There was silence in the arena as the corpses of two juggernauts fell. One stumbling and run through, the other headless and dismembered, both missing arms. Uriel stared for a moment, before beginning a steady walk over to the bodies.
He hadn't really been expecting a mutual kill, to be frankly honest. Sato was a small old guy, and the Beast was in two layers of armor. Ah, goes to show the power of mono-blades he supposed. Being able to effectively ignore most of a target's armor was an incredible advantage in a fight that forced melee. Then again, being massive and armored was another huge advantage, so it probably balanced out.
If one of them had speedware, they would have won. If neither did, or both did, then it was much more fair overall. A low-grade kerenzikov was enough to make a normal man almost undefeatable to his peers. A high grade kerenzikov or a standard sandy made a normal man dangerous enough to call in the big shots. Edgerunners, MaxTac, Corporate Samurai, the guys that committed violence for a living.
Speedware was a rudimentary implant. That didn't mean it was bad, that meant it was required. If you wanted to be a threat, you got speedware, simple as.
The 'meta' of the world seemed like it was going to change again soon. No longer just focused on speedware and guns, but the panzerbots coming along meant that more and more people were focusing on melee combat. Melee combat being the exact thing this arena was a crucible for. It was the perfect place to practice that previously under-explored field of murder.
Efficiency. Getting the most result out of the smallest possible actions. This arena was a training ground to make the murderblenders that would likely come to define the next conflict. There was a reason he hadn't 'fixed' the 'meta' of the arena by banning speedware. Because speedware and melee was very powerful, and he needed as many people practicing for it.
People loyal to Smasher in the future, people useful for making Pacifica downright unassailable. People useful for making urban combat in their future city a nightmare for any war planner. People who would form a wonderful recruiting pool for future soldiers.
Uriel considered himself good at planning. The arena was useful for many, many things. He planned most of them out months ago.
He stopped over the corpses of the two on the field. He stared at them for a moment, confirming they were both dead (and dead-10 for that matter). He had seen many corpses before, mostly on the internet in his life before becoming a fiery cyber-tulpa. Liveleak, ISIS beheading videos, Chinese factory accidents, City murders on camera… There were a lot of people dying on the internet if you knew where to look, he was pretty desensitized to it even before showing up in Adam's head.
He didn't particularly enjoy the death part like Adam, but he loved the fighting. Fighting was cool, he realized that when he was eight years old, and his opinion had never changed. His grandfather owned a machining shop, and he had been allowed to shape scrap metal into blunt swords. These blunt swords were distributed among friends, and then they would beat the crap out of each other using crude rules and point systems.
Uriel loved swords. He used toy swords on his friends, he got tutoring in actual swords as a kid, he won a small regional tournament when he was a teen. Swords were the one thing he was better at Adam at using, although only barely. Adam was better at using arm-mounted blades, like wolvers and ACPA retractable monoswords, not actual held swords.
That fight had just used two swords vs two wolvers. 8-year old him would have been jumping and screaming in excitement. He was older now, so he restrained himself to soaking in the details instead.
He raised a fist to the crowd. Then, raising his head from the corpses, he announced in Adam's mechanical baritone.
"Mutual Death!"
He lowered his fist and the sound damper's in Adam's Gemini automatically kicked on to muffle the sudden roar of the crowd. The applause, the screams, the boos and cries. Uriel drank it all in. In Ancient Rome, life or death of a slave gladiator would be decided at the hands of the emperor. Uriel wondered if they heard the same thing, all those centuries ago.
He sure hoped not, this was awesome and Nero deserved none of it. Fucking Nero, the worst emperor. He hated that guy.
He gave them a minute to cheer, before raising his fist once more and waiting for them to quiet down. It only took another minute or so before they had finally settled down enough again for him to speak clearly. In Adam's omnipresent malice, Uriel spoke once more.
"This duel was predicated upon conditions. In the event that Beast died, the Animals would terminate their contract with me and leave Pacifica, recommending the Tyger Claws to me as replacements. In the event that Sato died, the Tyger Claws would have an open-tournament in this arena to determine their next leader."
"What they failed to consider is that they were bargaining with things that didn't fucking belong to them. I am changing these conditions, the affected parties may pray that I don't change them further. Both the Animals and Tyger Claws are going to be my employees now, guarding the Pacifica region. They wanted the job so badly? They have it. To the Tyger Claws, I'm your employer now. Your actions reflect on me. If any of you fuckers act up, I'm coming down and slaughtering all of you in a three-block radius. That is a threat."
"You do not get to back out anymore. If you try, I kill you all. That is a threat."
"In other news, the Tyger Claws will be having an open qualifier in two weeks. Everyone in the world is free to participate. If you win, you become the leader of the Tyger Claws. If you win, you work for me from then on, which means I'll kill you if you fuck around. My apprentice, David Martinez, will be participating. He will not become the Tyger Claws leader if he wins, because petty gang politics are a fucking waste of his time."
"I will be acting as referee for these fights. The rules are simple. No projectile weapons and you stay in the confines of the arena. Beyond that, bring whatever the fuck you want to murder eachother, I don't care. There will be a Trauma Team on standby for the event, so if you want to really kill each other make sure to go for the head. Anything less isn't likely to be permanent."
"The qualifier will begin here in two weeks. Twelve Noon, Pacifica time."
Uriel lowered his fist, and walked out of the arena to go back to the HQ. He ignored the screams, cheers, and other loud noises that exploded from the arena after his announcement.
This was going to make so much fucking money, holy shit he couldn't wait. He was going to have so much funding to develop Pacifica with. He might use it to build a second arena out in the badlands for gun-fights.
—
He stared at the flatscreen that showed Smasher's other body walk off the scene and into the darkness of one of the arena's ground-floor level hallways and side-entrances. The little speech after the fight was probably the most he had ever heard Smasher said at one time… is what he would say, but Smasher just talked on a talk show for four hours previously, it was kinda hard to top that.
He furrowed his brow, and turned to look at Smasher sitting on his bench, his arms crossed. "You signed me up for a tournament without asking?"
"Yes."
"What if I don't want to fight?"
Smasher didn't respond with threats or glares, he just looked at him blankly and raised a single brow. David reached up and scratched the back of his neck.
"Yeah, point."
"D…" His mother spoke up, disapprovingly at him. He waved his arms in a 'what can I do?' manner. She continued, saying "This isn't a mission, you have no reason to fight, you're just putting yourself in danger for no reason."
Smasher glared and opened his mouth to talk, only to be cut off by his mother snapping a hand over and putting a finger on his lips. His glare narrowed to a sharp and furious point. His mother was pointedly not looking at him, likely trying to not lose her cool.
"Woman…" He growled out, leaving the threat unsaid.
"Hush, I'm talking to my son." She replied, a bead of sweat trailing down the side of her forehead as she kept staring at him. David shrugged helplessly again.
"I-I… I like fighting mom, it's what I'm good at, I enjoy it."
"You shouldn't." Lucy betrayed him. He glanced over to her with a sad frown. She was giving him an equally sad frown in return. "It's how you almost died. Fighting is something you have to do, it shouldn't be what you like to do."
"I mean, I wouldn't say that." Rebecca came to the rescue. "You shouldn't be picking fights, sure, but enjoying them isn't bad."
"If you enjoy them, then getting into a fight starts to become a good thing." His mother responded sharply. Her finger was still raised, and Adam's fury looked unabated. "Then you get into more and more fights, and one day you get unlucky. Then you die." The unspoken 'like I did' was pretty deafening. Rebecca quieted down, retreating a bit. His mother turned her stern look back to him, and waited for an answer.
David flopped around a bit, he didn't really have any response here.
Being a little messed up was something practically mandatory in Night City. He liked violence, even before he got the sandy installed. Cyberpsycho XBDs were one of the few things he spent his pocket change on. Then, once he joined the streets, he got to live that violence himself.
He rode it all the way up to Arasaka Tower. A train that could only be stopped by the wall named Smasher.
…It was addictive. The rush, the thrill, the threats and taking them out. It was the most honest power he could have. The most honest control over his life he could have. It meant he wasn't defenseless.
He wasn't about to backtalk mom though, not after she died on him last time. He wasn't going to meet Lucy's sad glare either. So he just stayed quiet, looked down, and satisfied no one.
"...You wouldn't get it, it's a guy thing, and you're all women." Katsuo spoke up from the other couch. He looked firm in his announcement, but not mocking. David raised his brow at him, wondering where this was going.
His mom narrowed her eyes at her dead friends' son. "...What's that supposed to mean, mister?" She implied dangerously, Lucy, and Rebecca were likewise glaring. David resolved to say a nice prayer at his funeral.
"I spent my allowance on cyberarms and a karate chip for a reason. Even when I was too lazy to actually train, I still wanted to fight." Katsuo, showing off that he was still the asshole with the ability to completely disregard social cues, barrelled through. "It means you're strong enough to protect yourself and the things you care about. Fighting is the best way to prove that. It's a thing that all guys feel. I don't think women do." He shook his head.
Lucy sighed miserably and buried her face in his chest. His mom glared at Katsuo for another moment before turning to look at him searchingly. David really didn't like the frustrated expression on her face.
"You're making it too complicated, brats." Smasher finally had enough of being quiet, and spoke up. "Fighting is fun. You don't need a reason."
He stared at David for a moment, before speaking again.
"...All of my memories are stored in what is called a black box. This black box then transmits its information once full to an Arasaka database. I can then access these memories whenever I wish. They include every kill I've ever made."
"If you win, I'll ask the bossman to have them turned into Brain Dances and shipped over. You can have all of them if you win."
Every kill performed by the strongest cyborg in the world… as a BD…
…He couldn't look at mom or Lucy as he nodded firmly.
He had to have it.
—
The inkstone shattered in the grip of his cybernetic arm. He stared at it for a moment, opening his hand and revealing the inky black that stained the synthetic flesh.
He breathed in and out, twice to calm himself, and set the inkstone to the side for V3 to retrieve. That was the third he had broken thus far. He was too angry to even attempt to calm down with his pastimes it seemed. That was even more frustrating.
He stood up slowly, and walked over to the door. Waiting for V3 to open it, he walked through and proceeded for the Mikoshi sub-server that was localized and isolated to the Arasaka Compound specifically. Takemura fell in step as he walked, perfectly in time and with all proper posture.
It was nice to see that everything was in order outside of his current frustration.
He walked through the halls, finally reaching the locked vault door that led to the server rooms. Takemura opened it, for V3 was too weak to, and Saburo Arasaka walked through and stepped on the platform. The vault door was locked behind them, and they descended into the earth.
A few moments later, the platform stopped, and he walked off. Down the underground halls, passed several doors and doorways, to the newest occupied chamber. V3 opened the door, and he walked through to see the cybernetic shrine that served as his interface for Engrams.
There were three in this particular shrine, all of them suspect in his current source of fury. A member of the 'Technomancers' was here, now reduced to data and their code being furiously interrogated for anything and everything that might indicate their guilt. When the incident had occurred, he had them captured and offered them terms.
One of them would be subject to Soulkiller and interrogated, and their engram returned after, or he would subject all of them to the Soulkiller, and then hunt down their entire faction and do the same to them. They didn't get to choose who was subjected to it, lest they try to sabotage the process beforehand. They agreed to his generous terms, and the engram was copied, one copy returned to them after determining that they had nothing to do with the most recent incident.
They were attempting to steal secrets of the Kendachi MonoFour though, so he forced a contract upon them to develop an even more potent blade for his Yojimbo. They did not refuse his demands.
The second was another individual of no note, an employee of Arasaka that was near to the scene of the crime at the time. The security guard of the main Mikoshi database access terminals here in Japan. They knew nothing of note, and so they were useless to him. Their engram would be copied, sent to the Mountain Databases, and then deleted here. Their soul was worthless on its own, but perhaps his mountain spirits will be able to use it to correlate information in another soul.
The third was the developer of the technology that was stolen. It was unfortunate that he turned out to be loyal in the end as well, having nothing to do with the theft. He would be revived according to the 'Martinez' experimental outline and continue to be useful to Arasaka thereafter. Anders Hellman would soon return to his work, revived in a body grown specifically for him, in a few short months.
Saburo breathed in and out, and stared at the database that held three souls and no answers. He almost grit his teeth, knowing that his heart rate was around three beats higher per minute than what was healthy for him. He was having a great deal of trouble restraining his fury.
There were only two Relics in the world.
One of them was in his body, waiting to capture his soul after death.
The other had been stolen, and he didn't know where.
He knew it wasn't one of his son's plots this time. If his son wanted it he would have simply taken it and ordered Hellman to not tell him. He would have eventually, and his son's theft would be known of before any major harm could be done.
It wasn't likely to be Militech, because the attack was too surgical, too precise. The existence of the Relic was a secret, advertisement to any party had not yet begun. They wouldn't have known about it, because only three people in the world would know about it. One of which was his son, and one of which was subject to the soulkiller and confirmed to have not let anything leak.
It was another party. A party he had no leads on. A party that somehow knew of its existence, had decided to load the Relic with an unknown soul copied from the Mikoshi database.
It had been many, many years since he had been this furious. It was an almost nostalgic feeling.
He closed his eyes, and decided that his neighbors would be adequate outlets for his rage.
He messaged Yojimbo, a simple order to come to meet him as soon as possible.
The Ordo Panzer and Shaitan had taught Arasaka the devastating power of a singular cybernetic warrior cloaked in stealth technology. Arasaka had a number of pocket-nukes of their own. Saburo had commissioned the construction for one of the frames proposed by his military cybernetics department some time ago, a dedicated stealth frame fit for exactly one warrior.
He was sure that Yojimbo would appreciate the mission.
He was an Oni afterall.