A Grieving Sky

Chapter 4

Six Year Ago

Hibari Kyoya woke up to his best friend's muffled sobs. The raven-haired boy was quick to jump to Tsuna's bed across the room. The brunette was clutching tightly at a pillow, face buried in it, trying to muffle his pained sobs. It had been like this for the past five days, ever since the day Tsuna was kidnapped and Yoshi. As if losing his twin brother wasn't enough, the seven-year-old was plagued with nightmares from his abduction.

Whatever had happened in those few hours had been enough to scar him for life. Yet, Tsuna refused to utter a single word about. Even now no one had been able to get him to talk about that day. Not even Nana. If anyone tried, he would just ignore them or lock himself in his room. Seeing his best and only friend so broken and in so much pain was like repeated stabs to Hibari's chest. But try as he might, there didn't seem to be anything he could do to help.

At least so he thought. But tonight was different. It had been mere hours ago that they had all returned from the graveyard after Yoshi's funeral and Tsuna had finally cracked. He could no longer keep the secret from spilling. He had harbored the pain and the fear for as long as he could and he was exhausted. So he finally started talking.

In the dead of the night, Hibari listened patiently to the whispered recounting of the wretched events. And every time Tsuna cringed or was interrupted by a sob Hibari felt another stab to his heart. But as the events unfolded his anger grew. Even though he was no stranger to the dark aspects of humanity, how someone could do something so disgusting was still above him. He did know one thing though, he was never letting them get to Tsuna again. Over his dead body would they ever so much as touch the boy.

And this time, he was not going to fail. Once was more than enough. Never is he going to be too weak to help Tsuna ever again. He will not allow it.

Four Years Ago

It was past midnight as a small, hooded figure settled on the fire escape of an empty office building. The child of about nine typed away furiously at the laptop currently propped open on his lap, eyes darting over the screen, trying to discern something. A moment later a slight buzz broke the silence and the boy smirked, it was done. Closing the laptop, the boy stood up and started climbing the slightly rusty staircase up to the roof. The view from there would be better and there was no way he was missing the show.

Across the street, alarm bells rang through a supposedly empty office building, but the boy knew better. The building that was currently being engulfed in flames was an Estraneo Facility. And not just any Estraneo Facility, it was their main base. Or it used to be, now it was simply a wrecked building that was about to be reduced to ashes. He glanced at his watch and saw that everything was perfectly on time. That was good, it would not do well if they were late. Even an extra second was too much for them to afford.

Luckily, they wouldn't need it. Another figure appeared on the roof beside the boy, wearing a similar hood.

"How'd it go Kyoya?"

"Everything went as planned. We have five minutes before the Vindice get here."

"Well then we should get out of here, ne?"

"Hn."

Tsuna and Hibari wandered the crowded streets of Venice, looking awed at all the beautiful sights that the city had to offer. Their decision to stay and sight-see for a bit before returning to Japan was turning out to be a sound one. After all, the two deserved a break after just having burned the Estraneo Base to the ground, quite literally. But Tsuna had a feeling there was more to it. He had only suggested this little vacation because Hyper Intuition had told him he needed to be here, this day. Of course he had listened. He wasn't one to ignore his intuition, which was a good thing since it was never wrong.