Midori Madness

So now, we're going to press rewind on that retro boom-box as funky as a myspace booty call and slip back into the past. Slip like a fish back through the story you have yet to read, unless this is your second time, or third time through the text like we've all done to that slut the Harry Potter Series, (no, I really am just jealous) and stalk Yuka's first trot on the Namimori sidewalk that matters.

Step on a crack and break your mother's back. After reading her aunt's note on the fridge, a manly, messy scrawl of ink, Yuka left for school. Lal Mirch would be out of town, and with a tweak in her lips, the brat imagined everything she was going to do. Yuka's poufy, funky marigold-yellow messy bun bounced and jiggled to her confident trot. Soft pink and yellow hair clips failed to keep her wild mop secure. Wisps of baby pink ends, from the time she dyed her 'do electric pink, poked out like porcupine quills. If Yuka had her way, her head would be crowned with a luxurious magenta mane, but Lal Mirch had disapproved of her first drastic hairstyle. What's wrong with dying your hair? She was still in school, not yet in the real world. She didn't have to look like dumbass blonde mama's-girl, goody two shoes, afraid of nail polish, dress to impress bimbo. She just wanted to be herself.

She had flashing mauve eyes, just like her aunt, and her pretty blonde hair was dark at the roots because she was naturally a brunette. Yes, she could use touch up according to the girl mags Kyoko reads. She could also shave her legs, but the little hairs weren't very noticeable just yet. Is laziness a sin? (Does Lal Mirch not shave either?)

The mailman complimented her with a raised eyebrow. Nothing about the girl matched that sickeningly cheerful Midori uniform. Her magenta nail polish, pink and yellow hairpins, and poufy, funky, blonde messy-bun screamed of the pop music scene. She was missing gauges—her ears eerily bare—but three chunky, thrifty silver rings studded her fingers to make a punch stick. The first had a fleur-de-lis, the second had a butterfly, and the third had a flying swan, and when she takes them off at night, they leave a green stain around her fingers. She faked a smile back at the mailman, and took a turn at the corner, lackadaisically swinging herself around a lamppost. The pendant of a necklace flew out and caught the light as if it were flailing its arms to be noticed.

It was her most precious treasure. It was the ring of her mother, cut from a solid piece of jade, a bloody shade of violet twisting with black veins. It spun and cried, but she couldn't hear its dark whispering over the crackle of the sunlight.

The mailman watched her disappear around the bend. That girl didn't suit her Midori uniform, and she confused him every time they crossed paths like a clown confuses James Bond. Midori was a very strict girls' prep school. They were fiercely principled in building proper young ladies, well-educated in math, science and the language arts. Yuka's existence was a mockery of their institution. She was their punk, their rebel, and given another year, she would be smoking who knows what across the street before school started. Haru would have graduated and Yuka would have been held back. Yuka didn't think she belonged at Midori, but regardless, she was a part of it.

She met up with Haru several blocks from the apartment. The cosplay maniac wore the costume of a purple octopus, and its tentacles were so big, they splayed into the street. A napkin with a hungry oni with a fork and knife licking its chops was wound around the octopus's neck. The two old friends greeted each other, and began to head in the same direction.

"It's so exciting! Last night, Kyoko's brother and Tsuna and his friends fought together in a Sumo tournament and won! And Tsuna…,Tsuna, he is so strong and brave. I couldn't believe it at first, but ever since he saved my life! I know he must like me to have done what he has done." Goosebumps grew beneath her costume as she recalled the touch of his arms around her.

"If you like him so much, why don't you ask him out? You know, take the initiative?" Yuka asked, a little bored. There was always news about this Tsuna with Haru, but she had never met the boy before. Yuka could feel a mild hardness grow between them because she didn't know this boy and she suspected the yodelers of exaggeration. She mimicked the mailman. "What if he isn't as tough as you think?"

"Ha! There is no one that can beat Tsuna! He will propose to me when the time is right." Yuka watched helplessly as Haru sliped into daydream mode. She was obviously reliving that famous titanic scene when Decaprio held the girl at the front bow of the ship. Haru's arms spread like a bird and Yuka moved to the edge of the sidewalk to give the octopus some room, holding in a giggle.

After a bit, Haru came back down to Earth. "Yuka, do you like any boys?"

"Nope," she smirked while chewing her berry blast gum. "I'm not interested in having a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship." She couldn't imagine herself baking cookies and making chocolates. She couldn't imagine shyly giving them to a boy to wolf down and then snog her without brushing his teeth.

"But wouldn't it be great to have someone supporting you no matter what? To always make you feel better when you're feeling down?"

Yuka was swayed. Haru would do this sometimes. Touch her romantic side. Then, she shook off the feeling. There was no such thing as couch love for her, no such thing as peace enough to sit quietly and stroke some boyfriend's head. Because it's not like that with any of the boys I've met. Which was true. No guy had ever given Yuka an ounce of respect until she made them with her fists. They ogled at her through beady eyes, leapt out of the mists at her like monsters when all she wanted was to find grandmother's house. "It might be nice, but it isn't anything I need," she answered indifferently.

"That's why I like Tsuna so much. If he hadn't come by when I was stuck on that electric pole, I don't know what would have happened to me!"

"Well, you shouldn't climb on those things."

"I know, I know, I don't seem the type, but it happens to everyone at least once."

As they neared school, the clock rising up over the neighborhood, Yuka caught sight of Igarashi stalking by the school gate. The old woman sensei looked like a hunch-back vulture despite her professional a-line skirt and pin-striped blazer. That old bag Mrs. Igarashi had grasshopper legs and the lung capacity of an Olympic swimmer. Her wrinkled skin matched the antique wrought iron school gate, her gray hair was chameleonic against the marble gate posts. Mrs. Igarashi was a tough old literature teacher, a world wonder of conservatism.

"Besides, you're going to get in trouble again," Haru said, looking down at her socks. "Maybe you shouldn't wear those things," Haru said, nudging her friend in the ribs with a tentacle. "Your socks don't match either..." Indeed, Yuka's socks did not match. They weren't even uniform regulation, one being a bright sunshine yellow cross-knit knee-high with a hole near the ankle, the other, a blue tie-dyed white cotton tube sock.

"That's what happens when you do your own laundry," Yuka shrugged. She had given up matching socks two years ago. "At least they match the prude-iform," Yuka defended.

"Here, wear my bow tie today, Yuka. I don't want you to get in trouble anymore," Haru pleaded, beginning to untie hers.

"No. You keep it. But someday, Haru, I promise you won't have to wear it either." Yuka's mauve eyes sparkled with resolution.

"Yuka, really, Mrs. Igarashi said yesterday that—"

"No! You know, it feels like a dog collar. It's... it's uncomfortable. Like it's choking me every time I wear it." She knitted her eyebrow, irritated and vexed by the recollection. She put her hand to her shirt's collar, probing for a silver chain necklace. Yuka's chain held the ring her mother had once worn. Finding it, she rubbed it between her fingers as if it were a talisman for good luck. It was a band cut from a solid stone, a rare form of jade.

"Besides, you know the bane of my existence is to break school rules," Yuka jeered sarcastically, elbowing Haru. Haru giggled knowingly and whimsically twisted her tentacles.

Yuka let Haru walk a little bit in front of her, the girl was already back in dream mode. She didn't want her to get one of Mrs. Igarashi's bad mood punishments. Mrs. Igarashi was a tough old literature teacher. She was very conservative and wore the Midori teacher's uniform with the button always tight and new. When Yuka came to school last year with her hair dyed pink, Mrs. Igarashi gave her a pair of scissor or a bottle of black hair dye every day, and then a detention for every day she refused to change. Auntie Lal had to go to a parent-teacher conference to ask the old lady to give it a break, but the old bat turned her own aunt against her, and back to black she returned.

Yuka didn't like her at all, and if Haru turned around, she would see it in her friends face.

"Yuka! You have a visitor in the main office. Please go there immediately. And take off those ATROCIOUS socks. They are NOT school regulation. How many times must I prod at the rules for you?"

"Make me," Yuka leered, but stalked in the office's direction to appease the teacher after the venomous look that was returned to her. Mrs. Igarashi wasn't the principal, but as the eldest faculty member, revered. If the principal was the president, she was the pope. Yuka was pleased to notice 's mouth pucker as if an acid drop had popped into her mouth.

The last time she saw the headmistress, the woman ranted about how she was a "a deescracce to her geeendre." The woman spit out the tripe she digested for years the way flies eat and vomit and eat and vomit. Yes, that particularly awful morning was when she had gotten in a fight with some thugs outside the school gate.

They wore green uniforms with brass button. They were the worst kind of guys ever: the kind who think an all-girls school is their own personal harem. She could see it in their narrow faces and the curl in their hands that fit for masturbation. Because of Mrs. Igarashi's detention, Yuka walked out the school gates alone that afternoon, her hair just dyed black again and a grudgingly obedient image of Midori perfection.

"Sweatheart, come ova here for a second."

"OW-OWWW!" another howled. Yuka's rhythmically flopping bun settled as she came to a halt. An invitation? No. More like bait. And one of them took it. She glanced over her shoulder to see one of the group casually approaching her from behind, grinning confidently. He wore his Kokuyo uniform ripped to shreds. A stupid trend, but it did make him look tougher. Yuka eyed the ground while she waited for his footsteps to reach her. Pat, pat pat. Like soft heartbeats. She could hear him chuckling. She chuckled too, but the Kokuyo student never noticed.

Finally, an arm clamped over her shoulder, pulling her forcefully in the direction of his armpit. "Hey toots, I know a place we can go," he whispered seductively, a hint of experience in his gruff voice. He was athletic. He was handsome too, in a bloodthirsty maniac kind of way. He smelled heavily of cologne, and the spicy smell put Yuka, against her will, into a more forgiving mood. It was harder to cringe in disgust the way she wanted too. She stared at the hand clutching her shoulder possessively, contemplating how she would break the attraction she was feeling. No. I don't want this kind of attention. But his smell was intoxicating. Addicting. She hadn't expected it.

The punk became annoyed when she didn't say anything back, keeping her head turned away from him to look at his hand on her opposite shoulder. He reached out and cupped the girl's chin, squishing her cheeks. He turned her head and forced her to look at him. She had a nice body, not crazy nice like some of the other women he'd fucked, but good enough. Her arms and legs were a bit too lanky for his taste and her breasts were nowhere near his desired cup-size. But damn, with a skirt like that, she was asking for it. He was already having fantasies of putting her in her place, not in detention like Mrs. Igarashi, but sprawled completely naked in a motel room bed.

So when he turned her face to his, this name-less Kokuyo student expected a bunny-rabbit cutey-wootey I'm-scared-because-its-my-first-time pout on his captured young schoolgirl. To his astonishment, Yuka smirked like a sharp-toothed lantern fish who had lured an unsuspecting guppy with its bio luminescent hook. No motherfucker touched her face.

"You need more tag," she scoffed, elbowing him in the ribs. He smelled sickly sweet now.

And just like that, all hell broke loose. His Kokuyo buddies joined in when they saw their friend being beaten unconscious by a mad banshee. 'How did this bitch get so tough?' they asked themselves. But their thoughts did not last long. Yuka's fists soon pummeled them into darkness, unconscious darkness. If Reborn were there, he would have recognized her fighting stance as Lal Mirch's and would have immediately deduced she was the Chili Pepper's student. Surprisingly, reborn wasn't there, like in many KHR fanfics. He was too busy helping Tsuna become a man worthy of the Vongola Famiglia. Today, that meant teaching Tsuna how to shave, no matter how obvious it was that the poor boy would never grow a single chest hair, let alone a beard and side burns.

No, instead of reborn magically appearing in a cheerleader outfit, a rather large crowd of people had gathered around Yuka's scuffle. Many were shocked. Others joked that the mad fem was really a cross-dressing boy. Finally, attracted by the ruckus outside the school gates, Mrs. Igarashi pried her way through the crowd. Yuka had once told Haru that she would give her a hundred dollars to see Mrs. Rushito's stone cold face crack. Too bad she missed it.

Yuka was still kicking the smelly Mr. Torn-shirt when Mrs. Igarashi yanked and hauled her by the arm back to Midori. Rule number one for Yuka: If you want to knock me up, I want to knock you down. But Mrs. Igarashi had her own set of rules.

Midori girls do not fight.

Nope.

They just pour tea and look pretty.

"Eet's youhr fault, Madmoiselle. Stop weahring youhr skirt so hiygh. You provvvohc thehm."

But it's their fault for provoking me.

Yuka could only sit there and fume, the inky twist of fighting dragons blooming above her head. The PE teacher, Ms. Ichi, had tied her to a chair and duck taped her mouth.

"You need more discipline," Ms. Ichi scorned. Mrs. Igarashi stood nearby and suggested a suspension. Yuka didn't struggle, tranquilized by smell of tea. All she could do was roll her eyes. The teachers were hopeless. They would not understand her, let alone, try to.

So, as Murkuro says that he weaves illusions within illusions, we now must withdraw from this confusing flashback, from straight hair and clean nails, to an even more confusing display of unmatching colors that is Yuka today.

Yuka thought the principal would scold her, so she only pretended to follow Igarashi's pointing claw. She climbed the fire escape and pushed herself onto the roof, skipping first period so that she couldn't be called down from class. The rust from the fire escape left gritty red flakes on her hands. She brushed them off on her skirt. Then she crouched behind the rampart and began to pick at her nail polish.

Meanwhile, in the principal's office, an impatient Italian man fumed. If it weren't for so many good-looking lady teachers, he would have killed somebody by now. Superbi Squalo had been sent to kidnap Varia's future cloud. (The Mosca robot was defeated last week.) But it was already 9:00 A.M. and she still hadn't come in to school yet! His tight, bull-shark body paced the administrative office's waiting area, staring death at the portrait of previous lady principles

"VVVOOOIIIIIII! WHERE IS THE BRAT!" he raged.

"Sir please calm down. I'm sure she will be here any moment," said a lovely lady secretary, whose batting lashes could tranquilize a charging elephant. Then, she went back to typing records, no, number, no word, no letter on her screen before Squalo exploded again, and she had to look up. The exchange went on and on until papers flew into the air and the man stormed out. In the intervening time, another secretary contacted Yuka's guardian, Lal Mirch, to confirm releasing the girl to this man.

"Oh my, well, Ma'am he seems to be leaving as I speak. Such a temper," she mused into the phone, holding the cord with her other hand.

As Squalo threw open the double doors, he did not escape the notice of Yuka. Yuka was playing yo-yo with her spit, and lost the glob at his sudden appearance below. The glob of spit missed, but Yuka was fast. She thought the long silver hair belong to Mrs. Igarashi!

The opportunity was too good to miss. Down went a bottle full of strawberry kool aid right on Squalo's beautiful silver mane!

Squalo was shocked to feel liquid stream down his face. What had drenched his beautiful hair? Was it blood? No. He smelled it and recognized the sweet scent instantly. Squalo actually liked kool aid, but not on his head. His head shot up, and caught the site of a face, hands covering a smile, zip back over the rampart.

Enraged he scaled the wall and confronted a surprised Yuka, who did not think that was humanly possible until she saw Squalo do it.

"VVVOOOOIII! YOU'LL PAY FOR WHAT YOU DID, GIRL!"

"Wait!" He was like Lal when she was angry, and scared Yuka just the same. "H-how did you do that? Who are you? I thought you were a teacher! I-I am sorry. It was an accident… I didn't mean it for you… sir." She gulped and braced herself.

Yuka had nothing against him. It looked like this man put a lot of maintenance into it, and Yuka new a thing or two about maintenance. But, despite her obvious sincerity, Squalo immediately launch an attack, interrupting her gulp as she jumped away. She could hardly manage to evade him, and a hand caught in her hair and pulled her to the ground.

Thankfully, Reborn had appeared on Yuka's head, pointing a Leon-gun at Squalo. "Go away, Squalo," Reborn warned. Then, he kicked Yuka's head by stomping with his suede shoe.

"Stupid kid. Lal Mirch asked me to check up on you." Because Squalo was the loudest mafia ever, according to Fuuta's rankings, Lal had heard his "Never mind!" as he stormed out. Reborn's eyes narrowed at Squalo. "The Vongola Succession battles are over. What does Varia want with Namimori?"

"Varia?! What?" Yuka cried, practically falling over.

So Squalo had to say something to cover up SECRET Mission 'Get me a fucken cloud guardian.' Xanxus was planning something. To rebuild Varia's strength? But he was too angry to continue this train of thought.

"GGGGGGGGGGGGGAAAAAAAARRRRRRR R! DAMMMIIIT! OUT OF THE WAY REBORN. SHE'S ON OUR HITLIST." Hopefully, the Vongola would think she was dead when he finally did capture her. He didn't want this to turn into any kind of pursuit—he just wanted to snatch the girl and run away.

In this confrontation, the ring around Yuka's neck sang, but the girl could not touch the ring as she fought for her hair to not be ripped out of her head.

Suddenly, Lussuria, in the escape Ferrari, pulled into Midori's driveway and called to Squalo in that adorable way that makes us love him so much.

"Sqwaaaa-llooooo. I'm HHHEEEEErrrrreeee 3"

Reborn shot at Squalo, but in the kick of a fish, he dodged it. His face was still red from embarrassment at Lussuria's behavior.

"SHHHHHHUUDDDUUUP LUSSURIA!" he shouted, and then, he pointed at Yuka and yelled, "SAY GOODBYE TO NAMIMORI! I'LL BE BACK!"

Yuka heaved on her spot on the roof.

"I thought Lal Mirch taught you how to fight," her aunt's friend squeaked.

"I-I thought she did, too," she said after silence.

Back at Lal Mirch's apartment, Reborn and Lal Mirch, stood on books piled on chairs at the kitchen table. Documents were spread out in front of them some with Midori's crest, others with Namimori Middle's crest. They gave her a new surname. No more odd uniforms. No standing out whatsoever.

She sunk bitterly between them as she watched them talk. She signed where she was told Mirch seemed upset. Yuka recognized it from her silence. She was the kind of woman who shouted at the dishes for being dirty.