Despite the untamable nature of the Ura Net, there was activity scattered around it. Hawkers of illegal goods and services set up marketplaces; Navis whose Operators preferred the darkness carried out transactions and schemed in those marketplaces in relative safety; hackers gathered as well to discuss their craft and feel superior to the ordinary Navis and Operators. And one Navi, his hooded cloak concealing his armor and most of his face, regarded it all with an unreadable expression. He wasn't here to break apart these low-lifes, though the Net Police would probably appreciate it. He was here on his Operator's business, to watch and to listen.

Somewhere in the darkness, in the crowds of unusually-designed Navis and heaps of dubious programs, there had to be answers. Either Nova was more than the sum of its parts, or it wasn't a group at all; someone else could be pulling the strings. All Blues needed was the right name, or the right Navi passing through. They'd found nothing the normal way, but that didn't satisfy Enzan any longer. In the teen's opinion, they hadn't been looking hard enough. The enemy was out there, and so it could be found. Even if there was no bigger threat, Nova was problematic enough. Their base had to be located; Black's weapons had to be destroyed.

"—yeah, they're good, but what do they really plan to do—?"

In the meantime, Blues found hearing the opinions on Nova to be quite interesting.

"—too ambitious, they're doing too much too quickly—"

"—spreading out to Jawaii? They never get lasting crime over there, and suddenly major virus attacks break out—"

"—the only threat they have is their hacker, I'd love to see the mess he'd make unburdened by the others—"

"—the Net Saviors can't even compete—"

Blues focused his attention on that conversation, slightly irritated by the thought.

"Well, what do you expect? The Net Saviors react," a busty, husky-voiced Navi told her strange, stitched-together ally. "They're not a preventative force."

"But on a technical level, Nova outclasses them. Think about it—the Akihara Tower incident, that blimp flying over the countryside for almost two days—those are hardly small-scale pranks! If Nova had wanted to really fight those two lackeys, they could and would set more than one or two people to it, which says they have yet to show their true power." The patchwork Navi drummed its fingers against each other and grinned a pointy-toothed smile. "You know, I'm considering forming an alliance with them. When they want to, they'll crush the Net Saviors. What I want to see is where they go after that."

"Well, don't all these organized types want to rule the world?" asked the woman Navi. "It's what I can't stand about them. Iron-fisted types of rule never seem to last long in the big picture."

"But that's what I'm saying," the patchwork Navi said. "Maybe they're aware of the big picture." Blues frowned, thinking over what that could mean.

"I didn't figure you the type ta hang out here." Punk's gruff voice was close by; Blues whirled around to find him standing just behind, arm and cable crossed. "Cloaks are nice an' all, but there's more than one way ta identify a Navi."

Blues and Enzan were well aware of that; in fact, Punk showing up like this worked to Enzan's advantage. After all, Black was the hacker. Other than his fighting skill, Punk was a completely normal Navi. "What I do is my business," Blues said, forming his sword.

"Oh, yeah? Well, how about you keep your nose outta mine!" Punk threw his shoulder plate at Blues. He probably wasn't equipped to notice if Blues's sword was infused with a little something extra, or if it was transmitted as Blues blocked the giant discus centimeters from his face.

"I didn't come here for a fight," Blues said as the discus returned to Punk's shoulder. "Besides, this is hardly the place for it." He'd done what needed to be done; turning away, he said, "Considering your recklessness, I'm sure we'll have plenty of opportunities for a rematch." The familiar feeling of being swept up and away was accompanied by the dissolving sight of Punk making a retort as Blues was plugged out.

Next to Blues's window was the display telling Enzan where Punk had gone. "It seems we have a little outing to make," Enzan said, standing.

"Absolutely, Enzan-sama."

01101100011000010111001101110100011000110110100001100001011011100110001101100101

The pinprick of light that denoted Punk's location was now moving through more local networks, ones that could more-or-less be mapped to real-world streets and buildings, and Enzan was wasting no time following the trail. He had no delusions about his method of tracking; chances were the game would be up the moment Punk returned to Black's PET. For now, though, it was doing its job, leading him down the streets of Densan until he was downtown. It wasn't too worrying that Black was almost certainly not in the base. Enzan could still find and follow him—though his trenchcoat and hat weren't necessarily ordinary, he didn't look much like himself in them. With any luck, Black wouldn't know who he was until they were both on Nova's front doorstep.

The place where Punk's dot finally held still was some kind of club. Enzan's Net Savior I.D. and a reassurance that he was here on business got him in. He scanned the crowd of people, looking for anyone who looked even remotely like Black, but there were no signs of him. He looked down at his PET just in time to see Punk's light—still right where it had been, thankfully—fade out. "Blues, is there a back way out?"

"Yes, through one of the storerooms. Customers aren't permitted to use it."

"Like that'll stop him," Enzan said. Blues displayed the building's schematic, effectively giving Enzan a map of the area. He stepped through the crowds of people to station himself in front of the entrance to the back rooms, giving the room another scan once he was there. There was a chance Black was just disguising himself in some way, and most of the people here were much taller than him—if he was still here, he'd stand out, no matter what he did. Even with that in mind, it was still a little strange to think that Black was the blonde, blue-eyed man who was casually leaning against an empty table a few feet away—whether it was a mask or a hologram, it was a very convincing disguise.

On second glance, there was something not quite casual about how Black was holding himself—he was fixed in his pose, mimicking relaxed more than anything. "You still can't act," Enzan muttered under his breath. When Enzan saw what Black was looking at, he frowned; there was another man in a trenchcoat and hat chatting up what looked like half the waitresses.

He looked back over to see Black staring back at him and nearly swore. The smaller teen was inching backward, toward the more populated area and the front door beyond it; as his stumbling turned into a run, Enzan strode after him. The crowd slowed him down, but not enough for Black to make it past opening the front door before he was back in sight. Enzan wasn't far behind him as they went into the street, the last remnants of wintry wind harmless in the face of his coat and jeans. Black was trying to run, but he was already starting to slow down. It was a bit sad, really; his job was probably so sedentary that he had no real motivation to stay in shape.

The smaller man turned down what looked like the start of a side alley, and Enzan caught up just in time to hear him gasp, "That wasn't there before!" Enzan nearly retorted that it was part of a restaurant's renovation and had been there for a long time, but then remembered exactly how long 'a long time' was: two years ago.

"You're using four-year-old information," he informed Black. "You didn't really think nobody was going to construct new additions along this road, did you?"

Black stared at him. "You're not what's-his-name," he said disbelievingly. "Who are you?"

"Who's—" But then Enzan remembered; the other trenchcoat-clad man. "You certainly are popular, aren't you?" he noticed as he closed the gap.

"That's hardly my fault!" Black said. His brow furrowed as he leaned forward, carelessly peering under Enzan's hat. "You're Enzan?" he asked.

Enzan's eyes narrowed as he caught a whiff of Black's breath. "And you're drunk," he said, disgusted.

"I'm only slightly drunk! There's a big difference!" Black's disguise vanished, revealing his normal face—a hologram after all. He continued, "But, Enzan, your voice is really different. It's still kind of weird when you say stuff and it comes out—I honestly didn't recognize you, even if that's a lame costume!" Before Enzan could think of anything to follow that non sequitur, Black finally noticed where they were and why: "You were following me!" he cried, horrified. "You said you wouldn't!"

"I said I'd pay you no more attention than I would any other criminal like you," Enzan reminded him. "But there's a lot you have to answer to, from what I can tell. I have every reason to be concerned."

Black frowned. "But I haven't here—how do you—you ran a background check on me?! But we—you guys don't do that!"

"It's standard protocol. That you weren't aware of that was your choice. Now, considering that this attempt at stealth is a bust—" Enzan eyed Black's slightly off-center stance before adding, "—and considering that you probably aren't in the right state of mind to recognize subtlety anyway, I'm going to ask you to direct me to the Nova base. I'm sure you can guess where we're going after that."

"You won't arrest me first?" Black asked.

"Then your friends would know you've been taken in, wouldn't they?" Enzan asked. Black pressed his lips together; at least he wasn't completely devoid of common sense. Enzan supposed that was the difference between 'slightly drunk' and 'completely drunk'. "Now—" Black shifted his weight, giving Enzan plenty of warning before the smaller teen barreled forward. His wrists were so thin under the jacket that Enzan didn't dare grip them as tightly as he was capable of; he was light and his struggles weak, worryingly easy to keep in one place. Enzan waited for Black to stop fighting before he said, "Direct us."

Black had little choice but to stumble along as Enzan walked out of the alleyway and down the street. "Look, I just don't want anyone getting worried," he said. "Things need to go normally, or it's not going to work."

"There's such a thing as 'normal'?" Enzan asked, skeptical.

"Smoothly," Black corrected. "Everything needs to go smoothly."

"For you, or for me?" Black pointed Enzan down a side street, and the two made the turn. "Furthermore, I can hardly ensure the right 'things' go 'normally' if I don't know who it is I'm making them appear normal for."

"I—" For a while, there was no noise but the sounds of their shoes on the concrete and the cars roaring past as the uniform blocks of pavement inched by. "That's a secret," Black said. "And I can't tell anyone, not just you."

"But—" Someone much larger bumped into Enzan, knocking Black out of his hands and nearly to the ground. The force of it felt deliberate. As Enzan stumbled forward, he realized who the new person was—and that for him to keep running, something had to be amiss.

"Hey! We were trying to have an important talk here!" Black shouted after the other trenchcoat-clad man. "Rude!" Before he could shout anything else, a low buzzing began to fill the air. Enzan turned to see what was coming, but there wasn't anything in sight yet—whatever it was was probably large and still on the main road two blocks away. "What's that?" Black asked, turning around to face the same way Enzan was.

Years of experience had taught Enzan that standing one's ground against what was probably going to be a swarm of tiny flying objects was a very bad idea. Black was still dumbly standing there; as he began to wonder, "Are those—?" Enzan snatched his wrist and ran for the nearest side pocket in the street.

Black seemed transfixed by the swarm of tiny camera-bots as they buzzed past, choking the street from ground to rooftop in their silver cloud. "See the kinds of people who wear trenchcoats?" he breathed, otherwise not moving. "It just screams 'I'm suspicious'."

"I'm guessing he isn't one of yours," Enzan said, frowning at the still-unending sea of robots. They were meant to be inconspicuous—the size of a flea—but how had so many gotten here?

"No," Black confirmed, holding his PET wrist with his opposite hand. "Think these are all slaves?" he asked.

"Slaves?" Enzan asked.

"Oh, right, you wouldn't know." Black explained, "They'd all be connected to one master, and carry out its orders. We plug in and drop the group's master, they all go down."

He was already lifting his PET; Enzan followed suit. "Plug in, Blues! Transmission!" Through his display, Enzan saw what Black had said he would; a tunnel streaming data in and out was on the far side of the small cockpit of the camerabot. Blues rode the stream up to find Punk also arriving in the master camera-bot.

"Cut off the lower half of the entries, but keep the front ones going," Black instructed Punk. "He probably won't notice that anything's wrong that way." It made sense—there would be a greater element of surprise when they confronted the perpetrator. If the tiny robots were programmed to follow the trenchcoat-clad man, they would also make it much easier to find him. "After that, just lay low and let the master program do its thing."

"Gotcha," Punk said, accessing the list. Enzan looked up just in time to see every camera-bot passing in front of their hiding spot fall straight down from the sky.

"This must be every drone for miles," Black noticed, kicking a few around. "They sure make 'em small around here. All the ones I've seen are like planes."

"They're not meant to do anyone harm or survey large areas, just to aid investigations," Enzan explained. "Something of that size would only be useful for military purposes."

"But to get this many, he sure must be mad," Black said. Enzan silently noted the slight avoidance of subject. "They're getting away—let's go!"

On his own, Enzan probably would have caught up to the cloud of camera-bots much more quickly. It was easy enough to spot even on ground level, and it wasn't faster than his sprinting speed. But the entire night would be a waste if Black slipped away, so Enzan stayed at the other teen's pace. Black seemed either more tired or more worried by the time they found the cloud, far from where they'd started. They were in a seedier part of Densan, one that still sported damage from long-ago battles. Enzan frowned as he looked around, seeing massive gouges in one condemned skyscraper that had to have come from some massive creature's claws, perhaps Falzer's talons. Years ago, the city had started a massive undertaking to fix up damage like this, coinciding with the ban on Dimensional Areas. But money only went so far, especially in this day and age, and it didn't surprise Enzan that the clean-up project hadn't gone as far as it had been intended to.

"Was he really going to wait around for me all night?" Black wondered, clearly familiar with where they'd stopped.

"He was looking for you?" Enzan asked.

"Well, yeah! I would think so, anyway, if he's out here. See—"

"You!" the trenchcoat-clad man shouted, his drone army parting to let him through. "I thought you'd be at that club!"

"Well, I was, but then I kinda got double-teamed," Black explained, gesturing to Enzan. "It felt weird, so I left." He frowned. "Why are you after me?"

"Your virus, that's why!" the man yelled. "It attacked my friend's Navi once it was done with the guy I set it on. He's little more than junk data now!"

"Well, your friend wasn't there when I gave you that virus, was he? How am I supposed to code around exceptions I don't know about?" Black shrugged. "I don't do refunds. It's your fault, not mine."

"You were giving out viruses?" Enzan asked. It seemed like a rather reckless thing to do.

"No, I was selling them," Black corrected. "It's just a game, it's not a big deal or anything."

"A game," Enzan repeated incredulously.

"You're calling that monster a game?!" the trenchcoat-clad man asked indignantly.

"Yeah, sort of—" Enzan wasn't impressed. Black babbled, "Well, see, Atsuki told me about it—he wanted to see how much money I could get out of people while I was doing this mission. He thinks it's really funny." He pushed a few buttons on the underside of his PET, then held the display out for Enzan to see. "Coding for that tournament helped a lot, too—I've made over fifty million zenny!"

Enzan looked back over at the other man's reddening face, then at Black's dumb grin. "You're both idiots."

"We have all kinds of games like this! How was I supposed to know?!" Black looked over at the trenchcoat-clad man and flatly stated, "Anyway, you wouldn't have bought it if it couldn't do so much damage. So it really is your fault." He squinted his eye. "I don't even remember you."

"Tatsumaki, from last week," the man growled. "You'll remember me soon enough, when I kick your sorry ass."

"I'd like to see you try," Black said. He raised his PET arm and commanded, "Punk, shut 'em down!"

Tatsumaki turned around to watch his drone army fall in sheets. He seemed to have been robbed of any words. In the meantime, Blues returned to Enzan's PET, having nothing else to do inside the robots' system. "Tornadoman!" Tatsumaki commanded next. "This leaves me no choice!" What marched out of the alley near its master looked like it had been cobbled together in a garage, no casing softening the look of its raw parts. It wasn't just appearances that worried Enzan; it was the four circular saw blades that were spinning on the robot's arms. "This is just between the two of us," Tatsumaki told Enzan. "If you're smart, Mr. Net Savior, you'll stay out of this—"

"And if you were smart, you wouldn't monologue," Black said, sending Punk toward the robot. "Besides, I don't see how I can give you your money back if I'm dead, even if I wanted to. But after all this mess, I really don't think that's happening."

"But I'm sure you wouldn't want to end up missing anything important, would you?" Tatsumaki said. "It's awfully hard to program if you don't have any hands!" He snapped his fingers, and a second robot appeared—slightly larger, and sporting a giant fan, but missing the dangerous-looking saw blades. It was fairly obvious that its purpose was to push targets back into the other robot's clutches.

Rather than find out whether it was really capable of that, Enzan called, "Plug-in, Blues! Transmission!"

The thing inside the secondary robot seemed to have already taken a lot of damage, but it was still a virus—and quite capable of attacking, as it swung its pasty body at Blues. The red-armored Navi leapt away, but the virus broke its limb into two strings, extending itself toward Blues from two directions. Enzan knew that Black could take care of himself in a Netbattle; his focus needed to be on assisting his Navi, not what was going on in the real world. "Stone Cube, slot-in!" The block was positioned so that Blues could touch his boots to it and jump off at a different angle, leaving the virus to strike the object and allowing him to evade the attack. "Magma Cannon!" Blues unleashed a torrent of lava on the Stone Cube and the virus that had shaped itself around the object, causing it to shrivel back until the half-eaten cube dropped back to the ground and vanished. "Neo Variable!"

Blues sent out two Sonic Booms to the base of the virus, shearing it into three pieces; while the center one fragmented into oblivion, the other two exploded outward, spattering Blues before Enzan could send in a defensive chip. They reformed into a cord tying Blues by his ankles and yanked him upward. "Aqua Sword, slot-in!" With a shout, Blues sent a piercing wave of water down to sever the base from the ensnaring cable, then set himself free with a more precise cut. Even having acted quickly, there were what looked like acid burns where the virus had touched Blues's armor.

At that point, there was only one thing that could have distracted Enzan from the Netbattle. He glanced up to see it happening; Black making a break for it while Tatsumaki yelled, "If he won't stick around, go beat his friend, Tornadoman!"

"Wait—" But though the saw-bot looked taken care of, the fan-bot was still operational, and it was plenty powerful; Enzan was knocked to the ground by a blast of air before he could say much else. "You know, I was here to arrest him," he told Tatsumaki, getting to his feet. "But since you've guaranteed that I've lost him, I don't think I'll bother humoring you much longer." To Blues, he called, "Program Advance!"

Tornadoman held his green-gloved hands up. He looked like Punk had already done a number on him; the wings on the sides of his helmet were sporting bent feathers and whole chunks missing from them. "Uh—look, I know he's awfully petty, and sometimes he doesn't think, but, uh—Tornado Tango!"

"Sword!" It was very tempting to just rush through the Program Advance and see what happened, even with the small, erratically-moving tornadoes that Blues was now constantly leaping over. "Wide Sword!" The only thing keeping him calm about the whole mess was that Enzan now knew Nova's base was nearby, if not on this exact street. It had to be, for Tatsumaki to look here for Black. He almost had enough to justify returning with backup. "Long Sword!"

"White Wind!" called Tornadoman, summoning a faint mist, before Blues swung down and he screamed, "Plug me out, hurry!" Enzan had to guess that the White Wind was a damage dampener; the fact that Tornadoman was pulled out of the fight instead of near-instantly deleted suggested it worked fairly well. With Tornadoman gone, Blues held the Dream Sword's energy to the original virus opponent. It fragmented into smaller and smaller pieces before finally being deleted under the blast.

Enzan looked over to see Tatsumaki sprinting away. "Blues, collect residual data from Tornadoman. We'll track him down tomorrow."

"Roger." Blues focused on the data around him, slowly solidifying fragments of Tornadoman's data into a small cube. Using the Ministry of Science's tracking software, it would be easy enough to find Tornadoman again and arrest Tatsumaki—if not for purchasing a virus and setting it on others, then for disrupting an investigation.

The second interruption of the evening made it clear Enzan's hunch was right. "Do you really want to be standing out here at this hour?" Atsuki asked, sauntering up from the street Black had fled down. "In this part of town, you don't know who could be watching."

"Oh? Then why are you here, Atsuki?" Enzan asked coolly. "Don't tell me it's just to give out friendly advice, at this hour."

Atsuki's expression darkened. "Don't bother trying to find us," he snapped. "We're not a bunch of kids with science projects, and certain people in our group can't afford to have someone sniffing around at all hours—if I see you out here again, I won't bother with some shitty robot to make sure you don't come back."

"Enzan-sama," Blues reported.

Enzan plugged his Navi out, then turned back to Atsuki. "Noted," he said, then turned to leave. He hadn't taken a step before Atsuki grabbed him by the shoulder and practically threw him back around to meet the huge man's fist, knocking him to the ground.

"Smug bastard," Atsuki growled. Enzan could hear him prowling away rather than see him—he had a feeling he was going to have a black eye after this.

But he was right. Even if his head felt like it was going to explode from Atsuki's punch, he knew he was right. He had Nova's location. All he needed now was enough backup to keep Atsuki from strangling him the minute he set foot in their base.