Disclaimer:

I, in no way, shape of form, own the manga/anime Diamond no Ace. This is, after all, fanfiction.

Miscommunications

Hibari Kyōya might have a twisted sense of justice in his mind, but at least he is a family man.

.

.

.

(Alternatively, Kyōya will never be his Father or Grandfather.)

Kusakabe is used to it now—the bareness of Kyōya's home. He's quite familiar with the little lording that reigns supreme in this little coastal town. His leader's home is the type of home that resembles something closer to housing straight out of historical texts rather than modern-day Japan. The engawa is spacious enough for three people to walk across, hip to hip, and the shoji are immaculate. He slides the screen door open, toeing off his shoes in the genkan before quietly strolling through the corridors, soft light diffusing from both the shoji and ranma. He marvels over the fusuma, wagoya and ranma. Regardless of how his superior feels towards his paternal, ancestral home, it is a carpentry masterpiece—all the fine details exuding the old wealth deeply seated within the Hibari bloodline.

But once you get passed the awe, there's a chill that's undeniable.

Kusakabe can bemusedly recall thinking that the home was haunted.

He came to realize quite quickly that the truth was the opposite.

Kyōya despises large crowds, annoyance immediately setting on his features the moment a single person joins him in what he considers his personal space. He wasn't surprised to see the bare minimum of staff upkeeping the Hibari Home, but it occurs to him, after visiting weekly for the greater part of year, that he has never seen the teen's father or mother.

At least, not in person.

He considers himself a human, and that is exactly what Kusakabe cites when he allows his eyes to wander. Kyōya is many things, including traditional, and has always sat at a chabudai whenever he had to do work. And much like his home, the room he works in his bare—all shoji and monotonous fusuma—except for a single photo that sits as far as it can on the corner of his low-lying desk. In fact, it almost teeters on the point, Kyōya has all but brushed it onto the floor. Kusakabe often wonders if he actually treasures the thing—it's small, smaller than the palm of his hand and has notches all along the thin frame—like it'd been flung around harshly.

However, Kusakabe does deem it important enough to Kyōya on the basis that it is the only thing that really decorates this bare, minimalist home. He can't really see the people in the photo quite clearly, but he sees how Kyōya eyes it when he pauses once in a blue moon, molten steel hardening and renewing his efforts. It's safe to assume that his leader is fond of the person or people in that photo.

Honestly, he's wanted to stare at it blatantly, to kneel on the side and pick it up reverentially in his hands—and hopefully all when Kyōya is out—and just see who holds Kyōya's heart.

(Aside from Namimori.)

— [ + ] —

It's a given that most people assume Kyōya is an only child.

Not to say he isn't—his mother only had him for one reason, and one reason only—but Kyōya has never felt like an only child. Despite all the glaring evidence, his apparently spoiled attitude and unrealistic expectation for people to heed him at his every whim, Kyōya has always had to share things.

It's expected of the eldest grandchild.

grandchild

(Even if he's the eldest by a scant few weeks.)

Despite, the more fantastical storytellers of Namimori conjuring tales of man and wife dealing with a demon for his birth, Kyōya is human and has a human family. It's a given that not many people know Kyōya has cousins but he does. He's the eldest of three cousins—himself, Mei, and Mai. Mei is born in June, not even a full month after him, and Mai is the youngest at two years and some months younger than both Mei and him. Their mothers are a picture perfect image of three sisters, a set of twins and a younger sister that's their doppelgänger. It's not entirely unexpected when him and Mei end up identical, resembling their mothers to an eery degree, but Mai ends up looking like her father, hair a soft brown with eyes to match.

All of their mothers have a degree of distaste for their husbands—or lover, in Aunt Mei-Lan's case—and as such, Kyōya has spent an inordinate amount of time with his cousins. Playing wouldn't exactly be a word he'd used to describe their get togethers, though.

Blood baths would be a more apt description.

Mai is more pacifistic than Mei and him, but that just means you could antagonize her for longer before she resorts to violence. That, and you can actually draw an apology out of her if you look pitiful enough. Kyōya and Mei often mock her for her bleeding heart and that goads her enough into a fight.

(She's not the only one—not really; they all seem to have a weakness for tiny things that can be snapped in half at a moment's notice.)

He doesn't mind that most of his life is spent beating his cousins—regardless of the fact that they're girls—or the fact that they beat him in return. Kyōya remembers quite fondly having rings of bruises wrapping around his ribs, clasping his arms and calves. He remembers holding ice to his swollen face, the blood dripping from his lips doing nothing to reduce the bestial quality of his feral smile. Mei would glare at him petulantly, Aunt Mei-Lan administering the same treatment to her daughter as his mother does to him. Mai is pouting, clinging to Aunt Mei-Xiu, and refusing the ice pack by shoving her battered face into her mother's shoulder.

The three sisters laugh—if you could consider it that—at their children's apparently adorable animosity.

(The culture shock never seems to not faze him whenever he goes back to Namimori.)

Grandmother watches them bemusedly, smiling behind her beautifully painted hand fan. It's a beautiful piece that Kyōya has never seen her part from but frightfully simple and plain. It's out of place in comparison to the high quality silk she's always draped in, but Grandmother loves it. It has a plain bamboo frame, plain, off-coloured paper glued to it, with an artful depiction of plum trees in blossom.

It's not expensive, not nearly something worthy of belonging to Fēng Yawen, but Grandmother loves it.

Like she loves them.

His family isn't the cuddly sort—save for Mai, but Mai is an oddity and her father innocent—but Grandmother has always made an effort to be as affectionate with them as possible in her own way; her shared affection is only limited by their own levels of touchiness. She reads to them various pieces of literature and poems, helping them perfect the sharpness of their calligraphy—to make it as sharp as their forms—and always, always, makes room for naps.

If you were to find the source of Kyōya's possessive behaviour, it'd be the time spent with his Grandmother.

Grandmother has always treated him and his cousins as a single unit, much like her daughters—only giving one more attention than the others if the situation at hand called for it. It has always been the three of them piled carefully on their Grandmother's lap, her hands tracing the characters as she read them aloud, having them repeat after her at times. They've always done a three-way spar under her cool stare, stopping whenever her fan clacked shut. Her grandchildren would freeze in their stances, allowing her to correct their forms before the swish of the fan signalled for them to continue. Then, when they're the blue, but not quite black, Grandmother bundles them up in a futon, shoving their heads down under the quilt if they dare peek their eyes out when they should be napping. For some reason, she always expects to see the three of them cuddled together which Kyōya doesn't like, but it's a position they always end up in regardless.

Kyōya is certain that he'd be much, much, much better if Grandmother was teaching him and him alone.

Mei has her father to teach her his craft and Mai doesn't even remotely like fighting even if she's much better than those weaklings that cower from him—as she should; Kyōya does not claim weaklings as his family.

But Kyōya, Kyōya only has Grandmother. His Father is absolutely useless, and Mother reigns supreme in his Father's supposed empire. Mother is not negligent, but her time is divided between him, their home, and the Hibari Clan's business. Her hand is often forced, always being made to pay attention to the family business because his Father is useless.

Grandmother is the only teacher he needs—the only teacher he wants.

(Well, he has Mother but Mother always tries to bait him into doing paperwork.)

And he has to share her with Mei and Mai.

It's disgusting.

And annoying.

Especially annoying.

So if his temper gets the best of him and he beats his cousins more harshly than they deserve and Grandmother comes to scold him, pulling him into her lap, bringing his chin up to look at her and demands his reasons.

He never gives them, sulking.

He always thinks Grandmother will knock him over the head—Mother has told him some stories of her childhood, not unlike his own—but she doesn't. She sighs and holds him until Mei and Mai come whining and bothering their bonding time.

(Grandmother always stops him from retaliating.)

— [ + ] —

When they're old enough, Grandmother officially introduces them to her so-called patrons. That isn't quite the word to describe them, but they're a small family that takes care of his Grandmother.

They're three of them, all tall and willowy, but unchanging. The trio is composed of a single mother, much like Grandmother, and her twin children—a boy and a girl. They seem nice, all genuine smiles and actions; beautiful spirits to match beautiful faces—even if the twins look nothing like her mother.

But there is something inherently unnatural about this family, but he won't say that to Aunt Rei's face.

Kyōya, for all his driven nature, is not blind. His Grandmother may have never officially introduced them until now, but he's always glimpsed them—or, well, the twins at least. The twins are always watching them from vantage points—unseen by the untrained eye. But Kyōya is trained, and trained well, so he sees them all the time. He sees the way their strange eyes flicker between the three of them, with practiced, smug smiles always tilting their lips before they disappear into the shadows, indigo swirling at their wrists.

He knows they watch the three of them, but more often than not, their attention is on Grandmother.

Kyōya isn't quite sure he likes that.

(He hates it, really.)

Grandmother is no fragile plum sapling. Grandmother breeds ferocity and boldness in her bones—she is more stubborn than her three children and three grandchildren combined. Fēng Yawen exudes her own daring pride with every minute movement, never faltering—never showing weakness.

So, the way the twins, Nata and Alex, watch Grandmother bothers Kyōya beyond comprehension.

They watch her with careful eyes, eying her like scavengers waiting for a fresh carcass.

(He hates it—they all hate it.)

But he understands.

Grandmother is sick, and has been sick for as long he can remember and even longer than that.

Mother tells him that Grandmother has been sick since she could remember—and for a child, no matter how much he denies he is such, that is quite a long time. Mother cites his Grandfather for Grandmother's illness, bitterness always present in her tone when she speaks of her own father. Hibari Mei-Fēn can recall very little of the man she shares half of her blood with but almost none of it is in fondness. She remembers him as much softer than her mother, a warm, lingering blaze in her memories but she never feels that same warmth when she tries to envisions his face in her mind.

Mei-Fēn recall with great loathing how he disappeared on the, then at the time, three of them—Mei-Xiu had yet to be born, but Yawen's belly had been subtly round when he'd left. Mei-Lan and Mei-Fēn are blatant of their jealousy towards their younger sister; she doesn't have to recall the natural ache that comes from realizing your father abandoned you.

(Mei-Fēn hates her name for that—hates how she use to giggle about how her name was like his.)

The three sisters like to think that their father is dead for all the pain he has caused their mother—their family.

Mei-Xiu may have never known him but she remembers the quiet tears that would stain her mother's cheeks in the early spring as she would gaze longingly at the fan—so unworthy of her adoration—in her hands. Mei-Lan and Mei-Fēn would sleep better if they knew there father's status as living or dead—would delight in the knowledge that their mother, a tortured woman in spirit, outlasted him and his ambitions.

But in the recesses of their minds, the twin sisters can recall how happy their mother had been when their father would come home and hold her.

(Yawen loved her children but she loved her husband

Their mother was never the same—a quiet bitterness and guilt growing deep within her soul as the years passed.

Of the three of them, only Mei-Xiu had planned on having a child for the sake of family, but Mei-Lan and Mei-Fēn don't regret birthing their respective daughter and son.

Their mother has missed children—has always regretted how fast they had grown when she'd spent her days wasting away in bed.

And so Yawen tries to make up for that loss with her three adorable grandchildren.

She tries, no matter how her lungs ache and burn like her chest is consumed in fire. She stands tall when her knees shake, fingers strain to even grasp her beloved fan, and her vision blurs. As a now, and for quite some time, single mother of three, headstrong girls, Yawen cites her pains as nothing but consequences of aging even though she knows she is wrong.

(Her children hurt because of him, and so she will try and try to cause them as little pain as possible.)

She hasn't aged in more than thirty years, not since her illness was discovered by her patrons—her saviours.

They were kind enough to bless her with the same unchanging aspect that keeps them young—that stops their aging. Though she can recall when it was only their mother, and not the twins, that remained unchanged in the face of time. She can recall with great fondness how her own children and her children grew together until they didn't.

Unlike them, Yawen's children made the choice to stay tethered to the world whether they realized it or not.

(She regrets not going with them—but she can't, can barely find it in herself to get up when she is alone.)

Yawen would too, if she had the choice. She wants to live—wants to see her children grow beyond the shadow of bitterness in their hearts that has consumed them since they were children. She may not approve of how they've gone about things in life—practically prostituting themselves for the sake of power—but her grandchildren are a delight.

She's grateful that she's alive to witness the fire in all three of their tiny hearts.

Grateful that she has the chance to watch them grow even if she succumbs to the pain more often then she'd like.

She wants to teach them all—her children and grandchildren—the skills she'd taught herself, purple brilliance, deadly and elegant, but her body fails her, even if she doesn't show it. Her body aches with her every action, but she still manages to cough up the blood in private—away from her children's concerned eyes and in the pleasant company of her children's once friends.

Nata and Alex are a supernatural existence shoved into the bodies of twin brother and sister.

They look nothing like their mother but they are their mother's children.

(Just like Yawen's own children.)

Nata and Alex love her as if she was their mother's sister and are endlessly helpful in helping her raise her children and grandchildren without giving off the severity of her plight. No matter how hard she tries, Yawen is keenly aware that her children and grandchildren know that she is sick. They watch her grandchildren, help her catch little nuances that could get them killed when her own senses fail her. She can feel them about her, an ethereal grip on her, ready to catch her if she falls.

She's dying and she wants—she so badly wants—for that to be wrong, but the greater her resolve, the faster she regresses.

(Can you imagine your own body working to kill you?)

— [ + ] —

Kyōya is ten years old when he makes the decision to stay in Namimori indefinitely.

He knows his decision hurts Grandmother—that Mei is now endlessly cross with him and Mai bursts into tears because of him—but his pride keeps him grounded in the small town. He doesn't like the twins that his Grandmother, Mother, and Aunts love so much—can barely stand the sight of Nata, much less Alex.

They took over their training in place of Grandmother and their respective mothers after Grandmother introduced the stagnant twins to her three unruly grandchildren, ages six and eight. Mai was fortunate to stay with Grandmother and Aunt Mei-Xiu for another year but Mei and Kyōya were stuck with a double set of terror twins.

Kyōya doesn't mind his Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan.

He absolutely hates Nata and Alex.

His Mother insists he call them Aunt Nata and Uncle Alex but he refuses. Mei relents to her own mother's nagging, if only because she and Aunt Mei-Lan have been living with their Grandmother's faceless patrons for nearly two years now. But Kyōya finds it bothersome and strange to call then Aunt Nata and Uncle Alex.

How can he?

They look closer to his age than his Mother's. And he refuses to believe that Nata and Alex are a few months younger than Aunt Mei-Xiu—no matter what Mother says.

Mother, after all, has a disgusting sense of humour.

(Almost as disgusting as the twins' humour.)

Kyōya might cite this as his reason for his disrespect towards the twins, but Mei-Fēn damn well knows it's because Kyōya has never beaten either of them. Nata and Alex are good-natured and have a firm teaching method in everything they do, but they are antagonistic and often come off as belittling when they correct others—cocky. Alex, especially, makes a point to point out every single flaw he notices—no matter how absolutely minuscule. Nata is much the same, but the twins alternate in pointing out the flaws and then quite literally beating the correction him and his cousins.

The three of them are always humiliated because they always lose—Kyōya especially.

It also doesn't help that Nata and Alex come off as perfect people.

They're geniuses, in every sense of the word, but lack the stilted nature that comes with excelling without learning—because, apparently, the twins are good at everything. And to top it off, they're amazing children to their mother—though Yawen has never compared her three girls to the twins—and always feel obligated to help others in little, but meaningful, ways.

It's intimidating and infuriating all at once because you cannot hate them—not really.

(Kyōya pride is soothed a bit when Mei introduces her newfound friends to him and Mai—he likes Katya best.)

So, while Mei-Fēn isn't entirely supportive of Kyōya's decision to distance himself from their family, she understands.

As much as her and sisters like to deny it, they were much the same when they decided to leave their mother to fulfill their own machinations. And in that regard, Mei-Fēn muses that her mother had the misfortune of having three children, and now three grandchildren, that ended up like her absent husband—they all look like him, their sense of pride, and its importance to them.

(Its this prioritizing that estranges them all—just as it strained Yawen's marriage.)

It's not a far stretch for her to say that her mother is also dying of a broken heart.

— [ + ] —

Kyōya doesn't think he spends that much time with Grandmother and his cousins in that House. Surely, he doesn't, because Mother has always been on top of her work in both the Home and Business. His Father, as always, is dumb and contributes to nothing—Kyōya knows his Father only lives because Mother sees him as useful.

(Despite this, Mei-Fēn never fails to ensure her son knows that she loves him—in her own way, but she does.)

And yet, Namimori is painfully… weak.

A far cry from what he recalls whenever he spends time with Grandmother and his extended family in that house.

The people lack any sort of conviction—from the children to the adults. The people who do have some will are slimy and arrogant—he sees no reason for this when they have nothing to be proud of.

They lack discipline.

They all cluster together, loud and unapologetic.

Like they have nothing to be worried over.

(As if they live in a paradise.)

Kyōya always, always, always find his lips twisting in distaste, fingers curling around cool steel and he wants to lash out.

— [ + ] —

Kyōya is ten and it's days away from the New Year, and less than half a year before his eleventh birthday, when Aunt Mei-Xiu moves into Namimori with Mai and Uncle Arata abruptly. They don't move into the Hibari Home—Mother wouldn't allow it on account of Uncle Arata's nature. The very nature that little Mai, the little princess of the Fēng Family, has inherited against all odds.

(The same nature that has her retreat into herself, become timid and less bold when their world shifts.)

The boxes are barely within the newly minted Mizusaki residence when older and younger sisters disappear, leaving their children to awkwardly welcome the New Year.

It's the first time that three sisters and three cousins do not share the arrival of the New Year together, and it jolts Kyōya and Mai.

But they understand.

Grandmother has always commented that she essentially gave birth to three copies of the same person—his and his cousins' mothers look eerily similar, even if Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan are twins. So when they're synchrony is disturbed, and it bothers them without end. It bothers their children, too, so the youngest sister uproots her family from their urban home so Mai and Kyōya can be together. Kyōya knows Mai likes Namimori better; it's far quieter than the hustle and bustle of the Minato ward where Uncle Arata has lived and worked for more than half his life, but she likes it better because he's there.

It's comforting, even when Uncle Arata ends up working from home, keeping a constant eye on Mai and occasionally checking up on him via letters despite living a scant fifteen minutes away because Kyōya has never been fond of visitors.

Mai spends her days quietly at school, sneaking off from the annoying herds of childish fools to sit with her cousin.

It's comforting.

Especially now when Mother and Aunt Mei-Xiu are always away.

He understands, feels honoured and above all proud that Mother has deemed him mature enough to lack her supervision for the majority of the time.

Even if he misses her when he trains alone.

He understands.

The three sisters have always been together, even if they married such different men, even if they lived in separate countries—separate continents—that they feel cheated—robbed—that their sister is dead.

Aunt Mei-Lan's body is never recovered.

(The Fēng Sister never forget—nor do they forgive—and the shadows are bathed in blood.)

— [ + ] —

Aunt Mei-Xiu comes home for his birthday.

.

.

.

Mother doesn't.

— [ + ] —

Kyōya is eleven and burdened with inglorious purpose.

And by that, he is eleven years old and finds himself as what is essentially the oyabun of a small, but influential yakuza clan that traces its roots back to the Sengoku Jidai, as ninja for Uesugi Kenshin, the daimyō toted as the God fo War. But for all this notoriety, Father is almost frightfully plain—nothing more than a footnote in Kyōya's childhood.

Kyōya's parents' marriage wasn't one of love nor passion.

Actually.

It may be counted as passion, but not passion for one another. His Father doesn't quite care for the prestige of his lineage, more than happy to wash his hands of it to a woman who is more than well-versed and willing. Because Fēng Mei-Fēn may claim blood from a notorious and influential Triad, she will never be considered heir—not with her father's blood in her veins. She married Hibari Kyōsuke and gave him an heir as payment—an exchange for his power—the same way others would exchange money for goods.

She loves—loved—her son but in life, Mei-Fēn always wanted one thing.

For people to reap what they sow—to understand their place in the hierarchy.

To make sure her father was dead—and if he wasn't, make him dead.

Kyōya has never dared speak of his Grandfather after Mother's tantrum and Grandmother's heavy sadness.

Uncle Arata is analyst or a detective. He doesn't really care to remember his Uncle's profession—Aunt Mei-Xiu married him for similar reasons to why his Mother married Father or why Aunt Mei-Lan took a foreigner far older than her as a lover—but Uncle Arata is useful and loyal. He is a good man—a good husband and father to his family. The man never says a word as he helps Kyōya organize what remains of his Mother's paperwork, from the planned murders to the blackmail and supposed payments for protection. Not even when his hands tremble, lips and eyebrows pressed together harshly, with contained anger.

Uncle Arata is a fool in love, but of all him and his cousins' fathers and their Grandfather, he is the best man in their family.

He helps keep Kyōya together under no obligations—treating Kyōya like his own son, no matter how far a distance Kyōya puts him at.

"I'll be there for you," Uncle Arata promises, leaving before Kyōya can scoff at the man's audacity.

Kyōya wants to beat his Uncle to the point it hurts for the man to even think of breathing. He is, after all, a member of a proud, proud lineage—centuries of blood and hidden power struggles making up his family history.

It's a lineage he would've been more proud of had his Father been more competent as a person.

(And as a husband and father.)

Kyōya has always taken pride in resembling Mother.

But he knows why his Uncle acts that way.

Why Mai clings to him quietly, no matter the scrutiny the face.

It's an unspoken assumption that Grandmother is next.

(How can a parent bear to live knowing they outlived their children?)

— [ + ] —

Kyōya is twelve, in his first year of middle school, and turning thirteen within a few months when he finally loses his temper. A teacher had made a gilded remark about Mother and his Father's absence. There's a fakeness in his condolences, a thinly veiled insult as to why his Father does not have custody of him but Uncle Arata.

(Your Mother is a monster and your Father smartened up and left.)

He doesn't care about Father but no one—no one—is allowed to speak so callously of Mother.

The hospital and police are both unsure as to how to approach a boy, not even a teenager yet, over the assault of man nearly twice his size and thrice his age. The police know well enough who actually controls Namimori but its been decades since the Hibari Clan has actively and publicly cracked down on insubordination. The Hibari Clan were the creeping shadows to Uesugi Kenshin's wild, bloody strikes—leaving blood shed in their wake. Violence is first nature and reason second. They strike without pause, without mercy, demand and never ask, because they are the Hibari. And those misfortunate enough to risk their wrath will have it reign down upon them.

Still, even this punishment causes their guts to wrench in fear—never has a punishment been so severe and yet merciful.

(Because he still breathes.)

Let alone on a mere, ignorant civilian.

The teacher is barely breathing, more bones broken in his body than he has heart beats per minute.

The family wants to press charges but Uncle Arata deals with that quickly and quietly.

It's the most public exhibition of tyranny the Hibari Clan has demonstrated in years and the families that pledge their loyalty to them are quick to please their oyabun. Kyōya soon has an infantile army at his hands, made up of leeches but intelligent leeches. He makes the most competent one his third hand, if only to make Uncle Arata's work easier.

His Uncle's main duty, now, is to control the police—something he should be knowledgeable about seeing as he was once a member of the police force. Mai's calligraphy is neat and similar enough to his that he can leave her to his more tedious paperwork.

Kyōya, of course, takes the more graphic work as his cousin still hasn't grown a stomach.

Kyōya likes this change.

Likes his brand of terror.

Nata and Alex chide him in his dreams but he doesn't particularly care.

(They still have their mother.)

He has his family's approval in a roundabout way.

Mei refuses to talk to him unless in person, but she looks at him with begrudged awe, Mai quietly follows his orders with a soft smile, and Grandmother is simply content knowing that he has found his niche. Uncle Arata's opinion, for all his efforts, doesn't mean much to the boy.

He wears the moniker of the Demon of Namimori pridefully.

Through him people will learn discipline.

And then perhaps those lowlifes will realize you do not trifle with his family.

— [ + ] —

brand of discipline follows from his Grandmother's life story.

He can recall being four years old, sitting comfortable in her lap and nestled in her silk clothes—having batted Mei and Mai out of his way, uncaring that Mai was a toddler—and asking her about Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan and Aunt Mei-Xiu.

But most importantly, he asks about Grandfather.

Her Grandmother recounts Grandfather without all of Mother's venom.

She weaves a story that is not fantastical. Nor is it very romantic or adventurous. Their story, according to Grandmother, is a rather plain one. Yawen tells him of her quiet childhood as the sole daughter of a man that held one-ninth of the black societies' power. Her colourful talents had amazed her father's—his Great-Grandfather's—associates despite her attitude. Grandmother says, perhaps ruefully, that her three daughters, him and Mei have all inherited her personality though they look nothing like her.

They look like Grandfather. A man whose talents in martial combat had caught the eye of many people running in his Great-Grandfather's circle. Someone whose talents measured up to even Grandmother's—so much so that Great-Grandfather had snatched him up, offering payment in the form of gold and protection for his Grandfather's village, to guard Grandmother.

At least, that was the official story.

Because despite Grandmother's gifts, she was still just a girl.

And old blood remembers tradition like no other.

It was unfortunate for Great-Grandfather that Grandmother was stubborn and refused any advances made toward her via maiming and mutilation.

Grandmother's choice of weapon back then was a bastardization of the Japanese tessen, if only because Great-Grandfather wanted her to act more lady-like.

All for the sake of marrying her off to the highest bidder.

Grandmother hadn't liked that—hadn't like that her father had easily succumbed to the idea that a woman was not fit to lead—even though she was his eldest and strongest. Her younger brothers barely had a fraction of her talents. She hated that he had restricted her from the training arenas—places she had seen more than her own bedroom, let alone the dining hall—to a lofty bedroom adorned with gaudy fineries.

She hadn't minded the silk.

She minded the sudden loss of her sense of being.

A weapon turned ornament.

It was delusional for Great-Grandfather to assume that bloodstained bandages could be refurbished to be a decorative, lucky, red table cloth.

And because Grandfather, so worried for his loved ones, could not refuse her, he ended up submitting to her will and sparred with her at her beck and call.

It just so happened that the two had never really met a match in combat until they encountered each other.

So they grew close.

And Grandmother ended up pregnant.

Great-Grandfather hadn't like that—calling forth all sorts of members to act as his council and shame Grandmother. Because it was apparently solely Grandmother's fault.

"Cowards," he remembered saying, his childish face contorted into something that resembled a scowl as he listened avidly.

Grandmother smiled wickedly, the sharpness of her smile making her face look sharper, more vulpine. "Cowards group together because they cannot fight for themselves—can barely think for themselves."

Grandmother hadn't backed down.

And so Great-Grandfather did.

And then Grandfather disappeared when Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan were just a few months away from turning four, Aunt Mei-Xiu cuddled closely to Grandmother in her belly because she was far too small, too fragile for the world.

And so Great-Grandfather renewed his efforts.

And so Grandmother left, one daughter tucked under either arm, the thickest yet lightest clothes on their back, and left as the snow began to fall, covering their tracks.

Grandfather hadn't been seen since.

"He is—was, a good man."

"Then why?"

Why is he not here?

Why does Mother despise him?

Why do Aunt Mei-Lan and Mei-Xiu despise him?

Why are you so sad when you speak of him, Grandmother?

Yawen considers herself fortunate that none of her children nor grandchildren are very talkative. That she can play the fool and answer Kyōya as if she never heard his unspoken questions—refuses to think of the truth herself.

"He couldn't protect what he loved—he lost his pride, his purpose."

"What about you?"

Yawen smiles and it looks almost feral on her face. "I have my pride, Kyōya."

(You, Yawen thinks, and your cousins. My children. You are all my Pride.)

The boy had nodded seriously, steel, grey eyes considering as he absorbed his Grandmother's story with as much comprehension as a child his age could have. Yawen smiles indulgently at her only grandson, ushers him off to interact with her granddaughter as her chest smoulders with chronic pain.

(It isn't just her illness that has flared up in the passing moments.)

Kyōya wanders away, thoughts clumsily and childishly coming together in a colourful tumble as he considers his Grandmother's life. The weak crowd and people like his Grandmother and Grandfather—the strong and victorious—stand alone. And people like his Grandfather, the once strong and undefeated, succumb to loss and die.

It was like the books Mother read to him about nature.

But most importantly, it was people like Grandmother and Grandfather who had the duty to cull the weak.

That's probably why Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan and Mei-Xiu emphasized strength so much.

They were all, after all, descended from strong people.

— [ + ] —

Kyōya watched another set of members of a mindless herd laugh freely.

Annoying.

It was time to cull the Weak again.

— [ + ] —

Nata and Alex are in his dreams again.

He's closer to their age—at least physically—now. Though, he's nowhere near as tall as them but then again, they are foreigners. At least, foreigners if they were to visit Japan. They're the same as ever, youthful—still round with childish fat on their faces, softening their sharp features—and dressed smartly in pressed, high quality clothes. Their strange eyes smoulder as they always have, unnerving him until this day.

But they don't unnerve him as much as they piss him off.

(He has never forgiven them for always beating him—for continuing to pity him.)

They speak to him about Mei and ask about him and Mai in return. They tell him about Grandmother and Aunt Mei-Xiu who he hasn't seen since she left almost three years ago now and hasn't verbally spoken to him, Mai or Uncle Arata since. They insist he visit—that they all miss him and Mai—especially Katya and Louis, the only two people that Mei associates with that he can endure.

Well, he can endure Aracelli too, but only because she doesn't try to control him.

(He ignores the fact that Aracelli only leaves him alone by the request of Nata and Alex.)

Mai is unfortunately part of Aracelli's inane circle, just as much as Mei is so she visits more often then he does—but his cousin never fails to give them his solemn, valid excuse: Namimori needs him to maintain its balance.

Namimori has always relied on the Hibari Clan to maintain its balance, and as the sole heir, it is now his turn.

(He refuses to let Grandmother worry about him.)

He wakes up and ignores his visions of Nata and Alex as nothing more than childish dream.

Because it is.

(It isn't.)

— [ + ] —

Namimori is beginning to learn.

Beginning to understand its newest master.

It's beginning to become part of his pride.

(Grandmother will never have to mourn him like Grandfather—as long as Namimori stands, so too, will he.)

— [ + ] —

Sawada Tsunayoshi insults Kyōya's pride.

The weakling strips to nothing but his thin boxers and loudly—far louder than that idiotic thing in the boxing club or whatever—and declares his apparent undying love for that loud moron's vapid younger sister.

Disgusting.

And annoying.

Especially annoying.

His eyes narrow, practiced glare quietly and quickly breaking down the bane of his pride until the ephemeral flickering of liquid topaz catches his eye. He pauses mid-pounce. He knows that flicker—that impossible flicker of flames trembling delicately over the skin but remembers it as a roar.

The colour is wrong but he knows the ferocity behind that supposed flame that Sawada wears upon his head like a crown.

Rage fills him.

(He has never beaten Nata and Alex in a fight—over seven years now—not even with Mei and Mai at his back.)

Sawada is unworthy—so unworthy.

It disgusts him to the point his stomach feels displaced, a foul taste on his tongue.

Grandmother was endlessly talented and endlessly strong.

And she could barely manage to call forth a flicker.

And this spineless, brainless, insignificant, worthless, weakling—

Kyōya tenses all at once.

A chill steeling his spine, and he smooths his glare to gauge his surroundings.

.

.

.

There's a baby not far off from Sawada, eyeing the disgrace with something akin to disappointment and amusement all wrapped into one. The dark hair and unnerving eyes—pure black, darker than onyx—and pressed, sharp clothes remind him a little eerily of those blasted twins who exude ethereal mist at their fingertips.

Another predator, it seemed, had arrived in Namimori.

Kyōya didn't know whether to consider himself insulted or not—that someone on his family's level would dare snoop around without his consent.

The baby looks at him.

.

.

.

Kyōya barges unashamedly into Uncle Arata's study.

The man doesn't even seem to care that his nephew has all but rammed down his door. Kyōya wasn't one for western architecture—whether or not that was because he spent an inordinate amount of time being flung around and into said architecture was another conversation.

"What do you know about fake babies?"

"Fake babies?" Arata echoes stupidly, his face slackened—dumbfounded. "What do you—"

He pauses, closing his mouth sharply, and resolutely looking at his desk. Kyōya doesn't like that look—doesn't like it all, and he wants to beat it off his Uncle's face but Uncle Arata is the only son-in-law Grandmother likes, so he refrains.

— [ + ] —

Mizusaki Arata knows his wife didn't marry him for his charm nor his looks.

She married him for his usefulness and their compatibility—she has told him plainly that she hates the men her older sisters are involved with.

Involved.

Not in love.

Involved.

She marries him in an exchange of services. She can be his informant and contact point for matters leading into the Underground Society, and he would investigate a case close to her heart that neither her and her sisters could solve.

It's a fair exchange in his mind—though he doesn't quite understand why she needs to marry him instead of remaining as an aquaintance he can reach out to.

Fēng Mei-Xiu is practically blood society royalty.

Her grandfather is the head of one of the nine triad groups that control South-East Asia. Which makes her mother the princess of said group and a rather infamous princess at that. More so because Fēng Yawen is supposed to be dead along with Mei-Xiu's older, twin sisters.

Mizusaki Arata makes a living as a private investigator, often straddling the line between illegality and legality.

He's honest about his work.

He doesn't support the clear lack of regard for other humans that the criminal world displays at its most extreme depths, but at least they're honest about their black nature as opposed to the supposed clean cops. He knows that his former peers are drunkards and aren't so inclined to pass up nights with prostitutes—even underage ones.

It's his work that brings him and his wife together.

Mei-Xiu had been attracted by his meticulous nature when it came to his cases.

Loose ends, even if they were reduced to scattered threads, still left traces.

While his future, at the time, sister-in-laws, had settled into powerful positions by way of sex in the criminal web, Mei-Xiu had sought out more legal methods. He questioned her, offhandedly—when she'd been in a better mood—about her decision. According to her, Mei-Fēn, the eldest of the three, had chosen a man who had some ties that she could utilize and worked in a sphere of influence close to China. Mei-Lan, on the other hand, had chosen to work in Italy, the other side of the world, to corner their target in.

Between the two, Mei-Xiu had said, it would be impossible for their father to not be found.

Mei-Xiu, however, had chosen to target her supposedly dead father's loose ends.

The family he'd left behind when her grandfather had bullied him into being their mother's guard.

A guard, the sisters were sure, had manipulated their mother into being emotionally vulnerable to him such that he could exploit her position and her stubbornness to free himself.

Arata had seen broken families, but he had never seen quite a family as mangled as the Fēng Family.

The bitterness in her eyes is what compels him.

He says yes.

(Though they don't get married right there and then quite yet.)

.

.

.

They land in China, travel to small province and even quainter town—Arata insists its a village, it is so small—and it really doesn't look like it has changed much, even with the Chinese Industrial Revolution. It's all hills and rice fields, thatched houses and people in decent, well-worn and loved, clothes. To his surprise, Mei-Xiu speaks the regional dialect flawlessly—he can barely tell the difference between her speech and the locals, though they have a slightly more pronounced accent then she does. Hers is more practiced—its obvious she never grew up here.

It strikes Arata, at that moment, why Mei-Xiu and her sisters hunt their father down so desperately.

For their mother.

It's rather obvious that his client and her sisters hate the man, can barely stomach their disgust for him, and yet Mei-Xiu is so familiar with the local culture.

Her mother taught her—taught them, she mentioned causally.

He can't imagine—can only barely comprehend—the love that their mother must have had—might still have—for a man that has been absent for the better part of twenty years—

A chill comes in, swirling Arata's clothes rudely and the man curses under his breathe, hands rubbing at the nipped skin. It's spring, he insists in his grumbles. It's meant to be warm, flowers blooming and—

There are endless amount of plum trees in this village, Arata realizes, as his eyes catch the budding blossoms.

Idly, he recalls all three sisters' names—they all begin with Mei.

He makes the mental note to ask Mei-Xiu if "Mei" in Chinese had the same meaning as the Japanese.

Plum. Plum blossoms.

He wonders just how much Fēng Yawen loved her husband.

(And if he ever loved her back.)

.

.

.

Mei-Xiu explores the little village, allowing Arata to do his work without a figurativee demon breathing down his neck.

His linguistic skills are not nearly as impressive as hers, but he can speak and understand conversational Mandarin and to a lesser extent, Cantonese. Luckily his spare fluency in the first language gleans him some information about Mei-Xiu's father.

He's remembered fondly by the older members of the community—those close to his age, at least. They recall his smile, his calm composure and his quiet passion. They talk fondly about his warm, carnelian eyes and how he always looked so confident, so sharp and strong, even when wearing old, darned clothes. They regale him with tales of his kind gestures and escapades to help the community, both to support his family and out of the goodness of his own heart. There are people that are older than Arata and Mei-Xiu but still young enough to be her father's juniors by ten or so years that tell him that the man was as swift as the wind, which suited his name perfectly.

They all remark with fondness the resemblance Mei-Xiu has to the man and ask Arata if she's a long lost cousin—Mei-Xiu's father hadn't been the eldest son until his older brother had disappeared.

But the conversations always turn sour—turn cold—when he steers it towards her father's time with the triads.

They stole him away, the community says—no matter who he asks. Stole him away from his proper family all because they wanted him to fight. Arata only ever hears that Mei-Xiu's father is kind-hearted man that just loved his family and was just talented at an obscure form of martial arts.

The man finds his mouth drying when he finally asks his dreaded question.

"Does he have any family left here?"

Mei-Xiu may have half-siblings she never knew about.

And Yawen may have loved a man so desperately who never reciprocated her feelings and considered her a monster.

The air goes sombre when he asks.

He'd been the older brother of just a single younger sister.

His younger sister—Mei-Xiu's aunt—had been taken in by another family, treated as another daughter, but funds had always came in by a monthly messenger to support the sister and her host family. She'd married the eldest son of said family when she came of age—its ambiguous whether it was arranged or a love match, but he hopes its the latter—and had died after giving birth to her second child, a man not much younger than Mei-Xiu.

His fears are realized when an old lady—and he can tell she was a gossip in her prime, but perhaps even more so now as she can pass it off as wisdom—dazedly tells him of a sweetheart her father had had when he lived here, shortly before he'd been whisked away by the triad. She mentions how torn the poor woman had been at her lover's hasty depart, how she'd mourned him and had awaited letters from with each messenger that come with an allowance.

Arata doesn't want to ask it, but the question manifests itself anyway—

"How long did she receive letters for?"

The answer was the better part of four years until they abruptly stopped.

The same four years that Yawen had known her husband.

(Arata didn't want to think about the fact that they'd been married for half that time.)

Mei-Xiu chooses to reappear at his side when the old biddy mentions seeing a baby in the bereaved lover's arms not long after Mei-Xiu says her father disappeared, but a few months after her birth. Arata, not seeing her, had repeated with an inordinate amount of shock that her father's former lover had been seen carrying a baby that was the man's spitting image nearly a year after his disappearance.

He doesn't notice her until she lets out a strangled gasp.

Arata hates his work then.

He sees the smallest sliver of hope in Mei-Xiu's eyes flicker out.

He doesn't need to be a telepath to know her loop of thoughts as she stumbled, limbs buckling from her grief.

Their father really had left them—hadn't loved their mother… Hadn't loved or probably even wanted them.

Arata chases after as she shrieks and runs off, not caring of the image the two make.

He feels responsible for her pain—for her and sisters' pain because she will undoubtedly tell them and so he holds her, holds her tight in his arms, wraps them firmly around her and tugs into his embrace as far as he can as she trembles and sobs. Her knees are jammed into the mud, hair a disarray and clothes forever soiled when she's done.

Arata isn't much better. He'd slowly encased her in his limbs, his own legs framing her own and arms wrapped securely around as she clutched him and sobbed her sorrows out.

Sorrows for her, her sisters and most importantly, their mother.

Their mother, Mei-Xiu explains hoarsely, barely recovering her breath, who is still hopelessly in love with their father.

Hopelessly.

A man who, evidently, hadn't planned to come back to Yawen.

He softly pets her hair, shushing her sniffles as he gently coaxes her back towards the inn they'd been staying at over the course of their little adventure.

(It wasn't as happy as an adventure—more like a tragedy.)

Mei-Xiu clings to him, body liquefied by grief, and he wants to be there for her—can barely stand the pain on her face.

(He can't shake the feeling that someone is watching them.)

.

.

.

Arata meets Mei-Fēn and Mei-Lan not even a week after they return to Japan.

Mei-Xiu had all been glued to the bed, a mess of tears and snot and barely gulping down a substantial serving of soup so he hadn't expected her to reach out to her sisters so soon. He thinks they're terrifying when he sees them. He knew they were twins, but they're so eerily similar to Mei-Xiu, it disturbs him.

He can separate the sisters, though, by countenance.

Mei-Fēn and Mei-Lan are far colder and less amicable than their sister—and that's about as far as he can distinguish the three.

He sits the youngest of the three up, an arm around her waist to support her as she rubs at her face, eyes sunken and tired from endless sobbing. Arata can see it in her eyes that she has no energy to say the ugly truth—not even when her sisters begin to lose their tempers and bark at her to tell them why she called them here. And especially why she's letting him wrap his arms around her so casually.

He's intimidated that's for sure but he finds his voice.

"He has another family."

The world shatters.

.

.

.

Mei-Fēn and Mei-Lan are kind enough to replace everything they broke in their rampage, even paying off the neighbours for the disturbance they caused in their unbridled rage. The twins are as desolate as the youngest of the three sisters, aimlessly staring at the ceiling, clothes stained in tears and snot.

"We can't tell Mother," Mei-Xiu murmurs hoarsely, eyes rimmed with red.

"Yeah," one of twins chimes in. She's boneless on the floor, leg hooked around one of the footboard's posts. He thinks that's Mei-Lan.

The last one—who he assumes is Mei-Fēn—groans but agrees. "Mother might actually die."

Arata curses his loose tongue when he remembers how much of a dumbass he was in that moment.

"Does she love him that much?"

All three sisters look at him and his stupid mouth.

It's unnerving.

But it's absolutely heartbreaking how sad they look.

(Arata thinks it doesn't suit them—any of them.)

And it's all the answer Arata need.

(They were so vicious but hollow—eyes far too hauntingly dead for people with such vigour.)

.

.

.

The Fēng Sisters never step foot in China after that, retreating to their corners of the world and reconnect with their mother—citing that they'd grown up enough to realize that they can't adult without her in their lives, they lover her so much. Privately, Arata wonders if Yawen already knows—knows that she was nothing more than a mistress, but even less than that, in her husband's eyes—because she smiles at her children so indulgently even though the lot of them are brats.

But perhaps she smiles at them so sadly because she sees their father in them.

Now that Arata has met Fēng Yawen, he can say that her three daughters don't resemble her at all except for their steely eyes.

They don't even take after her height or build.

All her daughters are willowy and tall, lithe with corded muscle and subtle curves. Their faces are sharp, but not as vulpine as Yawen's—they're softer around the jaw, chin and nose. Their eyes are sharper, a lazy tilt to them and their smile charming when they manage to mould an expression that isn't impassive. All their faces are framed by long, dark, silky straight hair.

Yawen is short, her curves more defined, with soft curls in her dark hair to match. Her roundness starkly contrasts to her vulpine face, sharp facial features, and even a sharp smile that comes off as dangerous even when she's smiling happily at her girls.

He can't imagine how much her heart hurts when she looks at her children—can't even begin to comprehend her sorrow if she somehow knew the truth behind her husband's disappearance.

Arata can't help but pity her.

.

.

.

He continues to pity her when he sees Kyōya and Mei—of all the things to name your daughter, Mei-Lan!—for the first time. Kyōya and Mei are seven and six months old respectively when the sisters decided their infants are sturdy enough to receive guests. Yawen loves them—maybe even loves them more than her own children, she is so entranced by them—but they look just like their mothers.

Which means they look like her husband.

Which is why Arata feels a disturbing amount of joy when Mai—his little Mai—shockingly comes out with his hair. He'd even more delighted when he realizes she also inherited his eyes.

With how the three of them, Kyōya and Mei looked, Arata knew the Fēng genes were strong.

Not to say his wife wasn't beautiful—he had grown to love her in every aspect—but for his mother-in-law's sake, he hoped that she would have at least one grandchild that wouldn't remind her of her husband. Of Mei-Fēn, Mei-Lan, and Mei-Xiu's father. Their long absent father.

Once he gets over his shock, Arata immediately coos at his daughter—at how frail, wrinkly and misshaped she is from a natural birth. Mei-Xiu had passed out shortly after holding their darling baby girl for a short time, and he had kissed her forehead, whispering how much he loved her as she succumbed to her fatigue. Even in his awestruck state, Arata can feel panic bubble up in his chest as Mai fusses.

She is so, so, so little.

And babies required a lot of attention—which, fair, seeing as they never asked to be born.

He wonders how he and Mei-Xiu will handle their newborn daughter—seeing as neither of them were the naturally parental type, and only had agreed to have a child because they both saw it as the next step in their relationship. Their incredibly weird and probably one in a trillionth relationship because he doubts there are any others whose relationship started out like theirs. Mai fusses again, and Arata carefully and mindfully tugs at her swaddling, moving her gently around in his arms. He should call Yawen for help—

A breeze crashes the tender moment, and Mai fusses louder; the newborn's face, pudgier than a piglet, twists into an expression that's already reminiscent of her mother.

(Arata is so in love with both of his girls—can't imagine why his nephew and niece's father refuse to part of their children's lives.)

Arata cusses, apologizing to Mai for his crass language, and clicks his tongue as he marches towards the open window—and why was it open—Mei-Xiu was giving birth not even half-an-hour ago and—

And—

And.

Arata stops dead in his tracks, wondering if he accidentally nicked himself with the morphine needle.

There is a toddler—or maybe even an infant on the window sill.

He has the right to call them a baby because they're even smaller than his nephew and niece.

And yet this baby stands tall on two chubby legs, face round.

"Kyōya?" Arata asks dumbly. Mei-Fēn would only be arriving later seeing as Mei-Xiu had given birth a week earlier than anticipated so it'd be impossible for this baby to be Kyōya—especially because his nephew is taller than that. "…You're not Kyōya—and why am I talking to a baby—?"

"No."

Arata stops breathing as the baby speaks.

That's not Kyōya's voice—but that is his face.

"I am not Kyōya," the baby enunciates with no trouble—not even a lisp, and every word pronounced cleanly and clearly. "I am… here to observe."

Arata can feel his world teeter—

"Mizusaki-san?!"

Two pairs of hands brace his shoulders as his body goes numb, mind blank. Luckily, a third nurse had rushed in at the first two's distress and had quickly taken the newborn from his arms. The duo swiftly, braced the taller man between themselves, arms weaving behind him to support him as he teetered back. A fourth nurse rushed in, rearranging the furniture loudly and helping the pair plop the dumbstruck man in it.

"Mizusaki-san?" A nurse called worriedly, waving a hand before his dazed face.

Another nurse clicks her tongue. "He must be dehydrated."

"A talking baby."

"What?" The trio of nurses utter once as the man begins to speak himself.

The three exchange a concerned look before one of the books it out of there to get the man a cup of water as he begins to babble about some hallucination of a talking baby.

.

.

.

When his wife asks, Arata tells her he is working on a new case—a rather odd case. She raises a brow but leaves it alone, doesn't mind that he spends his time pouring overing obscure texts. He's lucky his wife isn't the nosey type—but then again, she has an infant on hand. Arata feels guilty as he works on his so-called case more than he pays attention to his wife and daughter but its necessary to maintain the image that he's working on a legitimate case.

(He doesn't want to give them false hope, wants to tread lightly on hers and her family's feelings.)

He wants to believe he hallucinated the whole talking baby schtick. Wants to believe he'd been so stressed and out of it that day, he'd conjured up the whole thing from a weird part of his mind. But he can't shake his curiosity, the bad feeling thats sets in his bones every time he tries to dismiss the thought of a talking baby.

It's ridiculous and unnatural.

And yet Yawen looks barely older than her daughters despite being nearly thirty years the twins' senior and having a disease she refuses to disclose to her children.

So he researches.

He gets his hands on centuries old texts.

Any obscure reference regarding babies.

Of course, many of them are duds.

Until he accidentally mentions magical, talking babies to his wife out of sheer frustration. Mei-Xiu blinks, once then twice and shifts Mai in her arms as she carefully questions him. "You saw an Arcobaleno?"

"A what in the what?" Because whatever Mei-Xiu said was decidedly not Japanese.

Or any other language Arata had stomached learning.

"An Arcobaleno," Mei-Xiu repeats, a frown twisting her lips and furrow between her brows. "A member of the I Prescelti Sette."

"…I have no idea what you just said."

Mei-Xiu huffs through her nose. "It's Italian."

"Oh, so Mei-Lan?" Arata asks, remembering that his new sister worked out of Italy.

Whether or not she was doing legal work was out of the question, given how the other two sisters were involved in… less than lawful occupations.

(Arata still didn't know where Mei-Xiu was pulling her money from—frankly, she could be pulling it out of her ass for all he cared, but his own salary was barely a fraction of her earnings.)

Mei-Xiu nods, shifting their daughter on her hip. Arata steps closer to his girls, catching his daughter's small fist in his and wiggling her fingers as she coos and cackles in delight. "They're an urban legend Underground. The strongest of their chosen craft. Only prestigious families are said to have ties with them."

(Arata remembers how her father—his father-in-law—had been toted as a martial artist unmatched.)

"How prestigious?" Arata asks, mindlessly, playfully but softly pinching at Mai's fat. His little girl squeals and it eases the tension in his shoulders.

(He can't imagine why parents could ever dream of leaving their children behind.)

Mei-Xiu pauses, face blank as she offers her fingers for Mai to play with. "Most of them have some ties to Vongola."

"…As in the boogeyman of all Mafia Famigilias?" The words fall clumsily off his tongue, the investigator struggling to wrap his tongue around the foreign language.

And evidently the only Italian Arata knows well enough to pronounce with some confidence.

Mei-Xiu nods, lips pressed in a thin line—though the man swears he sees her mouth twitch up in the semblance of a smile. "No one really sees them outside of Italy but even then, meeting an Arcobaleno is relatively rare unless you have proper connections."

"Huh. Okay."

"Did you see one?" She repeats her first question, and Arata can see the worry lightly etched into her face.

Mei-Xiu, Arata had learned, was a quiet woman in nature but no less fierce than a raging storm. She is unyielding and stubborn in ways that only nature can be, but nonetheless his wife is capable of feeling as strongly as the next human. Mei-Xiu has tempered her rage and tries to match his declarations of love; she makes an effort to show him she cares about him just as strongly as Arata cares for her and he loves her for that.

(They're such a weird couple, but Arata would never have it any other way.)

"No," he denies softly, pressing a chaste kiss against her lips. "I didn't. It's for the case I was working on."

"Hm." Mei-Xiu doesn't believe him, not with that look in her eyes, yet Arata knows she will respect his boundaries as she demands for her own to be followed.

"Hah. You're so cute."

Mei-Xiu smiles at him softly but brilliantly and it helps to dispel the guilt settling in Arata's throat.

Magical babies or not, his wife is sure that the Arcobaleno are bad news. Very few things worry the Fęng Family; they are all so confident and proud in themselves and their prowess that they very rarely feel challenged. After all, there is not much that can scare women that can change the landscape in ways reserved for nature's fits and vengeful gods—much less women that keep the company that they do. And so, Arata decides that she certainly doesn't need to know—doesn't need the added stress—about the magical baby that looks a lot like her and her siblings and their children.

A baby that looks like their father.

(Their missing father—not dead. Not yet.)

No.

Arata decides firmly, lifting his daughter into his arms so he can kiss Mei-Xiu without Mai batting at his face.

They don't need to know.

(He muses alone in the dark, Mei-Xui burrowed in his side, about what kind of twisted supernatural force would torture a family so.)

.

.

.

Kyōya stands at his desk, his nephew's features pinched with barely restrained anger.

Arata sighs.

(Why does it feel like he causes this family pain more than their own patriarch?)

"Perhaps…" Because Arata doesn't even want his own predictions to be true. Not for this. "Your Grandfather is one."

— [ + ] —

To say that Kyōya was livid would be an understatement.

The teenager trashes the ancestral Hibari Home and the surrounding property completely. Trees are uprooted, flower beds and trimmed bushes trampled. The earth is so deeply scarred by his anger that Arata is inclined to label the remodelled land a ravine of all things. The ancestral property, kept up for the better part of five hundred years, is in ruins. It looks more like a crash site than it does an estate now.

Arata can't find it in him to blame the seething teenager.

Kyōya isn't the most affectionate, personable person but he is emotional. He feels anger much more strongly than anyone else, has let it get the best of him, but his nephew has always owned his rage.

It makes perfect sense to Arata that Kyōya is unable to let this go. Its an unspoken truth in the Fēng Family; that their matriarch—that Yawen—deserved better.

Deserved someone who wanted her as strongly as she did him.

Deserved someone who thought of her, always, just like she did him.

Deserved to have a husband who was as dedicated a father to her children as he was as dedicated to her.

Deserved to be comforted—especially now, as her strength waned and more than half her children dead.

The possibility—the very notion that Grandfather—might be alive tears Kyōya's heart out, bloody and raw.

He thinks of how he loathes his Father for his absence in his life, but at least the weakling acknowledges Kyōya—had acknowledged Mother. Father has not remarried, has never had any other children save for him, and sends Kyōya well wishes on his birthday and the New Year's, useful presents carefully packaged in tasteful wrappings. His estranged father also makes the effort to have flowers delivered to Mother's grave on her birthday, their anniversary, Mother's Day, Christmas and New Year's. Kyōya has never seen his parents talk for as long as he's lived, but Father always arranges a thoughtful bouquet full of sincerity and affection, dotted with red tiger lilies—because they will never meet again; separated forever.

Kyōya doesn't care to know how his parents felt for each other, but at least they had some semblance of recognition between the two

At least Father understood he was a father.

And—

Kyōya's face is streaked with sweat, not tears.

Grandfather deserved to die.

(So why wasn't he dead yet? Why was Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan… Why?)

— [ + ] —

Tsuna knows he's being stupid.

Knows that it's practically suicidal to purposefully antagonize the Hibari Kyōya and expect a slap on the wrist as retribution. He's heard and seen the damage the prefect could do when he really wanted to hurt someone. Hibari's reputation precedes him—even in other prefectures. Yankees murmur in bated breaths, eyes darting fearfully over their shoulder, about the Demon of Namimori.

He knows that Hibari wears that name with as much pride as he does the red band pinned to his arm.

So, even if it is hopeless, Tsuna begs, begs, begs Reborn not to involve Hibari.

It doesn't help that the older teen seems to have it out for him—even before they'd unceremoniously and unintentionally crashed the Disciplinary Committee's office. While the violent prefect had made a mockery of Yamamoto and Gokudera, he'd been swiftly brutal—one shot kills, if you may.

But for Tsuna—Hibari had looked like he wanted to maim Tsuna, slowly and carefully but swiftly and violently all at once.

He tried to convince himself that this feeling—that Hibari was targeting him—was a delusion of that stupid Dying Will Mode.

(But Hyper Intuition doesn't lie—has never lied, according to Reborn.)

.

.

.

(He can't help but think Hibari looks sad.)

— [ + ] —

Hibari Kyōya.

For all his fluency in a handful or so of languages, Reborn still prefers reading the romanized, or latinized, version of languages with a different alphabet or writing system. He's an Italian man, first and foremost, and has always favoured the standard Latin alphabet. It certainly helps that the majority of the world uses the Latin alphabet—only pronouncing the letters differently.

The hitman stares at the name, as if willing the letters to change.

It's an unmistakably Japanese name, for a teen born and raised in Japan—in Namimori—all his life, nearly sixteen years of it in the coming May.

Reborn is anything but unprepared, has cased the small community and the surrounding settlements for criminal activity. It would, after all, be a pain if his work were to be interrupted by lowlifes with zero purpose and would contribute nothing to his student's learning. As such, he is aware of small-time coalitions of even smaller, small-time criminals. Nothing more than a handful of pickpockets and petty thieves, too scared to move up or act bolder. There's one or two enforcer groups that claim pitifully small territories for themselves, in the seedier part of town.

No one would, apparently, dare cross the Hibari Clan.

In his research, Reborn has learned that it's a rather old, prominent family, tracing back its roots to servants of a prominent historical figure, one Uesugi Kenshin.

It speaks volumes to him that the teenager maintains an iron claw over the businesses, shady or otherwise.

The boy is smarter than he appears, for all his reckless violence.

Correction. Seemingly reckless violence.

Reborn had been delighted when Hibari had immediately picked up on his presence. The teen had met his cool stare with one that burned with something savage, but all the while assessing and calculating. He'd been even more delighted when he saw the prefect take on Yamamoto and Gokudera with virtually no problems. Both teens were talented enough for their age—and in Yamamoto's case, novice skill—but Hibari was simply, utterly, bloody brilliant.

Dame-Tsuna could go very, very, very far with Hibari Kyōya at his side.

It was a twisted sort of fondness he had for the boy, admiring the skill he possessed—and so young too—and the mind behind the so-called monster. Hibari simply chose not to act in a more calculating way—straightforward in all his approaches—but he could assess and plan and discern weaknesses as easy as breathing.

A prodigy if there was ever one.

Yet Reborn can't let it go—

Can't let go of the resemblance between the boy and one of his associates—an associate with the same condition as the hitman.

The eyes are different—Kyōya's eyes are cool steel, liquid silver when bathed in a violet light, and angled more, sharper, almost vulpine in quality. Fon's are carnelian, comparable to a redder version of a fox's signature russet coat. But the face is the same. The same harsh jaw line but soft chin, nose and cheekbones. The same thin lips—though Kyōya's were almost always pressed thinner than paper as he scowled, whereas the Storm Arcobaleno constantly wore a placid, almost fake, smile.

He wonders if Fon is aware of his doppelgänger.

.

.

.

"My family is dead."

The eternally calm man had lost his composure then—the first and only display of such raw, raw rage typically attributed to a Storm. His former employer had mobilized in his absence, the hitman had learned after some digging, and had quickly acted to deal with his daughter and two granddaughters.

Fon's wife and small children.

They'd never been seen again.

And they had all looked.

(It was one of the things they could agree on—after that incident.)

Reborn hadn't believed in it at first—hadn't thought that a Cloud, of all things—was dead. Clouds, as somewhat illy exemplified by Skull, were a nasty category to kill. And more often than not, the fight they put up was far deadlier than anything their killers could do. But more than that, the trail was too clean.

Three corpses had never been found.

A basic man would surmise that their bodies had been lost when she'd attempted to flee over the Himalayas.

Reborn didn't know the woman, but he didn't think she was that stupidly motivated.

And yet, nothing.

(Reborn finds it maddening because he always excels in what he does and failure leaves him with a mouthful of acid.)

To the hitman's eternal ire, it's Iemitsu—the blond, bumbling, brawny idiot—that finds the nuances of a lead. Iemitsu, as per usual, was a pain, casually mentioning how one of his former information squeezes, someone so thirsty for information in return that you could bleed them dry, had wisened up recently. The blond had whined about it, citing the man's new wife for his sudden change in policy to be more private. Reborn is all but ready to leave when he catches sight of the folder than Iemitsu was pouting at.

The man is of no note, nothing attractive or eye catching about him.

But the woman wears Fong's face.

Reborn snatches the file out of Iemitsu's hand, mocking the man before returning it when he had a name.

Mizusaki Mei-Xiu.

Mizusaki Mei-Xiu, née Fēng Mei-Xiu, was born in a remote town in northern Italy, close to the French border, a few months after his wife's supposed disappearance—the wife with the same surname, and two children named eerily similar. The paper trail is exceedingly limited but Reborn notes there are no discharge papers for the mother—likely dying in childbirth.

(He doesn't like that he doesn't have a name for the mother but his time is better spent elsewhere.)

It's a coincidence, Reborn surmises, that the woman wears the same face as Fong.

(Even Reborn is daunted by the idea of travelling with nothing but the clothes on your back, on foot, and two children in hand across continents.)

He doesn't know what Fong does with the name and location he gives but Reborn thinks it's false hope as the Storm Arcobaleno rushes away.

(Reborn muses of a drunken dream—children wearing his face and reaching out to him with joy.)

.

.

.

Iemitsu has never mentioned anything about the Hibari Clan. Reborn calls him fool but the man is competent enough when it came to his work. It still infuriates him that the CEDEF head hadn't deemed the family important enough to include in his notes when Reborn had accepted his assignment.

Sometimes, Iemitsu seemed to be too incompetent for his position.

(The notes on his own son pale even more in comparison.)

That just means Reborn is left to do the bulk of the information gathering.

Hibari Kyōya.

Fifteen, soon to turn sixteen in May.

Only child to Hibari Kyōsuke and Hibari Haruka, née Namikaze Haruka.

The boy doesn't look a thing like his father—save for the slant of his eyes.

His mother's papers are clean enough. Homeschooled by her now dead single mother—the grave and childhood home in the town over—but surprisingly did not have a post-secondary education. She doesn't have a criminal record but her medical record reports minor injuries aside from her only pregnancy. No miscarriages—at least, none recorded by the local hospital. Hibari's parents' marriage certificate is issued eleven months before his birth. Despite this, Hibari's father was estranged from the son, hadn't been seen in Namimori in almost as many years as Kyōya was old, pointing at a marriage of convenience.

It's a relatively plain background for a woman that could most definitely pass as Fong's daughter—the age is right and her face almost evidence in itself.

It's unfortunate she's dead, and has been for nearly five years—the anniversary is in the spring, just before the boy's birthday.

(In his heart of hearts, the hitman aches for the boy but he wonders. Who was she to raise a boy like him?)

Hibari has no other relatives—maternal or otherwise.

Reborn decides that it would be fine not to tell Fong about his ill-tempered doppelgänger.

(He had come back saying it was wrong—Mei-Xiu was all wrong, she couldn't be his daughter.)

Though, the hitman notes, that it is rather too snug of a coincidence that Hibari Kyōya and Mizusaki Mai, only daughter of Mizusaki Mei-Xiu, are often seen in each other's company.

— [ + ] —

Sawada's grouping was annoying beyond all else—beyond belief, beyond comprehension.

All of Namimori's disturbances can be traced back to the annoying whelp and his impossible, baby hitman tutor. That pale-haired foreigner who possessed, quite literally, an explosive personality. The apparent pride and joy of Namimori Chuu's baseball team—though, in Kyōya's opinion, he was the only reason the team even advanced past the first-round. Sasagawa—the eternal pain in the ass—had also somehow joined Sawada's herd of pests.

Which meant that Kyōya really didn't like them.

They were all loud, ill-mannered and completely disregarded the rules—intentionally, too, might he add.

Uncle Arata and Mai were watching the teen get to the end of his rope as he would seethe whenever he'd get more paperwork relating to any of their inane adventures. He didn't particularly care what excuses Sawada would undoubtedly babble—whether or not it was the Baby's fault, the Baby was only here because of Sawada.

(He also didn't like how the baseball commensalist looked at Mai.)

Kyōya blamed the lot of them for his lack of focus—lack of commitment to his proper duties.

Mai would roll her eyes—the brat—but Uncle Arata would nod in understanding, looking sagely and advising Mai to take on more responsibilities to help him, even if that meant moving in with Kyōya. Uncle Arata and her would end up in a separate wing if that so happened, but that would mean the prefect wouldn't have to keep an eye on his extended family so much when they resided in the Hibari Home.

It was, after all, quite hard to find it, even if you visited often.

(Suffice to say that his ancestors were the definition of paranoid.)

Uncle Arata and Mai had moved in before the leaves fell, shortly before November. Kusakabe had marvelled in a mix of awe and fear at the warmth in the Hibari Home the next time he visited. Mai had thought Kyōya as boring as Father—which he wasn't—and attempted to usurp the role of head of house so that she could redecorate. They spared for that. Kyōya, of course, was victorious and he walked away proudly, even if Uncle Arata chastised him for breaking Mai's nose. So, Kyōya got his way. Mai, with much grumbling and heated glaring at him, ended up keeping the minimalist plan. But she had added, in a fit of petty fury, touches of pastel, traditionally-inspired paintings on hanging scrolls, revising the monotone designs on the fusuma to contemporary ones, and squeezing the budget for better lighting. Kyōya had sneered at the last one, but it was either replacing the lights—that were perfectly fine—or having Mai nag him into replacing the fusuma with all shoji to get more light diffusing into the home.

He didn't like Father, but he did like the home Father had left him and Mother.

(Still. It was such a waste of electricity.)

.

.

.

Kyōya ended up patrolling, more often than not, after Mai had steadily taken up more of the administrative tasks that handled running Namimori. Uncle Arata helped her with the more delicate bits—the parts she wasn't too familiar with—but otherwise, the Mizusaki father and daughter lived the same lives as they did before. There were minor and major things that changed—Uncle Arata no longer had to worry about paying mortgage and utility bills as much and Mai was made to spar with him more regularly—but they were changes the two could weather, had expected, and adapted to after a week or so of the new arrangement.

Kusakabe had yet to properly meet Uncle Arata, but had almost dropped dead in a faint when he found Mai lounging in the Hibari Home without a care.

(Kyōya doesn't know who started the rumour that he was dating her cousin but they were going to die.)

Kyōya had wanted to beat him for intruding, but Mai had already explained the situation. Her reasoning was something about how Kusakabe should know, seeing as the she and him had been acquainted for a few years now.

Including the tidbit about the two of them being cousins—maternal cousins.

(Kusakabe had looked so touched—moved to tears—that his leader would trust him with such delicate information.)

The explanation—one that Kyōya didn't think was necessary—reaped some unexpected fruits. Kusakabe would circumvent around him to discuss things with Mai instead, who would reach out to her father if need be, which left him the job of only signing the necessary paperwork. Leaving Kyōya with a plethora of time to stalk the annoyances—but in particular, the Baby. The Baby, thus far, had managed to escape much of the surveillance Kyōya had placed on him. Kyōya attributed it to the fact that he had left his subpar goons to do the work.

It was a minor annoyance seeing that this was the exact outcome Kyōya expected from a fellow predator.

The Baby interested him—and not for the reasons that Uncle Arata assumed.

(Kyōya didn't care about Grandfath—about that man.)

It was unnatural—completely and utterly so—that the Baby was as dangerous as he was despite his outward appearance. He was a pudgy thing, rounder than a ball at some places, and not even at his knee cap. And yet the Baby was more well-mannered, practiced, and moved more fluently than people Kyōya's age and far older.

(He didn't believe what Uncle Arata told him about Grand—that man.)

So—you could least try to—sue him, Kyōya's competitive nature refused to be pushed back.

(He also couldn't help but think of Nata and Alex when he say the Baby.)

.

.

.

Naturally, this was one of his pitfalls.

While he respected the Baby, as oddly as that sounded, Kyōya refused to lay down and let whatever the Baby—and thus Sawada's motley crowd—slowly edge him out of his territory. Whatever scavenger that had the audacity to attack him and his—in broad daylight no less—were going to be submitted to a death match if it came down to it. Kyōya was fiercely territorial as it was and slights like this were ones he couldn't tolerate—tolerance wasn't a particular trait of his.

(Don't disturb Mother's peace.)

Which was how he ended up fighting a mock fruit, looking—

Why was he bleeding?

"Kufufu…Sweet dreams, Hibari Kyōya."

An unpaired red eye looked down at him, the iris an unnatural shape—no, his iris shifted between kanji. The bizarre teen's face was illuminated by the eery glow of the lone red eye, fluorescent indigo mist floating around his hands and medieval trident.

Kyōya's vision blurred as the interloper advanced, slowly and mockingly.

Kyōya felt an overwhelming sense of anger.

(He was never going to live this down—not as long as Nata and Alex breathed.)

.

.

.

Kyōya was indifferent to Sawada's brood—no matter if they managed to somehow help him despite their numerous incompetencies.

If Mai had a say, his cousin would be incredibly and unnecessarily vocal about the fact he wasn't—and that Kyōya was in fact, bitching. Which was exactly what she told him when she managed to annoy him enough to surmise what exactly transpired when he'd disappeared. Uncle Arata had been concerned enough, wanting to contact Aunt Mei-Xiu and Grandmother but Mai had stopped in, stating that if there were to call the cavalry in, it should be Mei since Mei was—like Kyōya—always up for a fight. Kyōya had then chosen to waltz through the door—head held high even if he was bleeding all over the place.

Uncle Arata had looked pale but managed to treat his—minor—injuries while Mai needled him, the useless shrew.

And then Mai had figured out what exactly happened, laughed and then said to him to stop his bitching.

(Whoever taught her how to swear was going to Hell—Kyōya would make sure of it personally.)

Uncle Arata had walked back in to find Kyōya attempting to drown Mai in a sink full of soapy water. He had been using his—slightly—good arm to drown her, using the ends of the bandages on his bad arm to strangle her as he did so. The man had been horrified and tried to scold him but Mai was breathing so that was all that mattered.

Kyōya was totally going to maim her, string her up like a pig and then toss her in the nearest river.

(When his body didn't ache so much.)

"Lick your wounds, Kyōya," Mai sang, hair twined with a spare towel to form a crown on her head.

Her cousin glared at her from the numerous restraints Uncle Arata had managed to get on him when the sedative finally hit.

"…I will bite you to death."

His cousin had the gall to laugh at him.

(She was undoubtedly going to visit Grandmother and tell them all about how he lost to some cheap, knock-off Mist.)

.

.

.

Aracelli di Vongola.

The name stared mockingly up at him from the pile of paperwork and Kyōya could feel his blood pressure rise. Mai looked on anxiously from his side, eyes never leaving her cousin's perturbed expression. They both recognized the name very well—easily connecting it to a girl of distinctly Japanese descent with a foreign name. Kyōya knew damn well that wench didn't need a middle school education—well, neither did he, but that was beside the point—which meant she had some sort of hidden agenda she was attempting to push. Kyōya could just feel his blood beginning to boil as he envisioned her blue eyes, half-lidded with hidden meaning and obscured by her long, dark hair.

He wouldn't let her.

At least, not in Namimori.

Kyōya nearly tore the paper in half, already envisioning the cheery expression the girl would wear—always. Bright, blue-eyes half-lidded, smile soft and thick, dark hair framing her asiatic features. Adopted or not, he did not need anymore people associated with the boogeyman of crime organization in his town.

Besides, she was annoying enough when she wasn't pushing an agenda.

Kyōya made sure that any and all paperwork that even vaguely referred to Aracelli were denied and rejected.

(The Baby might hate him for it but he had enough of all this mockery.)

.

.

.

The first time Hibari Kyōya and his cousin, Fēng Tyra Mei, had even an ounce of a proper, civil conversation in almost five years was when Kyōya had called her and politely demanded for her to answer his questions. It wasn't so much that the two of them despised each other; that was too strong of a word. Kyōya and Mei simply had a mutual annoyance between the two of them—a bond shared between siblings, because in truth, that's how their mothers raised them. Besides, the only real reason there was any sort of stilted awkwardness between the two was because Kyōya refused to visit as often as Mai, and Mei had taken that quite personally.

So, in Mei's opinion, it was entirely unexpected when Mei had woken up to her phone's incessant ringing at a thrice-damned hour because Kyōya, of all people, had called her. "What do you want?"

[Cavallone.]

Mei sat up, shrugging off her blankets, brows furrowing. "Hm?"

[Blond. Tall. Dark eyed. Tattoos.]

"Valentino Cavallone, prefers Dino," Mei yawned, settling back into her sheets and cracking her neck. "Twenty-two. Don of the Cavallone Famigilia for six years. Competent."

[Wao.]

Mei hung up on him after that.

She could find out why Dino Cavallone was bothering Kyōya later.

(Mei hadn't thought of the bumbling heir—turned leader—since those balls her father made her attend.)

.

.

.

Mei doesn't expect Kyōya to call again.

He does.

[A man,] her cousin says, and she scowls and growls at the vague description. [Long hair. Silver. Sword prosthetic. And loud. Annoyingly loud.]

Ah, Mei did know who that was.

"Superbi Squalo. Varia's Vice-Command. Swordsman. Mother liked him."

Kyōya almost hums at that. Aunt Mei-Lan had a very high standard for technique and skill; it was quite hard to impress her, but that was a given considering her childhood. Nothing seemed impressive anymore if you lived the lives of the Fēng Sisters.

[Hn. His boss.]

Mei sat up. "Xanxus?"

It shouldn't be.

Mei had been eight when she'd last seen the angry teen—who should still be a teen. She shouldn't have been there—shouldn't have dared to overstep her boundaries to investigate the rumours but Aracelli… Aracelli had begged her, had looked so pitiful with blue eyes soaked in tears.

(Mei couldn't imagine losing either of her cousins the way Aracelli had lost her brothers—adopted or otherwise.)

[I know that name.]

"You should," Mei replied, scowling and then hanging up.

Did Aracelli know yet?

Mei hesitated, stretching out in her bed.

She closed her eyes, sighing then breathing in deeply. Flashes of gold and indigo danced across the black vision of her eyelids. No, she heard, a breathless wind whispering in her ears in the early morning silence.

Whatever, then.

(Kyōya could tell Aracelli.)

.

.

.

Kyōya was smug.

"I won."

Mai gave him a look from the corner of her eyes, not even caring to help him dress her wounds. His cousin was much more focused on the paperwork relating to the damage done to Namimori Chuu—and how to sue those pink-haired skanks for all of the infrastructure damage. The prefect had—of course—gone after them the moment the Monkey Boss was at Sawada's mercy but they all but disappeared, no doubt fearing his wrath. His ire had risen several degrees but given the state of the interlopers, Kyōya was willing to put off the hunt for another time.

(But they were going to bleed—and bleed a lot; he wanted a lake of blood left in his wake.)

"That's a given, Kyōya," his little cousin dismissed his bragging. Mai was more focused on how to word the demand—because Kyōya did not ask of his subjects—as politely as she could.

(How was she supposed to explain the damage and ask them to complete the repairs within a week and nicely?)

"Hn."

Mai rolled her eyes, biting her lip before she dared to voice her thoughts. "Sawada was apparently better than you."

Kyōya scowled. "No."

(The prefect nearly broke his cousin's nose when she started to swoon over that sword-fumbling jock.)

.

.

.

It isn't a full week since Mei has learned what transpired between her cousin and the Varia when Mai had run into her arms, a frantic mess and all but sobbing. The Sawada group Mei had heard so much about in verbal complaint had disappeared—along with Mai's not-sweetheart. Not many people approach her younger cousin, not with the fear of invoking Kyōya's wrath; Mei had shared Kyōya's amusement when Mai had learned that the general consensus was that Kyōya and Mai were dating. As much as Kyōya was annoyed and disgusted with the rumours, it kept any unsavoury admirers off the littlest of the Fēng Family. So it seemed Mai would never find a date, not as long as Kyōya hovered around her, ready to lunge like an avenging angel.

(Only the clinically insane would dare light their elder cousin's ire.)

But that didn't mean Mai couldn't have feelings or that people couldn't crush on her too.

Mei had heard about the apparently cute jock Kyōya would always scowl about. Mai had had her eye on him since first-year—they were second-years now, soon to be third-years in April—and he was kind to her. But he was kind to just about everyone else. Her little cousin didn't even know if the boy was straight but she still liked him—Mai had nearly cried when Maria had suggested the jock might play for the same team. Katya had calmed Mai down, far more calming than Maria despite their natures.

When asked why she liked the boy, Mai would shrug and list the same as always—he's cute, he's kind and he's dedicated.

Even Kyōya would begrudgingly admit the jock's talent in baseball was what made their school's team so formidable.

But that didn't mean Kyōya cared about the boy as much as Mai did—not nearly even remotely caring what happened to him so long as he didn't die on school property.

(Mai's education would be at risk then.)

Still, that didn't stop Mai from nagging at Kyōya to at least maintain interesting in the boy for her sake.

(Mai, after all, was the littlest and most soft-hearted of all of them.)

And apparently Kyōya was being a cunt and refusing to search for them despite it being his responsibility as protectorate demon.

"It's not fair," Mai asserted, features pinched in an exceedingly familiar scowl—their Grandmother's and mothers' scowl.

If anyone would dare doubt Mai's relation to Mei and Kyōya, here was evidence of their relation.

.

.

.

Kyōya disappeared a couple weeks later without a trace and Mai's hysterics were restored anew—this time nearly ten-fold. The rest of their blood family—which Uncle Arata only barely fit into—shared the youngest's despair.

(Not to mention their close friends—Mei saw the way Kyōya and Katya looked at each other.)

Grandmother's heart stopped beating at the news.

Literally.

Between Mei, Mai, Mei-Xiu and Arata, the stricken group didn't know whether to mourn for the missing Kyōya or the very real possibility that Fēng Yawen had finally had enough of living and was leaving them for good. There wasn't much the woman's blood family could do—the elderly woman was already in the clutches of a mystical family with miraculous gifts. Still, that didn't mean their worries were any where near quelled—in fact, they were renewed with frightening strength.

Yawen had always made a point of dying with the body she was born with and nothing different.

(The twins had begged relentlessly for Yawen to change her mind but the woman was far more stubborn than her children and grandchildren.)

And Kyōya wouldn't be there to at least say goodbye.

.

.

.

Kyōya managed to easily shake off the tails Kusakabe had tried to stick on him when he got to this false reality. The sheer amount of chaos in this fragmented world was disgusting—Kyōya would have never let Namimori devolve into something so wasteful, regardless the situation. The only thing that the so-called future him did right was send Mai away to be with Mei and Aunt Mei-Xiu. No matter what happened, Kyōya knew that Nata and Alex and Aunt Rei would take care of them in his place.

Kyōya stopped at Mother's grave.

Hibari Haruka.

He scowled, still disgusted with himself that he let those weak pets handle the arrangements. It was October now, nearly November, even in this twisted semblance of a future. Mother would be dead for nearly six years now—the anniversary always just before his birthday.

(And what a gift for his eleventh birthday was that?)

Kyōya should change it—he would change it when he went home.

(Not if. Kyōya would see the annoyances he called his cousins again. And Grandmother. And Aunt Mei-Xiu. And even Uncle Arata.)

Mother would always be Fēng Mei-Fēn—in life and death.

Kyōya refused to look at the newer grave by its side—didn't so much as want to know the date inscribed on it.

Fēng Yawen.

(The date was a just a fortnight after Kyōya had been sent to this twisted, alternative future.)

.

.

.

Kyōya comes back and the first thing he demands is to spar Mei and Mai.

A classic, three-way spar—just as it always was when they were younger and Mai was somewhat competent enough to hold her own against her older cousins without crying so much. She really had been far too annoyingly delicate when they were children.

Aunt Mei-Xiu officiates, expression tactfully blank.

He doesn't push Grandmother away when she hugs him.

(She is so much thinner, looking so much weaker and hurting that it hurts but she's alive and that's all Kyōya needs.)

Kyōya bows his head, nuzzling into Grandmother's embrace and pressing his face into the crook of her neck.

The sound of her heart thrumming, even if it's not the deep thumps he recalls, calms him infinitely.

(He will never forgive Byakuran and his schemes for stealing this from him—even if that Byakuran is universes away.)

.

.

.

Kyōya, Yawen learns, is set to inherit one-seventh of Vongola's bloody mantle, set to be given the generational title of Vongola's Cloud Guardian.

Yawen cannot say she isn't proud of her grandson—of all her children and grandchildren. They have made their own little niches in this world, regardless of whether or not they're actually ethical. But given Yawen herself comes from a lineage soaked in blood, it would've been fatally naive of her to assume her descendants would find their places in anything but. Yawen, with exceeding clarity, remembers how her childhood went—if you could call it that. She recalls how she bears the burden of a fiercely inked dragon on her spine now and forever, until her bones return to the earth.

She likes to think her children and grandchildren lived much better lives than she did—unbounded, with natural, vicious skill nurtured, and having the blessing of choice.

In Yawen's opinion, these things were the fundamental part of the human existence.

(To be free to roam and pursue to their heart's infinite desires.)

Nobody wanted to be limited by any sort of barriers, to have their talents denied or ridiculed in favour of nurturing already basic skills that require no more improvement; she found that people would like to have the notion that they can control their own fates. That they weren't doomed to carry on a mantle of blood. To love who they pleased and have children they loved and could call their own in blood and soul.

(Yawen looked like her father but she wasn't her father's child in heart.)

She can't say that she dislikes that Kyōya is part of a history so bloody, that would be hypocritical.

But she doesn't—not in her heart of hearts.

(Yawen remembers how her daughters were consumed by it, eaten alive and eroded away by vicious hate and anger.)

Vengeance was a long-living curse and people who had it seeded in their hearts had an even longer memory.

.

.

.

Kyōya would have never accepted the transfer students from the neighbouring town if it weren't for the disaster—a disaster that can be tied back to Sawada's clownery and Kyōya will bite him to death for that. He doesn't like them, especially that Suzuki tramp. They seem to perpetuate the chaos Sawada and the Baby bring and he hates that pair even more. Their so-called Famigilia.

(Aracelli complains about her lack of acceptance until he swipes at her and Alex interferes as the good boyfriend he is.)

He especially cannot tolerate how Suzuki eyes Mai—Mai is far better than her, than she ever will be.

Suzuki looks at Mai the same way he notes those useless playboys eye fangirls that fawn over them. The outsider dares look at his cousin like she's easily breakable and replaceable—like a paper shield defending against a knife. Mai hates it, but Kyōya despises it even more. His family means more to him that any treasure on the Earth.

And yet Suzuki dares to dance on his nerves, dares to clamour on his territory and treat Mai as a side piece.

Kyōya makes certain that the Baby knows his ire and that the transfer students feel his full wrath.

Especially that Katō.

(He is almost as unnatural as Nata and Alex.)

There is something wrong about them—disgustingly so—and Kyōya has been trained and knows to follow his instincts. Mai doesn't even like them—and that speaks volumes. She refuses to be within the same vicinity as them—something that saddens Yamamoto—and makes sure Kyōya knows not to leave her alone with Suzuki.

He's proven right when the inane ceremony is interrupted by the very same motley group of transfer student attack it.

Aracelli manages to deflect the damage aimed at the Vongola Rings but the damage is done and Sawada—naive yet arrogant Sawada—is torn apart by the revelation.

(Curses run in the blood.)

.

.

.

Yawen learns of the shit storm that occurred at the Vongola Inheritance Ceremony and she fears.

She doesn't show it as Mei-Xiu frowns, checking up on her husband and daughter even as she remains by Yawen's side. The girls and Louis' all share expressions of irritation and anger on Kyōya's behalf—Louis had been excited for Kyōya. Louis and his mother, Elys, have resided in this timeless palace far longer than Yawen but know the Vongola quite a bit more intimately than she does. Their disproving of the current events that hit the age old Famigilia but they've both expressed their approval of her sole grandson—Louis had said that Kyōya was his father's true successor, and wasn't that a title? But despite this yawn worries, her fragile health cracking at the edges once more. But Yawen says nothing, maintains her facade and awaits the results.

(But Reial and the twins know—they see, they always see—but say nothing, in a quiet comfort.)

Kyōya will be okay.

Yawen fears and frets in private, the Shimon have acted now for vengeance on an act ten generation passed—she fears what her own grandchildren and their children and their children will do. She doesn't want her descendents to suffer, to be as lost and broken as her girls.

(Mei-Fēn and Mei-Lan had their father's smile—they stopped smiling when he left.)

.

.

.

Suzuki has constantly challenged him—challenged his pride.

(Kyōya has authority as his birthright—Namimori as his birthright—and she still dares. He hates her.)

Kyōya makes certain that she knows who is stronger.

There is a plethora of experience, of attacking and defending, in Kyōya's repertoire. Kyōya has been fighting—sparring—for over a decade now against people that are far, far, far more talented than this tramp. He's beaten the scum that slumps and slink through the slums. Has punished rebels and corrected criminals. He has fought Mother, Aunt Mei-Lan, Aunt Mei-Xiu, Mei, Mai, and Nata and Alex.

Those last two, especially, are bastards.

(Nata and Alex fight like they can read his mind—his cousins' minds because even with all three of them, they've never won.)

Suzuki has a delightful trick but it is a trick of a coward—she is too scared to face him herself, locking her real body away in a gaudy ice castle. Hundreds of ice clones surround him, ankle deep in the clear water, and preparing to jump him all at once. Their eyes glow like a candle in the night, shimmering with a light they shouldn't in an almost eery fashion if he didn't hold such belief in myths. Sharp ice blades taper the ends of arms instead of hands, glinting in sun rays and the glow of their eyes as they ready themselves to fight. They look dangerous to the normal eye.

But Kyōya has the errant thought that they look as ugly as Suzuki does.

But that doesn't particularly matter at the moment.

The island the Shimon chose as a battle ground is barren—Kyōya can unleash all of his fury.

(Tsuna thinks, even in his almost dissociated state, that the prefect smiled like a shark, all sharp teeth, even as the ice clones charged.)

The first five—maybe ten—heads go flying and Kyōya is certain.

He will win this.

(For his family.)

.

.

.

Perhaps this is what painters attempted to envision and immortalize on canvas when they thought of battles.

But this wasn't so much a battle more than it was a slaughter, Daemon Spade would admit. Perhaps he had been naive, had placed too much faith in Adelheid as a Goddess of War because this boy—Hibari Kyōya unleashes a massacre of ice unlike anything he has ever seen or ever done. His form is fluid and strong, like a striking viper, as he lashes through the ranks of Adelheid's ice clones.

To others, ice may represent death—a solid, cold hand with an unmatched grip—but to Kyōya, he trampled on the element much as others would grass.

Only Alaude could match this level of ferocity—

Steel grey eyes caught sight of him.

The shade of the Mist Guardian could only force a bitter smile on his lips.

(It was his imagination—the fury Kyōya directed at him, perhaps even directed towards his successor who bore a startling resemblance to him.)

.

.

.

Daemon Spade is a disgusting thing.

He doesn't even deserve to be called a man. He is a shade—a poor reflection of an annoying man. Kyōya knows of that man—has heard of him from Aunt Elys and little Louis—knows what Daemon once was; who he was. Louis was a quiet boy until you piqued his interest, had earned his trust.

And Kyōya had known him practically his entire lifetime now.

The little blond boy, with blue eyes clearer than ice, had spoken quietly and eloquently. Had peered up at him without fear and hesitation, had recalled his father—the policeman, Louis would say about his occupation. The policeman, Aunt Elys would add, who had an upstanding character and an unshakeable moral code and standard.

One that cared about the betterment of lives even if the methods involved going above the law or around it.

Even if it meant breaking it.

And the friends that he had unwittingly made—some he cared more about than others.

Louis tells him of his Aunts—of Aunt Gisella, Aunt Elena and his favourite, Aunt Marietta.

Marietta who was sickly, tuberculosis turning her lungs against her as she struggled to suck in a single breath. An Italian noblewoman with a French mother that spoke to Louis kindly in French apart from his parents and would read him stories as best she could even as she lay bedridden. Who babysat him with little complaint even if it made her father glower and moan about propriety.

The woman who loved Daemon Spade first but loved him still even as he planned to wed another.

Had loved him and learned to love his fiancée as she did him because she wanted to see Daemon happy, to see him succeed in his dream of a fair world.

Even if life hadn't been fair to her.

Had dedicated all that she had to help achieve the dreams of her beloved friend—and maybe, in another universe, lover.

Marietta who had been forgotten as her sickness sapped all her strength until she took matters into her own hands.

(Marietta who reminded him so eerily of Grandmother that it scared him—made him worry of the future.)

Daemon Spade lies listlessly. Or rather, he is incapable of moving. The Mist Guardian who has preceded all others and outlived all others lies on the dirt, barely capable of speaking let alone moving a body that's all but dead—he doubts that the twins could even heal all that damage. Sawada practically kneels beside the thing, dirtying himself by daring to lower himself to the level of a twisted ghost.

But the Daemon Spade looks peaceful, even as Sawada reprimands him and Kyōya's rage spikes.

(His vision blurs and he sees Grandfa—that man instead, Grandmother weakly clinging to him in place of Sawada.)

"Marietta must be disgusted with you," Kyōya states nonchalantly. Sawada's group looks at him for the oddly placed comment but Daemon—Daemon looks at him and seethes.

It's the very reaction Kyōya wanted to incite from the shade.

"How do you know that name?!" Daemon howls with a pain that's meant for torture; there's a wicked, wild look in his eyes—maniacal.

Kyōya doesn't honour the shade of a man with an answer—he doesn't deserve it. He may not have not know this phantom personally, but he can match an awful persona to an awful persona—even if this phantasmal version of a twisted man is far more broken and insane than he recalls. Louis remembers his father's coworker as annoying, disgustingly so, but with good intentions and a kind heart behind his sadism.

But this thing deserves no fondness, no consideration or empathy—what Daemon Spade deserves is to rot.

"You destroyed families; rot in a shallow grave and never have peace."

He doesn't care that Sawada throws him a horrified look—face twisted between horror, fear and curiosity. Kyōya knows that they question him, question his actions and his words but he owes them no explanation.

He knows who Daemon Spade is.

Liar. Murderer. Traitor.

(Heartbreaker.)

Kyōya can envision Elys and Louis when he lets his eyes slide shut. How the little boy's face looks so much like Kyōya's but paler, blond and blue-eyed and then thinks of his predecessor as a Vongola Guardian, because Louis doesn't look like Kyōya, Louis looks like his father. His dead father. He thinks of crimson fire, tamed, tempered and forged into vibrant, red curls and jewel, red eyes—the melancholic Iella. Iella, because she refuses to be called Gabriella, is a warrior whose ferocity matches her bold, crimson hair, but Kyōya has seen the scars that cross her olive skin, the way she folds into herself and hides her face when she can. He knows her lineage, knows its importance before he even bothered to care, but she is afraid of her legacy instead of proud and it sickens him.

Kyōya can think of how blood societies were built around the notoriety of Vongola and its powers, can think of his own family—of Grandmother and Mother and Aunt Mei-Lan and Aunt Mei-Xiu.

(And even Grandfather.)

Daemon Spade should rot for all eternity for all the unjust things born from his actions and the repercussions yet to come.

But this is no longer Kyōya's fight.

Daemon Spade isn't worth an ounce of his attention as he is now. Kyōya spins on his heel, letting Sawada say his piece and his motley group crowd together—just this once.

(Perhaps now, Kyōya can have some peace.)

— [ + ] —

There's a baby at Kyōya window—a baby that is decidedly not the Baby.

This baby is at the stature, but the style is all wrong. This baby is dressed in bright red, accented carefully in black and white pants done in the traditional Chinese style Kyōya is all too familiar with. The hair is still dark but its long, tamed in a thick, dark braid, with bangs carefully framing a pudgy face.

A face that Kyōya has seen a far bit too often.

He likes to think its his face that the baby wears—made round and soft with youth. Grandmother has always traced a careful finger on the edge of his face, a soft, nostalgic light brightening her frigid disposition. Nata and Alex have constantly made a point to bombard him with his own baby photos enough for Kyōya to know what he looked like as a toddler.

Enough that Kyōya knows that this baby looks like him.

"You look like your mother," Grandmother says, fingers brushing his hair away from his face. "So you look like your Grandfather."

Kyōya can already feel his blood pressure rising even before his tongue lashes out as he growls.

"Who are you?"

(He doesn't want it to be real—Uncle Arata's prediction.)

The serene smile on the baby's face doesn't change—much. It looks much more forced now, tiny lips pinched at the ends, lips pressed a little bit thinner; a look of displeasure if he were to say. His carnelian eyes narrow ever so slightly, lips twisting and then thinning.

"…If I were to say that, I believe you would be mad."

Kyōya hates that answer.

His fingers have already hooked onto the edge of his tones, familiar, cool steel soothing his throbbing nerves as he draws them before him. The prefect's body naturally smooths into a premeditated stance—practiced; his feet are spread in a stable stance, arms up, elbows down, one drawn in to defend if needed or attack with brute strength, and the other to attack furiously.

This is what Grandmother taught him.

The Baby's stance shifts, a single foot lifted off the windowsill, their entire pudgy body balanced on a single, strong leg.

"Now, now," the Baby smiles again and Kyōya snarls. "Let's talk first."

.

.

.

"And why should I help you?"

Fon smiles indulgently at the boy.

(He can see all of Yawen's stubbornness in this boy that wears his face—wears one of his daughter's faces.)

He chooses his next words wisely but they still leave an unpleasant taste on his tongue. The taste is acrid, a sharp flavour nestled at the tip of his tongue. It's not overpowering that Fon wants to hurl, wants to wash his mouth until his teeth come loose, but it was not nearly subtle enough that he could ignore it. It was like a tender bruise—aggravating and untreatable.

Guilt, his mind supplies as he manages to twist his tongue around his carefully crafted sentence.

"There are people I need to say goodbye to."

(He should've been there for them—for all of them.)

Because seeing Kyōya gives Fon hope.

Yawen and his little Mei-Fēn and Mei-Lan were never found. In the decades it's been since he's seen them, For has always held a smidgen of hope in his heart that they were alive—alive and well. Perhaps its his background that bred his unease in leaving his family alone with Yawen's father, but it's a fear that was well founded in hindsight.

Chen Jianhong was—and is—a liar and a leech.

In his and the others' investigations—and no matter what happens in this twisted tournament, Fon will always be grateful to them—his family has always eluded them all. He likes to think that they aren't dead; Yawen was as tenacious as she was fierce. Besides that, their children were a lot like her in attitude. It was something, between husband and wife, of course, that they always laughed about; their children were Fon's little clones but they both knew they were Yawen's children though and through.

Fon can remember how he detested her—had held unjust contempt towards her because she was her father's daughter. He remembers with great guilt how he thought of wicked, violent things he had wanted to do to her to get back at her father for stealing him away. He was a brother to Fēn and a lover to Sù and Chen Jianhong had taken that all away because of his daughter—Chen Yawen.

He had found her brash and pretentious—pushy and spoiled in all the ways he'd expected of a someone who never had to struggle for what they wanted, much less needed.

He had considered her violent in her attempts to assert dominance.

Until that.

That when he'd unwittingly witnessed a fight between father and daughter—a physical fight. Violet flames filled the hall but they didn't burn—didn't rage and raze everything they touched to ash. The ethereal fire twisted about their limbs like living snakes even as they beat at each other.

Yawen had ultimately destroyed the training hall in her refusal to marry the suitors that her father had thrown at her.

And he had wondered then—wondered why Fon had been kidnapped to protect this.

(This power was inhuman.)

Then she had looked at him—really looked at him—and saw his awe and envy.

And she had taught him, had pulled him away in secret and bonded with him over their dislike for her father.

She had shared what ignited her sparks, and he had learned what brought out the same fervour in him.

He had listened to her thoughts and she, to his.

(He had been the first, she had told him, that had bothered to truly listen to her.)

And then they had kissed and he had felt so, so, so guilty.

Yawen had become an ally and friend, and here he was treating her like Sù. In his twisted mind he had confused her guarded stare for Sù's soft, shy yet loving gaze. Had replaced Yawen's beautifully lean, vulpine features with his love's soft, round and kind face.

But Yawen, too, was kind.

Fon couldn't deny her, even if it meant he was a cheater.

(Yawen had looked at him so softly and reverentially, like a dream made tangible.)

It was only right to choose her when he'd impregnated her.

(But was it cheating if he still wrote and expressed his feelings to Sù? Still felt strongly about his first love?)

He may not have loved Yawen at first—he found her too brash and pretentious. Thought nothing more of her than a girl with far too much money to her name because her father was a king of blood society; a butcherer of men. For all her feminine beauty and grace, Chen Yawen was decidedly the opposite in personality—her father's true successor, if she were to have a word in the succession.

And yet he had ended up finding her endearing and charming in her own right.

Brash became assertive and pretentious became flamboyant.

And when they lost their first child, Yawen plainly crying for all the world to see as she bled, Fon had held her tight, had assured her they could try again. She'd been shy and unsure of herself—and Fon saw she was as scared as he was about his future—their future. Then—then she had demonstrated that she had listened even if he had only half-listened. Had humbled herself before her father and asked for things for his comfort—he had nearly cried when he had Mapo Tofu for the first time since he'd been forced to leave his family behind. How she had humbled herself to get plum blossoms for their section of the compound because they reminded him of his home.

She had tried so hard for him because she wanted their marriage to work.

Yawen had thought of him, even though he should've thought of her.

She'd name their children after his sister and mother.

Perhaps he hadn't loved Yawen at first sight, but he had learned to cherish her—to care deeply enough about her that it may have counted as love. Fon could see it now, a shy, soft smile as fleeting as a spring wind, gracing her statuesque features. Her long hair would be unbound, falling haphazardly all around her but she would look like a mythical princess nonetheless.

But he knew better than to treat her like a mirage.

His Yawen was whirlwinds and storms and crashing waves, swirled and haphazardly contained in a single human being—she was the ferocity of Mother Nature; a self-contained, cognizant natural disaster.

Yes.

Fon wanted to say goodbye to her—at least once, at least this time.

Yawen would be old by now, in her sixties, physically and mentally, and perhaps she would be dead soon but Fon would be able to say goodbye to her—to hold her one last time and not be ashamed. To comfort her now, and for the rest of her life, no matter long she had left.

He needed to say goodbye to her.

(Fon could have never imagined—not in this lifetime or the ones to come—that Chen Yawen would hold his face so tenderly and look at him with such tender emotion.)

Fon waits patiently for the boy's—Kyōya's—answer. He doesn't dare hope, not now after years of hopeless, fruitless searches of a cure, of his family but yet Fon feels something close to it. Perhaps it's the boy's looks; a face like his own but more vulpine, steelier and less warm. His emotions may cloud his vision but Fon entertains the notion that this is what his daughters should've looked like—a cross between him and Yawen. And yet, the boy is like the daughters Fon remembers—an echo of the memories he clings to in the lonely nights and years spent in a timeless body. A headstrong attitude and a temper to match but smart—almost deceptively smart.

(His daughters had corrected mistakes as quickly as he took advantage of them, evolving with every step.)

There's something that glints in Kyōya's eyes—a figment that looks suspiciously like an emotion.

"Hn," Kyōya grunts, lowering his guard a fraction. "I accept."

Fon hears his daughters in place of this boy that could be his grandson and he smiles.

It's a real smile, not like the kind, polite ones he wears for the sake of politeness. It's a real smile because he means it—can feel elation blooming in his chest and it makes him feel truly young again instead of old. The years like this have made him old despite his appearance but Kyōya's acceptance fills him with joy and nostalgia.

(He wishes this boy was his grandson—wishes that his daughters were able to live beyond toddlerhood.)

"But you will fight me after this."

Fon almost laughs.

(Kyōya sounds just like his Mei-Fēn and Mei-Lan.)

"I accept your terms."

A/N:

An idea of I've had for a while, and a small part of a larger, multi-chapter fic I've been wanting to write. If people like this I guess I might end up motivated to write that multi-chapter fic. It's been like five years of planning but no writing or posting. Whoops.