It was in times like this Heine was reminded of his contempt toward negotiations. He did not negotiate. From the moment they walked in a flood of bullets rained in on them. The concrete pillars were holding, the metal rebar deep inside of them unreached although bits of the pillar were chipped away by gunfire. The situation was remarkable in how close to an earlier negotiation went. Differences were present, the passage of time forced them on him and the rest, but sitting still under fire was not a common situation he found himself in.
Minutes in the stone block keeping his head up became comfortable to lean against. His partner was less comfortable, leaning forward with sheathed blade in hands placing a marked level of thought into something. She was far as guessing, his shoulders rolling when the pinch of solid on flesh grated his nerves.
"They'll stop shooting soon." Continuous shooting had a limit and he liked to think they were not so dense to waste everything on a pair behind cover. He had been wrong before on his estimation of intelligence on the typical gang banger. Not a sharp bunch, but once in a while a good head on shoulders shouted loud and the rest listened.
"They didn't before." Naoto remarked pulling her gaze up from her hands. She was not on Liza's payroll for this type of work. To the tiny elderly woman's benefit, she did not expect this sort of greeting for the notorious White Hair and his gang busting escapades. They were there on business, actual negotiation in the form of a commutative handshake. No fighting, no infighting, a pause and breather to repair from weeks prior engagement with Einsturzen's stickwork army.
Then Magato butting in unwanted and Lazareth. She should had cut deeper then, but her inability to kill was there then as it was now. The rest of what happened was locked up, her mind and body freezing up. A job to distract her mind was why she took it and happenstance put it with Heine mimicking one of their early encounters.
She did not expect those twins to appear uninvited and causing a ruckus. It was abundant without the heavy armed girls. Light gray splintered on the side of her vision. Their aim was edging toward dangerous, random guesses over accuracy were eventual in hitting their target.
"Yea, guess so." Chain rattled in his standing, look of disinterest unflinching. The grip on his pistols was lax, weight at the back of his wrist when he raised them chest high and side stepped over exiting from the pillar's cover. Closer proximity meant louder gunfire, matte metal barrels sparking at ends releasing bullets faster than perception could trace. Empty smoking shells bounce on the ground, one pistol spending its magazine and the other still raining fire.
The return fire was not grouped spreading holes about the back wall she was facing. Grimace was held for the unspoken act she blamed on impatience on his part. He was hit, scathed thrice and hit about his stomach once by the way his form winced. When the ammo was depleted, he returned to his seated position to reload nonchalant about giving bullets as he took them.
"That wasn't called for." She spoke, not chiding and making statement of what was done. She exhaled long, eyes closed, and hugged her blade tighter. "I thought the point of doing this together was to work together." They worked in combat like practiced acrobats relying upon the other catch them and prevent certain death by fall.
"You were right."
Eyebrows rose, then fell. She supposed she was. They were not going to stop shooting anytime soon without intervention. For the relaxed way he went about shooting back, Heine did not appear to want to go about intervening. It was not going to sort itself out without help. "You didn't have to go about it on your own."
"Forgot."
"I was here?"
"No, not that…" He grew frustrated jamming rounds via clip into the smaller hand gun. "Just got it in my head to hurry things up."
"I wasn't restless."
His shoulders rose, fell, and rose again in a fluid motion to standing. He was at it again, stepping into the line of fire taking potshots and putting down some by the screams of agony she heard. In turn she shrugged, typical Heine she thought unsheathing her blade to dash forward in disarming closer assailants.
...
The grunts of the fallen were dulling the more ground they covered away from the troubled negotiation. Word traveled slower than they, their arrival surprising on a crowd long antsy from the prior week's destruction. Things sorted out and the bullets ceased flying, just not before some were decommissioned.
"You're too impulsive." She was chiding him now knowing that time was all they needed to stop the violence. It was the last negotiation mission she was going to offer help for so long he was attached to it; he was not suited for taking a patient course.
"I was sick of waiting."
"I gathered. Next time ask, I like to know what I'm getting dragged into." Her footsteps break the matching pace, Heine glancing back toward the cityscape around them having thought she stopped to look at something. She was looking at him with eyes narrow in thought before picking her pace back up.
"What?" She was no easier to read with their time together, but he did not place fate in his ability to read much anyone.
"You're like a bullet. A stray bullet, sometimes you stray, but when you settle on something you only go toward it. Like a bullet." Now she was passing and confusing him.
"That your way of saying I'm stubborn?"
"Yes. Politely."
"A stray bullet." Spoken on exhale as his hands stuffed themselves into his pockets and he returned to pace. It was not the worst thing he was ever called, but it was removed from being a compliment. He took it nevertheless.
Sorry about the delay requesting anon, but how this is up to par for you. Request are still open.