Chapter Text
Dust and debris were still falling from the ceiling as materialized viruses swarmed through the halls, and Yuichiro ignored it all as he took off for the stairs at a sprint.
"Hikari-hakase!" That was Meijin shouting after him, panic clear in his voice. "Wait, it's not safe—!"
Meijin's voice was lost beneath the sound of more debris crashing down to the floors as the building shook again, and Yuichiro grit his teeth as he ran. He could only pray that the viruses would ignore him as he raced for the stairwell at the far end; he wasn't reckless enough to try the elevator, not when the building was still shaking from whatever was going on above.
Mercifully, it seemed fortune was on his side, and the cluster of mettools nearby only let out confused noises as he hit the heavy door at full speed. It slammed loudly against the wall as he shouldered it open, and he didn't slow any as he sprinted up the stairs.
Of course it would be Netto. Of course! Yuichiro had long lost track of how many times Haruka had complained about whatever trouble Netto had managed to find his way into; he was a Hikari, through and through, and Yuichiro himself had been a magnet for trouble as a child. But Netto somehow managed to consistently find the most dangerous situations to get into, and Yuichiro wasn't sure if his knack for finding trouble and being able to get out of it was a gift or a curse.
That boy is a whirlwind! Haruka had complained once, at the end of her rope again. And it's only been worse since you gave him Rockman! I can't handle two by myself!
Yuichiro had frequently regretted the way his work kept him away from home so much, and he'd hoped that Rockman would have helped keep Netto in line. Except he'd failed to consider that Rockman was a Hikari too, and for as polite and responsible as he was, he was just as headstrong and as much a magnet for trouble as Netto.
Once, listening to Haruka complain, he wondered if he should've waited longer to introduce them—waited until Netto was a little older, a little more mature—but he'd quickly dismissed the thought. He'd kept them apart long enough as it was...
The entire building shook violently as what sounded like an explosion went off somewhere above him, and Yuichiro grabbed onto the handrail, only barely keeping his footing. Dust drifted down from the stairs above him as he staggered up to the next landing, the rumbling reminding him uncomfortably of an earthquake, and he took a moment to catch his breath and brace himself for the metaphorical aftershocks.
Only silence followed as everything went still, and Yuichiro's heart threatened to seize in his chest; Netto had been on the roof fighting the materialized NetNavi. Surely, he hadn't...
There were still several flights of stairs between him and the roof access, and Yuichiro ignored the burning in his lungs as he hurtled up them.
He shouldn't have let Netto and his friends stay to watch the Cross Fusion experiment; it wasn't public yet, and that alone would have been enough of a reason for him to have sent them along after Netto had handed off the bag of clean clothes from Haruka. But he hadn't, and instead he'd encouraged them to stay and watch; he knew Netto had some vague interest in NetNavi research, and had since he'd first accompanied Yuichiro to work when he was small. He'd hoped that, maybe, just maybe, seeing the experiment would encourage Netto to put the same effort he put into netbattling into school, but he should have expected Netto would want to try Cross Fusion himself.
There was no way he could have anticipated the attack on SciLab, though...
Yuichiro felt like he'd run a marathon when he finally reached the roof access, his lungs on fire and his legs shaking as he fished his keys out of his coat. His hands were trembling as he fumbled through the keyring, only barely keeping his panic at bay as he searched for the correct key.
When he finally found it, he jammed the key in with enough force to make his wrist crack, twisting hard and flinging the door open. Bright sunlight and blue skies greeted him, and Yuichiro realized that the massive Dimensional Area over SciLab had vanished. It seemed that the attack was over as quickly as it'd begun, leaving behind an eerie silence as he stumbled out onto the roof.
It looked like something straight out of a disaster movie, with rubble of every shape and size scattered haphazardly across the roof. There were two holes on the far side of the roof, the edges still crumbling in and sending more debris down to the lower floors; that was where Netto and the NetNavi had jumped up, and the scientist in him marveled at the force required to go through several floors like they were nothing but wet tissue paper.
The father in him only felt terror slowly creeping up his spine as he scanned the area in front of him, looking for any sign of his children. He couldn't see Netto anywhere, and he couldn't hear anything beyond the occasional piece of debris falling somewhere. It was entirely too quiet when Netto was never quiet, and Yuichiro nearly choked as panic twisted his stomach.
"Netto!" he shouted, still desperately searching as he took an unsteady step forward. "Netto! Answer me, please—!"
"Papa? Papa, over here!"
Yuichiro spun around at the sound of Rockman's voice, his gaze sweeping across the roof, and—there! He spotted the bright orange of Netto's vest first, and the brief burst of relief he felt was quickly drowned out by horror when he realized Netto wasn't moving, sprawled out on the roof.
"Netto!" The shout felt like it'd been torn from his throat as he bolted, heedless of the rubble scattered across the roof and sliding under his shoes. Smaller pieces dug painfully into his knees as he slid to a stop and dropped down next to Netto, and his heart was in his throat as he scooped up his youngest.
Netto was completely limp as Yuichiro lifted him, his face lax as his head lolled back; for a blessing, Yuichiro couldn't see any blood or obvious injuries, but that did little to alleviate his fears. He held his breath as he ducked down and pressed his ear to Netto's chest, silently praying, and—
Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.
Netto's heart beat steadily under Yuichiro's ear, his chest slowly rising and falling, and Yuichiro nearly cried in relief. He wasn't clammy or feverish when Yuichiro pushed his bandana back, and with no injuries he could see...
"Papa?" Rockman called, and Yuichiro quickly scanned the ground nearby for the familiar blue PET. Rockman's worried face greeted him as he picked it up, his eyes wide and glossy. "N-Netto-kun seemed okay and then he just collapsed, I don't know what—"
"He's okay," Yuichiro said softly, and Rockman's tense shoulders slumped. "I think he just fainted."
It was one of the things he'd been worried about, when his team had finally moved onto testing Cross Fusion with a human; Cross Fusion required some sort of power source, and unfortunately, the only one available was the Operator. They hadn't worked out how to avoid the massive strain on the Operator yet, but that had been the next problem to solve once they had it working in the first place. That Netto and Rockman had managed a successful Cross Fusion, and had made it last long enough to fight...
It was something to look into, once Netto had recovered and the labs had been repaired. But that was a thought for later, and he put it aside; he still needed to find out exactly what had happened here on the roof, and he could only pray that the medical research wing was intact enough to give Netto a proper check up to make sure this was just a natural faint.
But for now, he just gathered up his children and held them tight, silently thanking whatever deity was listening that he still had them both.