5 Chapter 5

He's nothing more than a spectator, watching the fight from afar, not at all connected to his body as it goes through the motions he knows so well. Muscles strung tight, the tips of his fingers light with acidic red. He touches someone's neck, face contorting into one of pained surprise before he turns to the next one. His skin is numb even with the warmth of his flames inside him. They feel cold without passion guiding his strikes as he continues leaving a field of corpses at his feet. The sounds of fear and desperation he's become accustomed to are his background noise, louder than the gunshots. But not as loud as the storm under his flesh, wanting to devour all, destroy all. Furious at being confined, crushing the air from his lungs at how easily he shuts up its voice.

There's never blood, but the smell of burning flesh and death is present, familiar like the bed he sleeps in. The soft bed where there's no fighting to distract his mind from how people are turning into nothing more than pictures in a magazine instead of the alive beings they are, no adrenaline to help him ignore the cries of mercy. He's starting to not care.

He exhales softly as he crushes a man's windpipe.

This is just a job he has to complete, nothing more. Complete the mission, then the next one and the next after that one until he's so well-known they can't hide him anymore under violence and discipline.

His freedom is so close he can taste it from under all the murder, yet so far he doesn't know how much of himself will still live when that time comes.

What will he do after? Where will he return to?

He doesn't know but wants to find out. It sounds thrilling.

For now though, with the leader dead, he will continue making his way through the underlings, going through the motions, mind always looking from afar. But he never closes his eyes as he kills one, two, three more; even if he could still perfectly fight without his sight. Even if he wants to close them.

He throws a dead body onto a set of doors for distraction before going through the threshold himself. A pair of young, determined eyes met his own, and he wonders, not for the first time, how much of his person will remain before his freedom comes. And how much of it he will like from what is left.

-x-

Tsuna wakes up with the lingering scent of burned flesh surrounding him and the buzz of his intuition loud inside his head. He turns to the edge of the bed, hoists his weight on trembling elbows and gags. His skin feels cold and clammy and Tsuna wants nothing more than to return to his bed and pretend the dream never happened. Because that's what it was. A dream.

Yeah, right.

It doesn't seem to matter how he prayed nothing weird happened after the cluster fuck that was meeting a young Ninth, or the 'thank you' he gave to his ceiling before sleeping. The day just doesn't seem to want to get any better for him.

Or well, considering his phone tells him it's a couple of minutes past two in the morning—confirming it is a new day—perhaps he has not phrased it well.

It doesn't make it suck any less though. And not that he can't whine about the unfairness of everything because while his intuition has worked as an alarm before, it has never been this… frantic. The buzz that usually resembles the soft sound of a cicada is louder, making him tremble with it.

Because of that, Tsuna ignores the tiredness that comes from only sleeping three hours and stands up, changes his clothes into something warmer, and wears the boots he uses for when it's raining even if it's not. His first-aid kit goes into an old backpack, next to his second scarf. He debates for a second if bringing an umbrella is a good idea before putting it in just in case.

He doesn't bother with the bike. Tsuna doesn't have his gloves and it's still difficult for him to enter into Hyper Dying Will mode without the pills, but this is important. He feels it.

Taking the necklace off and shoving it inside his pocket, Tsuna concentrates for long seconds and lights both hands with his flames. It doesn't take him long after that to fly to the place his intuition is indicating. It's not a smooth trip with one hand always more aflame than the other, but Tsuna manages to not crash into any buildings so he counts that as a win.

Fifteen minutes later of wobbly flying in the chill of November, Tsuna reaches a big building that looks more like a fabric than anything else. He debates if going through the roof would be easier to sneak in than using a window, but his intuition informs him it's safe using the door so he uses it. It doesn't take him long before he finds out why his intuition pointed him to this place.

A couple of steps are enough for him to step into what looks like a massacre.

The sight of death disrupts his concentration and he falls on the ground, knees shaking. It takes him long minutes before he can stand up, and even so, he has to constantly fight back the bile that forms in the base of his throat as he wanders through the path of destruction. He tries to not look at his surroundings but that's probably one of the hardest things he's had to do in his life. There are bullet holes in the walls, but none on the people. The only thing indicating their cause of death are burns on specifics parts of their bodies and the expressions on their vacant faces of pain and anger.

If one ignores that they almost look like they're sleeping.

He wants to search for survivors but with every step he takes, his intuition just informs him: dead, dead, dead. So Tsuna focuses on trying to not step over anyone while ignoring their blank eyes. And if he stares a bit too intently at the slightly burnt walls… no one can blame him.

Opening a door reveals him the reason his intuition's been so anxious.

Huo-san is in the middle of a big, empty room doing a series of katas, looking pristine as always in Chinese style clothes, reminding him of the first day they met. Every morning after that, he always came to his apartment wearing something common for the time, but still fairly loose.

"You shouldn't be here," it's the first thing Huo-san says. His eyes are closed and he hasn't turned to look at him or even stopped moving, but Tsuna thinks he can almost hear a hint of apprehension in his tone.

Tsuna swallows twice to make sure his voice doesn't come out weird. "Are you injured?"

Huo-san stops moving for a moment to bark out a burst of disbelieving laughter. "I'm not injured," he says as if the mere notion is preposterous.

Normally, he'd roll his eyes and mumble about proud people and their huge egos, but this time he gets close enough he's almost in arm's reach. He feels Huo-san turn his attention on him and Tsuna hesitates then. He wants to grab him by the sleeve in an attempt to make him stop and look at him, but he can tell it would be counterproductive. Huo-san is feeling too tense at the moment. There's a high probability he's going to react badly if Tsuna touches him. If that happens, Huo-san will blame himself and… Tsuna doesn't want that.

"Huo-san," he says, firm but gentle; the same tone he used when Yamamoto overworked himself or Lambo kept crying for candy. The same tone used on Gokudera and Chrome when they didn't take their well-being into account.

The flow of movements stop and Huo-san opens his eyes. He still hasn't met his eyes but Tsuna feels more relaxed with only that. Slowly approaching he takes care of grabbing his hands and inspecting his bandages. They're not as tight as they were when he dressed them the morning before; some parts revealing the slightly red skin underneath.

It's not until he reaches to check the second hand that Huo-san says with an empty smile, "I killed four kids."

Tsuna's breath catches in some part in his throat.

"My orders in Italy were to scare a couple of Families into submission so they would only work for the Triads in the exportation of certain products. Some didn't agree or tried to fight back and, as the documents of Alliance they signed read, we were in our right to make examples of them." Humming despondently, he turns to the side; not looking remorseful at all, just kind of hollow. "I was told to annihilate the most stubborn ones."

"There were kids who opposed, I take it?" he asks in a whisper.

Huo-san nods tiredly. "Some escaped along with a couple of adults."

"Oh."

Tsuna for a moment doesn't know what to do. His hands stop as he remembers Lambo, Fuuta, and I-pin. Sometimes he forgets how he met them. Lambo was ordered to kill Reborn and to not return back to his family without completing the deed; I-pin confused him for her target while Fuuta was trying to escape from being kidnaped. Thrust into a dangerous life they shouldn't be part of, without taking into account that they were just kids. Lambo was a crybaby who loved grapes and wanted so badly to not be left alone again, I-pin was so gentle but still ferocious when she wanted to protect and Fuuta… Fuuta just wanted a normal life and use his abilities to help.

I'll wipe out the Vongola, he said once. If he can't reform it, then he will…

Right. He's forgotten.

He can't forget. He has a mission to complete so he can go back and have snowball fights and watch the fireworks with everyone. That's why he fights and that's why he's here. What has he done so far besides standing still, drifting like a lone cloud? But—But he's not a Cloud and he can be aloof like one. He's always needed people to help him move forward.

Perhaps that's one of the big flaws of Skies.

The warmth he feels inside his chest is frail and cold, but still there. Enough to not feel so lonely and enough to remember what he's doing everything for, but still not... Enough.

He brushes a thumb along Huo-san's knuckles and looks up, through him where the pain hides. It hurts to see how chained his flames are. Similar to his own but Huo-san doesn't have a necklace to force it down, just determination and self-restraint. It painfully overwhelms his own self. He needs a balance, needs Harmony.

Tsuna wants to help him.

Besides, Huo-san is a Storm, right? Disintegration is the ability of his flame and Tsuna wants that. He wants someone to erase this feeling of impotence and he knows Huo-san is capable of that.

His intuition hums with giddiness, coaxing him to do it. And in this time that he's more aware of his own flame, Tsuna can feel inside of him the beginnings of Harmonization reaching for Huo-san's flame.

Going by the sudden stiffness in Huo-san's frame, he can feel it, too. He grips Tsuna's hand tightly between his own and hunches forward until his forehead rests on top of Tsuna's head and just… exhales, his whole body relaxing with that one breath; wild red flames calming. And while Tsuna can't see it, he's sure he's smiling. Not those smiles that seem to be the default with him, but a real one.

Storm flames dance along his own Sky, just this close to touching. It feels intimate in a way it's never felt before. The previous times he harmonized with someone, it was quick and instinctual. There wasn't any courting going on as it seems to be the current case. And possibly the worst thing is that Tsuna wants this. Wants someone to lean on him in and wants the intricate way a relationship between an Element and a Sky is. He wants to accept and be accepted, to reassure and be reassured.

It's not right though. He's such a greedy Sky.

Clenching his teeth, he inhales through his nose sharply and coaxes his flames to coat his free hand, makes his fingers curl into a fist. He punches Huo-san in the gut, sending him skidding a couple of steps away. Huo-san yelps in surprise but he doesn't look pained as he rubs his stomach, just a bit bewildered.

Grabbing the roll of bandages from the floor, Tsuna stands up. He closes the distance between them and sits once again in front of him. Huo-san is not the least bit wary of him and that just pisses him off. He doesn't even say anything when Tsuna not so gently takes his hand and starts bandaging it, he just looks at him with some sort of longing in his expression. That and resignation.

Tsuna wants to say he's sorry, but that will probably make things worse. And he can't find it in himself to use the cliché 'it's not you, it's me' as true as the words are. Tsuna knows Huo-san wants to harmonize with him and while the Sky part of him says 'I've space for another Storm, bring him in', Tsuna can't. It isn't fair for any of them. If they harmonize, Huo-san will suffer Discordance when he leaves. And he heard from Reborn what that can do to Guardians.

Even he suffered some sort of Discordance when he appeared in this time and the connection he had never felt before between him and his friends started aching. He's only glad his friends wouldn't get to feel it because what is months for him, would only be minutes at worst for them.

He finishes with a knot but doesn't let the hand go. He looks up and makes sure to meet Huo-san's eyes. "Today, you're going to stay in my apartment. And whenever you've got a mission like this one, you're going to come to my apartment afterward. Immediately. I don't care if you look like you've just come out from a horror movie, you will come. And I'll know if you try to escape, Huo-san. If you do that, I'll come to look for you and I'll be pissed."

He glares to make him know he's serious because he is. He can tell his intuition will wake him up anyway, regardless of his wishes to sleep. So if he gets up from bed to make tea and no one comes to drink it with him, Tsuna will find him and knock some sense into him.

Huo-san laughs as he hoists Tsuna up into his lap to hug him. The action surprises him so much he doesn't complain. And then it's too late to push him off. Tsuna feels a bit like a little kid, to tell the truth. Or a teddy bear. He flushes bright red but doesn't say anything only because Huo-san needs this. He needs someone to be his anchor for just a moment before he can settle his self-control in place and return to his usual state of being the eye of the storm.

"I'm glad you're okay, Huo-san," he murmurs against his chest.

"I'm glad you're alive, Ozora-kun," he answers back, which normally would be weird because he wasn't the one fighting, but the way he says it sounds more like, 'I'm glad you're alive to tell me you're glad I'm okay'.

It's probably a bit selfish but Tsuna nods in understanding because he does understand.

"Let's call the police and let them deal with this first, okay?"