Chapter 195 – Chiyome
📢 [NetSignal – Encrypted Broadcast from the Undernet]
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🟦💿 TOP 30 POWER STONE LEGENDS 💿🟦🦾 CYBERPUNK: 2077 COMM-LINE TRANSMISSION 🦾>> SYSTEM STATUS: POWER CORE ONLINE>> SOURCE: USER BACKBONE NETWORK>> SIGNAL BOOST DETECTED – 30 TOP OPERATIVES IDENTIFIED>> INITIATING TRIBUTE...
💥 In the neon-soaked alleys of Night City, only the toughest stand out. These 30 cyber-souls didn't just survive — they charged the grid with raw energy. Because of them, this story keeps pulsing, page after page.
🔌 TOP 30 POWER STONE OPERATIVES 🔌⚡ DevilsArray⚡ DaoistahH8hp⚡ Indarius⚡ lomp⚡ INDRA32⚡ Roach_mobile⚡ SaintWeetard⚡ Drwall⚡ Demiurge_Ohara⚡ Cryotivity⚡ Alex_IK⚡ Koo_Znack⚡ KnuckledBehemoth⚡ AshGraveborn⚡ Demitri_9896⚡ Osiris_Dawns⚡ Derpy_Bird⚡ SaidElMane⚡ Renegade_Lemur⚡ Overshotfir979⚡ aayojibear⚡ Phavalve⚡ Descentofpotential⚡ leokratos⚡ Ain388⚡ Chirag_Mangla⚡ Edermask221⚡ Datboi9968⚡ Burning_Toast
🛠️ These legends aren't just names on a list — they're the chrome under the skin, the data behind the blade, the ones who power this ride through the underbelly of the future.
📡 So if you're jacked in and reading this... know that you're running on the pulse they provided.
From the Afterlife to Watson, from Pacifica to Arasaka Tower — your support echoes through every neon-lit street.
See you in the next chapter, chooms.📍 Transmission End 📍
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"Location confirmed. Identity confirmed. Target—confirmed."
In the dimly lit industrial district of northern Watson, Night City, a figure clad in a black tactical suit and a face-concealing helmet darted swiftly through the shadows. Moving in sync with the factory lights that flickered on and off, the figure advanced with precision—data in their mind already locking onto a target 500 meters away.
"Traitors... must die."
The near-silent murmur beneath the helmet accompanied a sudden burst of speed. The distance to the target rapidly closed.
Unaware of the danger creeping up on them, the target—wearing a similarly styled outfit—remained hidden ahead.
450 meters.
400 meters.
350 meters.
300 meters.
The pursuer abruptly stopped.
With a sharp hiss, two mantis blades sprang from either forearm. As they extended, crackling blue-white electricity flared, briefly illuminating the two figures now standing directly in the pursuer's path.
The electric flash made their faces visible. The gaze beneath the visor lingered only a moment on the young black-haired man on the right, before shifting to the middle-aged man in a sleek black suit standing straight to the left.
Zzzap.
Crackling current surged. From beneath the helmet came a distorted voice—neither male nor female:
"Kenichiro."
"Chiyome."
Kenichiro stood firm, calmly facing his former disciple.
"I want to know what your mission is."
"That's outside your clearance."
Dropping the voice modulation, Chiyome now spoke in her own voice, cold and detached:
"Even if you're my master, this falls under corporate regulation. I have the authority to kill you right here."
"Who's breaking protocol, really, Chiyome? I think you know better than I do."
Kenichiro's expression finally cracked—an unusual flash of anger crossing his face. He pulled out a datachip and displayed it before her.
"I assumed you were on a sanctioned mission. I didn't expect you to be this reckless—unauthorized redeployment to Night City, failing to report upon arrival, and using Lady Michiko's name to requisition personal gear upgrades. Every step you've taken qualifies as betrayal."
His voice hardened with authority:
"I order you to cease all resistance and come with me. Atone for the disgrace you've brought upon yourself."
"I've done nothing wrong."
The mantis blades on Chiyome's arms subtly angled toward him.
"You are the one at fault, Kenichiro."
"Me?"
Kenichiro's anger vanished. What replaced it was cold detachment.
"If I'm guilty of anything... it's passing everything I know to a traitor like you."
"If you remembered your own teachings—if you still felt shame—you'd never say something like that."
Chiyome's voice matched his in chill.
"In the moment it mattered most, you couldn't protect Lady Hanako. She was injured. And even after learning who was responsible, you did nothing. You are no longer the mentor I once knew."
That struck a nerve.
Kenichiro's composure wavered for the first time. His gaze sharpened, cybernetic eyes flaring as if trying to pierce through her helmet and see her face beneath.
After two seconds of silence, his tone shifted—uncertainty creeping in.
"You... you believe I failed in my duty to protect Lady Hanako?"
"The guilty are always the ones most aware of their own sins."
Chiyome raised the mantis blade on her right arm, pointing it directly at Kenichiro.
"You've grown old, Master. You can no longer protect the things you once stood for. Since you've failed in your duties, it should be me who inherits them. Even if you've betrayed your responsibility, I, who once trained under you and carry that same burden, will not forget it."
As Kenichiro listened to her words, he understood what she was trying to do.
Chiyome believed that Kenichiro had failed in his duty to protect Hanako Arasaka. That he had grown too old, unworthy of such an important role. She wanted to prove her own strength by killing the perpetrators—essentially assuming her master's responsibilities.
So that's what this was about all along.
At first, Kenichiro assumed Chiyome was acting on Michiko Arasaka's orders, pursuing the culprits in service to her. As her personal bodyguard, that made sense. But when he discovered she had come to Night City on her own initiative, he thought she had gone rogue. Out of loyalty to their bond, he wanted to reason with her first, to understand her motives.
Now that he truly understood her intentions, he realized this was all a tragic misunderstanding.
Hanako's injury had been the result of a test orchestrated by "that one," with a certain hardliner involved, and even Michiko herself had turned a blind eye. This wasn't a personal failing—it was the cost of internal faction warfare. But Kenichiro couldn't say any of that aloud. If he told Chiyome the truth, she might become a liability—and in a world like theirs, that meant death.
Compared to the brutal politics of the Arasaka family, a ninja's rebellion was barely a footnote.
Unable to explain, and forbidden from doing so, Kenichiro knew there was only one way to resolve this.
Coincidentally, Chiyome also seemed done talking. Her HUD showed that the target she had been tracking was now getting further away, and she had no more patience left for what she viewed as a "traitorous" and "derelict" master.
"I've had a question—one I've wondered about ever since I left your tutelage at twenty."
Her voice changed again to that androgynous modulated tone, and at the same time, her figure began to blur—becoming one with the shadows.
"I've always been curious…"
The electric glow vanished. Darkness returned. And with it, Chiyome herself seemed to vanish into the gloom.
"…to know if—"
Her voice came through to Kenichiro's ears, near and far at once.
Far, as though she hadn't moved at all.
Close, as though she were standing right in front of him.
Kenichiro's body tensed.
He knew his disciple too well. To subdue her, he would need to go all out.
"And that is?" he asked, scanning the surroundings with his cybernetic optics—trying to draw her voice out again so he could locate her.
She didn't disappoint.
Her form reappeared with a burst of lightning and a sharp cry:
"That is—are you really, truly stronger than me, Master?!"
Two mantis blades thrust toward Kenichiro from behind—aimed precisely at his heart and lungs.
Both…
lethal targets.
.
.
.
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