A/N: Thank you to Pseudonymous Soul for crying without suing me for it ^^". Thank you to Furionkinght for the support. Thank you to Kanako Arichi for the image of Seiji playing Queer Eye for the Straight Guy with Reborn XD. Thank you to miss Lunakatsuma for your diligence as always! It makes me tear up a little. -sniff-. (Less than three. TTATT). Thank you so much to p. ageha. for a compliment that made me roll around on the floor a little, squeaking incoherently. (Okay, that was a little exaggerated. I rolled around on my bed, hugging a pillow, HRE style. ^^"). Thank you to blizzard 10 for giving me the image of Hibari beating Mukuro senseless- oh, wait, that's canon. o-o. Thank you to Chibi-Onee-chan for motivation! xXxMentalPancakesxXx, I don't even know where to begin (as always) but just please know that you are amazing for coming up with Seiji in a dress from Reborn as a matador. Epic imagination right there. (Your reviews make my WEEK far too often than is healthy. ^_^). Thank you to itachluv18 for the nice comment (^^). Thank you to charm13insomnia for making me go back and read my own chapters again just to see what caused your reactions. (Reborn getting soft- I died a bit). Thank you to lastwinter42 for the Hibari-empathy. (I have concluded that there is no such thing as Hibari-pity. It just doesn't work.)
Douzo, rea- wait. Give me a moment... TEN! Ten for c. 37. I WAS RIGHT. THE RATES OF REVIEWS ARE GOING UP. D: I used to average seven... -kerploosh-
...Reader-samas, any of you know an easy way to get stains out of carpet?...
Sunday, Namimori Forest
Random plateau, approximately 12AM
Mukuro kicked lightly at the scorch marks on the plateau, wondering briefly what had caused them before recognizing the distinct pattern of Storm flame burns. It seemed Gokudera had spent some time on that cliff-ringed rock, training.
Leaning on his trident, Mukuro sighed. He looked up at the moon, not quite full, hanging lopsidedly, a lazy lamp in the sky. The stars were sparse but bright, the sky perhaps appearing darker than usual. Mukuro blamed Yukimura Suzume's recent weather stunt.
Panning his eyes across the forest, the illusionist took in the scent of silence. It smelled like still water and warm air, but not so warm that there would be mosquitoes or flies. There was also still a strange tinge of winter in the soft summer breeze, as if the brief bout of snow had left an imprint behind on the atmosphere.
Mukuro's eyes stopped when he spotted a flash of color somewhere in the trees. He became very still, controlling his breathing, eyes darting about.
There, again, in the bushes by the lake. Mukuro very carefully sat down on the plateau as he sensed someone breaking out of the bushes.
He saw an unsteady mix of reddish flames, with occasional sparks.
Mukuro's lips lifted at the ends. Perfect.
He disassembled himself and wandered down to the lakeside as a tendril of mist, following a certain magenta-eyed redhead as she went for a midnight stroll.
It seemed little ol' Sleet had some sleep issues as well.
"Boo."
Immediately Mukuro's face was met with a streak of angry red flames, the fist within them knocking him back a few meters.
"Oh. It's just you."
It was like she didn't even attempt to feign surprise anymore.
Massaging his nose cautiously, Mukuro straightened from his sprawl-eagle on the ground, facing Ichinose Sayaka with his usual charming grin. "It must be the fates themselves, Saya-chan, pushing us to meet so often."
"I am residing in a house nearby. You are choosing the strangest places to frequent at the strangest times."
"I will take that as a compliment."
She sighed and turned to walk away, not intending on spending any more time in his presence.
Mukuro smirked. He, on the other hand, had time to spare.
He fell into step with her, deliberately staring at her as she deliberately avoided his gaze. They walked around the lake, making pointless conversation.
"What are you doing out so late? No respectable lady should be out alone at this hour."
Sayaka sighed. "I doubt I qualify as a respectable lady."
"So then what are you?"
She shrugged. "A commoner? A peasant?"
"A street lady of the night?" Mukuro offered.
Sayaka raised an eyebrow tiredly, but then said- "If I'm a whore, then what are you?"
"…A paying customer."
Bam. A Storm-wrapped fist sent him straight into the lake. He entered with a graceful splash, resurfacing almost immediately.
"Well, I see you've gotten stronger. Who would've guessed that you have the Storm attribute, with your esteemed ladylike disposition?" Mukuro drawled, arms behind his head as he gently kicked himself along the lake surface, keeping in pace with Sayaka.
"Though I would like to make the observation that you seemed less offended by the idea of being a whore and more at the idea that I would be interested in your services," he added lightly. Of course there was no real intent or meaning behind his words. It was just fun to watch her jaw tighten and those eyes flash.
In reply to his comment about her flames, she lit hers to show a mix of red, indigo and green. In regard to his other observation, she said nothing for a few seconds.
The wavering, spark-filled flames lit the way as she continued to stroll around the lake, almost halfway around by that point.
"I could hardly be so against the idea of that kind of profession. I would have never been born if it weren't for it."
Sayaka watched Mukuro's face for a moment as that processed.
...Oh.
Seeming to be pleased with finally shutting Mukuro up, Sayaka hummed lightly as she walked. To Mukuro's chagrin, it was Namigaku's anthem.
The illusionist did his best to push that most recent revelation out of his head, instead turning his attention to her flames. They weren't pure like Tsunayoshi's or Gokudera's but they were a sight nonetheless- he could tell from one look that it was a combination of multiple flames beyond even Gokudera's ability, who was the most flexible in flame types. Mukuro had more than a hunch that she was training with Reborn and Seiji, so perhaps she knew some secrets…?
"Sayaka, did you not say once that you could tell my bloodthirst from my eyes?"
"I don't believe that those were my exact words, but more or less, yes."
Mukuro got out of the water, the redhead indifferently lending a hand when he reached for her, and resumed his pace alongside her, occasionally picking at his wet clothes. "Can you tell me more?"
"…About your bloodthirstiness? Look, Rokudo, you know better than anyone just-"
"No, not that," he waved off. "I know full well I'm a morally absent bastard that has no qualms about blood and guts. Trust me, I've had six lifetimes to figure that one out."
To Sayaka's credit, she didn't look the least bit concerned about any of that.
"But can you tell, me, Sleet, if I am wrong in saying that 'love' is conditional?"
Had Seiji been teaching them similar things? If so, were the ideas the same?
To his surprise, the redhead laughed. Truly laughed, not the kind of put-on laugh where one tries to appear knowledgeable and sophisticated. She fully understood his question, and knew the answer all too well.
Sayaka shook her head, still smiling. "Love is the most conditional thing of all. Anyone who says otherwise is simply being naive or misled."
Expression doubtful, the illusionist asked "But do you not love Yukimura Suzume and Aoshima Kiyoshi? They are more to you than your parents, are they not?"
"I would not think of that as love."
"…Well?"
Sayaka shrugged. "Respect, loyalty, admiration- they have fulfilled the conditions to earn those and more. But 'love' is quite different. More likely than not, I will never 'love' anyone in this lifetime or the next."
Mukuro nodded, and approved of this with a few chuckles. "Now, if only all you little humans could understand that."
Sayaka looked back at him with a curious eyebrow. "And what are you?"
"Humans, like all other living things, are to be born, live, and then die." Mukuro turned to look at her with a small, eerie smile. "I was a human once, in my fifth life, when I erased my previous memories upon birth in order to attain the power of the Fifth Realm. I will never be human again."
Sayaka blinked and nodded. Mukuro's eyes betrayed his surprise at the simple reaction.
"Do you understand what I've been implying?"
"What, that you've lived six lives?"
He blinked. "And?..."
"My only real reaction to that is admiration. Once through life is enough for me, I could never imagine coming back to go through all of this again, let alone six more times," the Warden shrugged.
Mukuro had to keep staring at her for a moment. She was completely serious, and turned to return his gaze to confirm so.
After a couple seconds, Mukuro blinked and rubbed his eyes, trying to get rid of the afterimages of her magenta irises.
He heard her exhale in a little puff, smugly. No doubt she was smirking at her victory.
Sunday, Namimori Forest
Yukimura Residence, approximately 7AM
Suzume felt uneasy. Sat at the dining table between Shou and Kiyoshi, the Wardens spread out about the dining room, the youngest Yukimura felt a sensation that something had gone horribly wrong.
"Oh, morning, Shin," Seiji said cheerfully, not bothering to ask his eldest boy where he had been the night before.
And though the Yukimura patriarch knew something was wrong the moment Shin opened the glass sliding door and let himself into the house, he said nothing.
Suzume turned to greet her brother as well, before stopping in her tracks.
She saw it, in his eyes. In the way he held himself, like he was no longer sure the earth was stable anymore.
For a brief moment Suzume realized how she must have looked to Kiyoshi that day.
Then she promptly tackled her brother back out the door, slamming it shut behind her, and dragging him off.
Reborn, just entering the kitchen from the stairway, raised an eyebrow.
"What did I miss?"
Sunday, Namimori
Ootori Hospital, approximately 10AM
Tsuna exited the doors with a knit brow of concern.
A fancy embossed piece of card was tucked loosely into his left hand, his fingers playing with it absently as he pondered the situation.
Ootori Kyouya had left town, and left the Asphodel prisoners he had in the basement in Tsuna's care. There had been no explanation, nothing but the expensive-looking bronze-embossed card, with his name and details, and on the back, one short message that worried Tsuna even more than his actual departure.
'Don't worry; I'm not leaving you alone.'
Sunday, Namimori
Namimori Park, approximately 12PM
Suzume sat down on the bench heavily, hand buried in her hair, covering her face.
She was very still for a moment before letting out a strange mix of a groan and a scream in frustration, before laying herself down lengthways across the bench, arm shielding her eyes from the sun.
And then something fist-sized and solid landed on her stomach with a great impact. Irritated, she grabbed it and threw it back over the bench with quite some force.
"Thanks! Sorry for hitting you!"
...It was then that Suzume realized she'd just been hit by a baseball.
Sitting up, she looked over in disbelief to the sheepishly waving Yamamoto, an apathetic Lambo a little way behind him with a baseball glove on, matching the taller Guardian.
"Oh, Yukimura-san! What are you doing here?" Yamamoto's smile twitched just a bit when he realized she wasn't in her usual tolerant mood.
Standing from the bench, the Yukimura stalked off into the park's forest. After a moment of hesitation, concern on his mind, Yamamoto stripped of his baseball glove and followed after her.
"Yukimura-san?"
"...Please, I'm not in the mood to play games with you, Yamamoto."
He found her hunched up under a bush, knees to her face, short black hair shaggier than usual.
He sat down beside her, prompting her to shuffle over so there was enough ground space for both of them under the bush, and tucked his knees up as well, though with his considerable advantage in height he couldn't exactly tuck into a neat little ball like Suzume could.
He didn't say or ask anything, simply sat there and tried to breathe as quietly as he could. Suzume didn't seem to mind that, and so sat there with her own thoughts.
It could've been hours or seconds before she spoke, and Yamamoto wouldn't have been able to tell the difference. But she spoke to him eventually- that was what counted.
"Yamamoto. Your father… was involved in 'cosa nostra' in the past, right?"
He blinked. "What do you mean by 'cosa nostra'? Which 'our thing'?"
She sighed, though in a considerably calmer manner than she had been huffing before. "Our world." When Yamamoto continued to stare at her blankly, she put a palm to her face.
"The Mafia."
"Oh!..." the Rain Guardian's expression softened a little, staring at the ground in front of him, drawing little circles in the dirt with his heel. "I think so… yeah."
"And your mother was… I mean, because of…"
"Yeah."
The girl sighed, this time out of true fatigue. She pulled her knees closer to obscure half her face.
"How is it I've never realized how similar we are?"
Yamamoto made a surprised sound. "We… oh. Ahahah, I guess we are!"
Suzume turned her head, resting her cheek on her knee to watch him laugh awkwardly, hand behind his head. It made her wonder what it might have been like to deal with things his way- laughing them off, throwing himself into other things, never giving himself or anyone else even a second to ponder about his life.
"Yamamoto." His attention was gained. "If you found out something about..." she paused, and then rephrased. "If you found out something that would that would change everything…"
Yamamoto patiently waited for her to continue.
"…Would you tell anyone?"
"Are you asking if I'll tell anyone what you're telling me, or if I would tell anyone about a secret that would change everything?"
"The latter."
The baseball player shrugged, blue hoodie constantly getting tangled in the bush as he shifted about a little as he thought about it. "It would really depend on what it is. It might be important that it gets out in the open, but if it's really that bad… but I think that no matter what it was, I would tell at least tell my old man," Yamamoto concluded. "Especially if it should matter to him, then I would tell him. I don't keep secrets from him."
Suzume nodded, frowning, but in a contemplative way. "But what if it didn't only concern your father? What if it… how do I say this- What if it wasn't really your secret to tell?"
At this the boy did something he very rarely did- he frowned as well, and furrowed his eyebrows slightly.
"Yukimura-san, this isn't a hypothetical situation, right?"
"…I thought that that was rather obvious."
"Well, do you trust your father?"
This took the Yukimura by surprise. "Of course I trust him, he raised me."
"Then you could trust him with your worries, couldn't you? Instead of talking to me in the park under a bush, you should be talking to Seiji-san about this."
As if only just realizing where she was, Suzume blinked and then got up, dusting herself off. Yamamoto followed suit.
"Thank you anyway," she muttered as she picked a leaf out of her hair. "You shouldn't keep Lambo-kun waiting; he's probably wandered off by now." She returned to her regular, composed and slightly mother-hen self.
Yamamoto smiled. Fishing a pen out of his pocket, he grabbed her hand and scribbled a row of numbers onto it.
"Wait- Don't I already have your contact information? You're in the Council."
"Only my home phone. This way you can call any time you want."
Oddly touched by his gesture, Suzume nodded. "Thanks again." Then she peered around his arm and raised an eyebrow. "Is that Lambo-kun being offered candy by that old man?"
Yamamoto turned and they both froze as the man started leading the little boy off.
"LAMBO!"
Sunday, Namimori
Namimori Cemetery, approximately 1PM
Suzume sighed and stuffed her hands into her hoodie pockets. Actually, she wasn't quite sure if it was her hoodie, it might've been Kiyoshi's. But that was an irrelevant detail.
What was relevant was that as she passed the town cemetery, as she had on countless other occasions, she saw Hibari Kyouya.
Backtrack.
She saw Hibari Kyouya placing croquettes on a plate in front of a grave.
Deciding it wasn't appropriate to disturb him, Suzume walked on.
Just because she now knew why Hibari lived alone, why he had been so furious in his own quiet way on the night his precious Namimori was burned, and indeed why the town was so precious to him, didn't mean that she had to make a point of it.
She threw up her hood and walked on, and wondered what Hibari Keiko would think of this whole mess.
Sunday, Namimori
Abandoned warehouse, approximately 5PM
Shinichi didn't know for sure what had brought him back to the Asphodel settlement.
All he knew was that he wanted to know more. He wanted to know what Suzume knew, he wanted to know what had made her drag him out of the house and give him such a long tirade telling him to never let his father know, ever.
...About what though?
He was sure that Maria Gatti would lead him in the right direction. Because if the Asphodel boss hadn't been bluffing, she was his older sister.
But when he saw her again, sitting on a towel and talking with a couple of other people about some sort of strategy, Shin realized that he had no way of knowing for sure that she wasn't, aside from a blood test. Which he was considering more and more seriously.
"…Miss Maria?"
"…Yukimura Shinichi, aren't you? What are you doing here?"
He bit his lip lightly, eyes glancing at the others present. Felice, by Maria's side as always, sent them off. "Please, sit," he said smoothly, though watching Shin's every move.
Shin sat, and almost immediately one of his cats escaped his coat through his collar and climbed to sit on his head. He chuckled nervously at Felice's raised eyebrow.
"Is that not one of the kittens that went missing after your rescue of the Vongola Storm Squad back in Sicily?"
"….Maybe?"
"Yukimura. State your purposes," Maria said.
"Right." He saw that she was impatient to cut to the chase. "Well, I'll cut to the chase. Do you think your boss was bluffing when he said that you're my sister?"
Maria paused. And instead of giving a straight answer, she seemed to seriously consider it.
"It wouldn't be impossible. I'm a bastard child who just happened to be raised by the Gatti, so in reality I don't know who my parents are."
Shin took a moment to appreciate how easily she had just stated that she was a bastard child of the Mafia. It was never an easy thing to admit to anyone, no matter how much you trusted them, and here Maria was spouting it all to him.
Granted, she technically hadn't been Mafia since her Family had been dissolved, but that was a technical detail.
"…The Gatti boss even made me wear these blue contacts so that I couldn't be recognized by possible parents. I was raised as a child of the Famiglia, so I could serve it."
Shin nodded, and then he furrowed his eyebrows. "Contacts… you're wearing them right now, aren't you?" Her eyes were the main reason that Shin had been so doubtful. But if they weren't actually blue…
Maria blinked her faux blue eyes. "It's become habit. I've been wearing them since I could walk. Do you want me to take them off?"
"Please."
While Maria got out a small plastic case from her jacket and carefully tried to take her contacts out, unable to see what she was doing, she continued talking to Shin.
"I think I remember vaguely that I have brown eyes… I'm not sure, because somewhere in my teens Felice was assigned to me, and he was always the one to help me put these in… I guess now that I'm supposedly 'dead', taking these off might actually be a smarter choice…"
Eventually Felice bent down and carefully removed them for her, smiling in a knowing way.
After a couple moments, Shin's froze at her brilliant yellow irises. They were much brighter than his or even his father's, which was confusing.
"…Yukimura? Is everything alright?" After a couple of moments of silence, she reached over and felt for where his leg was, shaking it lightly.
"Sorry… your eyes…"
"Oh." A pause. "What color are they?"
"Yellow. Bright, bright yellow."
Maria blinked, her lamp-like eyes consuming all of Shin's attention.
"Well, that's unexpected… Argh, if only you hadn't hit me on the head so hard at your house, then I could take a look myself!" she threw her arms into the air, sighing.
"Am I supposed to say sorry? You were invading my home."
Maria put a palm to her face. "If we really are siblings, then we must have the most twisted-arse strings of fate in history."
Sunday, Namimori
Sawada Residence, approximately 5PM
At his dinner table, Tsuna felt a tickle in the back of his nose, and promptly sneezed.
While recovering, his cell phone rang. With a raised eyebrow, he picked it up and was almost afraid of who it was. It turned out that he had a right to be, because it was Ootori Kyouya.
"Sawada. Get out of Namimori. Now."