ML: Ja ne! Welcome to chapter two! BOHAHAHA! *crosses arms over chest* (Read Bleach. :D) Well, I hope you enjoy this one.

NOTE: Edited some spelling. Fuuta's "Tsuna-nee" has been changed to "Tsuna-nii". Imagine the confustion when "nii" pronounced like "knee" means brother, and "nee" pronounced lke "nay" means sister. Messy, eh? ^^;

DISCLAIMER: I do not own KHR.

Kamikorosu

Rafa

I don't really remember what happened all that clearly. I remember hearing footsteps (probably the guy who beat me up coming to finish me off), and then some sort of sensation that was relative to being lifted off the ground. I'm pretty sure that was it...yeah.

My surroundings started blurring all around me, my eyes wandering all directions from dizziness caused by loss of blood. I suddenly noticed that I didn't hear the wind blowing like earlier, but I felt it as it whipped my blonde locks around my face. My ears must've been ringing from the loss of blood.

Sitting on the border of blacking out, but once again being unable to, I waited for my life to end. I knew I was going to die, seeing how much blood I'd lost and how much pain I was in.

Maybe it was nice to die. Maybe it was like sleep, although I wouldn't know. I'd never slept before. Insomnia did that to a person. I went over several theories on what death was like

I didn't notice what was happening until I felt like I was being dropped. And I was.

The pain in my side and my stomach had gradually become numb, but that was quickly changed when I hit the surface of something, landing on my side. I sputtered and groaned in pain, coughing. The blood started flowing out of my mouth again, but much less than before came out. I rolled onto my back and impulsively licked it off the corner of my mouth.

I went into shock when I heard the sound of a door slamming and a sudden silence filled the room (assuming I was in one). Having stopped moving, I regained control of my eyes and looked around. It was very dark to the point where I could only see the silhouettes of the various things that I identified as furniture. I suddenly noticed that I was laying on something more comfortable than the ground. I moved and noticed that it was a leather couch.

I started to panic a bit. Where did that guy take me? Why was I in a dark room by myself? Why did he even do anything besides causing, my death (seeing how that was probably his original intention)?

I relaxed a bit when I realized that I wasn't dead, that the pain had actually begun to fade. I just laid there, tilting my head back and closing my eyes. I counted the minutes, just laying there for what seemed like hours.

I opened my eyes again and blinked n the realization that the pain had faded away almost completely. I sat up slowly, checking to see if I was still injured and trying to make sure the blood didn't start flowing again. I sighed when it didn't, but winced at the sharp pain in my side where I suspected my ribs to be broken. I shortened by breath, lifting my legs over the side of the couch and planting them on the floor. My eyes had focused, and I could see a faint light glowing from the crack under the door. I chanced tripping over something by standing up and walking towards what was hopefully the exit. I smiled slightly to myself for the victory against the vertigo that threatened to overcome me. Nothing seemed to be blocking my path, so I turned the door handle (feeling relief when I found out it wasn't locked). Opening it, I was shocked to find myself in what appeared to be the school hallway.

I'm in the school? I thought. Since when was there a room with a comfortable couch in any high school? Were all schools in Japan like this? Jeeze.

Still, I took advantage of the moment, fearing I was being saved so the guy from earlier could finish me off later. The thought chilled my breath. I inhaled deeply, having forgotten about the broken ribs, and the sharp pain again spiked then died. I started walking down the hallway in search of the bathrooms so I could was the blood off my face. Luckily, the halls were empty so I didn't need to worry about anyone seeing me in this state. Even more luckily, it didn't take long to find the girls' bathroom.

I came in quietly, checking to see if anyone else was inside and entered when there wasn't. I went over to the nearest sink and looked at myself in the mirror. The ends of my blonde locks were drenched with dry blood. More blood had dried in a trail from my mouth that led down my neck and shirt. I winced at the sight of my brand new white blouse being stained with blood.

Rafa Di Vitoli, you are pathetic...I told myself.

I washed off my neck and did my best to rinse my hair in the sink, but left my shirt the same. I thought a good excuse for it looking bloody, and figured I'd just say it was part of my Halloween costume (which I wasn't really wearing, but it would probably work...).

I rinsed my face one last time and then stared at the bloody mess in the mirror. Then I remembered something. Again.

Wait, what was it I remembered before? It happened while that guy was beating me up...

Ah, but I needed to focus on the matter at hand. Now what was that again...?

Oh. Crap. I realized that I'd forgotten completely about my school bag. I wondered, was it left outside or did that guy have sense enough to pick it up? But who would need the sense to do that if all he wanted was to kill me...ah...

I thought about the fact that without my bag, I had no map to the school (which was inside it). Having no map to the school meant I couldn't find my class, and I'd also left my list of subjects in it so I didn't know when I had PE...

The sound of the school bell resonated from outside the door. I jumped, rushing out the second I heard it. As soon as I was out, the halls were flooded with students. I felt confused--was it lunch already? Looking at a conveniently-placed clock on the wall answered my question. Yes, it was. I briefly wondered why I didn't hear the bell ringing all the previous times, and then I figured it would be a good idea to go to lunch. Maybe I could look outside for my bag.

I felt people staring at me as I walked around. I flushed when I heard some kids whispering things about my bloodied clothing and my strange eye-and-hair-color. Japanese people traditionally did not have blonde hair and green eyes. That was obvious.

When I made it outside for lunch, the wind had died down considerably to a balmy breeze. I looked around cautiously and prayed that the one guy wasn't lurking about for me. I was sure he'd figured out I'd left that room by now, if his intent was to keep me there to finish me off later.

As I looked around, something caught my eye. It was kinda weird. I looked around, and happened to spot what looked like another oddball who seemed to stand out. Especially since the guy I saw had silver hair.

Maybe it was my want to find someone to relate with, or maybe it was just my lost-kitten impulse to follow home anyone I saw. But all the same, I wanted to actually talk with someone about my earlier encounter with the scary guy from earlier. I wanted somebody to...protect me, I guess.

But I had a bit of a social problem, and I scurried over quietly in silver-hair's direction right before hiding behind a tree (once again, something conveniently placed, hah). I looked around it, looking over at the guy, kinda hoping that one of the friends (who I saw were in his group) would notice me.

And bingo.

I saw a kinda scrawny-looking kid look over at me and point, saying something I wasn't able to make out.

The silver-haired guy whipped his head around and made a face.

The scrawny kid said something more and then waved at me. I sighed with some relief that I didn't have to act all awkward and just drop on by to chat.

I made my way over to their group and then stood with my hands behind my back. There were three of them total, the guy with silver hair had on what looked like a mafia arson costume with fake dynamite in crossed ammunition sashes and a red headband (it reminded me of Rambo, that one action movie). A guy with dark, short hair was wearing a traditional samurai kimono and had a fake sword on his back. The scrawny kid had no fancy costume on, but just wore the traditional Namimori school uniform.

"Oi, what do you want?" silver-hair asked. Upon closer inspection, I could see his eyes were a green that was similar to mine.

"Uh..." I quivered a bit nervously.

"Gokudera-kun, don't be all mean like that!" scrawny-kid whined to silver-hair, who turned his head huffily and frowned, making a "humph" sound.

Scrawny-kid (although I guess I'm being a hypocrite for calling him that, since I'm relatively smaller than he was and it's a bit mean for me) gave a nervous laugh and looked at me apologetically. "Sorry about Gokudera-kun...well, my name is Sawada Tsunayoshi. You can just call me Tsuna, though.

"Nice to meet you, Tsuna-san," I said, smiling shyly.

Tsuna "Oh, and this is--" He motioned to the tall young man with short dark hair and a friendly disposition.

"Yamamoto Takeshi." Friendly-guy smiled brightly and nodded his head. "Are you the new foreign exchange student from America?"

I returned a small smile. "Well I'm from America, but my guardian and I made a permanent move here. It's nice to meet you, Yamamoto-senpai."

Yamamoto smiled sheepishly. "Actually, I'm only a first year here. I look old for my age, don't I?"

I flushed with some sort of embarrassment. "Yamamoto-san, then. Or should it be kohai, since I'm a second year student?"

Tsuna blinked with a bit of surprise. "Really? You don't look it. How old are you--oh, and what's you're name?"

I flushed a bit again. "I'm fourteen, and my name is...Di Bitori Rafa," I said, remembering the fact that the Japanese didn't pronounce v's or l's, and had specific syllables to replace their sounds.

The three of them raised their eyebrows simultaneously, causing me to flush deeper.

First, Tsuna spoke; "You're fourteen? Eh? I'm older, but I'm a first year, too!" He scratched the back of his head and pondered the facts I'd given them.

Then Yamamoto; "That's really cool! You must be some genius, getting pushed up through the grades like --"

But before Yamamoto could finish, silver-haired Gokudera cut in; "Di Bitori? You mean Di Vitoli? That sounds Italian." His eyebrows knit together.

I stared at him for a moment. "Well, um...yeah. My father was from Italy but he moved to America before he met my mother..."

Gokudera seemed to be in deep thought. He made a "che" sound before turning his head away. At first I thought it was rude of him, but then I thought it must have just been his nature to be all snappy and disrespectful. I could respect that.

Tsuna sighed. "Oh, Gokudera-kun is from Italy. He moved here when we were all still in middle school and Namimori was a middle school."

I blinked, suddenly finding the bunch a bit more interesting. Then I saw Tsuna staring at my bloodstained shirt, looking rather pale.

"I-Is that blood?" he asked rather urgently, seeming to be a bit shocked.

I looked down and bit my lip. "Er...well, it's Halloween, right? It's my costume! A psychopathic schoolgirl. Ahahaha...I just couldn't bring a fake ax to school." I gave a geeky-looking smile that I knew my chagrin would make me regret sooner or later.

They all looked at me like I was a psychopathic schoolgirl, when a really high voice came out of nowhere and startled them all.

"Di Vitoli. That's a mafia famiglia."

I jumped when I heard the voice with an Italian accent, my first impulse being to look around and search for its source. I looked down into the middle of them all to see a young child (I couldn't tell how old he was...all kids look the same) wearing a suit and a fedora with a...chameleon on it? Or was it a gecko?

"Eh?" I blinked in surprise.

"Ciaossu. My name is Reborn."

A long silence took over as we all continued to stare at the child. Suddenly, Tsuna pointed at him.

"R-Reborn! You shouldn't always be popping out of nowhere like that! And why are you always following me to school?! Ugh! This is getting really old!" Tsuna ranted.

The child named Reborn (I didn't really consider the oddity of the name until a bit later) turned to Tsuna. "You shouldn't complain. I'm your home tutor, and I need to be around you at all times," Reborn stated. "But anyways, I also brought Fuuta."

"EH?!"

On cue, a boy who was about my size with dirty blonde hair seemed to pop out of nowhere, a large book cuddled up in his arms. He wore white clothes and a blue scarf, along with a microphone headset. I assumed it to be a costume. I just wondered why it looked awfully familiar...*

"Ciaossu, Tsuna-nii!" The boy, who I assumed to be Fuuta, did an imitation of Reborn with the same greeting, then proceeded to cling to Tsuna's neck in a hug. How he was still holding his book (which was over a third his size...and mine), I may never know.

"F-Fuuta?! Shouldn't you be in elementary school?! You can't be here!" Tsuna sputtered, prying the blonde off of him. "Reborn, why did you--?"

"Fuuta, this is Rafa Di Vitoli. Why don't you give us some rankings on her?" Reborn interrupted.

Eh?

Fuuta turned to the child and blinked. "Only if Tsuna-nii says it's okay!"

"Hey!" Gokudera butt in. "I still don't like how you're all close with the Tenth, you snot! And--!"

"Uh, I'm sorry, but..." I put my hands up. "I kinda haven't been very truthful..."

"Right. I could tell." Reborn cut me off. "That's real blood on your shirt, isn't it?"

Once again, eh?!

I blinked. "H-How could you..."

The child smirked, pulling down his fedora over his eyes. "I'm not a professional hitman for nothing..." he said mysteriously. Should a child even be that serious? Or mysterious? (Ooh! That rhymes!)

Hitman? I repeated in my head, but I quickly shoved it aside. "Well, um...I need some help. But I was too shy to just come right over and ask for it, so I made a way for you guys to want to talk to me. I'm sorry! I hate tricking people, even if it's only a little thing, and--"

"Whoa, hey," Yamamoto put his hands up and smiled sheepishly. "It's fine if you were too shy to ask. And you shouldn't babble." He held an expression with a pure smile. "Just what's the matter, already?"

I flushed, and barely noticed the strange aura of seriousness emanating from Reborn. I brushed it off, though. "Well..."

"AH! Wait! That's real blood?! What happened?!" Tsuna asked suddenly. I thought it was a bit over the top, how he worried, but okay...

"O-Okay. See--"

"C'mon, guys! Let the woman spit it out already," Gokudera growled.

I paused before I started to explain again. "Well, you see...I ended up coming to school late when a person fell from the sky and attacked me."

There was a moment of silence.

"...Sorry, we didn't quite get that," all but Reborn said simultaneously.

I flushed, probably for about the eighth time that day. Hm, maybe it was eight exactly..."See, the warning bell had already rang, and I was right about to go in when a big scary guy landed on his feet in front of me. He said I was late and then he delayed me and the final bell rang and...uh...well, the guy kicked me onto the ground and stuff and made me cough up blood. It hurts still..." I clutched my side and continued to explain about my ending up in the room with the couch all the way up to watching them from behind the tree.

An even longer silence filled the air when I finished, and a breeze blew past a couple of dead leaves.

Gokudera looked over at Tsuna with a serious expression. "Tenth, do you think...?"

Tsuna gulped. "Yeah. Who else would beat up a student for being late?"

"Do you know what the guy looked like?" Yamamoto asked.

I recalled what his appearance was, stating it; "Well, he had black hair, gray eyes, and...Speaking of his eyes, they were really sharp-looking and scary..."

Everybody looked at each other. "Yep, that's Hibari-chan**," Gokudera concluded.

"Hibari?" I echoed, and then thought, Chan? "You know who he is?"

Tsuna swallowed. "Well, yeah. He's sort of a friend and stuff...but he's always beating people up for the simplest reasons. He can't stand it when people break school rules and he just..."

"Beats the shit outta them whenever he feels like it," Gokudera finished. "But you shouldn't take it too seriously. If he was being serious, he would be killing anyone that set him off."

I paled. "K-Kill? Should I be dead right now?" I asked.

"I don't think so..." Tsuna muttered. "Not unless he was really angry about something."

Gokudera pondered something. "Ne, ne," he said, brushing Tsuna's shoulder. "Wasn't Hibari-chan kinda acting pretty weird last Halloween? I mean, he must've beaten her up pretty bad to make her gag on blood. People usually end up in the ER from broken bones, not from a kick in the gut. Or maybe he was being easy on her..."

"Actually, I think some of my ribs are broken."

A pause, before he continued. "But he overreacted at every little thing last year this time 'round. Think he's got a problem with this time of year?"

"Maybe his birthday's near," Tsuna pondered. "Well, he is Hibari-kun after all. For all we know, being harsh is his way of giving a birthday gift to himself..."

Reborn cut in. "No. I checked the school records; his birthday is in May."

In that second of silence, I'm sure we all wondered why a little kid was snooping around in the school records.

Yamamoto stifled some laughter. "Ironic, huh? Who knew Hibari-san was a spring child! Ahahaha!" He laughed at his own remark.

"Oh, but Rafa-san, you said you needed help. What was it?" Tsuna seemed to remember why I'd mentioned the incident in the first place.

"Oh! That's right. I ended up losing my school bag when I...uh...poof'd into that one room." I thought it would be weird to mention that I was carried. Although I wasn't too sure myself. "I looked around out where he beat me up, but I couldn't find it."

Tsuna spoke up. "Maybe Hibari-kun has it."

Silence.

With a look of something that looked like fear on his face, he held up his hands. "Or! It's in that room where she was."

This seemed to be a more pleasant answer than the aforementioned one, especially to my ears.

"Ah, but...he might still be looking to beat me up. What if he's there?" I asked.

"He's usually on the roof for lunch. He takes his nap there," Yamamoto explained.

Reborn spoke up. "I'm sure he has it, though."

Tsuna looked at him. "What makes you so sure?"

The child smirked. "Come on, let's go."

Hibari had been sitting on the roof, sneezing repeatedly for several minutes. He was sure by now that he had a cold; curse the season.

After the fit of sneezing dispersed, Kyouya continued shuffling through the belongings of the girl he'd beaten up. He had left her in the reception room, not really planning to...prevent the waste of her blood until later. Hell, he wouldn't even bother anymore. Now he was just sulking over the fact that when he entered the room several minutes after lunch started, she was gone. Her bag left behind in the place where he had left it.

Hibari was currently looking at her student record which he pulled up after looking through her things and discovering an ID. Di Vitoli, Rafa. A new student who had just moved here from America. He found himself a bit too eager to look for her blood type on the sheet of paper. O negative (which he discovered was her blood type) was the most common there was, so why did her blood seem to have a unique scent to it?

"Hn..." Kyouya shook his head in discontent. What was he thinking, giving into that want of his? He'd officially decided that he wouldn't. That it wasn't worth the burning in his throat he would get all the time and the inability to take random naps in the middle of the day. Turns out, the condition prevented any sleep at all. No naps...that was definitely not worth the taste of blood, no matter how satisfying it may have appealed. Plus, that would officially eliminate any excuse for beating people up. Or maybe it would be one, leaving him irritable from lack of sleep. Yeah.

Kyouya stood up, all of a sudden, when he heard the sound of footsteps coming up the stairs behind the door that led up to the roof. He readied his tonfa in order to give whoever was coming through that door the beating of their lives.

When it opened, it did so to reveal the three boys that considered Kyouya to be part of their "family", plus a fourth, younger one and the infant known as Reborn. They all stumbled through (well, at least Tsuna did), and knowing it was only them made him lower his tonfa.

"What do you herbivores want?" he demanded from them.

"Ciaossu, Cloud Guardian," Reborn greeted. "We've come to reclaim the bag you have there for this girl." He motioned behind him where Rafa revealed herself to be puffing her way up the stairs.

"Uwa...do I have to be here too?" she asked. "I don't wanna--"

Kyouya looked at the girl with the same analyzing stare as during their first encounter. Immediately, her knees began knocking together.

"Uh! I...I..." She stumbled over her words, looking at Hibari with fear etched onto her face.

Hibari, however, thought nothing of it. "And why should I hand it over?" he asked, looking to Reborn.

"I'm sure you know that she's told us of how you two became acquainted. And I have to say, it wasn't very polite of you to harm a girl like that," Reborn stated.

Kyouya made a face and fought back the urge to chuckle. "You speak to me of how to treat a woman, when in truth, you know I don't care." Kyouya took a fighting pose with his tonfa bared. "Unless you're here to fight me, then I might consider your words once I'm finished biting you to death."

Reborn sighed. "I'm not going to keep saying it--I'm never going to show up in your midst just to fight."

Kyouya snorted. "Of course. But still, there's no bother. She doesn't really need this back." He then picked up her bag and proceeded to dangle it over the edge of the roof.

Rafa outstretched her arm. "Ah-!"

One of those unfortunate moments, when something is being dropped from a certain height and you expect for there to be some kind of whistling sound for dramatic effect, had just occurred.

Rafa flushed with some sort of combination of embarrassment, frustration, fear, and disappointment. "M...my bag...my bento...ah..." The girl's arm remained in the outstretched position as her body froze and her fingers twitched solemnly.

"Hmph." Kyouya retracted his own arm to shove his hands into his pockets (don't ask where his tonfa went). "There now. I have reason to be hated by the girl, so she'll stay away from me. And maybe she'll think next time before she decides to get to class late."

Reborn sighed again." How troublesome, for you to be the only person in the world to be so cruel."

"It's how I make a killing."

"You mean a living?"

"No."

Meanwhile, the others were busy trying to figure out how to unfreeze Rafa from her paralyzed state of mortification. The poor girl looked like she was about to crumple to her knees when--

"Fuuta, you never got to judge the rankings of Miss Di Vitoli. Care to do that right now?" Reborn asked the blonde, who had gone unnoticed on everyone else's behalf.

"Okay! Sure."

There was a bit of surprise when he didn't bother asking Tsuna about it, but he commenced with his communication with the rank-telling planets (please, don't ask). Gradually, the gravity around them started withering away. Hair stood on end, the wind stopped, and everybody started to panic.

"Wha--!" Rafa's chagrin finally wavered when she noticed her toes barely touching the roof. She clung to the open door to keep herself down.

Then, Fuuta began his eerie ramblings. "In the field of physical strength, Rafa Di Vitoli ranks number 8,201 out of 8,816 people in her age group."

...Okay, now that was just sad.

Fuuta went on. "When it comes to thinking straight, Rafa is ranked number 782 out of 1,178 people.

"Rafa is ranked number one out of 64,823 people with strange minds."

Okay...was that supposed to be impressive or just plain creepy?

"Go for something more positive, Fuuta," a floating Reborn inquired.

Fuuta nodded. "Rafa is ranked number one out of 862,944 people who are most forgiving."

That gained a bit of an awkward moment for Hibari, who'd just claimed the girl had a reason to hate him. Actually, six reasons. But those will be covered later.

The ranking boy continued. "Rafa's top four charm points are as follows: Four, her perfect skin; three, her attitude and sneeze" (Sneeze? everyone thought) "tie; two, her inner personality--"

Everyone wondered briefly what that meant, but it was cast aside in anticipation for her number one charm point.

"...and one, her singing voice."

Silence.

Fuuta then reverted back to normal, and everyone gradually fell to the ground, each one of them in one state of shock or another. Including Kyouya.

But all Rafa could think about was...

"My singing voice? But...I suck at singing..."

She trailed off, seeing that the blond boy wasn't listening to her. Instead, he had his giant book open in front of him, writing in it. "I need to record these rankings..." he muttered.

"And the sneeze part? I have a charming sneeze...?" She tried to imagine just what could make a sneeze be charming, but then she waved it off.

For the most part, everyone was waiting for Fuuta to finish. Kyouya, however, frowned deeply.

"Hm," he hummed briefly. "Did you come all the way up here just for me to become aware of these things? Newsflash: I don't care." Hibari started past the others towards the door, but took his time to glare at Rafa from the corner of his eye. He was reminded of the scent of her blood in that instant, and inclined his head forward, sauntering down the stairs more speedily than intended.

Forgiving? Yeah. Right. You had to have a heart made of pure...whatever to forgive him of what he did. He kicked her to the point of coughing blood, took her bag and inevitably caused a whole myriad of problems for her, then made it so she didn't have lunch. He was a cruel man, that Hibari.

But, although Kyouya insisted not to care for her rankings, this girl intrigued him. Maybe it was his obsession over blood he was currently experiencing and he accepted that as a possibility, but he wanted to find out more about her in order to determine why her blood had such a...an exotic scent. For all he knew, personality might have something to do with it.

If the ranking herbivore listed those as her charm points, they must be accurate...I should pick off each of them one by one. So he could see just what was so charming about...well, all of those charm points. All but one. The texture of her skin was no matter to him, so he wouldn't bother to find out. It was what was in her personality that mattered. Or maybe skin. But he shook his head at the idea of trying to find that out. And so, he would see to it that she was exposed.

And then he wondered.

Inner personality...?

*Fuuta is dressed as SHION KAITO, one of the VOCALOIDS. I just can't imagine Fuuta without a scarf, and KAITO is the only guy I know who wears one. XD I think he looks cute in my head.

**I used -chan as an honorific because only Gokudera would call Hibari that. I mean it as Gokudera's form of "teasing" Kyouya. XD

Ho-hum, the deed is done! Now, I know you see that I've waited a bit before telling you Rafa's name directly...know that most of my story is going to be varied when it comes to clearing things up. Something mentioned in one chapter may be clarified in a later chapter. Now, to clear up more...when there is the POV listing above the start of a new perspective, it is to be listed in first person by whatever name was listed. No title for the POV mean third person. Just know, I won't be going into much detail on other people's thoughts, and Kyouya is gonna mostly have his POV in third person. And I'm not sure if Mukuro is dead or if any of the characters I'll be including are dead by this point in time...I've only read up to chapter, oh, 170 within a week. So I'm kind of a noob at KHR. I just love the story and characters. :D Also, we'll be looking into Rafa's past the next chapter.

Reviews will be rewarded with a poll! Ask if you think there should be a poll deciding on what other pairings I should list.

Click!

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