Lightning Serenade

Chapter 73: Full Throttle III

A/N: For my instantaneous readers who usually get here seconds after I post (you know who you are), I KNOW I'm posting at a really weird time, and there's a reason for that! In T minus 6 hours, I'm going to (hopefully) be getting a tonsillectomy. I have been a more high-strung ball of anxiety than my Pomeranian leading up to this, so I unfortunately do not have any completed chapters past this one, and I'm not sure how the medications/pain/recovery/etc. will affect me. If you don't see an update for a little longer than usual, that would be why. I should definitely be on here responding to comments and such, though! (Also, I say hopefully because one of my housemates has tested positive for Covid-19, so I'm not sure if they'll go through with the surgery or insist on rescheduling, even if I test negative. We'll just have to see!)

When Denki's alert song filtered through the soulmates' minds, they shot out of bed like he was there and had just electrocuted them. Opening their mouths to respond, to give him something, anything, they both had similar ideas as they blurted out the first lines of their own alert songs before stopping and looking at each other. Neito reached out a hand to Hitoshi, nodded at him, took a breath, and started to sing the lullaby that had become a familiar comfort to Hitoshi.

"Well, he knows now, too. But why is he singing that song?" Then, with horrible realization, "where was he patrolling today?" Hitoshi grumbled as Neito sung, switching between rifling through Denki's outlines of patrol plans and scrolling on his phone to find the group chat from Endeavor's agency.

Spare him his life from this monstrosity! Easy come, easy go, will you let me go? Bismillah! No, we will not let you go!

Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me!

"It's out of order," Neito frowned.

Hitoshi nearly snorted. "I'm a fan as much as the next guy, but is now really the time to be a music snob?"

"That's not it," Neito said. "He's sending us a message, I think. He's asking to be let go, and someone is saying no. He's captured, maybe?"

"Captured? Who could have captured Denki? He can literally turn into—" Hitoshi paled.

"Toshi?" Neito hedged, stepping closer. "Tell me. What are you thinking?"

"Why would thunder and lighting frighten Denki?" Hitoshi asked, looking up to meet Neito's eyes. "Full Throttle?"

"I hope you're wrong," Neito said, but both heroes were already ripping their civilian clothes off, pulling their hero gear on, and tearing out of the room to find backup.

"Me, too."

"Denki's in trouble!" Hitoshi blurted out to Aizawa.

And that's how they ended up rushing through the explanation that the three of them were actually soulmates, promising to explain more later, just please gather up the forces while they had the advantage of having an early lead.

The response seemed to move at a snail's pace to the soulmates, but from an objective perspective, things moved quickly. Aizawa had a lot of sway all on his own but adding Present Mic to that sped things along that much more. Plus, even being new heroes of their own right, Phantom Thief and Mindjack have already had made names for themselves and established some powerful connections. Adding all of that onto the fact that everyone absolutely adores Denki, and well, people were cutting corners and ignoring the red tape to get the rescue and search teams in position. The required paperwork would still be there when they returned with Denki, safe and sound, and no one would squint too hard at the suspicious timeline of the paper trail or question about whether a document had been backdated.

The general search notification went out to all active heroes across Japan, telling everyone to be on the lookout for any signs of unnatural lightning accumulating in any one area. Some surveillance heroes were sent out specifically to look for signs of such phenomena in more isolated locations where it might not be noticeable, like in the forests, mountains, and oceans.