They finally went back to the tower after the internal threat monitor detected no more untagged individuals within the building. That was followed by a full sweep by their security forces, a whole host of ACPA troopers to scout the entire building before clearing it for their return. A process that took an hour and a half to complete, and they had learned what had happened within the tower.

Fourth fifths of the tower security was dead, the DaiOni were mission-killed (but still alive) right outside of the tower, the jorogumo series were destroyed, most of the tower netrunners were dead, all non-airgapped servers in the tower were completely gone, Adam Smasher was crippled and barely responsive, and Saburo Arasaka was dead, his internal Relic taken out and destroyed.

It was a blow on par with the Night City Holocaust fifty years ago, if not worse. At the very least all of the damages were restricted entirely to the tower and Arasaka itself, nothing spilling out to kill the uninvolved again.

He took another drag of the cigarette, and stared down at the corpse of his ancient father, now resting on a gurney table after being injected with a nanobot swarm programmed to prepare his body for funeral arrangements. With the Relic destroyed, and with the hour or so that's passed since the destructive scan of the soulkiller, his brain was destroyed far beyond the point of any recovery.

Saburo Arasaka was dead, killed by a revived rockerboy on a warpath against Arasaka. There wasn't a chance of him coming back.

He was finally gone from the world.

And Yorinobu Arasaka couldn't do anything but stare at the corpse. Even in the deeply accelerated time of his kerenzikov, it felt like eternity itself wouldn't be long enough to take in this information.

He couldn't put his finger on why his mind kept spinning over it, uselessly. Saburo Arasaka was dead, that should be easy enough to understand and take advantage of, but for some reason he kept tripping on the first sentence.

Saburo Arasaka was dead…

It felt hard to believe that was true. Men like Saburo Arasaka don't simply die. He couldn't believe it at all until they retrieved the footage of that room and he had seen it.

Of course his father had to have dramatic music and a monologue about the nature of the world before dying. That made his death far easier to believe. Easier, but not quite at that threshold yet.

This was a massive obstacle to his plan completely gone. A massive hurdle he had spent so much of his life trying and failing to subvert and overthrow. A great evil he had spent a better part of a century struggling to contain and limit.

And he was gone. Not for any of his own plans or schemes, but by seemingly completely random chance, an event that no one could've predicted or accounted for, an happenstance that was dictated by fate.

He took another drag of his cigarette and glared down at the corpse.

You bastard…

I was the one who was supposed to kill you.

His fist clenched.

How dare you take that from me.

A moment later he huffed and looked away from the corpse, feeling drained.

It was exactly like his father to pull something like this, Yorinobu couldn't even find it in himself to be surprised.

His greatest opponent was dead by chance, he should be filled with a manic energy as he worked to dismantle Arasaka in these moments, excitedly moving to fulfill his lifelong ambitions. For some reason he couldn't muster up the energy to do that yet.

All he could do was glare down at a corpse and work through a pack of cigarettes.

[Sir… you ordered repairs for Adam Smasher… He's not an employee of Arasaka right now…] A message came to him from the tech department, and gave it a half-hearted look.

[Give him a frame without any Arasaka technology in it then.] He commanded.

[Ah… A thousand apologies sir but we don't have any in the Tower…] The reply came back. Yorinobu rolled his eyes in irritation.

[Then ask him if he has one, failing that, put in an order. Understand?] He messaged back. The lack of any message in return told him that they were finally doing just that. Was it so hard to figure out? The employees of Arasaka were as loyal as they were unbending in protocol, even for miniscule things like this.

He glanced back at the corpse for a moment, before turning back to the wall again.

He was… essentially already in complete control over Arasaka at this moment. Hanako was beside herself right now in mourning, and thus wouldn't resist his take over. Her faction would stand down if he asked her to tell them, and she doubtlessly would if her brother requested it. Michiko had grown more independent recently, and thus lost much of the support of the faction that used her as a puppet. He was the only male heir.

There were no other candidates. He had already won, and it was a strange feeling.

Victory without any action of his own to achieve it.

It was an… anticlimactic end. He supposed he preferred it, in the end, but it was the last thing that he was expecting.

The door to the room opened up. A quick glance over confirmed that it was Goro. He looked quite awful at the current moment, even behind that incredibly stoic mask of his.

Goro was perhaps the perfect right hand, utterly loyal, utterly devoted and determined, utterly dedicated to fulfilling the tasks given to him by his lord. Right now, he was alive after his lord had died, after his lord had died indirectly due to his apprentice betraying his own ward and leaving them behind to fight the enemy head on.

Yorinobu did not envy Goro in this moment, it was likely that he was a hair's breadth away from requesting the honor of seppuku. Goro was not a threat to his control of Arasaka, and he had no reason to demand his death though, so he wouldn't let him.

"My Lord, you requested me?" Yorinobu almost flinched at the sound of his deadened voice. He retained his composure and replied.

"Yes. With the death of Oda and the Jorogumo series, Hanako will be left with little reliable protection. I will be assigning you to protect her from now on."

There was a long moment of silence, before Goro spoke again, his face scrunching minutely in despair.

"...my lord… I-I have fai-"

"No." Yorinobu cut him off. "Oda had failed. All other participants in this entire tragedy did everything they were supposed to to the best of their abilities. A samurai failing to cut a hurricane in half is the expected result, not a true failure. John Silverhand and Alt Cunningham are now known to us as just such a force."

Goro was silent, staring at the floor, still likely blaming himself. Yorinobu looked down at him for a moment.

"Stand, Takemura."

Goro stood as was requested, looking straight ahead as to not focus on anything.

"You are the single greatest warrior of Arasaka that is not a DaiOni. You have served faithfully for decades, and will continue to serve. There is no one I can trust with my sister's protection more than you. Do you understand?"

"...B-but, Adam Smasher-"

"Lives here, and not Japan."

Goro was silent for another long moment. He bowed deeply to him and replied. "I will not fail you my lord."

Yorinobu nodded before turning back to the corpse of his father. "I know. Go to her."

Goro left the room, leaving him in silence once more.

He glared at the corpse of the man he was supposed to kill.

A man that was his father.

He stayed there for a few more hours. Finally being dragged away by a pre-scheduled meeting he had to attend.

A meeting with Lucas Harford, CEO of Militech.

—

"You know I was willing to reschedule, in light of what just happened." Hartford spoke amicably, taking another long swig of coffee as one of his agents produced a number of datapads detailing the specifics of the recreation of IEC. "I would've understood if you wanted to take time to mourn, your father just died after all."

"Your concern is noted, but that will hardly be necessary. We had a meeting scheduled, it is only proper to fulfill one's prior obligations." Yorinobu replied, taking a sip of his own tea as he waited for them to get done. This was one of many meetings scheduled in advance over the exact specifics of how reforming IEC was going to end up. As with many things, the minutiae had to be precisely examined and considered before being signed.

Normally, this would be assigned to someone else, but as Yorinobu was taking the opportunity to sabotage Arasaka whenever he could, he preferred to do this himself. A few tiny 'mistakes' that will give Militech the upper hand moving forwards will given him more room to maneuver around his fath-

…It was no longer required, huh?

His father was already dead, he had already won.

Regardless, when he declared that he would handle this part personally, Harford responded that he 'liked the attitude' and declared that he would do similar. This was something to watch out for.

"Even so, let it be known that I'm sorry for your loss. I truly mean that." Harford continued, appearing genuine as far as he could tell. "I'll admit I didn't like your father, Saburo Arasaka, but death in the family is never pleasant, I've gone through it myself."

Good, at least one of them would be sorry for it. Yorinobu certainly didn't intend to waste any time in mourning beyond what was strictly required to throw off any suspicions of his actions. "Like I said, your concern is noted. Arasaka will continue without my father." Until he destroyed it that was.

Harford stared for a long moment, taking another sip of his coffee, before waving a hand at his bodyguard. "Mind if we speak privately?"

Said guard left the room, standing on the outside (well within sight of the several other guards in the hallway. Yorinobu stared for a moment, face carefully blank and hidden within the depths of his accelerated time.

He raised a hand and waved it, his own guard leaving the room. The door sealed behind him and the room became a bastion of privacy in an instant. There were no cameras in this room, that was deliberate.

Harford nodded at the door. "Sound-canceling?" Yorinobu nodded in return. "You didn't like your father, did you?"

Yorinobu's face was completely impassive as he stared at Harford, who sipped from his coffee again.

"If I had to guess… I think that you downright hated him, and you want to bring Arasaka down, is that right?"

"Your accusations are as amusing as they are insulting, Lucas Harford."

Harford chuckled as he sipped his coffee again. "None of that now, I don't have any recording tech in my brain, and I don't think you do either. I want to talk frankly to you. I think you want nothing more than to topple Arasaka, and I think you've been wanting to do it for years now."

Yorinobu sipped his tea. "Interesting hypothesis, Harford. I'm curious how you came up with it."

"To be honest, it's a guess on my part. A guess based on your expression."

"My expression?"

Harford nodded. "It's the same expression I see when I look in the mirror."

They locked eyes for a moment. Harford sipped his coffee before standing up and walking over to the one-way window overlooking the corporate plaza.

"My family wasn't the richest growing up. We had a small homestead down in the Appalachian mountains, I had a few sisters, father worked in the coal mines, mother stayed home, and we were isolated enough from the rest of the world for mom and dad to ride through the collapse mostly fine. Mother had one of those big gardens, and I was something of a momma's boy so of course I had a little garden of my own. I grew just about the worst tomatoes you could imagine."

Harford chuckled to himself for a moment, taking another sip of his coffee. His voice was nostalgic, but slowly trailing off into a less happy note.

"I ended up joining the Militech forces during their recruitment campaigns for the fourth corporate war. My family needed the money and they promised good pay and better benefits, so I signed right up in my late teens. I was greedy back then, and I still am."

Yorinobu sipped his tea, staring daggers into his fellow CEO's back as he continued to monologue.

"I came back a changed man, finding a home that wasn't there anymore."

Harford turned, and his distant glare locked with Yorinobu's stare.

"My sisters were dead or prostitutes. My mother was a corpse buried in the backyard. My father was borg in those mines, his contract bought up by some SovOil-owned mining corp, unable to do a goddamn thing about any of this. And the garden…"

"...That garden my mother and I worked so hard on was nothing but dust and ash, taken out by a Petrochem bioweapon to eliminate competition in the NUSA. I was furious. I wanted revenge, but who do I take revenge on?"

"Do I take revenge on Petrochem, for unleashing the bioweapon? Do I take revenge on SovOil for that mining corp enslaving my dad and leaving my family defenseless? Do I take revenge on Militech for recruiting me? Do I take revenge on Arasaka for extending the war? Do I take revenge on OTEC or CINO, for starting the war to begin with? Do I take revenge on IHAG for going bankrupt and starting this whole fucking chain of events?"

"Who the fuck do I need to kill?" Harford seethed out, taking a moment to calm himself afterwards.

"It was then I realized something. It was all of them. Every single one of them needed to come down. But I couldn't take them down without power, so I went back to Militech and started rising up the ranks."

"A few decades later… I was the CEO, and a strong candidate for the next presidency of the NUSA."

There was a long moment of silence, Yorinobu could hear his own heartbeat, feel his own breath.

"...You're going to bring down Arasaka? That's fine. Militech will take advantage and move in to claim everything in the power gap it leaves behind. I'm a greedy guy, you see, and so long as any corporation exists, this kind of suffering will continue."

"The point of that confession, Harford?" Yorinobu stood up for himself and let his glare speak for itself.

"I already said it. I'm a greedy guy. Comes with being American you see, or Gaijin i suppose you'd call it?" Harford turned and stepped forwards, setting his coffee cup down and standing tall in front of him. "I'm greedy for the whole world. The world, the nations in it, the people in it, all of it. It's all mine, and these corporations are hurting it."

"Those bastards are hurting my world. My people. My garden." Harford grit his teeth as he spoke that last line, his gaze focused on Yorinobu's own again. "You go ahead and bring down Arasaka if you want, I'll be there to take care of the aftermath. Or…"

"...Or?"

"I get the feeling you don't like a single one of them fucking up this world either."

"...I don't."

"You and I are in control of the two strongest corporations on the planet. That's a whole lotta power we can use to bring those fuckers down."

Harford stuck out a hand, offering a handshake.

"Whaddya say, Jap? Wanna help this Gaijin bring them all down?"

Yorinobu glared at the hand for a moment, he considered it for a long few seconds…

He raised his hand and completed the handshake, staring into the eyes of his fellow CEO.

Lucas Harford grinned. "Glad you have you on board."