Red Fireflies

Part 8

Musouka
After leaving the Dreamscape, Hitomu and I decided to try and find a way to track down Fout's location using Nightopia. We changed into more out clothes and went to work. Satoru projected himself on the larger screen beside the second more smaller one and looked on at us work from behind it.
"How will we find where they're keeping her if she's been removed from the system?" Satoru asked. "I can't locate her myself either."
"We might not be able to locate her, but Fraksie was in the Dreamscape before. He even made contact with his surroundings. His mistake. He could have left traces of himself that we can use to track him," Hitomu explained.
"But all the red lightning bugs have been taken care of. There are no more detected in the Dreamscape, Hitomu," Satoru replied.
"That may be true, but he might have left imprints of himself in the system one way or another. Think of it as footprints or a trail of crumbs left behind," Hitomu said. He continued to type away at Nightopia with a focused look. I myself am glad the two can get along well working together. But who Hitomu can get along best with is Fout and we need to get her back.
"With that logic, why can't we detect traces of Fout? She's been here longer," Satoru asked.
"That's because she's been wiped without a trace from here by Fraksie. I'm not even sure how, but he did," Hitomu said. We stayed quiet a moment, only hearing the light tapping of the keys on the board.
"Could I be of any help? I can try and speed up the process of hacking into this database," Satoru suggested then.
"You could do that?" I asked.
"Go for it if you think you can," Hitomu replied.

Satoru gave a nod before closing his eyes. Suddenly, the code on the smaller screen in front of us began to move faster across it. Hitomu removed his hands from the keyboard as we looked on. Satoru opened his eyes then, his eyes fully glowing, and the code moved faster and pieced itself together through different parts of the screen. I looked at Hitomu as he watched. I nudged his shoulder with the back of my hand.
"Well, help him," I said. He nodded and began to type as best he could. After a few minutes, we heard Satoru give a short gasp as his eyes began to fade to normal. The code on the screen stopped and it all went still. Hitomu removed his hands from the keys and looked up.
"What happened? Why'd you guys stop?" I asked. Hitomu turned to face me.
"I think.. it's done," he responded. Satoru blinked shortly then smiled.
"Ok so do we know where they went or not?" I asked. Hitomu turned back to the computer a moment.
"So remember how Bedryf has those extra warehouses?" He began.
"Wow really? Again? He's dumb enough to go back to the same place as before?" I asked.

"Well not necessarily. He has a few warehouse facilities around the city. Nightopia has narrowed down six of them. He's not in the same one as before but he's in one of them so technically it's five," Hitomu explained.
"How are we going to look through five whole facilities in five different scattered places?" I said.
"You two could split off. You each can investigate two facilities and if you haven't found anything you could meet together at the last," Satoru suggested.
"I could quickly rent a car and you could take ours," Hitomu said.
"Alright. Hitomu, take Satoru with you in the laptop," I began.
"What? No. It's better you take him. He'll keep you safe," he said.
"Exactly my point. He'll keep you safe. I don't want anything to happen to you again. You're not so much of that tough guy you used to be, no offense, and we don't want anymore scars," I joked. "Trust me, I've got this," I said with a short wink. Hitomu contemplated a moment but gave a nod.

"Alright, Satoru. You're coming with me," Hitomu said as he began to type in the transfer of the system into the laptop.
"Understood," Satoru said. "And, Dreamer.. be careful. I'm- or rather- we're relying on you to come back alright. We're counting on you Musouka," he finished with a gentle smile. I blushed slightly and gave a nod. He nodded back and closed his eyes just before the screen went blank and Hitomu closed the laptop. We got our bags from our rooms and stepped out the door. We walked over to the car and just as I was about to open the door, Hitomu grabbed my wrist. I looked down at our hands then up at him.
"Musouka.." he said lowly as he looked to the ground. I turned to face him directly and waited for him to look at me. He let go of my wrist so I took the chance to pull his necklace out from tucked inside his shirt. He and I looked down at the charm as I held it a moment before he finally looked to my eyes.
"Stay safe," he said sincerely. I smiled and gave a nod.
"I will," I insisted. "I love you," I added then. He smiled gently as we pulled each other closer. We kissed and stayed locked together for a moment. After a while, I reluctantly pulled away, remembering our mission. I opened my eyes to see Hitomu's face slightly flushed, which just made mine go pink as well as I bit my lip shortly. I chuckled and got into the car.
"I'll see you soon," I said from the open car window. He nodded shortly so I pulled up the window and began to drive off to the first location that Hitomu had put into my phone. After all this time he still managed to be quite the charmer.