Prologue

Day 04, 2049 A.D.

The sky was pitch black when I set foot out into the night. Off in the distance the city was still aglow with lights of its own, but there weren't any people around the outskirts.

No...I knew better than that.

I pressed forward into the residential district like a wraith come to haunt its prey. Only, in reality it was I that was being haunted. My breaths were heavy and deliberate, and I couldn't tell if my mind was in more control than ever before or teetering on the edge of insanity. It was chilly, but the palm of my one real hand sweated with trepidation.

I entered a shadowy alley and popped open my communication device. In the soft glow of the holographic screen a little red line proceeded a short distance from my location on a map of the area.

"Almost there..."

I folded the device with a click and returned it to my pocket. The feeling of being watched intensified. I didn't care. Danger meant nothing to me. I even shoved my hands into my pockets to show any onlookers that I wasn't intimidated before moving forward again in the direction indicated by my GPS. Even so, I fidgeted with the communication device where no one could see. Afraid or not, I couldn't help but nervously anticipate whatever was about to happen.

After a few more uneventful minutes of walking I rounded a corner into a dark alley and confirmed that the place was the destination given to me. The red line ended here, and all my instructions with it. There was nobody around that I could see, but that meant little in the dark, in a place isolated from even the city lights beyond. All I could do was wait, so I did...with my back firmly planted on the wall.

Sigh...

I had no thoughts. Or rather, the thoughts that came to mind were not ones I had any interest in entertaining. I understood well the implications of my actions, even if not their consequences—that's what I intended to discover, reckless though it might be.

Just as I found a comfortable position to stand in, a sharp glint flashed from a distant rooftop and left a burn on my eyes. I stepped aside to avoid the discomfort, but I had no idea just how much pain I was dodging until a moment later when a quiet blast sounded and right in my former position a hole promptly formed in the wall at my head. A little cloud of brick and mortar debris puffed out in its place.

"Sniper!"

I quickly drew my pistol and took cover on the opposite side of the alley, then peeked around the corner with the weapon preceding me. Again the glint flashed—a scope reflecting the city, I realized. This time I ducked back on purpose and sure enough, another blast took a chunk out of the asphalt street a few meters away.

Immediately I took to the rooftops by way of a nearby fire escape and charged towards the scope reflection. It wasn't long before something caught my feet in the dark, but I just let myself tumble into a full somersault and pop back up without losing momentum. I then vaulted over an air conditioning unit and sprung off the rooftop, across a gap, and onto another building. Of course it was foolhardy to be freerunning like this in the middle of the night, but even more deadly now would be to stand still. So long as I kept moving, the sniper couldn't get a bead on me. If I was lucky, he wouldn't even realize I was coming after him until it would be too late.

He definitely figured out I wasn't still in the alley. After leaping over to another building and landing in a safety roll I noticed the glint flashing with steadily greater frequency. The sniper was searching. But that also meant I hadn't been located, yet. My legs carried me faster and faster until I thought I might lose control, but then one more leap and a short climb and my would-be assassin was before me, well within shooting distance. I took aim and fired without hesitation—a bit too hasty, as it turned out. The shot missed and alerted the sniper to my presence. Out of the shadows ahead a woman in a slick black catsuit and facemask popped up and took off running, sniper and all.

"Stop!"

Naturally, she had no intention of obeying, and I didn't wait around expecting her to. The chase was on, advantage: mine. Over the rooftops we ran, the woman dodging back and forth and always changing her course in an attempt to throw me off. It didn't work. Dark of night or not, I had a determination on my side the sniper couldn't begin to match with simple evasion tricks. Still, it wasn't exactly a quick and easy fight. I fired off another round with every opportunity I got, but my opponent was surprisingly nimble and almost always managed to dodge at just the right moment to escape harm—almost. Two or three rooftops and a couple fire escapes later, one of my bullets finally grazed the woman's side. By no means was she incapacitated, but the damage was clearly great enough to hurt. She missed her next jump over a wind turbine and crumpled to the ground, then quickly scooted herself around the corner of a service entrance. Never made a sound, though—she must've been trained well to have such self-restraint.

Breathing heavily from exhaustion and adrenaline, I whipped around the corner, pistol at the ready...and met with the barrel of the woman's rifle as she swung it at me like a club. It hit hard—hard enough to knock the pistol from my grip and temporarily transport me into a world of stars. In a daze I clumsily swung my hands around as if moving someone else's body. By the time I regained control the rifle was already halfway on another collision course with my nose. Thinking fast, I reached up and snagged the weapon out of the air and shoved it behind me and out of my opponent's hands, pulling her down onto her face in the process. Displaced her mask, too. I took advantage of her blindness and dropped to my knees, pinning her down where I could cuff her hands behind her back. She wasn't about to give in so easily, though. Suddenly a gut-wrenching pain shot up through my body from below my belt, followed by a second kick to throw me off of her completely. I rolled over and tried to stand up, but my legs were like rubber. The cat was quickly on her feet and coming for me, but I refused to give up. I threw a punch into the her wounded side and then forced my legs into action, shoving not only myself off the floor, but also the woman, who was now bent in half over my shoulder.

"Grrrraaaaahhh!"

Mustering all my strength, I threw the assassin onto the ground. Her head made a dull thunk as it hit the hard surface of the roof, and this time the mask popped off completely. I swung at her exposed face, but my fist paused in midair when it finally registered to my brain who the face belonged to.

"Kuhouin...Arisa!?"

Taking advantage of my surprise, she gritted her teeth to bear the pain in her skull and promptly swept my feet out from under me, then rolled over and pulled at something around her waist while jumping on top to pin me down as I'd done to her only minutes before—only I, of course, couldn't pull her same cheap tactic to escape. The cold, hard ring of a handgun pressed into my hair. I couldn't budge beneath Arisa's lock.

"A-A-Arisa?!"

She reached down and pulled at the gun and a sharp click pierced my eardrum. My whole body started trembling. All I could think about was how steeled and unsympathetic her eyes were.

"Gomenesai...Ouma Shu-kun."

Bang!

(Imagine the intro plays here: vimeo /110475199)

Author's Notes: Yes folks, I'm baaaaack! Hard to believe it's been a year, but oh boy, what a year it has been. While I haven't posted anything new around here up to this point, has played a huge motivating role for me. I never expected my last fic, Guilty Crown: Dethroned, to be as popular as it is. Every read, comment, favorite, and follow truly means a lot to me. I am now endeavoring to become an author and indie videogame programmer full-time, a move largely inspired by how well-received my work was around here last year, so while I may not have the time to write another 50K word fanfic, I hope this sequel of a sequel will be everything those who asked for it want it to be. Consider my last fic to be episodes 1-12 and this one to be episodes 13-22 of a season 2 for Guilty Crown :)

Hope you enjoy, and thanks for all your support!