Last night, Hide had a dream. But it was a strange dream. Everything was all dark, except for Hide, that is, who could for some reason see his own hands and legs as clear as day in the darkness. He didn't know why, but he could also feel the ground beneath his feet and a comforting warmth all around him
He wasn't bothered by this at all though; the warmth felt familiar and soft. Hide slowly turned around to examine his surroundings but found that he was indeed surrounded by pure darkness. Except…there was a light…yes, a faint trace of orange light flickered in the darkness and wavered like a flame, becoming brighter and brighter. Hide then noticed a man, a man with almost blonde-brown hair in a black cloak, he wore the orange flame gracefully, as it fit his appearance.
The man's eyes were closed, Hide couldn't help but feel some sort of familiarity towards him, and then his eyes open and startled the boy. The eyes were sharp, clear, beautiful and orange, for some reason, Hide felt comforted and relieved when he saw the eyes though he didn't know why, and the man's face was completely blank. But he also felt nervous now as the eyes seemed as if they were studying him closely while, at the same time, boring into his own soul.
A gauntlet materialized from underneath the cloak as the man extended out his hand to Hide, he then said something that was far too quiet to hear. Not that being louder would have helped since Hide was pretty sure that the man was also speaking another language. The man's blank face then seemed deep in reflexive thought as Hide made no motion to move, the flame on his forehead flickered still brightly.
And then, a small subtle smile graced the man's blank face.
~8~
"I'm late!" yelped Hide as he ran out of his bedroom and downstairs, frantically trying to gather his things for school.
Reborn, of course, tripped the boy in his frenzy and then stood over his fallen body.
"What was that for?" his student groaned in pain before realizing that Reborn didn't really need a reason for inflicting pain upon him.
"You were being too loud," like so, "And today's your first day of being a second-year student, you don't have to go to school for another two hours. Why are you up so early?"
Hide blushed in embarrassment as he forgot that today was indeed his first day of being a second year middle school student.
"Oh," was all he could mutter.
"Hide-kun!" he heard his mom call from the kitchen, "Are you already up?"
"Yeah, mom, I made a mistake," he shrugged as he got on to his feet and headed for the kitchen.
"Hide," Reborn stopped him after he took a few steps and asked, "Did you notice anything strange last night?"
The thirteen year-old soon-to-be Mafia Boss paused to think before saying, "Nope, nothing at all. Why?"
"There was a murder last night, a girl from your school was found without a head," Reborn said in such a nonchalant manner that even Hide had, for a second, thought that this was a completely normal occurrence.
"What! Why are you telling me such morbid things so early in the morning!" the boy paled.
"You're the sole candidate to the largest and most powerful Mafia Family in the world, any murder that happens near you is not coincidental."
"That's a ridiculous reason! Besides, we should just leave that stuff up to the police."
"The police won't be able to do anything about it."
"Why?"
"Because, it was a Mafia Crime."
~8~
Sawada Hideyoshi searched the bulletin board at the front of Namimori Middle frantically for his name.
"Don't worry, Hide, I'm sure you're up there," Sakuraba Morita reassured him.
"Then why can't I find my name?" he asked worriedly. It was the first day of school and, as was tradition for Namimori Middle, all the students had to examine one small bulletin board to find their name out of hundreds of names to figure out what class they would be in.
"I found it!" someone shouted, it was Suzuki Kouhei. He beckoned Hide to come closer and said, "Look, its right in between mine and Sakuraba's name! Looks like Megumi and the Grandhart twins are in our class too this year."
"So they organized the list in alphabetical order this year, huh?" Hide sighed with relief, "Thank goodness."
"Twelfth, we're in the same class again!" Gokudera Hanabi said happily as she ran towards her beloved mafia Boss, she then sneered and sourly noted, "But those idiots are in our class this year also…"
"Hide-kun!" the boy spun around and saw the girl of his dreams, Tanaka Megumi, coming towards him, "Isn't it great? We're all in the same class again!"
"Yeah!" Hide nodded and smiled brightly, "Class 2-B! I can't believe we made through as second-years!"
The bell rang and they all looked up, "I guess we better get to our classes, huh?"
"Yeah!" he nodded again before heading inside the school with his friends.
This year is going to be good, I know it! Hide thought to himself as they started walking to class, Everything will be perfectly normal! I'm going to get back my grasp on normalcy! Even if Reborn-"Ow!"
"Ow!" the boy's happy thoughts were interrupted as soon as he ran into a small girl with dark hair that was in pigtails, she wore the Namimori girl's uniform and was rubbing her nose. Multiple rolls of large sheets of paper fell out of her hands as she was knocked to the ground.
"Sorry, are you alright?" he quickly asked while helping her get up.
"Yeah, my nose hurts really badly now though," the girl muttered, "Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Hide nodded.
"That's good," she said with relief and looked up at Hide, her dark eyes immediately widened when she saw his face, "Waaah~! You're Sawada Hideyoshi-senpai, right?"
"Eh?"
"The super cool and awesome senpai* that ran around in his underwear on the first day of school!" she continued in awe, "I'm a super big fan of senpai!"
"Y-You are?" Hide stammered in confusion.
"Yes! Senpai is the coolest!" she exclaimed, "Will you be doing that underwear thing again this year?"
"Hey, Hide are you going to hurry up?" Morita called out as he approached the pair.
"Eeek! The super scary senpai that became captain of the boxing team as a first year, Sakuraba Morita-senpai!" the girl squealed in a mixture of fear and awe, "As expected of Sawada-senpai to be able to tame even the scary captain!"
"What?" both Hide and Morita asked at the same time.
"And there's the infamously super handsome and pretty captain of the baseball team that happens to be really bad at baseball, Suzuki Kouhei-senpai!" the girl said in awe when she noticed the confused baseball player, she also recognized Hanabi and Megumi, "Wow! The beautiful and dangerous cool-girl, Gokudera Hanabi-senpai, and the brilliant and influential school idol, Tanaka Megumi-senpai!"
"Idol?" Megumi questioned.
"Who are you?" Hanabi snapped after looking the girl up and down suspiciously.
"Gokudera-senpai just asked me who I was! So cool!" the girl said excitedly before standing to attention and holding out a welcoming hand, "My name is Kurori Saori! I'm a first-year and I'm super pleased to meet you! Please take care of me!"
"Uh," Hide looked down at her hand uncertainly and asked, "Shouldn't you be with the rest of the first-years at the orientation meeting?"
"Senpai even looks after his kouhai**! So cool!" Saori squealed happily before explaining, "Actually, I'm the student representative for the entire first-year class! Because of that, I'm in charge of posting up the class assignment charts for the first-year students!"
That explains the large rolls of paper…Hide nodded hesitantly and looked back at Saori as she picked up the papers from off the ground, "How do you know all of us, anyways?"
The girl laughed and said, "How could I not? Sawada-senpai and his group are infamous in school for being the strangest bunch around!"
"Who're you calling strange, stupid girl!" Hanabi grabbed her collar and threatened.
"One of Gokudera-senpai's famous scary threats? As expected of the 'cool but really scary beauty'-senpai!" the younger girl gleefully squealed while being shaken ruthlessly by her elder.
I don't know whether or not that's a compliment or an insult! Hide thought.
"I don't know whether or not that's a compliment or an insult!" Hanabi shouted angrily while shaking Saori even more.
She just repeated my thoughts, what the heck! he gaped.
"Uh, excuse me, Kurori-chan," Megumi began slowly, "But if you have the first-year's class assignments, shouldn't you be posting those up before the other first-year students get angry?"
"That's right!" Saori gasped in surprise before replying, "Tanaka-senpai is so responsible, thank you!"
The younger girl then ran off after saying her goodbyes, leaving Hide somewhat confused on what had just happened.
"Did that girl seriously call us all 'senpai'?" was all that came to his mind.
"Haha, isn't that one of the perks to being a second-year?" Suzuki asked after letting off a small chuckle.
"I'm really not used to being called 'senpai'," he said.
"Yeah, it kinda makes me feel old," the baseball player commented with a grin.
"You're 13," Hanabi dead-panned, "You're not even old enough to drive."
"It makes me feel a little old also," Hide said jokingly.
"That's because the Twelfth acts years beyond his age!" she said enthusiastically after completely flipping her personality.
"Oh yeah," Megumi said as if she remembered something, "Have you guys heard who our new teacher is supposed to be?"
"Who?"
~8~
"And so I became your new homeroom teacher!" Kurokawa Takuma laughed at the podium in front of the class, "I managed to pass my teachers examination with flying colors! Haha!"
This guy just sleeps all day in class, how in the world did he pass his teacher examination? Hide thought grimly. In truth, Kurokawa Takuma was so annoying to the rest of the teachers that they supposed that since he was only going to be a gym teacher they passed him anyways.
"But don't worry, I'm only a gym teacher," the teacher quickly said, "I'll be in charge of the health classes and gym classes, so instead of calling me Kurokawa-sensei, call me Coach! Or Coach Kurokawa!"
"Are you an actual coach of something?" Hanabi dryly asked.
"Not yet!" he laughed, "But if any of you guys actually need a coach for a sport of whatever, just tell me!"
You would probably just fall asleep during the practices! Hide thought. In all honesty, Kurokawa probably would.
"And don't worry, I definitely won't fall asleep!" no, he seriously will, "If it has anything to do with fitness, I can definitely do it!"
"Sensei, when are you going to take attendance?" Hanabi asked in annoyance.
"Right, right, thanks for reminding me Gokudera!" he said while still beaming with happiness, Kurokawa then opened a thick black folder and began reading names off of a list, "Sawada!"
"Here!" Hide said before thinking, Well, he's just a homeroom teacher, most of what he has to do is take attendance and tell us what we're doing today…and he seems to be doing alright with at least this.
"Sakuraba."
"Here," Morita said in a bored voice, he then quickly turned around in his desk to Hide, who sat diagonally to his back-right, and whispered, "Hey, Hide, do you wanna hang out downtown after school?"
"Alright," he nodded and then thought, Didn't Adam and Anna say they were going downtown also?
"Hey, turn back around in your seats!" Kurokawa shouted, even though Morita was sitting in the front row.
"'kay," he said before turning back in his seat and saying, "Oh yeah, Megumi's coming also."
"What?" Hide blushed and then hid his red face behind his book, "Um, where are we going exactly?"
"It's just shopping," Morita shrugged, oblivious to his friend's red face, "I think the scary girl is coming also."
"Hey, pay attention!" Kurokawa whacked his folder on Morita's desk, he then smiled and laughed a little.
"You just like acting like a teacher, don't you?" Hanabi asked tiredly.
"A little," he proudly admitted and looked through his folder, "Has anyone seen the Grandhart twins?"
"Their probably ditching and having fun someplace else…" Hide muttered under his breath and then wondered the location of the two assassins, Come to think of it, they weren't home this morning. I couldn't find them in my closet or under my bed…
The words from this morning that Reborn had spoken suddenly reached his mind. The boy's face went pale as he thought, They couldn't have had anything to do with dead girl, could they? No, of course not. As far as I know, they have nothing to do with it.
He then realized that he thought the words: As far as I know…and, in the history of words, "As far as I know" was never a good collection of words. Hide's eyes wandered over the twins' seats in the classroom and he concluded in thought: They killed her! They definitely killed that girl!
Hide looked up at the front of the class where Kurokawa was now lecturing about the school events and the subjects they would be studying in each class, and, though not as exciting as thinking about death and murder, Hide felt slightly comforted by this as it was a completely normal occurrence.
"This is so boring," Hide yawned quietly and contently to himself, he then decided to look out of the window to start spacing out. After a few minutes, Kurokawa's voice droned on in his head and he began to feel drowsy so he fell back to sleep.
~8~
Everything became dark, Hide found that he was no longer at his desk next to the sunny window but instead he was floating in pitch black darkness. This whole scene was beginning to feel uncomfortably familiar as he turned around and saw the same man again.
"Wh-Who are you?" he stammered nervously while trying to keep his eyes avert from the orange flame on the man's forehead.
The other opened his mouth to say something except there was nothing but hushed mutterings in a foreign language.
"Huh?" he blinked and nearly jumped when he heard a voice from directly behind him say:
"So this is what the Vongola Twelfth dreams about?"
Hide spun around and gaped when he saw who it was, "Chloe!"
The small illusionist was gazing past him and towards the man with the orange flame, she couldn't help but smirk.
"You dream of the dead now, Vongola Twelfth?" she asked grimly.
The man began to speak again, he spoke the same exact words as before but Hide could not understand.
"What's he saying…?" Hide wondered aloud.
"This is your dream and you don't know?" Chloe nearly laughed at his foolishness and explained calmly, "He is warning you, Twelfth."
"Warning?"
"Yes," she nodded and smiled darkly, "And he is also saying something else, but I can't understand it."
"Why can't you understand it?"
"Because he is speaking in Latin, a dead language."
Hide shuddered when he heard her say 'dead' and immediately thought that nothing good could come out of a warning that was in the form of a dead language. The man slowly disappeared only a few seconds after Chloe had explained, leaving the soon-to-be Boss stunned.
The illusionist looked at him and smiled, "I'm going to have to keep a closer eye on you, Sawada Hideyoshi."
He stammered before exclaiming, "I don't want that!"
"You're life is in danger, deal with it," she then snapped, "Now wake up already."
~8~
"Hn?" Hide snapped awake and quickly raised his head off of his desk, he tiredly rubbed his eyes, "What time is it…?"
"Huh? Sawada, you're still here?" Hide looked up and saw Kurokawa standing at the classroom doorway.
"Kurokawa-sensei! I can explain!" he began frantically.
"School's already ended, why are you still here?"
"I-I…" he gulped and realized that the classroom was empty and the school bell was ringing for students to go home, "I was just really deep in thought!"
The classroom was deafly quiet for a few awkward minutes before Kurokawa spoke, "You know, if you fell asleep during one of the classes then I won't tell on you or anything. A lot of the other teachers lessons are super boring, so I don't mind if you fall asleep."
"So," Hide slowly began to change the subject, "what are you still doing here, Kurokawa-sensei?"
"Oh me?" his teacher began saying bashfully, it was probably because a student had called him 'Kurokawa-sensei' on purpose and not by accident, "I was just getting some extra work done and filling out paperwork to get tomorrow off!"
"You're trying to get tomorrow off even though you just became a teacher?" he asked skeptically.
"I'm not being lazy or anything, my cousin just came in town and I was going to have drinks with him tomorrow."
"I don't think that's a good excuse to ask for a day off and you really shouldn't be telling your students that last part, sensei…"
"You're right, you're right," Kurokawa laughed while waving a dismissive hand, he then paused and said, "I want to thank you, Sawada, you had my back when I was a stupid assistant teacher and without you I wouldn't have become a gym teacher. If there's anything I can do for you, just say so."
"Nah, I don't really feel comfortable taking favors Kurokawa-sensei…" he said uncomfortably and thought, Didn't you threaten me at the beginning of the school year that my friends would be expelled if I didn't help you?
"Well, get home safe, I'll see you next week then," the newly made teacher waved to his student as Hide scurried out of the class room.
A thought then rang out in Kurokawa's head, and in the empty classroom he said to himself thoughtfully, "Wait, 'Sawada'? Come to think of it, my cousin's name is the same too…"
~8~
"It's about time you got out!" Morita exclaimed when he saw Hide run out of the school building, "I had to convince the scary girl that you didn't die or something!"
"Shut up, it's natural to be worried about the Boss, you giant moron!" Hanabi yelled at the boxer while Megumi giggled at the scene.
"Sorry, sorry!" he apologized vehemently before asking, "Why didn't you guys wake me up when school ended?"
"Reborn-san told us not to disturb you," Hanabi quickly said, "He said he had something to talk to you about."
"Reborn did?" Hide wondered, That's strange, I haven't seen him all day except for this morning, and if he wanted to talk to me he could have kicked me awake or something.
"Oh yeah, I invited Kurori-chan to come with us," Megumi suddenly said.
"Who?"
"Hi!" the girl Hide had run into earlier that day popped out from behind Megumi, she smiled brightly and waved at Hide, "It's so great to see you again, Sawada-senpai! And it's such an honor to be able to be around Tanaka-senpai and Gokudera-senpai."
"What about me…?" Morita muttered sadly.
"Of course, it's wonderful to see the scary-senpai also!" Kurori Saori replied without any hesitation.
Is that supposed to be some sort of compliment of something? Hide wondered but instead asked, "So, where are we going?"
"There's a new place over in Namimo-" Megumi began but stopped when a man with messy blonde hair and all black clothes jumped out from behind the corner of the street and ran straight into Hide.
"Ow!" he yelped as he was knocked to the ground.
"Sorry about that, kid," the man quickly apologized before running off.
"What was that all about?" Morita wondered as he helped Hide up.
"He must have been in some hurry," Megumi said and then looked at Gokudera, "Right Hanabi-chan?"
Hanabi didn't answer, instead her focus was on the path the man had taken.
"Gokudera-san?" Hide called her name with slight worry, "Are you okay?"
"Is Gokudera-senpai always like this?" Kurori whispered to Megumi.
"No, not always," the girl admitted before walking up to Hanabi and asking, "Hanabi-chan, you don't want to kill that guy or something?"
Hanabi snapped out of her focus and answered, "Not really. I was just looking because he looked like someone I knew."
"Really? Well, if that's all we should get going before the sale over at the store ends," the red-haired girl said cheerfully.
"Sale?" the word perked Hanabi up almost immediately, "You didn't tell me there was a sale!"
"Is there something special about sales or something?" Hide muttered before wondering, Someone ran into me and Gokudera-san didn't even want to strangle him? That's strange even for Gokudera-san's standards.
"Let's go, quickly!" the silver haired bomber said excitedly.
~8~
After two hours of just running around from shop to shop in a frantic hurry to catch up with the girls, Hide and Morita were both worn out beyond belief.
"I don't think I have run that much in my life," Hide panted heavily and looked up at the girls, who were all drinking soda and chatting happily with each other at a table that was nearby but out of earshot from the boy's table, "How are they still fine?"
"I have no clue," Morita gasped for air as he sat opposite of Hide, "Those crowds were too big for such a small sale."
"Hey, guys, we're going back for more," Megumi suddenly appeared at their table and said helpfully, "You can both stay here and watch our stuff, okay?"
Hide nodded as the girls disappeared into the crowd and took a sip from the soda he had achieved at getting in the throbbing mob that was the Namimori Shopping District. He looked around for a bit until noticing a familiar face in the crowd that was walking towards them at a very fast pace.
"Isn't that the guy I ran into earlier?" Hide wondered aloud while squinting in an attempt to recognize the person heading to their table.
"What?" Morita turned around in his seat and looked in the direction Hide was looking, "Maybe? I don't know, I didn't really see his face."
"Hey, kid!" the blonde haired man shouted as he struggled to get through the crowd, "Did you take something of mine?"
"What?" the boys looked at each other uneasily.
"I'm talking to the short one," the man clarified before glaring at Hide, "You took something of mine."
"Huh? What are you talking about?" he asked while slightly shrinking into his seat.
"Don't pull one over me, punk!" the man growled and pulled Hide out of his seat, "It's in your jacket isn't it?"
"There isn't anything in my jacket!" he yelped while trembling in the ugly yellow jacket that was part of the Namimori Middle School outfit.
"Hey, Hide didn't take anything from you," Morita came to Hide's defense.
"Yeah he did," the man persisted, "I know for a fact that I had it before I ran into your little friend here, and right after I was looking through my pockets and couldn't find it at all!"
"H-Hold on, I didn't take anything!" the smaller boy yelped.
"Then give it back," he said in a deadly serious tone.
"I don't even know what 'it' is!"
"My ring! You stole my ring," the man said angrily, "Give it back now!"
"A ring?" Hide yelped and began digging through his pockets, "Wait a second, maybe it fell into my pocket or something."
"Or maybe it just fell on the street, Hide, you don't have to look for it," Morita said confidently, "I know that you wouldn't ever steal anything from anybody. After all, you're way too weak and cowardly to pull that kind of thing."
Hide ignored the last part of the comment and was surprised when he felt something round and metallic in his jacket pocket.
"W-What's this…?" he stuttered in shock as he pulled out his hand from the pocket and saw an extremely expensive and lavish looking ring in his palm.
"That's my ring!" the man yelled angrily.
"I-I don't know how it got in there!" Hide stared wide eyed at the ring before thrusting it out to the stranger, "I'm really, really sorry! It must have just fallen into my pocket!"
The man snatched his ring back from the palm of Hide's hand, he looked at him suspiciously and then back down at his ring before seeming to reach a resolution and shrugged, "It doesn't look like you meant any harm by it, don't worry. Thanks for giving my ring back."
He sighed with relief and asked, in an attempt to be friendly, "It must mean a lot to you, huh?"
"Yeah," he nodded with a small smile on his face, "I'm Andre, by the way."
"I'm Morita," the boxer said after recognizing the friendliness Andre was offering, "Hey, are you a foreigner?"
"So blunt!" Hide yelped.
"Haha," the young man laughed in response, "I am. I guess you could say I'm here on a business trip. I actually have to get going to meet with my colleagues soon."
"Oh, sorry! We've kept you up!" Hide quickly apologized, this act only made the man laugh.
"You say sorry an awful lot, kid," he chuckled and then turned to walk away but stopped and hesitantly told them, "You kids should get going too. It's not safe to be out late."
"Thanks, but you don't have to worry about us," Morita replied confidently, "He was nice!"
Hide nodded back as he watched the strange man fade into the crowd. Something was odd about him and the way he acted, but Hide couldn't figure out what.
"Hide-kun!" Megumi called as she approached them through the crowd, "Morita-kun! I'm so sorry, we've been leaving you boys out! We'll go to the arcade soon, I promise!"
"Don't worry about it," Morita was first to reply, "How much money did your dad give you anyways?"
"Only 10,000 yen*," she answered cheerfully, Hide almost choked on his spit when he heard the amount.
"You're dad gives you too much money," the boxer said before she left, completely unimpressed by the amount.
"What kind of job does Megumi-san's dad have?" Hide whispered as visions of a successful businessman or lawyer entered his head.
"He works for the police as a, what was it called? I think it was Chief Superintendent**?" he asked in a questioning tone before shrugging in defeat, "Anyways, he works for the police as some important guy."
"Oh," Hide nodded before doing a double-take, "Wait, he works for the police? As in the police that catch people who are, say, from the Yakuza or the Mafia?"
"Mafia? I guess, though there aren't that many Mafia people in Japan, right?" Morita asked with a confused expression, "Megumi gets a nice allowance from her dad since she's the only child."
Hide was taken aback by this, mostly by the fact that Megumi's dad was a cop. Thinking back on all of the dangerous things that he had gotten Megumi into or had even allowed her to watch, Hide was surprised that he had not been arrested yet.
"Speaking of Megumi," Morita began to change the subject, "Her birthday is coming up soon and-"
Everyone started screaming. Hide didn't know why, but everyone also started running away, not from him but it seemed like from everywhere in general. The throng of the crowd pushed and pulled at him like the waves of an ocean, Morita had reached out and grabbed Hide to prevent him from floating away in the sea of people.
"What's going on!" Morita yelled as people screamed around them.
"I don't know!" Hide yelped before the windows of a close by shop exploded.
"Get out!" a voice shouted above the crowd, Hide looked up and saw a figure dressed in a blue and white suit, his hair was shoulder-length and shaggy and was a dark shade of blue, his eyes flashed yellow as they scanned the crowd in search of something, "Come out now! Vongola Twelfth!"
Hide wasn't really listening as he was more shocked to see that the man was 1) flying in the air with shoes covered in green electricity and 2) he held an electric guitar in his hands that also had electric sparks coming out of it.
"Vongola Twelfth! Get out now!" the man repeated in a hoarse but clear voice, he then laughed crazily, "Come out, come out, wherever you are! Haha!"
The laughter snapped him out of the daze of the electric sparks that coated the man.
"Did he just say Vongola Twelfth?" Hide asked.
~8~
* 10000 yen=about 125 US dollars
** A Chief Superintendent is the chief of a prefecture police headquarters
I'm working on a 'horror/thriller' approach to this arc of Skywards, so I hope it's working out as I slowly build and build on the suspense. I'm sorry to my readers which is why I have decided to post two chapters simultaneously; one today and the other tomorrow, the next chapter will have a more in-depth apology.