A/N: I'm a fool, I completely forgot to add these battle chapters, my bad y'all lmao. Here they are!
66: And purest faith unhappily forsworn
It was strangely cold when they stepped out of the car. Come to think of it, Bucciarati had said a cold front was rolling in the night before. With all the heated action going on, Mista hadn't noticed until now, and now he felt shivers running down his arms in the brisk air.
A bird cried above them, breaking the silence like a knife through butter. Mista was a little embarrassed it had made him jump a little. While he'd never really felt anxious before during jobs - there wasn't any place for nerves with a job like his - he hadn't had what was waiting for him now. Whatever was between him and Giorno… he didn't want to lose that.
The scattered bricks and dilapidated stone walls stood eerily in the fog that hung low to the ground, like some kind of creepy haunted mansion ruins. Which he guessed kind of was what they were, but man, talk about setting an atmosphere.
He couldn't help but notice the way some of the bricks were arranged: a cluster of four stones fallen together, stacks four bricks tall, four-brick long fragments of walls. Bad omens every-fucking-where. This was gonna be shit, wasn't it?
"The fuck is he?" Mista didn't want to stand around waiting, which Bucciarati seemed more than keen on doing. The capo glanced at him before turning his blue eyes on the scene before them.
"Not here, obviously." So the tension was at least having an effect on Bucciarati as well. That made Mista feel a little better. "Perhaps he's waiting in one of the rooms?"
"Can you really call 'em rooms?"
"Walls, then."
Mista grunted and crossed his arms over his chest, shiftily watching the edge of the woods from the corner of his eye. There was no way this wasn't some kind of trap, and he was gonna damn well be ready for it. Bucciarati picked him for a reason; this was his specialty.
Bucciarati took a step forward, hesitant at first as the fine layer of dirt covering the ground shifted under his loafer, mixing with the fog that lingered in the shadows. When his capo started towards a larger semi-walled structure, Mista was just a step behind him, hand on his pistol and eyes and ears alert for any sign of danger.
Sniffing, he paused for a second in confusion. In a hushed whisper, he hissed, "Bucciarati do you smell that?"
"Smell what?"
"Smells like… like some kind of herb or something? It's really faint though, I- I might just be on edge, 's all."
Bucciarati made a hum of thought before instructing carefully, "Though I can't smell it, it might still exist. I see no herbs growing around us, so it may not be natural. Take caution, Mista. If it gets stronger, tell me."
"Will do, boss."
As they approached the hill with the remains of the building, Bucciarati froze, his arm shooting out to stop Mista in his tracks. Whipping out his pistol, the gunsman snuck a glance over his capo's shoulder to see what made the man stop.
A shoe was poking out from the corner of the closest stone wall, the folds of dark pants coming up a few inches before the rest of the body was obscured by the ivory bricks stacked tall above them. Bucciarati pointed to the corner of the wall then made a sweeping motion and Mista nodded, fanning away from him with silent, quick footsteps. Calling out Pistols and motioning for them to be fucking silent, just once, please, fuck, he approached the opposite end of the wall, ready to flank whoever was there as Bucciarati continued forward quietly. Mista had an itchy trigger finger and all his senses were screaming at him that he'd need to shoot something sooner rather than later.
Time seemed to move in slow motion as Bucciarati drew closer and closer to the building on the top of the hill. There was no sound; even the birds had stopped singing. That was supposed to be a good thing, but it just made the whole situation seem even more bleak.
Watching as Bucciarati stepped to just barely over five meters away, right outside the distance of Fillippo's Stand, Mista heard his capo call out, "Signor Fillippo?" and then three things happened at once.
A gun shot rang out loudly as it bounced off the stone walls, the man behind the wall toppled over, and Bucciarati jerked harshly to the side, clutching his side as he nearly fell to the ground.
"Bucciarati?!" Mista cried sharply, taking a single step towards his capo before Number One screamed in his ear, "Mista, stop!"
He stumbled to a jerky halt, watching as his capo pulled a hand away from his side to reveal a bullethole straight through his clothes, embedded in his right side. Not a single drop of blood fell from the supposed-wound, and Mista breathed a sigh of relief. He must not've been hurt after all. Rounding on the asshole behind the fucking wall, he held out his gun and-
His gun was smoking?
And the man who the shoe belonged to- he was dead. Had been dead from the looks of it, limbs splayed out stiffly under him and glazed-over eyes staring sightlessly at them both with a look of terror frozen on its face. It seemed to be breathing though, as a white-like mist drifted out of its mouth and… and moved.
The fog, Mista realized, and it must've been at the same time as Bucciarati because his capo yelled, "Mista, get back!"
And he did, putting as much distance between Bucciarati and himself as horror dawned in the pit of stomach as Number One hissed in his ear, "Mista, why'd you shoot him?!" The other Pistols were in various states of disarray, and Mista had nothing to say to them. He didn't shoot Bucciarati, would never- he didn't even feel his arm fucking moving!
He could feel it now though, and glared at the fucking thing like it was the worst scum on earth- until he tripped over his own fucking feet and was sent sprawling on his ass like a buffoon. He couldn't feel his left foot now. No, that wasn't right, he realized, it wasn't his foot, just like it hadn't been his arm.
"What the fuck is going on?" he hissed angrily as he pushed himself up from the ground, the dirt now staining his favorite pants the least of his worries. The sound of heels clicking against stone drew his attention back to the ruins and he looked up to see a man grinning gleefully at him from in front of the wall.
"You came after all, praise be!" As the man stepped into the light, Mista grimaced. What the fuck kind of scar was that, it was sick. And where had he seen this guy before?
"Castagna Martino." That was Bucciarati's voice and Mista looked to see his capo glowering at the dark-skinned man like he'd just had to clean up Abbacchio's vodka-vomit for the millionth time. So he knew him then.
"It has been so long, Prediletto Bucciarati. I see Passione has treated you kindly."
"Don't address me as your friend."
"As cold as ever. Do not forget your debt." The man, Castagna apparently, took a step forward, and that was all the prompting Mista needed to fire at this fucker, sending Six and Seven with it.
The bullet ricocheted off the stone, shooting off from Pistols' kick to embed itself perfectly in the ground where Castagna had stood just a millisecond ago, having stepped out of the way just in time.
"That's as far as you go, fuckface," Mista growled. It was still unclear whether they'd have to fight this guy, although it was pretty obvious that he'd probably been the one to kill Fillippo. He'd have to wait for Castagna to make a move first. That, or Bucciarati's order. Mista kind of hoped the guy wouldn't listen to him though. Fucker looked like he was asking for it, judging by that sick sneer that crossed his face as he stared at Mista like he was less than shit on his pearly-toed shoe.
"Unfortunately, I cannot catch up, dear friend." He was completely ignoring Mista and that pised him off, but he couldn't do anything when Bucciarati held up a finger behind his back. The capo wanted him to wait. "Orders are orders, after all. 'For the wrongdoer will be paid back for the wrong he has done, and there is no partiality.'"
And then the fog that Mista had realized wasn't actually a fog surged upwards like a wave and swept over the hill at lightning speeds towards Bucciarati and before Mista could even fire his gun, both men were enveloped in the white cloud.
As he exhaled, Mista watched as a trickle of white streaming from his nose and mouth peeled towards the swarm. 'What the fuck is that fucking Stand?!' he thought frantically as he started to run towards where Bucciarati had disappeared. He couldn't fire fucking willy-nilly or he might hit his capo as Number Two yelled at him, "Six and Seven can't see anything in there! They can't find Bucciarati!"
"Fuck!" he cursed, voice nearly breaking in anger. "Tell them both to get back here!"
"Mista, what're we gonna do?!" Five wailed on the verge of tears.
He didn't fucking know, of course he didn't, he always just winged things, but he knew he had to get in there somehow! It'd take an absolute dumbass to go in there when he didn't know what the Stand really did. Maybe there was some kind of gap or something? Or Bucciarati was on the other side of it?
That rapid thought process probably saved his life. Just as he veered to the left to skirt around the cloud-thing, a loud shriek of rage echoed in his ear followed by a foot slamming into the ground where he'd once been standing. The force was enough to send a cloud of dirt into the air, a small crater forming where it had landed in the earth beneath them both.
As the dirt began to settle and Mista recognized that white-and-purple checkered pattern with thick stitches crossing the foot, his heart sank.
Fuck.
This was the exact thing he'd been scared of, the single damn thing he didn't say or even fucking think about because that would be like willing it into existence. Apparently, avoidance did jackshit. It would've happened anyway.
As he looked up to see Fugo standing at the corner of the building, Mista remembered all those fucking fours he'd seen everywhere. He knew fighting here was gonna be bad luck.
