The acid rain fell in a perpetual, oily drizzle, painting the neon-lit canyons of Neo-Yokohama in streaks of electric blue and sickly green. Down in the gutters of the city, where the light from the massive holographic ads never quite reached, the water mixed with coolant leaks and something less definable, creating a filthy sheen on the cracked permacrete. Kenji pulled the collar of his worn synth-leather jacket tighter, the damp cold seeping into his bones. It was just another night in the Sprawl.
He moved through the crowded, steaming streets with his head down, a ghost among the throngs of wage-slaves heading home and thrill-seekers just starting their night. Their faces were illuminated by the relentless glow of their ocular implants and scrolling data-feeds, each person lost in their own digital world. Kenji preferred the shadows. They were simpler. Safer.
His destination was a nameless noodle bar tucked between a stimulant den and a parts chop-shop. The air inside was thick with the smell of cheap broth, synthetic pork, and ozone. He slid into a cracked booth at the back, the sticky surface pulling at his jacket. He wasn't there for the food.
A data-slate was already on the table, left by a previous patron. Or so it would seem. Kenji's fingers brushed against it, and the screen flickered to life, displaying a simple delivery manifest. But his eyes, unaugmented and therefore beneath the notice of most corporate security algorithms, saw the glyph hidden beneath the surface. The job. A simple data-snatch from a low-level Yakuza lieutenant. Easy money.
As he memorized the details, a sharp, synaptic pain lanced through his temple—a familiar, unwelcome guest. It was a glitch, the doctors had said. A unique neural misfire. Useless. Painful. A defect in a world where any useful augmentation cost more than he could earn in a decade.
The pain subsided as quickly as it came, leaving a faint, humming static at the edge of his perception. He ignored it, finishing his noodles and stepping back out into the corrosive night.
The snatch was supposed to be clean. The Yakuza thug was exactly where he was supposed to be, in a dilapidated arcade filled with the ghosts of pixelated games, his cybernetic hand deep inside an access panel. Kenji was a ghost himself, slipping the data-chip from the man's port without a whisper. Too easy.
He was two blocks away, the chip a cold, hard weight in his palm, when the world exploded into silence. The ever-present hum of the city—the ads, the traffic, the distant sirens—vanished, replaced by a dead zone of unnatural quiet. The streetlights flickered and died.
*An ambush.*
They melted from the alleyways, three figures encased in black tactical armor that seemed to drink the light. Their movements were too smooth, too coordinated to be street muscle. Corporate security. *Kusanagi Corp.* logos glowed faintly on their shoulder pads. How did they know?
There was no demand, no warning. A neural-disruptor pulse hit the space where he'd been standing a second before, cracking the pavement. Kenji ran, his heart hammering against his ribs. He ducked and weaved through the labyrinthine back-alleys, but they were herding him, cutting off his escape routes with cold efficiency.
He found himself cornered in a dead-end courtyard, the high walls streaked with rust and graffiti. The only way out was blocked by the three advancing figures. Their weaponized arms whirred as they powered up, targeting lasers painting red dots on his chest.
"Surrender the asset," one of them droned, its voice a synthetic monotone. "Compliance will be rewarded with a swift termination."
Despair washed over him. This was it. Not in a blaze of glory, but in a filthy alley for a job that paid peanuts. The synaptic pain returned, not a lance but a tsunami, blinding him, dropping him to his knees. The static in his head roared, a screaming feedback loop of fear, anger, and raw, untamed power.
One of the guards stepped forward, a stun-baton crackling in its hand.
*No.*
The word didn't form on his lips. It erupted from his mind.
A searing, cerulean light erupted from his outstretched hand. It wasn't solid, not quite. It shimmered like heat haze, humming with an intense, psychic frequency. It elongated, forging itself into the shape of a long, wicked blade—a weapon of pure mental energy.
The lead guard paused, its sensors recalibrating, assessing the unknown threat.
Kenji didn't think. He acted. With a guttural cry he didn't recognize as his own, he swung the shimmering blade.
It passed through the stun-baton and the armored wrist holding it without resistance. The metal and carbon-fiber severed cleanly, the pieces clattering to the wet ground. The guard stared at its stump, sparks fizzing from the severed wiring, its logic processors unable to comprehend what had just happened.
Silence.
The humming blade in Kenji's h