Title: Incandescent

Rating: T (Subject to change)

Summary: When the mass evacuation of civilians from Tokyo begins, any sane person would turn heel and run like hell. So does Tsuna –but in the opposite direction. It's his family at stake here, after all. [AU]

Disclaimer: I do not own Katekyo Hitman Reborn! or Tokyo Ghoul

Warning: This story may not be compliant to the events of Tokyo Ghoul:re.


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There is no light. Only darkness.

No light ever reaches its way into these cells, where it's damp and cold and so utterly, utterly dark. There is no wind, no breeze. The air is stagnant and stale and thick with the scent of helplessness, twined with threads of fear. Somewhere in the distance there is the drip-drip-drip of water droplets splashing against the ground almost rhythmically, hypnotically, and the sound burns the sandpaper texture of their parched throats.

The human eye will see nothing here in this absolute darkness, but they are not humans. They see the essence of the darkness itself.

Maybe it's fitting, in a way? Fitting, that monsters should be locked away and kept in cages like beasts?

… If only it were the right monsters locked away in here.

How long has it been?

He doesn't know.

Days. Weeks. Months. Days blending into weeks flowing into months? Months spinning into weeks condensing into days?

It's hard, to mark the passage of time in these cells. Stone prisons blocked with rusted iron bars, where there is nothing but darkness. It's hard to keep track of the seconds trickling into minutes pooling into hours. It's hard, so very hard, to keep all the fear and worry and anxiety at bay.

It's hard.

There are no news of the world outside.

(What happened to Kaneki-san? How is he doing? Does he know what happened to us? Will we ever escape? Is there anyone who will save us?)

Hope is fragile. It slips through their fingers like thin quicksand.

Despair is strong. It chains down their hands and feet like heavy manacles.

It's hard, trying to keep being optimistic when the future ahead of them is so very bleak, but he tries. Does his best to keep marching onward with his head held high. It's all he can do at this point.

(It's all he has ever been able to do.)

"Banjou-san?"

He's trying, he's really trying.

(But he can't, he's not meant for this. Banjou is not cut out to be a leader. He can't… he can't fight, not like Kaneki-san can. He can't protect anyone the way they need to be protected, and it gnaws at him, this helplessness. His helplessness.)

Banjou tries to smile.

"What is it, Jiro?"

A small hesitation on the younger man's behalf, before the soft tenor whispered again in the darkness.

"Kei and Kouto, are they… do you think… is there any way that…?"

Kei. A beautiful woman with a beautiful smile. Kouto. A young boy with a shy gaze but a warm heart. Kei, and Kouto. Two of the gentler souls of this ragtag group.

Kei, and Kouto. Mother, and son.

Both of whom had been dragged out of the cell by their damned jailer Yamori god-knows-how-long ago. Both of whom had never been seen again since that moment. His jaw still ached from where he'd been punched in the face when he tried grabbing onto them, desperately trying to keep them with him, because…

… because being taken away by the twisted, sadistic Yamori was the equivalent of a death sentence.

(Poor, poor Kaneki-san. He didn't deserve to give up his life in vain for them. Poor Kei. Poor Kouto.)

"… I'm sorry for asking, Banjou-san."

No. No, he should be the one saying that. He should be the one apologizing.

Sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I can't do anything to save anyone. I'm sorry for being so useless. I'm sorry for being so weak.

I deserve this.

I deserve to be locked away and thrown into darkness, to suffer for failing all of you.

But…

But none of you deserve to be here.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry.

I'm sorry I can't protect you.

(In the darkness, there is no light. There is nothing to look forward to but the insidious promise of pain and death.)

A little yellow bird chirps outside the dilapidated building, ruffles its feathers, and spreads its wings to fly away.


It started out innocently enough: a man casually striding down the aisle.

(Of course it would be too much to hope that everything would go off without a hitch. But then again, if something did start off perfectly smoothly, that would only mean that there was an even greater catastrophe of epic proportions waiting up ahead. So maybe in hindsight, this was a good thing?)

The train was fairly empty. Unsurprising, considering that the final destination was Tokyo –even though the train had various stops along the way to the capital city, there weren't very many people willing to travel anywhere near Tokyo these days, not even for business ventures. Evacuation meant evacuation; most were all but tripping over themselves in their haste to escape the city-impending-battleground of the CCG preparing for open confrontation against ghouls.

(It was a little strange, when you stopped and took a moment to think about it. The CCG had always fought ghouls, but direct conflict on the scale that this suggested seemed… off, considering the 'quiet' strategies that they usually employed to keep their inhuman neighbors in check.)

"Juudaime."

Tsuna gave an imperceptible shake of his head in response to Gokudera's near-inaudible whisper. The silver-haired young man subsided, sliding back into a boneless, lax position in his seat again as the tall man walking down the aisle passed them without any fanfare.

Yamamoto appeared wholly unconcerned on the surface as well, but to anyone who knew the swordsman, the coil of tension threading its way under his skin was obvious.

Because.

Because the man who just passed them hadn't been a simple passenger. Couldn't be. He moved like a predator and all but glided over the ground, but more importantly–

He reeked of antiseptics.

… And why would anyone take the time to clean themselves so thoroughly like that if they didn't have something to hide?

A few moments later, Gokudera slid out of his seat, casually heading towards the bathroom where the suspicious man had emerged from earlier.

"The train seems to be running a bit slow, Tsuna," Yamamoto commented offhandedly, smile oblivious but eyes sharp. "We should've reached Yokosuka half an hour ago. At this rate, it's going to take forever and a day before we reach our final destination."

Restlessness. He could see it coiled in the other passengers scattered throughout the same train compartment as them. There were eight stops total along the route that this train was taking, and so far there had only been three. The fourth stop was Yokosuka, but the time lapse had been unusually long…

And the train was still showing no signs of stopping anytime soon.

Tsuna tapped his fingers along the edge of the armrest, mind awhirl in thought at the possible implications.

Could it be…?

"Bad news, Juudaime," A moment later, Gokudera slipped back into his seat, having returned from his brief, impromptu investigation. "It's all neat and tidy there, and the bastard even put in an air freshener. He wasn't careful enough, though. I looked in the trash bin too, and this is part of what was left behind."

Small, thin, white. Tsuna recognized it almost immediately for what it was as Gokudera presented it to him: Bone.

Bone.

The brunet felt his blood run cold at seeing the undeniable proof of what he suspected in front of him, "… That's a finger, isn't it?"

"Used to be, at any rate." There was a dark look on his Storm Guardian's face. "Juudaime, this isn't good. If that guy is brazen enough to leave around obvious signs like this… it means that he feels comfortable and at ease here. He obviously considers it unlikely, but he's not afraid of anyone finding out what he is. There's no caution to his actions, no fear of being caught. That means that this train is his territory. Not only that, but it's likely that there are more of his kind lurking about here."

… It was a good thing that they had the foresight to choose a sparser corner on the train to sit in. Their voices were low and quiet, suppressed so that no eavesdroppers would be able to listen in on their words, but any snippet of a conversation like this one would be enough to induce panic on the train.

The train.

The train, which… still wasn't stopping.

The train whose final destination was Tokyo.

… Maybe…?

Ghouls. The man was a ghoul, and it was likely that he had multiple accomplices along with him on this train. Some kind of organization, then. Maybe they belonged to the mysterious ghoul organization that had been mentioned in the news? Whatever the case, if there were ghouls on a train headed to Tokyo and the train wasn't stopping… it didn't bode well. There weren't very many people on the train in the first place, several passengers having already left on the earlier stops. The closer to Tokyo, the lesser the number of passengers who remained on the train.

Who would notice the disappearance of only a few people, particularly in such close proximity to ghoul-active Tokyo?

(And who would ever think of ghouls being able to hijack a train?)

Gokudera and Yamamoto had obviously arrived at similar conclusions, judging from the looks they exchanged with each other. Tsuna turned to his left where Reborn was sitting, opening his mouth to ask–

His eye twitched.

Oh, he recognized that glazed-over look, alright. Reborn was sleeping with his eyes open again, wasn't he?

Exasperation tinged with an edge of fondness, Tsuna spun around again to confer with Gokudera and Yamamoto on their next course of action. He also firmly told himself this had absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Reborn had no qualms shooting anyone who dared to disturb him while he was sleeping.

(Sometimes, the hitman could be as violent as Hibari when disrupted in his slumber.)

That was when the message came.

"Attention all passengers. Attention all– oh, screw it."

Was it strange, that when the announcement sounded over the speakers, Tsuna's first instinct hadn't been fear for what these words foreboded –but fear of Reborn being woken up by the racket instead?

(Priorities, priorities.)

"Listen up, if anyone else tries asking when the next stop is gonna be again, I'm just gonna get ta slaughtering y'all on the spot. Y'hear me? Fuckin' annoying meat bags. Final stop is gonna be in Ota. Yeah, ya heard me right. Ota. Now if ya wanna live longer, pipe down an' shut up, got it?"

(Whew. Reborn was still sleeping. At least, it seemed like he was. One could never quite tell these things with Reborn…)

"What do you think, Juudaime?" Gokudera growled under his breath, "Want me to go and–"

Oh.

Oh.

Tsuna blanched as his mind caught up with Gokudera's suggestion.

"No, no, no! P-Please don't go around blowing everything up again! We're supposed to be undercover!"

The silver-haired teen looked alarmingly disappointed at Tsuna's panicked verdict, and Yamamoto just laughed.

"… If you say so, Juudaime." Gokudera crossed his arms, slumping down in his seat again. "Tch. Bastards, thinking they can use the Juudaime as a hostage–"

I'm not the only person on this train! And I doubt they even know who I am!

"Maa, maa. Calm down, Gokudera." Yamamoto slung an arm over the Storm Guardian's shoulders, effortlessly ignoring the dark glower that was sent his way with the ease of long practice. "It's not like this is all such a bad thing, y'know? If they're taking us directly into Ota like they said, then that saves us the trouble of having to circumvent the CCG barricade that's been set up around the city. Plus, Ota is the name of the 11th ward, isn't it? Weren't we going to swing by that ward at some point, anyways?"

Gokudera's scowl deepened.

"And the fact that we're going to be taken there by man-eating ghouls doesn't strike you as anything to be wary of?"

"Well…" Yamamoto allowed, conceding the point. "… Still, it's nothing that we can't handle, right? Ghouls burn just as easily as any other being does."

A reference to Dying Will flames.

Reborn had made sure they knew that Dying Will flames would be effective against ghouls earlier, before they had set out for Tokyo. When asked about how he knew…

"… I'm the Greatest Hitman in the World, Dame-Tsuna. I've crossed paths with ghouls before, and none of them have ever used Dying Will flames like we do. Hibari aside, of course, but he's a… unique case, all things considered. What you have to watch out for when you fight ghouls are their kagune."

Kagune.

Just like how tigers had their fangs and claws, ghouls also had their own biological weapons used to fight and catch prey with. Tsuna had seen various footages of ghouls before, from the recordings that the CCG had seen fit to release to the public of battles between their investigators and ghouls, and he had seen those fleshy structures that sprouted from their backs. Some were feather-like and resembled wings, while others were hard as steel in a mimicry of blades.

All of them were deadly.

"There are four different types of kagune, each with different attributes, based on where the kakuhou organ is located on a ghoul's back. The kakuhou is what we call the sac-like organ inside their body, from which the kagune –what you see manifested externally– is formed."

The CCG had made use of the kagune of ghouls they defeated, removing the kakuhou from the body before fashioning it into weapons to be used against other ghouls.

Similar to how fangs were taken from the jaws of beasts and sharpened into spear-points to be used in battle.

(Ghouls were predators, and humans were their natural prey.)

"The CCG calls these weapons that they make from ghouls 'quinques.' They're effective against fighting ghouls, yes, but so are flames." Reborn glanced down at them from where he had been polishing his gun, "Not everyone can unlock the potential to use Dying Will flames, but put a quinque into anyone's hands and they can immediately swing it around like a butcher. Honestly, the CCG doesn't have enough investigators with… finesse."

Here the hitman gave a rather disdainful sniff, and Tsuna shook his head silently.

(Elitist.)

The prospect of having to face ghouls in battle was one that Tsuna had been well-prepared for upon making the decision to go to Tokyo to search for Ryohei and Kyoko (and to find his wayward Cloud Guardian, too, while he was at it. Preferably before Mukuro was able to return to Japan from Italy. Or Lambo, for that matter. Hopefully Chrome would delay them like he'd begged her to in his letter?). However, it didn't change the fact that it wasn't exactly something that he was looking forward to.

(Ripped-open bodies and torn flesh and blood dripping everywhere–)

Tsuna was confident that they would be able to fight ghouls. He was not, however, entirely confident that they would come out of the encounter relatively unscathed and whole.

Throw a punch, and anyone's instinct would be to dodge. Throw a punch at a ghoul, and what if the ghoul's reaction was to bite of your hand? Ghouls looked human enough that it would be easy to forget what they were, kagune sprouting from their backs or not.

"Stop thinking so much, Tsuna." Yamamoto nudged his shoulder and grinned cheerfully. "You'll get wrinkles if you're always worrying like that. Just relax. We'll be fine."

Tsuna sighed, before giving his Rain Guardian a small smile. Yamamoto had always been uncannily perceptive.

"We'll wait for now." The train announcement earlier had finally seemed to sink into the other passengers' minds, and the train was in a bit of an uproar at the moment. Some were even desperately throwing themselves against the windows in an effort to break free –except, as it turned out, the windows hadn't just been draperies drawn closed in front of glass.

They were draperies drawn closed in front of steel bars sliding down to lock them all inside.

Pandemonium.

Panic.

Tsuna could feel his heart thumping in his chest as well, but… his mind was still calm. Centered. Focused.

Even if Gokudera and Yamamoto were getting into another argument again (why), and Reborn was still sleeping through this entire mess (how), it didn't change the fact that he had his family with him.

And for Tsuna, that was enough.


A small yellow bird landed on a pale, bloodstained finger, chirping merrily.


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Author's Notes:

A few questions that were raised by reviews in the last chapter:

1: Are there going to be any pairings?

No. This fic is going to be gen, for the most part. (Unless there are mentions of pairings like LalxColonello, and I might hint at some ToukaxKaneki –admit it, we all saw that coming along in the manga. xD)

2: How strong is Tsuna in comparison to ghouls?

Well, we'll be finding that out soon, won't we? ;3 I'm going to do my best to make this believable. Tsuna isn't going to be completely OP, but he isn't going to crumple after a single punch or anything.

In the train ride, Reborn didn't say anything NOT because he was really asleep, but because he was letting Tsuna and his Guardians handle things on their own. To Reborn, this little operation is another learning opportunity for Tsuna. (Demon-tutor-for-life!Reborn xD)

The snippet at the beginning with Banjou is kind of a clarification of the timeline, putting into perspective what we know of the events in Tokyo Ghoul with what's currently happening in the story here. Plus, Banjou. I've always felt a little sorry for that guy. = = And to think that he had a crush on Rize

We should be getting into Tsuna and the others arriving in Tokyo in the next chapter. :3 Anyone looking forward to that? Any predictions for what will happen?

ALSO: Figured I'd stick a note here. Please disregard the sequel in terms of reading this story. There's all of, what, five chapters of Tokyo Ghoul:re currently posted right now? This story is written by taking liberties with only the Tokyo Ghoul manga, so it's entirely possible that there will be contradictions here in relation to the sequel as more chapters come out in the future. As far as I'm concerned in terms of Incandescent, the sequel doesn't exist. xD

Glad to see that there are people interested in Incandescent, though. I really appreciate everyone who took the time to drop a note last time, especially considering how there are only, what, four stories total in the KHR/Tokyo Ghoul crossover section of the archives.

QUESTION: Any guesses for what Hibari is up to? :D

Also, I have a poll up for my stories. If you'd like to see Incandescent be updated sooner, head over and vote. :3 I'm not promising anything here, but I will do my best to make more of an effort on whichever story(ies) people seem to be more interested in.

Till next time, everyone. :3 Please review!

-XxZuiliu