“I am going,” Hayato said, low and deadly, “to kill you.”

Yamamoto just smiled, the bastard, cheery as if Hayato had offered to take him on a fucking picnic. “Okay.”

Hayato growled as he snapped his wrist, laying one bracketing pattern of explosives around Yamamoto while he thumbed the jets on a second set and sent them diving at angles into the smoke. They didn’t go off and the smoke swirled around the line of Yamamoto’s sword as it stilled.

Hayato positively hissed at him and reached for a grenade. Yamamoto, the bastard, laughed.

Rocket bombs. Sticky bombs. Mini bombs, which he did his damnedest to stuff down Yamamoto’s pants. None of them worked, at least insofar as none of them rendered Yamamoto a smoking, unconscious body on the floor of the training room whose pockets Hayato could rifle.

It was time to get serious.

Yamamoto’s eyes widened satisfyingly when Hayato went for his box and slammed the Flame Arrow cartridge home. Yamamoto dodged once, twice, closing in on him, and Hayato snarled and fed in his Cloud bullets to saturate the field and force him back. Yamamoto’s smile was sharp as he reached for his own box, and Hayato cursed softly under what breath he had left as that damn swallow made for him.

In the end it wasn’t the swallow that got him, though. And it wasn’t the sword. No. It was the goddamn dog that Yamamoto sent behind him to trip him, and that was just the last straw. Hayato howled with absolute fury as Yamamoto came down from above him, and shot him right in the face with Flame Thunder.

After a few breaths, Hayato managed, with a groan, to haul himself up onto his knees and crawl over to Yamamoto’s body and get down to his real business.

There was nothing in Yamamoto’s jacket pockets. There was nothing in his pants pockets. There wasn’t even anything in his shirt pocket, and Hayato finally pounded a fist on his chest in outrage. Yamamoto coughed and levered himself up on an elbow with a small groan of his own, but Hayato didn’t have time to appreciate that right now.

“Where are they, you asshole?!” he yelled.

“What?” Yamamoto smiled at him, sweet and wry. “You didn’t think I’d actually keep them on me? I threw them away.”

Hayato stared at him and flopped over onto his back, feeling the exhaustion of absolute betrayal. “I hate you.”

“Your endurance is already getting better,” Yamamoto offered, sounding hopeful.

“I really hate you.”

“And it looks like we worked off most of the jitters, at least.”

“I hate you so much.”

“Tsuna agreed with me,” Yamamoto positively wheedled.

“You threw away my cigarettes.”

Yamamoto leaned over him and kissed him. Slowly. “You taste better now,” he murmured against Hayato’s mouth.

Hayato glared up at him. “You’re going to have to do a whole lot better than that.”

Yamamoto just smiled. “Okay.”

Hayato made a grumpy sound into the next kiss, but settled a little as warm, sword-calloused hands slid under his shirt. He was still not impressed with the campaign to make him quit smoking, but at least Yamamoto was taking his responsibility for this mess seriously.

End