Warning(s): AU, OC-centric, violence, language, (and will forever be) GEN

Alternate Summary: When the forgotten girl takes her first step into a new world and finds nothing and no-one but strange things and strangers, she refuses to lose hope. The power of the Tri-ni-set is beyond measure, after all. And exactly that is proven when she comes across Fon, the calm before the storm, a child with a pacifier dangling around his neck - a pacifier that she has never seen before in her life but still, somehow, recognizes. She figures that, if she tails the wind for a while, it might carry to the sky - where she might finally, finally receive some answers that have long been overdue.

Author's Note: My first fanfic. I'm not quite sure what's possessing me at the moment.

Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn!.

The cacophony of the street is only a faint sound in his ears, high up as he is on the rooftop of a several-decimal-story building - having climbed up there via the shorter restaurants conveniently aligned like a staircase. He pauses for a brief moment at the very edge, collar fluttering in the breeze, looking down at the bustle of black heads making their way across the street while the stoplight flashes red and cars hum their impatience.

He closes his eyes, embracing the sun's warmth; a rare thing in most Chinese cities, which are usually shrouded in a dreary, murky haze that clogs his lungs and makes him want to retreat to trees and serenity and solitude.

The sky is brilliantly blue today, and the breeze has picked up salt and sea. Fon basks in it.

Not for long, of course. He does like to meditate, but right now he has a job to do, and it's not one of his habits to slack off during missions. Especially since, according to the boss, some of the other Triad members have been tracking his targets for possibly two months now without much luck at all.

Fon is courteous enough not to think that some people in the Triads are rather incompetent.

When he returns from a second of peaceful near-oblivion, his eyes immediately zero in on the figure of a girl on the opposite end of the street, padding the rooftop tiles of a hotel. They're near the sea; if she notices him (and she probably doesn't, considering his size), she has no eyes for him. Her body is turned toward the ocean, and he logically concludes that she is admiring the view.

Even from far away, he can notice the strange blue mask covering her face.

The martial artist sighs to himself. Hopefully, she won't fall and get hurt. Children are far too reckless these days.

As he leaps away, long braid fluttering behind him, he wonders if he really has the right to think that.

It's easy to forget that some places exist unless they're occupied. Alleys so thin you have to turn sideways to get through (depending on your weight, actually), corners paved with black stones and surrounded by starry window glass. Apartments, houses, stores, company buildings, brothels - abandoned, unwanted, empty, lost, forgotten.

They'll be torn down, one day, to create space for skyscrapers - since, eventually, someone comes along and remembers them, but only because they want something bigger and better in place of it. Fon never really thinks much about architecture, spending more time out in the wilderness or traversing the mountains, but he occasionally feels a little bit of nostalgia when he comes across an area that used to be alive some-ten-twenty-thirty years ago. Its corpse will be buried under a new era.

Do all mafioso come up with such dark analogies?

He doesn't think those thoughts often, though, only when it's raining or the smog is incredibly thick as he traverses the slums. Right now, as he kneels in the crevice of a rotting window frame, all he is looking for is movement. His targets are rather like pests, in that they seem to show up when he's not there and never show up when he is. And it's always a coincidence, because he honestly doubts that any of them are at a good enough level to sense his presence.

To be honest, nobody has hid from him this long before. It's only been a week, but even so - he likes to think that he's quite good at the finding part of missions like this. Not as good as Reborn, obviously, but better than average.

Footsteps resound on the crackling pavement. With a graceful, deadly swiftness that his reputation is built off of, he flashes from his perch and around the corner (he's not called the fastest Arcobaleno for nothing).

All he finds is a little girl teetering on the pinnacle of another roof, walking as easy as she would on even ground along the ominously-creaking wood. Watching speculatively, Fon notices the green dragon mask tied around her face with white thread and the nonchalance in her movements, standing about forty feet away from a broken neck, and realizes - after some quick reliving of memory - that he's probably seen her sometime before in some unimportant place.

The next thing he realizes (or remembers from about two seconds previously) is that she's standing about forty feet away from a broken neck. More importantly - or less importantly, depending on how you look at it - she's standing and not walking. Gazing at her mask, he gets the sudden feeling that she's staring right at him.

Fon is immediately suspicious. He does well to hide it as he hops up into plain sight, landing on the edge of an adjacent building. This is a child, but his many years of experience scream at him to not underestimate her - or anybody, for that matter.

There is a brief moment of silence in which both of them study each other. Deducing that there's no one else within earshot or eyesight (how curious), Fon decides to go with a placid smile. "Good morning," he greets.

Why not? She certainly doesn't feel like an enemy. She has no killer intent, and she definitely wasn't part of the description of the people I have to track.

That still doesn't explain why she could pinpoint you so quickly, the logical part of his brain snaps right back, attempting to quarrel with the other.

The girl's tone of voice is not entirely welcome, but not entirely negative, either. "Good morning," she replies, tilting her head a little. Fon notices that her hair isn't black, but an unusual shade of grey. "Is it morning?"

Her voice is burdened with quite a number of accents, all blended together to form a unique sound for each syllable. A little of his apprehension decreases - the targets he's been assigned to are definitely Chinese, and only Chinese.

"Yes," he says between his thoughts, light and amicable. "It should be around eleven o' clock right now."

She lets out something between a huff and a laugh. "Ah, that is no good. I am very hungry, but it is not noon." To his mild surprise, she takes on a contemplative pose and looks back to the towering buildings of city's high-rises. "Maybe I will get candy from store. It has...open soon, I think?"

She turns back to Fon, and the dragon seems to blink. "I'm sorry. My Cantonese...is not good, do you see. I am alien to China."

He allows a soft smile to curl his lips, amused by the 'alien' remark. "It's alright," he says sportively. "I can still understand you. How long have you been learning?"

"It has been...two months since I began." She seems to brighten. "I like language. I learn very, very fast, and it is fun."

"Only a couple of months? That's very impressive," Fon says - and he means it. The girl - she can't be more than eight or nine - must have worked very hard, seeing as Cantonese is certainly not an easy language to get used to for foreigners (compared to, say, English or Spanish). His mind turns to other matters, and he changes the subject. "Are you alright? You're very high up, you should be careful."

Although he can't directly see her face, the martial artist gets the sense that she's smiling at him. "I am fine here," she assures him. "I have perfect sense of...equal weight. I climb rooftops when I am free, and I am often free, so it is very easy. Besides," and she stops and tilts her head a little towards him, looking like she's half-way into a bow but definitely motioning in his direction.

Fon lets out a chuckle. His question was rather hypocritical.

Brushing the dragon's forehead, the girl takes a few steps back, preparing to leave. "I will go get candy now," she declares dramatically. "I must go. It is very important. It was very nice to meet you, Mr..." Here, she pauses, almost floundering.

"Fon," the Arcobaleno offers. "My name is Fon."

The dragon doesn't seem to react or recognize the name. "Okay, Mr. Fon." She gives him a little wave, a fluttering of a hand, and turns to leave.

However, he still has one question left. "Excuse me," he asks, watching the little girl pause. "but how did you know where I was before I came out so you could see me clearly?" Hopefully, he has phrased it so she can understand the question.

For a long minute, the girl doesn't even move. Fon is hardly sure she's even breathing.

Then, she says, "I saw you in the windows. They are dirty, but they are like mirrors. I saw your hair go by. You are very good at hide-and-seek."

"...I see," he murmurs softly, processing the information. It certainly makes sense. However, that doesn't change the fact that the girl has an uncanny sense of sight, or quick reflexes.

That, or he is simply getting slower. He wonders if it would be arrogant of him to immediately dismiss the thought.

"Goodbye, Mr. Fon."

As he echoes the salutation and leaps off, he notices - a passing thought - that, while preoccupied by the nagging questions in his mind, he never really asked her for her name.

The next time the Storm Arcobaleno catches sight of her, the unknown girl who likes to wander around rooftops, it is only the corner of his eye.

She is crossing the street, ash-grey hair tied back in a bun and donning a serpent mask with scarlet whiskers. The haze isn't quite thick enough to choke on, but a small hand still covers up the serpent's nostrils as if she can't bear to breathe in - although that may have to do with the fact that she is surrounded by dozens of businessmen and women crossing with her, in front of two roaring trucks that are probably bleeding exhaust.

Before Fon's attention can catch onto her fully, she reaches the sidewalk, turns, and disappears behind a fire extinguisher and a crowd of teenagers.

After two weeks, he finds them.

Unfortunately, the only reason he finds them is because they decide to, essentially, sneak into a nearby hotel without even bothering to cover their tracks.

He senses the thick splatter of blood before the knife even falls, and he dives through the window (which they had opened to get in) to deliver a swift kick to the temple of the murderer before leaning back against the sudden flare of Lightning flames - but that doesn't change the fact that one of the people boarded in the hotel is now just a husk of a man painting the wall red where he is pinned.

He hates the few, rare times when he is simply too late to do anything for the one thing he has failed.

(perhaps that is what has fueled him, after all these years - to be faster than anything and anybody so he would never have to be or hear or see too late)

An unnatural thread of wind blows his braid forward. With the prowess of an experienced assassin and not anything like his appearance, he flips backward and lands hard on his attacker's next, snapping it sideways. Before the body can fall, the air is already stirring with an Exploding Lotus Kempo that shoots forth and destroys another man's face to shreds.

In the seven seconds in which all of this takes place, Fon is unnaturally amused because the only sound he's heard so far is the soft, near silent "Oh, shit -" coming from the Rain-flame user in the back.

But he doesn't stop to dwell on it, and instead dashes forward to finish that one off, too. They barely even have time to draw out their flames.

As he finally pauses, his back to the window, the martial-artist-sometimes-hitman looks down at his work - littered across the floor - and takes a moment to breathe. Hardly any noise was made - he made sure of that - so nobody would probably be coming in until morning. Briefly, his eyes flickered across the one true victim in the room, before returning to his now-dead targets. The only thing left to do now would be taking care of the bodies he took down, which -

The air bends and stirs. The wind reacts accordingly.

A single bullet lands with a 'paf', embedding itself into the carpet on the spot where his body used to be. His eyes narrowed in a rare moment of faint exasperation because seriously, they didn't think he could dodge that?

Oh, wait. In a split-second, he recounts the bodies. There are only eight, isn't there supposed to be nine -

The next thing he knows, the left side of the window panel is exploding in a shower of glass, and he twists around to dodge the arrays of bullets showering the room. He sighs, because it really is loud this time, and the hotel will most likely wake up in the middle of night to an extremely unpleasant surprise.

His targets have probably realized that he can easily evade a single shot, and have switched to an alternative method. How unpleasant.

He rushes to the smaller window next to the TV, breaks the lock, slides it open, and hops out. A cool, night breeze blows at his face, and he is momentarily surprised by the sudden weight appearing on top of his head.

Two familiar scabbed hands scrabble against his black locks as Lichi pulls himself up.

"You run off for eight days during one of your centennial sulking sessions, knowing that I may or may not need you during this mission, and you choose to show up now at this rather inconvenient moment?" Fon asks, gently, but not without a hint of incredulity and a touch of admonishment.

Lichi makes a strangled sort-of-apologetic noise. With a sigh, the monkey's master accepts it (he really can't do much else) and begins leaping down the building from windowsill to windowsill, a second in front of the bullets that continue to pepper the surface he last landed on.

And then, abruptly, they stop.

Fon wastes no time in disappearing in the shadows the moment he hits solid pavement, eyes searching the rooftops for the source of the gunshots. However, a frigid silence descends upon the street - giving nothing of his enemy's whereabouts, nothing to disturb the air, nothing for him to feel and work with.

A wisp of red flame lights the horizon. It's abrupt and has already mostly faded away by the time he turns around, but it's still present enough for him to see which building it came from.

When he lands on the railing of said building, he's not quite sure what he was expecting.

What he does see is a familiar girl wearing a simple T-shirt and shorts, wisps of grey hair framing a rounded face that is for once uncovered. She stares straight ahead into the city lights, and her eyes are a bright, brilliant scarlet that literally glows with a faint, blooming light.

The first thing that comes to mind is blood, and the color of the purest Storm flames.

She turns halfway towards him, allowing his eyes to land on the QBB-95 - or what's left of it - scattered across the ground in pieces of jagged metal. Before he can fully determine whether the child is an enemy or a not-enemy (he leans to the former), the glow in her eyes fades away, and a small smile - not much more than a curve of her lips - crosses her face. "Mr. Fon," she says. "It is nice to see you well."

After a brief moment of hesitation, he dips his head in greeting. However, he keeps his guard up. "What happened to the person who shot the gun?"

"He is dead. I used flames. He turned to ash and scatters." She tilts her head to the side, a repetitive gesture of hers. "I'm sorry. Did you need a body to be...paid?"

"No, it's fine. The hits were enough," Fon replies, although inwardly, he is still wrapping his head around the fact that this innocent child can decimate a body with such a high concentration of flames that it can be reduced to nothing in a matter of seconds.

It doesn't seem all that possible. He's tempted to call her out on lying, albeit in a polite manner.

Then, the girl kneels down and a flicker of fire escapes her hands, and it's not like any Storm flame Fon has seen before. It only burns a single shade of color, the same as her eyes, unlike his own flames mixed with light yellow, white, and pink. The Arcobaleno watches with no small amount of astonishment as her fire dances around the broken parts of the machine gun, hiding them in tongues of red heat.

When they recede, the metal is just gone. He can't even see a trace of a burn on the concrete.

Fon re-calibrates his thoughts. Perhaps it is possible, although still hard to believe simply because of the abnormality of it. Of the girl's power, specifically.

As the girl's face turns toward him again, eyes flaring scarlet, the martial artist takes a courageous step forward (of course, not much distance is crossed in his infant body, but it really doesn't matter because the action is still made and the feeling behind it is quite clear to both of them). "Who are you?" he asks, firstly. He makes sure to keep his tone civil, a serene expression held determinedly on his face.

Mildly, the little girl folds herself into a cross-legged position, hands grabbing her ankles. She looks immensely carefree despite the tense air around them. "I call me Tianshi. It means 'angel', but you do know this."

A fake name, most likely, but once again - Fon really can't talk. "Well, Tianshi," he says. "Thank you very much for killing that man. Why did you help me?"

She gives him a sort-of-skeptical stare as her eyes bleed into a regular shade of brown, like she's surprised he can't answer that himself. "He was shooting you. It is not very nice. You did not need help, I think? But I helped anyway, because you are nice and it is less work you will do."

He's hard-pressed in hiding his surprise. Her voice is open and genuine, but people like her - even children of her age - rarely take time to help another person for such a simple manner, especially when there are guns and blood involved.

A distant scream pierces the air, coming in the direction of the hotel.

"And," She pauses to give the same minuscule smile. "He stops you from cleaning up the dead men. That is not good too."

Fon can't help but raise an eyebrow. "Why?"

"Humans don't like to see dead men." She waves a hand vaguely in the air. "Cleaning up bodies is like recycling. It is good for...health of people's minds."

With a deep sigh, he clears his mind for a moment and pushes aside the feeling of utter amusement that sprang up in their conversation.

When he opens the eyes that he had inadvertently closed, the girl - Tianshi - has pulled out a mask from who-knows-where, this time a white fox with black and gold eye markings. She snaps it onto her face with a small, quiet breath, as if taking comfort in it.

"It's a very nice mask," he can't keep himself from saying.

She tilts her head again, voice slightly muffled through the plastic. "Thank you." And that's all there is.

Rising to her feet, Tianshi looks over to the hotel, where nearly half of the room lights and the lobby are on. "I should go. They might see me and try to track me. They will fail, but I do not want them to cause trouble." She says it so openly that it doesn't even come across as conceited.

Fon tilts his head back in order to continue meeting her gaze. "They will see you from this far away?"

"Maybe," she says with a shrug. "Humans gets more safe-wanting each year. They put glass eyes in many stores I visit, so people will not try to steal. I think it is very smart and dumb both." She huffs. "I will go now, and you will go report end of job, I think?"

Fon nods and says, "I will. Are you part of a Famiglia, by any chance?"

Tianshi stills. "No." Her voice takes on an edge that he can't quite interpret. "I am not mafioso."

Immediately, he picks up the fluency of the word 'mafioso'; it flows through the fox's mouth like a river, easy and eloquent, a startling contrast compared to her awkwardly-assembled Cantonese. Perhaps Italian is her native language.

He thinks of interrogating further, since he's still curious as to how she can use Storm flames without being in the mafia, but Tianshi is already turning away, clearly sensing the question he is readying on his tongue. A split-second of hesitance, and Fon lets her go; he has no desire to probe her with questions that will make her uncomfortable, and she wouldn't deserve that, anyway.

And there's something in her voice that makes her seem several years older than she looks, more like an adult, and a bit wearier, that adds more reason to silently assent to back off. It's really not any of his business.

"Good bye, Mr. Fon," Tianshi is saying, her back already towards him and the words being tossed over her shoulder.

The Arcobaleno dips his head. "Good bye, Tianshi. Should we ever meet again," he adds. "Know that I will be in your debt."

Her voice is blunt with refusal - "I will not need it," - but for some reason, a shade lighter and happier than before. "But it is kind to say."

Fon watches as the mysterious girl walks over to the south railing, vaults over it, and seemingly-free-falls a dozen stories downward to collide with the sidewalk of the alley on the other side. And yet, when he himself jumps up on the railing to look down at her, he's not too surprised to see her safe and sound and already walking away from the mess of targets and mafia groups and infant assassins.

A while later, he notices that the weight on top of his head is gone, and that Lichi is missing again.

"Good morning."

Exhaling, Fon drops out of his meditation session and opens his eyes; the first thing he sees is the sky, clouded white. He turns and sees Tianshi, the upper portion of her face covered in a tiger mask, simply dressed and burying her bare feet into the moss of the forest clearing. She tilts her head and nurses a steaming bowl in her hands.

"Mr. Fon," she chirps. "I'm sorry. Have I bothered you?"

He smiles at her, but doesn't make a move to stand. She takes it as an invitation to sit down with him. "Good morning, Tianshi - its fine. Why have you come here?"

She takes a sip from her bowl - miso soup, he notices - and spares a few moments of silence before replying. "Do you have a monkey?"

Fon stiffens, just as a familiar heart-shaped face pops out from behind the girl's neck. Lichi chitters at him and quickly leaps down to land roughly on the Arcobaleno's head. He tilts his head up to stare at him, bewildered, watching his animal partner's eyes dilate into a completely-totally-I-am-innocent expression. He closes his own eyes to avoid it.

"He comes to me in store, after I helped you," Tianshi says cheerfully. "And I am - was - surprised to see him again."

His eyes open. "Again?"

She nods. "I meet him two times. He likes mandou. Does he run away very much?"

"Sometimes," he says. "When he is angry at me. About two weeks ago, he…" He chuckles to himself. "...he saw a female at the zoo and tried to court her. When he was...refused, I told him he should have learned his lesson by now - which must have made him grumpy, because he ran off and didn't answer my calls. How did you find him?"

"Subway station. He looked lost. I took him to store and we ate lunch. He stayed, went away, then comes back." The smile in her voice is a little wider than before. "Silly monkey. You call him Lichi?"

Fon nods and shoots a look of wry amusement as Lichi trills and yawns, splaying his arms across the Arcobaleno's forehead. "Finally gotten over the rejection, I see?"

Lichi pouts and sticks his tongue out. Tianshi laughs.

And Fon is startled by the sound, because it is a child's laugh - pealing and playful - but so weak and feeble-sounding that it seems to end before it can truly begin. There's an undercurrent of age in there, too, and maybe pieces of nostalgia and ruefulness mixed in.

Fon never trained to pick up the emotions in other people, but for some reason, Tianshi's expressions - even with her masks - are almost ridiculously easy to read.

They are also quite confusing.

"You are like," she says softly, carefully. "You are like a famiglia. A very small one, two of you, but still I can see."

Even Lichi cocks his head at this, blinking owlishly. She shakes her head and murmurs something under her breath, something that sounds suspiciously like "non importa" before moving to stand. "I came to bring Lichi back to owner, and now I will be leaving Dalian."

"Leaving?" Fon repeats, rising with her.

The tiger dips its head. "I am...world traveler. I go many places, to see new. Nomad, you would say?"

Before he can reply, Lichi screeches - a harsh, splitting sound - and launches himself back at Tianshi, latching onto the sleeve of her shirt and clutching onto the fabric like a lifeline. Both of them are taken aback, although the martial artist recovers fast enough to notice the spitting, hissing, hateful disapproval twisting his animal companion's face.

Fon doesn't think he's ever seen Lichi look like that. He can't quite quash the uprising of alarm and disquiet rearing in his head.

"Scimmi - Lichi?" Tianshi's voice is more monotonous than most people, so the otherwise-subtle note of confusion is easy to hear in his ears.

To further her confusion (and his own), Lichi clambers upward to crouch down on her head. Hissing slightly, the monkey hugs her bun in a vice-like grip.

If her hair is being uncomfortably pulled at, Tianshi doesn't wince - nor does she move at all, really. "Lichi?" she asks again. "Lichi, what is...what do you want?"

Lichi twitches and looks at Fon. The monkey looks...torn between both of them, an undeniable hint of longing in the gaze he directs at both of them, eyes darting wildly between the two Storm wielders.

For an animal who usually gives nothing away other than small, cheeky smiles and round, mischievous eye-bats, as he sits on Tianshi's head and looks down at Fon's, Lichi looks surprisingly emotionally distressed.

He isn't quite sure what to make of it. In the span of less than a month, the strange little girl has unintentionally won over the animal partner who is supposed to be always, undeniably, solely loyal to his Arcobaleno master.

What he does know, however, is that he feels somewhat betrayed - and now ten times more curious than before.

"I think," he says slowly, picking out his words as if he's plucking blueberries from a bush. "Lichi is having trouble choosing which one of us he wants to stay with."

The tiger snaps back to pin him with a stare. "No."

Then, Fon notices the way Lichi is tugging at Tianshi's hair and pulling the bun in his direction, and sees.

"He wants to stay with both of us."

But Tianshi continues on, without pause, to say, "But I can't. I have already told you that I travel."

"We do to."

Fon is only half-aware of the words slipping from his lips, and suddenly finds himself under the tiger's scrutiny. "I don't like staying in one place for long," he elaborates. "and Lichi is the one who accompanies me. It is quite a coincidence that we are both...nomadic, wouldn't you say?"

"I..." The tiger peers at him with dark, gaping holes for eyes. Fon has the uncharacteristic urge to fidget. "You are okay with what Lichi wants?"

He is tempted to give a whimsical shrug. "I would not be opposed to it. Lichi has good judgement, and he rarely asks for anything from me that he doesn't feel strongly about."

Lichi looks considerably smug. If he were violent-prone, Fon would feel like delivering a good clout to the monkey's ear.

"Unless," he adds. "You would prefer to travel alone?"

"No." Tianshi hesitates. "I do not like being alone."

(idly, Fon wonders if there is a story behind the deepness in her voice)

"I just do not think you trust me so much, you see. I am alien to you."

"You saved my life during my mission," he points out.

She tilts her head. "That was not saving life. You would be live even if I was not there. But," she shakes her hand in the air like she's brushing off her own words. "Now I am only make excuses for nothing good. Where will you go after you leave Dalian?"

"North, I think. To Anshan, and then Shenyang. I haven't been there in quite a while." Fon studies her. "Will that be a problem?"

"If I go with you? No. I do not know that places." She sighs, but it's more of an exhale than anything else. "Are you sure?"

"...Well, Lichi would like the company," Fon offers. "And I haven't traveled with anyone for almost a year. You don't have to if you don't want to." He drops his voice. "Nor do you have to feel pressured. It's your choice."

Tianshi falls silent and downs her soup, the steam rising to wreath the air as she gulps it down. The trees, dashed with silvery leaves, sway in the background. When she looks down again, Fon returns her gaze patiently.

"I will come. When do you leave?"