Holiday Blessings
Pairing: Hibari and Sanyu from my fic Santoku
It seemed like a good start, for a Holiday tradition…
Ketto’s notes: Just as a forewarning, this WON’T be all fluffy-goodness because, really, I don’t have it in me to torture poor Hibari-san’s character that badly. But it will have a treat at the end C: (this was typed in July during a “Christmas in July” sort of mood…but I saved it for holiday inspiration. This is my Christmas gift to all of my lovely readers (however few and far between they are! Thanks!) who would have liked the pairing in my FF.net story to be HibarixSanyu!)
---
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, and most importantly of all, it was the Christmas times.
And everyone knows that the upcoming holiday season means that school-sponsored events are not far behind.
Today, it just so happened that the Namimori Middle School was preparing for said function. And who better to oversee the entire collaboration than the school’s Disciplinary Committee Head Prefect?
It wasn’t to say that Hibari actually enjoyed this particular type of thing, since it involved a rather large crowd (who wouldn’t want to be part of that?), but he wouldn’t leave the reputation of his territory in the hands of the weak, herbivorous students that inhabited it, would he? No chance. Besides, as long as he was around he knew no one would be slacking off.
Not only that; there was a far better reason for his presence. It seemed that the strange, dark-haired Midori Middle School girl who liked to play with knives had been skulking around the place again lately, and they still had a score to settle, since she had a knack for escaping his wrath. Really, who did she think she was going up against him with kitchen ware? If he were the type to feel insulted, he would be.
“Ciaossu.”
“Konnichiwa, Hibari-senpai.”
Speaking of the kitchen girl, the infant had just brought her straight to him, saving him the trouble of hunting her down. Then again, it would have been fine the other way, too…
“Akambo.” Hibari acknowledged the tiny hitman, if one could even call it that. He refused to reply to the girl’s greeting. She wasn’t exactly high up on his ‘minimally respect these certain people’ list.
Reborn nodded and began to speak. “Would it be a problem if Sanyu helps with the Namimori winter festivities even though she isn’t a Namimori student, Hibari?” Of course, it technically wasn’t a question since it came from Reborn.
The brown-haired girl, who was dressed absurdly for such temperatures in an unzipped, sporty windbreaker that showed a plain tank top underneath and shorts, looked the shady student in the eyes. “It’s part of my discipline training.” Her eyes were far too confident. Was she challenging him already?
“And she’s agreed to finish whatever’s been started in return.”
Ah, what could make his day any more perfect? A fight was just what he needed to vent his agitation caused by the crowd--and to beat a perfectly harmless herbivore into submission. It was almost as if his Christmas gift had come early.
A faint hint of a smirk crossed the Cloud Guardian’s face. “Fine. I’ll bite you to death, onnanoko.” He had his tonfa at the ready as soon as he’d spoken. “When you fall down, you lose.” Of course, he aimed that guideline directly at her since he knew he would end up winning.
“Whenever you’re ready, Hibari-senpai.” The way she spoke with such politeness while appearing to be so arrogant was clearly patronizing. So, she tried to get at people’s nerves, did she? Even though she’d made it seem like she was ready, she remained staring at the snowflakes that were falling between them. Reborn smirked his cryptic baby smirk as he went on his way to watch from a distance.
She cast one glance in the direction of the others before returning her gaze to her opponent. They were standing a few meters away from the crowd; it could have had something to do with the number of people who were setting up the booths out in the snow-covered school-yard. Maybe she was one of those soft, considerate people who didn’t want to get others unnecessarily involved. Well, they shouldn’t get in their way, then. They knew better than to crowd when Hibari was present.
Without warning, Hibari aimed his tonfa at Sanyu’s head, and she didn’t make any act of moving until the last second, as always. In fact, she hadn’t even shown her infamous kitchen knives yet. She liked starting out a battle by trying to tire her opponent with misses, since it took twice as much energy to swing and miss a target. But who did she think she was dealing with, really? Hibari was impervious to what normal people were affected by. Even if he weren’t, it would still take about a hundred times as long to weaken him with that method.
Being the most powerful Guardian to the Vongola Decimo, Hibari Kyouya was about the closest to ‘invincible’ a human could get.
Although, he had to hand it to her; she knew better than to block his attacks with her limbs, since he was capable of cracking bone. But because her speed and evasion stats were so high, it was possible she might be lacking in something--defense? Strength? He hadn’t quite figured that out yet. She was sneaky, but she was still an herbivore.
---
“Hiie! Why are Sanyu-san and Hibari-san going at it again, Reborn?” Tsuna panicked as he spotted the two fighters who were making their way towards the school, away from them. He and his friends were currently setting up a game booth for the Namimori Winter Fair.
Gokudera chewed on the end of his cigarette and shrugged. “Tch. That girl likes to pick fights. Maybe Hibari got on her bad side. And vice-versa…”
“Ahahaha, San-chan is just making conversation!” Yamamoto claimed with a smile. For being Sanyu’s best friend, he sure didn’t seem to know much about how she normally operated…or, in some twisted way, maybe he was right about her. After all, she was about as far from a “normal” as her opponent was...
Tsuna winced as a particularly deadly swipe came just centimeters away from giving the girl a concussion. “I wonder how long she can go on like that before she strikes back. A-and why is she wearing summer clothes in winter?! She’ll freeze!”
Reborn looked towards his charge with a knowing look(which resembled his usual expression, if not slightly altered). “That’s part of her training: endurance.”
---
“Are you slowing down, Hibari-senpai?” Sanyu questioned in a casual, somewhat biting tone, nearly losing her balance as she avoided a blow to the midsection. It seemed she was reaching her limit, especially when one noticed that she was shivering almost imperceptibly due to the weather.
Her little game would end soon, and then the real fight would begin…and end just as quickly. Maybe he was really allowing her to evade his tonfa to humor her, if only just a little? At least it took longer than five minutes to knock her down--she was a challenge, he would give her that.
He noted that they were out of the committee area and now in a rather empty section of the school courtyard, where the fresh snow cover yielded to their footprints. With the snow still falling from the sky, and stray snowflakes whirling into the air with their quick movements, he noted that it could almost look like a waltz within a snow globe, albeit more deadly.
“I was thinking I could cater to the Winter Festival.” She spoke with a smile, soon after having the end of her elbow clipped by the steel tonfa. Folly on her behalf: speaking about trivial things during a serious match. That hit seemed to jar her, though only for less than a moment. It was only a matter of time, now. She shook out her arm and flexed her fingers as she gracefully evaded another hit.
Hibari let a smirk slip onto his face. “I won’t have a case of mass food-poisoning on my hands, or at my school, onnanoko.”
Sanyu lifted the corner of her lips in an insincere smile before finally, fluidly reaching into her jacket and drawing out one of her prided culinary weapons.
The shrieking clang of metal rejecting metal erupted, signaling the first block Sanyu had made during the entire fight. She dodged, parried, rejected, and evaded until her pattern was broken by another near-miss to the head. That certain swipe had managed to shatter her most favored haripin, though, and her hair was now freely floating in the wind, sure to hinder her eyesight. She brought out her second weapon to compensate for that and doubled her evasive maneuvers.
It was by luck, sheer luck, that she managed to inflict even one small, tiny cut on the left side of his face. But if that hadn’t happened, and his eyesight hadn’t been temporarily averted to another point, he never would have developed his winning plan. Well, it wasn’t to say he needed one, since he knew he would win in the first place, but this plan was much better than the first. After all, wasn’t he long overdue for a reward of sorts? And it was the holidays… the season was contagious.
Sanyu clenched her teeth together when her two knives came in a deadlock with the dark-haired Prefect’s tonfa. She couldn’t even twist her blades to cut at his exposed hands. It had to be recognized; he was overpowering her, and her heels were slowly sliding against the ground, making rifts in the snow.
---
“Hahi! This is off-the-wall, but…don’t Hibari-san and Karada-chan kind of…make a cute couple?” Haru’s cheerful, speculative comment was met with silence, save for Gokudera almost spewing his hot cocoa and managing to choke on it instead.
“Ha-Ha-Haru, I think you’ve had enough eggnog!!” Tsuna cried, grabbing the cup from the confused girl’s hands and holding it out of her reach. It wasn’t because he didn’t agree with her…but if either Cloud Guardian or knife-wielder heard such a comment, someone would end up dead.
Something suddenly occurred to Tsuna as he warily observed his two fighting family members. “Reborn, you didn’t…don’t tell me…you didn’t set something up, did you?!”
The infant only replied with an adorable trademark smirk.
---
“This is it, isn’t it?” Sanyu raised an eyebrow, preparing herself for the final attack--of course, she was expecting to win, since she had a new trick up her sleeve. She felt her heel hit a tree root and braced her foot against it, waiting for the right moment. It would have to be executed perfectly if she wanted to end as the victor, because the cold was beginning to numb her.
“Aa.” With a shifty maneuver only he could pull off, Hibari used the hidden spikes on his tonfa to capture her knives and fling them away, successfully disarming her. That done, he lunged at her for what would be the final blow, and she almost flinched, just because she hadn’t been expecting to be the loser of that round. Almost, because her eyes had shot wide open when Hibari had done something very un-Hibari-like and slipped past her defenses to kiss her.
Kiss.
Her.
Kiss her?!?!
…Admittedly, it was more of a quick brush of his lips than anything, but it was still on her lips, and still her first kiss, and still enough to knock her onto her backside in utter shock.
Tsuna and company looked on in silent amazement as they witnessed the scene occurring in a small, obscure corner of the courtyard, where Tsuna was sure there hadn’t been any trees before that day…
Reborn was the only one who seemed particularly satisfied by that small occurrence.
Hibari drew back with a completely smug smirk on his face as he let his tonfa rest at his side. “I win.” With nothing more to say, the Prefect went on his way, leaving Sanyu to stare on in a shocked daze.
Sanyu took a moment to gather herself and fight the burning blush off of her face, when she noticed the cause of her not-so-terrible loss: a lone sprig of mistletoe hung from the branches of the tree above her, swaying in the snowy breeze. Was…mistletoe even native to their area…? It didn’t really matter, though…
For a holiday tradition, it wasn’t so bad after all. <3
