Title: Undiscovered Seasons
Summary: Everyone thinks Yamamoto has tamed the feared cloud guardian when they move in together. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Rating: PG13
Pairing: 1880 (Hibari/Yamamoto)
Notes: Time travel is a tricky thing and the future timeline is too pretty to let go. Will we ever see what happened TYL? Shit, this isn't happy either is it?
Disclaimer: Uh yeah, no =/
Word count: 4000+
Warning: Minor character death, implied character dying, un-betaed, all mistakes are mine.
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A month before setting his plans into motion, Sawada Tsunayoshi asks him for a private audience in his office, away from prying eyes. The talentless boy from ten years previous has grown, no longer meek and spineless, still a grass-eater though Hibari concedes, some of the toughest prey do not touch meat. But he is fairly unsympathetic to the younger man's plight. He does not bother reminding the Vongola Decimo of their hurried flight out of Italy but it must show in the twitch of his lips or the narrowing of his eyes for the man flinches as though rebuked—hardly a welcome trait in a man who is to save the world.
"What about the noisy one?" Briefly, he searches for a name. It is difficult to memorize names and faces of men whom they replace faster than toilet paper.
"Gokudera," Sawada offers hurriedly, "He would never allow it."
No, the storm guardian is blind. Too enamored with Sawada's martyred status, he forgets that the tenth head of the Vongola Famiglia is just like the rest of them, a killer. He would soon pretend that Sawada knew nothing of the brutal machinations of the world's underbelly than to admit that the sky guardian has drawn blood and drew it well. "Ryohei-sempai, Chrome and Mukuro are all needed here. Lambo is too young and Yamamoto..." is ill, lost, grieving. Hibari lets a breath escape, reminding the other man to tread very carefully. "...is yours."
It has to be you Hibari-san.
.
"I don't understand."
"What is there to understand?" Gokudera shuts his cellphone with a brisk snap, pushing a stack of papers into an unsuspecting subordinate's arms. Yamamoto weaves around the floundering man in an attempt to keep the silver-haired Mafioso within his line of sight. "The bastard never checked in!" He hauls Lambo away from where he is unsuccessfully trying to woo a harassed-looking young woman or the ornamental tree beside her; it is hard to tell when the teen's eyes are permanently hidden behind thick, black curls.
Lambo escapes with a choked whine, rubbing his throat furiously as Gokudera finally turns around to confront his tall shadow. "If he's not with you, then I know fuck about where he is right now."
"He was working?" Yamamoto asks, more puzzled than upset. "How come?"
"Everyone is working!" Gokudera swears, rubbing the grit from his eyes. He discards his cigarette when he realizes that he has bitten the filter to shreds. "Except you obviously."
Yamamoto winces at the barb. Normally, Gokudera would apologize but he is exhausted from spending the last 48 hours on his feet, a phone vacuum-sealed to his ear. He is fairly certain that the numbers are melting off the clock face. "It was a last minute thing with the Inoues. Ken was throwing a fit." He brushes his hair back with a defeated air. "We don't have the manpower to babysit everyone. Look, Hibari's tough, he probably decided to take a nap on a pile of corpses or something."
"Ah, I see." A thoughtful look settles across Yamamoto's face. "Hey, can I borrow a cigarette?"
Bristling, Gokudera growls, "Do I look like a convenience store? You can get one just like everyone else downstairs."
Yamamoto laughs as though he had expected the answer. "Aha, so mean."
"Oy, where do you think you're going? Baseball-idiot, that's not the way to the basement! You don't even know where he is! Don't be stupid!"
The answering smile is almost chilling in its brevity. "I won't."
Belatedly, Lambo makes an attempt to stop him. Gokudera pulls him back by his ear, slapping him on the back of his head when he protests.
"Che, idiot!" He snarls, though neither is sure if he is addressing the teen or the man who just left. "That's the look he had before he fucked up half the white spells in Japan."
"Oh" The lightning guardian immediately pales. When Gokudera leaves the room, he shouts in panic, "wait, where are you going?"
"Damage control."
.
Everyone thinks Yamamoto has tamed the feared cloud guardian when they move in together. But nothing could be further from the truth.
Yamamoto's father dies on a Monday evening catering to a medium crowd, chopping up boiled squid and molding rice. The assassin Byakuran sends is not particularly skilled or imaginative but smart enough to summon help when he realizes that he is way in over his head. The backup is Millefiore's then rain guardian Wu Tao. He ends both Tsuyoshi's and his subordinate's life using a grenade launcher through the open sushi bar. Fourteen additional casualties result from the attack.
When Yamamoto Takeshi hears the news, he becomes deadly quiet. At that point in time, the Vongola rings had been destroyed according to Sawada's wishes and the two low-quality rain rings on his right hand shatters, an eerie blue stealing over his eyes. He and the other guardians are in the middle of fortifying security around the half-constructed underground bunker. They would have been ready to move their families within the week.
Yamamoto's flames are uncontrolled, terrifying to behold. His rain akita, inaccessible without a high-quality ring—the former baseball star had a terrible habit of loaning them out to his subordinates—explodes outwards into something unearthly and cruel. He briskly turns heel and follows it out the door. No one thinks to stop them.
Throughout the week, the six remain guardians receive sporadic reports of their wayward teammate. Yamamoto flushes out black and white spells indiscriminately and executes them one by one, the allied groups and families of Millefiore. There are those whom he kills for their silence and those he kills as a part of his duties. None are left alive. Even his own men hesitate to approach him though he remains amicable, clean-shaven and inconspicuous against the backdrop of people, always invisible whenever he catches scent of another Vongola guardian nearby.
Gokudera gives up the chase on the fifth day of his absence and the tenth head of the Vongola family seriously contemplates asking his mist guardian in his stead. But Mukuro refuses with a belittling smile, questioning his faith in his men. The next day, they find what's left of Wu floating down Omono River. The corpse is badly scarred, mummified despite being immersed in water for the last 24 hours.
Wu Tao had only been a boy, barely older than their own lightning guardian. No one comes to claim him and the police speculate that the murder was gang-related, allowing reporters to carefully film the broken bricks he had in his pockets. Calmly, they look towards the camera and ask that any witnesses come forward.
On Sunday morning, Hibari Kyouya finds the prodigal son leaning against the fencing atop of Namimori Junior High, not unlike when he contemplated suicide nine almost ten years ago. It had rained the night before and the younger man is soaked. If there was any trace blood left on his person, it has long been washed away. The result is oddly disappointing.
For a moment, the sun at the other man's back blinds him and Hibari thinks that Yamamoto should be down at the practice pitch with his herd of herbivores, drinking dust and mimicking how his life should be. But that is only an illusion. Reality places Yamamoto back at the beginning where once upon a time, the greatest threat to his existence was a broken arm.
Kusakabe being a closet baseball fan, Hibari has followed the general outline of the rain guardian's career closer than necessary, irate that a predator like he was performing for the amusement of common sheep. But that Yamamoto, the colorful image past the screen had been alive.
"Yamamoto Takeshi, you are trespassing."
The younger man looks up at the greeting, a fresh cut on his chin. It has yet to scab over but has been scoured clean as though there is no more blood left in the other guardian's veins. Up close, Hibari can see his ruined hands, thick stripes and the soft impression where the rings shattered over the bone. "Am I?" He smiles and leans back down, shoulders jutting like twin peaks beneath his transparent shirt. "I thought the school grounds were open on weekends."
"But the school isn't."
"My mistake." Yamamoto replies blithely, "you mind?"
"If you like breathing."
"Ha, Hibari and his jokes." The younger man weaves his fingers through the wire-mesh, rattling the frame like a kick to his teeth. "Have they found him?"
"Omono River, three am last night."
"Wow that was quick."
Hibari shoots him a disapproving look.
"You should have bitten him to pieces."
He shrugs.
"Maybe I wanted him to be found."
"Fool—it isn't in our nature to be protected."
Yamamoto laughs and he laughs for a long time. When he stops, his eyes are like dark mirrors, the florescent sky skimming across the black surface. "But I feel safe." He says and Hibari looks to him sharply, warning him that he was not of such importance that the cloud guardian couldn't simply bite him to death. "I feel safe when I'm with you."
.
"So you're the one who's got all the kids in a tizzy."
A man enters the room, short but powerfully built with a five o' clock shadow and disheveled hair. He looks like he'd just been roused out of bed, a manila file in one hand and a steaming mug stuck to the other. But he sits clear-eyed in front of him, leaning back like a man of leisure, sipping his drink and barely deigning to treat Hibari like the threat he was.
"Marco Romano at your service and you are..." the man pauses expectantly and slumps in his chair when there is no answer forthcoming. "So rude! Isn't it polite to introduce oneself when they first meet?"
Hibari raises and eyebrow, a light sheen of sweat covering his forehead as he bares his teeth. There are approximately two-hundred and six bones in a human body; he will enjoy breaking them individually one by one. As though sensing his mood, the room immediately warps to accommodate, the wall lined with the innards of Inoue Ken.
Romano looks around and whistles, "Pretty picture."
"You have a mist ring." The cloud guardian stated flatly, his eyes flicking away from a smashed skull.
The man points at himself in mock surprise and holds up his hand. "What, this little thing? Just a job well done from the boss-man. Not that it really matters, I..."
"...will be the first one I bite to death." Romano grins and produced a box from inside his jacket.
"Is that right? Well then let's get started."
.
"Sir, please turn around, this is a private establishment."
"Aha, this is embarrassing but I'm actually looking for someone."
The guard looks annoyed as he walks over and in one swift move, Yamamoto turns him around, a katana at his throat, facing the rest of the security who are just beginning to stir. The man feels his knees grow weak when something brushes past his ear and settles on his head, like a cracked egg or sorbet melting in his hair. Belatedly, he recognizes the man as Vongola's rain guardian, the second swordsman. The man reputed to have killed three division leaders and scores of men several months ago.
"Now," Yamamoto says calmly, he digs the sword in deeper drawing blood. "Won't you show me the way in?"
It had taken too long already.
.
Hibari never invites Yamamoto and Yamamoto never leaves. And eventually, the man recovers like the leaves on trees. He begins to laugh at all the right places and smiles with his teeth. But it is as though a shine has been tarnished off of him, like an iron poker blackened with soot or an apple dipped in oil. Despite the many calls from herbivores and a memorable visit by the Vongola's storm guardian, Yamamoto seems content to rest in the cool interior of Hibari's private dojo, enjoying the late sunshine and the trickling wind.
Disgruntled at the sight, Hibari kicks him and watches carefully as he yawns and wakes, looking no more rested than he had the previous morning. The younger man notices the intense gaze and asks, "Something wrong?"
"Your hands."
Yamamoto obliges and wiggles his fingers, laughing, "Eh? What's wrong with them?"
Annoyed, Hibari grabs them out of the air and pulls them back. They are uneven pale from the wrist down, soft dimples marking where he had once worn his rings. He scowls when something unpleasant like electricity leaps between them, making his hair rise on end. Yamamoto takes his hands back, flexing them with ugly stiffness, his smile wan. "Oh that."
The younger man pulls his sleeve down and withdraws into himself. Hibari is starting to think that he prefers the bitter melancholy of the rooftops. "I think... we should get ready for lunch."
Hibari pins him against the floor, tonfas out. "Do not play games with me Yamamoto Takeshi."
"Haha, but aren't games fun?" One of his men wanders over, curious about the noise and performs an about-face when he sees the two guardians tangled together, very eager to get away. Yamamoto only says four words. "The other rain guardian."
Hibari lets him go.
"Wu Tao"
Dying will flames were interesting: propagation, construction, disintegration, activation, solidification, adaptation and pacification. But flames evolved as their users did, the sun flames to restoration, storm flames's destruction and the rain flame's sedation. It had long been Hibari's desire to unlock the secrets of the flames and their effects. He takes hold of one marbled hand, the faded callouses and all, brushing a thumb over the knuckles and wincing when his flames ripple out to meet the solid wall that should have been Yamamoto's chi.
"Dr. Shamal says Wu did something to block the wave energy in my arms. So my rain flames just build up and stay inside." Almost tenderly, Yamamoto stroked the side of his face, Hibari tensing at the touch the pale flesh on his skin. "I'm useless now."
Hibari stands.
"Can you hold a sword?"
"Huh?"
He repeats, "Can you hold a sword?"
Reluctantly Yamamoto nods. "Yeah"
"Do not presume. You may of some use to me yet."
.
An alarm blares unexpectedly loud in the stifling silence. Romano slouches and tips his mug over with a toe sighing, "...can't do anything right..."
"Tell me," Hibari demands quietly, licking the blood off the corner of his mouth. "Are you married?"
"Who me? What a joke, it'd be a shame if I had to settle down with just one person right? I'm sure you'd be able to relate, the Vongola Famiglia is filled with a bunch of fags anyway." Romano chuckles and slaps one knee. In an odd way, the Italian reminds him of Yamamoto who laughs at everything and nothing—can laugh at everything and nothing.
The man continues conversationally, "you could walk out right now and no one would stop you. Not the idiots guarding the doors, not the morons sitting in front of the screen because if your rain guardian can put the fear of god into them, they really don't want to know what you can do. Not even me because hey, that's above my pay grade and I'm not the type to get my hands dirty right?"
Hibari does not reply but Romano waves emphatically, "See the handcuffs on your wrist? They're not real—well your hands are of course. The restraints around your feet, this entire room? Faker than Pam Anderson's tits. Your box weapon and rings are right beside you and the door is behind me if you can't see it. I'll even open it up for you if you tell me what I want to know. I'll even ask Byakuran nicely to leave you alone in that pot hole of yours." Clasping his hands the other man asks, "Or is it that you wanted something else?"
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"You're the Vongola's rain guardian."
Yamamoto turns around with a rogue grin, a body sliding from his fingers and slumping face first between his feet. Koujiro lets out a whooping sound, too loud and piercing to be that of a passerine. But Koujiro isn't a swallow. Not now. He is something more. The tenth generation rain guardian cocks his head, trying to place the face from a jumble of memories. He was always good at recognizing faces, never with numbers, figures nor letters but he never forgot a face.
"Oh, you were there when I killed Wu."
"Yes." The man snarls victoriously at the recognition, slicing the air to reveal the metal claws stitched on the back of his gloves, a string and pulley mechanism manipulating the blades like a clever mouse trap. "And you will regret not finishing me when you had the chance."
"No." Yamamoto says in mild surprise as Koujiro flies back to him, spreading its wings to hide his face. "If you got away, it's because you were never a threat."
.
"How was Kyoto?"
"Crowded"
"Well it is the tourist season."
Hibari loosens his tie and move towards the bathhouse, never appearing as anything more than mildly disheveled to prying eyes. He slid out of his suit jacket, once again reminded of his unwanted guest when Yamamoto deftly took it from his tired hands and folded it across one arm. Grunting his thanks, Hibari mentally tallies off yet another day which the rain guardian was allowed to keep before being stopped, his tonfas out before he can really think about it.
"Woah," Yamamoto raises his hands in a placating manner. "You forgot something." Tentatively he leans forward. The pendant around the younger man's neck dangles free, nesting in the hollow of his collar bone, warming his skin. He breathes, "Okaeri".
.
"Tired, rain guardian?"
For rain attributes, the difference was largely superficial between pacification and sedation. But Yamamoto thinks that it would have been better had his opponent been Morpheus and the eyeful of sand, not this lingering curse that drains his fighting spirit, dragging at his already heavy arms. He spits to the side, leaning heavily against the wall as he holds his katana, not Shigure Kintoki for his flames, uninhibited ruins the steel too easily, the blade already too rigid to be wielded properly. His skin is starting burn, faint blue sparks crawling past the corner of his eyes in short bursts, the silver chain and the pendant around his neck burning like livewire.
He wipes at his mouth. "I'm just getting started."
His opponent surges forward, thrusting past Koujiro who dissolves harmlessly into ether. He swings broadly and Yamamoto is forced to defend, the sword biting into the other man's knuckles deep enough he can almost taste the grind of steel on bone before with a twist and a prayer, the blade snaps in two.
Yamamoto coughs, the metal claws sliding effortlessly beneath his ribs.
"Oh" The man purrs as he leans close, violet flames leeching off of him like virulent parasites. "Am I a threat now?"
Yamamoto lets go of the hilt. "Not really."
The man's eyes widen when he feels the cold press of a gun against his forehead. He barely has the chance the react and Yamamoto does not flinch when his face is awashed in blood.
After, Yamamoto falls to his knees, feeling a gush of blood flood his palms when he pulls the metal claws out from his side. He falls to the floor with all the grace of a giraffe being born, all limbs and floundering in its membranous cowl before its mother licks it free. Blood, more of it, he honestly hadn't thought his body held so much of it, spreads out beneath him like a warm carpet, better than sunlight almost and the sheen of sweat. He can't help but stare at the headless torso, his vision blurring and dispersing into million points of light.
He doesn't want this nameless stranger to be the last thing he sees.
Almost absentmindedly, he gropes the body for something useful, something that may help him find Hibari. What he finds is a damp cigarette box too wet to catch a flame. "Mind if I take a cig?" He asks the dead man as he waits for the blood to slow. It is strange how what will eventually kill him ends up saving his life now. The entire universe is in fact, strange. Yamamoto bites down on the filter, trying to see straight.
"Hibari thinks that all predators can stand alone. He's wrong; I was never that kind of a man."
.
There is a knock on the door.
Lazily, Romano calls out, "who is it?" as the door folds inward, an unfortunate man at its doorway blubbering about demons and vengeful ghosts. Hibari half expects the hounds of hell, or at least a hound, to trot in, its tongue rolling and its eyes shifting from wintry blue to pale amber depending on what frame of mind Yamamoto found himself in. But he remembers, Yamamoto will never see Jirou again.
The voice that follows is warm and friendly, it is also incredibly pissed. "Dinner for two?"
"You're late." Hibari bites off as Yamamoto enters, a gun in his right hand and a box weapon in the other.
The other man smiles and replies serenely,
"I wasn't expecting any company."
Hibari would have been more impressed with the rescue if it were not for the manic look in the other man's eyes, like the time when he spent the entire night watching recordings of the Japan series front to back or during the 2016 summer Olympics when he only left the TV to take a piss. He doesn't like the way the other man stumbles, the injured knee besides, nor the carmine of his shirt slowly blotching into the color of rust.
He can only hope that not all of it is his.
"You're hurt." Yamamoto looks entirely too upset at the discovery, completely ignoring Romano as he shuffles close, smelling like a hard fight. Hibari allows a kiss to graze his jaw before butting hard in the forehead. The younger man falls back with a whine but a pleased smile, no longer so pale.
"You have a gun."
"Yep, the kid recommended it. I can even shoot dying will flames if I run out of bullets."
There has only been one 'kid' in Yamamoto's life even when the curse broke. Briefly, Hibari clenches his hands.
"Not so fast."
Romano recovers, his ring gleaming ominous blue.
"Roll" He should have taken his weapons away when he had the chance. The hedgehog explodes from its box, unraveling to fill the entire room. Whatever defense the mist-user mounts is crushed under Hibari's attack, Roll's spikes spearing through the walls like they are made of paper.
When the dust settles, Yamamoto asks, "Finished?"
Hibari spits to the side and nods.
Yamamoto grins, "Great, let's get out of here."
.
He should have known that it was too easy.
"Heh, sorry, it's kind of like... remember that one time you went to Vladivostok and couldn't get back because you got your passport revoked..." Impatient, Hibari pats the other man down, finding half a clip of bullets, a ruined box of cigarettes, and the warm oozing spot in the middle which elicits not quite a scream but the next best thing. Hibari's hands come off bloody and wet despite Yamamoto's attempts at brushing him off, the blue flames slow to rouse even when there is nothing but flames coursing through the younger man's body at this point, gradually poisoning him until someday he will refuse to wake.
"It's okay Hibari." Yamamoto says brightly, "it doesn't hurt."
There are several strays who escaped the path of his flames. Hibari doesn't know how to hotwire a car but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to kill the owner and take the keys. Yamamoto stares sleepily from the passenger side, head lolling slightly as he held himself together from expiring on the spot. Unmindful of the red lights and cameras perched over them, Hibari tears down the highway, swearing when he finds nothing like a GPS, a phone, or even a radio in the car.
Yamamoto reaches out and catches his hands in a bloody grip.
"What?"
"...Naa Hibari."
"Spit it out."
"Okaeri"
.
"What do you want me to do?"
.
Notes: Here lies the remains of a long and tragic explanation which died because even I couldn't make heads or tails of it. In short, this fic presumes that flames can be used to hurt their users, kind of like with leukemia where (in a broad definition) the proliferation of immature or malignant cells make it impossible for the bone marrow to produce healthy ones.
For example, with Gokudera, his flames would eventually burn him inside out. With Sasagawa Ryohei, the sun flames will most likely promote rapid aging (he already has white hair). In Yamamoto's case, it will put him to sleep which becomes the catalyst for Hibari's acceptance of dame-Tsuna's overy-complicated-and-really-stupid plans.