Cloud Dragon Emerges (3)
Behind Santa's Rest Stop lay a wide-open lot. Its purposes were many. It served as a firing range for testing newly purchased firearms, a repair bay for overhauling big rigs, and a scrapyard for dumping useless parts. And today, it was to be used as a dueling ground. The chill of the night air drifted across the open space.
"Mister?"
Ash, who had been swinging an old steel blade as though warming up for the duel, turned his head. Akina's face was full of worry. "Are you sure this is okay? It's not too late to call it off."
Ash sheathed the blade and spoke to her. "There's no need."
"You don't get it, Mister. Grandpa Santa is seriously strong! He's famous around here, I'm telling you. Just—let me find another way. I'll get a recommendation letter from someone else, dirty or not, I really—"
The girl's voice trailed off, smaller and smaller. Even as she spoke, she was clearly reluctant to give it up.
Ash regarded her for a moment, then said flatly, "Asojeo."
"Yes?"
"There is something I've been curious about."
"What is it?"
"It struck me a while ago—is a Pathfinder not something anyone can become? That is certainly what was written on the data card. Why, then, is a recommendation letter required?"
The question was aimed at Akina, but the answer came from someone else. "Pathfinders fall into two broad categories."
The old man, weapons in hand. Santa.
"Assault, for combat. And Technomancer, for extracting data from the ancient civilization."
He slid his two custom revolvers into their holsters as he continued. "Assaults, well—anyone who can point and shoot and swing a blade will do. All that matters is grinding down the enemy. But a Technomancer is different. They're a very rare breed."
With his preparations finished, Santa drew out a cigarette and lit it. Somewhere along the way, he'd put on a cowboy hat, a holster, and now the cigarette. He looked every inch the gunslinger.
"These Technomancers, you see—they're human computers who beat insane odds to survive full-brain cyberization. They use those electronic brains to jack into the ancient civilization's cyberspace. To pull out the data buried deep in there and restore forgotten technology."
A slow exhale. Thick cigarette smoke scattered on the night breeze.
"The problem is, they pour every last resource into the cyberization module, so they can't mount any other cyberware. They're glass bodies—never mind combat, even survival is a struggle."
Ash nodded. "I am familiar with the physiology of Pathfinders. Which is why renowned Technomancers hire Assaults, is it not? To guard their persons. But I fail to see what this has to do with—"
Mid-sentence, Ash realized something. "Don't tell me. Asojeo is a Technomancer?"
Ash's optical sensors turned toward Akina. His gaze was so intense that she grew a little flustered, turned away without a word—and then, sweeping her thick hair to one side, she showed him the back of her neck. At the center of her pale nape, faintly visible against the smooth skin, sat a mechanical connection port and thin strands of cable, utterly unlike the flesh around them. They were surely linked to her brain.
"Now do you understand why the letter's needed?"
Santa said. "A Technomancer as precious as the squirt can't be allowed to die a pointless dog's death. The rule is that a skilled Assault has to move as part of her team, and an old codger like me has to vouch for her—say, 'he won't get her killed'—before the permit comes through."
Santa flicked the cigarette butt away as if snapping his fingers, his eyes gleaming as he looked at Ash. "Curiosity satisfied, Ash?"
"...It is."
"Then you understand what this duel means, too?"
"Completely."
"Good. Shall we begin?"
A strange current flowed between the two men. Akina, standing between them, looked from one to the other and, sensing the ominous atmosphere, withdrew to a spot far off to the side.
"..."
"..."
Ash raised the steel blade vertical. He gave it a single twirl, then settled into the opening stance. "My name is Ash. I hold no affiliation—a wandering swordsman. With this blade, graciously lent to me by the venerable elder, I shall face you."
Watching Ash radiate courtesy and fierce spirit in equal measure, Santa smirked. "Santa Claude. I'm the bartender."
He raised both hands. Before anyone noticed, a pair of hefty custom revolvers had appeared in them. Even a glance said they were no ordinary weapons. "I'll face you with these—my Peacekeepers."
The charged atmosphere thickened by the moment. Before long, a taut tension wrapped the open lot. A short silence. Ash spoke. "I'm coming."
The words were barely out when Ash's body glided forward, low and stretched, in one smooth rush. An impossibly light, impossibly fast movement. 'He's fast!'
Santa flinched at the sight of Ash closing the distance in a blink—but his hands, battle-hardened from long years, moved in perfect opposition, snapping up to track his opponent. Bang! Tat-tat!
The twin revolvers roared at the onrushing swordsman. This was nothing like the wild spray Restman had shown him. This was practiced marksmanship—reading Ash's path of movement and firing into it, plugging his next move before it could happen.
Contrary to his original plan of closing the gap in an instant, Ash was forced to give ground. That one brief retreat split offense and defense apart.
Ash spread the stance of the Dragon-Form Step and waited for the moment to turn the tide. The instant of reloading.
At last, both of Santa's guns clicked dry. The cylinders had run empty. 'Now!'
Ash, who had been circling with eerie, serpentine movements, lunged forward fast—fully intending to end the duel right there. But. Tat-tat!
Santa's revolver roared again. '—!'
Ash's optical sensors spiked in alarm. He'd clearly been mid-reload, hadn't he? Ash hurriedly recovered his blade and twisted his body on pure instinct. A short exchange, over in the space of a breath. With the distance between them restored, the two locked eyes.
"...Ha! Fancy talk aside, you move like a damn horror. A humanoid built during the Corporate Wars? No. Autonomous-action processes weren't developed back then."
Santa tapped his own head with the gun barrel as he spoke. "You. What are you?"
"As I introduced myself before."
"That answer of yours. I hate it."
"More to the point—did you not need to reload just now?"
"Right. And I did."
"In that sliver of time?"
It had been a truly fleeting instant. Less than a second. He'd reloaded in that gap?
Perhaps Ash's reaction amused him, because Santa raised a hand and demonstrated. He showed Ash the reloading motion. "...Huh...?"
His wrist split open with a snap, and out came a fresh cylinder, fully loaded. Then he swapped it into the Peacekeeper's frame— The exchange happened in the blink of an eye.
"...A fascinating technique."
Santa grinned. But this time, unlike before, the grin was purely combative. "We continuing?"
"If necessary."
His smile deepened. "Then let's raise the tempo a little, shall we?"
The moment the words left his mouth, several slender cables ejected from the bodies of the custom revolvers held in each hand. The cables moved like living things, punching through his shirt and burrowing with perfect precision into the connector slots on both of Santa's forearms. Psst-zzik!
A brief spark, and a split-second shudder ran through him. Then a vivid, intense blue light blazed in Santa's mechanical eyes. No poetic flourish—his artificial eyes were genuinely glowing. That blue gaze turned on Ash. "Got a rough read on your skill, so let's do this properly. Techno-swordsman."
The tone of his voice had flattened into something subtly different. The easy slyness he'd worn until now was gone, and in its place sat the peculiar ruthlessness of a Pathfinder. Ash knew it instinctively. Now it began for real.
Santa aimed the revolvers that were now one with his body. Ta-ang! Ta-ta-tat!
Gunfire rang out again. And Ash was stunned. The bullets that had seemed to fly straight at him abruptly veered midair like living creatures, twisting to strike from his flank. That wasn't all. Among the rounds that followed, some slammed into the ground and ricocheted up at bizarre angles; others left the barrel already tracing utterly unpredictable arcs. Attacks converging from all directions, launched all at once. An omnidirectional barrage—no one would dream that such feats were possible from direct-fire weapons.
Ash threw himself aside faster than the warnings flashing in his sensors. Like a reed beneath the wind, his body threaded the falling baptism of lead by the narrowest of margins. Even so, a few rounds came in at angles he simply could not dodge. Without internal energy, the Dragon-Form Step could only reproduce its base form, so this was only natural. Had his enlightenment of the Neuro-Art been deeper, he might have evaded even those. But that, too, was not yet his—and so there was no escape. 'Then I'll cut them down!'
Ash ignored the screaming of his artificial neural network and raised his blade. Tta-tta-dang!
The old sword met the bullets in bursts of sparks. The sheer kinetic energy wrenched a rusted shriek from the joints of his mechanical arm. But Ash poured everything into running his main core at full power to analyze the situation, caring nothing for such trifles. 'Weaving bullets! Is this not the equal of the Dang family's secret arts?'
Dodging and deflecting the rounds pressing in from every side even now, Ash could not help but be astonished. Santa, for his part, felt much the same. 'What the hell—blocking bullets with a blade? Is that even possible?'
A single bead of cold sweat slid down his forehead. Even for a man who had lived through countless battles over long years, this was a sight he had never once witnessed. As each stood stunned by the other's artistry, the first to seek a change was Ash. It was born of a vague dread: that if things went on like this, he would lose without ever landing a single proper approach.
And so Ash activated his still-unfinished new power—the Neuro-Art. Through the artificial neural network, the power of brainforce began to whirl with ferocious speed. The remaining charge in his battery pack drained fast, and blue sparks began to crackle across his body, here and there. The flickering power of brainforce. In a single instant, Ash found the fleeting gap within the ever-shifting storm of bullets. Kkwarurung!
With a sound like rolling thunder, his body shot forward, channeling the essence of the Flying Dragon's Earth-Shrink into a bolt of lightning.
"What—!"
It was speed far beyond Santa's predictions. As though space itself had contracted around Ash, the tip of his blade was suddenly at Santa's very nose. Santa jerked backward in shock, but it was too late. Ash's blade had already stopped—just below his throat, at the boundary where cybernetic flesh met the organic. Without a hair's breadth of error. Had Ash put even a little more force into it, Santa's head would have gone soaring into the night air. A suffocating stillness. No ragged breathing broke it. A duel between a cyborg and a humanoid—of course there wouldn't be.
"Heh, heheheh!"
Santa let out a low laugh. "You. What the hell are you?"
Ash withdrew the blade. "As I introduced myself before."
"Damn it all. I hate that answer."
Santa's face scrunched up as if that were the honest truth.
—See?! What did I tell you! Our mister is seriously strong! Ooooh, Santa's a has-been, ooooh!
From far off, Akina could be seen sprinting toward them, spitting words that turned his stomach.
"Venerable elder."
"What."
"Would you say I have proven my usefulness sufficiently?"
Santa holstered his guns and let out a long sigh. "Yeah. Useful doesn't cover it—that was flat-out goddamn useful. I saw it with my own two eyes and I still can't believe it."
"Then, will you write the recommendation letter?"
"Yes! Come on, hand it over—my letter!"
Akina, who had arrived without anyone noticing, stretched out both arms and pressed him. Santa glanced back and forth between the featherbrained Technomancer and the one-armed humanoid, then barked as if grumbling. "Oh, damn it all! Fine, I'll write it, I'll write it!"
Grumbling as he was, there was something deeply satisfied in his expression all the same.