After hanging up, Hanako Arasaka waited in silence.
Soon, a sedan rolled up to the villa gate.
Inside sat Sandayu Oda, Hanako's personal bodyguard, and his master, Goro Takemura, the man Arasaka had just branded its most-wanted fugitive.
Without V's help this time, Oda took on the job of pulling Hanako out of house arrest.
At the gate, security saw an Arasaka plate and began a routine check.
"By order of Yorinobu Arasaka, no one enters without his permission," the guard said, moving to block them.
"Hanako asked to see me," Oda answered flat.
If Yorinobu hadn't maneuvered him away, Hanako would not have ended up locked down. As her bodyguard, Oda wore the shame like armor.
"That's not—"
Before the guard could finish, a mantis blade snapped from Oda's forearm and punched through his skull.
"Oda, still so aggressive," Takemura said.
"If Saburo were the one locked inside, you wouldn't be calmer than me," Oda replied.
They dealt with the remaining gate staff and pushed into the villa.
"Oda, Takemura, handle them. I'll jam comms to stop any call for backup," Hanako said over the line.
Yorinobu had kept Hanako here under the pretext of protection, so the constraints around her were light. That gave her room to act, and she trusted the two men guarding her.
Oda and Takemura were both trained and equipped at Arasaka's highest level. Working in quiet tandem, they cut through the villa detail with speed and precision.
Oda went full combat, red-edged Mantis Blades carving arcs as he moved through the team like a storm, his speed turning the room into a meat grinder. Takemura was no less lethal, a katana in his hands marking clean lines through the chaos as he slipped from doorway to stairwell and back again.
Minutes later, the North Oak security detachment was down.
"Good. Yorinobu's guards should be cleared," Hanako said. "Prep the AV."
So far, her plan was on track. With Oda's extraction, she could reach Arasaka Tower, contact Saburo's engram, and crash the board meeting. With luck, that would stop her brother from making another mistake.
She did not know someone else was watching.
On the rooftop, David Martinez sat and studied Oda and Takemura.
David looked nothing like he had months ago. He wore a black jacket that echoed Gloria's, only meaner. He left it unzipped, the muscle under it all hard lines, the skin shot through with mechanical seams.
The old Sandevistan rig was gone. Rocky had replaced it with a new spine, a silver-white OS from the "Source Project: Lin" line that focused on one thing above all: speed. His arms, legs, and half a dozen other nodes had also been rebuilt. Unlike Jackie and Rebecca, David embraced chrome. Between the soldier serum and Compound V, his body and mind sat at a new ceiling, and Rocky had signed off on the upgrades. None of it was off-the-shelf; it was Ascension Technology hardware, with Source-tech internals and even Vibranium components.
Back inside, Oda and Takemura advanced toward Hanako's room. David stayed motionless until the last second, then moved.
He ghosted off the roofline. The OS spooled up. In the blink that followed, he was standing in the corridor in front of Oda and Takemura.
They snapped to ready.
"Who are you?" Oda's gaze ticked along David's cyberware paths and marked the threat level as extreme.
"She doesn't leave," David said.
"You belong to Yorinobu?" Oda asked, frowning. Stopping Hanako was clearly Yorinobu's play, but Arasaka security had a look at what David wasn't wearing.
"No. Ascension Technology," David said. "I'm here to keep her in this villa. Walk away now, and I won't push it."
"When did Ascension get to give orders to Arasaka?" Oda raised his blades. "Move. Or die."
David didn't step back. He smiled instead.
"Then come try."
Oda fired his Sandevistan and lunged, red Mantis Blades flashing. Takemura surged beside him.
To them, David looked like a lamb waiting for the knife.
The instant Oda's blade touched the air where David's chest had been, David vanished. Even with their Sandevistans running, neither of them caught the movement. Only the shift of air and a change in shadows told them he had moved at all.
David's voice came from behind them.
"Sandevistan is baseline gear."
"You think you can touch me with just that?"
"How—" Oda's breath hitched.
Even two Sandevistans together usually only turned an advantage into a fair fight, with the rest decided by skill, positioning, or luck. The speed David showed didn't look human. It didn't look like anything a standard Sandevistan could produce at all.