When Tsuna next awoke, he was faintly aware of the stuffy feeling that surrounded him.
He opened his eyes groggily and blinked a few times but saw nothing. It was just dark everywhere and he had to wonder if he had gone blind.
The boy tried shifting in his position but ended up hitting his head on something instead. His limbs were bound to his sides with something so he couldn't do anything but lie there and question his existence.
A little while later, he had just dozed off when a sound made him open his eyes again and this time, he could see. A tall man in a labcoat loomed over him. His glasses reflected the light from above him and gave him an evil appearance.
"Hm..." he looked closely at Tsuna and at a board he was holding. "Oi, you about done in there?" another voice said from the doorway.
"Everything seems to be in order. Alright, I'm done here." With that said, the world became dark and quiet again as the man turned and left.
Outside, the two men were silently cheering. "So everything's complete, right? The boss will be very pleased, especially with the results of the experimentation."
"Of course. I hope this also means we're gonna get a little extra this time, huh?"
"Only after defeating the Vongola though. That kid they kidnapped was the perfect tool."
"Yes, but it also means the possibility of them coming after us."
"So what? We are now perfectly capable of fighting against them."
The man shrugged. "I guess you're right."
XXX
The door to Nagi's room opened a crack and Nagi stepped out silently and shut the door behind her with a soft click. She needs to be quiet or-
"Where do you think you're going?"
The girl froze in her tracks. The soft voice startled her because she was sure that there had been no one outside her room. "U-um. Nowhere?" she squeaked. When she turned around, she was met with the unimpressed look on Chikusa's face.
"You haven't recovered yet. You should be in bed."
She ignored him. "But you're also injured."
"I've already healed," he replied easily.
"Where's Ken?"
"In the kitchen, eating snacks again. But don't change the subject," he gave her a pointed look, "What are you doing out here?"
"Nothing," she answered, "I got bored so I decided to come out and explore. What about you? Why are you out here?" she asked. "Are you guarding me?" she asked teasingly.
Chikusa rolled his eyes. "We may not be very close friends, but I do know you have a tendency to do stupid things just like your brother does."
Nagi sighed and sat down on the carpeted floor and leaned her head against the wall. "But what can I do? I can't just lie down here and not wonder if he's alright. I'm sure you would do the same if it were Ken."
Chikusa stared at her for a moment, surprised and trying to decide if she got possessed or something.
"It doesn't matter," he finally decided to say. "You're in no condition to go looking for your brother."
"I know that, but-"
"Don Vongola and his guardians will be going after them. He didn't say anything when he came to see you because he was afraid it might affect your health."
"Still, I can't just wait around and do nothing."
"And what do you think you can do when you go back there? It's been days. They work very fast. You can't beat them in a fight if it comes down to that."
Nagi knew this. She knows she doesn't have any power against the Estraneo and she'll probably be captured once she set foot in that place, but she also knows she can't just sit here and waste time. She has to go help them.
"I'm sorry, Chikusa."
Before he could understand what was going on, his vision darkened and he lost consciousness.
XXX
After letting the unconscious Chikusa replace her spot on the bed, she opened the window inside the room. She was tiny enough to fit through the hole and make it outside.
Coating herself in a light layer of mist to make herself invisible, she climbed over the windowsill and clutched at the pipe conveniently beside her window that extended vertically. She shimmied down carefully and landed behind some bushes then hurriedly ran towards the gate before anyone who was skilled with illusions could catch her.
There were no shoes on her feet so the grass and soil felt like a foreign experience to her compared to the cold floors in the Estraneo base, but it wasn't an unwelcome feeling.
It was only when she had already successfully slipped outside that it actually occurred to her that she had no idea where to go and what to do.
She stood on the sidewalk feeling lost. Where was she supposed to go? Leaving had been a terrible idea. She didn't even know where she was and she certainly had never known where exactly the Estraneo base was. Deciding to follow her instincts, she began walking down the sidewalk towards where she could only hope was somewhere near where her brother was. It was stupid, but she couldn't think of anything else. It probably would have been wiser to have Chikusa accompany her but then again, he wouldn't have even let her go out in the first place.
She walked around cluelessly for a few minutes before remembering that her brother had taught her to use her flames to determine his location if they ever got separated. She didn't have complete command over the power, but practicing it usually went well.
With a new hope in her heart, Nagi set off and let her flames guide her towards her brother.
XXX
After much sneaking around and evading cameras and traps, the Vongola guardians finally arrived inside the Estraneo base. The place still looked partly blown up, but the restoration of the facilities had been quick especially with the help of some mist flame users.
Alaude started to break off from the group and Giotto had to sigh because it hadn't even been five seconds and already his cloud guardian was showing signs of his inability to crowd with others.
"Be careful," he quickly reminded. Alaude made no move to acknowledge him but all of the guardians knew he was always the most careful anyway.
"If you'll excuse me," Daemon chuckled lightly as G made a face at him. "There's a mist user here; a kid."
G scowled. "Are you trying to convert some innocent kid into a creepy and morbid-"
Daemon cut him off with amusement in his tone. "Sorry to interrupt but the kid is already climbing the ladder to becoming an illusionist like me, I'm sure." he informs G with a smirk.
"Why am I not surprised," the storm guardian muttered.
"Anyway," Daemon says, but Giotto is frowning at him.
"Daemon, are you going to let that child illusionist tag along?"
"Yes," he replied bluntly.
The Vongola boss's frown deepened. "I don't think that would be a good idea."
Daemon sighed. "If this is about the dragging innocent civilians into the mafia kind of thing again..."
"Giotto's right though," Asari says. "You should leave the child alone. And we should really get going." His lips are turned downwards slightly and his eyes are impatient. Takeshi has likely been eating at his mind.
"It would be worse if I didn't go and something bad happened to the poor child, wouldn't it?" the mist guardian raised an eyebrow at the group. He could see his boss twitching, trying hard not to give in. "It would be especially terrible if the Estraneo realized what's happening and decided to kill the experiments," he added for good measure.
"Fine," Giotto snapped in irritation. Curse his weakness for helpless, innocent children.
The group split up then, Daemon going off by himself, Asari, Knuckles, and Lampo in a group to look for Takeshi, the Giotto and G to look for the rest. Giotto had no idea where Alaude had gone but he trusted the man's judgement.
The facility was eerily quiet. Giotto decided that was the right atmosphere for this setting after thinking about it. A haunted laboratory where dangerous experiments were conducted on live children and the police did not know about it. Spooky.
Beside him, G gripped his gun tighter and frowned. Giotto was really tempted to make a joke about getting wrinkles if his friend kept frowning like that, but G would probably shoot him first if he did so now, so he bit his lip and continued letting his intuition guide the both of them.
XXX
The doors in every hall were identical, likely designed to confuse any intruders or nosy outsiders. For Daemon Spade, it was as though the doors weren't even there at all. He zipped from room to room to look for the boy, grabbing some useful items along the way.
'Nufufufu. These can double as evidence as well as new items for the torture chamber.'
Annoyingly enough, there seemed to be about at least a hundred rooms in the Estraneo Base. Daemon had gone through a a few dozen of them and none of them had any sign of the boy. If only he could remember where he had entered from the last time...
He stopped when he was about to exit his current room. There was something off about the hallway outside. His hand stayed frozen on the door handle as he tried to pinpoint the problem. Something in the air that couldn't be seen...
Daemon brought out his lens and put it to his eye, and cursed. The hallway was completely rigged with traps. Floating glass cases, each containing a flickering blue flame and coated in a light layer of mist flames to hide from view, covered the entire expanse. He created some real illusions, birds, to fly near them to see what would happen.
As soon as the bird got within five feet of on one the cases, the glass exploded. One second, the illusionary bird was flying, the next second, it was down on the ground with eyes closed.
The mist guardian frowned and immediately contacted his boss to warn him.
He had to give props to the Estraneo. They were very smart indeed. Devices that could not only sense your presence, but put you to sleep as well with the tranquility factor of rain flames.
If those things were here only now, then it meant they had caught on that the Vongola were on their grounds. No alarms were blaring, and no guards were jumping out to fight them. If that was so, then the Estraneo must be confident that they could beat them.
Daemon...did not like the thought of that.
He snapped his fingers and he disappeared from the room and appeared instead in what appeared to be a storage room. The boy obviously wasn't there. He threw the door open and stalked out irritatedly, coming face-to-face with Alaude which irritated him more. With some satisfaction, he noted that Alaude didn't look any more pleased to see Daemon than he was to see the cloud guardian.
After about two seconds of staring at each other, Alaude begrudgingly opened his mouth to impart information about the attack being planned by the enemy, and Daemon secretly thought they might actually a bit screwed.
Robots, apparently, were going to be fighting them. While that itself wouldn't actually be a problem, the robots were military-designed, thus made to withstand strong attacks and flames, and they were also equipped with different attacks depending on how they sensed their targets move. Alaude had somehow gotten hold of the designs and showed it to him. The mini robots wouldn't be too much of a problem. There was the main one however, which would use the life force from an actual human being to power it.
As much of a sadist he was, Daemon couldn't help feeling a little sick at the thought of some innocent hostage or one of the child guinea pigs being shoved in there to serve as a power source. His gut twisted at the idea of Takeshi being the unfortunate one inside the mechanical suit.
When the two guardians parted ways, something small bumped into Daemon. To his surprise, it was Nagi. "How did you get here?" he wondered aloud. Chikusa was supposed to be guarding her room if he remembered correctly.
The girl blinked guiltily up at him. "I-I, um." Daemon could easily guess what it was.
Daemon sighed. "Knocked out your little friend to get here, did you?" Nagi bit her lip, and the man sighed again. She should be back at the mansion, recovering. Giotto would surely freak out if he found out. But... She was already here anyway. "Well, come along then."
"Um," Nagi hesitantly tugged on his sleeve and pointed down a different hallway. "I think big brother is there."
Daemon frowned. "And what makes you think that?" he asked.
"M-my flames..." she stuttered, "he t-taught me h-how to find him if we ever got s-separated."
The mist guardian followed the girl down the other hall. 'Smart,' he thought, how the boy had known the mist flames were capable of that.
'Maybe,' Daemon thought as they walked, 'Maybe we can beat them after all.'
A/N: Long time no post I'm so sorry /bricked school has been busy. Lame excuse I know, but that's what happened.
((totallynotahugewritersblockthatimstillnotquiteover))
Anyway, the story is finally (probably) drawing to a close! I keep forgetting where I'm going with this so I hope I manage to tie up any loose ends when it's done.
Next chapter will be the big fight scene. I can't write fight scenes to save my life so please don't be too disappointed OTL and it might also be the last chapter depending on how it gets written.
ANYWAY.
SORRY FOR THE LONG NOTE. THANKS FOR READING AND I HOPE YOU GUYS DON'T KILL ME FOR HOW DISAPPOINTING THE NEXT CHAPTER PROBABLY WILL BE