"Finally," he said, crumpling up the hand drawn map that lead him to this location. He sighed again as he felt the damp ground beneath his feet slip into his shoes and soak his socks like a sponge in water. Wet socks were a feeling that anyone could hate. He placed his hands upon the warehouse's large doors, felt the cold surface of it, savoring it for a second, then gave them a slight push. They slid open gradually, like the final level in some video game's boss battle, creaking with an unpleasant sound. The only thing he could see was darkness ahead of him; however, he knew that he had to continue forward. Be ready for anything raced through his mind as he entered this suspicious warehouse. This was an all too unfamiliar location without any guide as to what would happen next. He treaded forward cautiously, prepared for anything.
SLAM!
The doors behind him slammed shut, leaving him trapped in this abandoned warehouse. He merely stood there unamused as total darkness enveloped the room. Everything was pitch black and all remained silent. The echoes of his own breath rang through the air. A voice soon broke the silence.
"Are you ready, Damien?" An all too familiar voice rang from a higher plane.
"You know it," Damien replied confidently.
A flickering light came to life, accompanied by a slight buzzing sound. A second light followed this same procedure. The buzzing noise rang in his ears as the two lights flipped on and off. These two lights produced a beam shining down on two dolls. Both looked like the Vongola Decimo, Tsunayoshi Sawada. Upon further examining the dolls, he saw a large label hung around both of their necks. The one of his left said "Ieharu" while the one of the right said "Ieyoshi". With both of these lights on, he was able to examined some of his surrounding. The floors were wooden, these dolls both sat an equal amount of distance from him, each sitting in chairs, and they both had something sticking out of them. What protruded from the dolls was a long thin strip of material. He eyes widened as he figured out what this was about.
"Bombs!" He yelled.
"You have thirty seconds to save both, son," shouted the voice.
Pssssstttt!
He glanced down at the ground before him and saw two red sparks that were just lit. They darted in opposite directions, one to the left and the other to the right towards both of the dolls. Instead of going directly for the wires, Damien darted forward to get a gauge of the size of the room. Thirty seconds was plenty of time to prevent both of the explosions if he could get a good angel to--
As he moved forward, his right foot sunk into the ground. In that moment, a compartment opened up from the floor next to his foot. Four dynamite bombs shot up to the height of his face with lit wires about to explode.
"Sh--!" he exclaimed.
Instead of panicking, Damien quickly grabbed his two knives twice the size of his arm and pulled them up. He's faced this type of danger before and have learned the mistakes of overreaction. The best course of action would be to do what he can to lessen the impact of this upcoming blow as much as possible. He brought both of his arms in and crossed them to form an X directly in front of his face.
BOOM!
The heat and force of the explosion surged through his body, hurling him backwards. He slid on the ground, causing him a brief flash of pain in his back. Before he even came to a stop, he jumped back to his feet and immediately caught his balance. He pressed forward, accustomed to pain like this, especially since this wasn't his first time getting through one of his father's crazy training regimens.
"You have about twenty seconds," rang the voice while the sparks continued to move swiftly towards the dolls.
Once again, Damien ran ahead to the center of the room without heading in either direction. A normal man would have run straight towards one of the dolls, but his father said save both of them. There could be a variety of traps between the both of them. The center trap was triggered meaning that it was less likely to have another and would be a safer route to take. His father even said before: "Lightning never strikes in the same place twi--"
With an awareness honed by constant training, he noticed it. Right as his foot slid slowly down again without completely touching the ground. He prepped himself for his next move. Another trap; however, this time the small sticks of dynamite were much larger than before.
A normal person would have panicked. May have placed up defense or yelled in disbelief.
A normal person would be dead.
BOOM!
But Damien was not a normal person, and this too was something he had prepared for. With practiced elegance and quick reflexes, he dropped to the floor as soon as his right foot his the ground. He rolled to the right and dodged the majority of the explosion, skirting most of the damage. Without pause, he regained his footing and his composure.
"Tsk tsk tsk, you're wasting time going that way. Prioritize saving them first! Not yourself! Fifteen seconds left!"
"Fine then," Damien said to himself as he let out a sigh. Roughly twelve seconds remained. The amount of time left combined with the distance between the dolls would be impossible to reach them by foot. While remaining calm, Damien reached into both of the side pouched held by his jeans. It's always better to bring more gear you may need instead of not having it at all. He pulled out two kunais, one in each hand. A nearly impossible shot to take, but he was the type of guy that made the impossible possible.
"Seven... six... five," the voice rang out ominously.
He looked at both bomb wires gradually getting closer to both Ieyoshi's and Ieharu's dolls. It's now or never, life or death, victory or failure for them. Damien continued forward toward until he stood even between both dolls. Once he reached that spot, with all of his leg strength, he leaped into the air. Pulling his agile body up while using his arm strength to spin, he spun in a clockwise direction. Using his precise aim honed through practice, he threw the first Kunai towards Ieyoshi's doll. The kunai zipped through the air in the direction of the wire. Immediately, he shifted his gaze towards Ieharu's doll. As soon as he hit the ground, he spun counter clockwise once, and let go of the Kunai.
Ding!
The first Kunai gave a sound as it hit the ground right before Ieyoshi's doll. Damien turned his gaze and looked back. The Kunai cut the wire, separating the spark from actually reaching the doll. Success! He turned back around to admire having cut Ieharu's wire as well--
BOOM!
The fluffy cotton remains of Ieharu's doll came raining down while the Kunai he threw was forced to the side by the explosion. He failed at saving Ieharu. He failed, and he was all too familiar with what would happen next.
"One alive, one dead," said the approaching voice. All of the lights in the warehouse flipped on and Damien shifted his head in the direction of the voice. He saw his father, Hayato Gokudera, approaching him with an annoyed expression on his face. "I would've respected you more if you would've thrown both kunai simultaneously instead letting one of them die."
Damien frowned a bit, knowing full well he wouldn't get any praise from saving one of the future Vongola heads. He body was still a bit sore from the exercise; however, the years of explosions, battle, and pain allowed him to regard otherwise crippling pain such as this to be nothing more than a minor annoyance.
"Look son! I need you to understand this! You have to protect the future heads of the Vongola! Just as I have!" He continued, yelling his point. "Your job is as twice as hard as mine! I need you to be even better than I was! You have two tenths to protect! Save both, not just one!" Gokudera flicked a switch closer to the wall. The warehouse doors flung open. Without saying a word, Gokudera walked off and left Damien lying on the floor. Gokudera briefly stopped, looking back at his son. "Don't be late for school; it starts in a couple of hours. Be ready for another training session tomorrow."
**
"I got to find a way to save both," Damien mumbled under his breath, preoccupied, as if he were in a trance. Suddenly, his eyes snapped to the side, his brow furrowing. Before he could see it, before he could smell it or touch it, he could hear it. Hear... something. Whatever it was, it was approaching at a rather hurried pace. Though it wasn't trying to hide its presence, it was moving very lightly across the ground, as if to avoid detection. As if it didn't want to be heard.
Though his thoughts seemed to span entire minutes, adrenaline still pumping the morning's training session, his moment of realization was just that. A moment. A normal person might not have even noticed the brief pause in Damien's step, or the way he quickly scanned his surroundings before resuming his brisk pace.
As he thought, something really was coming. He could hear it plainly now. Though he didn't look backwards at his pursuer, he stuffed his hands in his pockets, preparing himself for a fight.
And he wasn't one to lose.
Making a fist in his pocket, Damien turned to meet his target, but caught himself at the last moment. "Yoh?!" He said, somewhat startled.
Approaching Damien with an uncharacteristically sprightly jog was none other than Ieyoshi Sawada, one arm moving back and forth in rhythm to his footfalls, the other stuffed hand-deep into his pocket. When Ieyoshi heard the familiar voice call his name, he slid in to a halt. The unintentional elegance of the move caught the eye of a trio of girls who were passing by, though Ieyoshi paid them no mind.
"Sup, Troy," he said, his voice as gruff and low-energy as always. Damien was perhaps Ieyoshi's closest friend. Ieyoshi was also one of the few people allowed to address Damien by his middle name without consequences.
Damien offered the back of his fist—their form of a greeting. With practiced timing, Ieyoshi met it with the back of his own. It was something they've been doing since grade school. Still, something seemed off about him. Damien knew Ieyoshi, and he seemed more... intense than usual, as if he were in a determined rush.
Ieyoshi threw a curt look over his shoulder before returning his eyes to Damien, his expression impenetrable. "Hey, do you mind running the rest of the way to the school with me?" Without waiting for confirmation, Ieyoshi took off. He was moving faster than before, probably in an attempt to make up for lost time. Plus, he knew his friend could easily keep up if he chose to.
It didn't even take Damien a second to react to Ieyoshi's request. It had become almost an instinct instilled by his father to react to the needs of both the twins. The importance of ensuring order, protection, and their overall well-being was an ideal pushed by his father since he was in diapers. Damien immediately bolted ahead to catch up to Ieyoshi . It took him only a quick second to match his friend's pace. This sure was an unusual way to start the day.
"What's the rush, Yoh?" Damien asked.
"Just a precautionary measure," he responded, thinking back on the morning's conversation with his brother. Though it was unlikely that Ieharu would stand much of a chance of catching up to him, he was fairly confident that his threat would at least motivate his brother to get out of bed and come to school, which was the goal in Ieyoshi's strategy.
"Where's Haku? Rare to see you two apart." He glanced around. "Did he oversleep again?"
Ieyoshi snorted in disdain. "Something like that." As they sprinted past other bleary-eyed bag-toting students, they neared the entrance to their destination. It was a school, of course. The place was huge, easily spanning two or three blocks. Past the ashen gunmetal gates was a miniature city of buildings, some of them a dozen stories high. Some of them sporting the school's logo. The largest of the buildings, flanked on either side by structures nearly as tall, sported the word "Namimori" across the top in a glorious golden font, subscripted by the words "Scholastic International High School". The place was an upscale private school, and for the longest time had been exclusively for privileged kids. However, in order to secure its next round of major funding in the form of a check from a firm known as "CEDEF Holdings Incorporated," they had to start awarding scholarships to... well, everyone else.
Ieyoshi cracked a smile. For anyone else, it may have been a rare sight, but around Damien, the boy always seemed to loosen up. "Haku's playing sick again."
Damien smirked in reaction. "Typical Haku," he chuckled as he thought of Ieharu pretending to be sick. He recalled a time earlier in the school year when Ieharu had to give a presentation. The kid tried to give his best impression of a sick man claiming to have the flu with marker chicken pox dots over his face. He mixed up the symptoms with chicken pox. Both Ieyoshi and Damien dragged him out of the bed to school, gave him a good pep talk and were able to encourage him to perform well. And he did. A real orator, that one.
Once they made it to the front entrance, they duo came to a stop simultaneously. "Where to next?" Damien asked. "Should we just run in?" He mused, chuckling. Although he didn't understand Ieyoshi was so intent on sprinting to school, he just went with it. Precautionary or not, he trusted him enough
His ears perked up suddenly. His senses were razor sharp, but none more so than his hearing. It started as something behind him, something far away and faint. Just like before when he detected Ieyoshi, there some sort of anomaly approaching. Judging by the steady increase in octave, this thing was coming at a very rapid speed and making quite a bit of noise. Was it a person? No, it was moving as fast as a car. Maybe an animal? Nah. Motorcycle made more sense, but it didn't sound like one. Nothing really could fit the profile of what was heading. What could possibly be coming this way at such an inhuman pace?"Hey Yoh," he said, turning to his companion. "you hear that?"
With one foot in past the school's front gate, Ieyoshi turned. All he could hear were the sounds of chattering students intermingled with the normal hustle and bustle of an urban city; however, he knew better than to doubt Damien's senses. His friend could certainly be paranoid at times, his senses were never outright wrong. "What is it?" Ieyoshi was genuinely concerned, though going from his voice alone, he just sounded bored.
"Something strange coming, I think. It's making sounds that don't fit in with everything else around here." He kept looking around, waiting for the source to show itself. "And it's coming really fast." He pointed down the road they'd just sprinted up from. He squinted, trying to get extend his sight range by just as much as possible. By now, students further down the road were taking notice of the "thing," whatever it was. And then, suddenly, it revealed itself over the horizon. Damien's jaw dropped as he realized he recognized the something. "Is that... Haku?!"
"What?!" Using his hand as a makeshift visor, Ieyoshi studied the area Damien was pointing towards. For a moment, he saw nothing. Just some parked cars, a few trees, and odd looks on the faces of some students in the distance. And then he saw him. He saw his brother.
"No way," Ieyoshi muttered, his voice dripping with incredulity. "No way."
Could it be? Did his eyes deceive him? Maybe, for running along the tops of parked cars, naked save for a flimsy pair of boxers, his face contorted, his eyes squinched like those of a rabid animal, was none other than his twin brother, Ieharu Sawada. He was moving like a bullet train in his approach, hopping from car roof to car roof with ultimate speed. When there were no more cars to jump on, Ieharu hopped to the ground unceremoniously, rolling about for a moment before coming to a stop on the other side of the street. Like a mad dog, his eyes scanned the faces of the people around him before he locked eyes with his brother. With Ieyoshi.
For Ieyoshi's part, the incredulity that was evident in his voice had already made its way onto his face. For lack of a better term, he looked dumbfounded. "What the fuck?"
With a mighty roar, Ieharu dashed across the street and halfway tripped, half-way lunged at his twin. This apparently caught both Ieyoshi and Damien by complete surprise, because neither reacted fast enough as Ieharu smashed into his brother at full force, sending them both rolling into the school courtyard.
Damien stood there in shock, his hands gripping one another as he overlooked the struggling brothers like an overly concerned parent. "H-h-haku?! What are you-- You can get hurt!" He yelled as the twins rolled along. No amount of bombs, battle training, or trap doors could have prepared him for this. These two were family. They shouldn't be fighting like this! He rushed towards the courtyard, following the both of them as they tumbled about. "Stop guys!" he yelled again. His heart raced as he followed the twins, hoping for their safety.
"Dude—" Despite being thrown to the ground, Ieyoshi still managed to maintain his serene state. His voice maintained its relaxed, sedated quality. "Haku—" Again, they rolled, another few revolutions, but this time, Ieyoshi ended up on top. He used the chance to pin his brother's neck to the ground with his forearm. "Are you insane? What are you doing?!"
"SHUT UP!" Ieharu roared, seizing his brother's shoulders and tugging with all his might. Ieyoshi's eyes grew large for but a moment, utterly surprised that his brother had strength enough to completely overpower him. The tug sent them both spiraling in a roll once again, this time past a few puddles and smack dab into a gaggle of frightened students.