`Silver Snow

Chapter Four

Echo of the Snow

The Future – Ten Years Later

"Three minutes, three minutes, three minutes…" She chanted as she panicked, rummaging through her wardrobe to find a suitable set of clothes out of all of those that had been carefully chosen for her. She didn't want to think about whether Hibari, or Kusakabe-san, for that matter, would ever know about her body proportions. Would she end up with oversized T-shirts? She pushed away the thought quickly as she saw the time on the clock – five eleven. She had two minutes left – why on earth did they eat breakfast at four thirty in the morning and go to train at such an early time anyway? She found something that she deemed appropriate, for the activity that was taking place next. 5:15: TRAINING. The word screamed out to her, as if it was a blazing red alarm. She had a feeling that she would be tortured, upon seeing Hibari's expression when he had destroyed the 'Strauss Mosca'. She shoved on her clothes hastily and looked at herself on the wardrobe mirror. Decent enough. She then stuffed the schedule into her pocket and slung a silver, velvet case onto her shoulders carefully. She smiled as she briefly played with the ring hung on her neck loosely with a feminine chain. It was cold to the touch, as usual. She tucked it into her shirt and ran out of the room. Until she realized something – she didn't know where to run to. And then she came to an abrupt stop, almost falling over again. She glanced at her schedule and saw the word "Vongola training room, Basement 3". Well, now all she had to do was exit the premises and find the lift to the basement. Then she suddenly understood why she had to go so early – so that they could prevent the worst-case scenario in which any of the other guardians, although highly unlikely, would walk into the training room and see her using her ring, which would expose everything, of course.

She nodded briefly at Kusakabe while she ran out of the premises and into the Vongola base, and walked around, desperately trying to find the lift before she was late. "Oi, kimi. What are you doing up so early?" A deep voice rang out. She flipped her head around to see Lal Mirch, looking at her with a suspecting gaze. "I'm going to train." Miyuki looked at her nervously and hoped that she wouldn't say something on the lines of 'oh okay I'll tag along'. "In that?" Lal Mirch commented on her dressing, but continued without giving her a chance to reply, "Let's go then. I'll bring you to the Vongola training room." Oh crap. Miyuki sighed inwardly and hoped that Hibari wouldn't murder her for letting someone else know that she was going to train with him there. Now it would all be ruined.

"Hibari, I've brought you your new trainee." Lal declared as she entered the training room – which just seemed to be a normal room with four, boring, grey-coloured walls. Hibari raised an eyebrow at the pair, then he simply motioned for Miyuki to move forward towards him. Originally being partially blocked by Lal Mirch, she left the case leaning on the wall and walked briskly towards him. Hibari carried a slightly amused expression as he looked at Miyuki's outfit – although she didn't understand why. Seriously, it was just a skin-tight, sleeveless black T-shirt with black short shorts. Isn't that what a normal person would wear to train?

All the black-haired man did was mutter a barely audible "You wear the same thing as your ten-year-later self would." As he mercilessly took out his tonfas and attacked her, while she was still undefended.

Miyuki nearly screamed, but managed to dodge the attack – even though she barely managed to do it. "Are you trying to kill me?"

"Yes, why not? It's training – it has to be serious." The words rolled off his tongue as if they were something a sane, logical person would say. Miyuki really thought that he wasn't really feeling sane right now. Hibari didn't give her any more time to rest or to retort as he charged once again, this time with his cloud flames adorning his tonfas. Miyuki gulped and hoped that she would survive this training session.

The corners of Hibari's mouth twitched upwards as he recalled how he and Miyuki used to train together, at almost the same time, way early in the morning before anyone had woken up. Their private 'bonding' time together. Except it was anything but relaxing.

"I'll bite you to death." Hibari smirked while Miyuki remained seemingly indifferent at his comment. The only reaction he made was to roll her eyes – he knew she was already used to his catchphrase which she said so much. At first, she used to retort. Now, she didn't think much of it. And Hibari was going to make her regret that. "Go get your weapon." He spat.

Miyuki laughed, her voice still sounding like a thousand bells echoing, amplified by the surrounding walls. She suddenly ran towards the side of the training room and retrieved two very familiar-looking things from her bag which was laid at the side of the door. Tonfas. Hibari looked surprised – which was rare, he never looked surprised. "Well, today I'm going to try something different. Custom-made. I took a picture of yours and asked the Vongola Guild to make it for me." She flashed a wide, teeth-showing smile, antagonizing and provoking him.

A vein popped on Hibari's head, but he showed no expression and said so softly, it sounded scary and threatening. "You are going to die today."

"Try me." Miyuki replied simply as Hibari narrowed his eyes and ran towards her with incredible speed.

"Wait a minute!" Miyuki's cry returned him to his senses. "Isn't my identity supposed to be a secret?" Miyuki whispered in a soft voice, in which only Hibari could hear it. "She already knows." Was the straightforward reply as he continued to charge towards her once again. Miyuki's expression clearly wore the word "why" all over it, but Hibari ignored that and waited for the moment in which she would use her flames. Those flames which only she had possession of in the world. And it came. Her eyes burned with determination as the ring lit up, with a sparkling flame, which was silver and pale blue, depending on which angle you would look at it. Hibari thought it was befitting, though – for white, frosted snow. "Tsubasa." She merely said as a pair of snow white "wings" sprouted on her back, lined with shining silver. Hibari knew better to think that they were really wings – they were made up of snow, which had been reinforced by her snow flames, making them harder and sturdier. The silver was snow mixed with metal – if she managed to glide past you and brush across anywhere on your body, it would leave a gash. An ugly one. She started to fly towards him, only to abruptly change her course – towards Lal Mirch. She took care not to touch the strongheaded woman as she retrieved her weapon. A silver bow, which seemed to grow a coat of ice and snow when she touched it with her bare hand. Intricate designs outlined the bow, but the most striking thing about it was the dragon that adorned it. It carried a strangely gentle expression, but its posture suggested that it could do much more harm, and the ends of the bow had wings – it looked as if the dragon had two pairs of wings, since there were two ends. It was strikingly elegant. "Freeze." Another word was spoken and her dancing flame began to envelop the bow. An arrow, also made up of ice and snow and covered in Deathperation flames, appeared in her hands.

She shot her first arrow. Hibari had completely no trouble avoiding it – he could read her attacks, not only because she was inexperienced and obvious, but also because he knew her moves too well. Hours, days, months and even years of training had allowed him to have a vast knowledge about how Miyuki fought. Now he wouldn't play with her anymore. Since she had finally decided to use her ring, he was going to go serious too. He dashed around her with an impossible speed, and he knew she couldn't keep up with him when she started to fire shots which never hit him at all, they were always a little lag and missed him by just a bit. He was smirking the whole way through as he advanced on her, clashing on her bow with his tonfas. She skipped away and used her wings to levitate herself to seemingly unreachable distance from the ground.

"You have to learn that that won't stop the enemies from trying to attack you." He said as he used the momentum of hopping of a wall to reach her, hitting the side of her shoulder blade. Pain shot through Miyuki's body as the tonfa made contact with her bones, but the sound wasn't a loud 'CRACK', so they both knew that it hadn't broke. Which meant that Hibari would still continue attacking her anyway. He didn't give her any time to react as he flashed out his box weapon and punched his ring into it, an adorable porcupine appearing and landing on his palm. Unfortunately for Miyuki, it wasn't as harmless as it looked. It expanded quickly, causing Miyuki to fly away, thinking that she could easily avoid it. Well, she was wrong. The porcupine was still increasing in size and Miyuki was already reaching the corner, not letting her fly to escape either as it covered the entire height of the room – if she didn't do something, anything, every single ball-sized needle would puncture her body. That would certainly not be a pretty sight. She fired an arrow, which only seemed to make the porcupine squeal, its balloon-shaped needle sphere causing the arrow to bounce off. It was only then that she realized the only part of the porcupine that could be actually penetrated was its body, which was made out of flesh. The elastic material of the sphere rendered all physical attacks useless. But it was too late. Any second now – blood would start to spurt out from everywhere – not like she hadn't experienced it before, but who would actually enjoy the thought of blood gushing out and leaving your body? Oh right, Hibari Kyoya did.

She closed her eyes and prepared for the worst, but nothing happened. One second. Two seconds. Three… four… Her eyes flitted open and all she saw was Hibari keeping his box weapon and walking towards her. His facial expression was unreadable, save the word 'stoic'. What she didn't expect him to was to place his hand on her shoulder, examining whether it was severely injured or not, and checking whether he had stopped his box weapon too late and allowed her to get harmed by any of those deadly needles. "You won't die." He said in a monotone voice, but he gently took her hand in his and strode of the room.

As Lal heard the door close, she smiled. Hibari Kyoya never hesitated to kill or severely injure someone. Never. His only exception was her. Miyuki Estella De Luca. Moreover, he didn't even add the word 'herbivore' to her throughout her stay so far, which was hardly normal as Hibari addressed everyone else, even the 10th Vongola boss, as 'herbivore'. Miyuki, however, was addressed using her name, and she didn't seem to realize the meaning of that. She remembered walking in on them once in the training room, only to find Hibari Kyoya, hovering over the adult Miyuki, who was clutching her head, looking like she was in extreme pain. His expression was worried, for goodness sake. His hand was grabbing her hand, and he was asked her repeatedly, "What's wrong, Miyuki? What's wrong?" He looked as if he was going to break down when he saw her in that state. When he trained (more like tortured) Tsuna and Tsuna had bled until he had lost all colour and ability to fight, Hibari didn't even blink. Lal knew that Hibari Kyoya only had one weakness. And that was Miyuki Estella De Luca.

When they had reached the Vongola bases' kitchen, Hibari had taken out a first-aid kid and started to bandage her shoulder.

Miyuki counted the number of times the bandage went round her shoulder… "Here. Your shoulder might dislocate if you do any more rigorous training anymore so we'll have to stop the training sessions."

"But with the state that this world is in right now, I don't think I should—"

"We're stopping." He said, decision final. "Now, go and rest, and don't do anything stupid. I don't want to wait for another week for that shoulder to recover." He put the first-aid kit back into its original position and left the room, with Miyuki looking at his back view slowly grow smaller and smaller.

"Idiot." She muttered under her breath and walked to the door, only to bump into someone else. "Sumimasen." But she looked up and that someone else was someone that looked suspiciously like… Yamamoto Takeshi.

"So, you're the ten year older Yamamoto Takeshi… right?" Miyuki started off.

"…Yes." Was his terrific one-word reply. Miyuki almost hated it has much as she hated Hibari's "Hn"s. "…I don't know what to say, Miyu-chan, I mean, Miyuki-san. I haven't seen you in awhile, and now your ten year younger self is here." Yamamoto said, sighing, but then lifted a hand to ruffle her hair.

Miyuki blushed and smiled sheepishly, "Yamamoto-san, tell me more about—" Growl. Miyuki wanted to die just then and there. Could her stomach choose a worse time to let out its cry? She blushed a thousand shades of crimson and coughed loudly.

There was an uncomfortable silence. Then Yamamoto burst out in laughter, his hand clutching his stomach and he ruffled her hair once again – Miyuki was sure that her hair parting had disappeared into nowhere. "You're exactly the same as your future self." He said through fits of laughter. When his laughter died down and he regained his composure, he asked with a grin, "Wanna eat some sushi?" Miyuki's eyes lit up, even though her cheeks were still slightly hot, but nodded enthusiastically – she loved sushi. Yamamoto went to the fridge to choose his ingredients, but then Miyuki spoke, "You don't use button mushrooms for sushi… right?"

Yamamoto gave her a strange look, and seemed as if he was trying to stifle a laugh again. But he shook his head, and she felt relieved that there would be no coin-tasting-like mushrooms in his sushi. That thought suddenly reminded her of Hibari's outburst the previous night.

"Miyuki Estella De Luca, I know that you're the eighth Guardian of Snow, I know that you like to be called 'Miyu', that you treasure your middle name because it was given to you by your only sister, and that you hate your last name because everyone discriminates you because of it. I know that you love the feeling of snow on your face, and that you like the smell of Sakura. You're really good at art, but you can't do sports at all. You don't like the taste of button mushroom because you think it tastes like coins, and that you have a birthmark in the shape of a butterfly on your back… Miyu… I know… everything."

She really wanted to know how that Hibari Kyoya had found out about all those secrets that she kept safely locked in her heart. What was Hibari Kyoya's place in her future self's life?

"Itakimasu." Miyuki chirped as she started to bite on a piece of raw salmon, cut perfectly and still extremely fresh.

"So, Miyuki-san, you do know the state of Vongola now right?" Yamamoto's voice turned serious at this question, and Miyuki just nodded solemnly, continuing to pick another sushi to consume. "I'm doing my best to train myself and get accustomed to his world. Box weapons and all, everything is unfamiliar, but with a little time, I should be able to at least get a hold of things here and make a stand in front of Millefiore." At the rival families' name, her voice had a spiteful tone. And then she realized – she technically didn't have the right to get angry, because she wasn't officially a part of the Vongola in the present yet, even though her future self had been accepted by them, it didn't mean that she would have the same fate too. Now, they didn't even know her identity… She didn't know when would be the appropriate time to tell them the truth – she was afraid of the possibility. The possibility that they would find out about the hideous past of the Snow Guardian, and reject her. Then she would have to go back to her family in Italy, who would surely abandon her if they found out that the Vongola didn't accept her. If she didn't join the Vongola, she would be an outcast. That was the end that she dreaded the most, because then, she would've nothing to rely on, nothing to live for. She was scared.

"Miyuki-san, are you alright?" Yamamoto's gently shook her shoulder. Miyuki looked at him and smiled, trying to be convincing, but the look on Yamamoto's face suggested that she wasn't successful in doing so. "Don't be scared, Miyuki-san, the rest of Vongola will be here for you, so you don't have to be scared. Remember that, alright? I guess I'll get going now. I have things to do. Bye bye, Miyuki-san." He looked back and waved at her, the automatic doors of the kitchen closed, and she didn't hear the silent whisper. Take care of yourself, Miyu-chan.

Miyuki had finished her sumptuous meal and was quickly walking back to the premises of Hibari's quarters. The time was 9:55, which meant that most of the other Vongola members would be waking up soon, and she was absolutely not ready to receive an interrogation from Gokudera Hayato, the noisy freak who didn't know when to stop scowling and shouting. In Miyuki's point of view, he was too loud, and his voice sounded constipated most of the time.

"Miyuki?" Hibari said as soon as she entered the house, "I told you to come back straight after I left." His tone was a bit higher and louder than usual. Miyuki knew that he was annoyed and sighed, explaining to him, "Gomen, Hibari-san, I got hungry and met Yamamoto-san on the way, so he prepared a meal for me… I'm really sorry."

All Hibari did was to nod and wave a dismissive hand, but he did say something before he went back to working again, "Take care of yourself and rest well."

Hibari sat down in front of his working desk and starting on some paperwork which he had to settle for Vongola – they were trying to round up whoever was left other than the Vongola and the Varia. He glanced at the bento set placed on the far end of the table.

Guess she didn't need it after all.

-End of Chapter Four.

Chapter Four.1 – Omake

Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

(NOTE: You should note that these things didn't really happen during the story. It's just for my own amusement – and probably yours too.)

"…Yes." Was his terrific one-word reply. Miyuki almost hated it has much as she hated Hibari's "Hn"s. "…I don't know what to say, Midget, I mean, Miyuki-san. I haven't seen you in awhile, and now your ten year younger self is here." Yamamoto said, sighing, but then lifted a hand to ruffle her hair.

"YAMAMOTO-SAN." Miyuki almost screamed into his ear, "Firstly, I hate one-word and one-syllable replies. I'm pretty sure your vocabulary does not only consist of one word. Secondly, I'm not a midget. I'm petite, petite." She repeated with a deliberately slow pace. "Thirdly, stop messing up my hair! You have no idea how many after-bath conditioners I put on it, and just because of your impulsivity, you mess up my precious hair and waste the time and effort that I've put into maintaining it, you idiot! I wash my hair with three rounds of shampoo and two rounds of conditioner, then apply ten bottles of different conditioners onto it. DO YOU UNDERSTAND?"

Yamamoto gulped as the obsessive and compulsive side of Miyuki surfaced again. He knew better than to do anything other than nodding, lest he face the wrath of Miyuki while she was mad. She was really frightening when she was mad.

Author's Note.

Hello darlings, I'm back with Chapter Four, which turned out longer than I expected xP. I always thought that it was hard to type long chapters, but now my chapters are slowly and naturally getting longer, which is a good thing, because I've received comments for other fanfictions that my story was rushed.

Hope you like this chapter, and the Omake too! :D Honestly, what I usually write in my omakes is what I have the temptation to write in the actual story, if not for the fact that it would ruin the whole mood HAHA. I think I'm more of a crackfic writer. Oh well, but I go for the saner plots.

Okay, that's all. Remember to read and review, okay? (: Because, if you don't read, you can't review, and if you don't review, I'll be SAD! Doesn't that make so much sense? :D Hahah k, enjoy the chappie! (:

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