Lightning Serenade

Chapter 79: Tartarus III

Dashing through the snow...

"Showtime!" Hitoshi declared, bounding to his feet and hoisting a laughing Toga up behind him, yanking her to standing by her wrist. "Ready to make an appearance?"

"As Denki?" Toga asked.

"Nope! As your beautiful self!" Hitoshi gushed, squinting his eyes and poking Toga on the nose.

Toga giggled, her eyes crinkling with the force of the smile overtaking her face. "Flattery will get you everywhere!"

"Oh, he knows," Neito deadpanned with a targeted glare as he stood up on his own, without help from his soulmate as he was too busy helping someone else, and stretched, lifting his arms over his head. He continued to watch as Hitoshi's eyes were drawn to his stomach as the hemline of his shirt was lifted from his movements during his stretch, and his glare fell into a faux innocent, questioning look. "Collecting all the blondes, Tosh?"

"Gotta catch 'em all!" Hitoshi said and stuck out his tongue at Neito. Neito smiled cheekily in return.

-.-.-

"This is a mess," the man grumbled, his eyes switching between the two televisions in the break room, both on different news stations.

Nato Hachisho was a simple man. He figured that being the public relations manager of the Hero Public Safety Commission wouldn't be too challenging, and it had worked for a few years. They had a lot to lose, so they would tread carefully and not put him in difficult situations, right?

Wrong.

One television was turned to channel four; it was muted with captions turned on. The pretty pink-haired newscaster wore a grim expression on her face as she explained the recent developments of how notorious villain Toga Himiko was spotted along with Spinner, speeding down the freeway. The man cringed as the newscaster was replaced with shaky, amateur cell phone footage of a red beater car with Spinner behind the wheel, a focused grimace on his face as he sped past. Toga was hanging haphazardly out the passenger side window, quickly securing her equipment back into the car with seemingly little regard for herself. The camera changed position back to where the car was coming from to see a frazzled Present Mic rounding the corner, yelling about her taking his blood. By the time Present Mic had reached the civilian who was recording on the cell phone, the red car was no where in sight, and the captions read that the civilian excitedly asked Present Mic for his autograph. The footage tilted and jolted, probably as the civilian reached for something for Present Mic to sign, and Present Mic's incredulous look was quickly replaced by the corner of a skyscraper and the glare of the sun.

Maybe the Hero Public Safety Commission could have run damage control and assured the public that it must have been Twice's clone posed as Toga in an attempt to break the real Toga out of Tartarus in some elaborate scheme. There were a few problems with that idea, though. The League hadn't even made a single attempt toward Tartarus. There hasn't even been any scouting of the location that anyone has picked up on, which was strange. As far as everyone could tell, Toga was a vital asset to the League, so they figured that this was their chance to start picking them off one by one as they tried to come to her rescue.

The other problem happened to be broadcasting to the public on channel six news. The man turned his attention to the other television, the one that had its volume turned up past its normal low background murmur.

The newscaster whose head looked like the top of a half-melted candlestick was talking quickly, his voice wavering up and down with empathetic emotion as he interviewed the two Pro Heroes on-site with Tartarus looming in the background.

"When did you realize that villain Toga Himiko had tricked everyone into believing that she was the real Chargebolt?" the newscaster asked.

"It wasn't until a few hours ago," Hitoshi said, his voice rough and his eyes deep set and red rimmed. He ducked his head and pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration before shaking his head and immediately perking up again, like he was just remembering that he was on screen and had a task to accomplish and couldn't break down until later. Neito placed a reassuring hand on Hitoshi's shoulder, but Hitoshi didn't look back at him. It was probably a good thing because Neito didn't look any better.