The Neon Beast Devours the Night
The city brimmed with light.
High-rise illuminations, hologram ads, garish neon signs and billboards, even the streetlights dimmed by the overwhelming glow. If you craned your neck until it ached, staring desperately at the sky, it was unmistakably black night up there. Yet the jagged teeth of the skyscrapers piercing endlessly upward made it seem as if the dark heavens were being gnawed by the colossal beast called Midland.
Sitting high up, Ryuhei slowly surveyed the glittering Midland and the light-stripped night sky. A sudden headache gripped him; he clutched his temples.
"...Ryuhei. Yeah, Ryuhei. That's my name."
Muttering as if struck by sudden realization, he stared at his hands in wonder. Fingers covered in sleek black composite material writhed smoothly.
After staring at his hands for a long while, Ryuhei's gaze shifted sideways. There lay the helmet from his armor suit. Six glowing eyes reflected pinpricks of light, as if staring back at him.
"Ugh..."
The headache intensified abruptly. Instinctively, he knew it was someone external trying to seize control again—that yielding to the pain would strip him of independent thought, just like before. Huddled and trembling against the agony, he clung desperately to his consciousness.
"Hah... huff..."
Dozens of seconds that felt like hours passed. The forced external connection attempt and its torment finally ended. Ryuhei panted, still curled up.
But he snapped his head up. His eyeballs glowed red. The spells and programs embedded in his brain and body instantly backtraced the intrusion path.
Soon, his living neural firewall pinned a location in cyberspace's vast coordinate grid. He could see the mages there panic at his unexpected gaze.
Simultaneously, real-world and cyberspace coordinates overlapped in his eyes, pinpointing the mages' true position in Midland.
"So that's where you are."
Ryuhei snatched the helmet beside him and pulled it on. With a whir, it sealed around his jaw and neck, syncing with his armor suit. The six camera sensors glowed red as their apertures whirred.
Soon, the black cyborg ninja dashed through Midland's chaotic neon jungle. His destination: the hideout of those who had reborn him.
It took less than a few minutes to shred every gangster in the underground fight club. The thugs, sporting cheap fifty-dollar eye implants at best, couldn't even track Roque and Hayato's movements from the start.
Finishing off the last armed gang, Roque twirled his Aura Blade playfully and glanced up at the ring. A lone middle-aged East Asian man stood there, his face twitching uncontrollably.
Locking eyes with Roque, the man shrieked hysterically.
"I-If you kill me, the Nine Dragons Society won't let it slide! You bastards won't set foot in East Babylon anymore!"
Hearing the shout, Hayato stepped beside Roque and asked quietly.
"What is this Nine Dragons Society?"
"Chinese gang. Biggest outfit in East Babylon."
"...Does this Midland have nothing but gangs?"
Sheathing his Aura Blade, Roque walked toward the man.
"People. Lots of them."
The man on the ring backed away as Roque approached, his face twisting.
"Fuck, should never have dealt with you corporate scum..."
"We're looking for Tanaka Ryuhei. Know the name?"
At Roque's low question, the man bellowed.
"Why the hell are you looking for that junkie here?! It's been ages since you took his corpse! I've told you on the phone a dozen times I don't know shit! That's why I even sent that bastard who just died to check his old apartment!"
At the man's indignant outburst, Hayato spoke up this time.
"We are not from any corporation. We merely came seeking Tanaka Ryuhei."
"...What? You're not?"
The man's face went slack at Hayato's words. Soon disbelief twisted his features.
"Bullshit! Who the fuck looks for a drugged-up lunatic like that...! Half the street trash around here are types like him..."
Yet even as he spoke, his complexion soured further. He was starting to sense these two's aura wasn't corporate at all. Maybe starting the shootout wasn't such a smart move against the wrong people.
Then Hayato, behind Roque, leaped up. Before the man could react, Hayato's left hand clamped his throat.
"Gahk!"
"Tanaka Ryuhei was a drugged-up thug?"
Under the Aura Master's piercing glare, the man's face paled. Sweat beading despite his trembling, he stammered.
"...Fuck, if the bastard was strung out, what else you call it? Made us good money, but that don't make him any less of a fuckup..."
"This wretch with his loose tongue..."
Roque slowly shook his head at Hayato's renewed outburst. Should've known from the weird speech—the guy was no ordinary nutcase.
His gaze shifted sideways. An old fire shutter hung there. Hayato noticed the presence beyond it a beat later and looked up.
A thick finger slipped under the shutter, yanking it up with a rattle. Inside clustered burly figures in ragged clothes—muscular builds and spiked back implants marking them as the club's fighters.
The leader who'd raised the shutter froze at the sight inside. Spotting Hayato and Roque, he thrust out his left arm.
With a metallic clank, the hand and forearm split open, revealing a small launcher. A grenade rocketed out with a thoom.
A boom rocked the ring. Roque had dodged early; Hayato hurled the boss aside and leaped clear.
"Waaah!"
"Charge—!"
Post-explosion, fighters wielding bats, blades, or iron clubs roared in. Roque brushed soot from his new coat, sighing lightly at the mindless horde charging without regard.
This was the problem with gang fights. Brainless rushes, no tactics.
From the grenade smoke, tiny shurikens whistled out, precisely hitting vitals and dropping fighters instantly.
Hayato burst through the haze, blue Aura Blade flashing as he rampaged.
Watching from a distance, Roque relaxed his stance. No need to join; the fighters were getting carved up.
As Roque figured, the fighters facing Hayato barehanded barely lasted seconds—not worth timing. Having felled them all, Hayato scanned the corpses with troubled eyes.
Meanwhile, Roque's eyes tracked the club boss sprinting through the smoke—not outward, but deeper inside.
Roque's hand flicked toward the fleeing back. No throw, no chase—just a subtle palm twitch.
"Urk!"
The boss pitched forward as if tripped, sprawling. Scrambling up toward a door, he realized something gripped his ankle hard.
Twisting to look yielded nothing. Just his ankle pinned midair.
"What the fuck... what is this shit..."
Abandoning crawling, he drew his pistol, aiming at the approaching Roque.
"You fucking bastards!"
Bullets sprayed. Roque drew his Aura Blade, deflecting each shot as he closed in slowly. The boss's frantic trigger-pulls slackened into a dumbstruck stare at the swordplay.
Roque's blade soon sank into his shoulder.
"Aaaagh!"
Sizzling flesh and black smoke rose; the pistol clattered free. Sheathing his blade, Roque squatted before the shuddering boss.
"Alright. Now that you know we're not corp, spill everything. What happened to Tanaka Ryuhei?"
Clutching his shoulder, the boss gritted out.
"...If I talk, you let me live?"
"Depends on the show."
As Roque replied, Hayato approached, glaring down stiffly.
The boss glanced between them, chuckling hollowly.
"Fuck... if you're really not corp... you're screwed too. No 'wrong place wrong time' excuse with those guys."
Roque silently shook his Aura Blade hilt—a wordless threat: Answer or else. The boss hurried on.
"Not corp, huh... Where to start. One day, suits straight outta central casting show up—black suits, clean-cut. Didn't name their outfit, but definitely megacorp subcontractors. Ghost company to dodge regs and oversight, probably."
The boss stared at the floor, gripping his wound, lost in memory.
"They wanted fighters' corpses from the club. As 'natural' as possible—minimal implants. Rare stuff in Midland. Figured drug trials or some shit... Anyway, pay was fat, so we sourced and shipped max volume."
"Volume?"
"...Minimum three a month. Not canned goods—fresh dead, intact as hell."
Roque rubbed his chin.
"So you rigged clean kills sometimes."
"Heh, yeah. Pitted decent guys against heavyweights to harvest bodies."
"Ryuhei too?"
Hayato's face stiffened at Roque's question, jaw clenched. Roque kept eyes on the boss.
The boss eyed Hayato warily.
"Ryuhei... no need. Fought like he wanted to die. Stumbling high on chems, but on the ring? Berserk, no self-preservation. Crowd loved the show—popular draw."
"So fought to die, and died."
"...Lined our pockets good. Finished him clean at the end. Brain half-melted from digital drugs by then."
Hayato turned to the ruined ring, as if glimpsing his brother's end.
Roque eyed him briefly, then back to the boss.
"Handed over his body too?"
"Yeah... They loved it, whatever. Kept asking for similars."
"The 'problem' you mentioned?"
The boss, gauging Hayato's look and vibe, guessed the connection. He edged away subtly.
"...Dawn yesterday, they call outta nowhere. Seen Ryuhei? I say bullshit, guy's dead. They say issue arose—check his old address, purge our ledgers and data. That's when I knew: cleanup time..."
Hayato turned slowly from the ring, unmasked intensity leaking from his eyes. The boss averted, mumbling.
"So you thought we were the cleaners?"
Sprawled, the boss smirked feebly.
"Guess not..."
Roque scanned the quiet club, nodding at the door the boss had crawled toward.
"Ledgers and data in there?"
"Gonna dig? Heh, pointless. Corp mages hacked and wiped it minutes ago... Think I flipped out for nothing?"
It added up—cryptic call and warning yesterday, server crash, then two bladesmen bust in. Alone, the boss pegged them as megacorp hitters. Trigger-happy mistake, sure.
Roque rubbed his chin, eyeing the office door thoughtfully.
"Hacked, huh..."
Hayato, face grim, spoke to him.
"I fail to grasp this. Is my brother dead, or alive?"
"Could be neither."
"...Neither?"
"Ask the megacorps."
Hayato tilted his head as Roque stood.
"He says the data server's gone. How trace it without magic? Know a mage on call?"
"Dunno if mage, but someone's here."
Roque turned. Hayato followed his gaze to Elizabeth peeking from the entrance door. Hayato's expression weirded out.
"That girl can...?"
Just then, Elizabeth hopped over a corpse by the door, then pinched her nose at the rows ahead—roasted meat stench from Aura Blade cuts.
Plugging her nose, she hopscotched the bodies to Roque and Hayato. The girl popping up mid-battlefield stunned Hayato—and the floored boss.
Arms wide before them, Elizabeth deadpanned.
"Elizabeth appears."