"You're behaving quite conspicuously." Hibari's still strangely formal words were uttered almost too low for Chrome to perceive, but her 'husband' had lowed his mouth to her ear to avoid being overheard. This minor reprimand wouldn't have been enough to draw her vigilant eyes from the unbroken black night, however he didn't straighten after delivering his admonition of her apparent stargazing, he leaned heavily on her shoulder almost dragging her down with him. She quickly turned trying to distinguish the cause of this bizarre development and adjust her position to support his sagging frame.

"Lady Ikari!" she called, but Yuni had disappeared. Petite Chrome was left to half drag her unresponsive companion to the closest seat alone. Gasping slightly from her exertion over the short distance she hurriedly assessed the Cloud Guardian's state. The longer he was like this the more attention they would draw and the more danger they'd be in. It didn't take her long to discover a pale pink cherry blossom tucked in the pocket of his suit jacket. She plucked the source of the poison from its sufferer and found a note attached to the thin stem. It read: "we will dance again soon."

She discreetly incinerated both the flower and the note with a spark of purple fire as Hibari began to stir. Knowing Mukuro had taken advantage of his Sakura-kura illness a second time could be enough to send Hibari tearing up the ballroom in search of him again, Chrome thought. He came to himself completely almost instantly after the offending fumes had been withdrawn. Enough of the scent lingered however that he divined the source of his temporary weakness and every muscle seized up with fury.

"Lord Tsukino," Chrome said delicately trying to redirect his escalating wrath. "I want to dance too." The remark worked in shifting the man's single minded focus. Hibari's hard black eyes locked onto the woman at his feet and a blush mounted in her face.

"Fine," he agreed tersely, his old mannerisms showing through has he continued recovering the rest of his strength.

The pair descended into the dancing throng as the orchestra began executing an elaborate waltz. The Mist Guardian had been thinking on her feet all night, improvising with each bombshell, and she now found herself in an unexpected and embarrassing situation. She'd anticipated bloody battles and perilous undercover spy work, but didn't think to be expected to know how to waltz of all things. The adrenaline blocked this realization until the moment she stood facing her partner. Hibari superficially perceived the abrupt and plain transformation of Chrome's face from an expression of relative contentment to one of flustered dismay.

"What is it?" He instantly became even more alert of the treacherous climate and their position in it. "Is an enemy behaving suspiciously?"

"N-no," she stammered. "It's nothing like that. It's just – you see, I can't…that is, I don't know how to…" she gave up on words nodding weakly to the swirling mass of dancers.

"Foolish woman." The usual irritation was back as he effortlessly lifted her slightly off the ground. "You're the one that asked to dance."

They merged into the flow of high society criminals, the Cloud Guardian waltzing smoothly and supporting the light illusionist at an imperceptible hover only centimeters from the floor. She hung mutely from his arms for a time, newly astonished. She'd gained more knowledge on him from this short and still incomplete mission than she had during her training with him thus far. His persistent dull, cold front gave the deceptive appearance that there was nothing beyond the aloof exterior – and the hostile surface provided no invitation for deeper exploration.

"Where did you learn to waltz?" The rush of the mission and the new insight made her bold.

"Do you think now is the time?" He spared her an annoyed glance and returned to continually scanning the dangerous guests. Chrome was about to insist that light conversation would help them blend in when Hibari stiffened and quickly spun them off course into a channel of couples dancing in the opposite direction.

"Where are we going?" she asked instead.

"I learned here."

"Learned…here?"

"I learned to waltz here, in this castle." The two whirled across the ballroom.

"Where are we going?" she asked again as her confusion grew into anxiety. "Away from someone? Toward something?"

"I had legions of tutors and instructors to educate me in every area of educate and academics," he continued. "All on his command."

He swung the Mist Guardian around again, but this time to his side so that they both stood facing an old man with utter terror in his eyes. Eyes the same grim obsidian as Hibari's.

"Kyoya," he sputtered. "I thought you were–"

The man was dead before he hit the ground, shot before he finished his final thoughts.

Chrome clung, petrified on the Cloud Gradian's right arm, a still smoking gun in his left hand. The blast of the gun was immediately followed by a much louder explosion from the sky. The chandeliers dimmed to accommodate the fireworks, and most of the party-goers turned their heads to the wide windows wandering away from the orchestra and making delighted exclamations at the showers of glittering fire, but those closest to the murder were thrown into uncertainty. The woman that had been waltzing with the deceased finally found her voice and shrieked. The alternating flashes of illumination from the rockets and darkness when the last sparks flickered out created sinister shadows on Hibari's face as the quickly expanding pool of blood touched his shoes and spilled under Chrome's feet.

Everything had been overturned in half a minute. The illusionist remained frozen, shocked at the abrupt and horrific turn of events. Though her body was paralyzed, her thoughts raced too fast for her to make sense of what had happened. The information Hibari had divulged moments before the assassination remained abstractions. Without time to sink in the revelations reminded on the surface of her mind like snow over a frozen lake–unable to assimilate into the larger body of water. She couldn't assemble the knowledge she had in any way that would answer, "why did you kill him?"

The Cloud Guardian looked at her strangely, like he'd forgotten he was carrying her, and set her down so they stood facing each other, both now soaking in the still-warm blood.

"Because I'm not a good person. And neither was he."

His answer with all its direct brevity and hardness cut through the dense haze of her bewilderment. She forced herself out of the daze, they were in the middle of a deadly mission and the signal to shift to the next phase was failing in its effect of drawing the eyes of every guest, insufficient to drown completely the screeching of the dead man's dancing partner.

She turned from Hibari and gracefully cast a wave of violet flames tinged with black in a ring around them. Arm outstretched, in one smooth motion, she drew a circle of fire. The screaming woman and the few remaining within a twenty-foot radius of her dropped heavily into an artificial slumber.

"That in itself will draw attention soon enough." The supposed Nagao twins had returned, identical young women holding hands, one clad in white and one in black, appearing as a bad omen in the ominous lighting. "We need to make our way to the rendezvous point, there's no time to untangle this."

"I came here on my own agenda." Hibari asserted glaring at the lady in shining black pearls who was Muruko, though it was Yuni in gleaming white who had prompted action. "I don't associate with you or those herbivores. I'm here with this woman," he jerked his head in Chrome's direction without breaking eye contact with his opponent, "to kill that man."

Muruko had been inspecting the draining body and let out a harsh laugh at the last statement, nothing like the eerie ku fu fu that was his trademark.

"And you think that will absolve you from your sins? This was no more significant than taking your mother's name." Palpable hatred flowed between them, running deeper and further back than anyone had imagined before.

"I was not seeking atonement, and I will not degrade myself speaking to you further." That style of speech, so weird in comparison with the usual few and choice words. Even more curious, the level of restraint Hibari displayed in not engaging in battle with his nemesis upon sight, let alone upon provocation.

"We've achieved my motives," he turned to Chrome. "You surely want to continue and rescue that accursed man's fellow inmate vagabonds."

"We have the situation under control." Mukuro tucked his arm into that of his 'twin sister.'

"I can only carry one person…onee-sama."

Yuni was smiling sweetly, gently, but with overtones of a princess's authority, bringing the group around to the absurdity of the situation. Here they four were, disguised as strangers and standing arguing surrounded by enemies sprawled on the ground, captive in an illusionary dream world. Hibari and Mukuro were again locked in a death glare, and only Chrome perceived a lumbering Gospella with wine stains down his suit barreling at Yuni from behind. Her arm shot out reflexively and a great surge of purple and black fire hit the savage brute in the middle of his chest. The Gospella staggered with a gaping mouth and popping eyes, fell to his knees, then on to his face, slightly singled and steps from his intended victim. The party collectively became vigilant again, they knew others would follow, they had lingered too long. Moreover, Chrome's Mist flames, more powerful for her meditation training, had brushed against Yuni on their path to her attacker, canceling the illusion that masked her identity and returning her to her original appearance.

"As you've apparently used me for your own ends," Chrome said addressing the Cloud Guardian and speaking for the first time since she'd questioned his motives for the seemingly senseless killing, "and jeopardized this entire operation, I think it's only appropriate you see to its success now."

He looked at her strangely again, but this time with the same excitement he'd shown when they'd fought in the incomplete environmental arena. Her eyes had the look of resolution to rescue her companions and accusation at her partner for using her. This much was apparent, though the circumstances that drove him remained shrouded in mystery.

"I'd be entirely unsatisfied if I left now," Hibari answered with a ghoulish grin, so much more frightening for its rarity. They knew this was the end of the infiltration and the beginning of the battle.