3rd Point of View.

"Reborn, explain!" Skull yells after the man. Reborn demanded Gabriele to show them the latest discovery and at the moment, they are walking towards it. Skull still couldn't wrap the information around his head, finding it almost too impossible to believe.

"Later." Reborn answered and finally they arrived at a door with glass partition walls, Skull could see what's inside. There are few people wearing white suits scurrying with careful steps while holding clipboards. They are grouped in pairs, looming over small mountains of dirt.

Gabriele opens the door and they are suddenly found in a small tube that connects to the glass dome. Gabriele wordlessly hands them the same suit and gestures them to wear it. 

"Please don't touch anything and don't open your helmet, the air is not toxic, but it can cause skin damage." Gabriele warns them and opened the second door. The ex-Arcobaleni flanked his side, looking at everything.

"Several days ago, this part of the cave rumbled during the excavation, injuring three of my men. We stopped digging for a few hours before checking it again. What we found were the glass tanks and there were things inside them..." he leads them to the first mountain of dirt.

Two people, archeologists, spots them and bows at the sight of the two higher up and the leader of the operation.

Gabriele waves away the two and steps aside for the two to take a look. Skull glanced at him before at the dirt, eyes widening at the sight.

It was a glass tank, one that is used usually to be aquariums but this one is bug enough to fit an adult human inside.

"What the fuck..." Skull whispers as he identified what's inside the tank.

170 years in the past.

The room is big, bigger than Kyomi has expected.

And full of dead bodies. Everywhere.

Kyomi furrowed her brows and steps forward but before she could take a step, Alaude lunged and grabs her forearm, he pulls her outside.

Kyomi thrashed and turns to cuss him out but Alaude moved faster and covers her mouth, Alaude pressed her against the wall and squeezed her between  the wall and him, just in time to avoid a figure whizzing  pass them, leaving a cold breeze. The lamp that is on Alaude's other hand almost went out because of the coldness.

Kyomi's eyes widened by a fraction.

"They're here." she whispers. She feels a vibration and hears the man humming, "Where did it head to?"

"Left wing, towards the sleeping quarters." Alaude answers in a low voice. Carefully, the man steps away and Kyomi straightened herself and inches away from the left. "Let's continue." Alaude states and enters first this time.

"How many of your men is assigned here?" Kyomi carefully asked.

Alaude entered and hold the lamp before him, nose scrunching at the mixed smell of ice, blood and musky wood. "Thirty-five men."

A few meters away from them, three bodies are laying there, stiff with frost all over them. Kyomi kneels and touched the corpse a little, "The body is melting, it must've been a week since the attack and left them there." she says.

Alaude looms behind her, "The deaths started just last week." he informs. Kyomi nods, "Then the attack must've started around this area. Not in this hideout but around." she speculates, "Because if it started here, your subordinates should've informed you." she pats her dusty knees and straightened her back. She counted 8 corpses.

"Unless..." she turns to Alaude with a suspicious gaze. Alaude almost immediately glared back, snarling, "My subordinates are loyal. They would never go behind my back." he hissed back.

"Hn."

With Tsuna and Hayano.

"They've been there for a long time now." Tsuna comments in a low whisper, looking around. Hayano decided to scout the whole perimeter, leaving Tsuna alone in front of the base.

Tsuna sighs and grips her chin between her fingers, looking down pensively, "The phantoms are almost humanoid, misty and transparent. They have the internal framework of the human body and it phases through everything but can kill people by going through them..." she sighs.

With all the knowledge she has, it's most probably the Macchia and Veleno with technology from the future. 

They are too close for Tsuna's comfort.

She needs to act fast, now if only Kyomi and Signor Alaude comes back with information-

"DECIMA!" Hayano yells from far away and Tsuna suddenly felt a stinging sensation on the back of her head.

Instincts kicked in and she dropped to the ground, barely dodging a phantom. The being phased through a tree, freezing it and it slithered around the trunk, facing Tsuna again with a low snake-like hiss and lunged again.

Tsuna did a side roll and cleanly lands on her feet before jumping away when the phantom pounced on her again, every time it lands, the ground below freezes.

"How do we stop it!?" Tsuna yells/questions Hayano before disappearing behind the shed.

"We still don't know- shit!" Hayano rolls forward when another emerges behind the thees with one more following. She went zigzag around the trees and returns to the small house.

"Inside!?" Tsuna screamed and she runs away from the being, rounding the house after running behind it. 

"Inside!" Hayano affirms. She took a sharp turn, eyes widening when her Decima is closer than expected, almost colliding with her. Her own ghosts were not far behind.

"Oh shit!" Tsuna squealed and slides down while Hayano impulsively flips over her, high enough to avoid both Tsuna and the phantoms.

As soon as Hayano lands, she pivoted her foot and turns to the opened door bracing herself for the smell. Tsuna followed not far behind, ignoring the stinging pain on her palm. The two women raced inside, twisting and turning until they arrived at an opened door that led them down.

Hayano sticks her hand backwards, not even glancing because she knows that Decima will always grab her hand, not even a second later, her wish came true and the familiar warm skin of Tsuna clasps her hand. The two girls didn't even bother tippy-toeing and instead leaped all the way down, landing with a silent thud, the air picked up around them, blowing dust to their faces. 

Hayano coughs and Tsuna's maternal instincts kicked in, she whipped out a cream-colored hankie and offers it to the woman. Hayano mumbles a small word of gratitude before pulling Tsuna as they ventured deeper inside the basement.

170 years in the future.

Skull almost gagged at the sight and (imaginative) smell of rotten skin, which is a confusing matter since the tanks are one hundred and fifty years old.

Inside the tanks were bones, human bones with strange extras on random places, making it look like a cross-breed between a human and a monster of some sort. 

"What's with the smell?" Reborn demands to Gabriele who's consulting the clipboard. The smell is so strong, Reborn can smell it through the uncomfortable suit.

"The smell has some caustic chemicals that warns the brain of potential danger upon smelling it, the first time my people smelled, they vomited for ten minutes straight and continue to do so even after so many times. We concluded that the cadavers' smell has some kind of toxicity so we requested air filtering helmets and suits." Gabriele informs, "The scientists took a sample of the rotten meat to study upstairs and until now, they still haven't discovered as to why it is emitting such foul odor or why the bodies in not completely decomposed or better yet, turned into dust-"

As Reborn and Gabriele chats, Skull just stares at the bones with an unreadable gaze. The corpse itself is puzzling, despite the rotten tissue that is falling off like some slime, the bone structure itself is weird, it looks almost silver like metal with small jagged holes all over. This corpse is positioned in a straight position with one of the legs folded and its right arm outstretched, touching the old glass. The skull itself is haunting to look at, resembling the Scream painting, the teeth were normal, albeit a bit chipped but there's a pair of canine teeth on each side of its lower row of dentition.

It looked like it wants to get out of the tank but didn't manage to do it.

Or rather it was stopped by something.

170 years in the past.

Tsuna and Hayano found the two Cloud Guardians soon enough, thanks to Hayano's makeshift torch, they managed to walk their way around the basement.

They find the two about to enter another room, "Kyomi!" Tsuna whisper-shouted to them, and the two turn their head. Kyomi's brows furrowed at their appearance, "You aren't supposed to be here." she hissed lowly. 

"We know but we were attacked by those things so we had to enter." Hayano justifies.

"What did you guys find?" Tsuna asks the two, they have been inside for a long time, they must've found something other than the corpses that the two women encountered earlier.

Kyomi subtly shakes her head, "The attack started here and it spread towards north-west towards Marconi. "

"Get ready, we're entering the weaponry." Alaude warns the group and sets a foot in. The women followed suit, Kyomi being first and Hayano being last. "What do you have here?"

"Black Powder, guns, knives. Every weapons" Alaude answered, "We do not keep dangerous weapons in the mansion by Giotto's orders so we keepa portion here where it's hidden." he continued explaining, stopping a few centimeters

"Not anymore." Hayano mutters to herself, grimacing when she stepped on puddles of water that were just near the door. She cursed Kyomi for not telling her.

"But there's water everywhere... did the phantom did this?" Tsuna asks no one in particular, staring as Hayano kneeled and touched the water. She lifts the wet finger to her nose and smells, her eyes narrowed. She shakes her wet hand and stands back up.

"The water smells different." she informs, Tsuna tilts her head, "It smells like a mixture of salt and something pickle-like."

"Pickle-like..." Alaude murmurs, looking around the room.

Since it's a weaponry, the room is minimal with crates and cupboards for the bullets and gunpowder. But the moment they stepped in, all the things were destroyed, reduced to smithereens leaving an air filled with sulfur and charcoal.

"Around these areas, in there any houses nearby?" Alaude nods his head, "There's a man called Flavio, who lives about few kilometers from here. He specializes in swordmaking, other weapons and ceramic so he's a mixed of an armourer, a swordsmith and a ceramicist. We formed a contract with him. Other than him and the town, there's a cliff few miles away from here with a few hundred meter drop."

"Hmm..." Tsuna hums as she and Alaude lingered near the door, Kyoya and Hayano decided to check every nook and cranny of the relatively large room. They walked around the broken wood and tables, sharp eyes searching for any abnormalities but found none. Hayano runs her fingers along the walls, when a breeze passes by her forearm.

Hayano stiffened and looks at her arm where small goosebumps appeared before turning to the direction of where the breeze came from. Her eyes met the top right corner of the room. "Do you have secret doors?" her eyes narrowed at the suspicious square bump just near the ceiling, it's big enough to fit an adult hand.

Alaude glances, "None."

"Then what's that?" 

A/N: Christman Vacation is nearing, I'm thinking of taking a break so I should do my missing assignments. I'm also running out of ideas.

After this chapter, I will write one more chapter before going on a small hitaus. I'll probably return around the end of January, unlike last time, haha.

Addio per adesso!