It's late. Blame school. TT_TT IT'S OUT TO KILL ME!

Sorry though. Really. I didn't mean for it to be late. So there's an extra at the end. And to answer a question; yes, there will be other views in this story. ^^ It's longer too! I hope you enjoy this!

I froze.

Bush-dancing. The nightmare of all students with crackpot teachers who think bush-dancing would be enjoyed by their dear students.

How could anyone like bush dancing? As we all filed slowly into the communal hall (some girls blubbering while some boys marched robotically towards the imminent doom called embarrassment) I sighed. If I couldn't escape bush-dancing in primary school in my previous life, why would I think I could escape bush-dancing in this life?

And to think that when I happily entered high-school with Amanda by my side, I thought I had escaped bush-dancing for sure. And to add to that irony, I had to do bush-dancing even in death. I shook my head.

Better make sure Tsuna wouldn't die from tripping over his feet and banging his head on an oh-so-conspicuously placed chair or something.

'Line up!' Mizuki-sensei sensei (a lovely teacher really, young and full of energy) cried out happily. We did so, but unfortunately the fan-boys had to wake up just then and realise that if they ran fast enough, they might get their Innocent Flower as their partner.

And oh, don't forget me.

Blegh. Charismatic Enigma. I still can't get over it.

And so, to protect my pretty self (ha, pretty!) and to keep with my mission, I glared at all of them before placing my eyes on Yamamoto.

'Partner, Yamamoto?' Yamamoto laughed and scratched the back of his head.

'Now, now, what's with the glaring?' he said as he casually walked over to me. Ignoring the fan-boy glares in true Yamamoto fashion, or just not noticing, he stood in front of me cluelessly.

'What do we do now?'

'I don't know. Wait for the others to partner up, I guess.' I shrugged out in response. Then I heard a scream from my left (a boyish scream too) and we both swivelled my necks to the noise.

And to our surprise, Maeda Yanushita was being mobbed by girls. And as recording down what he was screaming out would leave half-censored sentences and eyes bleeding (how he learnt those words, I would never know), I will skip that part and fast forward to where the teacher waded through the screaming mass of girls (it was like looking at a sold out ticket concert) and admonished him on his language.

Loudly.

After that was sorted out, he loudly proclaimed Setsuna as his partner and then... they left him alone. Just like that. And they didn't mob Setsuna with evil glares either.

I wonder why. Wish all those stupid fan-boys did that for me.

Maeda half ran, half scampered towards Setsuna, who was next to me and breathed out a thank god.

I glared at him for his language from before.

It gave me a headache. Seriously. Fan-boy screams were all and fine, but add fan-girl screams, half-shouted swearing, and then loud teacher admonishes with some agonised screams from fan-girls as they realised he had a partner was just too much.

I wonder why I'm getting so many headaches lately.

But then I realised where I was and promptly banged my head against a helpfully placed wall.

Setsuna and Yamamoto looked weirdly at me.

'Hey, what are you doing?' Setsuna asked me, still with that weird look on her face.

'Eh, punishing myself for asking a stupid question to myself.' Yamamoto laughed. As per usual. I kind of wish Gokudera was here so he could call him baseball freak and spark one of those one sided arguments. They were funny.

The other students paired up (with Kyoko's side finally being sorted out by Hana's helpful fists of annoyance) and Mizuki-sensei beamed out happy beams again and continued her monologue.

'Syuuke-sensei and I will now demonstrate the first bush-dance, heel and toe!'

Then they did this awkward demonstration and then they put the two lines (one boy one girl) together to make a circle and said the dreadful words.

'Let the dance begin!' said that annoyingly happy voice that pierced my eardrums and made my headache that much worse. Then... the fiddle music began.

It was that type of old folk music, it would be happy and cheerful and bouncy if the recording wasn't so ancient, the qualities so bad, the instrument seeming so out of tune, the speakers so crappy... (Okay, it wasn't that bad. I was just in a bad mood. Can't blame me) and grimacing, Yamamoto and I held hands and did the awkward shuffle required for the dance.

An awkward shuffle was to be expected. This was the age where cooties were still firmly believed in. The age where feelings were just "starting to blossom". (Why couldn't the fan-boys believed I had cooties? But then, they were boys and only boys had cooties…)

Immediately, the annoying fiddle music stopped.

'Now what was that? More bounce, more skip, you're young, use your SPIRIT!' We stared at Mizuki-sensei blankly, and as if she had been learning from Yamamoto, she ignored it with a smile and grinned even bigger, showing all her teeth.

She looked like a shark.

'Now, shall we try again?'

She rewinded the old style tape and the starting chord filled the air with its scratchy that seemed to scratch the air.

'Now say it with me~! Heel, toe, heel, toe, SLIDE SLIDE SLIDE SLIDE!' There were non-committal grumbles. She frowned. 'MORE ENTHUSIASM! OR WE'LL REPEAT THIS!'

The magic words. We all immediately screamed the words with her, including me.

'!' We all screamed. Because we were all screaming all different times, it all sounded like an unending sentence.

And through it all, Mizuki-sensei smiled triumphantly.

She was nice. Really. I liked her classes, stopped me from getting too bored from learning Grade Six stuff again. But… please notice I used was in that sentence. She was nice. But in bush-dancing, she was like a certain baby Hitman tutor.

After the heel and toe, I was with a random person. I forgot how many times we had done the heel and toe, but the partner swapping had gotten Yamamoto on the other side of the room.

I looked down at my partner. He looked elated to touch my hands for an extended period of time. People I had dubbed as hard-core fan boys glared at him. I grinned at them, just to tease them.

They immediately blushed from head to toe.

I suddenly felt guilty.

And I didn't know why.

Anyway, Mizuki-sensei had already popped another rustic looking tape into the player.

'Let's do this! This dance doesn't need a partner!' The partner I had with me sent a disappointed glance at my hands and let go. I looked at Kyoko, sure that she would've gotten, I dunno, at least ruffled a bit.

But I saw her partner and grinned, as Tsuna immediately let her hands go, his face beet red. I smirked. If he blushed like that all the time, he might faint, and that won't go too well with my mission now, will it?

But anyway, I moved over to Setsuna, still smirking. Setsuna took one look at my face and did a dramatic eye-sweep over the crowd with her hand over her eyes.

'Who's being bullied?' I scowled at her.

'You know I don't do that.' She grinned at me.

'I love teasing you! You have the most adorable reactions.' I glared at her even harder. Adorable? Adorable?

…These eyes were supposed to intimidate right? Why wasn't it working on the grinning, glasses-wearing person right in front of me?

Setsuna grabbed my hand and shoved through the crowd, going towards Kyoko, and coincidentally, Tsuna. Fine with me, I mentally shrugged.

'Kyoko-chan!' Kyoko's eyes lit up from a conversation from a random boy. It was obvious to me that she thought it wasn't that interesting (though her smile didn't show it) and her relief at seeing Setsuna only reinforced the impression.

'Setsuna-chan! Alice-chan!' Setsuna immediately let go of my hand and went to Kyoko to chat while the boy drifted away and started talking to another boy, probably a friend. Left behind (Kyoko and Setsuna can talk unbearably fast. I couldn't form Japanese words that fast yet. That was partly the reason I talked slow. But nooo, of course the fan-boys didn't see it as me not being able to speak Japanese well. They made it out like I was laid-back or something. And then somehow... it spread around, so I'm now the laid-back Charismatic Enigma.) I talked to Tsuna absent-mindedly.

'So we're the third wheels?'

And because there was no response, I looked over to Tsuna to see Tsuna enraptured with Kyoko's laugh. I shrugged to myself.

'So I'm the third wheel.' I said to myself, leaning against another conveniently placed wall. Mizuki-sensei called to us.

'Ok, these are the steps to the Nutbush! Students please watch carefully!'

I carefully pried myself from the wall and walked towards Syuuke-sensei.

'I need to go toilet!' I exclaimed with a pained expression. He looked at me and waved a hand.

'Go.'

And so I went out the door into the refreshingly cool night air. Then remembering the insect repellent in one of my numerous pockets, I put some on, eyeing the air around me for mosquitoes that would try to get a suck before I could get the insect repellent all on.

After the insect-repellent, I inwardly giggled evilly. My acting wasn't so bad, really…

I wandered around the paths aimlessly, my eyes adjusting the dark slowly but surely. And it was then that I noticed a flash, a movement. I immediately tensed.

Jack, Spartan Teacher No. One had always told me this: Abnormally fast movements were not common. Why would normal people move so fast? How would normal people move so fast? Fast-movers were suspicious. It means that the person doing it always had something they had to do.

Nearly always it was something suspicious they had to do.

I put on my sunglasses, making me half-blind yes, but also nearly undetectable. My eyes were the only thing that anchored me to this reality, the only thing that made people notice me. Without the eyes, my body was practically undetectable, a ghost…

An empty shell my brain grimly thought out and I pushed it away, not wanting to face that and remembered what direction the movement moved towards. Then I walked that way slowly, and relied on hearing.

My hearing adjusted, just like my eyes. I heard trees rustling, wing blowing, the little pitter patter of animal feet, a stray cat's meow, whispers.

I honed in on the whispers. My ears told me they were up. So I looked up, going to the edge of the road to get closer.

'I heard a rumour that a candidate for the tenth Vongola boss is here.'

'Are you sure, Red? We are acting on vague mission details.'

'Can't be wrong. Sightings of a Brighteye around a certain school. It was confirmed after awhile that one of her classmates had ties to the Vongola. His father is Iemitsu.'

'The Iemitsu Sawada?'

'Yes. His son is the second strongest candidate after Xanxus.'

'But that incident…'

'Don't care about that. We are the only reconnaissance who knows, this is a top secret only we and the top boss know. They said if our reconnaissance was proved positive, we would need to remove him immediately.'

'So that's why you wanted us to stalk that wimpy guy and that rich girl! But why would you know? Are the Brighteyes really that important?' I edged closer, wanting to hear more clearly.

'Are you living under a rock, Mauve? They are the top of the top, the elite. They specialise in information gathering, and I heard a rumour that they can hide their presence so well that even security cameras powered with flames couldn't catch them!' Red, I presumed, said in a harsh whisper.

'That's amazing… But why would you know if a Brighteye was here that something special was here?' The faint outline of Red behind my sunglasses shook his head.

'I only said Brighteyes only specialised in information. They dabble in other stuff too. And there's this thing. When a Brighteye turns twelve, they go on a special mission, a mission just their own. Every single mission they have done outside information gathering has been big.'

'How big?'

'Last huge one was the Bovino war incident. A Brighteye with deep red eyes, rumoured to look pink, at that time dabbled in Bovino affairs. Rumour is that she spoke three words to the opposing family. They backed away immediately. And the war was averted.'

'That's amazing…'

'Brighteyes don't loiter, so when they do seemingly loiter, something big is going to happen. And it did. Vongola tenth candidate right there next to her.'

'But he's just a wimpy kid!'

'Don't get tricked by appearances. We strike at night, when everyone's sleeping, got it?'

'Yes.' Mauve said in a professional tone.

Seeing I couldn't leech more information off them anymore, I took off my sunglasses. Red immediately looked down and looked alarmed to see me there.

'Brighteye…' He hissed. I grinned at him, showing my teeth. Then I widened my eyes. He shrunk back a bit.

'Hello. A nice bit of information you got there, isn't it?' Red narrowed his eyes at me. He was young, sixteen at most, but he had the look of a professional.

'So the rumour of an undetectable presence was real…'

'Yes. Oh, and Mauve?' He looked at me. He couldn't have been fourteen. He didn't look professional at all. Maybe it was his first assassination. I noticed, with sharp eyes, they looked similar. I continued in a conversational tone. 'Can't let you go harming my charge. Sorry, got to stop it here.'

Red's eyes immediately narrowed and threw a needle at me. I smirked and dodged pretty easily.

Adrenaline was rushing, it seemed.

'Needles? A bit old fashioned, but whatever.' Red, keeping his eyes on me, said to Mauve.

'Brighteyes use the weirdest things as weapons. But they are good. She can attack you with something that doesn't look like a weapon. Be cautious.'

I smiled genially, holding my hands out. 'Hey, don't be so suspicious. I don't have any weapons on me.' Mauve looked confused, while Red still looked on with hard eyes. 'But of course, I got to protect my charge from impending attacks. I can think of so many ways to defeat you.'

I was bluffing of course.

'But I know that this one will work just fine.' I smiled. Then I opened my mouth, and screamed.

Oh, was my scream loud. It pierced the air, sliced through the silence and startled every living thing in a thirty metre radius. Red recovering first cursed and glared at me.

'It's a benefit of looking twelve. Adults listen to you and not suspicious boys. It helps I'm a girl, of course.' I said offhandedly. Red only continued to glare.

Sounds were starting to come from the right. I kept smiling.

'And besides, shouldn't you thank me?' Red seemed to think of ignoring me and turning away to leave with a Mauve that was still slightly disorientated.

'For what?'

'Saving your brother's innocence.' Red's eyes widened slightly.

'How…' Then he smiled lopsidedly. Mauve was still rubbing his ears, he didn't hear what Red and I said. To his defence, I really did have quite a piercing scream. 'Of course, Brighteyes know everything. How could I forget?'

I smiled at him, genuine now. They were trying to kill Tsuna. But they weren't bad. Although Red was professional, I had a feeling he was not really frozen. Not yet.

'Not all knowing. Just good observation.' I tapped the corner of my eyes. 'Now go. I don't like harming people. I'll just guard Tsuna tonight. I don't want to lose my innocence over a tiny little thing like this. I bet this isn't even that important is it?'

The noises were getting louder. Voices were distinguishable now.

'I would ask how you knew, but I think I won't get an answer.'

'To the contrary, I will tell. They won't send an unexperienced person,' I nodded at Mauve, 'to an important mission now, would they? It was just confidential because not many people knew about Tsuna. Now shoo. Or you'll really be caught.'

The two shot me a look. And they flitted into the darkness just as the little group came in response to my scream.

'What happened?' A concerned looking teacher I didn't know said to me. I let my eyes water, putting my hands up to wipe away crocodile tears.

'I got lost, and I was wandering around and then I saw a cockroach…' I wailed out, sobbing my little heart out. The teachers breathed a sigh of relief that it was only that and gently led me back to the cabins, not suspecting anything much from a twelve year old.

'Now, don't cry now… Do you like chocolate? Let's get you some chocolate when we get back to our cabins, ok?'

I smirked.

I just realised why the camp had been strangely monotonous.

Because it had been normal. And because normal can never exist…

Jack's view

His sister had died.

He didn't know what to do. He only looked at his big sister in that glass case, looking peaceful when she obviously was not.

It had taken a little time to organise the funeral. When nobody was looking, Alice seemed to have filled in a form for becoming an organ donor just in case they died in an accident. He nearly laughed when he heard. It was just like Alice. But the funeral was here now, and here he was, dressed in black clothes and staring.

He had been in denial. He could admit to that. Turned his back on his sister's side of the room, avoiding the dinner table where they had eaten together, convinced himself that she was just on a very long trip.

A trip that she would never come back from…

He now missed her voice. She always had a soft voice, she wasn't a loud person. But her sense of sarcasm always hid that. With that, she could always make him laugh. Laugh and laugh until he forgot the thing that he had been upset about, and she would smile too, before delving into complicated science books, lying on the bed, stomach down, legs kicking.

It was stuffy in the room, he noticed. Aunts he didn't know he had, blank-faced cousins greeting him, giving him condolences, saying goodbye, all with that tone, the tone used for sick people, for the sad, for the grieving…

Grey hair was neatly splayed on a white pillow. It was a dark grey, like clouds on a stormy night. Alice had always said she hated that hair. But he loved it, how both Alice and his dad (the two most important people in his life) had grey hair. He wished he had it too, to share a trait with them, the two most important, two most shining people to him.

Where people found normality, he found stars. With real stars, he could only watch them sparkle, twinkling high in the sky, ever there but strangely remote, and so far away. But his two stars weren't like that. They dim compared to the sun and moon, but they were there, close and comforting.

But one of his precious stars had died with a car screech and another was fading fast. His dad seemed to falter without her, the other twinkle in a field of bright suns and shining moons.

His own black hair combed back and stuck into place with gel, he looked on. Tears didn't seem to be able to spring from his eyes, they remained stubbornly dry. He felt so horrible. He couldn't even cry at his sister's funeral.

The words, those wise words. That one, about loss, and how being away makes a person go fonder or something. But it wasn't fonder. It was loss all the way through.

He was sure that the whole family felt it, that cavern in the family, that huge gap. Even Emily. What made it worse was her walking around asking where "Awice" was.

It was strange, it was when they were gone that people start to think of the good things they had done. How irreplaceable they were. Alice had been so integrated into the family that it was just accepted. He had been annoyed with her many times, and when she was alive he remembered all the bad things. But now, it was like a house with its roof torn off. And the house just cannot help but notice, and feel it.

A person called his name. He turned around, letting the image of his sister in that box, in that horribly cold box, slide from his view. He felt he was underwater; his movements slow and lethargic while the world wizzed by, not feeling the amazing light that suddenly died.

He had always been close to his sister, he guessed. She was the only one he could cling to, after all, when he was a little kid of three and both their parents were away. And they both grew up, growing closer and farther in different ways. He wouldn't call her for little things that would alarm him when he was little like running out of toilet paper. But she was the one he crawled to after a bad nightmare.

He couldn't do that again.

Never again.

'Alice!'

'Yeah?' Alice looked at him with an annoyed look, flicking the page of a thick-looking book absentmindedly.

'We read about death today…'

'So?'

'Does death really mean that they get separated from each other forever?'

Alice didn't need him to clarify what they meant. She was like that. She sighed.

'No, I don't think so. I mean, if we're all good, then they would meet in Heaven again, right?'

'You won't leave right?' He suddenly asked, irrational thought suddenly coming into childish thought processes. Alice laughed.

'Of course not.'

His mother was heading towards the glass box, carrying something bright, a splash of colour in the whites and blacks and greys that had pervaded this room, his world.

Sunflowers.

She had always liked sunflowers. Said they were always bright and smiling. Remembered how he laughed at her, saying how can flowers smile? And then she smiled at him. A smile that he wouldn't see again. He watched as his mother tenderly put the one single yellow sunflower in front of her, into the cold glass box.

With that, he couldn't help it. A gulp came up his throat, then a little cough and suddenly, his cheeks were streaming with tears.

And he cried, loudly, expecting warm arms to come around him, long grey hair obscuring his vision.

But it didn't happen. Because she wasn't there anymore. Because she could never be here anymore.

So he cried, cried and cried for things lost, regretted, and her.

His dear, dear sister.