's signature. The soon-to-be-teen tried to calm himself but all he could hear over the roar in his ears were the screams of the Elements that had fallen into Dissonance as the Estraneo scientists shattered their connection to him. All he could feel was the soul-deep grief he had felt over and over and over as the Element Bond disappeared and he was left empty and lost and-
There were hands on his shoulders and he was being guided somewhere, and someone's voice was in the far-off distance, but he couldn't focus on any of that as he spiraled further into his memories and panic and grief.
"-rion-kun-"
"-have to-" "-dose-" "-aside-" "-idea-"
Asterion lost consciousness at that point, but his foray into it was far from peaceful.
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Yoko wore a bracelet that Shamal had given her that alerted her whenever Asterion entered into a prolonged period of duress.
Shamal had told her that it was not made to go off unless Asterion body was actually in a state of panic. She had been a bit skeptical, of course, but Shamal was a very talented Mist, so she had accepted the thin silver bangle. When the bracelet had not gone off during Asterion's sessions with his Martial Arts teacher or his Physical Education classes, just when he had started to panic, she had been rather impressed. The bracelet had allowed her to know that she needed to be there during his major panic attack back during December, and it was at that point that she had truly believed in Shamal's little invention.
It alerted her by warming up in response to Asterion's level of duress. The attack in December had felt as if she had touched her wrist very briefly to a hot pan or something, and none of the other times it had gone off had been nearly that uncomfortable. Therefore, when the bracelet had suddenly flared so hot it felt cold she had immediately picked up her phone and tried to call Asterion. When her patient did not answer her and the bracelet continued to grow colder, (and yet warmer), she had told her secretary that she needed to check in with a patient and had all but flown out of her office to her car.
She had not bothered knocking on Asterion's apartment door, nor had she paused to change her shoes. She could hear the boy's panicked breaths as soon as she had opened the door. She had quickly entered the main area of Asterion's apartment and had nimbly hopped over the red couch so she could reach the boy faster. Asterion was lying in a fetal position, awkwardly half-on one of the large squishy pillows that he used in place of a tatami mat to meditate on. He had tears streaming down his face and had one hand clutched so tightly into the front of his shirt that he'd drawn blood, while the other hand was fisted in his hair- and she was fairly certain that he had pulled a generous amount of hair out as well. He was breathing in a strangely hiccupped manner and seemed to be trying to rock back-and-forth, but wasn't able to manage to do so.
Yoko's heart broke as she saw the state he was in. "What happened, Asterion-kun?" She murmured as she knelt beside him and began to rub soothing circles onto his back with one hand while she gently tried to pry his hand from his chest with the other. After five minutes of being unable to draw him out of his panicked state with her soothing chatter she decided that he was going to need to be sedated. Yoko quickly walked over to the apartment's phone and called for an ambulance. After she hung up the phone she spent a moment thanking the Hibari family for their patronage, as the family's strict policies ensured that the Namimori emergency services were prompt.
It wasn't long before the emergency medical personnel arrived. Thankfully the medical doctor that Shamal had left as Asterion's primary care physician had cleared the dose of sedative she had requested and it was quickly administered to the distressed child. Shortly after that Asterion was secured to the transport patient bed, loaded up in the ambulance and on his way to Namimori General Hospital.
Yoko quickly checked around to make sure there wasn't anything that needed to be turned off or stopped before quickly locking up and heading to the hospital herself.
"What on earth happened to cause you such distress, Asterion-kun?" She murmured as she backed out of her parking spot.
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Shamal sat at his Godnephew's bedside and wondered which higher power thought that Shamal was anything close to guardian material. It had been three days since Asterion's massive panic attack and the staff had chosen to keep him sedated until Shamal could make it back, due to Asterion's extreme aversion to hospitals.
They had disconnected Asterion's IV Drip and Shamal knew the brat would wake up sometime in the next hour or so. Shamal had coated the room in Mist Flames so that it did not immediately look like a hospital room, but he was leery of using too much of his Flames because he simply had no idea what had set Asterion off in the first place. A thousand scenarios ran through Shamal's mind and another million side-scenarios spawned form them and all this waiting was driving him crazy.
Fortunately Asterion began to stir, interrupting Shamal's rapidly spiraling train of thought. Shamal watched as the boy's brows furrowed and his eyes moved rapidly under the delicate skin of his eyelids. Asterion's fingers twitched and a few other muscles rippled under the sheets as his body began to shake off the drugs that had kept the teen unconscious. Eventually Asterion's eyes cautiously eased themselves opened and the boy blinked several times as he adjusted to the low lighting in the room.
"Morning sunshine!" Shamal chirped rather sarcastically, causing the boy to sluggishly turn his head to meet Shamal's gaze. "Have a nice rest?"
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"Shamal?" Asterion rasped in English, trying to get his tongue to work. He was so thirsty he felt like he could drink an entire lake! Asterion's eyes flicked around the room and it took his slow-moving mind a moment to cotton on to the fact that he was in the hospital. "What happened?" He asked in consternation.
"You tell me brat!" Shamal replied rather petulantly, waiving his hands around and dispelling his Flames and he slouched down further in his chair. "You had a panic attack so bad we had to sedate you."
Asterion's brows rose as he tried to-oh. Oh.
"Whoa, brat, breathe." Shamal said, shooting upright in his chair and placing a calming hand on Asterion's upper arm. The elder Mist used his not-often-utilized Rain Flames to inject some Tranquility into the kid. It took a few minutes of steady chattering and feeding Flames into him, but slowly Asterion stopped outright panicking.
"Thanks." Asterion slurred- a side effect of the amount of Tranquility in his system- a few minutes later. The boy blinked a few times and the hazy sheen to his green gaze slowly lessened. "'m sorry, Uncle Shamal." He murmured quietly.
"It's fine, kid." Shamal replied, lips pursed as he searched Asterion for any physical signs of his condition worsening. "Now why don't you tell me what happened?"
Asterion seemed to struggle against himself a bit, but the amount of Tranquility Shamal had filled him with, coupled with the fact that Shamal was family, plus his age worked against him. "I accidentally Harmonized." He muttered as the sting of tears burned against his eyes. "I didn't mean to. But it just happened and now I don't know what to do and I didn't meant to and-"
"Whoa. Calm down brat." Shamal cut into Asterion's babbling smoothly. "Tell me what happened. Exactly."
Asterion promptly spilled his secrets.
Shamal ran his hand through his hair as he contemplated the information. Asterion toyed with the ends of the sheet and snuck quick glances at the older man every few seconds.
"Alright." Shamal said after taking a few minutes to digest the information. "I understand why you didn't want to say anything about the frayed Bond, but I am not going to tell you what to do about it."
Some of the tension bled out from Asterion's shoulders.
"This new Bond you have forged though-" The tension snapped back into the almost-teen and Shamal internally cursed the Estraneo to the depths of Tartarus in the sanctity of his mind. "-I think you should accept it."
Asterion peered at Shamal suspiciously, but said nothing.
"Look." Shamal sighed as he sank back in the uncomfortable visitor's chair. "Skies are meant to Bond. I know, I know- you don't like to identify with that, but the fact is, regardless of your ability to use the other Flames you are- at heart- a Sky. And really." Shamal spoke over Asterion's barely-voiced protests. "You deciding to break a Bond that has been forged through understanding because you don't want to accept your true Flame Type is not all that much different from what the Estraneo did to you."
Asterion looked extremely offended and irritated, but his mouth snapped shut.
Which higher power thought I would make a good guardian, again? Shamal mentally lamented.
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After Asterion was discharged he was up to his ears in homework and pre-exam stress. Even with all of that distracting him, he still made a concentrated effort to avoid Hibari, though.
Unfortunately for Asterion, Hibari Kyouya was not about to let that continue.
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When Hibari Kyouya had gotten the notice that Vasaio Asterion was not only absent from school but he was also in the hospital he was furious. At first he thought he was simply angry over the fact that Asterion would be missing school- and therefore their spars- but as the information continually reverberated through his mind he realized that his anger was not purely anger.
It came as an epiphany while he was beating down some rule breakers- and pointedly ignoring the fact that they were some of the more vocal dissidents of Asterion due to his European heritage- that he realized that the emotion underlying the nearly irrational anger was fear.
Contrary to popular belief, Hibari Kyouya knew fear. Intimately. However, while most children were allowed to hide behind their mother's skirts and be afraid, Hibari Kyouya had not had that option. Kyouya's mother had been an assassin before she had married his father- who was one of the founding members of Japan's Delta Force. Delta Force handled counter-terrorism and had existed long before it became an 'official' sub-agency of the Japanese Self Defense Force. His mother had had many insights into his father's work, as she had been quite knowledgeable about the underworld- seeing as she had been an assassin. Unfortunately there had been a traitor who had infiltrated the lower-levels of the Delta Force and that bastard had facilitated the events that had resulted Kyouya and his mother being captured.
His mother- his strong, fierce, invincible mother- had died getting him to safety. She had killed nearly a hundred people doing so as she had guided the then-seven-year-old through a labyrinth of underground tunnels in the North Korean complex they had been imprisoned within. When her wounds had finally gotten to the point that she could not continue, she kissed his forehead and pushed him towards the exit.
"Go on, my little carnivore." She had whispered to him in her mother tongue, smoothing a hand through his hair as she looked at him with so much love it hurt while the sounds of their pursuers grew nearer. "Go on. Grow. Be strong. And do no ever let anyone force you to do something you do not believe in." Then she had tugged the metal door closed and left him.
Kyouya had done as his mother instructed, and he had eventually stumbled upon the American/South Korean until that had been stationed nearby. They had contacted his father who had quickly come to get him.
Hibari Sentaro had hugged Kyouya fiercely. "Do not let her sacrifice be in vain, little bird." That was all his father had had to say on the matter once he had been told the entire story. From that point Kyouya had pursued strength with a single-minded purpose. He had learned about his family's connections to the underworld when 'diplomacy' had prevented his father from getting vengeance on behalf of his mother- legally.
His father had merely looked at Kyouya- who had been so furious he had wanted to cry- and had patted the boy on the head gently. "If we cannot get justice for you and your mother through the law, then we will go around it."
Kyouya had sworn then and there that he would always fight for justice- no matter what any herbivorous law might dictate. He would become the law, in that case.
But he had never forgotten the feeling of fear. Of being useless, helpless, and a burden. It crippled him sometimes; made him hate himself so badly that all he wanted to do was to find an opponent that would end him, because he was weak and he'd gotten her killed-
Yet when he fought Vasaio something long-frozen inside him thawed, and his fear- always in the back of his mind, taunting him and baiting him, laughing at him with the faces of those who had tormented him- became actual courage. Kyouya felt more balanced, more centered, and sometimes he could almost hear his mother's bright laugh on the wind as pushed himself to be better.
Kyouya stepped away from the punished rule-breakers and stowed his weapons before spinning on his heel and stalking away. Once he was safely inside his office he contemplated his new epiphany and what that meant for him before coming to a firm decision.
So when Vasaio came back to school and was pointedly avoiding Kyouya, the grey-eyed teen was aware enough to recognize the fear that was blanketing the other boy.
Kyouya smirked as he stalked towards the other.
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Clouds are often comfortable as loners, but they are also catalysts. They can make an overbearingly hot day tolerably cool by blanketing the sun or they can churn and cause a mild rain shower to change into a thunderous storm. They can provide a place for Lightning to strike and can hold the rain when it needs a place to hide. They can soak up the mist when it spirals out of control and can spread across the wide expanse of the sky to make the endless stretch of blue far less lonely.
One should never, ever underestimate the importance of Clouds.
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Asterion sighed as he tried to weave through the crowds and make it to the exit before-
"Vasaio Asterion." A cold voice sounded from behind him.
Asterion's grip on his backpack strap tightened so badly that his knuckled turned white, and he reluctantly turned to face the other boy who he had spent the last week avoiding.
Sharp grey eyes swept over him and Asterion could practically feel the Bond purr.
It was slightly disturbing and also slightly wonderful.
All the thoughts and justifications and plans he had spent his time thinking up slipped away as the other barked out a short order to follow them and his body obeyed without bothering to pay attention to the chaos of his mind. In just a few short minutes it was just Hibari and Asterion in Hibari's office and as Asterion stared into the steady gaze that was looking back at him his mouth moved but none of the words that he wanted to say would make it past this throat.
Hibari's gaze turned thoughtful and then his eyes widened in slight surprise as his smile turned sharp.
Asterion's stomach dropped down to somewhere around his knees as his unease mounted.
"You're a Sky." Hibari said bluntly, pointing to a small lick of Flame that had, (unknown to Asterion), flared to life around fingers. Hibari's eyes narrowed and Asterion's knees felt as if they were about to give out on him, as the other boy rounded his desk and came to stand directly in front of him. "You're my Sky." Hibari murmured as he reached out and cautiously place his palm above the hand that had Flames dancing about it.
Kyouya's palm was suddenly covered in a light layer of deeply-hued violet fire in response to the Sky Flames and the swell of Harmony danced heavily through the room for just a moment before the Flames flickered out of existence.
Kyouya's eyes narrowed dangerously. "Who hurt you?" He demanded.
Asterion, buoyed by Harmony and the Tranquility that Shamal had been infusing him with every morning, plopped down onto the floor and began chattering.
"It started when I was left on my Aunt's doorstep….."
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Please leave a review on your way out!
Also, Tsuna will still have a major role to play. I haven't forgotten him! And no, there will be no character-evisceration. At least purposefully. It's really hard for me to be nice to Iemitsu for some reason.