Resignation was a common feeling for Tsuna over the next few days. He understood why they were doing what they were doing although he still wanted to balk occasionally. Xanxus' lessons from Italy were still fresh in his mind. Punishments were the second strike after warnings. Punishments put people in line before there became a need to kill them to protect the Family. If a punishment wasn't done correctly, he could only blame himself for a person's death at strike three. Instead of burdening the guilt of murder, he would first burden the pain of handing out punishments.
But there seemed to be no end to them. In the little time that the Gola Mosca plans had been outside of Vongola hands, literally dozens of copies had been made. Tracking them all down and destroying them proved to be a larger feat than even Xanxus had first expected. Along with every copy they found, a punishment was delivered personally by Tsuna. At least word seemed to spread through the network of information thieves. People started screaming that they already destroyed their copy the moment Xanxus and Tsuna showed up at their door.
Tsuna only wished that it was enough to forestall anymore bloodshed. It wasn't. Even if the person hadn't handed out another copy, they still had to be beaten within an inch of their lives. They still had to be warned yet again about the price that came with stealing from Vongola. It was the only way to instill fear so that no one would want to steal from Vongola again. It was the only way to protect one of Vongola's priceless commodities: information. If Tsuna let Vongola information get out into enemy hands, even if it was something as simple as the plans to Gola Mosca, it could potentially be used to harm his Family in the future. And if someone actually managed to complete those plans, Tsuna would be to blame for not doing the Ninth's assigned task until completion.
He couldn't let that happen. Gola Mosca was a incredibly destructive weapon. If one was to be made and then released into a city, hundreds of innocent lives would be at risk. Not only that, but he had first hand knowledge of how much the monstrosity violated human rights. Why Vongola even had the plans to begin with, Tsuna didn't really want to know. He resigned himself to simply keeping it out of hands other than his Family's.
"Okay, brat," Xanxus said finally. "That's the last of the trash." Tsuna looked up from where he'd just finished severing their target's ear, not comprehending Xanxus at all for a moment. Xanxus laughed at his blank face. Tsuna blinked down at their target, trying to understand. Last? As in no more? This man was their last target?
It took Tsuna several minutes grasp the simple words while his victim continued to bleed out the side of his head. Xanxus narrowed his eyes at Tsuna's simplemindedness. He continued to watch Tsuna while his charge bent down and cauterized the wound without a single moment to cheer over the fact they were done.
On the first night, Tsuna had went numb halfway through as the only way to continue working. The second night, he went emotionally numb even faster. This, their third and final night of the hunt, Tsuna had been numb from the beginning. He couldn't count how many people he'd hurt anymore. How many ears, tongues, and other appendages had he severed over the past three nights? Too many. Not feeling was the only way to keep his mind from being affected by the knowledge of all the pain and suffering he was causing.
He didn't know any other way to deal with these people's crime. It's not like they could turn them into the police. A slap on the thieves wrist wouldn't stop them from stealing again. The opposite, in fact. A light sentence would make Vongola look weak and ripe to be plucked again. Tsuna couldn't let that happen. He had to protect his Family. He couldn't fail his Family. His Family required this of him. Tsuna looked over at Xanxus with dead eyes, wondering what was next. No matter what the man said, Tsuna couldn't see an end to this endless week of bloodshed and pain. Xanxus smiled cruelly at that look.
"Tomorrow night is the grand finale. For now, lets go get a fucking drink," he said with a laugh. Tsuna nodded and followed Xanxus back to their base of operations.
Xanxus might not have a gentle or caring heart, but his sense of obligation was still working in full swing. No matter what he claimed, he wasn't going to let Tsuna break that easily. It was proving to be too fun forcing the brat into doing dirty work and seeing how far he could be pushed before he started cracking. Each time he cracked a bit, Xanxus would take him out for drinks in order to let him relax and put himself back together. Xanxus was ever the sadist that way.
Reggie, the man who'd been their guide the first night, was surprised at their early return. Tsuna couldn't blame him, they'd been out until dawn the past three nights and it was barely midnight. The Nubo boss had assigned the man as their servant during their stay as a way of apology for their miserly accommodations.
Not that Tsuna really noticed where he slept. The past two mornings, he'd came in and collapsed the moment he hit the couch. He'd sleep until it was time to work again, during which time Xanxus slept elsewhere. Where, Tsuna didn't know. He assumed it was self-preservation that sent him out of the room. Tsuna's morning antics with Cress before they had left was still fresh in both of their minds. Tsuna had finally learned the word for it from Xanxus after their second day in New York. He was hair-triggered. After being nearly killed in his sleep, his internal alarms and self-defense mechanisms had learned to turn themselves on 'high' whenever he was unconscious.
"Yo, man," Reggie exclaimed at Xanxus, breaking into Tsuna's train of thought. "If you're looking for V Special, there's only one place in the city I've ever seen it. That shit's expensive, though. You sure you want--"
"Just take us there, scum," Xanxus growled. Tsuna watched their exchange silently. His body was a mass of aches and his heart was a cold lump in his chest. He followed behind Xanxus in a dull haze, completely uncaring about anything other than what he was told to do. He didn't have to feel to act anymore. Three days of Xanxus' hell week had ensured that.
He barely noticed when Reggie led them into an underground night club. Lights flashed everywhere and the music screamed in their ears to harrowing extremes. Tsuna ignored it while Xanxus went to find them a table. With Reggie's help, Tsuna managed to creep his way up to the bar to get the bottle they'd come for.
"What do you want?" The bartender yelled over the music.
"V Special," Tsuna yelled back. The bartender looked at him with a raised eyebrow and Tsuna glared in return. He wasn't in the mood to deal with the man if he decided to check I.D. Xanxus told him to go get a bottle and he was going to get it one way or another. The bartender blinked in surprise, sensing Tsuna's intent.
"It's $1000 for a whole bottle," the bartender warned. Tsuna rolled his eyes and reached into his wallet. The bartender looked surprised at the gold card Tsuna produced. The man took it and ran it through the register while Tsuna tapped his fingers on the bar impatiently. Within minutes, the man returned, handing over the card and the bottle with a look of near-shock. Tsuna assumed that the bottle had been in safe-keeping for a while. He ignored the man's look and snatched two shot glasses from behind the bar before leaving with Reggie in tow.
Xanxus had cleared them a table on one of the overlooking balconies over the dance floor. Tsuna sat down in one of the empty chairs and opened the bottle. Reggie was nearly drooling over the thought of sipping on a thousand dollar bottle of liquor.
"Go get yourself a beer. You can't handle this stuff," Tsuna warned. Reggie looked disappointed and Xanxus seemed to get a gleam in his eye that Tsuna didn't like. Before Xanxus could decide to offer the man a full shot, Tsuna acted first. He didn't want their only guide back to their hideout falling unconscious. The location of the nightclub in relation to base was one thing he had no clue about.
Tsuna emptied his shot and handed the empty glass to Reggie. The man raised his eyebrow, but Tsuna motioned for him to drink the drop that he knew was in the bottom. The man looked insulted by the offering but Tsuna's glare kept him from saying anything. Reggie drank the drop. His eyes widened in surprise when it hit him.
"Holy shit," he muttered while Tsuna retrieved his glass and wiped it clean. Tsuna ignored the man and poured himself another. Tsuna sagged a bit in relief when he started to feel the effects of the second shot. Reggie watched the two of them down another full shot in shock. "Holy shit," he repeated. "How are you guys still alive with that shit in you?"
Not feeling up to talking, Tsuna let the Dying Will Flame burst out on his head for an instant. It was gone before anyone other than Reggie could react to it. Reggie stared at Tsuna's head in surprise before slowly putting his head down on the table. Hallucination from the drop of liquor. Had to be a hallucination. Never again would Reggie drink expensive, unknown alcohol. Tsuna sent a quirky smile at Xanxus over the man's reaction and tossed back another shot.
By his sixth shot, Tsuna was feeling again. The aches in his body disappeared and the cold lump in his chest began to thaw and beat. He nursed his seventh shot, wanting to stay at the level of pleasantly drunk that he was at instead of sinking into the drunken stupor he knew would come with a few more shots. Unfortunately, by that time, he could think freely again as well as feeling.
"What's the grand finale," he asked, knowing that his words would be covered by the insanely loud music. Reggie looked up, his attention caught. Xanxus smiled once again and leaned forward.
"Some fucks actually started trying to develop a Gola Mosca," he cackled. "We're going to raid their shitty facility and execute every last piece of trash there." All the blood rushed out of Tsuna's face while he looked at Xanxus in shock. His breathing became ragged at the knowledge. He wouldn't kill again. Not again. He wasn't capable of killing in cold blood. Not how Xanxus intended. There had to be another way.
"No," Tsuna found himself saying. He looked up at Xanxus, glad that he'd finally managed to spit the word out. Xanxus narrowed his eyes before reaching over and slapping Tsuna across the cheek. The snap of the sound brought the attention of a few nearby people, but they quickly looked elsewhere at Xanxus' glare. For his part, Tsuna just stayed frozen in surprise. Xanxus hadn't punched him, he'd hit him with an open-faced slap. The ultimate insult of strikes. Tsuna looked at him with wide eyes, ignoring Reggie's dropped jaw.
"Don't fucking tell me no," Xanxus scowled. "You're not the boss yet. The old man sent these orders. If you think you can manage to do better than I did in taking over, feel fucking free. Until then, keep your trash mouth shut and do your shitty job."
"B-but--" Tsuna objected. Xanxus raised a finger in warning and silence him.
"I'll tell you what, kid," Xanxus said reasonably. Tsuna realized the man was drunk. He'd never be reasonable otherwise. "You just bust in and gather the scum and I'll take care of the rest. As long as you watch, it should be good enough to satisfy the old man. Think of it as my gift for working like a good little hitman the past few days and not giving me any fucking trouble."
Tsuna bowed his head unhappily, but nodded in acceptance of the deal. He didn't want anyone to die at all, but the world he lived in wasn't that nice. The Ninth wouldn't order unnecessary deaths, which meant this was the only option. One way or another, the facility would be shut down and it's crew executed. At least this way the blood wouldn't be on his hands to the extent it would be if Xanxus exchanged their roles.
Why didn't it feel like it was going to be that easy though?
It was a small facility. The crew was only nineteen people, all scientists in their late twenties with the exception of an older overseer. Raiding had proved a bit difficult since the entrance was hidden in the middle of an abandoned trash heap outside the city. The smell and nameless things they'd had to walk through alone had put both him and Xanxus in a bad mood. He'd gagged a few times, but Xanxus had produced handkerchiefs for both of them to breathe through. It helped.
Subduing them all for Xanxus didn't prove hard. There was only one entrance and the nineteen researchers weren't used to combat. He had them knocked out and tied up within a few seconds. Currently, Xanxus was 'questioning' one of the fools to ensure this was the only lab. He was purposely doing it in front of the rest of the group to get supplementary information if he could.
Meanwhile, Tsuna was checking out the rest of the lab. It wasn't huge, but there were multiple rooms and a few corridors that he needed to check out to ensure he hadn't missed anyone in his initial sweep of the place. He gritted his teeth when he heard crying. Someone had gotten through after all. He pulled out his Glock and went back down the corridor, following the sound of muffled crying silently. It seemed to come from inside the back of the diagnostic room overlooking the main research lab. Tsuna looked out the window, seeing that Xanxus was still hard at work.
He continued to follow the sound of crying, going into where the lab's back-up power generators sat lifeless. Behind one of the two monstrous machines in the room, he found a door that he'd previously overlooked. With a sharp kick, he knocked it down and went inside to find a stairwell steeply going downward. Curiously, the sound of crying didn't stop in fear of the door's crash. Instead it got louder. He descended.
His arms fell slack to his sides at what lay on the bottom of the stairwell. A pile of dead bodies lie messily in the middle of the blood soaked room. Their naked forms were tossed on top of each other carelessly as if they were nothing more than bags of trash. At some point, the pile had gotten too big and bodies had rolled off to lie exposed and bare around the base. There were countless people there, all staring out of lifeless eyes. Their faces were all etched in pain that they'd felt during their last moments and their bodies were broken. Completely broken. Tsuna could see bones poking through skin and crushed skulls on a few of them.
The lack of fresh air coupled with the smell of urine, blood, rotting flesh and stench of the trash heap above made him gag and lean against the wall for support. Only the fact that he hadn't been able to eat today saved him from actually vomiting. He found his eyes locked on the bloodstained trash compactor in the corner of the room, proving the pile of bodies to not be the depths of the lab's horror. How many people had been killed? Why?
The feeling of something pulling down on his pant leg made him jump. Looking down, it proved to be a woman no older than he. Tears on her face marked her as the one he'd heard. She, too, was naked. She had slowly crawled up to him from the base of the pile during his shock and a trail of blood marked her path. Tsuna shook himself out of his surprise and bent down to help her.
"What happened?" He asked when he finally got through to her that he wasn't one of the scientists that had hurt her. While he waited for her to get enough energy to answer, he pulled off his shirt and wrapped it around her. She was in a terrible state, starved and weak from whatever they'd done to her.
She tried to talk, but nothing came out except incoherent babble. He grimaced at the sound of her voice. It was cracked and pain-filled. It was the sound of a woman who hadn't had water touch her lips in days. Tsuna didn't make her say anything else. He'd get information out of her if she lived. For now, he had to get her to a hospital.
Picking her up carefully, he took her back out into the main part of the lab. It seemed like it took hours to navigate the short corridors. Xanxus looked surprised to see him walk in with a girl wearing his shirt in his arms. Then the surprise disappeared and he gave Tsuna another cruelly knowing look. Anything he might have said was interrupted by one of the scientists' objections.
"What are you doing with that lab rat?" The man sneered from the middle of the group. Xanxus didn't move to silence him, curious as to Tsuna's response. Tsuna responded quite forcefully.
"She's not a lab rat. She's a person and she needs help," he yelled at the man. The researcher gave a small, mocking smirk and ignored him.
"Whatever. It's a failure anyway. How much longer until you're going to let us go back to work?" The man asked, looking at Xanxus. Tsuna looked at Xanxus as well. The man must have tempted them with lies of freedom in exchange for information. Their orders were to execute.
"Who ever said you scum would be going back to work?" Xanxus replied with a cruel smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
"What the hell?" Another scientist yelled in panic. "You said you'd let us go free if we told you what you wanted to know." This man tried to get to his feet and was summarily knocked down.
"Well, kid," Xanxus asked Tsuna with a knowing look. "Anything you want to know before the scum is let free? Now is the only chance you'll get to question the trash." Tsuna nodded, knowing that Xanxus' version of freedom was death. He sat the woman in his arms down carefully. His head was bowed with his own inner turmoil but there was indeed something he wanted to know. He walked up the the scientist that had been most vocal and looked him in the eyes. Cocky, cold eyes looked back into Tsuna's sad and heart-sore ones.
"Why? Why did you kill all those people?" Tsuna asked simply. His eyes widened in shock when the man started laughing. Slowly, it caught on and all nineteen of the scientists began chuckling at his simple question.
Something inside Tsuna snapped and his sad eyes turned dull with a sudden lack of emotion. These people were laughing at the pile of dead bodies in their basement. They had heartlessly killed countless people and piled them up like they were yesterday's garbage. Their laughs were the last straw. Tsuna's internal snap became an external crack of gunfire. The man dropped to the ground with a bullet in his head mid-laugh and silence fell on the rest of the group in shock. They'd really thought they would get out alive. Suddenly, that didn't seem so likely. He could see the realization in their eyes.
"Why?" Tsuna repeated, coldly ignoring Xanxus' cruel smile. Tsuna lowered his firearm back down to his side while he waited for an answer.
"Does it matter?" One researcher asked with a sneer, oblivious to his own peril. "They were all failures. At this rate, we'll never have Gola Mosca perfected. We need higher-quality subjects." Tsuna felt himself grow colder at the answer. These people were all fools and kept giving him answers he didn't like. He silently told the man how much he didn't like it with a shot to his chest. He purposely missed the heart and hit a lung, wanting the man to drown on his own blood. Tsuna didn't care. It was as if he couldn't feel anything anymore. His mind still worked, but it was bound by one question.
"Why?" Tsuna repeated a final time. Another researcher piped up. This time it was a woman who was betting her life on a scientific answer, hoping it was what Tsuna wanted.
"They were test subjects. The blueprints specify that only people with a certain type of concentrated life-force could make it work for extended periods of time. Until we manage to find a person with that quality, we use what specimens we can find. Those that we used for short-term test runs died because they didn't have enough life-force to survive after what the prototype Gola Mosca pulled out of them." Tsuna looked at her coldly and raised his Glock. Carefully and quickly he aimed for her head, once again displeased with the answer he was given. This time, Xanxus interceded with a hand on top of his raised wrist.
"She gave you a fucking answer, kid," he said. Tsuna ignored him and fired. As the woman fell dead to the floor, Tsuna looked at Xanxus with lifeless eyes.
"I asked why, not how," Tsuna replied softly. The restrained researchers that were left began quivering in fear. One actually wet himself.
"That was why, kid," Xanxus growled, pulling his hand back. "For this kind of trash, there's not a fucking reason other than to reach their damn goals. Not much different than what you're fucking doing, now is it?"
"Tell me that after you've seen the bodies below the generator room," Tsuna said softly. "I can't let these people go. Too many people died because of them. Only more people would die if you actually let them free." Xanxus raised an eyebrow in surprise at Tsuna's words.
"Alright, kid," Xanxus agreed, curious at what Tsuna had seen. "You stay here and watch the scum, I'll go see the fucking bodies you're all pissy about." Tsuna nodded silently and once again bowed his head, content to await Xanxus' judgment. Xanxus was back within a minute, his face set in stone. Tsuna didn't know what he was thinking on the inside, but his eyes were hard.
"Lets finish this and get out of here," Xanxus muttered. "Your little girlfriend doesn't look like she'll last much longer." Tsuna looked over at the only survivor. Her eyes had become unfocused and she sat collapsed against the wall where he'd set her down. Tsuna nodded in agreement and turned back to the scientists.
Precisely and clinically, he shot them in the head one at a time. In less than ten seconds, nineteen corpses littered the floor. Xanxus didn't seem surprised when Tsuna finished the job personally. Instead, he pointed with his chin for Tsuna to retrieve the survivor and leave. Tsuna did so while Xanxus began pouring his rage into his X-Guns in preparation of the last step in their orders.
Wipe the lab off of the map.
Heat and flame started flickering against his back as Xanxus' flames began incinerating walls and whole rooms. The man slowly backed up the stairs leading out of the underground facility while he continued to fire. Carefully, while Xanxus ensured the complete destruction of the facility, Tsuna placed the woman over his shoulder.
The moment Xanxus finished, the two went airborne with the boost of their flames. Tsuna started to drop altitude around the hospital, but Xanxus stopped him with a yell. Instead, they returned to base and left the woman in the care of the Nubo Gang. For once, Tsuna shamelessly used his status in the Nubo boss' eyes to ensure the woman was well taken care of.
His mind still continued to ask the same question continuously through the rest of the day. While he changed into some clothes that the Nubo boss provided. While Xanxus led him to the airport. While their plane slowly made its way back to Italy. The whole time, a single question encompassed the entirety of Tsuna's mind, making it hard for him to do much more than follow along in Xanxus' wake.
Why?