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Sasawaga Kyoko was eight years old, almost nine, and had heard many things about what was expected of her from the adults in her life. She was to be pretty and demure and obedient and intelligent, to excel in her classes but especially in home economics, to always be tidy and comport herself like a young lady.
Long gone were the days when she was permitted to run wild with her older brother, to tumble around in the dirt with Ryohei-nii and stand up against the bullies picking on clumsy little Tsuna-kun. She had chafed at the rules imposed upon her, but she had wanted to make friends and make her parents proud, so she'd been doing her absolute best to stick to them, to be the perfect daughter.
But now Ryohei-nii was in hospital, injured because he was protecting her. She'd been useless, and she absolutely hated that. More than she'd hated anything ever, even more than the rules she'd followed for years now, even more than the bullies she could no longer fight to scare them away from picking on Tsuna-kun.
Kyoko refused to be useless ever again. What good was being pretty and polite and meek if making herself defenceless meant the people she loved came to harm?
As she left the hospital, her resolve firmed, and she turned not towards her family home, but towards the residence every Namimori citizen knew to avoid if given any chance to do so. If she was going to make herself dangerous instead of useless, then she would need to learn from one of the most dangerous people in town.
The Demon of Namimori.
When Kyoya went to see which herbivore had dared intrude upon his personal, private territory, he had not been expecting to see the younger sister of his loud classmate standing on the doorstep with a determined look on her small face.
"...herbivore," he said, slightly wary, and was unable to keep the surprise from his face when Sasagawa Kyoko bent into a perfect, polite bow.
"Hibari-senpai," she greeted him politely, though there was a hint of steel in her voice that he had never heard from her before. "Teach me to fight."
What?
He stared at her, eyebrows high on his forehead, as he attempted to process her demand.
(He had to admit, it was rare for anyone to try and demand anything of him anymore. How... refreshing.)
"Explain," he demanded in turn, instead of answering her question. Sasagawa stood with her shoulders back and chin lifted defiantly, a far cry from the meek, helpless girl he usually saw around the schoolyard.
"Ryohei-nii was hurt badly defending me. I refuse to be useless or helpless ever again. Teach me to fight," she repeated.
Hn. Perhaps she was not, in fact, an herbivore like the rest of the children he saw when patrolling his wider territory. Herbivores were such because they were helpless and remained so, without ever attempting to change that. This girl... an omnivore, perhaps, or a baby carnivore.
"Hn," he said aloud, and then threw a punch – intending to pause before he actually hit her – just to see how she responded.
She ducked away from the strike, but didn't flinch as she did so. Instead, she settled into a decent approximation of a guarding stance, her small hands closed into fists – thumbs over fingers, he noted approvingly – and her weight balanced lightly on the balls of her feet. That was a good start – she wasn't entirely clueless, just unpracticed. Her teeth would need sharpening, but that was only to be expected if she'd gone untrained so far.
"Good," he said, and took a step back into his house to hold the door open. "Come. We start now."
The baby carnivore smiled, a gleam to her eyes that he very much approved of, and relaxed out of the defensive stance she'd rather easily slipped into.
"Thank you, Hibari-senpai," she said, calm instead of deferential like so many other children were. He didn't respond, instead just waiting for her to remove her shoes in the genkan before turning to lead her to the small dojo he utilised primarily for storing his various weapons.
Sasagawa remained, thankfully, quiet as she followed him, and settled to the floor when he gestured for her to do so.
"I have not taught before," he admitted. "Have you any form of physical training?"
"My parents enrolled me in ballet," she replied, "but they refuse to let me do anything martial. They say fighting is not ladylike," she added with a scowl that mirrored the one that had formed upon his own face. Then she looked thoughtful, frowning faintly. "I may be able to convince them to permit me to take up archery," she said. Kyoya gave a thoughtful hum.
"That will help your core and arm strength," he agreed. "Your legs will strengthen if you continue ballet." He could appreciate the skill that went into the art, even if he did not see the appeal himself.
Sasagawa nodded seriously.
"I will show you the forms I learned first," Kyoya decided. "It will give you a foundation. Then we will fight, and you will learn by experience."
There was a gleam in Sasagawa's eyes as she nodded, and she got to her feet immediately after he did.
"First, stance," he began, and so did Sasagawa's training.
Lately, Kyoko-chan had been at school before Hana arrived. It was unusual, since normally they would arrive close to the same time, and no one wanted to be at school early enough to draw the attention of the Demon.
Yet for the past few weeks, Kyoko-chan had been waiting for Hana near the shoe lockers, her uniform ever so slightly rumpled and her hair wild.
That was another change – Kyoko-chan had cut her hair short soon after her brother had been hospitalised, keeping it just barely long enough to not be considered 'boyish'. It worried Hana, because for as long as she could remember, Kyoko-chan had been the epitome of girly. Yet now she had cut her hair and was wearing shorts beneath her uniform skirt. Which, honestly, wasn't a bad idea, since there were some real perverts among the older boys who, so far, had gone unnoticed by the Demon.
And speaking – or thinking – of the Demon... what was he doing in their classroom? He was two years older than them!
"H-Hibari-kun," the teacher stuttered, but fell silent when Hibari Kyoya glared at him. The rest of the class was also silent, mostly in fear – which, honestly, Hana couldn't blame them for – when Demon-Hibari turned away from the teacher.
"Baby carnivore," he said, and Hana's mind went blank from pure shock. Baby carnivore? Who the hell did Demon-Hibari mean by that? "You forgot this." He held up... a purse?
"Ah! Thank you, Hibari-senpai!" Kyoko-chan exclaimed, bounding out of her seat and hurrying over to Demon-Hibari without even a shred of hesitation. She said something else, but Hana's mind was whirling.
What had Kyoko-chan done to have Demon-Hibari referring to her as a 'baby carnivore' and bringing her her things?
"Yo, Kurokawa!" someone hissed, and Hana shook herself out of her shock to turn towards the source. Suzuki Ryuuta was wide-eyed, leaning across the aisle towards her. "Is Sasagawa-chan dating Hibari?" he demanded. Hana blinked a few times, attempting to process the stupidity in that question, and then snorted.
"Kyoko-chan isn't dating yet at all, idiot monkey," she grumbled, and then turned towards the door just in time to see Demon-Hibari nod, just once, and thump a fist lightly on the top of Kyoko-chan's head. She didn't seem to mind, because she barely reacted at all, instead shooing him out the door like Hana had seen her do to Ryohei multiple times. That... wasn't a romantic interaction, that was more like how siblings treated each other.
Had Demon-Hibari adopted Kyoko-chan?
Kyoko dodged Kyoya-shishou's tonfa with a gleeful laugh, leaping away from the earth-breaking downwards strike and darting in close to drive her fists into the now-thirteen-year-old boy's ribs. Only one of her blows landed, but the strike forced Kyoya-shishou to retreat for a moment, and she'd felt one of his ribs crack beneath her punch.
"Good hit," her teacher, her friend, said with a feral grin, and Kyoko grinned back at him with equal ferocity. She adjusted her grip on the pair of suntetsu she had been learning to wield, and then leapt back into the spar with her fists leading.
She didn't win the fight, but she rarely did – Kyoya-shishou was improving even more rapidly than she was learning, and he had the ability to keep going after taking hits that would lay Kyoko out flat. She would take the small win of having forced him to pause with that rib-cracking strike.
"How do the suntetsu suit?" Kyoya-shishou asked, running his violet Soulfire across the scrapes on her knuckles and making them fade. He then grasped her chin to tilt her face up into the light so that he could see the bruised and fracture cheekbone he'd given her that had ended their fight. Kyoko let him manhandle her, used to the treatment after two years of being his apprentice. She sighed in relief when the throbbing pain of her injury faded under the encouragement from his Soulfire.
"I like them better than the yawara," she replied, "but I don't think they're quite right for me."
"Hn," Kyoya-shishou grumbled, and then wandered over to the multitude of weapons he kept stored in his private dojo. Kyoko finished wrapping her fists as he sorted through his collection, wondering what he would bring out for her to try next. He'd started her with tonfa like he himself wielded, but Kyoko hadn't taken to them the way he did. A pair of yawara had been next, giving weight to her punches that she quite liked, but they still hadn't felt right. Then came the suntetsu, which were better but, again, still not quite right.
She tilted her head, curious, when Kyoya-shishou made a satsified noise and picked something up, turning away from his weapon stash. He walked back over to her, and then offered a pair of... tekko? Huh. Kyoko hadn't realised there were any of those among the weapons Kyoya-shishou hoarded.
"Try these," he said simply, dropping them into her lap. Kyoko hummed thoughtfully and picked them up, slipping the straight bar into her palm and frowning at the way the curved side hovered a good inch away from the back of her hand. She pouted.
"They're too big," she grumbled. Kyoya-shishou chuckled shortly.
"I'll get you some smaller ones. Stick with the suntetsu until I do."
"Hai, hai~!"
Hana remembered, vividly, the first time she'd seen Kyoko-chan stand face to face with Demon-Hibari without fear. Most of their classmates seemed to have forgotten that the Demon Prefect – as he was now known – had called her 'baby carnivore', but Hana never had.
She'd come to find amusement in it, though. In the way their classmates only seemed to see Kyoko-chan's pretty smile and big brown eyes, and fail to notice the feral glint in her eyes or the scars on her knuckles.
Hana had never forgotten the day she'd learned that Kyoko-chan could go toe-to-toe with Demon-Hibari. She'd never failed to notice that Kyoko-chan would go up to the roof – Hibari's space, as all of Nami-chuu knew – at lunchtimes and come back to class with ruffled hair and the shadow of bruises on her knuckles.
But Hana had never truly feared Hibari, just held a justifiable wariness about the older boy's temper, and she didn't fear Kyoko-chan either. Worried about her, sure – she worried for Ryohei, too, since the boxing-obsessed monkey insisted that fighting Hibari was fun – but she didn't fear her friend.
She did wonder, sometimes, why Kyoko-chan was doing what she was doing. Before the incident when they were about nine years old, when Ryohei ended up in hospital, Kyoko-chan had been a perfect idol. Dainty, demure, pretty, and kind, soft-spoken and gentle and talented in home economics.
The reasons didn't matter, though, Hana decided after a while. Kyoko-chan was happy, happier than she'd been before she'd started being friends with Demon-Hibari, and Hana only truly cared that her best friend was content with her lot in life. Even if that meant she was going out fighting dangerous monkeys like Demon-Hibari.
Tsuna flinched, wrapping his arms over his head to protect himself at least a little, and waited for the blows to fall.
"Hey!" someone shouted from further away than his tormentors, and Tsuna hunched further in on himself. "Get away from him!"
...was that Sasagawa-chan?
Trembling with fear but worried for the safety of the girl who'd been nothing but kind to him regardless of how everyone else called him Dame-Tsuna, Tsuna peeked out from behind his arms while the three bullies surrounding him laughed viciously.
Sasagawa Kyoko was walking towards them, her face set in a glare that looked wildly out of place on her, and Tsuna's eyes widened when he saw what she had in her hands.
Were those... were those tekko?!
"Hey, pretty girl, why don't you wait right there while we teach Dame-Tsuna a lesson, and then we can go hang out? I bet we can show you a real good time," one of Tsuna's bullies leered, but Sasagawa-chan ignored him. She walked right up, and then drove one fist into the jaw of the boy who'd spoken to her so crudely. Tsuna yelped, shocked, as the force of the punch made the older boy spin, a nasty 'crack' sounding when Sasagawa-chan's metal-wrapped fist impacted the bully's jaw, and then he scrambled back out of the way as the bully collapsed into a groaning heap.
His two friends paused, probably just as shocked as Tsuna was by seeing a petite thirteen-year-old girl wipe out their buddy, but they recovered remarkably fast.
"You little bitch!" one snarled, raising a hand as if to strike Sasagawa-chan, but Sasagawa-chan moved fast. She ducked the bully's attempted punch, slamming a fist into his gut as she moved past him and towards the third. The second bully gagged, collapsing to his knees and holding his belly, and as Tsuna watched – shocked and more than a little scared by the brutality he was witnessing – Sasagawa-chan came to stand protectively in front of Tsuna and stare down the third bully while the other two groaned and whimpered where she'd dropped them.
"You have one last chance to run," Sasagawa-chan said lightly, "or I will do as Kyoya-shishou taught me and bite you to death."
The threat sounded just as brutal coming from Sasagawa-chan as it did from Hibari-san, maybe even more so, and Tsuna bit down a whimper of fear. The Demon Prefect was teaching Sasagawa-chan?!
The third bully was apparently smarter than his friends, because he turned and fled before Tsuna could even finish processing the revelation that his class's female idol was apparently apprenticed to the scariest person in town.
"Tsuna-kun, are you injured?" Sasagawa-chan asked gently, sweetly, and Tsuna swallowed thickly and shook his head.
"I-I'm okay," he said, and then startled when Sasagawa-chan held out a hand to him. He glanced up, and saw her smile kindly at him. "T-Thank you." He hesitantly took the offered hand, and yelped in surprise when Sasagawa-chan pulled him to his feet with ease. He stumbled, and Sasagawa-chan steadied him. "Thank you, Sasagawa-chan," he said again.
"Please call me Kyoko, Tsuna-kun," Sasagawa-chan – Kyoko-chan – said with a sweet smile. "Would you like me to walk you home?" Tsuna blushed, face going bright red. Girls weren't supposed to walk boys home!
But... Tsuna was kind of useless, and Kyoko-chan was strong and had protected him already.
"Y-yes please, Kyoko-chan," he said shyly. Her smile brightened, and she grabbed one of his hands to tow him along behind her as she led him out of the alleyway where the bullies had cornered him. "W-what about them?" he asked belatedly. Kyoko-chan waved her free hand dismissively.
"Kyoya-shishou will handle them," she promised airily. Tsuna squeaked quietly at the reminder that Hibari-san, widely referred to as a demon by most of Namimori, had apparently been teaching Kyoko-chan. "He's just set up something called the Disciplinary Committee, and..."
-X-
At age fourteen, Sasagawa Kyoko was the third-in-command of the Namimori Middle School Disciplinary Committee. While the second, Kusakabe Tetsuya, mostly handled paperwork and made sure Kyoya's initiatives were legal, Kyoko's job was Kyoya-wrangling. To most of the school, she was their sweet and innocent idol, but the Disciplinary Committee, her best friend Hana, her brother Ryohei, and her sweetheart of a new friend Tsuna, all knew better.
The day things changed (again) was similar to many others. Kyoko got to school early, had a spar with Kyoya-kun, and then tidied up – able to heal her own injuries, few as they were, now that her bright yellow (with hints of violet) Soulfire was active and useable – and headed back out into the streets of Namimori to escort Tsuna-kun to school so that he wouldn't be targeted by his usual bullies. Some of them had backed off after Kyoko – and later, Kyoya-kun – had come to his defence and left them in a groaning heap of bruises and fractured bones, but there were still far too many after the sweet, clumsy, anxious boy for Kyoko's liking.
Tsuna-kun looked even more frazzled than he usually did on a Wednesday morning when Kyoko bumped into him on the corner of his street and the one that they usually walked down to get to school.
"Good morning, Tsuna-kun," Kyoko greeted him cheerfully, and then she frowned faintly when he returned her greeting with just a strained smile. "What's wrong?"
"N-nothing, it's just..." he trailed off, glancing back over his shoulder towards his house. Kyoko felt her temper start to spike.
"Did Nana-san say something again?" she asked, voice low, and Tsuna-kun hesitated just long enough that Kyoko took it for a confirmation. She started walking down the road, and only paused when Tsuna-kun grasped her elbow.
"Wait, Kyoko-chan! It's not..." he trailed off, sighed. "Apparently my father organised a tutor for me. He arrived this morning, and he's... odd."
Before Kyoko could process that Tsuna-kun's father was, apparently, not dead, a small person in a pristine black suit landed right on Tsuna-kun's head.
"It's impolite to call people odd, Dame-Tsuna," the apparent toddler said, lisping faintly, and Kyoko bristled as the 'toddler' leapt from Tsuna's head to land lightly on the wall that ran along the property line right beside them.
"It's also impolite to call people dame," she snapped. She stared down the 'toddler', unflinching, as he levelled a handgun at her. "And it is illegal to carry firearms without a permit," she added calmly. "Tsuna-kun, is this your tutor?"
"Y-yes."
"Well. I can't say I think much of his teaching methods, calling you that horrid name and jumping on your head," Kyoko said airily, and then linked her arm with her friend's. "Come along, Tsuna-kun. Kyoya-kun is fond of you, but it would be best if we aren't late." She guided Tsuna-kun into step with her, heading for Nami-chuu, and continued, "now, what did Nana-san say? Do I need to have another chat with her?"
"Kyoko-chan!" Tsuna-kun protested, though he was laughing a little – nervously, but laughing nonetheless – even as he spoke. "It's alright, you don't need to defend me!"
"You deserve defending, Tsuna-kun, since you're prevented from doing it for yourself," she replied simply. "But fine, I won't speak with Nana-san again. What's this about your father?"
Even as she chattered and encouraged Tsuna-kun to answer her questions, Kyoko kept part of her focus on the not-toddler still following them. Something was not right here, and she would need to speak with Kyoya-kun as soon as she could. He knew more about the criminal underworld than she did, and she vaguely recalled him mentioning something about 'false-baby carnivores' when he was talking about Soulfire.
She had a feeling things were going to be changing a lot from now on, and that the change was, unfortunately, centred on her anxious friend. She would do her best to help, to be his protector when he needed it, and hopefully he would come out of the coming trouble stronger instead of broken.