The only thing that's running through his head is that it's cold and it's getting colder, save for the warm, red that's pooling against his hand. Even now, he's vaguely offended at himself that his legs refuse to work. It's strange; he's so used to having willpower as the only fuel needed to push his body upright after being knocked down.

Something soft presses itself against his cheek; it feels like a ball of feathers settling on his right shoulder. He glances down as a quiet and concerned chirping comes from it. His attention is wholly focused on the yellow canary, and for the first time, Hibari finds himself struggling desperately to keep an urgent grasp on his consciousness.

Focusing on Hibird is the only thing that's keeping him awake.

"Did you think, perhaps, that if there were one hundred less of us, you would have won?"

The air in the warehouse grows colder by the second. Hibari can see his breath; it's a white wisp of air. He can almost see himself disappearing with it, and for the first time, he tastes true, unadulterated fear.

The man's face is obscured by a white mask, and even from a few inches away, Hibari's vision isn't clear enough for him to identify its face. All he feels is a dull throbbing in his side as something sharp presses back into a bleeding gash. He's vaguely relieved that he is too weak to actually cry out in pain. Even while leaning against a frozen, metal wall, barely alive, all he can think of is how he would prefer to die without letting his enemy know just how much all his injuries are hurting him.

Still, he's not about to give his enemy the satisfaction of giving in.

"Did you think, perhaps, that you should still be able to move even with injuries like yours?" He can hear the man grinning behind the plastic as fingers curl around the front of his bloody suit. "Actually, you're right. I came prepared. An animal like you sometimes needs to be put down with the help of something special."

Hibari's lips curl back ever so slightly into a growl, breaking into a hiss as the knife finally leaves his body.

The target wipes the blade clean with a sleeve before sheathing the weapon. "I think you should be grateful that I've arranged your final moments for the battlefield as opposed to allowing age to wither you away. Think of it as dying nobly."

And with those words, the man is gone, leaving the Cloud Guardian alone with the canary.

He doesn't understand those final words. There is nothing noble about dying.

But the man was right. If he was given the ability to choose how to go, he would choose leaving the world with his face covered in blood and bodies strewn around him as opposed to plastic tubes attached to his body.

He wills himself to speak when he feels the bird quake against his cheek. "... hey," he says, "you should leave."

"... you can go."

But the canary doesn't leave, only presses itself harder against his neck, as if trying to keep him warm, making soft tweets for its master to focus on.

Only when Hibird's chirping grows even more urgent does he realize that he is not the only warm body (barely) in the area. He's not sure when exactly it happened, but he can hear someone calling his name (a woman?) repeatedly and shaking him by the shoulder. He doesn't need to be able to see her clearly when it comes to identifying the newcomer.

He can sense Chrome Dokuro's Mist flames blindfolded.

"Hibari-san!" she whispers, voice caught in her throat as if she needs to force his name from her lips.

All he says to her is a faint, "Go," because their target's gotten away and it's up to her and the Sun Guardian to succeed where he has failed.

"No."

Metal clatters against the floor as the Mist Guardian drops her trident and eases Hibari's hand off his open wound, pressing her own hands against them. He knows what she's trying to do, trying to temporarily knit the skin together using her illusions, and while the new skin does appear, it fades away quickly.

He knows that they are only illusions.

He knows that it is not real.

"Hibari-san, please," she begs him. "Please, let me do it."

Chrome presses two fingers against the Cloud Guardian's neck and pales when she can feel it physically slowing, body shutting down as he bleeds out, as the toxins work through his system, as it gets harder for him to cling to consciousness.

His gray eyes shift towards the entrance of the freezing building when its metal doors clang open, accompanied by an urgent, "Hibari!"

If he had enough strength, he would have picked up one of his stray tonfas lying off to the side and hurled it at the Sun Guardian for being loud and revealing their location to any potential reinforcements that their target sent. But he doesn't, which makes him loathe the position he's in even more. The most he can manage is trying to slow and control his breathing, make it seem that his lungs aren't struggling with every breath he takes.

There's a flash of yellow light; Hibari can barely make out the form of Ryohei's box animal. What he does feel is Kangaryuu's regenerative warmth washing over his body. But when the warmth fades away, Hibari is still cold.

There are fingers clutching the front of his shirt, but these fingers are desperate and not facetious; the voice that speaks to him is urgent and laced with pain. "Hibari, you better not die," the Sun Guardian hisses, and the Sun box animal tries even harder than before to make the Cloud Guardian's wounds close.

Hibari manages to lift a hand to Ryohei's wrist, weak fingers steeped in red clinging to the black cuffs of his suit.

They need to leave before the enemy returns.

"Stop," Hibari breathes, reduced to only speaking in in one-word sentences. "... stop."

He can hear Chrome crying as Ryohei's hand squeezes his.

Ryohei squeezes his eyes shut. "If we hadn't been stopped by that scum's reinforcements earlier, we would have gotten here faster - "

"Ryohei."

The Sun Guardian opens his eyes.

"... stop."

"Hibari-san - "

"Stop."

She doesn't know what he's telling her to stop doing until something wet rolls down her cheek.

Hibari nods slightly in Hibird's direction, the taste of blood growing stronger in his mouth. The canary blinks before chirping angrily, as if protesting against leaving its master's side. Chrome's fingers hesitate, but eventually she manages to wrap them around the yellow bird's body, gently prying the canary away from the Cloud Guardian.

Ryohei raises a fist and drives it into the ground; the concrete splinters beneath his knuckles.

"... Ryohei-san."

He drives his fist into the concrete again.

"Don't talk to me now, Chrome."

"... Ryohei-san, he's gone."

Briefly, Chrome thinks that Hibird understands those words better than the Sun Guardian. She's not very surprised; Hibari was indestructible to the two of them.

Today, Chrome learns that Hibari Kyoya was human too.

Only when she hears a faint singing of an old song does she realize that there are tears in Ryohei's eyes too. It is Hibird who is singing. The canary sings the familiar words of "Midori tanabiku - "

But not even Hibird can find it in itself to finish the song as Ryohei lifts into his arms the cold, lifeless body of what was once Vongola Decimo's Cloud Guardian. His tears that drip onto Hibari's face mix with the red streaks on his cheeks.

Briefly, it occurs to Chrome that she's never seen Ryohei handle anything with such tenderness and care until she watches him lift the corpse off the floor and hold the Cloud Guardian against his chest.