Tanaka Katsuo felt thoroughly out of place. If he had known in advance that he would be accompanying his father to Arasaka's department mixer at Konpeki Plaza, he would have invented any excuse to slip away. Anything.
On the surface, the corporate dinner was a friendly meet-and-greet, a chance for department heads to bond and coordinate. In truth, it was a competition disguised as civility. An arena for status and comparison.
Leaders measured one another not only by quarterly numbers and project wins, but by the face they could present through their children. In that room, a son or daughter was another medal to wear. Appearance, education, demeanor, achievements, temperament — everything served as ammunition in an endless, petty comparison.
Katsuo sat beside his father, a medium-rare steak plated in front of him. He preferred his steaks more done, but this half-raw cut was the ritual of the upper crust. A meal he could finish in three mouthfuls stretched into half an hour by the rules of etiquette. He squirmed like someone bound to an invisible stake.
"Father, I need to use the restroom," he whispered. His father offered the practiced corporate smile and a soft assent: "Go, quickly."
Freedom at last, Katsuo thought. He made for the lavatory and loosened his tight collar and tie as if loosening a noose. In the mirror he caught sight of the angry red of a broken cartilage across his nose. The sight flipped some switch inside him.
"Damn it... David Martinez," he spat under his breath, fingers probing the tender bridge. He had heard the name echo in his nightmares ever since that day near Arasaka Academy. He had tried to act cool, only to be punched, to have his nose snapped. Every time he dreamed, the same moment returned: David's fist, the snap, the pain. Even in full-immersion adult dreams, the same humiliation replayed. It was an obsession that ate at him.
He tightened his jaw and re-tied his knot. He stepped out of the restroom and froze. The elevator doors opposite the washroom opened, and Jackie Welles and David Martinez hurried out, the Relic case clutched between them.
Katsuo stared. For a second he thought it had been a hallucination borne of hatred. It was not.
"David Martinez!" he barked.
David paused mid-stride, instinctively turned, and met Katsuo's eyes. In an instant something in David snapped. He shoved Jackie hard. "Jack, go. Take the Relic. I'll handle this."
Jackie's hand stayed on the case for a heartbeat, then he released it, voice rough with trust: "David, pick your spots. If you can't, pull back. If you need me, call my name. I will come."
The quickest path from boy to man is often the one that forces you to let go. Under the Edgerunners' wing, David had room to grow; having to act now would define him. He moved like a blade.
Time slowed in a single, bright beat. David's motion was a clean line. He sprinted forward, the martial training precise and fierce. In the time-slow his fist connected with Katsuo's nose with a sickening crack. Time snapped back. Katsuo's nose broke again. The boy flew back farther than before. He landed in a heap, blood spraying into the lacquered floor.
Back in the banquet hall, leaders were clinking glasses in mid-toast. Without warning, a figure crashed through the door, smashing into the long table. Food and glass cascaded to the floor. Among the wreckage lay Tanaka Katsuo, blood pouring from his nose like a fountain.
Faces went white. Someone near fainted. Chaos flooded the room. A hundred corporate masks cracked at once.
"What's happening?" whispered the chorus.
"How did this happen in Konpeki? Where's security?"
"Is that—Katsuo? Who did this?"
Katsuo's father lurched forward, mortified. The event had been shattered, their carefully arranged evening ruined. Humiliation tasted bitter and loud. Katsuo struggled up, ripped the tie from his throat, wiped away the blood. He spat words at the stunned crowd. "Father, this is my fight. I will retrieve what's mine."
With that he activated his implant and bolted from the banquet room.
"Why does he have Sandevistan? Why would Katsuo be wired with Sandevistan?" the murmurs asked, shock spreading through the corporate ranks.
...
While David and Katsuo wrote their instant rites of passage across polished marble and shattered decor, the real battle in Yorinobu Arasaka's penthouse had reached a desperate pitch.
Adam Smasher had smashed through the maintenance shaft and shattered the vent. The explosion of metal and glass echoed like a gunshot. Neo moved faster than the blast. He drew Wado Ichimonji and met the onslaught head-on.
The first strike stopped a furnace of pistons. The second was a counter that bit into metal. Adam crossed his arms, bared mechanical plates taking the blow. The cut was a testament; a white-hot scar etched across titanium flesh.
Adam barked a harsh laugh, a sound more like tearing scrap metal. "So this one's not a knockoff." He sneered. "A real piece of work. A genuine model that can stop my hit."
Neo did not slow. He slashed a pale green arc that shredded the glass wall and cleaved an armed skycar snarling outside. The blade sang and the world answered in splinters.
Wado Ichimonji's edge found its mark, steel to steel, and Neo leveled the weapon at Adam Smasher. His voice was low, cold and fatal.
"It's your turn, Adam Smasher."