Lightning Serenade

Chapter 93: Not a Filter III

TW: Gore, mild violence, hallucinations, stabbing and cutting (expect the unexpected!)

Denki woke up to a hazy room. He rubbed at his eyes, but the haze didn't fade. He sniffed at the air and didn't smell anything off, so he figured that the base wasn't on fire and guessed that it was just the early morning light filtering in through the gauzy curtains in the weirdest of ways.

He might have given it a bit more thought, but he was very quickly distracted.

He gasped on an inhale, almost choking on it. "Toshi! Nei! You're back! When did you guys get here?!" he asked, fumbling out of bed and toward his soulmates. "You should have woken me up! It's not like I have any hero patrols that I have to wake up early for or—"

Why didn't they wake him up?

Or at least crawl into bed with him instead of stand there in the corner creepily watching him as he slept?

"Hey. Is everything alright?" Denki asked quietly, suddenly worried, approaching more carefully now, finally feeling his body wake up and his reflexes kick in as his heartrate accelerated at the strangeness hanging in the atmosphere. "What—what's on your face? All over you! Is that blood?! Are you hurt?!"

Hitoshi looked over at Neito, eyes widening at the blonde's appearance like he was just noticing. "Oh, Nei," Hitoshi said. "Your face is a mess. Let me get that for you."

Then Hitoshi reached out, dug his fingernails into Neito's hairline, and started peeling Neito's face from his skull.

Denki stumbled back, inhaling a stuttering breath as he watched Neito smile. "Thanks for your help, Hitoshi," Neito said. The skin pulled from his nose, and his voice changed slightly to accommodate the facial trauma. "You're always looking out for me."

With a final tug, Hitoshi had Neito's limp face in his hands, and Neito sported a skull with various ligaments and muscles and bulging eyeballs instead of his usual, handsome face.

"Much better," Hitoshi praised, but Denki couldn't see how it was any better at all. Blood tipped the front edges of Neito's hair and dripped down his neck, staining his hero costume even worse than before. Somehow, though, the manic smile was still discernible as he looked Hitoshi up and down.

"Now, let's clean you up, babe," Neito said, reaching out for Hitoshi.

Hitoshi dropped Neito's face to the floor with a sickening splat, and Hitoshi dug his own fingernails into his own hairline as Neito started from his jawline and worked his way up as Denki continued to look on in horror.

He wasn't schizophrenic, goddammit, so he shouldn't be hallucinating, so it had to be a nightmare. He just had to wake up.

He took another step back but tripped on his discarded blankets and sheets, tripping and landing awkwardly on his arm, feeling the pain radiate through his torso and down through his wrist.

Not dreaming, but it sure as hell wasn't real.

So, if he wasn't schizophrenic, but he was hallucinating anyway...

His eyes looked around the rest of the room again, and once again he noted the slight haze lingering in the air above him.

Phantasm came rushing to the front of his consciousness so suddenly like starbursts behind closed eyes in a response to pain. Uretori, he corrected in his mind, looking back at the soulmates who had finished de-facing Hitoshi and were admiring the limp face held in Neito's hands like a rare artifact.

This was bad.

This was dangerous.

If others woke up during this and also were on bad trips, then people could get hurt. People could die. Who the hell knew what kind of traumas the League of Villains kept in the darkest trenches of their minds that the quirk Hallucinogenic Gas could bring forth?