Chapter Text
It was sickening. Horrible, inhuman, dirty, suffocating, unacceptable. He wouldn’t be surprised if all the damned rings and traffics he was dismantling were but a small fraction of all the garbage USA needed to be cleaned of. City after city, scumbag after scumbag, idiot after idiot… Tsuna felt exhaustion creep under his skin, behind his eyes, through his limbs. He couldn’t sleep, couldn’t contact anyone, couldn’t take a whiff of fresh air if not when sent on a mission, and that made the air stale with guilt.
He gathered his legs to his chest, sitting on the cot he’d been given in one of the safehouses of McRoy. He was watched 24/7, paired up with men and women that knew what they were doing – contrarily to their higher-up –, given too little food, awarded money he wanted to burn to crisps… He couldn’t. His Intuition was reassuring him, more strongly by the day, but he was at his patience’s end. He missed home, missed Shouta, his cats, freedom.
Carrying the raids without his Flames but the Mist was also taxing him. They took more time, more physical strength, more subtlety. He had made a mistake, on the last, possibly caused by how tired he was feeling. He’d been shot, in the shoulder, to save a captive, and he could not heal himself or he would arise suspicions. He had a vague idea how many raids were left for him before he became disposable, but he also knew he would have his opportunity before that deadline. He just…
Tsuna sighed, burying his head in his hands. He was being observed through cameras, but he’d come to stop caring, especially because he knew the one doing the surveillance on him was asleep by then and they were not recording, nor on an online circuit. He had often considered slipping out for an hour or two, but he’d have to pass through a lot of idiots because there were no exits bar for the entrance door. Instead, he was trapped.
Granted, he was kind of happy for this opportunity to rescue people, he’d also done his info gathering and he had proofs to slam McRoy in jail for the rest of his life, but he was tired. He wanted to go home, to hug Shouta, to giggle at his idiot cats, to feel safe. Was he weak, because of these desires? Maybe, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.
It was almost sunset, he had another mission to carry, this time with a man called Viggo. He’d never met him, rumours held him in high regards, just like everyone else but the mastermind that had forced him into this. Tsuna stood from the cot, stretching his sore muscles and wincing at his wound. It was dressed and sanitised, but it needed stitches that he couldn’t trust anyone to put on him or give him around there. Thankfully, the bullet had gone through… and he hoped no one had gotten wind of this accident.
He looked at his clothes and grimaced at how dirty they were. He had used the bathroom to wash them in the sink, but he had no changes and it was another thing draining him. He just lifted his hood over his head and left the room, striding to the one with the entrance, where idiots were playing poker – a group was playing strip poker in a corner like every other night. He leaned against the wall, siding the door, and waited for his partner, as per usual.
Several threw him suspicious glares, but nothing openly threatening, strangely. There was this… cease-fire atmosphere that confused him. They clearly knew he was an outsider, a pawn to be used until he was not useful anymore, an enemy even, considering he was a hero, but no one had ever antagonised him, openly or implicitly. He looked up, careful of holding back his Intuition, when Eddie, the man he referred to for his raids, walked up to him with a sour expression.
He scratched his bald head, sighing. “Sorry, you’re on your own tonight, good luck.”
Tsuna almost jumped in exhilaration. Instead, he calmly took the folder offered to him and nodded. “Guess there’s no helping it.” For show, he rolled his injured shoulder, then waved three fingers at the man and fled the place.
He breathed the night air for a moment, eyeing the location in the folder, before taking off towards it through the rooves, not allowing any spies to even see him. He parkoured without stop for almost an hour, then checked his position and made sure this was the last part of the city with shops on his path to the raid place. He quickly bought a burner phone, seeing his own had been destroyed at the beginning of this. Fortunately, his memory was not something to laugh at.
Even if his first thought was to call someone else, Tsuna bought earphones and settled for Tsukauchi, returning to his way toward the raid place. Given the unknown number, he expected a while before he was answered to, but he had not considered that very few people knew the detective’s personal number.
“Who’s this?”
“Hi, Tsukauchi.”
“Goodness’ sake…” Tsuna was guilt tripped by the tone alone. “You do that again, I might just die on the spot. Please, please, let me live.”
The brunet smiled as he ran past a chimney. “I’m sorry, I truly am, but this is the first I’m alone.”
“Ok, just brief me.”
He mentally thanked the detective. “I have what we need to arrest him, but don’t think extracting me is a possibility. I have a plan for that.”
“Let me in it.”
There was no chance the detective would have let it go. “I can’t not tell you, I need your help. That’s why I wasn’t able to do it yet.”
“Yeah, you sound terrible. Out with it.”
“The day after tomorrow will be my last raid. I’ll be paired again, I won’t be able to contact you, so I’ll send you the location and who to bring. It’s important, Tsukauchi, you won’t intervene during the raid, you will just let it play out and then follow me and the other back to the safety-house.”
“I’ve talked to Eraserhead.” Tsuna felt a pang of pain in his chest. “He told me they will use and dispose of you when you’re not useful anymore.” Well, he shouldn’t have known this. “Letting this play out means you’ll be in grave danger and, frankly speaking, you sound very far from being in shape.”
Ouch. “If you don’t do as I say, all this covert mission will be sent to hell.”
“…”
“Listen, I’m tired, yes, I want this to end, sure, but I don’t want my current Boss to be left free. We’re dancing, let’s dance. I’ll give you an entire hideout and the locations of his traffic rings. Then, I promise I will just go back home.” He eyed the warehouse behind a couple more houses and slowed down. “I have to go, are you in it or do I have to do this alone?”
There was a heavy sigh on the other side of the line, “fine. You better not make me regret it. And call him as soon as you can.”
“Will do, see you soon.”
Tsuna turned the phone off and pocketed it, focusing on the raid.
The brunet cursed loudly, leaning against a roof’s low wall a few blocks away from the police-swarmed warehouse. The wound on his shoulder was profusely bleeding, obviously reopened, and he was sporting many, thin cuts all over his skin thanks to a trafficker that could evoke blade-filled gusts of wind… and another bullet-wound, a deep graze on his left side. He couldn’t heal those new wounds, but he could lessen them at least. Sun Flames enveloped his body, he closed his eyes to focus them where he wanted, careful to ignore completely the wound on his shoulder. A few moments later, the cuts were just small, ignorable grazes and the bullet-wound on his side only felt like a burn.
Gingerly, regaining his breath, Tsuna flipped the burner phone on and dialled another number. He didn’t even know what time it was over in Japan, couldn’t focus enough to care, he just hoped–
“Tsuna.”
He sighed into a short-lived chuckle, relishing in the voice filling his ear, calling his name. “What gave me away?”
“This is my personal phone. What happened? Are you ok?”
Of course. “I’m… tired.” He failed to lie. “A bit wounded here and there, but mostly… I miss you.”
He heard a sigh, that made him smile, “wounded how?”
“Knife, a graze and a bullet wound I can’t heal… Can’t show them my cards.”
“I see… How long until you come back?”
“A few days, promise. It’s going to be ok.”
Shouta hummed, “we’ll have to talk about your cats, when you come back. And Nezu knows who you are, by the way.”
Tsuna tilted his head, eyes closing tiredly. “Why did he bring it out now? I mean, he discovered it a while ago, can’t have done that recently.”
“Yeah, I don’t know. He was pretty cryptic, as usual. Said something about wanting you at earshot, maybe he expects something bad happening?”
The brunet hummed, “it’s strange… does that mean I can’t catch a break?”
“Over my dead body, I’ll take days off to make sure of that.”
“What an honour, Mr I-don’t-need-days-off.”
He heard Shouta snort. “Just come back home, that’s all I ask.”
Tsuna smiled, tiredness making a tear slide down his cheek, knotting his throat. “Will do. See you in a few days.”
“Stay safe, Tsuna.”
The brunet licked his lips, turning the phone off and letting Mist Flames shroud it before stashing it in his shoes. If something happened, he could still destroy it. He took a deep breath, stood, brushed the dust off his tattered clothes and took to the rooves. He had to resist just a bit more, then he would be able to hug the life out of his lover.
His luck made itself known when the woman paired with him for his last raid proved to be so dense she didn’t notice a police officer blowing his cover and almost destroying the whole operation Tsukauchi had put up. He took another bullet wound, to his forearm, because of her, before he could taste freedom in his mouth as they went back to the safehouse. The exhaustion had worn him out, he could feel how heavy his body was just by walking.
The woman, Razen, opened the door and let him in, clearly wanting to make sure he was within eyesight. The room, contrarily to any other day, was almost empty but for the group that liked strip poker – and was mid-way through a game – and McRoy, sided by two gorillas. There, a trap, not even nicely laid. He was wearing a victorious smile, sitting in the metal chair like it was a hard-earned throne. Tiredness crept to his eyes, he was so done with this shit.
“Very well done, Sora.”
Twin guns were trained on him from the gorillas and Razen, but Tsuna didn’t move. “Thank you.”
The Boss even offered him a slow clap of his hands. “It’s time to say goodbye to this world.”
“Is it? And here I was having fun. You sure you don’t want to use me a bit more? Maybe to sweep your porch or something, seeing I’m doing the dirty jobs in your place.”
He heard a scoffed laughter, someone from the strip poker game, and the group hurriedly left. Tsuna held back a frown, suddenly alert. Could this be–
“Yes, it was nice letting you take care of the dust, but you are not useful anymore.”
Tsuna could have handled this better. It seemed he’d truly been too tired to notice the signs, but no matter. They were basically giving him the garbage. He eyed the guns as the safeties were cocked off. Then, he watched as three heroes, going by the colourful costumes, knocked the three off and saved his life, while the place was stormed by police and more heroes.
In an instant, Tsuna was held in a firm hug by a very worried and relieved Tsukauchi, who led him away. With a sigh, the brunet gave him a few crumpled papers.
“Sorry, couldn’t keep them straight.”
The detective took them, then whipped him in the head with the paper roll and threatened him with it as if holding a knife. “Heal yourself right this instant and drop asleep in the car, now.”
Tsuna did as he was told, content to let others take care of the aftermath.