Wait for it [KHR]

Chapter 5

Warnings: Blood and major injury description.

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Mochida sees it happen in slow motion and yet still somehow too fast to follow.

The rat launches forward, its eyes burning bright red and the fire from its ears flaring up. Its mouth is wide open, ready to rip into Tsuna's clothes first and his skin right after.

Just as the rat clings to his shirt, Tsuna kicks up with his foot, hitting Marco in the crotch. Marco bends forward, Tsuna lowers his head and shoots up from his chair, meeting Marco's chin in a headbutt while grabbing the rat from his shirt with his right hand and pulling it away. Using the same momentum, he ducks under Marco's arm, circles around him and delivers a swift hit to the back of his neck with his elbow. He takes a step back as Marco's weight works against him and he goes down hard on his back. The rat in his hand disappears in a flare of red flames and leaves only Tsuna standing over Marco's unconscious body, the handcuffs dangling around his right wrist.

Everything is perfectly still and silent for a long moment.

Then Mochida watches in a different kind of horror as Tsuna doubles over, his coughs heavy and wet, right hand pressing carefully against his side while his left hangs uselessly.

A few long moments pass before Tsuna is able to catch his breath and stand up straighter. He carefully nudges Marco with a foot. The man doesn't even twitch.

"Uh. I'm going to have nightmares about this for the rest of my life," he says hoarsely. "Are you okay, senpai?"

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Mochida blurts out much louder than he intended to. Tsuna looks startled too as he glances towards the door, so he forces himself to speak quietly. "You just got beaten half to death and almost had that... that fucking thing fucking eat you alive and you ask me if I'm okay?"

Mochida ends with a gasp for air. First that shitty Stefan comes in and accuses him of being a member of an organisation he knows nothing about, then he beats up Tsuna with a metal fucking pipe and Tsuna still won't stop running his mouth like no tomorrow, then in comes that creeper Marco and his flaming rat creature and nearly lets it eat a person alive? He's so fucking pissed at the whole situation! Or maybe he's just really, really scared because Tsuna is smiling at him gently and it should piss him off even more, but instead he feels... calmer, somehow.

"Mental damage is also a thing. Try to take deep breaths," Tsuna recommends quietly. He stumbles around Marco back to his chair and scans the ground next to it carefully. "I'll need your help and it won't be good if you have a panic attack or turn unresponsive in the middle of it. Ah, there you are!"

He bends down and picks up a... piece of bent wire?

"That's it? You just picked the handcuffs?"

"Yep! The leather on the chair was stapled there so I just pulled one out. Sorry it took so long, though. I didn't think picking locks would be so hard after Gokudera-kun made it look so easy." He crouches down next to Mochida, each movement cautious and deliberate, and fumbles with his handcuffs with his one good hand. "It's a good thing they underestimated us. If they'd tied up my feet as well, we'd really be in trouble."

The pressure on his left wrist disappears and suddenly he can move. He brings out his arms and massages and bends his shoulders and god, stretching out has never felt so good. The stiffness dissipates and he can breathe so much easier. Tsuna's still smiling as he reaches out for his other hand and Mochida lets him pick the handcuffs on that wrist as well.