Bite To Death

"Boss, they're sending the closest Patroller unit," Romario informs Dino as soon as he hangs up the phone.

Dino lets out a sigh in relief but doesn't relax.

The tall building they're currently in is surrounded by zombies in a one block radius. The guns they first escaped Chiavarone mansion with have long since run out of ammo, and while all of Dino's subordinates know how to fight in close range, taking on that many infected is a death wish.

The outbreak three months and a week ago took out over half of the Chiavarone Mafia Family and Dino arrived home through the panic to find the mansion filled with corpses of his closest friends.

They could have conceivably stayed in the mansion and cleared it of infected, but it was hard to point a gun at someone he knew personally, and even harder to pull the trigger.

So they all left it behind and moved through the streets, making it to a safe house not too far away. Those first few weeks were horrific – not knowing what was happening or how many survived. Too many of Dino's Family were struck down by wounds they received during the outbreak, and the constant tense atmosphere took its toll on the mind and body.

More would have died, if not all, if Reborn hadn't been there. The hitman was visiting his old student when the infected swarmed into the streets of Italy, and he stayed despite having a better chance of survival alone.

The hitman was a monster in his own right, and quite frankly Dino wasn't far behind, but with a group as large as the Chiavarone to care for, the two couldn't be in every place at once and sometimes infected slipped through their defences.

However, while Dino was angry at himself for how many he'd lost, he couldn't help but be relieved that only those people were lost instead of a higher number.

They hopped from place to place, constantly on the move because safe houses always inevitably got overrun, until one day they stopped at one of Reborn's hideouts. A letter had been slipped under the door, a while ago from the dust collected on it, and after Reborn read through it he rolled his eyes so hard Dino thought he might have strained something.

The hitman suddenly proposed they change directions entirely and start for Japan. To find a high schooler. Who would apparently protect them.

When Dino raised concerns, Reborn just shook his head and stated that it was an option Dino could take as the boss of Chiavarone. They didn't have to go.

Dino decided against it, insisting that he couldn't just bet his Family on the off chance a little boy turned out to be the second coming of Jesus. So the Chiavarone plus one hitman continued up to Denmark and slipped into Sweden.

The note never explicitly stated that a safe zone was in Namimori, only that maybe Reborn should find Hibari Kyouya, and that part always made Dino wonder if he was being selfish. Dino wavered and eventually asked if Reborn was supposed to find the boy to protect him.

Reborn laughed himself to tears.

They were supposed to be walking stealthily through the streets to the next site, so the noise called quite a few wandering, and Reborn couldn't be bothered to aim his gun properly through his hilarity.

Dino never asked again.

It was only two and a half months into the outbreak that they thought to pick up a radio. Dino very seriously told Romario that he was the new Chiavarone head, and that he should never, ever listen to Dino's opinion, and just not let Dino have an opinion at all.

Cheerful laughter came from the radio as the Chiavarone tried to stop Dino from slamming his head into a wall to punish himself. Reborn encouraged the wall loving by pointing out how they all would have been happily settled into a safe zone if Dino chose to go to Namimori.

The guy on the radio, in between gossiping about someone called Mukuro getting too close to the Chairman, read out a list of airports that Namimori visited on rotation and then a list of permanent bases.

Dino straightened up and declared that they were going to Norway, where the closest visitation happened. If they had a satellite phone it would have been easier to just call in their position and get a Namimori team to meet them at the closest airport, but they settled for having to find the nearest visited site.

They made the trip in three weeks and the next Namimori visit to the airport would be in a week. They settled down to wait, a lot more relaxed now that they have somewhere to go.

The radio was almost constantly on and it wasn't strange to hear the Chiavarone subordinates arguing about who they shipped. Dino really thought they should have had better things to do, but he'd be a hypocrite. He shipped OT7 so hard an iceberg couldn't take him down.

It was hard to not get s.u.c.k.e.d into the drama the night time Japanese radio host spins. They find themselves cheering whenever the host reports yet another successful chopper run, and then listening intently when it's usually followed by a strange anecdote.

Even Reborn chuckles when he hears a story about the Chairman and Fon meeting accidentally, and then the property damage and high speed chase that followed.

Around a day before they're supposed to be visited, the lookout finds a wandering group of zombies meandering towards the control tower they're holed up in. She informs the rest and they swarm out of the building to take them down, but more keep showing up. They must be migrating from the cities because there's no food left.

It gets to the point where they can't leave the control tower to get supplies in the terminals. It's fine, because they've stocked up, but a satellite phone was found there a few days ago. No one grabbed it, because they were being picked up anyway, but now they all regretted that decision.

To be clear, Reborn could take them all out like stepping on ants, but the ammo stores were pitiful and the hitman outright refused to use anything but his gun as a weapon. If it became a matter of life and death, maybe Reborn would ignore his self-imposed rule, but even then Dino isn't sure. The hitman is a nutcase.

Dino could probably wipe out the whole group himself, but more infected could come or he could make a mistake, and really one slip was all it took to get infected. Plus, there was no chance in hell that he was going to let his men and women go out there.

Before Dino could say anything, Reborn grabbed two others, all the ammo left, and ploughed straight through the hoard of zombies outside. The three cut a quick path through and sprinted for the terminals. Most of the zombies stayed to try and get into the tower, but enough followed that Dino was worried.

It took a nerve wracking wait, but eventually the speakers in the terminals started blasting a Namimori radio station – the Italian one this time which was playing music. The zombies around the tower fled to the noise, and the two Chiavarone members who left came racing back with the phone clutched victoriously in one of their hands.

The speakers cut out then, because the generator inside was already half broken. It was a miracle Reborn got it started in the first place.

Dino waited, and waited, and waited, but the zombies flooded back to the tower and still Reborn didn't show up.

One of the men who ran out with the hitman looked confused, and said that Reborn was right behind them. Romario stepped up beside Dino and placed a hand on his Boss' shoulder, before simply stating that it's Reborn and there's no way a monster like that could have been taken down.

Dino took a deep breath and asked if Romario could call the Namimori number the radio stations repeat.