khr | breakout
title: breakout
fandom: katekyo hitman reborn!
characters: mukuro , chikusa , ken
rating: t [ violence, language ]
word count: 4,811
notes: on their second breakout. originally written for minibang. original copy with images here.
summary: shatter the chains.
Death in and of itself isn't so bad.
Many people fear death more than anything else, considering it the ultimate end of all ends. Or perhaps what they fear is what waits after death. Heaven, hell, reincarnation, karma -- it's all a matter of perspective. But, in the end, it makes no difference what exactly it is they fear. Death and all of its associated factors strike terror into the minds of most people.
A pity, Mukuro thinks. Death really isn't all that bad. He's been through it, after all. It's a little bit like what he's experience now: an all-encompassing darkness, devoid of sound, and a deep-set chill down to his very bones. But beyond that, nothing much.
Death is just like prison. What a petty thing to be mortally afraid of.
"Hey, hurry up and get in there," comes a crude shout from behind him, and a rough kick to his side. A prison guard. Mukuro steps forward, as directed, but he does turn around to smile in the guard's direction.
Even past the blindfold and half-helmet encompassing the upper portion of his head, Mukuro's smile is terrifying. The effect is immediate. There's the twinge of fear evident in the guard's voice when he shouts again -- "Don't try any tricks!" A rough shove to the shoulder, harried and frightened, and Mukuro calmly walks forward, stopping when he hears the heavy clang of the door shutting behind him.
The sound of pressurized air escaping echoes dully, and the half-helmet falls away. The cast-iron bands supplementing his strait-jacket, on the other hand, don't. The manacles around his wrist clank loudly as he sits down on the floor and takes a good look at his holding cell.
Gray concrete walls and a solid iron door with a tiny sliding opening at the bottom. No windows. No lights. No vents. No brick seams. A literally solid fortress. Silently, he walks over to the wall opposite the door, and presses up against it, eyes closed.
He's not afraid.
*
Seven years -- eighty-four months -- three-hundred sixty-four weeks -- only seven years ago, he'd broken free of the Estraneo family's labs. (Seven years, such an insignificant period of time in the long run, but such a length stretch of time when seen through the eyes of a child.) He still remembered everything from that filthy place -- the cracks in the plaster walls, the creaky cast-iron bed frames, the drip of rainwater down the gutters, the voice of the other subdued children.
All in all, a pathetic sight.
He'd endured it all calmly, all the experimentation and testing and other things that scientists were so fond of. Humans never stopped being curious, it was part of their pathetic nature, and Mukuro accepted it all calmly -- then, finally, made the decision that he had considered so many times before but had never quite reached -- he would end this. End it all. Not just this lab, but everything.
The next day, he broke free of his restraints and killed every single researcher in that filthy place.
*
"Let go of me, you bastards," Ken snarls, thrashing wildly against his straitjacket, until the guards finally lose their patience and shove a gag in his mouth -- and he still keep shouting through it, anyway, biting against the hard cloth with teeth that aren't fangs.
Muffled growls that achieve nothing -- he still tries, throwing himself against the guards with tied-up arms, even though he knows it's useless. He doesn't even know why he's fighting, really, just knows that he has to. Eventually, the guards knock him out, smashing the butt of a rifle into the back of his head, and he wakes up some time later (he doesn't know how long, it's a windowless cell, and he's lost all sense of time), gag-less and straitjacket undone just enough that he can wrestle his arms free and slam his fists against the cast-iron door, shouting at the top of his lungs.
"Let me out, you assholes!"
Ignored.
"I swear, I'll get you all when I get out!"
If I get out.
"You hear me?"
Probably not.
He keeps pounding until his hands start to hurt, then slinks towards the back of the cell, sniffing at the walls -- some remnants of his implanted animal behaviour left even without his channels -- and knows, knows that he has to get out. He'll get out. He has to.
He claws at the concrete walls, and feels one of his nails crack and start to break, but it doesn't matter.
*
Ken doesn't remember much of the labs, really. (Maybe it's a side effect of being injected with so many animal personalities -- they do say that animals have a much shorter memory than humans, heh.) But he does remember a few things.
"Dog," the lab scientists had said, then he'd felt a piercing pain in his skull, like something was tearing his head apart -- a sudden explosion of sounds and smells that made him feel sick -- "it seems his olfactory and auditory senses have been enhanced" -- "it's a success, then," -- and then the pain suddenly died down, just like that, and the moment they unhooked the wires from the back of his teeth, he rolled over and threw up on the ground, collapsing into the cot and feeling like he was going to die.
A repeat performance, the next day.
Then the next.
And the next.
A cat had nine lives, they said, and they'd injected the cat channel into him during the first week -- even if he were a cat, he was still dead ten times over.
"A success," those scientist bastards had called him, but all he wanted was out, to be free.
Maybe it was for the better that he didn't remember his childhood so clearly.
*
It's already dark enough in the cell -- with no windows and only the tiniest cracks in the walls for air, and Chikusa's vision is blurry without his glasses, but it's no surprise that they've been taken away this time. Last time, he'd had poison needles hidden in the frames, and they'd been useful as escape tools. None, this time. The prison clothes are bare, and even with the straitjacket on, the holding cell is cold.
It doesn't matter.
He can't be here long.
Faint traces of dirt and concrete come off the wall under his fingers when he traces his hands over the seamless gray surface. No -- not seamless. It's a normal cell that's recently been layered over with cement. The fortification isn't complete, and therefore, this may be a chance.
He circles the room once, twice -- three times -- more times than he can count, pressing close against the wall, and finally picks out a spot near the corner where the cement is still slightly moist from the mildew and shade -- the weak spot in this prison cell -- and he picks at it with his bare fingers. A few tiny dots of the cement come away. He needs a tool. Something, anything.
Then again --
He digs at the tiny grooves in the walls in between the hard, cold bricks, where it's just wet plaster, ignoring the way his fingers start to throb with the faintest traces of dull pain, still ignoring it when they start to bleed, since he can't feel it much, anyway.
Somewhere elsewhere in this prison, he knows, Ken is probably attemtping the same thing.
Mukuro-sama is probably locked up in a higher-security cell, and no doubt immobilized for the moment.
But they have to get out, still. There must be a way.
(Like there was back then, so many years ago.)
*
Many of the experiments that the Estraneo had done were far beyond the comprehension of any of their guinea pigs, just meaningless injections and operations, one after another, skin sliced open with scalpels and stitched up again, unknown fluids tossed into their veins over and over. Most of the children perished of causes they did not know -- thrashing in their death throes, frothing at the mouth, eyes wide with panic and fear -- while some died silently, in their sleep, limbs frozen in rigor mortis.
Chikusa knows the details of just one of the experiments done on him, and it was this: the loss of 'feelings.'
Though the experiment itself was lost to him -- all he remembers is the burning of fire against his skin, down the nerves, and countless surgeries that left his head marred over with numerous scars -- he does know that he doesn't feel pain much, any more.
The day after his experiment, a scientist stuck a scalpel in his leg, and he barely realized what had happened.
In some ways, it was a blessing, he knew; many of the other children cried themselves to sleep at night from the pain throbbing in their limbs -- but then again, now he didn't feel much of anything.
'You're creepy,' Ken had told him, one day. 'Like a robot.'
It took him a while longer to realize that he'd lost a large portion of his emotions along with his sense of pain, and then he didn't really know how to react to this new discovery -- he just accepted it at face value, and thought that, maybe, this was just further proof that he'd lost a large portion of himself. He probably should have reacted to this transformation more, but he really couldn't bring himself to feel anything
He did start wearing bandages around his head to hide the scars, though.
*
Mukuro doesn't know how long it's been since he's been shoved into this cell, but he does know that it's been a considerable length of time -- maybe up to a week, judging by how many times they've changed the IV needle plugged into his arm. Funny how things worked -- the prison had regarded him too dangerous to be freed of his restraints, and so kept him on a medical drip. No hassle, no problems -- just change the bag once in a while, and all they had to do was watch him chained to the far wall of the prison, sitting still and calm.
Once, when the guard comes in to change the IV, Mukuro glances up -- still blindfolded by the halfhelmet bolted around his head -- and says, calmly, "How long do you think that this will keep me here?" He smiles, of course, voice laced with the lilting, teasing tones that he so often employs.
Immediately, he feels the jerk of the IV needle in his arm -- no dobut the guard had flinched, panicking, and there's the soft trickle of warm blood down his wrist.
"Shut up! You're not going anywhere!"
"I disagree," is the answer he gives, before there's the familiar slam of the prison door, the clatter of the auto-lock mechanism racheting into place -- then a resounding silence that presses down onto him like a giant fist, trying to suffocate him.
Head canted back and leaning against the cold cell wall, he laughs softly into the air.
It won't be long, he knows.
Iron rusts to nothing, and all humans crumble to bare bones eventually -- likewise, it won't be long before he's out. This, he knows for certain, and he laughs again.
He can count on them.
*
Despite the countless people he's met throughout his various experiences, Mukuro still remembers every single face that he's seen. And so, he has the terrified expression of every child from that facility etched into his mind -- every tear-filled eye, every mouth twisted into a pain-filled grimace, everr jaw clenched to keep from crying out loud -- he remembers all of it, perhaps because he knew, even back then, that most of those children would vanish any day.
It was a common occurence, really.
A child, fine one day, then simply gone the next. Nowhere to be seen. Their friends would ask the scientists, "Where is he? What did you do to him?" And these questions were invariably brushed aside, unanswered, ignored, until eventually they were forgotten, and the vanished children also forgotten, any memories of them buried under the constant flow of experimental pain.
Mukuro had felt a certain sort of pleasure at knowing he was the only one who would ever remember these children. It was like they were his to keep, because no one else knew them -- no names, no faces, no identities, just experimental data filed away neatly. It was like they were ghosts, Mukuro thought, and only he could see them.
It's terribly amusing, really.
*
The breakout attempts go terribly slowly -- Ken can dig away at the cell wall only so fast -- but he feels the greatest moment of triumph when he happens upon the cache of weapons confiscated from the various prisoners -- he spots it from a distance, a handful of familiar items amid the jumble of firearms and blades -- Kakipii's yoyo's, Mukuro-sama's trident -- his animal channels.
He pauses, in the hallway, staring at it, and the reinforced glass wall keeping him from it, until the guard goading him towards the outdoor yard kicks him in the back of the knees, almost tripping him.
"Get on with it," the guard snarls, and Ken growls right back, until a backhand blow to the head makes him stumble, nearly fall -- so he gives in, lets himself get shoved and pushed out into the fenced yard, where there are a few other prisoners meandering around, mostly looking restless. There's not much to do, anyway, during this mandatory "exercise time." So Ken makes a beeline towards the far fence, where Chikusa is leaning against the pole, staring out at nothing in particular.
"I hate those prison guards," he growls, and Chikusa gives a vague sort of nod, clearly thinking about something else. Ken notices his fingers, bandaged crudely and still bleeding, and asks, "Doesn't that hurt?" A headshake. No.
Well, it's always been this way.
They stand there for a moment, Ken shuffling his feet restlessly, glancing at all the other prisoners, before muttering, "I found something."
*
They didn't like each other, initially -- just another pair of kids at that terrible facility, and polar opposites, too -- one a fireball of noise and action, the other devoid of pretty much any emotion -- but they eventually learned to tolerate each other. Maybe it was the fact that so many other children were introduced, experimented on, then promptly died -- the few kids who actually survived long enough naturally ended up just a tiny bit closer.
Not that they ever really spoke to each other, they both of them vaguely knowledged the other's existence.
The first time they heard each other's names was when Mukuro offered to free them, as well.
Joshima Ken.
Kakimoto Chikusa.
'Nice to meet you,' almost.
They only really became almost-companions when they were thrown into a jail cell together -- this same prison, just lower security, and Ken began to call Chikusa 'Kakipii,' and Chikusa start to look annoyed about it.
Such a long time ago. They'd planned the breakout back then, too.
Maybe this really was just a repeat performance.
*
The next day, something happens -- something that breaks through the crushing monotony of the dreary prison everyday.
It starts with this: Ken, suddenly bolting out of line when the guard's leading him outside -- throwing himself against the glass wall between him and the confiscated items cache -- and the glass cracks for a moment, too strong to break in one go -- the guards immediately make to restrain him, but not before he reels back, ignoring the way his body's aching, and throws himself against the glass again --
and this time, it breaks, raining down in a cascade of translucent-white shards.
Sirens begin to sound, shrilly, and Ken knows that he's cutting it close -- and so he lunges forward, grabs the familiar trident in his jaws and whirls around -- just in time to slash a guard across the face with it.
Speckles of blood decorate the floor, and Ken can almost taste it for a moment, before he's slammed into the floor, a torrent of cursing flooding his ears -- there's the sharp blow of a billy-club against the back of his neck, and his head spins, vision exploding into a plethora of Technicolor spots.
He barely has the chance to clamp one more thing into his mouth and slip it down the front of his jumpsuit before the crushing slam of the club to the temple makes him black out.
It's a full hour later that he's thrown out into the yard, starting to bruise, and he wakes up to Chikusa kneeling by his side, glancing over wounds none too gently.
"That hurts, Kakipii," he mumbles.
"What did you do."
And Ken laughs, pulling out half a pair of shattered glasses from his jumpsuit.
"You better put this to good use."
And Chikusa almost, almost shows some sign of approval.
*
"Hey, Mukuro-sama," Ken had asked in the old Kokuyo base, scratching around at their pathetic excuses for furniture. Restless. Eager for action. "What exactly are you planning on doing?"
Chikusa, seated nearby on some piece of rubble, glanced over, and Mukuro just laughed, languishing on the dusty old couch they'd found. Hands folded, fingers entwined -- he looked completely and utterly calm as he answered,
"We are going to get rid of this filthy world."
It was a chilling answer, and they'd both realized -- it was a dangerous path, to follow this man.
(Not like it mattered, though.)
Chikusa looked away, and Ken gave a howling laugh -- "Sounds like a plan. When do we start?"
Mukuro smiled, lips curved up gracefully and chin resting in his hand.
"Soon, Ken. Very soon."
*
Mukuro has never, in his life, been afraid. Never panicked. He's never known that emotion that humans call 'despair,' because he knows, inherently, that he will come out on top, in the end.
And so, even as time passes and the prison guards assume that his silence is a sign of him giving up, he remains calm, biding his time.
(It's not too hard -- after all, he spent most of his childhood locked in that facility, waiting for more experiments.)
Until, one day, he feels a familiar twinge -- the weapon he's known, been made one with, the familiar feel of blood at the end of his trident, a jagged cut through flesh -- and under his command. He feels this, before the door even opens. (It's the chance he's been waiting for.) There's the familiar sound of the deadbolts being undone, then the creak of hinges -- heavy, booted footsteps on the dirty concrete floor. As they draw near, Mukuro wipes away any traces smugness from his face and replaces it with an expression of fake fear -- laces his voice with insincere hesitation.
"-- may I make a request?"
Immediately, there's a pause, and the guard respond by roughly jerking out the IV, stabbing in a new needle with careless movements -- "You're a prisoner, no right to ask for stuff."
But Mukuro persists, his voice a perfect parody of pitiful pleading -- "Please, it's a simple request. Just remove the helmet for a moment -- I only want to be able to look around. Just for a moment."
It works. A moment of hesitation. The guard is considering this decision, and Mukuro knows that he's won -- "Please, it won't take long." -- and then, a gruff answer.
"Alright, but just for a second."
(Sweet victory.)
The clicks of the helmet's locks being undone rings around his ears, and a sharp keening noise lingers as the two halves of the helmet are pulled apart, and Mukuro blinks, at first, eyes still getting used to the sudden presence of light -- his vision blurs, darkens, finally focuses -- and he looks up to glance at the guard who's standing above him, holding the helmet, ready to clamp it back in place.
"That's enough," he says, words a bit crumpled by that long gash across his face.
Mukuro just smiles.
-- it takes only half an instant -- the guard twitches, standing completly straight -- fingers tightening, eyes widening -- mouth open. Then, it's done.
It's hard to see under that mop of hair, but one of the guard's eyes is now a pretty, pretty shade of red.
Mukuro, he's still tied down, but free -- but can't get caught now, it'd be suspicious. He replaces the helmet on his head, turns to leave the room -- makes sure all the locks are in place, then smiles and nods to the guard standing ready in the hallway -- "Hey, anything happen?" -- "Nah, he's still there" -- then, the moment the guard looks back down at the book spread across his lap, Mukuro smashes the end of his billy club into the back of the guard's.
He crumples immediately, collapsing into a heap on the ground -- and for good measure, Mukuro breaks his neck, before re-entering the cell and undoing the half-helmet.
The guard he'd been posessing collapses, gurgling, when he releases him, and Mukuro breaks his neck, too -- just to clean up the loose ends -- then turns to the door.
He knows -- Ken or Chikusa, one of them must have done this. And probably something more, as well.
How useful.
There's no hesitation as he starts down the hallway.
And in some other area of the facility, there's the crash of of an explosion -- glass shattered -- panicked movements -- guards yelling at each other -- and two pairs of bare feet running in stumbling footsteps across the cold concrete floor.
Ken laughs hoarsely, almost choking on all the dust in the air, "What the hell did you blow up?"
And Chikusa answers curtly, fingering the handful of poisonous needles he has left -- he'd barely managed to extract them from the cracked remains of his glasses -- "A gas valve."
"Hey, Kakipii --" words punctured by panting breaths of air. "-- how do you know this is gonna work? The timing -- what if Mukuro-sama couldn't possess that guard?"
There's grim silence, for a moment, before Chiksua answers, words short and jagged. "It has to."
(He's all we have to believe in.)
Behind them, a shout, and the cloud of dust in the air starts to settle -- the guards are already after them -- "Shit, we gotta hurry" -- and they speed up, ignoring the other prisoners milling around haphazardly, and turn down a hallway -- and find Mukuro standing there, looking pleased.
"Good job," he tells them, then throws them a few objects that they barely manage to catch in mid-run -- Chikusa's yo-yos -- Ken's channels -- he'd killed the guards keeping watch over the weapons cache and retrieved them and his trident -- then he turns to run -- and it's only then that the two of them notice the bodies strew on the floor, no doubt dead.
Mukuro doesn't seem to see them.
"Let's go, shall we?"
*
Humans. So pathetic. So dirty. So worthless. Mukuro doesn't think much of humans, as a whole, and he's never really considered his train of thought wrong in any way, shape or form. As far as he was concerned, humans were no better than ants -- multitudinous and so easy to crush.
As far as he was concerned, the world had to be cleansed of them.
And yet, maybe -- there were exceptions, ones worthy of saving for at least some tiny sliver of time.
He'd just never found any, yet.
From the very beginning, until now -- a trecherous family who'd sold him as a lab rat, scientists who gladly sacrificed their children for the sake of power, those who called the entire process justified -- 'for the sake of the family' -- the sake of who?
And yet --
*
The bittersweet tang of blood had been heavy in the air, metallic and thick, with the faint undercurrents of unsavory chemicals -- Mukuro remembers opening his mouth, trying to taste the scent in the air, feeling it alight on his tongue for a slight moment before vanishing.
(So fleeting, humans were. All of them.)
A slight movement caught his eye, and he turned to look at the two figures near the corner of the room -- two pairs of wide eyes staring at him, and he stared back.
Ah, those two.
Joushima Ken. (The dog.)
Kakimoto Chikusa. (Emotionless.)
They'd be useful. (And maybe more.)
They were covered in blood, as well, painfully red against the cream-white clothes they'd been given, and dirty-red flecks stood out bright against pale skin -- Mukuro wondered vaguely if they could taste the blood any more vividly than he could -- and he smiled at then, the trident in his hand still dripping opera-scarlet onto the plaster floor.
He held out his hand, ignoring the way trickles of red slid down his wrist, and said --
*
The sirens sound like screaming, and rent the air like a knife through paper, ear-splitting, harsh and shrill -- a macabre compliment to the blood and gravel littering the ground. Ken almost stumbles over a dismembered hand -- probably severed from its owner during the wall explosion -- and dashes forward to keep up with Chikusa. Both, Mukuro notes, looking over his shoulder, have been injured.
He dismisses this fact, and keeps running, ripping out IV lines of sedatives and electrode implants in between steps -- some fizzle and pop when he abandons them on the ground, others drip viscous clear fluid, all are filthy, and it's almost pleasant to cast them off like so much trash. A stumble from behind -- "Oi, Kakipii!" -- "I'm fine" -- a falter, before the pound of bare feet on hard ground continues.
A deep breath, and Mukuro risks a glance back towards the main prison building -- it's burning brightly. If this is the smell of freedom -- the very idea makes him smile -- then it is quite bitter and raw, with the faint undercurrents of blood and gunpowder. Not at all unpleasant.
"Oh shit -- Mukuro-sama!" A hoarse shout, punctuated by panting breaths. "The guards!"
Mukuro doesn't look back, just answers smoothly, "Speed up," and keeps running, eyes trained on the distant horizon, at the barbed-wire fence that's now the only thing between them and the sea -- and the sea's the only thing between them and freedom. So close, so close, but even closer is the pounding of the footsteps from behind them.
There's a burst of swearing accompanying the sudden rustle of metal links, and he casts a quick glance back, realizes that the Vendicare guards are right at their heels, and Ken's barely dodged the cast-iron manacles that were aimed at him -- too close for comfort. Taking a sharp right, he dodges into a patch of ragged growth -- Ken and Chikusa close on his heels -- and loses the guards for a moment, they're too bulky to follow -- but not for long.
They run for a moment longer, the air filled with nothing but the sound of ragged pants, the low thump of bare feet on hard ground, before Mukuro speaks up, calm, cool, controlled, no signs of fear. No hesitation. Nothing. He declares, "We should split up." It's said dryly, half-smile painted thin across his lips and eyes narrowed -- he's got dirt and grime and ash on his cheek, and can taste it faintly when he speaks. "At this rate, you'll only drag me down."
*
"Would you like to come with me?"
It was all that he'd said.
And they'd looked at each other for a small moment before nodding, trailing quietly after him as he turned and walked -- calmly, one foot in front of the next -- out of the gaping hole in the laboratory wall.
They never stopped following him, after that.
*
Immediately, he sees the hesitation and reluctance in their eyes, the conflict between obeying orders and leaving their leader behind -- but they're good dogs in the end, and nod -- probably thinking that they really are hindrances -- and dash off in to the darkness.
Mukuro doesn't know for sure whether they'll be safe, but he at least knows that this way, they'll have a better chance of getting out. They aren't immortal, not like him -- he'll never die. The ground is cold beneath bare feet as he slows from a run to a walk to a stumble to a stop, then turns and watches the Vendicare guards draw close -- huge, hulking shadows clutching chain and manacles, just for him.
Run, he thinks, run run run. Run for me.
Cast-iron links reinforced with electric currents clamp down on his wrists, neck, torso, but he still remains standing, looking up at the Vendicare with clear eyes and lips curved up in a smile even as they start to drag him back -- the exhaustion is starting to catch up to him, and it's hard to move, but it's still his victory -- and as the prison doors begin to open up again, a pair of lean shadows cross the borders out of the prison grounds and make a run for it, for their master.
This breakout has been a success.