Fandom: Katekyo Hitman Reborn

Summary: ''So… was that your true form?''

Kyoko shrugs. ''Onii-san was the sun, but he kept drifting away. I could hardly remain a sky if I wanted to help him, isn't it?''

Hana looks at her strangely. ''You became an eldritch horror so your brother would stop losing quite that many memories?''

''Wouldn't you?''

Disclaimer: I don't own Katekyo Hitman Reborn

My late birthday present for operaeagleicelynlacelett! Happy belated birthday, darling! I hope you'll enjoy this!

To the Heavens and Beyond (Eldritch Mantle's Donned)

Ryohei slides the ring onto his finger, and the world suddenly looks different. It nags at him, in the back of his head, while training with Colonello. It's like the furniture has been put two centimetres to the left and he keeps bumping into it- like wrestling with a soap bar in a bath.

There's something off. But what?

The thought slips his mind like everything else. He gets used to this. Yesterday is forgotten- there is only today, maybe this week if he's lucky.

Or not lucky.

He can never quite remember that.

For as long as Kyoko can remember, Onii-san has been there. A yellow presence in the back of her mind, beaming with the power of a thousand suns.

Sun. That's what the adults call him when he runs around, with her on his shoulders.

Kyoko likes it. It fits him.

Onii-san forgets, but she remembers for the both of them. Always.

Onii-san forgets a lot. He was born that way, her parents told her.

It's not that bad. She's good for him. The only one he always remembers, the only one who can help him remember. Onii-san is a ball of fire, high, high in the sky. Kyoko will just have to become space to keep him from drifting away.

He's her brother. She'll do anything for him.

As the sun goes down, they go to sleep. Tomorrow, she'll tell him who he is again.

Kyoko's parents are shining orange and murky purple, the wisps that escape their souls so pretty to look at. She likes the way it looks like fire, the way it dances in their hands.

The sight of it being extinguished, cancer finally having ruined her otou-san's body completely, is devastating. She clutches her brother's hands and cries.

Kaa-san is wailing, screaming, flames running over the corpse as if to reanimate it with her own life force. It doesn't work, it doesn't work, it doesn't work.

When their mother begins to pull on her own hair, Onii-san lifts Kyoko up. She buries her head against his chest as he walks out of the room, tears wetting his shirt.

When he wakes up the next morning, he knows there is a hole, but he does not recognize the man on the picture at the funeral, and Kyoko has no idea if that's a blessing or a curse.

It hurts. It hurts so much.

Kaa-san follows after otou-san, and Kyoko is mad.

Kyoko is mad, but she understands, because Kaa-sans flames kept reaching out into the void, kept falling back expecting someone to be there to catch her, only to fall to the ground. It was no surprise- Kaa-sans flames had warned Kyoko days and days before it happened, but she's six and didn't know what to do.

Onii-san didn't either, but that's a whole different story altogether.

It drives the lesson home. Broken bonds mean death. She clutches her brother's arm tighter to her side.

The Kurokawa household is a cold place, but they allowed Kyoko to stay with Onii-san, so she is eternally grateful.

Hana, their daughter, isn't fun to play with at all. She thinks Onii-san is weird and keeps saying it, every day, and Kyoko bottles and bottles and bottles it up, because this is her only chance to stay with her brother, and she's not going to mess it up.

The two new kids in Hana's house are weird and Hana doesn't hesitate to tell them so.

The boy laughs it off, yelling something about her being honest, but the little redhead glares at her from underneath her fringe. For a second, Hana thinks the girl will kick her, but all she does is clench her fist. ''I'm going to the dojo with onii-san.''

And she's off, dragging her brother with her in her wake.

Hana huffs. Boys are stupid, and if the new girl won't play with her, then she'll just go amuse herself. Who needs those monkeys anyway?

Hana is bored, Kyoko amusing, so she says it again. ''Your brother is weird.''

Something dangerous glints in those golden eyes, and oh, Hana is loving this.

So she says it again. And again. And again.

Until Kyoko explodes.

Literally so, flames pushing outward like a flood, a hurricane of flames in motion. It sings, it screams, it's like a thousand voices have spoken up, and for a second, Hana is hundred percent sure that this is what an Eldritch Abomination must be. Stars whirling out before her, space unfolding to eternity. Golden eyes burning in the darkness.

God, she must've been blinded by the brightness of the flames.

Hana is small, in the face of this, but being small has never stopped her from standing tall, and Kyoko having a little God-like power tantrum isn't going to change that.

But god, she wants. There is something inside those flames, and Hana is too young to be afraid of losing herself yet. She has no idea if what she's seeing is real, this gigantic face, this expanse of space in the middle of the living room where Kyoko stood just a moment before, but it is there and it is irresistible.

The mouth of flames opens, a black hole behind it, and Hana jumps in, sucked all the way into the heart.

Hana is inside of Kyoko now, the same way Ryohei is a star enfolded in her space. But unlike Onii-san, Hana floats, an interstellar cloud, made of gas, plasma and dust. She's everywhere and nowhere, disassembles as easily as she forms into a person again.

Kyoko feels her inside her heart, even as she stands beside her.

''So… was that your true form?''

Kyoko shrugs. ''Onii-san was the sun, but he kept drifting away. I could hardly remain a sky if I wanted to help him, isn't it?''

Hana looks at her strangely. ''You became an eldritch horror so your brother would stop losing quite that many memories?''

''Wouldn't you?''

Hana basks in the warmth of Ryohei's heart inside of Kyoko as she floats past. ''…I suppose I can't say no to that.''

Kyoko smiles. That's enough for her.

Hana's parents are still cold and almost never there, but the Kurokawa household has ceased to feel like the artic because she's got a sun and a cloud to fill her space now.

Haru is very down to earth. This does not, mind you, mean she isn't crazy. No, in fact, the craziness is part of being so down to earth.

Haru is a black hole, constantly consuming everything around her, her magnetic fields so large that she cannot help but generate charges of lightning. She's mad genius with an aesthetic a la Frankenstein, and her ideas only get better as she ages.

It all starts with a cake- eyes meeting over it, and Kyoko's heart screams, consume, consume, consume, devour what is yours.

Haru appreciation day indeed.

(Kyoko does not consume Haru the way she enveloped Ryohei, nor the way she tempted Hana- no, Haru strolls over, takes a look at the back of her tongue and goes: ''Hello, yes. I'd like this stomach. It is mine now.'' And forces her to swallow.

Kyoko is happier for it).

Before everything goes to shit, Kyoko meets him. His name is Moretti, and he can stop his heart. She feels it stop, is concerned for a moment and reaches for his soul. He's still alive. He is a small rain, barely even a shower- wait.

This feels strange.

Moretti is not a rain. Oh sure, he feels like he is, at first, but Kyoko is space, and she knows no air. Neither does this man- very little of him contains oxygen. He is a compressed ball of water- freezing at a moment's notice.

She blinks at him prettily and smirks when he tumbles into her- falling into space like he's been meant to do so forever.

This rain- this body of water- will serve her well.

Water, when in space, boils, before rapidly freezing. Moretti enjoys his new power- the boiling is akin to a heart attack, the freezing the stopping of his heart. ''It helps my job, you know.''

''Which is… Pretending you're dead?''

''No, assassination. Nobody expects the dead to get up to murder you, after all.''

Kyoko hums. ''Specific cases only, I take?''

He shrugs. ''I'm part of the Vongola. I can afford to take only special cases as long as I do my normal duties too.''

''Vongola?''

''…I fucked up, didn't I?''

Kyoko beams up at him, hands behind her back. ''Me, out to get you? Why, I would never!''

''Me, no. Becoming a victim of Omertá, however? Why do I feel like that's on your agenda?''

Hana leans over Kyoko's shoulder, eyes cold as steel. ''Because sooner or later they'll come for us, and then we'd better be ready. Give us a fighting chance, Moretti, or get the fuck out of here.''

It surprises absolutely no one, but Moretti stays.

Onii-san gets better and better at remembering, until one day, he forgets everything.

Kyoko can feel it in her soul as he is ripped out of her, a gaping hole in space, a black hole nothing next to it. She rages and screams and screeches, as stars die in her world, as the sun is gone, as the warmth is gone from the universe as a whole.

When he gets home, there's a ring around his finger.

There is only one other Sky in town, and when Onii-san asks her where's she going- if he can extremely come along- she smiles, pats his arm and says: ''Please do.''

Her elements fall into step behind her, as space bleeds out of her through the hole the intruder left when he took her brother from her.

''Kyoko, who are they?''

She clenches her fists and says: ''Our family, onii-san.'' You best remember that, almost slips from her mouth, but it is not he who has gained her ire. Her brother is not at fault- only the person she's going to destroy for this is.

She arrives in front of the Sawada household, and Lambo runs into her. ''Lambo-chan, I-pin, please go play at the playground with Fuuta, okay? I'll give you grape candy later.''

It is a dirty trick, but children must be kept safe- she'll murder the man behind this, but the children will remain alive.

She walks around the house and enters via the backdoor.

''Sawada Tsunayoshi,'' it thunders from a mouth that is not visible in any physical way, ''Come out, for thy have defied the Laws of Nature. I shall avenge mine brother, feast upon thy flesh- come out, Sky-worn Sun-thief.''

Sawada Tsunayoshi squeaks like he is still the little boy she took under her wings when they were less than five years old.

Kyoko narrows her eyes. He has no room to talk, for he has stolen what is hers. She began the goddamn space just to stabilize her brother, and Tsuna has butchered him out of her and left her brother in pieces.

She will not stand for this.

But- But- The look he gives her is not from one who is guilty. Not even from one who realizes what he has done. To be sure- he does not even look like he knew anything about it.

Her fifteen hands spread- claws tickling his face. ''Who- who, if not you?''

''Kyoko- what. I-'' Tsuna swallows thickly, all wide eyes and trembling bottom lip.

''The ring! Who dared to lay a ring bound to your soul fire onto my brother!''

Tsuna blinks. ''...Wait, Reborn gave one of those to Onii-san?''

He is dumbfounded enough that he forgets to be afraid.

Kyoko battles the Sun Arcobaleno and wins.

Reborn does not know whether to be grateful that she does not force him into her sky or fearful for the future.

All Sawada Tsunayoshi can think as he stares at them, at the space expanding around Kyoko, is: The apocalypse on legs and I still adore her.

But the sky is but a little thing in space, and he knows, inside his heart, that if he ever had a chance, it is long gone. She is beyond him. Not out of his league- simply out of his atmosphere, never to be reached, never to intermesh.

He cannot breathe without oxygen, and space possesses little of it.

(She'd asphyxiate him before he'd get to hold her hand)

Kyoko lets Tsuna release the hold he has over Ryohei. Because if she did it, she'd break the bond. And broken bonds, my friends, lead only to death. Tsuna would be little more than a burned out husk, as dead inside as he'd be outside.

Ryohei is back inside of her, eyes clearing as his memory returns as if the period away from her was nothing but a strange dream, obscured by clouds.

He is hers, and the whole world will know it.

So is the delicious little Mist, no matter what Tsuna may think. Haru has taken a liking to Chrome- Kyoko saw her licking her lips, it was not particularly subtle- and watching the ring battles is great fun. Next to her, Tsuna's sun, a shy boy called Shoichi, shudders as the boy possessing Chrome's body laughs.

Kyoko wrinkles her nose. So like Tsuna to take in the ex-criminals without realizing it. If it were her, she'd have broken the poor boy out of prison already.

Actually, she might just do that for Tsuna if he stays this nice. After all, he did deliver her a Storm to her doorstep and Chrome is definitely a nice addition.

(Bianchi rages inside of her. A true storm, courted by combat, in love with the Space that defeated the Sun she so adored. Relentlessly she followed Kyoko- and how could Kyoko not take in a woman with such lovely habits? Bianchi's heart is so bright, her soul so clean and clear, and yet her hands are painted red and her nails filed to spears.

Bianchi is hardly a mass of clouds and lightning, rains falling from her until one cannot help but call her a storm- no, Bianchi is a solar flare, all poisoning radiation, all explosive destruction for everything that crosses her path.

She belongs in space, and demands the place in Kyoko that is hers)

Chrome is icy, a cold presence slowly warming her hands to the warmth that is Ryohei. She is small, her water particles a fine mist, spreading slowly throughout Kyoko's veins.

And like that, instead of the Sky battle going down, Xanxus di Vongola stops to stare at the girl on the sidelines, flanked by three people on either side.

''You- how…'' His eyes glitter, ''How are you so fucking large?''

Kyoko laughs, light and airy. ''I am Space!''

He looks like he just heard gospel. ''Marry me.''

Her eyes glide across his face, then behind him. He… Might just have what it takes. The drive, as well the elements that have souls so hard they can survive without air. Her eyes twinkle.

''Catch up, Sky-dear, and I might just consider.''

In the background, Sawada Tsunayoshi shivers, unable to decide where he is glad or horrified. On one hand, he won't have to fight Xanxus anymore- Kyoko would find a way to stop this thing. On the other hand-

She means it.

Sawada Tsunayoshi, age fourteen, sees the end of the world in the gleaming eyes of a girl.

(She'll devour the earth as he knows it)

Author's Note

Light by fullmetalruby totally inspired me to go eldritch abomination in my work, and of course, I had to combine it with KHR :D

Also, Ryohei with memory problems was inspired by Ara-chan's own fic Sonder.

As to what would have happened if Kyouko had not turned Eldritch, that's what Rose Petals Between the Sheets (One Bed Only, Indeed) is about.

I hope you enjoyed it, Ara-chan! 3 Love you!