Giorno had just wanted to get a drink of water.
Why was that so much to ask?
He'd woken up a little after one in the morning and was unable to fall back asleep. Mista was snoring softly next to him, stretched out awkwardly across his side of the bed with one arm dangling off the edge. Giorno found it oddly charming as he carefully climbed out of bed. He figured he'd just go get a drink and offer to switch shifts with Fugo a bit early; no point in both of them being awake, after all.
He had been coming out of the restroom, fastening the button on his pants when he heard it. Footsteps out in the hallway.
It wouldn't have been so out of the ordinary if it hadn't been for the amount of them. He counted at least three, if not four, separate pairs. Still, maybe it was nothing. Maybe the others were having some sort of secret meeting. At one in the morning. Without him and Mista.
Huh.
Giorno crept carefully to the door, opening it a crack to peer out it. The hall was empty. Had he been imagining things? Maybe he was more tired than he thought.
But when he left his room, something caught his eye and he froze in the hall: the ladder to the attic was down.
Again, maybe it was nothing. Maybe Bucciarati was just getting something from up there, or maybe he and Abbacchio were… doing something. That alone made him not want to check but he quickly quelled that thought. It was his duty to make sure everything was fine, and then he could go back to what he was going to do.
The rest of the safehouse was quiet but as he neared the ladder, he could hear shuffling above him and what sounded like liquid being poured out. Strange.
Gold Experience appeared at his side as he grabbed the first rung and started to climb up the ladder as quietly as he could, careful to not make any noise or let the wooden rungs creak beneath his weight. If something really was wrong, then he wanted the element of surprise to be on his side.
He peered over the edge of the floor to the attic, poking up his head just enough to see. Nothing was there, nothing except a lantern set atop some boxes, the flame inside it licking the glass confines of the bottle.
Giorno climbed up the rest of the way, looking around the dark, cramped space. The lantern illuminated piles of furniture and stacks of boxes that lined the sides of the roof, forgotten memorabilia that looked too old to be Bucciarati's strewn around. It looked like a normal attic that was used for storage.
Deciding that maybe he'd just imagined the footsteps, he headed towards the lantern, Gold Experience finally disappearing as he calmed himself. Someone must've come up to get something and forgot to shut the attic up. It was a good thing he'd noticed; the lantern could've been a fire hazard otherwise.
It was when he stepped in something wet that he frowned, jerking back as his bare foot almost slipped in a puddle of liquid on the floor. He leaned down, dragging his fingers through it and bringing it up to his nose.
He knew this smell.
Kerosene.
Something hard crashing down on the back of his head and sending him stumbling forwards to the ground. His vision was swimming but he managed to twist around in midair as he thudded onto the wooden floorboards, landing on his back as Gold Experience appeared at his side.
He watched in confusion as the man who bashed his head in with what looked like a wooden plank seemed to not even notice the Stand right in front of him, even as it turned the nearest knickknack atop one of the cardboard boxes into a hissing snake that slithered towards the man and sunk its fangs into his ankle, the venom doing its work near instantly.
As the man collapsed to the floor like the strings holding him up had been cut, foaming around the mouth, there was a noise to his left and Giorno lifted his head just in time to see a second man clad in a strange black suit reach for the lantern on the boxes.
Then things seemed to explode around him.
Well, it was more of a whooshing sound that was followed by a massive rush of hot air as the kerosene spread all around him caught fire. As the glass shattered on the floor, the attic was suddenly lit up as bright as if it was in the daytime and there was fire everywhere. Giorno barely had time to roll to the side out of one of the puddles as it imploded beside him.
He heard a gun cocking and swung his head around to see another man - really, how many were there? - pointing a pistol at him and he dodged again as the man fired all six bullets at once. He avoided the first four easily enough but the last two in the clip caught him, head still aching from where he was attacked and slowing his movements. He felt a dull pain shoot through his left thigh and saw dark red blood bubble up from where the bullet dug into his skin, shining in the firelight. The other nicked his shoulder deep enough to throb and burn.
Gold Experience moved towards him but a quick shake of the head and it backed off, turning its attention to the man before them. He could heal after the threat was dealt with; he wasn't confident enough to do both when he might be concussed. None of the four men in the attic seemed to notice the Stand at all, clearly thinking they had Giorno cornered.
As Giorno turned the gun into a poisonous spider that crept up the man's wrist and dug its fangs deep into the soft flesh of his forearm, he felt the fear of the men like a dagger to the heart. As the spider morphed back into a gun, the man fell to the ground and began convulsing, seizing into a patch of fire where his screams quickly died out.
The remaining two looked confused and terrified as they stared at Giorno in shock, shouting words that he couldn't make out through his pain-addled brain. They were backing away as well as they could, likely trying to get out of his range while also avoiding the flames. But why didn't they try to-
Oh. They weren't Stand users, Giorno realized suddenly. They were just normal men.
But it shouldn't matter, it didn't matter, it couldn't matter. He had to get up, had to move, had to warn the others that they were being attacked but his leg hurt and his head was pounding and his vision was darkening at the edges. Reaching back to feel around his golden hair, his fingers came back dark and wet and he realized that maybe his head injury was more serious than he'd first thought.
He couldn't deal with it right now though and he grabbed one of the boxes to heave himself upwards. Smoke was beginning to fill the attic and the fire was eating its way through patches of the roof already, the oil and kerosene having been spread far wider than he'd realized. That was okay; if parts of the roof fell, then there'd be a way for the worst of the smoke to escape and then he'd be able to breathe again. As of now, his lungs were aching from the effort to keep pumping the carbon monoxide out.
Giorno looked at Gold Experience, who looked at him before pointedly staring at the boxes near the men. They had backed out of its range. The boxes, however, had not.
He nodded and his Stand twisted the old cardboard into creeping weeds that shot for the men's feet, one of them shrieking as it grabbed his ankles and jerked him forwards, purple flowers blooming around his legs while the other jumped backwards, hands fumbling for the gun on his waist.
Giorno picked that plant for a reason; the burning bush immolated near instantly once one of them reached the fire, the natural oils from the seeds igniting as easily as a match, and the man who was unfortunate enough to be caught by them began to scream as the fire spread up his legs. Giorno winced at the agonizing cries but he couldn't afford to be merciful when lives were at stake.
There was only one man left now who was staring at Giorno like he was the most terrifying thing to ever walk the earth and his stammered cry of, "M-Monster!" was followed by the bang of the gun.
Giorno moved behind the boxes in the nick of time as the bullets embedded themselves in the drywall and wooden beams he'd been next to a second ago. It was getting harder and harder to breathe from the smoke and his feet burned against the blistering wood; he couldn't keep this up much longer, he needed to end things quickly and escape down the ladder.
It was just a few meters away, he noted, but there was a roaring fire between them making the distance seem like kilometers. There was a loud crashing noise and Giorno looked up to see that near the last man, the roofing was beginning to crumble, raining plaster down on the ground at the man's feet.
Okay. He could do this. It was just one guy, those were good odds, even if he was pretty sure that bullet hit an artery in his leg, but he could fix that too, he just had to stay conscious long enough to win and then heal himself. Gold Experience could do this. He could do this.
Giorno heard the clicking noise of the gun as it was reloaded and he knew it was now or never. As the man prepared to shoot, Giorno jerked his hands into the open box, feeling the smooth leather of book covers beneath his touch, and a kaleidoscope of golden butterflies emerged from the cardboard. They flew past his fingertips, gleaming and sparkling in the light of the fire as they swarmed the startled man.
The man stumbled backwards into Giorno's trap and he watched as Gold Experience attacked the roof with a flurry of punches that instantly crumbled the wooden beams and stone roof tiles. They rained down, mixing with the sounds of the man's screams as he was buried alive by burning debris.
The hole in the roof worked just as he'd hoped, smoke billowing out through it. Giorno watched as the butterflies flew off into the night sky, the smoke blurring them into nothing more than golden glimmers against the moonlight.
Then he heard the gun go off, the bullets ricocheting into the air, and a massive crash that had him reaching to cover his ears.
Things seemed to slow down and Giorno had just enough time to look up. Shattered pieces of wood that had splintered off from the stray bullets carving bloody patterns into his skin as the support beam holding the roof up above his own head came crashing down upon him.
Then nothing.
Mista could feel the blistering heat against his skin the second he stepped back into the house, forcing his way through the screen and taking a second to blow the door out entirely. He probably wouldn't have time to do it later and if the screen caught fire, that was the only exit they had, gone.
He'd called most of the Pistols back, leaving One out to guide him to Giorno and not daring to let Three and Five take their eyes off the boy. The others had wanted to fight his decision, but after what happened to Two, he'd insisted Six and Seven return. He couldn't take any more injuries himself and he didn't want to feel the strange absence of his Stand grow any larger.
The house itself stunk of smoke and charred flesh and the acrid stench of burning meat made him swallow back gags. How many men had invaded he didn't know, only that it seemed they'd managed to kill them all. Or maybe it was the fire that did that.
Really, it was a small miracle that all of them were even still alive.
He hoped.
Mista swatted at the small scraps of debris and burning wood flakes that were everywhere in the hallway, trying to pat out the small fires that were aching to catch to his clothing. He shoulda tried to drench himself with water in the shower when he'd had the chance.
His feet carried him faster than he could've imagined to the staircase, barely registering the fire licking at his heels as he sprinted up them as fast as he could. If he moved fast enough, he could minimize contact with the flames since avoiding them was out of the question now. It had spread nearly everywhere at this point.
The smoke was billowing out the broken window and through the open attic trapdoor, so heavy that it almost looked gray. It was thick but he could make out through it the shape of the ladder that One had told him led to the attic where Giorno was.
Then he finally neared it and froze.
It made sense, in hindsight, of course that explosion he'd made would've hit the ladder too. But it didn't stop his heart from sinking anyways. The frame was still there but the bottom half had been blown clean off, all of the rungs except the very top ones either shattered or blown to bits, the rest of the wooden frame burning lazily. There was no way he could climb up this.
"Shit," he cursed under his breath, anger boiling in his veins as he yelled louder, "SHIT!"
There had to be something he could use, something he could stand on or grab onto or anything to lift himself up to the attic. It wasn't getting down that would matter, it was being able to get there at all. He looked around frantically for something, maybe a dresser or a table or chair out in the hall but he saw nothing.
Mista could try to go into one of the rooms, to salvage something to use, but he didn't think he had that kind of time. The place could collapse any minute; time was of the essence. There was only one choice.
Normally, he didn't need much to climb something, just a handhold that he could use to pull himself upwards. He was proud of his upper body strength, he knew he could use those top two rungs on the ladder to climb up. It was just that they were on fire.
Well, one arm was already half-useless, so what did his hands really matter too? He'd just push through the pain, hey, couldn't be worse than getting shot with your own damn bullets, right? That's what he told himself as he psyched himself up before grabbing the rung closest to him.
It was like he could feel the top layers of his skin peeling off beneath the fiery heat searing into them. The flames were snuffed out where he grabbed, which was something, but the wood was still blistering hot and his palms were screaming even as he gripped them tighter and lifted himself up.
It was letting go with one hand to grab the next rung that was really bad and he choked down his own screams as he heard a sickening tearing sound that he knew was patches of his own skin melted onto the wooden boards.
One was saying encouraging things in his ear and Mista would've found it endearing if it didn't feel like his hands were burning off and he knew the Pistol was right, that moving fast would make it easier, so he swallowed thickly and pulled up, heaving one arm onto the attic floor to get better leverage and heave himself up the rest of the way.
He didn't really have the time to take a break but he couldn't help collapsing onto his back on the attic floor, breathing hard and blinking back tears as he lifted his hands up to examine them. They were bright red, not surprising really, with blisters forming on his palms from where they'd snuffed out the fire. His fingers didn't look too bad, which he figured he should be thankful for.
It reminded him of a story Narancia had told him once, of when he was a kid and his mom was still alive. She had made a fire in their hearth and had covered it with a metal screen and the little idiot was curious and had grabbed the screen and burnt and blistered enough of his skin that he'd had to go to the hospital to get it treated. Narancia had talked about it being some of the worst pain he'd felt ever in his life. So this is what he meant.
Mista didn't have time to lay there any longer, especially when the attic seemed to be the worst of the whole house right now. There was fire everywhere, holes in the roof with smoke billowing out of them, piles of flaming debris and junk in storage and what looked like a few corpses.
Before he even had the chance to think that maybe one of them was Giorno, he was immediately accosted by two loud voices.
Three was swarming him, yelling almost incoherently about Giorno and boxes and the roof and Mista could hear Five a little ways off, probably still next to the blond. Mista got to his feet, flexing his hands to force them to keep moving and dodged around patches of fire and burning wood to see that his assumption was right.
It was worse than he'd thought.
Or maybe it wasn't, because Giorno was at least still alive. The blond was pinned under a mass of wood and stone and plaster, only his head and left arm sticking out from under it. He didn't look good either, smoke streaked across his sweat-covered face and what appeared to be dust and matted blood in his golden hair. His green eyes were open but Mista didn't like the unsteady look in them and how they kept an unfocused gaze on the room around him.
When he noticed Mista, a hint of smile graced his features.
"You came back," he whispered, voice hoarse and raw and Mista couldn't help but wince.
"Shit, GioGio, I-" what the fuck did he do, could he even move all that? He had to try but-
"It's okay. Just get me out," Giorno interrupted. "Gold Experience can't… it can't do it."
"What? Why not?"
"Too dangerous," he explained with a wave of his free hand that was way too casual for someone who was lucky to be alive. "I can't change the floorboards without falling through it. It can't move the stuff on top of me without putting it in danger too."
Mista nodded but he didn't really get it. The floorboards, yeah, that made sense, but he didn't know what Giorno meant by the other stuff. He ultimately decided that he could ask later and that right now, he needed to dig the boy out.
It was easier to move than he'd thought, the pieces from the collapsed roof were surprisingly small and light, and most of it wasn't burning yet so he could grip it easily enough. Ignoring the pain in his arm and hands was harder, but the worst part was the way Giorno kept making those noises when Mista would shift the pile. It made him increasingly worried about what he'd find beneath it.
Five was the only Pistol out still, refusing to leave Giorno's side despite all of Mista's insistence, and in the end he couldn't bear to force the little guy back. It seemed to be helping Giorno as well, nestled against the blond's cheek as it blubbered on and on, alternating between saying everything would be fine and that they were all gonna die.
It was when he'd reached a particularly large support beam that Mista finally turned to Giorno and said that he was going to move most of what was left that the blond seemed to truly stiffen in fear before giving a sharp nod in agreement.
Mista threw all his weight on the beam and pushed.
There was a loud creaking noise followed by a cascade of smaller debris and a cloud of dust that was kicked up as the wooden beam lifted up, hoisting most of the remaining stone and wood into the air and sending it toppling to the sides. He pushed it to the side as hard as he could, finally able to see the rest of Giorno and-
Oh God.
"Yer gonna be fine," he managed to choke out, letting go of the beam as it clattered to the floor. When Giorno tried to lift his head to look, Mista yelled, "No!"
Giorno gave him a look but obeyed, resting his head back against the floor with a sigh, and Mista felt kind of dumb. The guy was gonna have to look at some point; hell, he was gonna have to fix it, but still. It was- it was bad.
It seemed like when the roof had collapsed, parts of the wood had embedded themselves into Giorno's flesh, a particularly dangerous looking piece of wood dug into the blond's side and stained with blood. There was another poking out of his upper thigh that was a bit smaller but still looked horribly sharp. That was nothing compared to Giorno's right arm though. He must've landed on it, Mista realized, if the stark whiteness of bone poking out of the skin and the tattered pink suit was any indication.
"Okay, c-come on." He leant down to grab Giorno's good arm. "Can you walk? Or stand?"
Giorno gave him another look and was clearly resisting rolling his eyes. Mista thought it was a perfectly valid question but whatever. Between the two of them, they were able to pull Giorno to his feet but he was anything but steady.
Mista looped Giorno's arm around his shoulders and said, "Just make it to the attic door, okay? I can take it from there but- but we gotta get ya down somehow."
Giorno nodded and they began to stagger towards the opening, nearly all of the blond's weight supported by Mista. Gold Experience kept flickering in and out of existence at Giorno's side and Mista had to wonder whether that was because it was simply worried about its user or if Giorno truly couldn't keep it out for very long. He hoped it was the former.
They reached the attic door without much incidence, thankfully, and Mista had to be grateful for the fact that most of the roof had already fallen in. Some of the fires seemed to be dying down because of it and at least most of the smoke was gone.
He set Giorno down on the floor as carefully as he could, trying to ignore the blond's obvious flinch as his legs nearly crumbled beneath him.
"I'll go first," Mista instructed, "and then you'll follow, okay? Just jump down and I'll catch you. I'll try to be as gentle as possible."
"Tell me that in bed," Giorno wheezed.
"Not the time," Mista scolded but it sent relief coursing through him. If he could joke, he'd probably be okay.
Getting down was far easier; all Mista had to do was just jump down carefully, avoiding the flames on one side as he landed on the floor. The creak beneath his feet was not a good sign however, and he quickly gestured for Giorno to follow him the second he'd gotten a good standing on the floor.
He braced himself as Giorno nodded and pushed himself through the hole in the ceiling. It was only a meter or so down but it was enough that the impact of his body landing in Mista's arms sent a cry of pain wrenching from his throat.
"Sorry, sorry," Mista hissed as he shifted the boy in his arms into a slightly more comfortable position before he took off in a sprint.
Giorno made a few noises of protest, clearly not wanting to be carried like that, but no way was Mista gonna let him try to walk himself. Not when they needed to hurry. Besides, the princess carry suited Giorno best out of all of them anyways.
He ignored the fire this time, deciding that if his feet and legs could take as much as they had so far, they could take a little more. The soles of his leather boots were thick and it was only now that the blistering heat was started to seep through them into the soles of his feet. The hallway was practically consumed, nearly every inch lit so brightly that it seemed like daytime.
As he reached the stairs, his heart sank.
They were caved in, the ceiling above them fractured and flaming, debris and fire covering the only exit down to the first floor. There was no way they could go this way.
He spun around and bolted back down the hall, reaching the window that had been blown out. It was just big enough for him to get through if he ducked down and stepped carefully. Okay, they could go this way, it would be fine. It was just a few meters in the air, nothing too bad, maybe just break his damn ankles.
'Fucking burning fucking house,' he thought wryly as he swallowed thickly and lifted one leg to carefully maneuver it through the opening.
And then he heard a creaking noise followed by a boom. There was a loud fwoosh, he heard Giorno yell, "Mista go!" and then a deafening bang shook the house to its very foundation.
He felt the heat before it reached him and Mista had a split second to pull Giorno against his chest as tight as he could, trying to cover the blond with his own body as the house exploded and the shockwave sent them both flying.
The night sky was surprisingly calm, Mista thought as he flew through the air, time seeming to slow around him as a fiery explosion in the edges of his vision illuminated the land around them.
And then they were falling and the ground was rushing up faster and faster to meet them and he pulled Giorno in tighter and then-
And then darkness.
