Instead of writing up a birthday fic for Hibari, like I originally planned, I've decided to do a multi-chaptered fic. It'll have a plot line and everything unlike my usual oneshots! Isn't that awesome!! The rating might go up half way through - I haven't exactly decided what's going to happen...

Anyway, I don't own Hitman Reborn, no matter how much I ask God.

Ten Years, Five Months

It was two and a half weeks after the event when Hibari had found out. He was not pleased. In fact, as soon as Kusakabe mentioned it, he had marched down to Sawada Tsunayoshi's room, barged in and head butted the Vongola Tenth unconscious. That was only because he had worked himself up into such a stress that he had forgotten to bring his tonfa with him. To be fair, Tsuna did have a very good reason for not telling his Cloud Guardian what was going on. And that reason could be explained with two simple words:

Rokudo Mukuro.

It was only natural that nobody wanted to tell Hibari that Mukuro was to be released.

Well, that was technically a lie. Mukuro himself was quite happy enough to tell him (if only to rub it in his face), but was somehow convinced not too by the rest of the Family. Perhaps it was because Chrome had asked him, or maybe he just decided it would be more fun to surprise the former prefect and see his expression. The latter was much more believable. So, the whole Vongola Family managed to have Mukuro released without Hibari Kyoya finding out. Tsuna still could not understand how on Earth they managed to pull that off without getting killed.

So, two and a half weeks later, Kusakabe finally accidentally let it slip that Mukuro was still resting off the after affects of his release. Hibari had paused, smashed his cup, broke Kusakabe's arm and stormed off to see Tsuna.

Later that day, Gokudera would find Tsuna crumpled up on the floor, bleeding from the nose and his face dangerously close to a pen that was lodged in the table.

After knocking the Tenth unconscious, Hibari marched off to find Mukuro so he could murder the bastard. It had been approximately ten years, five months, seven days and four hours since their first meeting, and Hibari still held a strong grudge against Mukuro. The idiot had been the first ever person to defeat him, and even had the nerve to rub it in his face. Such a feat did not deserve to go unpunished.

He strode purposefully down the Vongola corridors, the murderous aura radiating off of him almost visibly as he clenched his fists in anger.

His hands almost went through the door as he wrenched it open to storm into the medical room.

What he saw somewhat surprised him. Mukuro was there alright, as he had been told, but he wasn't himself. Well, this time he technically was, but there was something incredibly wrong about the scene before him. Mukuro was lying in the bed, his skin a sickly pale and his figure skinnier than usual with a drip attached to his arm and other machines stuck to him to keep him alive. His usual, silky smooth pineapple headed hair was matted and tangled and ridiculously long, sprawled around his head like a spider web. His eyes were closed and looked dark - panda-eyed one could call it. The most startling thing about the illusionist, Hibari had noted, was that he was not smiling.

Hibari approached.

'Hibari-san?' Chrome muttered sleepily. She, when Hibari had walked in, was asleep by Mukuro's side, her head resting on his arm uncomfortably. She looked up at the man, her one eye projecting little fear.

'This is not Mukuro,' Hibari remarked, staring at the motionless stranger that was lying in the bed.

Chrome looked away, as if she was almost to shy to speak. 'It is,' she said quietly, sadly. 'They say he won't be able to move his limbs properly for about two years. He has to go through intense physiotherapy just to move even one leg.' The young woman clutched at her master's hand, tears pricking at her eye. 'He won't even be able to talk right until he has retrained himself.'

Hibari's gaze bore into Mukuro's pale form as he listened to Chrome's tearful words. This was not right; this was not Mukuro. The man that was lying in front of him was not the annoyingly infuriating rival he had wanted to kill for ten years. Mukuro was now free, so why was he spending precious time lying down sleeping? Hibari glared at the form, every fiber in his being screaming at him to give the man a tonfa in the face. He ignored the feeling and turned to Chrome, who was crying silently at the sight of her vulnerable-looking master.

'Two years?' he asked. Chrome nodded. 'Do you really expect that bastard to stay lying in a bed for another two years?'

The young woman looked up, hopeful realization dawning in her eyes as she gazed fondly at Mukuro. 'You're right, Hibari-san,' she whispered quietly, opting to take his words as a comfort. She turned her eye towards him, a soft, almost unnoticeable smile on her face. 'Mukuro-sama will be fine.' Her expression turned to one of confusion. 'Oh, are you here to see him, Hibari-san?'

He was, but that was not the point at the moment. 'Hn. This herbivore won't interest me until he's able to fight,' he snapped, glaring at Mukuro's body. He spun around, not wanting to fight Mukuro when he was in that state, and left, leaving Chrome to sit there on her own. Well, it was not like he was going to sit there in the first place.

He didn't understand. If the information he had beaten out of Kusakabe was correct, then Mukuro had been released two and a half weeks ago. Why was the idiot still resting in a bed, unable to move his limbs? Sure he had spent ten years locked up in a glass tube, completely motionless with no way to contact the outside world unless he used up the little power he had remaining to possess someone, but that gave him no excuse to be lounging around and doing physiotherapy with some herbivorous doctor. It was just not right.

Hibari narrowed his eyes.

Mukuro was not the type of person to give up that easily, so maybe he was plotting something. That certainly made more sense than him lying in a bed for days on end. He did not believe that Mukuro would pass up a chance to be free and wrecking havoc with his annoying but admittedly brilliant mind. The Cloud Guardian stormed away back to Tsuna's office, wanting to read Mukuro's file.

And that's just what he did.

Tsuna was no longer there (as he was probably being obsessed over by an overly protective Storm Guardian) so Hibari was free to do as he wished. He yanked open a filing cabinet, unaware that it was originally locked, and began riffling through the files there, searching for Rokudo among the many names that began with R.

Eventually, he found it. It was the smallest file in there.

With the file under his arm and a prominent glare on his face, he marched out of the room, wanting to get out of the damned Vongola base. It was bad enough that he was even a little bit associated with them, he didn't want to be loitering around just to read a file that only had about three pages in it.

Well, his estimate was not far off, Hibari reasoned as he returned to his room. There were in fact two pages in the file and neither of them were about Mukuro's past. Hibari was not interested in that though. He just wanted to know why and how the hell the Vongola Family decided to free him. He had assumed that Sawada Tsunayoshi did not forgive Mukuro for his crimes, but he obviously thought wrong. Sitting down on one of his mats, he plucked up the first sheet.

There was some ramblings about the time the Vongola first came into contact with him (and, to which Hibari noted with immense satisfaction, how Tsuna had defeated him) and some notes on his herbivorous gang. Then, when Hibari peered at the second page, there about were details about his release. This is what the Cloud Guardian was looking for. His eyes narrowed once again as he scrutinized the page. Apparently the Kokuyo, including Chrome surprisingly, threatened to start a major riot if they did not release Mukuro. Now, usually Tsuna would have refused (he may have pitied and forgiven Mukuro, but he could not forget what the man had done to him) but then Chrome - most likely encouraged by the rest of the Kokuyo Gang - had refused to do any missions until the Vongola complied with them. Naturally, Tsuna needed a Mist Guardian and did not know what else he could do, since he could definitely not ask Hibari to be trained in using illusions. He had the mist attribute, yes, but he certainly would never use them. So, in the end Tsuna had made some sort of deal with the Vendicians.

To Hibari's surprise, it had taken two whole years before Vendice even acknowledged Tsuna and the Vongola, despite how high up they are in the Mafia, another two years to sort out all of the details of Mukuro's release, including contracts, probation and things like that and another year before Mukuro was finally freed.

The whole Kokuyo on strike thing had happened approximately five years ago, which rather shocked Hibari. He had thought that the decision to release the brain leech was recent. That meant that it had been hidden from him for five years. And that meant that Hibari was not happy. Somebody was going to pay for keeping him in the dark, somebody was really going to pay.

He threw the thin file aside and poured himself some green tea, absently wondering where the hell Kusakabe had gotten to, momentarily forgetting that he had broken his arm and he was probably getting it treated by the Sun Guardian.

He didn't particularly care about Mukuro being released, it was just that he couldn't stand seeing the bastard in the flesh, considering the last time he did he got his ass handed to him for the first time in his life. He could never forget that moment, which just made him want to kill Mukuro even more. Unfortunately, his revenge would have to wait. He wanted his win against the illusionist to be as satisfying as possible, but with Mukuro lying in a bed and attached to various machines to keep him alive Hibari realized that winning against him would be just stupid. He would just have to wait until Mukuro was back to his usual, annoying, healthy self before he could challenge him.

Just the thought of battling Mukuro again made Hibari smirk. He would really show that herbivore who exactly was the stronger of the two, and by doing that he would regain the dignity he lost when he was humiliated at the young age of sixteen. He took a sip of his tea and closed his eyes contently, not noticing that someone had just opened the door and entered.

'Oh Kyoya,' an infuriatingly familiar voice sighed, 'how lovely of you to visit me today!'

Hibari looked up and came face to face with the man he hated most in the world.

'I'm sure you've missed me, hm?'

Rokudo Mukuro.

And so begins my first 6918 multi-chaptered fic. I'll try to update twice a week but I'm not promising anything.

Anyway, until I next update please review!