Chapter 23: The Cursed Doll

Hibari had run for about five minutes, carrying Tsuna in his arms. Her blood had spread across his lavender shirt, making him click his tongue once or twice in annoyance. They were in the middle of an unused and deserted road; a different road had been built in its place years ago, so this road was closed down. Unfortunately, Hibari needed a discreet way to get to his destination, so that road would be the only convenient path; he could not use his vehicle, which he had left near the marketplace.

Setting the girl's body on the side of the road, he took out a small medical kit – he figured that he was a safe distance by then, and needed to quickly tend to her for awhile before he could arrive at the Vongola stronghold.

Inside the kit was a vial of sour-looking orange liquid, a roll of bandages, a syringe and another small container of clear liquid. Hibari started by placing Tsuna's injured arm out of the way. He drew some of the clear liquid into the syringe, and then carefully inserted it into Tsuna's wrist. It would numb the pain for about thirty minutes; ample time to get to the safe spot. Next, he tore a piece of bandage and rubbed some of the orange liquid over it, wiping it over the bleeding wounds - it was a sort of medicine that would stimulate accelerated healing, but Hibari knew that it only worked on the surface abrasions that Tsuna had, and would not do much to help the deep wound caused by the crushing of the sharp heels. He used as little force as possible, knowing that the bones in Tsuna's fingers were mostly crushed or broken. Miyoshi had certainly taken the liberty to cause as much pain and hurt as possible.

Finally, he lightly wrapped her hands. Tsuna was still passed out, presumably from the shock and pain; Hibari could not help but to scoff at her weakness. It was Hibari after all – he had many a time been called a chauvinistic bastard.

"I found you," a low, husky voice rang out in the air.

Hibari stood up slowly, drawing his tonfas. Behind him was a man – no, he looked more like a discarded ragdoll. He wore a strange red shirt that was torn in places. It looked ten sizes bigger than he; the same could be said for his dark coloured pants. Drooping from his breast pocket was a withered daisy, and in his left arm was a faded pink rabbit. It was broken and spilling, but the most noticeable part of the rabbit was the large sewn tear across its face.

It resembled the throbbing scar across the face of its master.

"Give me that girl, give me that girl!" he said, hopping up and taking a few steps towards Hibari. He walked awkwardly – his back was hunched and his legs were bent as he walked.

Hibari scowled and lunged forward. However, just as he thought his tonfas would meet the man's face, the man took one graceful step backwards.

"Hey, won't you give her to me…?" he said, trying to employ a coaxing tone by dragging the syllables in his words; however, he still managed to keep monotony in his voice, and it shook at irregular intervals. This man – from his appearance to the way he spoke – he was the nightmare incarnate.

"No," Hibari simply replied, and went in for another attack. The man dropped his rabbit doll and looked down, as though sad and withdrawn.

"…I see," he sniffed. As Hibari drew closer, the man looked up and unexpectedly swung his fist forwards, landing a hit on Hibari's gut. Hibari choked in surprise, but managed to do a back flip in the air and regain his composure.

"I'm Daisy," the man said. "You'll be my next doll, won't you? Lots of people have died to become dolls, and I have a lot of fun. Too bad they all rot away afterwards and start to smell foul. I just don't understand." His voice contained a certain cheer in it, in spite of the topic at hand as well as the perpetual frown that lingered on his face.

"Keh," Hibari said. He flipped his tonfas around; the metal parts started shifting around until soon, two twin guns lay in his hands. He aimed and shot as Daisy continued with his banter.

"Oh! You can't do that when someone is talking. It's rude," Daisy said, dodging the first bullet. The second bullet hit his arm however, and blood streamed down. Hibari's eyes widened in a rare display of shock as he saw Daisy's arm patch itself up after spitting the bullet out.

"Oh, that's another thing I forgot to tell you."

Hibari was beyond listening now as he aimed both guns at Daisy. As Daisy ran, the bullets changed their trajectory and picked up speed on the man; they were homing bullets that would follow its target until it reached its maximum speed, at which only a great force could redirect or stop it. This was dangerous for obvious reasons – the target could easily redirect the bullets to hit someone else after it could not change its course of flight – though, only if the target could outrun the bullet at maximum speed. That would be impossible and inhumane, so the flaw of the bullet had yet to be exploited.

Daisy could only avoid the bullets for about five seconds before they punched bloody holes into his back. He fell to the road, coughing and spitting blood. Then, just as before, his body healed itself. He scowled, and tried to quickly think of a counter strategy.

"I'm a modified superhuman –" Daisy said, picking up his trampled rabbit.

A modified superhuman. Well, that was a first.

"Byakuran-sama made my body immortal! Every bit of fiber – every cell was modified to have the properties of stem cells, except better. All my tissues, my limbs, every living, breathing part of me will regenerate at an elevated rate, so much so that nothing can wound me or kill me," his voice was shaking uncontrollably now.

Hibari's eyes narrowed. As Daisy talked, he drew a special clip from his pocket and loaded it into his tonfa-guns.

"See this scar here! I was almost hacked to pieces…my head…and Byakuran-sama saved me!" Daisy trailed on.

"Shut up," Hibari said. He fired just one shot at Daisy, whose eyes were rolling around fantastically as he harbored thoughts of his precious savior. The shot hit Daisy squarely in the chest, and Daisy stopped talking.

"That's no good, you shouldn't abruptly ruin –…" Daisy stopped midway as he felt something swell up in his chest.

"Let me help you amplify those regenerative powers," Hibari stepped forward and kneeled in front of his enemy, who was now keeling on the road. Hibari squeezed Daisy's chin between his forefinger and thumb and mockingly smiled. Then, he let the Daisy drop to the ground as his entire body convulsed and twitched and jerked violently.

Hibari had figured – if he could not punch a wound or kill Daisy with orthodox methods, then he would do the opposite; the bullet that he fired contained the same drug that he had applied on Tsuna's hand, except it was a lot more concentrated and most definitely not for humans. It would cause the regeneration within Daisy's body to go out of hand.

Hibari clicked the micro-transmitter in his ear on.

"Hello!" A friendly voice piped.

"Dino, track my location and take care of the man there."

Hibari went back to the still unconscious Tsuna, picked her up, and began to run again.

Reborn sat at his desk facing away from Iemitsu.

"So, what do you propose we do?" he said, lazily resting his head on the back of his palm. Iemitsu's face wrinkled as he went into deep thought.

"I'm not letting you kill her," he said with an air of finality.

"And you're going to let her kill everyone else once she's fallen into the Millefiore's hands? They've made their move, I trust you know that, Mr Sawada," Reborn scathingly said. He knew that Sawada Iemitsu was his boss, but sometimes the man was too headstrong, so Reborn did not really bother to respect him.

"That experiment was a mistake," Iemitsu said. He combed his hand through his hair, sighing.

"Everything is a mistake then."

"Paracelsus' homunculus. Never would we know several centuries later that we could artificially create human lives. Never would anyone have known we took the theory and blown it up several times…"

Reborn tilted his head to the side.

"A double edged sword. We sell these created human lives – no, products. They're what everyone wants, isn't it? The heightened propensity to make people feel ecstasy just through their voices, hah. Mukuro's a pretty shining example – our advertisement."

"That pretty bastard's sworn revenge on all mankind."

"Yeah, when we look at it this way, nothing good has come of this," Reborn twirled his olden-day styled fedora around.

"We did get some warning off a book from an obscure author centuries ago about doing these things," Iemitsu half laughed.

"So?"

"You're not killing her. I doubt you can bear to."

Reborn stopped his twirling – he was caught unawares; Iemitsu knew.

"Then boss, what shall we do? Hibari Kyouya will be approaching in approximately a minute's time."

"We'll need to increase the security around here. Tell them to hurry up with the anti-technology; it'll negate all of Millefiore's best tracking technologies. We can safely stow Tsuna away in another country after this – but not in Italy, no – the Millefiore is smart enough," Iemitsu said, standing up.

"I'll go prepare for my daughter's arrival."

"Have a good day at school!" Yamamoto Tsuyoshi waved at the two teenage boys, who were both in high school now. Hibari was a grade higher, a fact that Yamamoto regarded grudgingly; that made Hibari his senior, and subsequently a figure to respect. Well, Hibari was not going to get any of his respect, anyway.

The two led completely mutually exclusive lives outside of home – while Yamamoto was the popular, handsome and athletic boy in his year, Hibari was a stoic recluse who shunned any contact at all. The two were on opposite ends of the spectrum – they were bipolar, and thusly, if the both were forced into any situation together, they clashed.

While Yamamoto had been admired by countless girls, Hibari was feared. While Yamamoto was respected, Hibari was scorned. While Yamamoto bathed in love, Hibari drew hate. Where Yamamoto was perfect, Hibari was, for once in his life, flawed and broken.

The two only saw a temporary truce, but never came to a consensus on peace. It had been a few years since Hibari had moved in now, but the hatred never wore off. It was impossible, Yamamoto figured.

Yamamoto had decided that day that he would strum his guitar on the rooftop, enjoying the breeze as he played. It was a hobby which he picked up from the advice of an old friend. Gokudera was gone – he had been in Italy for so long and was denied contact with him; his mother and his other…

Yamamoto did not want to think anymore. He continued playing, until he heard the automated door slide open. There stood Hibari, the person he would last want to be trapped on the rooftop with. Yamamoto disregarded the other man, but Hibari glared at him.

"Get out," he said acerbically.

Tensions were running even higher now.

"Get out," Yamamoto mimicked. He was beyond the point of no return now, might as well put up a good fight. He set the guitar down and slipped his hands into his pockets, smiling.

Hibari on the other hand, was easily angered. He kept a pair of weapons on him all the time, just specially to draw the blood of his enemies. He charged towards Yamamoto, and as he approached, he swung his arm up with much force.

However, Yamamoto read his movements, having lived with Hibari for so long. He did a good job of dodging the painful tonfas until he was backed up against the fence. Hibari was about to give the finishing blow, but he stopped short just inches of hitting Yamamoto's chin. Yamamoto, who had his eyes shut tight in anticipation of pain, slowly opened his eyes to see Hibari withdrawing his tonfas.

This somewhat relieved him to the point that he started laughing. Hibari turned around, not wanting to show his face to Yamamoto.

"Alright, I'll leave," Yamamoto gathered all his items and let the other boy stand on the rooftop, alone.

A/N: No this chapter doesn't make any cow sense.

Also, I won't give prizes for guessing who that "obscure author" centuries back was - if you think about it long and hard I suppose you could try figure her out.

And thanks for the reviews! - I'll try get round to individually replying the more recent ones tomorrow.

Edit: Wow, loads of mistakes here.