Summary: "For the Tenth, I'll win." Loss after loss—when will he finally give up? Parallel worlds, AU-ish, Choice Battle and a bleak future. Two-shot. Some disturbing imagery. Part of the Re:Idioms Collection. Pairings if you squint, or bring them yourselves.
"A chain is only as strong as its weakest link."
Gokudera Hayato looks up at the night sky, wondering how this can be. The darkness falls like ashes down to the ground, piling up slowly around him.
He peers out into the crepuscular light falling upon his surroundings. The towering forms around him are geometric and regular, and if he looks closely enough, he can see the reflective glint of the glass panes.
"Skyscrapers..." he breathes. They used to stand so tall and so strong, leading, reaching, stretching up to the sky. Now they're rubble—chunks of stone encrusted with dried blood.
And he can't see the sky. It's choked by smoke that's still rising from the other side of the city. Byakuran's army had swept through here just yesterday, killing everything—man, woman, child, friends, family.
"This city..." A flicker of familiarity makes him examine the buildings (or what remains of them) with a sharper gaze.
He's sure that he's seen this place somewhere before. He's sure that he's fought in a place like this before—and that hadn't ended well (though anything, he surmises, is better than this massacre). That man Irie had said something about parallel worlds before he'd died by Byakuran's hand. But that's just what traitors deserve.
Gokudera glowers at the destruction around him. That's what he deserves as well...
Maybe, just maybe, there's still a chance, he thinks. Maybe they're somehow still alive underneath the tonnes of rock. But the rational, analytical side of him scoffs at the notion. They can't still be alive. They're dead. They're all dead, and it's his fault.
He squeezes his eyes shut, taking in a shuddering breath, and steps carefully over a decomposing leg with its tendons cut and skin burnt, unable to keep his eyes on it, nor tear his gaze away. There's a solid crunch beneath his feet like the breaking of a jaw; a sort of sick snap like biting into cartilage and the crack of a man's skull caving in.
Gokudera leaps to the side, letting out a strangled cry of both disgust and surprise.
The fragments of the human skull are scattered across the bloody sidewalk. Its spine continues on until it meets the store window—only, there is no store window. There are only piles of stone, jagged metal, and still-sparking electrical wires. This unfortunate person had met their demise under tonnes of pressure and sheer crushing weight.
The back of the skull is gone, leaving trace amounts of gore smeared over the ivory surface, and a god-awful smell. There are still bit of skin and hair attached to the crown of its head, and the sunken, rotting eyes that stare at nothing. But the worst part is the unnerving grin it fixates on him—toothy and insincere.
Gokudera gags, turning away, clutching onto a large stone for balance. He inclines his head in an apologetic bow before stumbling away. A few days ago, he'd been yelling at the man to stop smiling and stop looking so fucking happy.
Or was it today? He'd been teaching him how to tie a tie, right?
...Of course not. The last time he'd seen Yamamoto Takeshi was three days ago. Two days ago, they'd received news of his death in this very city, on this very island in the middle of the Pacific.
Then, the messages and orders from the top had all been jumbled. Flights delayed, information missing, electronics acting up, people acting up... It'd been a mess.
That Turf-Top and Stupid Cow's flight had gone down on the southern half of this island—with no survivors. There is still no word from the Tenth, who's been here for the last three days, trying to negotiate with Byakuran (that bastard).
That Pineapple-bastard's cell was bombed, and there was nothing left. And that Dokuro girl disappeared as well—assumed dead, along with Hibari (indestructible as he is, he's as good as dead in any case).
A motorbike lies on its side beneath a hydro-pole. Gokudera doesn't dare approach it, for fear that the ground is charged. Electrocution doesn't seem like a good way to go. But, they didn't get to choose the method of their deaths, did they?
He glares, squinting a little at the motorcycle. Even from this distance, he can tell that it's a Harley. A Harley...
That same pang of familiarity hits him again, and he continues on his way, a little more stunned and a little more winded than before.
That's it. He must've been in this city in some other parallel world; not that he'd know about the events that took place in this same location in those alternate realities. It's got something to do with a motorbike and blood...and a sense of failure.
The city before him is no longer burning—whatever was combustible had already been burned, leaving behind only charred bones, soot and ash falling gently. There are gaping holes in the reinforced steel, and glass litters the ground.
There are scars on the pavement where flames had seared through, like lashes crisscrossing the back of a martyr. There are sections of the road that have caved in, revealing black earth and shattered pipelines—some still trickling dirt coloured sewage and blood.
Gokudera skirts the larger of these crevices, wrinkling his nose in disgust at the stench of decay, and averts his eyes when he sees a stuffed animal—a lion—fall from the sewage system, into a cradle of rubble. A child's hand is still clutching tightly onto it, torn off at the wrist.
He squeezes his eyes shut and forces himself to keep walking, to keep a lookout for someone—any form of life, be it friend or foe, would be a welcome reprieve from the horrors around him.
That's when the sky seems to collapse and descend onto him, like dark hands reaching out to him, wanting to latch onto him and pull him away, or crush him into dust, ash and powdered bone.
But he doesn't run.
He stands, watching the thing fall upon him like a hawk falls upon its prey—frozen in horror and resignation. It engulfs him in absolute darkness, a whirlwind of volcano ash and smoke, and he's standing at the epicentre—the eye of the storm.
You arrived here too late.
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They died because of you.
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You could've stopped this.
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It's entirely your fault.
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You let them down...
A chain is only as strong as its weakest link.
"That's not true!" Gokudera yells over the silent assault, more for himself to hear, than for the sake of the corpses smouldering, cooking, rotting around him. "There are many factors influencing the strength of a chain."
He breathes hard, voice growing rough with frustration and desperation. "Every..." He swallows hard, pushing blindly against the tendrils of darkness grabbing onto him. "Every," he tries again, "link... has its own strengths as well as weaknesses! You can't blame one link for the breaking of a chain!"
The hands recede as if mocking him. They resume their post in suffocating the sky, cloaking it selfishly, away from the green eyes of Gokudera.
"I thought..." he murmurs, looking up at the falling ash in the now silent city, "I thought that I could add my strength to theirs, so that we could protect the Tenth and all that's important to him... But in this parallel world, and in that parallel world, I couldn't. I wasn't strong enough to protect anyone."
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We were supposed to be invincible.
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A chain is only as strong as its weakest link...
"But I thought that teams were supposed to be alloys."
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A/N: There will be a second chapter to this, with a more optimistic end. Though, if you prefer pessimism and angst, you could consider this the ending.
Anyway this piece is part of a collection I'm creating, called Re:Idioms. They'll be in all sorts of different categories and are all based on quotes that never cease to anger me. The quote will be bolded at the beginning, and my response (in a sentence) to them will always be the bolded last line.
This is based off of the Choice Battle. I won't go into more detail so as not to give away spoilers, but if you caught all the implications and references, then that's great!
In case you didn't know, alloys are mixtures of different metals—with the intention of creating a blend that can combine the good traits of all the original 'links'. Usually the desired product is a more stable, stronger alloy.
Tell me what you think—about the story, the formatting (I've never tried this thing with the periods before). Criticism and comments are always very much appreciated! The piece in the Collection that will be published after I complete this (somewhat) two-shot will be a Hetalia one—a light USUK one-shot. So keep an eye out for that~