sakunokishimori requested: I'd like to request a mission gone wrong with Hirahara and everyone got worried especially Tagami (though he doesn't show it)
Admin Notes: This was really interesting to write! Slight warning, though, there is a little bit of blood at the end. Nothing the Escorts haven't seen before! -Admin Hirahara
"He should have been back an hour ago." Kirishima brought up, looking at the wall clock hanging in the room where all five escorts, excluding Hirahara (the "he" in question), were resting. He and Saeki were currently sitting on a sofa while Tanizaki was pacing back and forth, dragging his huge kanabo across the ground behind him. Kinoshita had started drinking the moment he had finished his mission and was currently passed out on the table, and Tagami, as usual, was just plain passed out. Or, that's what everyone thought. In reality, the amber eyed escort was wide awake, face pressed into his palms, feeling beyond reckless, ever since Hirahara had told him what his next assignment was.
"Rokkaku is sending me on a miiission!" The energetic escort had announced. Tagami had just rolled his eyes from the childish outburst.
"What, alone?" He asked. Usually the two were paired up to go do anything together, probably because Hirahara was absolutely reckless and needed someone to make sure he didn't break anything he wasn't supposed to.
"Isn't it gre~at?" Hirahara smiled, not at all feeling worried. "There's a deceased one roaming the old train tracks!" He had then continued briefing Tagami on every detail of his mission before he was shooed out the door by Saeki, who had something else to give Tagami to do.
"He's probably fine," Saeki said gently, but also feeling agitated. "He's probably just held up coming back or something because he got distracted." No one else in the room bought that explanation. Saeki just sighed and looked down, realizing that he wasn't helping. There was more continued silence, the tension in the air so heavy it was like a blanket. Kirishima looked up at the wall clock again.
"He should have been back an hour ago." The azure eyed escort repeated. Tanizaki finally lost it, swinging his Kanabo at the wall and barely missing making a huge hole. Kinoshita woke from his drunken nap at that, while the others nearly jumped out of their seats.
"Dammit! This is irritating!" He said gritting his teeth. "There's no telling what's keeping him so long! At the very least, we could have gotten some sort of communication from him!" It was true, none of the escorts had heard anything from Hirahara since that morning. It was no wonder everyone was on edge. "What kind of mission even was it?"
Tagami thought back to what his friend had said that morning. "The… deceased one was haunting a train station." He muttered, getting the other escorts' attention. "He's supposed to help it cross over. I think." Another long silence followed. Tagami put his head back in his hands, trying to take deep breaths. Just be okay, idiot… He thought to himself.
—
Hirahara didn't expect the deceased one to be so hard to take down. At first, it was pretty routine: some younger looking boy had been at the train station, but when the golden eyed escort kindly asked him to cross over, he went black in the eyes, screaming that he didn't want to leave. Next thing Hirahara knew, there was an iron train barreling down the tracks after him, possessed by said kid, who was far angrier than before. "It's not fair!" the ghost child was yelling. Most of the dead said the same thing.
"It's not really your choice, you know?" Hirahara yelled behind him. He had a few options here: get off the tracks, attack the train, or try to stop. None of them seemed like fun options. For one thing, getting off the tracks might lead the train to do so as well, and who knew what kind of damage a runaway train could make. Attacking it might not stop it either, since all he had was his shovel (he kind of wished he had Tagami's pickax right then). Even if he managed to dent the vehicle, he doubt it would have much effect. So that left the last choice, stop it. He had never stopped a moving train before.
With only a little thinking involved, Hirahara decided to wedge his shovel into the front wheel. He had enough strength, at least, to do something like that. Taking a deep breath, Hirahara turned around to face the oncoming train. He swung his shovel down, hard, into the front wheel, trying to break it off. The iron train slowed, but only for a minute. The will of the deceased one was strong. Too strong.
—
"I don't see why we have to go out of our way to find him," Tagami complained superficially as he and the four other escorts walked down to the local train station. "I'm just saying, he probably saw a cat or something on his way back and followed it instead of coming straight home after a mission." No one was buying it, not even himself. It was worth a shot, though.
"You know that's not what happened," Saeki scolded, leading the way. "I just hope he hasn't done anything rash, like angering the deceased one. You never want to do that."
"It's probably strong…" Kirishima said, his usually stoic expression slightly faltering. Maybe he's worried too… Tagami thought. "Rokkaku should have assigned me this mission." Tanizaki just grunted while Kinoshita kept silent. It wasn't long before they all reached the train station. There wasn't anyone else there. Saeki stepped down onto the tracks to see if he could spot anything. There wasn't anything on the left, but something caught his attention on the right.
"Hey, you all need to see this," came his voice, darker than it usually was. Tagami was next to step down onto the tracks to hurried to where Saeki was standing. He was bent down, looking at something with wide eyes. When Tagami saw it too, he nearly stopped in his tracks. It was an arm, the hand still clutching the shovel.
—
"I guess I failed this one…" Hirahara breathed, clutching his injury to try and stop the blood flow. The kid sitting on top of the train seemed indifferent. The gold eyed escort had been fast enough to jump out of the way when he realized he wasn't going to stop the train, but wasn't quick enough. His arm had been blasted off by the impact, but other than that, he was fine. After managing to allude the deceased one for just a while longer, he'd been spotted and nearly run down by an off track train. So it really can get off the tracks… Hirahara thought, the information completely useless now. There was no point in continuing running after this. It would just be delaying the inevitable. "That's too bad…" He closed his eyes, ready for the iron death on wheels to ram him.
Which, to his surprise, was not what he heard happen next. Instead, Hirahara was sure there were gunshots from a very familiar weapon, along with someone yelling very non-repeatable words at the train while hitting it with something hard. Looking back, his eyes stared dumbfounded as he was confronted by the five escorts, Kirishima laying the final blow onto the phantom train.
"What were you thinking?" Tagami yelled before anyone else could get a word out. "Why didn't you contact any of us for help if you were struggling with this mission?"
"I- I guess I forgot?" Hirahara smiled painfully. Tagami raised his hand, and the other escorts panicked in fear that he was going to slap Hirahara. Instead, the gold eyed escort found himself in an embrace by the amber eyed escort.
"Idiot!" Tagami yelled, still holding the very shocked Hirahara. "Don't ever do that again!" And that was probably the first time any of the escorts had ever seen Tagami so worried.
