Chihiro tracked Nantō Masayuki with the muzzle of her kinetic SMG, but he disappeared behind the rooftop, slipping out of sight.
"Mom?"
"Ryoko, go hide over there."
Chihiro set Ryoko down and pointed to a small booth nearby, which looked like an old-fashioned phone box from the previous century—except it had no phone inside.
Ryoko didn't cry or scream. Though tears were already streaming down her face, she quietly ran to the booth and crouched inside, freeing her hands from Chihiro's grasp.
Meanwhile, Chihiro ejected the spent magazine from her SMG and loaded a new one. Several of the Mantis Blades on her back fanned out in different directions, ready to meet any incoming attack.
Suddenly, she sensed danger and looked up—just in time to see Nantō Masayuki dropping from above.
Chihiro instantly swung the SMG around and fired a burst. Nantō Masayuki, anticipating the attack, raised both arms to shield his head. The bullets struck him with flashes of sparks but failed to injure him at all, bouncing harmlessly off his bulletproof vestments.
As Nantō plummeted closer, Chihiro tried to dive out of the way. A heartbeat later, he crashed into the ground with enough force to trigger an explosion-like impact. The pavement caved in, and from the center of that crater, spiderweb cracks spread in every direction. An invisible shockwave, swirling with fragments of concrete, swept outward like a raging storm.
Caught off guard, Chihiro crossed her arms and raised her Mantis Blades to shield herself, but shards of concrete still tore into her. The blast flung her backward, slamming her into a wall before she bounced to the ground.
She struggled upright, tasting blood at the back of her throat. A split second later, she coughed up a mouthful of it. Glaring warily at Nantō, who stood in the center of the crater, she said, "You even got yourself a Berserk implant? Which corp did you get it from—Moore Tech, Biodyne, Zetatech, or Militech?"
Only a Berserk implant could unleash that kind of shockwave when dropping from such a height. Chihiro had heard of the "Dragon of Masafusa" but assumed he would rely on a Sandevistan, not a Berserk.
"It's a Biodyne Berserk III—one of their most highly rated lines," Nantō replied in a matter-of-fact tone.
He wasn't finished explaining when Chihiro, still on all fours, suddenly lunged at him like a sprinting cheetah.
Clang!
Mantis Blades crashed against his Black Key throwing blades, sparks raining down like steady droplets of fire. Several more Mantis Blades at Chihiro's back tore through the air, jabbing at Nantō from multiple angles.
Realizing her advantage in close combat, Nantō fell back into a defensive stance. Chihiro had taken internal injuries from his shockwave, so his plan was to wait her out—sooner or later, she would falter. She had more reason to rush, not him.
They clashed repeatedly, neither gaining the upper hand. Still, it was clear Chihiro's skill edged out Nantō Masayuki's. Seizing a window, she flipped her tactical knife from a standard grip to a reverse grip and slashed upward.
Nantōi's Black Keys were still blocking a set of Mantis Blades and couldn't defend in time. But he reacted quickly, arching his upper body back; her knife grazed his chin so close that if he'd hesitated for an instant more, he'd be visiting a ripperdoc for a metal jaw.
Unfazed by her missed killing blow, Chihiro followed with a kick to Nantō's midsection, knocking him flat. She then dropped her tactical knife and drew two Saratoga SMGs, one in each hand. Twin streams of metal rained on him where he lay, pummeling his bulletproof attire so hard that even if the rounds couldn't penetrate, the kinetic impact still rattled him.
When the magazines ran dry, Chihiro rushed forward, intending to finish him off.
The Masafusa-gumi enforcer was on his knees, wheezing in pain.
Suddenly, an agonizing jolt tore through her leg. At some point, one of his Black Keys had skewered her thigh.
Without even blinking, Chihiro ignored the blade sticking out of her leg and slapped a fresh magazine into one of her SMGs. She lifted it to aim at Nantō Masayuki's head—
—and at that exact moment, bright sparks exploded from the neural port at the back of her neck. It was as though an invisible sledgehammer slammed into her mind. Chihiro went flying backward, hitting the ground hard.
Her vision flickered like an old TV set, static popping across her augmented eyes, while countless fragments of junk data flooded her brain. The overwhelming surge battered her neural network.
Nantō, clutching his stomach, got to his feet and calmly approached. He kicked aside the discarded Saratoga before pulling out a pneumatic injector and pressing it to his own neck, healing some of his injuries.
Had Chihiro looked more closely, she would have noticed crimson lines of code glowing across the blade embedded in her thigh. The Black Keys Nantō Masayuki used weren't merely bladed weapons; they also infected an opponent's cyberware with junk data, causing short-circuits through the nervous system.
"Stop resisting, Chihiro," he said softly. "This will all be over soon. Considering the service you once gave the Tiger Claws, I'll make your death painless, and you can meet your daughter on the other side."
He lifted his right foot slowly. Just as he was about to stomp down, Chihiro's right hand opened, revealing a flash grenade she had been clutching since the moment she fell.
A burst of blinding light and a deafening shockwave ripped through the air. Instinctively, Nantō squeezed his eyes shut, but he still stomped his foot where he remembered Chihiro lying. He felt nothing but concrete under his boot—no sign of a body.
When the grenade's effects subsided and his vision returned, Nantō saw only an empty patch of ground. The mother and child were nowhere to be found.
.........
..
.
"Mom? Mom!"
Ryoko's voice seemed to come from a great distance. Chihiro felt a crushing wave of fatigue. She tried to open her eyes, but her lids felt like they weighed a ton. A deep, overpowering drowsiness engulfed her, pulling her under like a rip current.
All she wanted in that moment was to sleep—truly sleep—and leave everything behind. Perhaps…never wake up again.
"Mom!" Ryoko called out again, more urgently, tears coloring her voice.
This time, Chihiro heard it more clearly. With a desperate shake of her head, she snapped back to herself and forced her eyes open. She found her daughter clinging to her, sobbing as though letting go would mean losing her mother forever.
Chihiro gently stroked Ryoko's head, then looked around. Memories of what had happened before she passed out began to resurface: she had used the flash grenade to blind Nantō Masayuki just long enough to escape. She and Ryoko fled the small market and took refuge in a run-down apartment building nearby.