Level Horizon (Haikyuu!! WingedAU)

Year Three 6/9; Celestial Limit

I'm not afraid of death. It's the stake one puts up in order to play the game of life. ~Jean Giraudoux

When I saw you, I fell in love, and you smiled because you knew. ~Arrigo Boito

Daichi Sawamura's calf muscles are cramping from crouching in the brush for so long.

It's been a solid fifteen minutes of nothing but waiting and he can feel the tension in his leveler beside him, his hair silver under the moonlight. Tanaka is surprisingly calm and focused, but Daichi can only see black in his eyes in the filtering torchlight. He can't tell if it's just the poor lighting or if they are actually blown wide with nerves, but he's guessing the latter. He himself has had the urge to fidget and shift so badly for the last five minutes that he can't imagine how Kageyama is holding out.

"Snakes have a five to ten meter buffer zone where they can sense all warm life, so it is impossible to sneak up on them. They sense body heat, and your wings will give you away. Which means, I'll need to borrow your leveler for the first part where we shut down the alarms, Feathers. He's the only other non-winged person here." Kuroo had said.

"What about Kenma?" Kageyama had said with a dark look.

"Kenma isn't much of a combatant; he will be standing by with our means of escape at our rendezvous point. I'd rather have someone with me who I know can handle themselves in a confrontation and will have my back, anyway. I trust your shrimp." The avian prince had been ready to argue, his cobalt eyes snapping with more homicidal emotion than Daichi had seen from him in a long while.

"I'll go." Hinata had said before he could speak. "I want this to work. If this is what I have to do, then I'll go."

"Rest assured, Feathers, I wouldn't ask if I didn't think he could handle it. And if I don't bring him back to you, you can bank that I'm not returning either."

Kageyama hadn't fought him, but Daichi could tell that he'd hated it all the same— hated it with a level of disquiet worse than their big fight that had left his wings bald. And Daichi had known it had to have taken a soul fracturing effort for Kageyama to control his instincts and let the redhead follow the cat into the darkness a short while ago without a word of protest.

As he watches the crow setter's gaze flit between the few buildings that mark the holding point's location, he can see the tension in his body. Everything is taught, from the leaping muscle that betrays his jaw's rigid set, to his hand that grips a low branch for balance in a vice hold, to his wings that are pulled into an agitated display, to his knee dropped beside a foot as he slowly leans ever more forward.

He knows the younger crow didn't sleep last night... he doubts any of them had found much. Koushi had lain down, but Daichi hadn't felt him relax enough to convince him he'd actually slept. The cats had stayed outside to avoid disturbing them with restless pacing. He'd glanced up more than once when Tanaka had risen to go stare out the window for long minutes with a hard look. Hinata had crawled into Kageyama's lap where the avian princeling had wrapped him in an uncompromising embrace and buried his face into the crook of the redhead's neck.

Daichi feels a pang for the former young king. They were just starting to bring their relationship the next step forward— there's so much they have yet to experience and share... and now Kageyama is stuck waiting for an uncertain answer to the question of their future. Daichi doesn't know if he could have done the same if it were Suga instead.

The softest rustle has the large crow reaching possessively for his leveler. The black cat's training in stealth and awareness has definitely paid off as he and the three other avians turn as one toward the sound, tensing defensively and ready for a fight. But it is only Kuroo followed closely by Hinata, slipping through the underbrush.