Devotio

Chapter 18

"Do you really expect us to believe he had no ill purposes in giving you that?" Atobe yelled gesturing towards the flash drive in Yukimura's possession. "There's probably some sort of tracking chip in it or- or a virus that will take down the whole mainframe of Cardinal's network if it actually connected to a computer."

Echizen rolled his eyes. He was currently being reprimanded by Atobe, Yukimura, and Tezuka insides the communication tent. "He was dying you stupid ape. If this was some elaborate plan, don't you think he would want to see it out to the end? Do you want to ask him yourself because I can gladly lead you to the spot he's at."

"The point is he was still a Chargarde agent. You shouldn't have gone by yourself." Tezuka said.

"That's not something I can really decide when he can control people to do his bidding. Plus I didn't see anyone in camp try to stop me when I was wondering away. Maybe you should train your troops to be more wary."

"Echizen-!"

"It's all right Tezuka." Yukimura said in a calm tone. "My men should've stopped him when he was leaving the camp so that fault is on me. Echizen according to your story, he lost his control just before you got to him. That should've given you more than enough time to turn back and get someone to go with you, especially if you felt like something was off."

"I don't need a babysitter."

"Apparently you do otherwise you wouldn't have done something as stupid as this." Atobe commented in a muffled tone.

Echizen took a deep breath. "You're never satisfied are you? Can't stand to have someone else be the center of attention for once in your life."

"Both of you stop." Tezuka ordered. "You're acting like children." Atobe huffed and Echizen rolled his eyes. "Echizen, what you did was stupid and very well could've endangered the lives of everyone here; Atobe, you're the commander of a Cardinal Special Forces unit so start acting like it. Echizen, what made you trust a Chargarde agent enough to take this without a second though?"

Echizen was silent for a few seconds. "He just- he looked so sad and ashamed. He had no idea what was happening when he was bring people in. And that girl wasn't with him and when I saw her the first time, she was all clingy and probably didn't let him have a minute to himself. She died for him, so he could escape and give me that stupid flash drive. But he's probably dead now too and since you don't seem to trust my judgement I guess this was all for nothing. Just destroy it or something."

The three in the room with him were silent. With how adamant Echizen was feeling about that flash drive, it made them, sans Atobe, feel a bit guilty. Echizen was as much their comrade as anyone else in that base and being accused of not trusting him struck a chord.

"We won't destroy it." Yukimura finally said. "If you're that passionate about it, but we don't have a computer here and we've already mapped out their base for the most part so I'm afraid this was all for naught."

"He said there were other things besides the schematics; didn't say what though. I would figure it's something else important though that could help."

"Why not send it back to headquarters and have them analyze it? Can't that one with the bandana make a cheetah or something and send it off?" Atobe suggested. Echizen raised his brow seeing that was a good idea.

"An animal that large would require a great amount of energy and concentration to keep up." Tezuka said. "Everyone needs to be at their top for tomorrow."

"Why not a bird then? They're small and agile and can probably get back faster than any land animal."

"That's as good of a plan as any we have right now." Yukimura said. He handed the flash drive to Tezuka. "We just have to take care of this then it's nothing but tomorrow to worry about. If you two would take care of that." Tezuka and Atobe left the tent. "Echizen-"