Moonrise

Part Nine

The next forty-eight hours were absolute hell. Worse than hell. If this was the apocalypse, no one could tell the difference.

The teams weren't allowed to communicate with each other, for safety's sake. Sure, they could put the phones on vibrate, but who'd feel them when they spent a good deal of time running? Still, they did keep in contact with Mitsuhide and Oikawa, as requested. The problem they had was reporting their numbers as they knew them.

They knew they'd lose people. Even if they'd been trained to be the best, and they were, they still had to deal with members falling to the enemy. Still, for every one person they lost, they fought back, and several of their people were taken with them.

Mitsuhide chose not to say who was lost, at first. He felt that if they didn't know, they would be able to keep their minds on their survival. That changed with each call to him. His teams wanted to know who was still with them, or rather, who had been lost.

Eventually, Mitsuhide handed this duty over to Oikawa, who was very nearly emotionless with each call, and seemed to handle it better. He would write down those who did not respond to the informal roll call, and then give them any orders Mitsuhide had for them. Once one call ended, another call came in, and the process was repeated. After the last call, he passed the paper to Mitsuhide, who would read it, and then hang his head. Tooru knew he did it from the pain of loss, and also relief that Kei wasn't among those listed.

The older man grew increasingly afraid the next report would tell him he'd lost his last remaining son, and he couldn't bear the thought. He stayed with Oikawa, though, unable to leave while his teams were still running.

~*~

Bokuto's group was hit the hardest. Nearly all of his team was taken at various intervals through those forty-eight hours. Each of them sacrificed themselves to save someone else, and to see that Bokuto and Kuroo survived.

Kawanishi went back to help Tanaka, and was the first to fall. Tanaka, badly injured but still able to fight, saw to it that Osamu was able to keep going, and was able to take down Futakuchi with him in his final fight. In turn, Osamu pushed Kaori out of the way of a failed attack. He was able to save her, Bokuto, and Kuroo by not only taking out those immediately behind them, but anyone else by leaving small, but deadly landmines.

Wounded and unable to continue, he stayed behind to make sure no one else made it past him. One of his buried bombs caught the two men with Daishou, but he'd managed to escape somehow. Unfortunately, the shrapnel also caught him, and he could not follow Daishou. Kaori, who hadn't been able to leave him behind as she was supposed to do, stayed with him until he breathed his last. She stayed with him, even after that, and when she knew it was safe to leave, she slowly followed in the direction Bokuto and Kuroo ran.

Daishou eventually caught up to the pair, and taunted Kuroo relentlessly. But nothing he said seemed to stop his quarry. Not until he mentioned Kei.

"He's probably dead by now," he yelled at Kuroo's retreating back. "Your pretty boy couldn't fight his way out of a wet paper bag!"
"Don't. He's trying to get you to fight him," Bokuto tried to warn him as soon as he stopped. "It's a trap. An obvious one, and sloppy, too, but still a trap. We gotta keep going. Ignore him."
"Good riddance!" They heard Daishou shout. "I'm sure Grandmother is happy. Her disgrace of a grandson is dead and the Tsukishima name is no longer tarnished by him... and his kind."
"Bo?"
"Yeah?"
"You gonna stop me now?"
"Nah. I don't even know what came over me earlier."
"Good. It's his fault, you know."
"Yep. Totally his fault." After a short silence, he had to ask, "Are you sure you can...?"
"I lied before. We fought once."
"Oh yeah?"
"Two hits. I hit him, he hit the floor. I got suspended for a week, but that was just a formality, and they kept it off my record. No one blamed me for kicking his ass. Besides," and he winked at Bokuto as he turned to face Daishou. "I'm a fast learner. I remember everything Kei taught me. Everything."
"Then do what you need to. I'll back you up, if you need it."
"Thanks."