I had only gone into the forest for two minutes when I heard a scream of pain that wasn't from a girl – so either it was Shouichi who was unconscious or Jared. But Jared was an assassin, he wouldn't scream, and it just so highly unlikely that I paused walking for a second.
Then I heard why when I heard the scream again.
"RUN, ALICE!"
I didn't question. I just ran, cursing because running would just aggravate my injury more. Maybe I really should have truly rested and became a vegetable in those days in the past. But then, my muscles would degenerate, so it was a double-sided blade. I still had… yes, I had three chopsticks. Where was chopstick number four?
Whatever.
I saw rather than heard a person behind me, a shadow from the camp that I was just so lucky to be near when she caught up to me. Bluebell had left the clearing already – Reborn was there and… Yuni had arrived safely.
Good.
I turned, trying not to make noise, as I was only a little far off and if I could see them they could see me – I did not want Tsuna to be distracted again.
A shadow from behind – I twisted and turned, reverse gripping my chopsticks. To my (eternal) surprise, my chopstick actually hit something. The chopstick left my hand with… whatever I had stabbed; another was torn away from a slightly sweaty grip. I shook the hand off even while the cry of pain died off. That scream attracted attention, I knew, because from the fire there were footsteps. I inwardly cursed in my brain at whoever it was, when I gave myself a little second to look over my shoulder – Yuni! Why was she here, of all the stupid idiotic kind things to do! No, no! It… this was happening all wrong!
One chopstick left.
"Yuni, stay back," I grimaced, coughing a little as my arm thrust her back. It wasn't her time yet. Why was this happening now? I looked up, and Belle was grinning even as she held two of my chopsticks in a bloody hand, one of her eyes stabbed out and blood streaming down her face.
She was smiling at me. Why did she catch up to me? She could have just gone for Yuni and… where was Tsuna?
"Sorry Alice!" She chirped just so happily, and lunged at me. I threw a smile back, throwing myself out of the way. Yuni did step back, apparently – and Reborn was here now too.
"Where's Tsuna?" I asked him, and he cocked his gun.
"There was a commotion so –"
I cursed. "Ghost. He wasn't supposed to come so fast. Is Varia here?"
"Mukuro too."
A shot rang out, and Belle had to retreat before acknowledging the conversation. Her eyes flickered to us, the clearing, and after confirming Tsuna really wasn't here she lit up her boots and flew up, her trident twirling.
"Yuni will be ours anyway. You cannot stop the Trinisette from resounding with each other."
"I believe in Tsuna."
Belle's happy face didn't change. "But you're wondering, aren't you? If I've changed enough things?"
I nodded. "The butterfly effect. One thing changes to affect the whole. In battle, even one second is crucial." I didn't take my eyes off Belle, but I gripped my one remaining chopstick tightly, my hands grimy and sticky and disgusting but first. "Reborn, take Yuni to a safer place."
There was no answer, but I suddenly saw an absence of white in my peripheral vision.
"Good." Belle grimaced, shaking her head a little.
"It changes nothing."
"It changes everything."
Belle gave me a hard smile. "Why can't you just give up?"
"The same reason as you."
"You're at your limit."
In reply, I pressed down on my stomach wound. Blood.
"Yes."
But so are you went unsaid.
As Belle dived, I saw a flicker of purple from the forest.
The not-so-herbivore came in, and everyone was glad to see him, as they, he was powerless to stop their strength from being sucked away. Hibari was annoyed at this – he could only stand there as someone apparently drained his strength?
As if he would stand for that. He was not an herbivore.
He was about to take a step forward, bring that glowing cocky bastard down when the not-so-herbivore flew in front of him. His eyes were determined but worried. He narrowed his eyes.
That type of hair had to be breaking Nami-chu rules.
"Hibari, you're the only one I can trust this to," Tsuna said hurriedly. "Please go back. Alice needs help."
Hibari raised an eyebrow. Sunglasses? She needed no help, though admittedly she was better at retreat than attack. Priorities. Right now the not-so-herbivore was standing between him and the green bastard –
"The baby," he muttered, trying to side-step him. He'll point out his hair a little later when he'd beat the glowing herbivore down –
"Reborn is protecting Yuni. I'm needed here – the opponent is strong," Tsuna's eyes flickered towards the trees, "and you want to fight strong people right?"
Hibari gave no reply. Then he gave an 'hn' and turned around. "I'm not listening to you because you're—"
He got cut off by a short and sincere reply.
"Thank you."
Then Tsuna flew away. Hibari started running back towards where he had mentioned. The exchange had only lasted for less than eight seconds.
Hibari had already found a grudging respect towards what was commonly thought to be the weakest most useless boy in Nami-chu. He was an herbivore until his eyes glowed – sunglasses had pointed it out after the fight with the boss monkey who tried to vandalise the school. He had protected the school, and therefore, deserves respect and some challenges to fight some later time…
After this his debt would be repaid.
As the forest flashed by, he asked himself a question yet again.
Why was he crowding with them?
It did not matter. He was Hibari Kyoya. He listened to no-one. He only owed a favour to the...
He reached the empty clearing, and his ring burst into purple flame. He took in the battlefield all at once – empty clearing threat in the sky advantage not with box weapon Sunglasses bleeding and accepting the situation?
She was accepting defeat?
He ran, fury and annoyance powering his every step and he gave a strong swing to the side as he leapt onto a Roll and jumped to aim at the diving woman that was aiming for Sunglasses.
She dodged in mid-air. And no matter the fury… he couldn't help but smirk.
Strong.
Then he looked backwards, annoyance flooding him again at the burning yellow eyes that reminded him of Hibird sometimes –
"I don't misjudge people," he said to me, staring right back into my eyes. Belle was too far away to attack for now. "You are not an herbivore. Get up."
I didn't get up.
"How do you know I'm not an herbivore?" Hibari frowned in annoyance. He was about to reply when I put on a fake smile. From how his face froze, I figured he found it annoying.
"I am human. Learn that Hibari. Humans are omnivores. We are weak and strong."
I smiled when Hibari only turned around to counter Belle's trident with a flaming tonfa.
No reply. As expected.
But then, that was one of the best reactions I had gotten from him already. I yawned.
Sigh.
Now that the adrenaline rush was draining away I realised that I hadn't really gotten my share of sleep lately. But this was no time to be sleepy – no matter how strong Hibari was, I thought to myself as I hauled myself up, Belle had a heck tonne of experience.
I couldn't really expect her to go easy on him now, right?
Really, what happened next shouldn't really have surprised me. Fights actually go a lot faster in real life, after all.
The next few seconds after getting up -
BAM! Belle struck down with all her strength down at Hibari's strengthened tonfas and Hibari gritted his teeth as he held up both his arms to defend. Hibari bent his knees to absorb the shock and then jumped up, trying to attack when Belle's arms were still up—
—a bright orange glow lit up the sky from the direction Hibari had ran back from, and a huge orange circle cleared the forest tops and a moment later, a smaller one resounded and rose up nearer to us, a small figure in the middle looking down and yelling frantically to something underneath her—
—Belle saw this, let Hibari hit her in the stomach (Oww. That must hurt) and used the momentum to propel her into the trees where she took a second to breathe in and got up. And ran away.
Hibari then got angry and ran after her.
The Yuni bubble joined with the other two peaking up from the trees.
I was left standing there.
I blinked.
What just happened?
Blinking a little blurriness from my eyes, I scratched my head. Yuni bubble.
Right.
…
Right!
Yuni!
I followed the two of them in the direction where the orange bubble glowing, now that Yuni had joined, had become so huge that it easily cleared the canopy… so easy to see.
How did they hide this anyway? I was sure that, in the technology of ten-years later in the future, that they would have global satellite vision all around the world…
Whatever.
I reached the place, and the first back I saw was Yamamoto, surprisingly enough. Then Gokudera, and Gamma, Tsuna inside the bubble and Hibari honing onto Belle who was standing at the orange bubble trying to do something.
When I cleared the trees, I saw all of the people. I was the last to arrive.
Watching carefully at how Hibari had drawn Belle away from the bubble to continue his fight–
I blinked in realisation, at the impregnable orange bubble that entrapped them all. Even Belle couldn't reach now. Byakuran had trapped himself from the only help that he could had. No matter how unprepared we were, we had won.
Yes.
I sat down with a flump, Tsuna's silhouette in the bubble flying around frantically even as Byakuran pulled out his wings, fighting each other and near ignoring the small, tiny figure stuck in her ancestor's mess – still and holding pacifiers in her hands. Maybe if I went closer, I could document everything that happened. Watch it close hand. Listen to all the lines that came from fiction to reality. But was there any point?
Yes…
It was nearly over.
Yuni was going to die… was going to be martyr. Byakuran would be obliterated, like all bad guys do. Tsuna, the good guy, would survive with his friends.
And Belle would never go to our paradise. No-one could break in through the barrier. Byakuran would lose here.
She knew it.
How she suddenly slumped. How she had given halfway into the fight with Hibari – just sat down and let him hit her – which I was so glad to see he didn't. He stopped. Hibari had stopped, looked down and walked away muttering something (most likely herbivore) towards Reborn, who hadn't got eyes for us at all. His eyes were all on Yuni. On Tsuna.
We were secondary.
Of course we were.
I had won at last. We had won. But who could be happy afterwards?
The losses were too great.
I closed my eyes, just feeling overall tired, and unhappy. I wanted to get this over with. This, this future arc was just horrible. I half wanted to see Tsuna and the others as characters again. Opening my eyes, I glanced around, noting everyone who had been there… Lambo was on the ground.
Getting up, I walked over to where Lambo had been left, picking him up.
"Oof," I grunted, glancing down at him. "You're becoming heavy. Lose some weight, I'm sure a six year old shouldn't be this heavy."
Lambo continued sleeping without a care.
I shrugged. Then walked back to my tree, settling Lambo comfortably and closed my eyes again.
I didn't care for the end of the fight.
When I opened my eyes again, Belle was gone. No-one knew where she went. No-one really cared. As it weren't us 'Trialers' who decided when to meet Bill, I probably wouldn't get a chance to ask what happened when one didn't pass a trial. I could only hope that Hell didn't exist. Because Belle didn't deserve that. No-one really did.
Now, thinking back on it, I felt a little regret. It was strange, I guess, to come back to life from a dream and finding out that in a short few hours things could go so quickly. Yuni and Gamma's clothes were being reverently brought back to the Giglio Nero's hideout by Nosaru and Tazaru.
I had missed the after battle celebrations.
People were laughing and smiling again so very soon. No-one really wanted to face the others, ask about that extra shadow under their eyes, the overly energetic cooking that Kyoko and Haru were delving into (nor mention them rubbing their eyes when there was just that one tiny thing that reminded them of a certain blue-eyed girl…). Tsuna and the others were being determinedly, what can I say, normal.
I was determined to be as dull as possible.
There was that tiny small chance that with all the events happening one after another that Tsuna, Kyoko and Haru had forgotten all about my chat with Belle. Yuni had died. They were all trying to get over the sense of their own mortality that came with someone dying.
I had gotten over that… a long time ago. Too many years to count.
I gave a brief prayer to God. If Heaven existed, there must be one, right? I prayed to him to give them a good Trial. Hopefully one that went over fast. And for them to have their Trials together.
May they rest in peace.
"Gah. What type of people wander around everywhere yelling?" I grumbled, walking around the corner to see Ryohei.
"WHAT SHOULD I DO?" Ryohei shouted into the air, his hands in his hair looking very troubled.
"What?" I grouched. "You woke me up!" I glared at him.
Ryohei looked at me and beamed. "Bright! Should I have a word with my, my, my, my—" He gulped for air.
"Your… girlfriend?" I said, taking a wild stab in the dark.
His face exploded with red. Red splotches everywhere.
I took one look at him and laughed. Laughed my head off, like there was no tomorrow and forced all my issues to the back of my head like everything else that I have ever regretted or doubted.
Now that was a talent I was exceptionally good at.
"I don't know. Maybe leave her a bunch of flowers, you know, Hana."
"Flowers! Of course! Females like flowers! I remember Kyoko saying something like that to the EXTREME!" He yelled triumphantly. Then he paused, before having a panicked look on his face again. "But… But, WHAT TYPE OF FLOWERS TO THE EXTREME?"
I grinned.
"Normal ones."
"Normal ones! That doesn't help to the EXTREME!"
I suppressed a laugh as I went past him.
It was fun teasing Ryohei.
Entering the kitchen, I smirked at seeing Gokudera fidgeting.
"Go see Bianchi, Gokudera."
"Freaky eyes! Don't read minds!"
"But I'm not," I drawled out, yawning into my hand.
Gokudera scowled. "Are you making fun of me, Freaky-eyes?"
I only stared back blankly in response, imitating my 'dead fish' expression that Hana found so annoying. He stormed out, and I smirked inside my head. Nothing was as fun as baiting Gokudera.
Because life moves on.
And therefore
As a weak human who cannot defy time
We have to move on too
Don't we?
Belle.
So please forgive me.
Please forgive me.
"It's time guys! Did you all say goodbye to your box weapons?"
As everyone busied themselves, I gestured to Reborn. He blinked at me in surprise – I rarely talked to him willingly after all (and who could blame me? Reborn was freaking scary to be around. And you just don't know when Leon would turn into an explosive…)
"Alice," he stated, because sounding unassured would be a blow to that big hitman ego of his.
"Reborn," I stated back, not willing to lose this I-have-more-confidence fight.
We stared at each other for awhile.
I decided to get onto it.
"I'm going to stay here for another few minutes. I shall probably be back—" I looked at Shouichi and Spanner who were reliable right? "But just in case, I'll tell you so Tsuna and the others know where I'll be."
"Why."
"I have something to settle."
I knew I overthought stuff sometimes. I couldn't shove Yuni's face in my little mind box– with that sad smile on that face whenever she looked at me, and strangely I found I didn't want to. Yuni was Yuni. She was one that one never really wants to forget.
And there was one conversation that kept repeating in my mind…
"Yuni," I said extra extra slowly as sleep began to overtake me. "Why did you say that Hibari missed me? It doesn't make sense."
Reborn's face was professionally blank. A face should never show real emotions in the underworld. That was why he approved of me and Hibari, I think. He knew that we would (or able to, in Hibari's case) to protect Tsuna from the other world, as Tsuna thought it. The dark side of society.
"Has it got something to do with Yuni?"
Yuni's laugh from a comment before faded. The embers of the fire flickered from a breeze and threatened to die or to rise up and burn once again. I shoved another branch onto it.
I looked at him and shrugged dismissively. "Kind of."
He smirked. "Everyone knew she was meddling."
Then why didn't you stop it, I asked him silently, but he didn't reply. He only turned around, back to the normalcy of the others, standing before the glowing white machine that Shouichi was rapidly pounding equations into with a futuristic keyboard – to get that timing and place exactly right.
"I will deal with things as they happen." But he glanced up at me from his Fedora. "But you will come back because you're needed."
I smiled.
"It's something personal, but very important. So I'm sorry."
"It's not like you to ask."
I shrugged, remembering future Tsuna's face when the ten year bazooka dropped on him. I probably hadn't apologised to him – because true, it wasn't my personality really to ask or apologise. So just in case… Just in case. This time.
Reborn fully turned and walked into the white light that the device was emitting while I slipped into the shadow surrounding it, careful to not draw attention to myself. As an extra precaution I faced the other way. There was no reason they would notice me if they couldn't notice my eyes. I didn't have to say goodbye to them, so why see their last moments in this future?
I saw a green glow and Tsuna's voice as he said his last goodbyes – excited and happy that he was going home at last. The glow continued until there were bigger shadows covering the area and the older guardians were there again, and taking a peek over my shoulder, all of them were on the floor waking up.
"Welcome home!" Shouichi said, jumping up happily.
Colonello smiled and looked up. "We did shake up the ground a bit, but everything went well!"
"Good," Lal said, looking at Colonello with a troubled look on her face. She was sidling towards the door… Was she going to escape?
But Shouichi burst out first.
"That's great! Good work!" He grinned happily, and Colonello looked beyond him to smile.
"Hey, looks like now that the kids have gone back to the past, these guys have woken up."
Shouichi looked backwards, to see that all the guardians had stood up, stretching awkwardly and looking around. It was Gokudera who said the first thing, and what came out was totally expected.
"By the way—"
He got interrupted. "Where's Tsuna?" Yamamoto asked, having officially made my nightmare come true because he was definitely over two metres tall. Screw baseball – he should've become a basketball player.
"Tsuna went up," Shouichi pointed, and I widened my eyes. When?
But then, it made my job easier.
I shifted a little, so that I sat facing them. Yamamoto narrowed his eyes, his hand on his sword's grip thingy, already half drawn looking at me. At his action, all the other guardians arranged themselves around Kyoko and Haru while glaring at…
Innocent little harmless me.
I blinked.
They blinked.
I raised a hand up.
"Yo?"
That incited a reaction.
"ALICE!" They exclaimed in unison, widening their eyes at me. Shouichi looked at me in a type of horror.
"Did I miss you? Did I program something wrong or something?" He quickly flew towards his keyboard thing again and looked at the screen frantically.
I shook my head. "No, no. It's not you. It's just that…" I frowned slightly at them, staring straight at Hibari, who stared back. "I have something to clarify with Hibari."
Everyone, who had come towards me to presumably talk to me (especially the ones who didn't get to last time, Lambo, Basil, Chrome) froze. The people at the back froze. Shouichi froze. And even Hibari stopped fiddling at his tie.
I found this really funny.
Raising an eyebrow at their antics (did they have to so obvious?) I looked back at Hibari.
"Hibari, can you come with me?" I stood up slowly, grinning at Lambo and Chrome and Basil, waving a sorry. "Lambo, wipe that dumbstruck look off your face, aren't you fifteen? Don't tell me you still can't handle my eyes, seriously."
"No, Alice-nee—"
I grinned.
"I know it's not true. But still, Hibari, come here?"
To my surprise, Hibari listened to me, and we left the room together. I walked upstairs, wanting the safety of the forest, where there were likely to be less security cameras and lots of escape routes.
I had to check something. Because of that damn sentence.
"Why, Alice-nee," Yuni's voice echoed over and over in my brain, "It's because he loved you."
Just because Yuni thought so didn't mean it was right. I set my face, determined to prove her wrong. Because it couldn't happen. Shouldn't happen.
Hibari deserved better than a person already half in the grave.
"Hahaha!" Ryohei laughed rambunctiously. "Hibari actually listened to Alice saying come here! He doesn't listen to anybody!"
"Only Alice wouldn't be ruined for life after asking Hibari to go to them. Usually everyone goes to him."
Gokudera scowled. "I still don't like how Juudaime went to Hibari instead of me about the plan."
Basil shrugged. "It's logical, Gokudera-dono." Gokudera scowled deeper. He knew that, damn it.
Kyoko looked at the doorway worriedly. "But shouldn't we stop them?"
I-pin bounded back from the doorway where she had been looking at the two walking down the corridor, Hibari unnaturally stiff-backed, and Alice treading along as slowly as usual.
"Why? I think Hibari-san and Alice-nee should get everything sorted!"
(For after all, Hibari and Tsuna's relationship with Alice before she died was a complicated affair, and was also the worst kept secret in the mafia world… Mafia bosses were just old ladies in need of gossip after all)
"No, it's just…" Kyoko shook her head. "Tsu-kun's up there too."
Then the 'oh shit' face flashed over everyone's faces.
The trees rustled over Tsuna's head, as the journal that held his past slowly became blank. He smiled, realising that yes, the past had changed.
Now he knew that their future didn't get passed on to his younger self.
He was glad.
Just as he was about to head back inside, a rustle that his Hyper Intuition told him wasn't from an animal came from the left. He looked sideways curiously, drawing gloves over his hands and walking silently towards the noise.
He looked through.
He barely suppressed the strangled gasp that tried to make its way through his throat.
Alice!
She was there… whole, alive, moving.
She stopped, and turned around. There was another person there. Tsuna pried away a few leaves, careful to make it look natural. Who he saw didn't surprise him.
Hibari.
"Yuni told me something I don't believe is true." Silence. The trees rustled, a lone cloud in the sky slowly moving across the sky hanging low, ready to lighten its load with tears of rain—
"She told me that you loved the future me. Is that true?"
Silence.
The cloud reached the sun, casting a shadow slowly, drawing its veil across the field.
Tsuna understood. Hibari… would never be able to lie to Alice. Not after so many years.
Years of emotion that even Reborn hadn't predicted. Love was a shackle that some bore willingly, some fought to get off, and some who accepted and bore together. So that the side not lifted by yourself is lifted by the one you loved, so the shackle ceased to become a chain but a bond of mutual respect and strength. The true shackle of love… was what Hibari had held tightly to his heart for so many years.
It was quiet.
Then a whisper of sound, an answer that everyone, except the only person that mattered, knew.
"Yes."
Yo guys!
I know.
Three weeks. But hey, my test weeks are right tomorrow. Yes, my English test is tomorrow. Then my musicology is Tuesday, my Economics Wednesday, and so on. It's horrible. So I took time from studying to type this up! I'm glad that future arc is over. Now I can get to the juicy stuff. Like… who was the guy that introduced Tsuna to Mukuro and the others? MUAHAHAHA
I have recently realised I was subject to plagiarism. No, I'm not offended, though it's on another site. I searched up My Heavenly Judgement one day on Google because I was really lazy one day and found a story that copy and pasted lines, changed the name and kind of… yeah. I know you read this story, so can you put it down? Thank you!
Apart from that, thank you reviewers! I lub you! I got a really pleasant surprise when a person decided to review every chapter. YAYfanfics101 thank you! All reviewers make my economic filled days filled with light and joy! (and no, the image isn't drawn by me, it's a fanart! Go to my profile, and it's there! XD)
So I wish you all the best of luck and good days as well. I hope you enjoyed this chapter!
