Lightning Serenade

Chapter 91: Fields XIII

Unit Beta was first. Neito and Hitoshi took turns singing Crazy Train on the walk over, much to Chizato's delight.

"I didn't know if you'd be able to pull it off, let alone so quickly," Neito admitted as they neared the doors, eyes taking in the familiar view of the courtyard.

"It helps that you're Pro Heroes and that everyone just saw you on the news. I think they tried to spin it as you guys absolutely losing it when Denki was taken by—" Chizato cut himself off, glancing nervously at the soulmates.

"You can say it," Hitoshi said. "Denki is a strong hero. It's not his first time being taken by villains, and we know it's probably not going to be his last, either."

"You seem so sure," Chizato said idly, scanning his badge at the entrance to Unit Beta to unlock the doors.

"We are," Hitoshi said. "We've had a lot of practice. Denki always finds his way back to us."

"Well, once you're in our hands, the Commission has no say over your treatment. If we decide that it's best for you to talk to as many patients as possible, then that's what's going to happen," Chizato explained.

"How does the Commission feel about that?" Neito asked warily.

"They don't know," Chizato said. "Your treatment is none of their business. Not that they won't ask, I'm sure."

Even in the loungewear that they were ripped out of their apartment in, some of the kids on the unit recognized them right away, flocking to them. Those that didn't recognize them out of their costumes recognized their hero aliases shouted by their fellow patients gathering around them in the hallway.

"They will know, though," Neito said as they left Unit Beta and headed toward Unit Echo. "They cornered Denki before we graduated and used information from records here to try to coerce him to signing on with them."

Chizato looked stricken. "We've had some data breeches. No matter how many times we update our firewalls and security systems, it still seems to happen at least every few years, if not more. I've tried bringing this issue up, but even though I'm sort of climbing the ranks, I don't have anything to do with the technology side of things. I'm still just a peon on the units, you know? It sucks that the Commission would stoop so low as to use such a thing against a hero, but at least it wasn't a villain."

Hitoshi and Neito glanced at each other, and Chizato groaned.

"I'm so sorry. I'll bring it up again. There's really no excuse. The lack of security is putting lives in danger. We've had so many heroes come through here before they made it big. It would be so easy to..."

"Everything turned out fine for us, even considering the data breech," Neito said. "Sometimes it happens. We can roll with it—it's whatever. Obviously, or we wouldn't be parading around the units when there's no guarantee that someone isn't going to tell anyone else that we were here, right? But not everyone is us."

Chizato nodded thoughtfully as he scanned his badge at Unit Echo. "I'll bring this up to the higher ups again. Show that there is some real danger in the neglect that we've shown toward the issue thus far."

"Look into quirk-supported technology guarding," Hitoshi supplied helpfully, crossing the threshold into Unit Echo. "It adds a more protective layer than anything just coding can accomplish."

"I'll have to look into that. Do you—"

"Toshi?" a surprised voice asked from down the hallway as they passed the desk.

The three men turned to see a girl standing in the doorway of one of the rooms halfway down the hallway. She had long, black hair and crimson eyes. Her baggy clothes hung off of her as she rubbed at her eyes with one of her hands, pushing her bangs out of her face in the process to try to see if her eyes were playing tricks on her.