“Bro, are you sure you haven’t mistaken me for someone else? I don’t remember knowing you.”
Even though several gun barrels were pointed straight at him, Hiroshi Kitagawa remained surprisingly calm and spoke clearly without the slightest hesitation.
Leon was also very composed.
His Cool attribute of 5 points was already quite high, so a scene like this could not easily frighten him.
Still, he deliberately pretended to be scared and tried to attract as little attention as possible.
The Tyger Claws obviously did not consider an ordinary kid like him a serious threat.
That suited him perfectly.
Leon would even bet that they would not open fire immediately.
Judging by their posture and the way they held their weapons, those gangsters did not look particularly professional.
In their eyes, this entire situation was probably nothing more than a show.
They had not even considered the possibility that Hiroshi and Leon could turn the situation around.
Reflexes directly affected his reaction speed and agility.
Now that his Reflexes had reached 10, Leon was confident that he could react the instant their fingers moved toward the triggers.
And then he would draw his katana.
And cut off their heads.
“No, no, no. It’s perfectly normal that you don’t remember me, Hiroshi.”
The man smiled strangely, his eyes filled with provocation.
“When we worked for the Tyger Claws together, you were already a team leader. I was just a nobody.”
“Of course you don’t remember me.”
“I left the Tyger Claws a long time ago.”
Hiroshi remained completely calm.
“Everything that happened back then stayed in the past.”
“But I remember you, Hiroshi.”
The man gritted his teeth.
“You know… that slap really hurt.”
“And when you kicked me between the legs…”
A twisted expression appeared on his face.
“I never forgot that pain!”
Hiroshi’s expression changed.
His face instantly darkened, and his gaze hardened as he stared at the man.
At last, he asked the question that had tormented him for the past two days.
“You kidnapped my sister?!”
“Oh? Looks like you remembered me after all.”
The man’s lips stretched into a disturbing smile.
“Back then, I was only trying to be nice to your sister.”
“And you came over and taught me a lesson I’ll never forget.”
He tilted his head.
“How do you think I should return the favor?”
Hiroshi immediately exploded.
“Bastard! My sister was only fourteen back then!”
“I shouldn’t have just kicked you.”
“I should have shot you!”
The man laughed contemptuously and casually ran a hand over his flawlessly tailored white suit.
He almost looked like a member of some corporate elite.
But the way he looked at Hiroshi was filled with open contempt.
“That’s why I’m telling you that leaving the Tyger Claws was a mistake.”
“If you had stayed, today you would be the one standing here at the top, not me.”
“But who could have expected it?”
“You really were stupid enough to simply walk away.” His smile widened even more.
“You really thought you could just leave the Tyger Claws and keep living as though nothing had happened?”
“You think you can just erase the fluorescent tattoos you wore?”
“The moment you put them on your body, you had already stepped into hell.”
“Everything happening to you today is the consequence of your own choices!”
The man became increasingly manic.
A clear desire to kill flashed in his eyes.
Hiroshi no longer had patience for his madness.
He calmly repeated:
“Did you kidnap my sister?”
“You want to know?”
The man was still smiling with that disgusting, self-satisfied smile.
He gestured for them to follow, as though the entire situation were already completely under his control.
“Then come with me.”
He turned around and headed toward the exit.
The armed gangsters behind him immediately raised their weapons and ordered Leon and Hiroshi with their gun barrels to follow them.
…
The man led them out of the restaurant and through a narrow side street.
Behind the passage was an empty no-man’s-land.
Several abandoned vehicle wrecks, improvised homeless shelters, and torn bedding lay scattered around.
There was no one there at the moment.
The people who usually slept here had probably gone out looking for food.
Only scattered garbage bags and cockroaches crawling across the ground remained.
“Good place…” Leon’s lips did not even move, but the message had already reached Hiroshi through a private radio channel.
“Pretty isolated.”
“Even if someone fired a gun here, the sound would easily disappear into the traffic noise.”
Hiroshi calmly replied through the same channel:
“Looks like he has no intention of telling us where he’s keeping her.”
“He brought us here to remove the problem.”
“Are you scared?”
Hiroshi almost laughed mockingly.
“Heh. I could beat him up back then.”
“I can shoot him today too.”
“If necessary, we’ll die together!”
You may be ready to die together with him…
but you could at least remember that I’m here too, Leon thought helplessly.
Still, he was in no hurry.
He wanted to see what this man in white actually intended to do.
Just as he expected, when they had gone deep enough into the abandoned area, the man forced Leon and Hiroshi to stand against a wall.
He ordered his men to keep their weapons ready.
One of them then approached and pulled out a pistol.
The man in white gently ran his fingers over his pistol, almost as if caressing something precious.
His expression was excessively theatrical.
He approached Hiroshi and carefully looked him up and down, as if enjoying his current helplessness.
“To be honest with you, Hiroshi.”
“I’ve been watching your sister for a very long time.”
“To be exact… for years.”
The man pointed toward the restaurant they had just left.
A disgusting, dreamy expression appeared on his face.
“The interesting thing is that all those years, you never even noticed I was following her.”
Fuck, what a disgusting bastard.
Watching the way he behaved, Hiroshi was not the only one who wanted to beat him.
Even Leon, despite his increased Cool attribute, was seriously thinking about smashing his face in.
“Hiroshi, do you have any idea how much self-control I had to show all these years?”
The man’s voice became more and more disgusting.
“I watched her walk down the street every day…”
He continued describing his obsession with her, clearly showing that he had harbored sick intentions toward Hiroshi’s sister for years.
“It’s just a shame I wasn’t strong enough back then.”
Hiroshi’s eyes widened with rage.
He clenched his cyberarm fists so hard that the sound of metal grinding could be heard.
His teeth were tightly clenched, and the muscles in his jaw were tense.
The anger inside him was reaching its absolute limit.
But the gun barrels the gangsters casually kept aimed at them acted like cold water.
They forced him not to make a reckless move.
While he was thinking about how to retaliate, Leon’s voice reached him through the radio channel.
“Back up.”
Hiroshi paused for a moment.
But in the end, he silently took several steps backward.
The man in white continued approaching him.
He interpreted Hiroshi’s retreat as cowardice.
Because of that, he became even more arrogant, continuing to provoke him as he moved closer and closer.
Leon also took several steps backward.
His youthful appearance was a perfect disguise.
No one present was seriously paying attention to an ordinary kid.
Eventually, all three of them ended up beside an abandoned car wreck.
“Aren’t you so worried about your sister?” The man laughed.
“Don’t worry.”
“Soon, a BD with her will be available all across Night City.”
“And you’ll have your part to play too.”
Hiroshi went pale.
The man continued, enjoying his reaction.
“I planned to install a recording implant in you too.”
“Some people would pay very well to experience the whole thing from the perspective of a helpless brother…”
He was so lost in his own sick fantasy that he continued without the slightest caution.
“Your sister is locked upstairs in the restaurant.”
“I originally planned to let the two of you meet.”
“But then I thought there was a better idea.”
“I could break your arms and legs first, then force you to watch helplessly.”
“The emotional reaction would be much stronger.”
“A BD like that would definitely sell better…”
Suddenly, he stopped.
He did not finish the sentence.
Because someone interrupted him.
“I don’t think there’s any need for that.”
A young man’s voice came from the side.
It was filled with pure disgust and revulsion.
And beneath that lay an icy, predatory coldness.
“Go to hell and sell your BD there.”
Leon’s eyes turned icy.
“You fucking bastard.”
The man flinched and tried to look in his direction.
He did not even manage to fully turn his head.
From the corner of his eye, he saw only a bluish-green flash.
That one glimpse was his last.
An object moving at tremendous speed sliced through the air and stirred up a light gust of wind.
The bluish-green glow cut through the daylight like a flash of lightning.
The young man holding the katana had completely cold eyes.
There was no longer even the slightest trace of hesitation in his movement.
When the man finally understood what was happening and his pupils suddenly contracted, all he could see was the gleaming blade approaching him.
The white edge of the sword was cold and sharp.
The light refracting across its surface looked like bluish flames.
Before the blade even touched him, the gust of air from the swing had already passed across his skin.
Everything happened in a single instant.
Leon’s movement was so fast that no one had time to react.
He drew Black Unicorn and executed an upward slash in one smooth motion.
The man in white still had that disgusting expression on his face when the blade passed through his neck.
His head separated from his body and flew through the air.
Blood scattered like rain.
[Blood Rush activated!]