There's always a beginning

[unrelenting_rhapsody]

Who: Gokudera and Yamamoto
When: The start of the end of the world.
What: The disease makes it to Namimori.

Funny how easy it was to fall into a habit; he'd been running with Yamamoto so long that he didn't even question the fact that the man had his back. One way or another, they operated like a well oiled machine; Tsuna was in town again so they were back to their night runs after a brief stint in Italy over the summer. They'd run the streets there just as smoothly as they did here. There was nothing to grade down in the teamwork area at least.

The construction of the underground base had started two years ago, almost as soon as Tsuna had gotten back from their stint in the future. What could come in handy then would come in handy with the future being uncertain. He wasn't entirely sure how he felt about that; on the one hand he trusted Tsuna. On the other it felt a lot like tempting fate to throw worse at them to start construction so early. To be fair he'd done a sweep of the premises and found nothing to complain of.

Still.

It made him a little uneasy. Yama laughed at him when he admitted it, and that was fair, what would be would be right? They just had to fucking keep certain people alive no matter what and...

...and he worried about a lot of things that never actually proved to be a problem. That was part of his job, sorting out the actual threats from the fantasies. Take the new flu in Tokyo for example; the general public were taking the warning to heart and buying up face masks and hand sanitizer. Tsuna's mother, during her call home, had admonished people to be careful, it could be as bad as the avian flu after all. So how big of a threat was it?

His sources were...silent. That was more ominous than he liked to admit. He'd told people to be careful. Not to panic mind you...just...be more careful than they normally would be.

Ah, but the battle against lesser mafia families waited on no man did it?

The man he was tailing was being...erratic. That was the best word for it. He wasn't running full out and he wasn't turning to shoot. The dynamite caught him in the shoulder and took him down, but he wasn't out for the count if the wiggling was anything to go by. "Don't tell me," he notes, kicking the man over and pinning him down with a boot to the chest. "Cheap suit, worse weaponry, mad grin...Hegavo?" Not that he expected the man to answer. They never did during an interrogation.

At first.

Yamamoto had gone off to the left when the man ran, so they were alone for now. All the better for getting to know one another, right?

Right.

The grunting noises from his prey was...distracting. "Hey, shut the fuck up," he noted in annoyance, bearing down on the man's ribs with his heel. "You're annoying, you know that?" He usually didn't start the intenseoff the danger list! And what the fuck was taking Yama so long? The body went still under his boot, finally intimidated enough to...

...oh fuck. The fucker looked dead. He nudged the man with a toe a few times, checking but...nope. Dead. Fuck. He hadn't hit him that hard, had he? No...no, he didn't think so! "Cyanide?" That was his next guess to be honest. A false tooth full of poison was a hell of a last resort but why not check? He knelt down to wedge the corpse's mouth open, checking the teeth.

Nope, all intact. Fucker. His skin was flushed still from the half-hearted running he'd did so maybe the damn man had a heart attack? It was just annoying to have the guy dead before they could get information. With a grimace he kicked the body and started down the alley, maybe he could catch up to Yama and...

...huh. There was his partner, coming over the far fence and flicking blood off his blade. "You're late."

"He had friends!" Yamamoto offered cheerfully.

Fuck. "Any of them alive? The fucker with the gun decided to drop dead."

Ah, hmmm. "No?" he offered a touch sheepishly. "But your guy looks okay?"

"The fuck now?" Dera stared up at the man on the fence then turned around, an uncomfortable shiver making him grit his teeth on the light stick in his mouth. "He may have some fucking Mist in him," since he'd pulled off 'dead' well enough to fool Gokudera. It was one of the best explanation right? Right. Though the damn target had dropped his gun back where he'd fallen and was now just reaching forward with empty hands.

Points for dramatics? Zero points for intelligence though. It was never smart to come after a Guardian with bare hands. "Well, where the fuck did we leave off?" Dera growled, eying the man. Right, they'd been about to start some questioning! He'd feel like an idiot for letting the guy trick him later, for now they were both here and...

...and that scrape behind him was the sound of Yama getting pulled backward off the fence. He'd missed one somehow? Fuck. "You know what?" he remarked to the idiot in front of him, "I'm getting tired of your shit tonight." They could do research later to try to trace where this set was from, right? Right. That meant he was tossing a larger stick of dynamite than he'd initially intended to take the man out of the game before hopping up on the fence to see how Yama was doing.

The first thing he saw was his partner's face; it was wearing that detached, cool expression that meant something had gone seriously wrong. And there wasn't one guy that Yama had missed, no, there were four. And the Rain Guardian hadn't 'missed' them. They all bore evidence of sword wounds. Efficient wounds that caused quick bleed out; he knew the look by now. Cut throats, severed femoral arteries...lots of blood.

And the fuckers were moving toward Yama anyway. Yeah, if this was some kind of sick joke by a Mist user? There was a hell of a hunt in the offing. He dropped a stick of dynamite behind the group, watching as the damn men wheeled around to focus on the sound. All of them. That wasn't bright at all was it? Turning their backs on a sword user...he met Yama's gaze over the enemy's heads and arched an eyebrow.

This...wasn't right. They both knew it. That meant it was time to gather information. Bleeding the fuckers didn't work? Fine. Dera paced along the top of the fence, letting the targets focus on him as Yama came up behind the last one and took an arm off.

No screaming, no crying, not even a pause to look down as the arm dropped. The one Yama had targeted turned slowly to refocus on the new threat but that was about all the reaction the attack got. Stoned as all fuck maybe? Some kind of PCP derivative? "Eyes up here fuckers!" he snapped as the group's attention began to waver. He stomped a few fingers that got too close to his fence perch, he wasn't interested in getting pulled down right now, and they soaked up that damage just as stoically as their brother in the back had.

Then? Then they started moaning. "We're stuck in a fucking video game!" Dera grumbled. "Fuck the research shit, hit them in the head, see if that works, and I'll go back and make sure the fucker I was dealing with gets curb stomped." Because if this was a Mist illusion, it'd have rules, and if the Mist user was basing it off some stupid zombie game then killing the brain should work, right?

Judging by how the guy at the end dropped once Yama put the sword between his eyes? Yeah. Right. He could tell his partner was annoyed at the necessity, skulls were hard and there were far better ways to just kill people..."Don't look all offended," Dera teased, "I'm sure they're not acting like this just to fucking piss you off..."

Yama just rolled his eyes at his partner and took out the other three while they were focused on Dera, "of course not."

"They're doing it to piss both of us off." He watched the fourth body fall and not get back up then nodded, slipping back off the fence so he could go check on the man he'd dynamited. Yeah, fucker was still moving, crawling along on his hands because his legs didn't work anymore.

Ew.

He watched in sick fascination as a hand missing most of it's fingers swept forward to slide along his boot, the poor thing failing to grab him but damned if he wasn't trying. He heard the fence rattle a little as Yama boosted himself up again, then his partner was coming forward to nudge the undead thing with a boot as well. "Across town?"

"Yeah," Dera agreed, stomping down hard on the man's skull. Getting out of 'range' of a Mist user should keep the rest of the night pretty normal. Or at least let them circle back to hopefully catch the person who'd been fucking with them unaware.

They hadn't caught the damn flame user by morning, which made them both a bit grumpy but a shower and breakfast helped at least put a smile back on Yama's face, and it toned down Dera's headache. They were in their senior year at school now, and Tsuna had wanted to finish it out at his school rather than start somewhere in Italy. They didn't mind really, it was just some mornings it seemed really damn silly to drag in to school. "What do we tell Tsuna?" Yama asked quietly as he tossed Dera comb.

"Eh," he shrugged, thinking it over, then nodded to Yama's shirt, "missed a button. We tell him we think there's a Mist user around that isn't one of ours? Tenth needs to know that..." but the specifics probably weren't that great an idea.

Yama nodded, fixing his shirt then picking Uri up so she'd stop trying to eat Dera's laces while he was tying up his (cleaned) boots. "I still don't like it," he admitted at last. "We came away with..."

"...some damn annoying evidence," Dera greed, glaring down at his boots pensively. "They thought this shit out too well and that's a problem." Well planned enough to have gore on Dera's boots even after they'd quit the area? That wasn't exactly easy to do. It took a strong flame user or a damn tricky one. Not that Mist was every anything but...still. "Get the messages?"

Yama flicked a glance at the message machine's flashing light then shrugged, "When we get back? We're late as it is." But a long hot shower had been just the thing to get the weird night washed off. He wasn't begrudging a tardy after all that.

"What say we drag Tenth to your dad's after school?" Dera noted, grabbing the last of his gear to slide into various pockets before hooking a finger in Yama's belt to tug him toward the door. "He's going to drive himself nuts with tests coming up, and with his mom out of town he should get a decent meal..."

"Oh, so now I'm just handy for feeding people?" Yama laughed, letting himself be tugged.

"No, that's you're dad, idiot, got a million other uses for you..." Dera laughed, locking the apartment door behind them. "Good idea? Bad idea?"

"Sounds good, I don't have practice today!"

"I know!" Dera laughed; he had people's schedules memorized, so he tried to work 'hanging out' time around things people couldn't, or wouldn't drop. "That gives us something good to tell Tenth too." Balance was good, right? Right. He let his fingers slip away from Yama before they were more than a block away; he wasn't out to make anyone uncomfortable after all, and it was a rather quiet trip to school. Everyone else was already in the building after all, so they weren't contending with the school crowd...

...or what there was of the school crowd. "I was worried you guys were sick too!" Tsuna admitted when they snuck in to the classroom to settle at their desks.

"Nah!" Yama laughed.

"Just delayed," Dera agreed. "so that flu finally hit here huh?" Had to have judging by the number of empty seats.

"Yeah, teacher read off some public health announcements," Tsuna filled them in while the boys listened.

"That's a lot sick..." Yama admitted after everything. "Especially for something they only want you to wear a mask for..."

"Yeah," Dera agreed thoughtfully. He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all. He had a niggling feeling that things were about to get bad again. "Hey Tenth! We had a thought? Why don't you snag the girls and we'll all go look at the base? They can laugh over what's different from the future you know? And they'd enjoy it..." just in case.

"I'll ask Kyoko!" the boy agreed easily.

Yama watched their leader bounce up to go find his crush then shot a look at Dera. "I'll find Ryohei."

Good. Dera nodded and shot a look around at those remaining in the room...that left Hibari to him huh? And...well, he wished that he could say the fire alarm ringing wasn't expected. "Don't panic!" he snapped at the class. "Just move."

Yeah, just move.

With luck school would be generally canceled and that meant....yeah, that was Haru hanging out by the gate. Her school generally closed before theirs did. He nodded to her and waited for the rest of his team to meet at the gates.

He wished he could say that the sudden screams drifting out of one of the class windows wasn't also expected. "Haru? We're retreating okay? Something weird's going on and Tenth wants you safe. Everyone's going to the bunker, get ready to run..." he noted, making sure teh gate was open so that the group that Yama and Tsuna were shuffling toward them wouldn't have to stop.

Great, Ryohei, Kyoko, Hana, a handful of people they knew. That'd be alright for now as long as people moved. "We'll figure shit out later," he promised Tsuna as the man leveled a worried look at the school behind them. "I think the flu is worse than they said and shit."

"Much worse," Yama agreed.

"Spanner got surface surveillance installed last week," Tsuna admitted. "We'll check the districts once we're down below." But it was hard as hell to walk away from the school. To walk away from the screams. His family came first though.

He'd be back.

Dera took the lead along the streets as Haru melted into the main group of people, Yama took up the rear while Ryoheu and Tsuna spread to the sides just in case.

Just...in case.

And he wasn't entirely sure? But he could swear he glimpsed a staggering person or two as they ran. People moving not quite right. People who could be dead. This wasn't the game they were used to, and he was starting to think the message back on his machine could have been important. Fuck. He'd call Bianchi from the base and get her moving in too. They'd have to go get Yama's dad...

...there was a whole list of things to be done weren't there? And Tsuna'd think of more than he ever could. Damn.