The pickup location was a suspicious vending machine in a subway station that hadn't seen a train in forty years.
Ren approached it cautiously. According to the app, the "client" had left the package inside slot B-4. He keyed in the code. The machine hummed, and a small, velvet-lined box dropped into the tray.
Ren opened it. Inside sat an analog wristwatch. It was ticking. Actually ticking. Gears and springs.
"Who even uses these anymore?" Ren marveled, snapping the box shut. "This thing probably costs more than my kidney."
He secured the box in his inner jacket pocket, zipped it up, and patted it twice. "Okay, Ren. Just walk to Sector 2. Don't look at anyone. Don't make eye contact. You are a ghost. A ghost with rent money."
He moved out of the station and into the Rust Belt, a transition zone between the slums and the industrial district. It was a graveyard of old tech—heaps of discarded android parts, rusting shipping containers, and the occasional feral cyber-hound.
The fog here was thick, smelling of ozone and wet copper.
Ren walked quickly, his head on a swivel. He knew the Rust Belt was dangerous. Scavengers lurked here, looking for parts. Sometimes they didn't care if the parts were currently attached to a living person.
CLANK.
A heavy metallic footstep echoed through the fog.
Ren froze. He crouched behind a pile of tires.
CLANK. WHIRRR. CLANK.
Emerging from the mist was a Mark-IV Mining Droid. It was twelve feet tall, covered in graffiti, with a rotating saw-blade for a left arm. Its optical sensor flickered a chaotic yellow.
"Systems… critical…" the droid garbled, its voice synthesizer broken. "Organic… matter… detected… eliminate…"
Ren held his breath. A rogue unit. Probably hacked by scavengers and then abandoned when its logic core fried. It was a walking tank.
The droid's head swivelled. The yellow eye turned red. It locked onto the heat signature of Ren's terrified body behind the tires.
"Target… acquired."
The saw-blade spun up with a screeching whine.
"Oh, come on!" Ren whispered frantically. "I'm just delivering a watch! I'm not organic matter! I mean—I am, but not the important kind!"
He looked for an exit. To his left was a sheer wall. To his right, a toxic canal. The only way out was past the droid.
Ren grabbed a rusty pipe from the ground. It was pathetic against a mining droid, but it was better than nothing. "Okay, big guy. You want a piece of me? I have… a pipe. And high cholesterol!"
The droid roared, raising its saw arm. It charged.
Ren squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the end. At least I died rich.
[Flashback: Timeline 2]
Ren sat by a campfire, sharpening a dull blade. Across from him sat Kael, a man who had lost his family, his clan, and his honor. Kael stared into the fire, his eyes empty. "Why do you bother?" Kael asked. "That blade is rusted. It will break." Ren smiled, pouring oil onto the whetstone. "Everything breaks eventually, Kael. But until it does, it deserves to be sharp enough to protect something." Ren handed the refurbished blade to Kael. "Use it to cut a path to tomorrow. I'll watch your back." Kael took the blade. For the first time in years, the emptiness left his eyes.
[Present Day]
The air temperature dropped ten degrees in a nanosecond.
From the top of a stack of shipping containers, a figure plummeted. He didn't fall; he descended like a stroke of calligraphy ink.
He wore a tattered ronin cloak over high-grade carbon-fiber armor. At his hip rested a blade that absorbed the ambient light—the Void Katana, a weapon that existed in two dimensions simultaneously.
Kael, the Sword Saint, didn't shout. He didn't grunt. He simply drew his blade.
Laijutsu: Severing the Horizon.
To the naked eye, it looked like nothing happened. There was just a faint distortion in the air, a silver line drawn through the fog.
Ren, eyes still squeezed shut, heard the roar of the droid cut off abruptly.
CRASH.
Ren flinched. He waited for the saw blade to tear him apart.
Silence.
Ren opened one eye.
The droid was still standing there, arm raised.
"Uh..." Ren whispered.
Then, slowly, the top half of the droid slid diagonally off the bottom half. The cut was so clean the metal glowed orange from the friction heat. The two halves crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.
Ren stared, his mouth hanging open.
"Holy..." Ren scrambled backward. "Metal fatigue! It must have been metal fatigue! That structural stress finally gave out!"
He stood up, legs shaking, and approached the wreckage. The cut surface was mirror-smooth.
"Man, these older models really had terrible quality control," Ren reasoned, his brain frantically rationalizing the impossible. "The oscillation of the saw blade must have created a resonance frequency that snapped the chassis. Physics is scary."
He skirted around the smoking pile of scrap. "I need to report this to the city. That's a safety hazard."
High above, perched on the edge of a rusted crane, Kael sheathed his blade with a soft click.
He watched Ren scurry away. Kael's cybernetic eye zoomed in on Ren's back. He wanted to jump down. He wanted to kneel and apologize for being late. He wanted to tell Ren that he had mastered the Void Style just to ensure no blade would ever reach Ren again.
But Kael was socially anxious.
In the previous timeline, Ren had done all the talking. Kael just grunted and killed things. Without Ren to facilitate conversation, Kael had no idea how to say 'Hello, I am your reincarnated bodyguard, please let me protect you.'
"He is... defenseless," Kael rasped, his voice rough from disuse.
He reached into his cloak and pulled out a weapon. It was a Tanto—a short dagger. But not just any dagger. It was the Fang of the Wolf, an S-Rank artifact forged from star-metal, capable of piercing energy shields.
Kael calculated Ren's trajectory. He calculated the wind speed.
He tossed the dagger.
It spun through the air and landed with a thunk in the dirt, directly in Ren's path, about twenty meters ahead.
Kael nodded, satisfied. Now he will be armed.
[Ren's Perspective]
Ren was speed-walking, trying to put distance between himself and the spontaneous combustion droid, when he nearly tripped over something.
"Whoa!"
He looked down. Sticking out of the mud was a knife.
He pulled it out. It was heavy. Black metal, weird glowing runes on the handle. It looked incredibly edgy.
"What is this?" Ren turned it over in his hands. "Did some cosplayer drop their prop?"
He tapped the blade against a rock. It didn't chip. It sliced a groove into the stone like it was butter.
"Huh. Sharp prop," Ren muttered. "But it's heavy. And it looks like something a villain in a bad anime would use."
He looked around. No one was there.
"Well, I can't carry this. If a cop sees me with a concealed weapon, I lose my courier license. Plus, this thing probably has no resale value without a certificate of authenticity."
Ren sighed and looked at a nearby recycling compactor.
"Sorry, edge-lord knife. Into the bin you go."
He tossed the S-Rank, legendary, planet-piercing artifact into the recycling chute.
CLATTER.
"Okay," Ren dusted off his hands. "No more distractions. Just deliver the watch."
[The Crane]
Kael watched Ren throw the Fang of the Wolf into the trash.
Kael froze. His logic processor stalled.
Why?
Then, a realization hit him.
Of course.
Kael's mechanical eye whirred. He rejected it. The weapon was too weak. He realized it was merely an S-Rank artifact. In the past, Ren only accepted the best. He is mocking my offering.
Kael gripped the hilt of his own katana. Tears—actual, synthetic coolant tears—leaked from his eyes.
"Forgive me, Ren," Kael whispered intensely. "I insulted you with such mediocrity. I will find you a God-Tier weapon. Even if I have to raid the Imperial Armory to get it."
The Cyber-Samurai vanished into the shadows, more determined than ever.
Ren, meanwhile, was just happy he didn't have to carry the heavy knife.