The Night Shift of [redacted]

The Hell of Morning

        It was 1am when the first guard appeared in the cameras. Tanaka had been watching while the other two made more coffee, keeping each other awake. "Hey guys, one of those guards is there."

        "Turn off all cameras. It'll be fine." Noya called over as Tanaka did as instructed, shutting the monitors off quickly. After 5 minutes they turned the monitors back on, all three of them, Klein had gone missing about 15 minutes before this, sighing in relief when the guard was gone. Noya sighed, "You two just relax, I can handle things for the past few hours, don't worry about helping out." the other two hesitated, but nonetheless gave curt nods. The two other high schoolers going off to the coffee pot. The two talked in hushed tones, wondering to themselves about this job... why would the people running the place hire a high schooler, especially one that looks as small as Nishinoya.

        It went unnoticed by the libero as he kept brown eyes glued to the screen, determined to catch any irregularities that may appear. He saw a candle appear near a clothes store, "Tanaka, Asahi. I'm heading out for a sec. I'll be back in a bit. No time." He turned and jogged out of the room, heading off towards that area. It took maybe 10 minutes to get there, and he was quick to blow out the small flame, the candle dissolving to dust before being blown away in the air. Noya stood there a moment, wondering where those candles came from. Then, he turned around and started back to the room. He checked the time: 1:19. He still had a few hours, and it brought him to wonder why he stayed. Why did he bother to stay here if he was in danger on and off shift? Why stay when he could spend more time being a typical high schooler with an occasional attack? Why stay here and waste his high school life in constant danger? Noya shook his head, forcing the thoughts back to that little corner of his mind where thoughts went to be forgotten about, and continued his journey back to that little room filled with monitors and with the comforting scent of coffee.

        Noya heard footsteps, followed very quickly by his, now transformed weapon, heat up and begin floating. He was quick to remove the accessory from his neck. The weapon sprang to life as an axe, this time. Noya turned to find nothing... wanting to make sure nothing would follow him and harm the others, he started back in the direction causing his unease. He went exploring, his mind wandering away from the other two left alone in the CCTV room, now focusing solely on the creature who decided to stalk him. He saw 3 different colored lights, all roaming about just up ahead. Yuu gripped the grip of his weapon tighter, his body going rigged, preparing itself for battle if the situation called for it.

        As he slowly drew closer to the area of the lights, they went out... just, out of the blue, completely gone. Noya stopped, now confused as his head tilted to the side in curiosity. That small piece of him trying to force him to flee, to say, 'fuck all' and get back to the safety of the CCTV room. Though a good majority of himself kept insisting he went to investigate. Now, Noya was very much aware of the stupidity of the following decision, but this was a new phenomenon. It was something entirely new... so, he went right towards it. He headed right for the mysteriously extinguished lights of danger. Just as Yuu arrived at the supposed area of interest, the weapon began humming, violently trembling in his hands as it sensed something wrong. Noya instantly went tense, reacting a beat too slow before a hand closed around his throat from behind, not even giving him a chance to scream.

        Asahi looked at the time, the screen of his phone lighting up: 1:56. Noya had been gone far longer than half an hour, so much longer than he should have been. "... Tanaka, we should-"

        "Don't be stupid. I'm sure he just ran into some guards... remember when that guard was there earlier? He ran off into a bathroom for a long while... if he was here as long as he said, then he's smart enough to hide... he's smart enough to at least stay alive. I'm sure this isn't the first time he's been gone this long." the bald teenager didn't want to admit it, but he had begun getting worried about his short friend himself. Anxiety plagued his mind as the possibility of Noya going missing to this place slipped into his train of thought.