Level Horizon (Haikyuu!! WingedAU)

Year Three.80 2/4; Salvation & Lagging Intuition

Always in a moment of extreme danger things can be done which had previously been thought impossible. ~Field Marshal Erwin Rommel

The roof tiles shatter and tumble across the cobblestones, the bricks from the wall cascading into jumbled piles. Kenma Kozume's breath catches, and when he stumbles with the next rolling jolt of the earth, he doesn't even bother trying to catch himself and drops to his knees.

Kuroo's in there. Kuroo was inside when it went down. Kuroo is in that building.

Kenma's mind plays on loop, barely noticing that Yamaguchi has gone quiet as well, or that the shaking dissipates unnervingly quick only a few moments later. When silence finally settles around them and the only thing still moving is the slow residual sway of the trees overhead, Kenma draws his first ragged breath.

Then he blinks as something occurs to him.

I'm alive.

The enormity of the thought hits him, and his heart vaults to a pace far too fast to be healthy after it was skipping beats only seconds before.

Yamaguchi stumbles by him, the others having released him with the main threat having past. The crow sways as he makes his way toward the destroyed building with shaking hands and Kenma slowly pushes to his feet. His mind is still reeling, he can tell, but his golden eyes automatically start surveying the half-destroyed building.

"Tsukki." Yamaguchi whispers in horror, his anguish distracting. And then the freckled crow sets on the collapsed wall with a frenzy, tossing pieces away and hauling on a splintered beam that doesn't budge. Kenma raises a hand toward him, but freezes as another brick flies by him.

"Tsukki!"

"He's alive, Yamaguchi." Shouyou says and the crow freezes.

"Of course, he is." He says as if the redhead's remark is the stupidest thing he's heard this year, but his voice shakes horribly.

"He is." Shouyou insists. "Right Kenma?"

The redhead turns to him and Kenma finds himself the focus of everyone, even the distressed freckled crow. He takes a deep breath, trying not to fret at the attention.

"Kuroo is still alive." He says, the words making his heart squeeze.

"You don't know that." Yamaguchi says with a choked sob, his face scrunching with a furious scowl.

"I do. And if Kuroo is alive, Tsukki will be, too. Kuroo will die ahead of all of us. And you will all know the moment he does. Start worrying when I keel over, not before." He says evenly. It's not a lie. Kenma is certain that if the larger cat had his way, no one would die without him going first.

"We should probably figure out how to get them out soon, though." Noya says, pointing to the thick curl of smoke that rises from the half-collapsed temple.

The candles, Kenma realizes and in an instant his anxiety ratchets back up.

If the collapse didn't kill Kuroo, fire very well could.

"The doors..." Yachi says shakily and they all turn to look at her. She flinches, her little hands fisting in front of her, but her lip firmis and face turns resolved.

"The shoji doors." She says again, a little more sure. Kageyama jerks.

"They were open. We can get in from around the back side and find them." He says.

Shouyou and Noya are already turning to find a way around the side of the half-collapsed structure before he's even finished speaking and everyone follows suit. A monk materializes and catches Kiyoko's arm, making her flinch violently.