Disclaimer: Amano-sensei owns these lovely characters though I can't personally help but feel that they're being wasted. Hello?! Mafia?! What's the point of being a mafia then?! Why not make everyone a part of some shounen-crime fighting team?!! -cough- sorry 'bout that.
Summary: Time is running out for the Vongola's Rain Guardian. Still, among them are those who still believe...
A.N.: Yes, the long-awaited (hah) chapter is here and I lied, I'm sorry, only by a technicality though. An epilogue is on the way so... you're not quite finished here yet. –ties everyone down for the next three months- (just kidding, I think... o.o;;) You're always welcome to ask about the insane schematics and theories at the end :)
Warnings: Gokudera and Squalo's tongues? Un-betaed but hey, at least I didn't mess up Genkishi's name this time?
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Chaerring Trinity – sorry I missed you last time but hopefully the two chapters since has cleared things up... maybe not... thanks for the review!
marinamer – Thanks, hopefully this chapter was up to your expectations :D
the e t e r n a l -STORY – And sadly, we just seem to like to watch him suffer in pain –guilt, guilt!!-
KusajishiFuktaicho – Tsuna is alive (just wait till I get him in another oneshot :P) for now... just like in the manga... just for now. And I totally get you with the whole fav thing? Okay I have a 100 views on my counter and maybe there are a few favs thrown in. Where are the reviews? _
And yeah, I forgot to reply to everyone's review last time -cough- IrealizedafterIuploadedandwastoolazytogobackandchangeitwhichisprobablywhymychaptersareriddledwithspellingmistakesandgrammarmistakescoughcoughcough...
No it's not your memory you should be worried about, it's mine :C
Oh and anyone got spare candy corn? I didn't get any this year :/
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Requiem for a Lullaby
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"...where are we?"
The figure at the door hesitated.
"Don't worry Takeshi, we're safe."
What a sweet like it had been...
-x-
Yamamoto's body convulsed beneath Reborn's hands. The yellow Alcobaleno swore, pressed his knuckles against his forehead as pain hit him again and he cursed, trying to find where his fingers were in the dizzy whirlpool of colors. Behind him, Lambo apologized profusely, tears and snot running down his face. Yamamoto Tsuyoshi brushed his son's hair from his face and tilted is head back; gently tugging at the younger's tongue so that he wouldn't accidentally choke on it. When the comatose swordsman bit down hard on the older man's thumb, the man barely winced.
Tsuna squeezed the younger Yamamoto's hand, head bowed and thinking hard about something.
"The flames are gone," he whispered furiously to himself. "The illusions... but your father's still alive." His hazel eyes lit with sudden realization. He pushed Reborn away and cupped his Rain Guardian's face.
"The illusions are gone Yamamoto! Yamamoto!!"
-x-
The 2nd Swords Emperor made an impromptu landing behind the Vongola's Mist Guardian. The girl squeaked, immediately stammering out a string of letters that was acceptable as his name. He flung his wet hair back, uncaring if it hit the one-eyed girl. His heavy rain shark expelled the air around its gills and its bloodied mouth as a pseudo-roar, terrorizing the men around it as it promptly tore one in two. Belatedly perhaps, the assassin plugged a small earpiece into his ear and frowned, his eyes narrowing. Chrome stepped closer, as though to hear some news for her earpiece had broken down halfway during the battles. With her trident—more thinly crafted than that of her mentor's—she killed the bluebells blossoming at their feet. Her facial expression grew grave as the silver-haired man relayed to her what they had all feared—
—It was a set up
-x-
Hibari spat sideways, tasting salt—so different from bitter metals—in his mouth and not liking it at all. Mukuro began to laugh, his eyes glowing. It was a strategy used against those that didn't know the notorious Vongola mist-attribute very well. Certainly the dark flames and the ruby orb rolling in the right socket created a terrifying scene for the Funeral Wreath pinned under his trident. But the former prefect's last move had cancelled out all existing flames and the weapon was no longer as solid as it should have been. And the girl herself, still fluid in her movements, able even to slip past the fork-like prongs, was pinned not long under the illusionist's grasp. The thin column of her neck burst like a bubble in his hand as she giggled, leaving trace foam on his skin as she slithered underfoot homing in on the 10th Vongola.
Crows this time—began to peck at the stream of water. When that didn't stop the rain-attribute, Lambo let the electric current flow down from his horns to where the wet spots were, effectively electrocuting them all. It was a precarious situation, one created by the fact that Hibari expected his hedgehogs to be able to block all flames within the sphere. Instead, the box-animals had merely consumed it, aggravating Hibari's condition by simultaneously suppressing and feeding him wave-energies—something was wrong.
"Oya... this is not exactly what I expected." Mukuro said almost idly as he eyed the Vongola being guarded by a teenager, a dying Arcobaleno and a swordsman past his prime respectively. Out of the three, only the Thunder Guardian had the means of hurting the rain-attribute directly. Out of all three, only Reborn had an actual projectile weapon—Yamamoto Tsuyoshi was unarmed. "How is it that a one little girl is causing us so much trouble?" The mist-attribute turned his focus back to the former prefect as he gritted out,
"It matters little; I will bite her to death."
It would have been more impressive had he not chosen that moment to press the back of his hand to his lips. He coughed and blood guzzled out. The now-useless set of box and rings tumbled out of his limp fingers and dabbed the cold, white floor in reds. The entire structure seemed to shudder but the former prefect did not notice.
"You can try," Bluebell taunted, giggling wildly. "But I'm a rain-attribute." She leaned in close to Mukuro's face, the illusionist drowning in her shallow mounds. She threw Hibari a saucy grin and whispered into the mist-attribute's ear as though sharing a secret deep in her soul. "We're closer to the sky than you'll ever know."
-x-
Mukuro was there, wearied, the debonair air gone from him.
"You lie; you feign ignorance to protect your family. But do you really...? Can you really describe this as protecting them?"
Yamamoto sighed, his breath a thin film of mist clinging to the air.
"I don't want to fight."
"It's in your nature to fight."
"Doesn't mean I want to."
"Why not?"
"Because I'm scared!" Yamamoto lashed out, and his anger and terror became a sword that struck against neck. Blood spilled down the pale column but the illusionist did not seem to mind and drew the man close when he leaned forward. The Rain Guardian shuddered, uncertain, afraid. The sword was gently pried from his hand; it was never a sword in the first place. There had been no meaning behind it other than to drive Mukuro away. "I'm afraid that it won't be enough. What if this time I'm not enough?"
The mist-attribute took Yamamoto's face into his hands and kissed him near the edge of his brow—not as lovers, though there might have been such romps in the past, but as friends who knew each other very well. It was chaste and sweet, a simple greeting between friends. It was an encouragement coaxing a smile back into the pale face that had been asleep for too long. The lines in Mukuro's eye faded as he brought their foreheads together. Yamamoto began to hum, eyes glazed, haunting, loving, soothing.
"You will be."
"Sometimes I wish I could be like your birds."
What stood in front of him was a boy but with words like no other. Mukuro's finger trailed down and gripped the child's chin firmly, unmarred and smooth like it had been 3 years ago. Yamamoto merely stared at him with weary eyes, too tired to escape as he did before; too exhausted to do much but to listen—too late for anything.
"The Cloud Guardian has set up his sphere to buy us time, but you already know..."
"...To be called upon when they're needed and the rest of the time in oblivion."
"...that he will not last."
The eyes were the color of rain, and wet. It was strange, such a cheerful, optimistic creature in real life, so many sorrows in his heart. Mukuro knelt, one knee bent beneath him. "Will you help us now?"
"How?"
Indeed, the physical damage had not been faked. The bullets were still in his body, piercing new places every day. Mukuro no longer had the strength to spare in order to keep them in place. It would have to be fast, it would be dirty, and it would be painful.
"A deal." He drawled out calmly, grasping a sinewy wrist when the boy looked as though he would bolt. "...I will help you and in return..." He lunged forwards, capturing the boy's mouth. Garbled words passed through them and Yamamoto's lips stretched thin and grew dry. A rueful laughter as they began to evaporate, indigo flames flaring at their feet. It wasn't their—Yamamoto—not exactly, but it was a start in the right direction at last and if anything, it wasn't an excellent substitute after the long drought.
-x-
Mukuro's body exploded into clouds of feathers. Bluebell shrieked as the delicate tendrils floated all around and touched her in places she couldn't fend them off of. Hibari took the opportunity to engage her, knocking her about in her state of confusion. He wiped his mouth free of blood, blue eyes narrowed dangerously as he abandoned one of his tonfa in favor of shoving his hand into her ribs. Her eyes widened in mute shock before distorting to that of rage. She began to change colors—could water really change color? In this place where their source of light was their inner flames, being channeled through the pointed walls...—a shade of peach as pale as her skin. Hibari threw her off, snarling as they circled each other again, waiting for that one break in their armor defense.
"We're going to die." Lambo said faintly and privately Tsuna couldn't help but agree. Hibari wasn't a regular sparring mate of his, that role fell to Yamamoto and the few brave—and idiotic enough—to take the challenge. While shattering the regular cloud sphere had become a little more than a distracting chore for them in their selective battles, its reverse form was something rarely revealed to anyone that would live to tell about it. Unfortunately for all of them, it looked like they were all selected to be the part of the not-living group.
"Takeshi?" the older Yamamoto gasped breathlessly clutching at his only son's limp hand.
"Yamamoto?"
'Yamamoto' opened his eyes. His right eye immediately teared up with a trickle of red down his cheeks.
"You're almost right Vongola."
-x-
'Takeshi?'
"Yamamoto?!"
"YAMAMOTO!!"
It was like swimming through tar. The colors inside the sphere were too bold, each individual hue screaming at his eyes, struggling to be seen. He closed his eyes in reflex but they didn't go away, his right eye remained open, courtesy of one mist-attribute.
'We need to get out of here.' Yamamoto thought muzzily, unsure if his thoughts were vague because of the lack of air or because he had just woken up. There was a taste of blood on his tongue—did he bite when he awoke? He grasped at the air, numb, unable to feel any physical sensations. 'Maybe I'm just stupid.'
He realized that he had spoken the last sentiment out loud. Tsuna slapped him rather sharply, apology in undertone but screaming frantically.
"You're not stupid!"
'Oh'
"Don't cry Tsuna," he said, trying to form words in his mouth. "Don't..."
He needed to get up but strangely his limbs were jelly, this had all been so much easier inside his head. The inside of his head was simple, but the outside was real. That's why he was outside wasn't it? His head was starting to hurt again as he made another attempt to get up.
"This was your great idea at escape?" Hibari snarled, backed against the wall, a stream of red steadily dripping down from his chin. "Creating another weakness?!"
Then the pain in his temple flared as he got to his knees, lips twitching into a serene smile.
"There is another in here; you can smell him can't you?"
It was odd, being awake while having someone else control his bodily functions. He heard himself say the words to Hibari, but it really wasn't him was it? It was Mukuro. He felt disjointed and began to shake, the beginnings of a meltdown. His arms crept around his shoulders, trying to sooth him the best they could. He frothed at the mouth, bile rising from his throat. The former prefect raised a skeptical eye, kicking Lambo forward to face Bluebell for now.
"Go after him." Mukuro said again, arms still askew around his torso. He turned towards the others, eyes half-mast, the right eye turning vivid red with the bleeding. The smile on his face was wrong, he would have never been able to describe the chilling sensation spiraling down his spine but he would have said—the smile was wrong. That wasn't his... it wasn't Takeshi's smile. "And we... will take care of the rest."
"How?"
The tonfas were already drawn, cruel blue eyes scanning the sphere for a possible hiding place.
"How he/we/I usually do it."
Hibari whipped around,
"You..!"
-x-
"Where's the fucking helicopter?!" Gokudera tried to holler over the shrieks of panicked patients. Immediately, his subordinates threw him an earpiece undamaged by the string of dynamite blasts he had set up near the south wall. They now had a clear view of the battle ground but wouldn't be noticed by the outside. Fortunately, it looked as though things were wrapping up and the aerial escape wouldn't be necessary. Unfortunately, this was Millefiore gunning for their 10th head of the family. As the right hand of the Vongola, Gokudera couldn't afford to disregard any possibilities.
"We -bzzt- lost contact with Echo-4."
"-bzzt- see smoke!"
Gokudera flung the earpiece away, hitting some random storm attribute riding on his attribute flames before alighting his dynamite sticks with the fizzling end of his cigarette.
"Fucking useless...!"
The men ducked before him as the explosion rocked the air. Unruffled, even through the force of the blast, Gokudera commanded,
"Get these people out of here!"
He caught a random rain-attribute on the way, what was his name... his name was unimportant he decided as he began to drag the man along. "You're coming with me."
-x-
"That doesn't even hurt anymore you stupid, stupid brat!" Bluebell roared in rage, green lightning arcing all over the surface of her back, solidifying her, making her more susceptible to his attack. Other than her ability to transform, she really didn't have much fighting capabilities. With her box weaponry out of commission thanks to the Vongola's Cloud Guardian, her only weapon were the bodily flames she produced and quite possibly her teeth.
Which what scared Lambo the most when she came one too many centimeters too close to the sensitive area of his crotch.
"Boss... I can't hold her back any longer!!!"
Mukuro-Yamamoto were still recovering, trying to synchronize themselves to the point where they wouldn't puke all over the Rain Guardian's body. Yamamoto Tsuyoshi hovered over them, feeling powerless. Reborn laid at their feet, his breathing shallow, batting away Tsuna's administrations as foolish whims of his former student.
Yamamoto stopped the urge to puke as his vision divided into fours again. It felt as though he actually had four eyes pointed towards different directions.
"Dad?" Takeshi whimpered, nausea rolling off of him in waves. He sought out his father's weathered hand and held it tight. It was warm, so warm and comforting that he nearly sighed in relief. "Dad, dad..." And his father was whole, wasn't that nice, he hadn't died the moment Mukuro had internally extinguished the mist flames burning low in his stomach. "Dad..." he fell to his knees, only vaguely aware of the fighting, the shouting, the father beside him. "Need Koujiro."
'What are you doing? The different flames may burn here but you cannot open a box in this sphere.'
"It's alright Tsuna. The sphere? I can break it open."
Takeshi nearly laughed as wordlessly, the rain-patterned box was pressed into his hands. He wondered if he wasn't as alright as he thought when he accepted mist-attribute's deal. He tried to smile the usual friendly, dopey, sunny smile at his childhood friend and wonder what it looked like from the other side. Using other's as support he got up, his hospital gown damp and sticking to his skin.
His nose bled and the blood slipped into his mouth. He took one step forward, the box splintering in his hands.
'Do you believe me? trust me? care about me? know me?'
A flood of thoughts, Mukuro could barely begin to process them all as the body moved, slow, but faster than it should have been able to as the swallow's box broke apart.
Yamamoto Takeshi could not open a box but if the box was broken, the creature, the weapon inside could not return.
The illusionist gripped his legs and began to run faster.
-x-
Mercilessly, Hibari drove his tonfa into the side of the swordsman's head. The blow did not connect but the concussive inertia did more than to glance off of his ears. His brief disguise broken Genkishi defended himself with the two of his four blades. The Cloud Guardian had found the uninvited guest at last, the reason for the sudden instability in his sphere. Furious with the interruption of his plans, not even the prospect of fighting Millefiore's supposed 'greatest' placating him in the least, he stuck the tonfa between the two swords and sent the Mist Guardian flying with a single kick. Hibari spat off to the side, unbecoming of him he supposed, but too infuriated to care.
The not-quite-herbivore was planning that route of escape again. He absolutely despised that escape plan. It gave the cloud hedgehogs bloat which in turn made him feel as though he had swallowed watermelons times a several times.
"You're the Vongola's Cloud Guardian aren't..."
Another blow struck and an expression of uncertainty blooming on the other man's face from the ire directed at him.
"I belong to no one." Hibari informed him shortly, giving Genkishi enough of a breather to abandon his dented swords and pick up another pair. "You will do well to remember it."
-x-
Ingenious really, how the reversed spike ball was actually set up. The surface of the flames actually absorbed all attributed flames both foreign and familiar to feed itself and propagate and defend to whatever levels Hibari deemed necessary. This meant that under usual circumstances all flames would be damped in exacerbating conditions where air supply dwindled by the second. The reverse-sphere was designed only to reopen when there was (usually Hibari) one remaining body of flame. The opponent would either have to defeat Hibari (an impossible task) or trick the sphere into thinking that there was only one flame left. Or as the Rain Guardian had the fortune of figuring out, he could overload the system by 'bloating' the hedgehogs. Yamamoto forgot where he had learned this, or if he had learned it at all. Reborn had once called him a natural born hitman—so perhaps he had known all along.
It wasn't the safest method of escaping Hibari's wrath; it usually made the former prefect queasy afterwards and hell on those all around him. And it wasn't as though everyone had the store of flames necessary to break apart a cloud box-weapon.
'Neither do you.'
Koujiro screeched, taking to the air even before the splinters of his former home had time to settle on the ground. The swallow looked different without the flames. Oddly enough he looked larger; the angled wing wider, the forked tail longer. Even without a direct order from his keeper, the swallow, flew true like an arrow, into Bluebell's face.
The Bovino heir rolled away instinctively, electricity crackling at his horns even as Yamamoto's swallow drove the female rain-attribute against the spiked walls. The girl was solid now, a victim to Lambo's elettrico cornata. The attack wasn't doused with lightning-attribute flames as it normally should have been, but the paralysis was the same, the girl wasn't anymore immune for being liquid.
She sobbed hysterically at the bird, ordering it to stop, many blue-black feathers littering the floor. Then suddenly the bird stopped, its dark eyes assessing her critically as a hawk might to its prey. It folded its wings then stretched them out wide, preening the long shafts torn from its primaries. Below the bird was a hand, connected to her left breast, pierced through by the cloud hedgehog's needle.
Her form rippled as did the sphere, inwardly shuddering as she began to foam at his mouth, her body and his blood mingling, the bird unperturbed and singing, the man behind his wing sadly smiling, the rolling red eye sneering.
Then she was falling, forward and the man beneath her. His hand still on her, on top of her box of carnage, which was broken now and wouldn't Byakuran be so angry when he heard of it. Still... her blue eyes slipped to a close, wasn't he so warm—so real, so solid?—this Rain Guardian of theirs? Wasn't it...
-x-
Gokudera had gotten last of the patients out of the third floor when the box animal twisted. Which was a feat in itself because the box animal was massive and round and any twisting going on should have been impossible to see but the ball was warping, compressing down on itself as though it hadn't swallowed more than half a dozen people inside.
"Get ready to use your flames to stall them understand?" Gokudera snarled at the rain-attribute.
"Yessir." The man cringed visibly, a marked difference between him and a certain baseball-idiot.
Then with a sigh, the cloud hedgehog resumed its usual form and remained floating in midair, occasionally licking its noticeably round stomach.
"Tenth!!"
-x-
Yamamoto Tsuyoshi had a gun.
The bullets curved in their trajectory. It was something that Yamamoto Tsuyoshi did with the gun, the easy flick of his wrist even Reborn would be hard-pressed to match. The bullet hit the wall, the fragments ricocheting off of the oddly beautiful cloud-attribute under Millefiore's command. He looked conflicted at the bedraggled group of men crouching before him, injured yes but ready to attack if needed to.
"I think..." he said at last, "that we will withdraw for today."
With a final slam of his sword, Genkishi backed off, his sword sporting a debilitating crack down the middle.
"What?! This is an opportunity, how dare you call yourself one of Byakuran-sama's..."
"Genkishi," the man spoke piercingly, "Byakuran-sama wishes our return."
The swordsman flinched.
"And I do believe you have something that belongs to us Vongola...?"
"Kikyou?" Bluebell whimpered to the green-haired man. "I'm sorry..."
The Funeral Wreath's face creased in concern for the girl. He stepped easily, confidently towards her, simply raising a hand when the slight hiss signaled that the Vongola's Storm Guardian had lighted another bomb.
The cloud-attribute gently lifted the girl from the prone Rain Guardian, nothing that her box of carnage had been pierced through. He glanced down at the swordsman who, he noticed for the first time, was awake.
"Were you the one who did this?"
The rain guardian's eye flickered—one dark honey and the other red. When he spoke, he didn't speak as though a normal person would speak though judging by the damaged they've all incurred, none of them were on par with normality.
"And if I was?"
Yamamoto smiled and inwardly Kikyou shuddered with the promised horrors should the cloud-attribute not choose his next words very carefully.
"Get away from him."
The tenth head of the Vongola was young and if Byakuran's powers were anything to go by—weak. Indeed, it seemed as though all of his guardians did the heavy lifting for him. But these powerful men and women went out of their way to personally serve the young brunette. It was best to be cautious.
"Peace Vongola, I have no intentions towards him." He stared back at the Rain Guardian before moving. "Come Genkishi, we're leaving."
Yamamoto chuckled quietly at this and was joined by Mukuro's odd laughter. When the last traces of Millefiore had gone, Hibari struck the wall with his tonfa, blue eyes promising violence as he began to stagger down the hallway.
"Get away from me or I'll bite you all to death."