Before he left, Acheron gave his own version of a peace offering.
"If you're so worried about the outcome of the ring battles," he suggested. "Then why not watch?"
"Honored Acheron!" said the Cervello, twin voices raised in alarm. Acheron grimaced at the sound but continued to speak as if they hadn't reacted.
"I can just cast an illusion over you and keep you hidden from detection while you observe for yourselves," he said. "There are five more remaining."
The Cervello, too, would not be ignored. "Honored Acheron, none may interfere in the battles."
"Only the participants of the battle are to be involved. Should outsiders involve themselves, the battle is defaulted, in favor of the side not related to the outsider."
Acheron waved them off dismissively as Hotaru blinked in surprise.
Haruka sighed.
"The three of us are on watch duty," she said. She and Michiru, having a freer lifestyle and career path, were on patrol most often, having cancelled any participations in concerts or races for the next month in anticipation of Tau's predicted invasion. Even Setsuna, who had lectures and office hours, was spending all of her free time in Charon Castle, on watch duty.
None of them wanted a repeat of what had happened during Galaxia, when they were attacked and killed in their own castles shortly after arriving. Being caught off-guard once was once too many.
Since Hotaru was the youngest, her parents insisted that she be well-rested so that when she was needed, as the crux in the strategy, she could come immediately to fight.
A hand clapped down on Hotaru's shoulder. Minako beamed with confidence, straight white teeth bared. "Then I guess Hotaru-chan will be watching with us."
"We cannot have outsiders be involved in the battles," the Cervello protested.
"Didn't Hotaru-chan say there were others watching?" Rei pointed out coolly.
"Audience. They, too, are not permitted to step in."
"Should they do so, the side that benefits from the interruption will lose their ring automatically."
Makoto stepped up, to Hotaru's other side, drawing herself to her full, impressive height. "Then all we have to do is not step in, yeah?"
The Cervello exchanged looks, masks keeping their faces blank.
"I will also be there," reminded Acheron. "For the illusion. If they are about to interfere, I will stop them."
After another exchanged look, the Cervello nodded, and with a short farewell, they departed. Acheron, too, followed their example, leaving quickly as if he was afraid of staying for additional conversation.
"Shouldn't I be on standby?" asked Hotaru now that they were alone.
Usagi shook her head.
"Hotaru-chan, you're worried about your friends. Even if we can't interfere," she said with distaste, like she wanted to stick her tongue out at these rules. "You still want to at least watch, don't you?"
To make sure they were fine, like Acheron and the Cervello swore they would be. Yes.
"I don't think the fights will last so long that your condition will be severely affected by watching them," offered Ami. "In fact, if you were to be stressed about not being able to see for yourself what was going on, that might end up being more detrimental."
Hotaru didn't so much as waver as she tipped straight forwards, headfirst at the excuses they offered her, kind souls that wanted her to be happy.
"But," she said, the last shred of responsibility keening to make itself be known by her and stand out. "If anything happens, contact me immediately?"
"Of course," said Michiru as Haruka said at the same time. "That's the plan."
The inners, as they were on guard on Earth rather than in their castles, offered to go with her.
"Since Mamoru still has two more weeks in his placement with Doctors Beyond Borders," Ami said, pulling up a schedule on her monitor. "Rei can go with you tomorrow, I think, and either Minako or I the next."
"I could go the day after," volunteered Usagi, and was immediately shot down by Ami.
"Usagi-chan, you have midterms coming up."
The blonde groaned as if in pain. "But Ami-chan…."
Ami would not be budged. "Let us handle this, Usagi-chan. We don't want you to fail your courses."
Usagi looked like she would rather fail, but wisely did not say that to Ami.
Haru liked children.
It was possible that a part of it was due to their innocence and youth – a kind of energy that adults lost and could never quite get back. Haru retained more of it than her peers, and maybe it was that kinship that made her love them so much.
That, and her just nature always seeking to fiercely protect those that were vulnerable.
Due to that, she loved the children staying at Tsuna's house. Futa, who was from Chu in his previous life. I-Pin, who was less than fluent in Japanese but not letting language barriers be an issue.
And Lambo, energetic and full of life.
Lambo, who was far from his usual state, instead injured and in a hospital bed. Hooked up to an oxygen mask in a private hospital room, unconscious.
"What happened?" Hotaru whispered, horrified that something like this would have happened while she had been in Tokyo with the others.
"He fell from the roof after being struck by lightning last night," answered Reborn. He looked grim, as if he were angry with nature itself for the injury of his friend.
There was something weird about that story, though, because - "Why was he on the roof?"
"Lambo likes lightning storms." Reborn lowered his gaze to the sleeping boy, eyes dark with grief. "It was scary."
Tsuna shuddered, and Hotaru bit down on her lip for her careless comment.
"It'll be okay," she promised Reborn. For all that he was usually mature, of course he was worried about his friend. It must have been terrifying to witness, and Lambo lacking his usual vibrancy must not have made it better.
Tsuna opened his mouth, seemed to think of something, and closed it without saying anything.
"Thanks, Hotaru-san," he ended up saying. He looked exhausted. "Thank you so much."
Hotaru healed Lambo, and by the time she was done – a process that took a while – he was still asleep but breathing more easily.
He probably wouldn't need the oxygen mask anymore, Hotaru thought, satisfied with her work.
Reborn tipped his hat at her. "Thank you."
She smiled at the baby's adorable gesture and gave a little curtsey in return.
"You'd make a good doctor," Reborn said, sitting at the foot of the bed and giving Lambo space. "Is that what you're going to be?"
Hotaru shook her head, and accepted the can of juice Tsuna had brought while she was healing Lambo with a murmur of gratitude. "A nurse, actually."
Reborn nodded thoughtfully. "You would be an excellent nurse."
Pleased that he wasn't going to argue about how doctors were better than nurses like so many tended to do, Hotaru let her lips lift upwards into a soft smile. "Thank you."
"I didn't know you wanted to be a nurse," Tsuna said. Hotaru thought back, and realized that while she'd told the girls – and Takeshi – about her dream, she had never told Tsuna. It had just never come up in conversation.
"My biological mother was one. I'm told she was, anyways," she added, as an afterthought. "Before she got married and had me. And Setsuna-mama worked briefly as a school nurse before, too."
The nurses in her life were good role models for Hotaru. The doctors, too – Mamoru and Ami were excellent role models – but the scope of practice for doctors were in treatment.
Not to say that nurses didn't, but the primary focus of the nurse was oriented around care of the patient.
And that was why Hotaru wanted to be a nurse. As the soldier of destruction, she knew better than most just how inevitable the end was, and how, ironically, the very aspect of death being inevitable made life all that much more precious. So very precious.
There was more to life than just living – just breathing, and eating, and sleeping.
"That's – that's a pretty awesome family thing to continue on," Tsuna said with a wistful light to his eyes, almost as if he envied that.
It really was. Hotaru beamed.
"I like to think that it's being able to care for other people that made us want to choose nursing," she said. Her mother had been a kind soul – even in a previous life, as shared by Sailor Cocoon – and Setsuna, though her time working as a school nurse had been short, relished the chance of being able to help others closely, hands-on, rather than watching from afar.
"And even if I can't use this as a nurse," she added, gesturing with her hands, "I still want to do that."
The power to heal was a part of her that she liked, despite being careful to not just reveal it to anyone. The part that was proof of how destruction was more than just a meaningless end.
One day, Hotaru thought. Even after Usagi and Mamoru became queen and king, Hotaru wanted to care for people. To hold life in value.
"What if you could?" asked Reborn.
Hotaru hummed to stall for time while she thought. It would be convenient, she thought, but by then she wouldn't exactly be a nurse, more of someone who could magically heal injuries. There wouldn't exactly be much nursing going on – just treating injuries. That was assuming that her ability would be accepted in the medical world as it was right now. It was a frustration she heard Mamoru had sometimes, she heard. Even Ami, too, though less for her because her powers did not directly heal.
And of course, there was the worst-case scenario – a witch hunt. That which came from the fear people had of the different.
Maybe it was cowardly of her to be so hesitant, but – Hotaru liked being accepted. She was still afraid of being rejected, still remembered too much the pain of being the 'freak'.
"Probably not," she ended up saying, and left the answer vague. She was fairly satisfied with healing those close to her if it would help. One day, when this world was able to accept magic as a part of their life, then that would be a different story, but as of now? No.
Shamal was, for all his ways, a genius. There was a reason why he was able to do as he wanted without bowing to anyone. Not everyone could afford themselves that kind of liberty, slipping past lines like they weren't held by such things. It was his skills that guaranteed such a life for him, that and his confidence and love of freedom.
Sometimes, it was hard to remember just why Trident Shamal could live like he did. Now was one of these times, and Hayato had to fight to keep himself from chucking the box of paper airplanes at his face.
"But I didn't even bring down one paper airplane!" he yelled, furious. At having folded all those papers into airplanes only to be told they were unnecessary. At his lazy attempt to evade completing the new move. At him telling Hayato now, because no way in hell would a hitman have just let down his guard and ignored Hayato, even if he was folding paper. That jackass-
"You still don't understand, like I've been saying over and over again," Shamal interrupted his inner fury. "Strong willpower's good and all that, but that's not what really matters. It's like hitting on a girl."
What the hell did that nonsense even mean?!
But Shamal wasn't going to let that simile go. "Do you know what the most important thing is, when hitting on a girl?"
Hayato wasn't going to answer that. He wasn't. Stupid comparisons, stupid Shamal, this was so stupid-
". . . Sex appeal?"
Shamal had the nerve to sigh, but he explained before Hayato could explode.
"It's this," he said, tapping a finger against his head. "You use your brain to charm women. All the good looks and sex appeal in the world isn't going to help you if you've got nothing up here. But use your brains and charm a woman through wits? There isn't a woman in the world that won't fall for that."
Hayato doubted that. Yamamoto had nothing but baseballs in his brain, and the dumb girls at school still screeched like banshees over him. "Can't you just get to the point and teach me?!"
Shamal scoffed. "That again. I'm not telling you the answer."
"Why?!"
Shamal's lazy smirk slipped out of sight, to be replaced with a sharp, serious glint in his dark eyes – the one that said this wasn't the womanizer with easy charm and smiles, but Trident Shamal, who had the skills to survive despite being known. There were only two kinds of famous people in the world they were from – the kind that didn't stay alive long after achieving fame, and the type that did and became legends. "Because in the world you and I live in, only those who depend on themselves to think about how to live can find ways to survive."
It was a rebuke, and Hayato recognized it.
"My dumb friends, idiots that they were, blindly believed in everything they were told, and now they're all dead. You want to know who's still alive? Defiant idiots with some kind of secret ambition who looked out for themselves. Use that brain of yours and actually think, because as long as the move is incomplete, I'm not letting you go to the match."
One of the Trident Mosquitos buzzed around his head, and it was a threat from a hitman who used diseases and insects as his weapons of choice. It would be easy to knock Hayato out of commission with all the diseases Shamal had at his disposal.
"You can't do that!" he snapped. They were already behind. The Sky and Lightning Rings were in the hands of the Varia. He needed to win this, and if he wasn't even there, then there was no chance at all.
"I can," said Shamal, nothing about him about to budge on the matter, even if he had to resort to tying up Hayato with a sickness. "And more importantly, I will, because if you go in like this, it would be suicide. Your opponent tonight is Belphegor, the genius of the Varia. And right now, as you are? You don't stand a chance."
Hotaru wasn't sure what, exactly, she was expecting of watching the battles. Maybe a fighting ring, like the one Kyoko's brother had been in. Watching from the outside, hidden by an illusion.
She should have realized, from when it was in Namimori Junior High, that the actual thing would surpass whatever she had expected.
"Is this movie night?" Sailor Mars asked, eying the setup with no small amount of incredibility, and Saturn found herself in complete synchronicity with her mood.
Kawahira looked up from his seat in one of the three comforters, In front of him, a large screen streamed a video feed. If she didn't know, Hotaru might have really thought it was a set-up for movie night.
"It could be?" he said, and in his hands manifested a paper bag filled with popcorn, the scent of hot butter filling the air with its appearance. Out of habit, Saturn checked if it was an illusion. It was, and yet even after she realized it, the bag of popcorn didn't fade away.
"A real illusion?"
"Exactly." Kawahira took a popcorn kernel and popped it into his mouth. "Zero calories, but all the fun for your palate. I used to use this trick back when sugar was being harvested by slave labor. Boycott unethical sugar while get all the sweets you could want, no worries about rotten teeth or upset stomachs. Or calories, though that wasn't really a worry back then like it is now."
He was vaguely rambling about something interesting from his past, which meant he was deflecting. Hotaru decided to point it out indirectly. "Since when did you care about calories?"
"Since my blood pressure's been on the high side recently," he said. "Old men have to watch what they eat."
Mars took the seat on the other side, leaving Saturn to take the one in the middle. "Tonight's battle is indoors, then?"
Kawahira offered her some of the illusion popcorn, but the sailor soldier of fire shook her head. Shrugging, Kawahira turned the bag towards Saturn. "Indeed. The Storm Battle is taking place in the third floor of the school building."
Out of curiosity, Saturn took some of the popcorn. It didn't break, not in the way illusions did, but if she focused and kept breaking its hold, then while it held its form, it was no longer popcorn.
Instead, it was some kind of . . . constructive magic. Which meant that illusions were placed, but these were a kind of base, to give them a solid presence in reality.
Saturn rubbed it between her fingers, and then popped it into her mouth. Sure enough, there was no flavor.
She stopped breaking the illusion and tried eating the other kernel. The taste of popcorn, with liberally sprinkled butter and salt filled her mouth. Interesting.
"Why is this battle taking place in the school building?" Mars asked, eyes glinting critically. The cameras showed the floor from different viewpoints, and all the screen showed was an empty school building at night. Like all buildings that were most familiar when full of people, the empty classrooms, desks and hallways, as well as the darkness that came from the night, made it a sight invoking chills down her spine.
Kawahira shrugged. "The Cervello are weird."
Which was the understatement of the century.
"It doesn't look like tonight's battlers are here yet . . ." he trailed off. "Brief background, then. Tonight is the Storm Battle, because the seven friends had a weather theme going on back then and it stuck as a tradition that was passed down and around."
The popcorn swirled into indigo mist that grew into a miniature figure of one of the seven men from the previous night. The one with red hair and the eye-catching facial tattoos.
Kawahira squinted at the illusion. "Come to think of it, he was fairly annoying as well. Not nearly as much as He Who Will Not Be Named, but plenty annoying in his own way."
Now he was being dramatic. Hotaru indulged him, if only because she still remembered him being so nervous, he looked ready to vomit the other night. "In what way?"
He sighed theatrically. "Oh, you know. Threatening to shoot me up with enough arrows to make me a human porcupine if I so much as laid a finger on his friend. He had such a temper, like he was trying to embody the stereotype about redheads and poor patience. Silvia had terrible taste in men."
"Who's Silvia?" Saturn asked, curious at the name-dropping and wondering if it was a name of another original guardian. It wasn't a name that was familiar to her, not from him.
"A co-worker from that time. Human, but I was fond of her. She was in love with him, and vice versa, but circumstances made it so that it just didn't work out." Kawahira scowled, and it was clear that while he might have said 'circumstances', he placed much if not most of the blame on the redheaded man. "Bastard."
Saturn held back from commenting on just how much he looked like a father disapproving of the bad boy that his daughter had brought back home. "What happened?"
The scowl faded, like bright colors on clothes left outside too long – as if it was worn away by the exposure to the sunlight and rain, and by time.
"We fell out of touch after Sephira died and I left," he said softly. "And by the time I recovered, she was also dead."
The battle started late, with Gokudera arriving just in the nick of time.
Saturn quickly learned that just like the silver-haired boy, the entire field – the school floor – was explosive as well. Wind turbines would randomly blow hurricanes through the field.
"Why?" Mars asked, bewildered at this indoor storm. Saturn didn't blame her. Even for Namimori this was on the weird side. Gokudera and his opponent – a boy around their age, with golden hair that hid his eyes – stepped into their arena while everyone else stayed out.
"Hell if I know," said Kawahira, as Gokudera started off the battle with a barrage of dynamites.
Mars didn't let it go. "Are the Cervello capable of lying?"
Saturn wondered that as well, as she began routing out just how to step in should Gokudera be at risk of dying.
"Not to Chiba Mamoru, or to me. They did not speak falsely, I assure you. That is one of their few – very few – redeeming qualities."
The smoke on the screens cleared, and Gokudera was encircled by a ring of metallic objects all flying towards him. He saw, and just narrowly dodged as they all came together where he'd been standing.
"Those are knives," Mars hissed, and Saturn tried to see for herself, when Gokudera threw a larger barrage of dynamite. "And bombs."
And his opponent just – stood there. Saturn's eyes widened in horror.
Mars began to leap to her feet, letting out a strangled sound from her throat, when the storm turbines struck. A barrage of the small, concentrated hurricanes blasted the dynamites well away from him, keeping him safe while blowing up the walls and windows the winds directed to.
Heart hammering away, Saturn's fists clenched and unclenched. "Was that just luck?"
"No," Mars answered, as Gokudera threw himself to the ground and covered his head as the storm also tried to sweep him away. His was a less graceful evasion than his opponent's, but at least he was unhurt. "He sensed it somehow and used it to his advantage."
Gokudera suddenly scrambled backwards, hitting his back against a window and falling into the classroom amidst broken pieces, but Saturn saw the blood spurting from his legs, and the weirdly shaped knives that had pierced through the still-howling storm in the halls.
And from then on, it was no longer Gokudera on the offensive. As if to return the favor for the earlier barrages of dynamite, knives flew towards the silver-haired boy with unerring accuracy, only narrowly missing out on making critical wounds because of Gokudera's last-second reactions. The injuries grew, one by one.
"He needs to get to some cover," Mars said tightly. She slowly sank back into her seat, but her eyes were on the battle. This was more than the cool, collected shrine maiden that dealt with poorly-mannered visitors – this was Mars, soldier of war, who knew how to read a battle. "At this rate he won't be able to counterattack, and he'll lose what calm he has under the pressure."
As if the words of the sailor soldier of war had reached him somehow, Gokudera set off an explosion and used it as cover to duck behind a wall, out of sight. Saturn watched him ready his dynamite when Mars stiffened.
Knives cut through the tops of the dynamite, rendering them harmless.
Saturn checked, and no, his opponent was still in the hallway. Gokudera should not have been visible, by any means. There were no mirrors, no screen the blond could use to monitor him, and the knives would have had to make a sharp curve to reach the dynamite.
"An illusion?" Saturn guessed, but even as she guessed, she couldn't feel for anything to break.
The expert on illusions shook his head.
The second time that the blades swerved in the air, Mars figured it out. "His opponent is using wire to guide his knives."
"As a weapon and a tool." Kawahira looked impressed, even as Gokudera took the knives to his left arm. "A skilled one."
Saturn looked at Kawahira, asking with her expression whose side he was on.
"Neutral," he said as a way of explanation. "Also, I may or may not have wanted to punch Gokudera Hayato's pre-incarnation a few times back then."
"That's the furthest thing from neutral," commented Mars dryly.
"Not so," Kawahira argued back, in the way the pedantic did. "I hold Gokudera Hayato no particular ill will or grudge, just his previous life."
For all that he was hotheaded, Gokudera was smart. He was roughened up, but he eventually figured it out and let the blades launched at him sink into a dummy instead.
Saturn quietly released the breath she'd been holding. If it had not been for Kawahira's words, then she knew that Cervello be damned, she would be doing something reckless.
Actually, if it weren't for the resolve she had witnessed for herself, she might have just done that, regardless.
Near the end, so close to his objective, he'd made a mistake and let his guard down. Paying the price for his carelessness, Hayato struggled to make up for the sure victory that slipped from his hands. He didn't have the strength for a decisive win, and neither did Belphegor, but if the psycho wasn't going to give up, then he sure as hell wasn't.
"The ring," panted Belphegor like he was Gollum. That punch to the face hadn't done enough, and Hayato couldn't spare another punch, not when he was trying to keep him from getting his half of the Storm Ring. "Give me the ring."
"Fuck you!"
Explosions began going off in the background, and it wasn't his bombs going off.
"The estimated time until the library's detonation is one minute," droned the voice of a Cervello.
Hayato managed to get on top of Belphegor, but then the blonde pushed, and then they were rolling across broken glass and wood, trying to get the advantage and the half-ring from each other.
"Get out of there, octopus head!"
"What the hell do you think I'm trying to do?!" he shouted back, because the peanut gallery wasn't as helpful or wise as they thought they were being.
When they bumped into a shelf, it was falling, and Hayato let Belphegor take the top and the brunt of the impact. It meant, unfortunately, that while he was shielded from the shelf hitting him, he was squished with not just the weight of the shelf, but also Belphegor. The air was knocked out of his lungs and Hayato wheezed.
For a moment, his sight went dark, and Hayato panicked. Somehow, he and Belphegor scrambled out from under the shelf and the fallen books, but it hadn't been just the debris that made him see what he had. His eyes were getting hazy, and he was near his limit.
"Forty-five seconds remain," droned the Cervello.
Try as he might, Hayato couldn't see a way to get the ring from Belphegor while keeping his in that short time frame.
At least, not alive.
But alive didn't have to mean victorious, necessarily. Right?
"Give the enemy your ring and pull back, Hayato!" barked Shamal, as if he'd read his mind.
He respected the older hitman, but there were some things Hayato couldn't accept, and that was one of them. "Don't joke around!"
"Dying for something like this is idiotic," Shamal snapped, as Hayato tried to push Belphegor's head away from him. His opponent had the same idea, and it was a struggling race for the same objective. "Come back!"
Hayato appreciated the doctor looking out for him, but he couldn't. "If I lose, it's one win and three losses!"
And those were odds that did not speak well for them. Superbi Squalo was still left, as was Xanxus and that weird robot thing. The first was definitely strong, the second was the boss of the Varia and the third a wild card.
They couldn't afford any more losses at this point, because that meant they were out of chances. He'd rather die than give the Tenth another burden.
"Your opponent's broken! It's not even a real fight anymore!"
Easy for Shamal to say. The frustration lit a fire inside, and he began to push back, gaining some ground over Belphegor. There wasn't much time, but maybe –
"If I win, we can turn the tide!" Yamamoto, Hibari and one unknown. Risks that any good right-hand man wouldn't allow to threaten his boss.
This, he could do. He would do.
"Gokudera!"
"Octopus-head!"
Amidst worried cries and violent explosions, the bland voice of the Cervello stood out. "Twenty seconds until the detonations reach the library."
"Hayato!" snarled Shamal. "Did you forget what I taught you before training started?"
He had the upper hand now, on top of Belphegor. He just needed that little extra bit.
No, he hadn't forgotten that what he missed seeing was his own life. He was grateful to Shamal for pointing that out to him, letting him see it.
But knowing that was why Hayato could use it now, when it was most important and needed.
"I can't back down now!" he shouted back. "Even if I die!"
Because someone had given him worth, and if he let that someone down, then –
"Knock it off!" shouted the person who first gave him meaning. "Why do you think we're fighting?!"
Hand on Belphegor's chain, wrist held in an iron grip, Hayato froze. It was one thing to go against Shamal, but another thing entirely to go against the words of Sawada Tsunayoshi.
"We're going to have snowball fights and watch fireworks together!" shouted the Tenth, and from anyone else Hayato might have scoffed, but from the Tenth, it was pointing out the reasons why his life had meaning. What had given his life color, and happiness.
Joys of an ordinary life that he'd never really known before prior to this, all at the side of the man he would lay down his life for.
The kind of man who didn't want to but would fight, strive to grow stronger, because of simple but happy things like that.
"If you die, it's all meaningless!"
He didn't want to die, not really. But at the same time, when his life had no meaning, it was hard to come up with a reason for why he should live – a bastard kid who ruined his own mother's life and didn't know until she was long dead.
Sawada Tsunayoshi, rightful heir to the Vongola, gave him a reason to want to live, and even now, when he was willing to die for him, told him that to do so would be meaningless.
Hayato let go and retreated just as the library exploded.
Mars released a sigh of relief. "He's fine. Well, he's alive."
Saturn opened her eyes, eyes that she had clenched shut when the explosions went up around the library and hid everything in the dust and dirt flying in the air. It hadn't looked like Gokudera would leave, but Tsuna's words had gotten through.
Kawahira huffed. "Well, even in his previous life, he always was a stubborn bastard."
But he looked relieved as well, releasing the crumpled part of his clothing that he'd been clutching.
Saturn began to get to her feet when Gokudera swayed and had to be supported by the others.
"Wait," said Kawahira. "The next match."
"Tomorrow's match," announced the Cervello. "Will be the match between the guardians of Rain."
The weather names, as Kawahira put it, meant little to her, but the reactions told her what she needed to. On the screen, Takeshi looked to the silver-haired man, and there was a light of challenge in his eyes. The kind he got when he saw something that got his competitive spirit fired up.
Kawahira confirmed it with a sigh. "Yamamoto Takeshi's match is up tomorrow."
In other words, in less than twenty-four hours, it was going to be Takeshi in the arena, Takeshi fighting like Gokudera had tonight.
And the long-haired man grinned wildly, all teeth. "I've been waiting for this! You better not run when you remember how badly I beat you last time, kid!"
Mars frowned in disapproving scorn. "No sane grown man should ever look so excited talking about beating a kid."
At that Kawahira laughed, the sound a little startled.
Takeshi, in response to that, smiled like he didn't have a care in the world. "Nothing to worry about there."
Saturn groaned at his too-cheerful competitive spirit, and Mars gave her a look of pity.
"If he's up tomorrow, and he's using the sword," she suggested, remembering what Saturn told them. "Then maybe Venus should come tomorrow instead of Mercury."
That was a good idea. As good as an idea could be in this situation.
Kawahira stood, and stretched, grimacing at the cracking sound his back made. On screen, Hibari Kyoya appeared, looking immensely annoyed at the state of the school.
"Is he the . . . ?" Saturn trailed off, remembering the second lookalike.
Kawahira nodded. "He's probably inherited the Cloud position. If I may suggest, perhaps Sailor Mercury should attend the Mist battle."
"Why? Who's that?"
He shrugged. "It was the position of the annoying one, back then, but more importantly, that one will be a battle of illusions."
Despite herself, Saturn found curiosity sparking at that. "Illusionists like you?"
"Not on my level," he said, like it was fact rather than anything to be particularly proud of. "But yes."
"When is the Mist Battle?" asked Mars, who had a better sense of priority than Saturn. Her communicator was already open, connected to Luna and Artemis.
"I don't know," said Kawahira. "Either the day after Yamamoto Takeshi's match, or the day after that. The Cervello draw lots to decide the battle order, except for the last match," he added at the look Mars shot him for his vague answer. "So it's one of those two days."
Mars accepted the answer. "You heard him."
"I have both nights off," said Mercury.
"And I can take whatever day Mercury doesn't," added Jupiter.
On the screen, Takeshi side-stepped Hibari's swipe. The movement was smooth, and flawless – the kind of reaction that Venus had spent weeks drilling her to emulate, and only partially succeeded.
It impressed – to an extent – even the silver-haired swordsman and Hibari Kyoya. It impressed Saturn, too.
But was it enough to lay off her worries?
No.
"At least tonight's results reassured me of one thing," Kawahira murmured as Mars discussed with Venus tonight's match, and the environment. Saturn should have paid attention to Venus raising questions as to whether the fields were set up to manipulate the outcomes, but Kawahira's comment distracted her.
"Of what?"
Kawahira nodded at the screen where the Cervello were. "If nothing disrupts their vision, then everyone who fights from here on, on the side of your friends, will win."
Including, Saturn realized what he was trying to say, Takeshi.
"Takeshi's pre-incarnation wasn't someone who annoyed you?" she asked, after swallowing.
"No. We were friends, actually."
"What?"
Kawahira made a show of looking down at his wrist, bare of anything, including watches. "Oh, look at the time. I should get going."
"Uncle!"
"See you tomorrow evening?"
"Uncle, get back here!"
Naturally, he did not listen, and Saturn reached out only to grab at thin air as he dissipated into indigo flames.
AN: Reborn just missed out a chance to have Kawahira/Checker Face be chewed out by Hotaru, but he doesn't know that, so.
Hotaru doesn't suspect that Lambo would have participated in the fighting because she never even considered it, and subconsciously she trusts that these battles will be 'reasonable' (as reasonable as it can be) because Kawahira implicitly vouched for them and she trusts him.
The Hotaru wanting to be a nurse is canon (from her manga profile) so I just took that and ran with it because I was in nursing school when I started writing Petrichor. And now I'm in the middle of applying so hopefully by the next update I'll be able to say I'm working as a nurse.
+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+
From Tsuna's POV:
Reborn, taking full advantage of his shape: It was scawwy.
Tsuna, who has suffered a lot because of Reborn: yeah, that is the scariest thing I've ever seen *shudders*
Hotaru: *under the wrong impression* oh I'm so sorry I shouldn't have made you think of bad memories here let me fix your friend for you.
+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+
Kawahira: His pre-incarnation was so rude, threatening to shoot me.
G: *threatened to shoot Sergio because of his attitude to Giotto; received his own number of death threats because of his relationship with Silvia* eXCUSE ME-
+ﾟ*｡:ﾟ+
Sweet Dreams~