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The smell of the sakura made him sick.
Hibari’s head spun as a hand grabbed the front of his shirt, wrenching him up into the air. His reaction was entirely reflexive: he swung his tonfa at the boy’s head, but it felt like his arm was dragging through thick syrup, and his strike was too easily blocked.
“Come, now. You can do better than this, can’t you? You’re the one who came looking for us, after all,” the unpleasant voice purred. Mismatched eyes stared up at him, sharp and cruel before their owner wrenched the weapon from Hibari’s grip, examining it with detached curiosity.
“So fierce,” he laughed, his taunt infuriating as he flipped it around, catching it by the handle and spinning it around his arm with ease before the gaze returned to Hibari, accompanied by a dangerous smile.
“If you cry, I’ll go easy on you.”
Hibari stared back at him with all the hatred he could muster, his eyes burning as he bared his teeth. He couldn’t remember the last time that he’d cried, but he certainly wouldn’t be doing it for this boy. Not when he and his little gang of rabble had come to Namimori to disrupt its peace, using unfair tricks to put Hibari on his back foot. But he wouldn’t forget this, and he would be sure to pay it back the next time they ran into each other… with interest.
“Do your worst.”
The smile widened.
“I was hoping you’d say that.”
His tonfa disappeared from his line of sight, but as his assailant’s muscles tensed, Hibari braced himself the best that he could as he dangled from the other boy’s grasp. But even though he’d been expecting it, a grunt tore from his throat when steel smashed into his arm with an unpleasant crunch—crushed humerus, his mind supplied, the instant before the pain hit.
For a moment, the searing heat drove away the nausea, and Hibari’s head cleared enough for him to whip his other arm around, his ears ringing with the clash of steel. But it seemed to startle the other boy enough for him to drop him, and Hibari landed lightly on his feet, instantly springing forward… only to have more flowers burst into bloom beside his face. Even so, he tried to ignore them, continuing to drive forward, to crush his opponent’s skull before the weakness gripped him again. But his strike wasn’t as sharp as usual, and the other boy sidestepped it before bringing his own tonfa down—hard—on Hibari’s shoulder with another crunch of broken bones.
The pain radiated down his arm, but Hibari still clung to his weapon, swinging again and again despite the futility of it. The other boy was only toying with him now like a cat batting at a mouse, easily avoiding his clumsy attacks while landing his own with pinpoint precision: two ribs on the left side, his left hip, his right knee.
The last had Hibari stumbling forward, but he caught himself on his still good leg, pivoting on it to whirl around and let the centripetal force whip his weapon at the other boy, who once again blocked it with his own, sending another ripple of pain up his arm. But he refused to collapse in front of his enemy, not until he’d taken him down, even as the cloying scent of sakura grew oppressive.
“Why do you fight so hard?” the lilting voice taunted as his opponent sauntered closer. He didn’t sound out of breath in the slightest, unlike Hibari who was panting from both the exertion and the pain. But he’d pushed through worse: if only it weren’t for the damn sakura, their positions would undoubtedly have been reversed. And the other boy knew that, too, which was why he’d had them prepared. “You’ve already lost. We both know that. You wouldn’t have to suffer like this if you just accepted it. I don’t even care about you, you know. I’m just looking for someone, and you just had to get in my way.”
“Namimori is mine,” Hibari snarled. “If anyone tries to disturb the peace, I’ll bite them to death.”
The other boy clicked his tongue as he shook his head.
“You don’t even realize that you’re the frog in the well. If anything, we ought to be on the same side. Ah, but I’ll help you out. Just take a nap for now: it’ll all be over by the time you wake up.”
Hibari saw the strike coming, but he couldn’t move quickly enough to block it, and cold metal slammed into the base of his skull. As his legs trembled, his eyes rolled up into his head, and he dropped to the ground like a heavy stone.