Chapter 27

He stays standing in the same spot for five more minutes before he sighs and goes where his Intuition is pointing even if it's already too late to intercede whatever was going on. His Intuition is not as sharper as before so he doesn't have a clear path to follow, for the moment is nothing more than a vague direction. He still follows it at a steady pace, not wanting to risk getting lost by running. The sky is getting too dark for that and he doesn't know if he'll be able to return home without his Intuition in top shape.

Just in case, he lingers a second longer whenever he passes a shop, wondering if his Intuition will let him know where he can get a new job or if it's too weak to do it. Even if whatever money Mona can give him will hopefully be enough for nice clothes and a mask, he still needs a new job.

His Intuition is not helpful though. All the hard-learned control he got over it is gone for the moment and will only return when his flames stabilize, most likely. At least his Intuition is not catching everything like before so he doesn't know if someone hasn't taken their medicine or if their cousin two cities over is sick and needs help. He doesn't quite understand how his Intuition is able to process every little thing within a certain range he never got to test out and doesn't want to do it either. He only knows it's large. As in a continent-large. Probably more if he let it take it over and—

He shakes his head as his annoyed steps turn into something more resigned, still slow and tired. He knows he can never shut his Intuition off even if he's learned how to divert its attention so it's no longer overwhelming. It reveals from time to time when there's something that will be really important or it's related to his self-imposed mission, true and one of the reasons he continues walking, already on the less populated alleys. They're not as wide, and the great number of balconies make them look more crowded than they are, but it's all surprisingly silent.

Considering he's taken more than half an hour to reach this place, probably whatever was happening is now over and the people involved have—

He stops and examines the scene happening in front of him. There's some blood on the floor, easy to mistake by water with the lack of any consistent light. He can see a car parked close to the other exit of that dark alleyway. Not that he cares about it or the clear smell of gunpowder and ozone in the air. Not that he can care when there's a man trying to hoist a dead body over his shoulders.

Tsuna blinks a couple of times, his gaze never leaving the man crouched down next to the dead person, a slightly bleeding arm around his shoulders. He sees him lifting his hand, a pen between his fingers hanging loosely as he prods the dead's chest. The man mutters under his breath, his grip on the pen tightening enough for him to write on the notebook he notices resting on his lap.

Is this normal?

The time is different from his own, as are the laws and mannerisms, sure. But, he still doesn't think this is normal.

A quiet sound between an 'um' and a 'huh' escapes past the man's lips from time to time, no actual words to accompany it. He doesn't seem to have noticed his presence and Tsuna wants to take advantage of that and leave, but he doesn't. As if rooted on the spot, he waits for the man to finish whatever he's doing.

Long minutes later, the man finally notices him, and only because he was stretching lightly from his uncomfortable position. A small stare-down starts in which Tsuna studies him more carefully. It's dark enough to notice the color of his eyes or hair (The hat he's wearing doesn't help any, either), but Tsuna can discern his lack of interest in him pretty quickly.

As soon as it starts, the man's gaze returns down to the coiling body at his side, having deemed him unimportant.

His eyes twitch in annoyance, which is weird. He normally would feel happy, joyful even, to not attract the attention of someone who is clearly into weird stuff. So why does he feel this need to prove to the other his worth? Similar to the time he met the Hibari-san of the future and was dismissed as uninteresting, but not quite.

Tsuna doesn't have time to ponder about it, though. The man is now trying to hoist the body up to carry it to who-knows-where. And failing at it, too. The weird machine Tsuna hadn't noticed he's holding is making it hard. It doesn't help that the bag he carries around a shoulder looks really heavy.

Even with all the stress that's been pilling since the beginning of the day, Tsuna wants to help him, he really does. His intuition is even pointing at him to do it. However, he can't forget what exactly is happening here. Not an easy thing to do either. The too-real dead man he's holding kind of makes it hard.

His intuition doesn't seem to agree, if the piercing headache is anything to go by, repeating Daemon's words in his mind.

Damn it.

"Do you need some help?" someone says. It takes him a raised eyebrow coming from the man for him to realize he's the one who said it.

Tsuna doesn't breathe as they once again lock gazes. He hopes the man will be suspicious of his motives and say no.

(Even if he really wants him to say yes)

"Sure."

He doesn't sigh only because the body is starting to make him uneasy.

Between the both of them, carrying a dead guy across the street and into a car is terrifyingly easy. It takes them around ten minutes. Minutes they spend in mostly silence if one ignores the faint mumbling in a language he doesn't know coming from the weird man.

Tsuna can't take it anymore. He needs something to distract him from the body he's carrying.

"Um. So what do you need this body for?" he asks when he's done settling the corpse on the back of the car.

"An experiment."

Tsuna nods as if he understands, only half-hearing him. For some reason, his intuition, previously stated with him helping the man, is now pushing the memory of Giorgio-san firing him and his lookout for any jobs in his way here.

Oh, no. Nonono.