It was about halfway through running back to Night City that Adam received the alert that Arasaka Tower NC was currently under attack. The same tower that his primary contract holder was currently in. The same tower that was not where the brat was.

He changed the direction of his run automatically, his mind didn't let him take actions against preserving the life of his contract holder against physical harm, and getting the brat back wasn't an order from the old man.

Needless to say his brief furious snarl was absolutely expected. The fucker was taking advantage of the fact that the old man was in tower to divert his priorities. That meant he knew that Adam was coming for him, and that he would have to focus on defending the tower first, buying the fucker more time.

He had more info than Adam was comfortable with him having. It wouldn't change the fact that the meatfucker was going to die a painful death, but he had managed to buy a bit more time for himself. If he didn't have Uriel that was.

Uriel just had to jump off and continue running towards…

…

…Uriel couldn't move to do that. The myomer in the Gemini wouldn't flex or unflex to take that action.

This was a really shitty time to find out that Uriel was just as bound to the contract as Adam was.

"Goddamn fucking shit." Uriel uncharacteristically cursed aloud. It wasn't a particularly emotive curse, but it conveyed his severe annoyance at the situation. Adam was feeling equally irritated at the reveal. His stomps grew heavier as his claws dug into the broken and shattered earth deeper in fury.

Uriel locked the joints in the Gemini, stepped out of the frame, and raced ahead to Arasaka Tower as Adam continued running. Jumping across the scant connections and signals in the badlands to eventually reach the city-grid once more.

In the distance, the looming black tower framed by a burning red sunset hung over the rest of the city. He raced forwards towards it…

There was a barrier all around it, like a bubble made from thousands of tiny connected lights. It looked like the night sky stretched over the tower and turned transparent. Ignoring the Icons of the various things around him, he punched it as hard as he could.

The bubble shook, it's surface rippling like a lake as it absorbed his impact.

He reared back and punched it again, only to be met with the same result.

Punch, boom, ripple. This was a distinctly unpleasant situation. He floated back and sent a chain of fire down towards a security camera that was pointed at the tower. Now seeing it as it was in realspace, he saw that the massive Arasaka logo on the side of the building had been covered by the image of a cracked oni face with a robotic skull underneath.

…Was that a… Smasher fanboy logo? He didn't recognize it from anywhere, and Kabuto-Oni was a thing. Oh. This was probably what Saburo was displaying for the celebration tonight, huh?

However, this fucking barrier was still pissing him off, and he couldn't see any reason it existed. It was cutting off the Arasaka servers from the outside world entirely right now.

Furiously burning, he pulled his fire back to the Gemini.

'No good. We have to go there physically.' Uriel spoke, a frown on his face.

'Just our fucking luck. You know who's attacking?' Adam responded, still running at the steady pace of fifty miles per hour, and occasionally five-hundred miles per hour.

'No idea. At least one Netrunner better than me, which is a pretty long list. Considering that 'V' is here, I'm willing to bet it's Alt Cunningham.'

'We have no proof of that.'

'It makes narrative sense.'

Adam, unfortunately, couldn't dispute that. 'Daedalus ready?'

'As ready as it ever will be, it'll have to be enough against her. It was meant for AI not ms 'second best netrunner to ever live'.'

Adam ran in silence for a moment. Letting his fury bubble around inside, twisting and turning over itself again and again. He was slightly confused by one thing. If meatfucker was attacking the tower, then who was guarding the brat?

The crumbling desert offered no answer.

'Message the brats, tell them that we can't be there and why.' Adam commanded. Uriel nodded and began to do just that.

One thing after a-fucking-nother, wasn't it?

--

Throughout his one-hundred and fifty years of living, he had been the target of no less than five-thousand, six-hundred, and fifty six assassination attempts. The vast majority of these attempts are stopped the moment they begin by his counter-insurgency agents. At least one-hundred Arasaka shinobi present in every city he goes to, often there for weeks or months before he arrives, rooting out potential attackers and sabotaging or eliminating them long before they could become a problem.

Their information gathering capacity was vast, as were their connections in established regions. Most attempts on his life that get planned for more than a few days are ended at this stage. This roots out almost all attempts by the wider public and disgruntled masses. This left assassination attempts by larger enemy factions, internal usurper factions, and unplanned public attempts.

Assassination attempts from larger factions were typically prevented before they even began, leveraging the vast economic power of Arasaka to simply make his death unprofitable. By tying his personal wealth to the investments of several essential projects of rival factions (but not projects that would potentially threaten Arasaka overall) he effectively bribed the investors of these projects to act against such attempts on his behalf. In conjunction with the personal wealth of Arasaka, and loyalty benefits for those who participate in Arasaka's banking branch, this further increased the effective cost of attacking substantially.

It was no longer a matter of expending great war material to launch an attack. It was also a matter of dealing with public fallout for such a visible unprovoked attack, and the matter of dealing with investor backlash for their pet projects suddenly becoming somewhat more expensive. This left attacks that required little in the way of war material, attacks by stealthy and powerful agents who could fulfill a mission such as his death alone or with little support.

There was a reason that he deliberately focused on increasing the personal-scale power of his agents as much as his company could, to make this line of attack unviable for any other faction in the world. Arasaka was the leading developer of military cybernetic enhancements, few factions came close to their advantage in this field.

This left assassination attempts by larger rival factions simply unviable, too costly, too difficult, not worth the investment overall. Those rare attempts that were funded were almost always easily stopped by the warriors of Arasaka, one of which was the equal of two or more of any other warrior.

Attempts on his life from internal usurper factions were perhaps the largest risk of all, as such factions both had potentially easy access to him and the skill and enhancements from Arasaka's in-house cybernetics. This was where the development of the Long-Term Contract was put into place. All of the most powerful warriors of Arasaka were bound by it, with himself as the chief contract holder in each and every chip.

By ensuring that the most powerful answered directly to him, and were at all times obligated to protect him from any threat they were aware of, and to inform him of any threat they were aware of, the vast majority of usurper factions were rendered utterly impotent. The most powerful warriors of Arasaka were forced to be absolutely loyal to him and him alone, and they could act with relative freedom to automatically quell potential uprisings before they gained traction.

At least one DaiOni was deployed in all seven major Arasaka holdings. One DaiOni was a match for an army of lesser warriors. One DaiOni was enough to suppress any thoughts of rebellion from those within the corporation, as they acted to slay any that might threaten him without needing orders.

A DaiOni was a symbol of his power, of his utter dominance of his agents. To disrespect them was to disrespect him. To oppose them was to oppose him. If they deemed fit to strike down an arrogant executive who failed to show adequate respect, then it only reinforced his authority in the minds of all those who labored under his rule. Yojimbo was somewhat more quick to slay those that irritated him, but he was hardly unique in that regard.

Power. A DaiOni was power that was utterly loyal to him and him alone. A DaiOni was worth a thousand executives in personal power, and limitless executives for how they passively quelled rebellion by their mere presence within the same region. To try and plan for his death, one first had to slay a DaiOni, which would bring his attention to the region, and thus allow him to act to quell it himself thereafter.

Ah, but what of unplanned attempts on his life by the general public? Such a thing was laughable to consider at best. The personal power of Arasaka agents that made attacks unviable for rival powers did the same to attacks by those who were powerless as well. You could not expect a peasant to overcome Yamata-no-Orochi, such a job was best left to Susanoo, and Saburo made sure that any potential Susanoo was utterly loyal to him first.

So he was not expecting a seemingly random attack a few short hours after he arrived in Night City.

A lone individual, a fully cybernetic warrior carrying a handgun and monoblade, wearing an Oni mask, directly charging up to Arasaka Tower and fighting through the bottom floors trying to get to the top. When he was informed of such, for a moment he had thought one of the Ordo Panzer had decided to attack directly. They were the only faction with soldiers mighty enough to overcome his own warriors at this point, a thing he had begun taking measures to overcome the moment he was made aware of them some months ago.

Then he was informed of what the initial data-assault had actually done, stamping a brand over the front of Arasaka's banner on the outer tower paneling. A symbol he recognized both for its personal and impersonal insult. The logo of that upstart rockerboy who aided in the attack against Arasaka Tower some fifty-four years ago. He did not forget the details of his enemies.

Robert John 'Silverhand' Linder. Lead singer of the anti-corporate musician group known as 'Samurai' (despite having absolutely nothing in common with the associated values that Samurai should hold, the historical inaccuracy annoyed him greatly. They preached the message of taking down their corporate masters. Masterless Samurai were called Ronin! Why weren't they called Ronin!? The message was diluted by the implication that they still had masters! Typical gaijin ignorance at play).

The music only reinforced his conclusion, as did the raid on the Mikoshi servers and theft of the Relic at the end of last month. Someone had stolen the engram of Silverhand, loaded it upon the Relic, and revived it in a cybernetic body. The real question was why. Silverhand alone was not the greatest warrior, his proficiency was in rallying large masses of gaijin to fight for his futile causes. Summoning up storms of ineffectual riots, not direct combat such as this.

No. Silverhand was revived as a distraction for another event. Who would steal such a valuable artifact from Arasaka to use it on an engram meant for rallying civilians, but then direct that engram to attack directly at a later time? Militech would've weaponized the social currency of his soul, as would almost every other faction if they could. Using it in this way would mean that the planner had no plans for long term gain that involved the public at large. It was too inefficient.

Silverhand was a disposable asset distraction. Revived then set loose knowing that he would inevitably attack Arasaka Tower. What was the actual goal here? The timing did not line up for it to be the kidnapping of Yojimbo's apprentice, but there were no other plays against Arasaka currently occurring that he could think of. None that would be benefited by this, that was.

…Unless the frame was strong enough to actually become a threat, but then they would not have predicted his arrival in Night City. At best they had five days to prepare for such.

Hmm… not impossible, but it would have to be a faction that he was unaware of. That was a most disgruntling thought indeed. He'd have to punish all Arasaka shinobi in Night City for their failure after this.

The true threat here was whoever had breached the datawalls of Arasaka Tower, and then erected that quarantine firewall. To do so that quickly required… a class 4 AI. Nothing less could do so within the few seconds of Silverhand's approach of the Tower, and class 5 AI did not take overt actions in this manner. How infuriating, the in-house netrunners of Arasaka NC would not be capable of taking on such directly.

"Takemura, order all net-agents to disable wireless connections and switch to hardlines." He spoke as he watched the camera feed of the revived Silverhand battle the agents on the second floor. The elevator was already disabled, one of the new precautions from the last tower attack, only the secondary stairs could be used at this point. Filled with chokepoints and defensive turrets, it would be normally perfectly adequate for handling any intruder.

However…

The Oni-masked Silverhand disappeared from frame, appearing once more behind a group of security agents, sword now painted with a fresh coat of blood. A press of the button relayed the immediate slow-down of the event.

The minimum grade sandevistan for his tower security assets had an acceleration factor of four. Judging from the footage, however, the revived rockerboy had an acceleration factor of nine to eleven, somewhere within that range.

No typical warrior of Arasaka could handle that. A most unfortunate state of affairs. There were several factions that could possibly make such a powerful sandevistan, Kang Tao with their engineering AI came to mind, but vanishingly few warriors that could handle such acceleration. So engrams were not subject to the typical self-destruction of high level enhancements? Valuable information.

After a few moments, Takemura responded. "They say that the hardlines are no longer responding at all, Arasaka-sama."

So the AI prioritized that section of code, even as hidden as it was. That meant something that was already incredibly familiar with modern Arasaka data-fortress structure and defenses. The AI has had time to slip in undetected, scouting out the interior of the structure, and leaving. That would take several trips to manage without alerting the defenders.

The AI had been planning this for some time, possibly years. Slowly, carefully probing with passive methods to ensure non-detection, until the entirety of the Tower was laid bare before it.

A class 4 AI with a long term goal of attacking Arasaka Tower in Night City. There wasn't anything here that was more valuable than what was in Arasaka Tower in Japan, so it must be something common to both that it was easier to gain access to here.

…The Mikoshi database access. A class four AI that had been planning to attack for years to get access to it.

Alt Cunningham. Saburo snorted in brief frustration. He had told Kei to simply kill the woman after wresting the secrets of Soulkiller from here. But he saw value in having such an asset on hand for further development. It was true that she accelerated the progress of Soulkiller 3 by many years, but she was not essential. Hanako was more than enough for it.

Kei had not yet learned to plan for decades rather than years, and he was killed for it.

He hated America, in all of its petty grandeur.

A revived Silverhand and Cunningham attacking Arasaka Tower directly, likely in an attempt to take his head and destroy the Mikoshi. It was practically storybook. He repressed a small smile. He had to play his part in this theater.

Either he survived, his warriors achieving grand victory over a powerful foe, or he died and would be reborn from the ashes of his corpse at a later date. Victory was always preferable, but if he was slain here and his engram was brought forth, then it would not have to kill his son for treachery. The Mikoshi database being destroyed also mattered little, as all engrams within were also preserved in other copies in air gapped servers in Japan. Nothing would be lost from that.

This attack could only result in Arasaka's victory. They likely didn't know that. How wonderfully ironic.

The door to the top floor opened, he did not need to turn his head to tell who it was by the footsteps. Hanako, Yorinobu, and the initial run of the Jorogumo series.

He paused while drinking his tea. He furrowed his brow.

"...Why is Oda not among you?" He asked, low and dangerous.

Hanako responded, somewhat worried, most likely due to the overall stress of this attack on the Tower. She was far less used to such assaults that desired her death, which was good. It would not do for her to ever become used to such. "He said that he would take a proactive approach to guarding me, and disappeared."

…He had left to go battle the intruder, and in doing so abandoned his position at his daughter's side. He set his tea cup down and spoke. "I see."

Takemura's eyes tightened in anger and grief. Saburo knew that he knew what this action would entail. Oda had abandoned his ward, Saburo's daughter, in the middle of a two-pronged attack on the Tower of his own volition. His life was forfeit even if he succeeded at slaying the intruder.

Takemura will offer to atone for his apprentice's mistake after this, an honor that Saburo will allow. After which, he will be interred in a fully cybernetic frame. The honor of all parties will be preserved, and Takemura will continue to serve Arasaka faithfully.

"Jorogumo series. You will remain here to defend me. Takemura, you will escort my son and daughter to the emergency escape VTOL and to the Kujira. Keep them safe."

"At once, Arasaka-sama." Takemura, expertly shackling his grief behind an iron will, bowed and departed.

"...Father…" Hanako spoke, hesitating in following Takemura to the door. His son merely glared at him with a conflicted expression on his face, before turning and marching away.

"Hanako. Go to safety." He simply said.

"Why are you not coming with us?"

"The Shogun does not flee from a single enemy. The tower is defended by a legion of Arasaka warriors, numerous security measures, three Jorogumo, two DaiOni, and Yojimbo is currently on his way as we speak. They will be more than enough to defeat this threat."

She hesitated, before bowing to hide her expression, and running out of the room. The door behind her closed as they ascended to the roof just one floor higher. He breathed in and out once, before twitching a finger. At once, Jorogumo V3 was at his side, serving him a fresh cup of tea.

He turned his attention back to the monitors before him, and the camera footage of the third floor. He replayed what he saw of Silverhand's combat capacity, and what he knew of Oda's combat abilities.

…How the encounter would play out depending on where and how Oda chose to engage.

…Oda would die in no more than twelve blows.

Arrogant little shit. He should've heeded Yojimbo's words and had him assigned to corrective training.