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a normal day as an fbi agent doesn’t always end in violence of any kind, but it’s not like it’s uncommon. heizou was getting decently used to the unexpected the longer he held this job. the more shoot outs he got involved in, the more he was learning to just adjust to whatever may happen. he was always equipped with a gun just in case for a reason, of course.
on this particular day he and his partner, sango, had been tracking down a group of criminals who called themselves the ‘fatui harbingers’. they were an odd gang, but were scarily good at evading capture. a lot of their crimes were petty, being things as simple as small robberies or even occasionally starting fights. but every now and then they would stoop as low as murdering seemingly innocent people.
the gang was odd, and the fact they had people actively following them and cheering them on was even stranger. their followers tended to call themselves the ‘fatui,’ taking after the group’s name. it was clever, really; the name of the group itself was rather clever. heizou would admit that to any of the harbingers in a flash, though sango wouldn’t be very pleased if he did.
but today they had managed to track one of the eleven members of the harbingers down to an old warehouse. the name of the harbinger they had successfully cornered? the balladeer, also known as scaramouche. he was one of the better known harbingers and supposedly one of the strongest.
scaramouche had seemingly gotten himself trapped, but he was clever. all the agents in the warehouse with him knew he was, but that doesn’t mean they were fully prepared for a full on shoot out.
“you know if you just come on out, it’ll be a lot easier for both of us!”
heizou made what was most likely an entirely futile attempt at drawing the harbinger out as he once again ducked behind a metal shelf. this entire warehouse was filled to the brim with them and thank god for that.
“oh, but that’d just be too easy! can’t you have a little fun?”
this wasn’t necessarily heizou’s definition of fun, but he guesses a criminal’s idea of fun may be a little.. skewed.
sango was watching heizou from across from him, sending him death glares at how he communicated with the harbinger.
“heizou!” she was whispering as loudly as she could to him over the sound of gunshots. “what in the world do you think you’re doing? you could cause him to draw this out even longer!”
heizou simply laughed, peeking out for only a moment to shoot at one of scaramouche’s goons before grinning at sango.
“relax! we’ve done this before, we’ll handle it just fine even if i converse with the suspect a little. besides,” he smirks slightly, giving a small shrug. “a little friendly banter between an fbi agent and a wanted criminal never hurt anyone!”
sango looked like she was about five seconds away from bursting like a party popper, but heizou simply ignored her, grin dropping only slightly as he looked back at where he knew scaramouche was. he had a plan, but he knew everyone including sango would call him insane for it for days. it was most likely fine. i mean, he does have a bulletproof vest on, and he has been trained for situations like this. being a little reckless may be the only solution here.
so after hyping himself up for a moment, he ignores sango’s cries to ‘get back behind the fucking shelf!’ and strides right up towards where scaramouche is. of course he doesn’t get there just by walking up to him and has to dodge quite a few bullets, but he does it nonetheless. his grin is wide by the time he approaches the man, though if you paid attention you’d see the sweat dripping from him increasing in small increments the closer he gets.
scaramouche had been turned around, facing a window as his goons had shot at heizou and his fellow agents but as he hear footsteps approaching he had quickly spun around, gun pointed directly at heizou. in fact, the gun was placed directly to his temple.
“quite bold of you to just waltz over here, you know.”
“even bolder of such a pretty boy like you to point a gun at my equally pretty little face, don’t you think?”
the harbinger gave little to no reaction to the flirty words that left heizou’s mouth, but it wasn’t as if the man was lying. they were both rather attractive, scaramouche even more so. nonetheless, that wasn’t something you really brought up whilst having a gun pressed directly to your forehead.
“you’re stupid. each and every one of you agents,” scaramouche started with a growl. “you may have captured lowly childe, and even murdered signora, but me?” he let out an incredulous laugh. “i’d rather die than simply allow you to capture me so easily.”
“oh, i think we all know that. i mean it’s been, what,” heizou looked down at his hand, beginning to count on his fingers for a moment. “seven months since we began tracking you? and this is the first time i’ve gotten the chance to see your gorgeous little face in person.”
“flattering.” the harbinger spit it out as if such things were a mockery to his name and in all honesty, they may as well be.
would that stop heizou? absolutely not.
“now, why don’t you lower your gun and just let me cuff you, hm?” heizou gave him a sweet little smile, even adding in a head tilt as an attempt to persuade him. “maybe i’ll even throw in a little treat as well.”
the way heizou wiggled his eyebrows after that last bit had scaramouche wanting to just blow his brains out right here.
“i did say you wouldn’t be getting me that easily, did i not?” the harbinger laughed again, moving the gun ever so slightly to the left. “perhaps i should show your teammates i don’t ever fuck around.”
that made heizou just a tad more nervous than before considering his situation, but he was sure he’d survive this. right?
“oh, come on now! you wouldn’t do that to my pretty face, would you?” he pouted for extra effect. “at least shoot me somewhere else!”
scaramouche moved the gun to press right against heizou’s throat.
“does here work instead, pretty boy?”
wow. something about this harbinger calling him pretty really struck him hard. that didn’t change the fact that his heart nearly leapt out of his chest feeling the tip of the gun elsewhere, though.
“much better, yes!” a blatant lie. he had to keep this going for as long as possible until he heard the gunshots slow down, which was slowly but surely happening just as he predicted. “you know, if you weren’t a wanted criminal and i weren’t the fbi agent who is about to capture you, id think you and i would make a pretty great couple.”
scaramouche frowned at that, furrowing his eyebrows.
“do you flirt with all the criminals you capture?”
“nope! just the uber pretty ones like you.”
the harbinger just rolled his eyes, before he finally noticed that the gunshots had almost entirely quieted. he furrowed his brows again, taking his attention off of heizou for just a split second to try checking on his goons.
that split second was just long enough for heizou to move away from the gun, grabbing scaramouche’s wrist and spinning him around in order to successfully incapacitate him.
“scaramouche, also known as the balladeer, you are officially under arrest.”
the man groaned as he leaned against the window, glaring out of it. he knew it was coming but that didn’t stop the frustration growing inside of him.
heizou eventually heard sango coming up from behind him, sounding more than ready to berate him for his reckless plan. and that is exactly what she did.
“heizou shikanoin, my god! do you have any idea how worried you had me and the others? that was way too reckless! you do that again, i’ll have you benched.”
he simply sighed, turning to his partner as he finished locking the handcuffs on scaramouche’s wrists.
“i succeeded, didn’t i?”
“yes, but-”
“then that’s all you need. i got the job done.”
heizou then turned back to scaramouche, grinning at him before turning him around to lead him out of the warehouse. that was the end of that case. lord knows figuring out how to track down the rest of the harbingers would take years.
they’d get it eventually though, even if things changed in the future. they would surely succeed.