The five of them stood by the cop car a little down the road. Red and blue lights whiring and coating the street in their coloured glow. A voice resonated through their headsets, calling confirmation of the mission start, and the group broke off into teams.
The ginger of the team lead his squad through a side entrance, the barricaded window unable to withstand the assault from the team raven's Type-89.
Carefully, the blonde entered the building, followed closely by the ginger. With a nod, the blonde split from the group to search the higher levels, earlier drone reconnaissance showing that their target was on lower levels. Turning slightly, the ginger nodded to the raven and started their search of the ground floor.
The search came up empty. A few instances of footfalls sounding from above occurred, but otherwise the place was eerily silent. Deciding that this floor was clear, the ginger signalled for the duo to regroup with their blonde teammate.
Stealthily, the two made their way up the stairs, checking their surroundings as they went. Without any warning, bullets flew around them, a few penetrating the raven's skull. His teammate fell to the floor in a lifeless heap as he fired back, killing their assailant.
"Kageyama!"
Bullets shot up from behind him, startling the ginger onto his ass. Luckily, the action saved his skin. In an instant, he rose to his feet and sprinted past his fallen comrade, sliding behind a sandbag wall placed carefully in an otherwise empty room. The enemy walked closer, crouched down to minimise noise. His heart beat wildly in his chest, mind racing as the seconds ticked by.
Then, out of nowhere, the enemies phone began to ring on it's own. The man let out a disgruntled sound of shock before the tell-tale screeching of bullets came from the man's right. A moment later, his body thumped to the ground and the ginger knew he was safe.
"Hinata, I-I killed him."
The girl stated, smile on her face as Hinata turned to look at her past his barrier. It was almost a nice moment, had a single shot not raced through the air and gone straight through the blonde's brain. Hinata shouted in shock and horror. His mind whiring yet again as he ran to the doorway to see where the shot came from.
A loan glint from through the window made it all too clear. Someone had been ballsy enough to enter their GPS range to get a sneaky kill. The shine retreated, probably to get back inside before they were caught. Instantly, Hinata ran for the window, hoping to get the man before the other got him.
What he didn't expect, was that the person had returned as quickly as he had left. Shells rained around them as they fired. Bodies wracking from the recoil. Pain flared in his torso as he fired, the white-heat becoming too much and forcing him to fall to the ground. His opponent retreated once more, probably to reload his weapon after the shoot out.
Slowly, the ginger dragged himself to the window, hiding under it's ledge. With a shaky breath, he addressed his remaining squad mates.
"K-Kei...I've been hit."
At the other side of the map, one level lower than ground, a tall blonde and an evergreen male stopped in their tracks. The shorter of the two kept glancing around, eyes flicking in every direction in an attempt to spot oncoming attackers. Every so often, his gaze flitted past his friend, and he saw the stiffness in his broad shoulders.
"Shoyo..."
"The guy, keeps going outside, he'll be coming through the window to kill me in a minute... so he should be on the GPS..."
His voice was getting weaker, small gasps of air breaking apart his sentence. Immediately, the greenette pulled out his phone and checked the area map.
"He's right Tsuki. There's someone on the outside heading for the window by Hinata."
He confirmed, eyes locking onto the back of blonde hair. The stiff posture shifted, small shakes being the only indicator that anything was amiss.
"Kei... I just wanted to tell you, one last time... I love you."
Tsukishima stayed silent a second, thoughts collecting themselves. He heaves a deep breath, then raised his head, as if looking at Hinata through the ceiling.
"Shoyo... I love you too."
Yamaguchi lowered his head, a silent prayer for his three fallen comrades while there was a reprieve from battle. Then, he pulled out a drone and tossed it at the stairs, checking his drone's ammo before sending it to finish what Hinata had started.
The line went dead, probably Hinata's attempt at silencing his pain. Tsukishima was stiff as he kept watch, waiting for Yamaguchi to confirm the kill. When he did, there was a small ball of satisfaction rolling around in his gut.
"That makes it two v two. How do you wanna play this Tsuki?"
The blonde didn't even have to think about it.
"Stay hidden and keep looking for them with your drone. If you can startle them into moving, tell me."
Yamaguchi nods, understanding the other's plan. He easily found somewhere to hide on the highest floor, ignoring the ache seeing his dead friends brought. He settled down and got to work, shooting traps on his way past in his drone.
Not too much later, he found an area with a lot of reinforced walls, and sent his drone inside. Tsukishima wasn't too far behind, the other being as quiet as humanly possible. He got a shot into the first enemy he found, the woman spinning on her heels to try and find the device. Then, he found opponent number two. With the woman still freaking out, he took a shot at the unaware man's rear, chuckling slightly in childish glee.
He moved his drone around quickly, their opponents chasing him down. With his job complete, he called over the radio.
"Tsuki now!"
Tsukishima moved in immediately, activating his own device to ascertain the exact position of the enemies. It was too late for them when they noticed. A slight shift of their footing revealed their locations, and it barely took a single magazine for Tsukishima to kill them.
Through his headset came a loud chorus of cheers, a small smile gracing his face as the screen flashed for their victory.
"You did it Tsukishima!"
"I knew Kei could do it!"
"Hey! I helped!"
"Yeah, but Kei did most of the work."
Tsukishima laughed at that, Yamaguchi releasing an indignant cry of protest. He could tell Hinata was grinning like an idiot on his end, purely from the huff of amusement he released. Yachi pitched in her two cents, attempting to calm Yamaguchi down. Of course, it worked wonders, since anything Yachi said practically made you feel blessed, no matter who you were.
"Oi Boke, what was that shit?"
"Bakageyama! Language!"
"He has a point though. What was that?"
Tsukishima somehow didn't mind that he was agreeing with Kageyama. If anything, he was mildly amused by the notion.
"Not that I didn't enjoy it. But it was really difficult to not laugh."
Everyone but Hinata agreed, even Kageyama. Apparently they discovered something that wouldn't spark an argument between the two. Still, he needed answers.
"Well, it felt like we were all too serious, so I thought I'd lighten the mood!"
Now he knew Hinata was grinning. And while Tsukishima wasn't too fond of how real it had felt in the moment, even if he did realise a moment later and joined in, it had been a pretty good way to bring the mood up. It was a stressful game, and each one of them were feeling it.
The next match began, the five picking their defenders easily. The round began, and instantly shots were fired. When Tsukishima turned around, Hinata was dead on the floor.
"Bakageyama!"
