elegance and deathly grace

[decimo_calandra]

Hibari stepped into the room, cool eyes scanning over it and taking note of the... crowd. His lips thinned, and he raised a hand. The light glintedoff the heavy silver-and-blue ring on his finger

Comments

[veryfail]

Party- no way, it's no party- there's no way some place like this could ever be a party with people like the Varia (WHO KILLED PEOPLE) and Hibari (WHO ALSO KILLED PEOPLE) and people Tsuna didn't know (WHO MOST LIKELY KILLED PEOPLE) everywhere and it's crazy and he wants to go home only there doesn't really seem to be a way to do that which is even worse than crazy-

Which is sort of why he's kind of trying to NOT LOOK DIRECTLY at the person who's right in front of him. Because he might die, right? Which really wouldn't be in his interest at all. Except that the person in front of him is Hibari Kyoya- it is Hibari, except that he's also wearing the Vongola ring which Tsuna notices because he's looking at the hand not at the face and that's, something like that's-

'That ring- there's no way- since when?!'

-probably not what he should have said.

[decimo_calandra]

Ah, the weakling. Better yet, he was de-aged to the stage where he was truly a weakling and not merely a growing predator trying desperately to hold onto his shell of a prey. A more ridiculous man Hibari had never seen.

He smirked at the blatant fear in his eyes, and the mumbled words.

"Since ten years ago, Sawada Tsunayoshi," Hibari answered, nearly drawling. He didn't make a move to attack - while this boy might have annoyed him in his own youth, he only amused Hibari with his sheer incompetence.

[veryfail]

And it's about then that Tsuna notices that Hibari's really OLD, old like an adult, like Dino, like- old, which wasn't really reassuring. But then, it was Hibari, right? And this guy- this guy wasn't ever reassuring, except when he wasn't within a 100km radius of Tsuna, which would've meant that he'd be killing other people. Not Tsuna, this was the important thing.

(NOW IS A GOOD TIME TO RUN AWAY, something in him prompted- what was it again?)

So he takes a half step back, but his eyes are still drawn to the ring on Hibari's hand, identical in every aspect to the one hanging around his neck. Really identical, and Hibari wouldn't bother with a fake (wouldn't even bother with the Cloud ring, that guy-), he wasn't that kind of person at all, was he- not from what Tsuna remembered.

(Oh, right. It was his common sense.)

'Eh- but-'

(REBORN ISN'T AROUND AND YOU WILL PROBABLY DIE-)

'But it's the ring from the Varia fight and I- we fought- you- that doesn't make any sense-'

(MAKE THAT WILL, his common sense finished.)

[decimo_calandra]

Hibari's lips twitched, just so slightly. Long exposure to this boy had taught him to read enough about what was running through his head. He was probably panicking now, mentally running around like a headless chicken in sheer panic. Really, such a useless guardian.

It was a good thing that Reborn had managed to make him viable, or else Hibari would've just bitten him to death for being such a disgrace to him. But Sawada would, he supposed, always be the subject of jokes around here, if only for the fact that he actually seemed to like being so useless and clung to it with the tenacity of a bull.

But this was not the Sawada he knew, no. This was someone quite possibly worse, so Hibari neatly blocked out all of the boy's ramblings. What was different about-

His eyes suddenly took notice of the chain around Sawada's neck. His eyes narrowed, lips thinning as he stepped forward and grabbed it, pulling it forward and possibly dragging Sawada along as well.

That ring. His ring. Ornate silver with a blue gem. The symbol of power in the

[veryfail]

It flares up in a second, as soon as Hibari's fingers close around the ring at Tsuna's neck. There's a sudden narrowing of his eyes and he's almost, almost about to say something when he pretty much gets dragged forward face to face with Hibari.

'Let go-!'

(He's not dead or unconscious yet, this is new.)

And then he's pushing against Hibari, trying (and possibly failing) to dislodge him, because this is his ring, it's the ring they all fought for, why'd that guy have any interest in it, anyway? He'd never been interested in anything, he'd always been able to take care of himself, he didn't need anyone else's help-

'The- the Vaira- I said-'

But without Reborn, the way he is here and now, there's not enough fight in him to block this, not when he finally starts thinking. The ring, the way Hibari's behaving (he's taking an interest in something other than killing people, Tsuna's not dead yet, this isn't- it's not right and

[decimo_calandra]

That flame. His flame. And that ring. The pieces are falling into place in Hibari's mind, and detested the picture that was forming.

Sawada Tsunayoshi, owning his Vongola? No. Never. He would never allow it, because the Vongola was his. (Just like Namimori was his; like all of his Guardians belonged to him, body and heart and soul.) All of that which were his - his and no one else's - seemed to belong to Sawada here, which that one flash of that orange flame.

Hibari gritted his teeth, hand tightening around that chain and the other, alien ring so hard that the metal bit into his flesh. He was angry; more than angry, he was furious. Because to Hibari, this simply meant that Sawada had waltzed in here and stole everything from him.

It wasn't even his Sawada. It was a stranger, a weakling, still a boy and so helpless that Hibari could just reach over and squeeze that thin little throat, or even snap his neck. He didn't even need his flames, or his boxes, or anything other than his bare hands because Sawada was such a weakling at this

[veryfail]

The first thing that Tsuna wants to do is laugh.

Haha, you're kidding right? You're Hibari! You're crazy, you're the guy who never listens to anyone else! You're the kind of person who'd rather kill people than even listen to what we'd have to say, You're- not. Not the Vongola Decimo-

Except this is no laughing matter. It's instinct that drives him now to straighten and balance himself as Hibari shoves him back, because all the training up until the Varia fight hasn't been completely wasted. He's not as weak as he might have been but he doesn't need any intuition to tell him that this isn't a fight he should pick, this isn't anything that he can win and he really should've started running several minutes ago.

(And his own gloved hand closes around the ring at his neck, though he'll never admit out loud that he will not give it up.)

'That's...'

Impossible.

'No. You've- you're not the Hibari I know, you can't be.'

It's impossible and crazy but this place, wasn't this place crazy already? Though he's never seen anything like this

[decimo_calandra]

Perhaps this boy wasn't as useless as he had first thought. At least he knew how to catch himself and not fall. (Hibari remembered, the first time Sawada Iemitsu had introduced him to his son, the boy had skidded away from him so quickly and so clumsily that he smacked his head against his own study desk and knocked himself out. It was pathetic, to say the least, and that first impression had coloured his view of Sawada until he had finally managed to prove himself two months and three years ago.)

Was it because this Sawada held the Vongola Sky ring that he had some modicum of competence? Yet he seemed to be just as slow as ever. (Hibari knew, he knew that he was being unfair, that he was being harsh, that it wasn't fair to expect of a fourteen-year-old boy what he expected of a twenty-four-year-old man. But Hibari had never been a compassionate man, and he was angry, so angry at the very thought that this boy would be able to take away those things that he had worked so hard for.

Hibari simply wasn't the sort to let anything he

[veryfail]

Well, okay, he really ought to have known better than to make statements as obvious as that. But there's still something about this whole thing that he can't help but feel is wrong. It's the faint thread of but how is everyone else, that ever-present worry for the rest of his friends (not his Mafia Family, he doesn't want to think of them like that, they're just friends, right-). Under Hibari, under this strange person that's both Hibari and not, he can't help but worry about how they are

[decimo_calandra]

Sawada would, Hibari supposed, always be Sawada. He would always care far too much for people who had no use or want of his care. He fussed and he worried and generally acted like a mother hen, and he so rarely fought for his own sake - always for the sake of others, for the sake of protecting those he cared for.

That dependence on others was what made him so very weak, and to think, he was the leader of the pack in another world. Even when he was young and worthless, he was still the leader.

Hibari couldn't imagine it; couldn't imagine Sawada being able to lead or even survive in the cutthroat world that Hibari himself had been thrown into. Even his own Sawada was still leery of death and murders, still trying to cling onto that shell of a herbivore by pleading for 'peaceful solutions' rather than simple extermination.

How very sickeningly weak his famiglia must be. Hibari wondered if he had a place in it, and he dismissed it out of hand. He wasn't one to ally himself with such weaklings (and, from what he had seen, they were