Chapter 16: The Legendary Doctor

Chapter 16: The Legendary Doctor

"I never expected to meet you like this."

Ash casually bought two candied hawthorn skewers, handed one to Sandayu Oda, and leisurely ate the other himself.

"You mean that woman?" Sandayu accepted the skewer without hesitation and began eating. Though Japanese by blood, her taste—like Ash's—leaned toward Chinese cuisine. The island nation she hailed from, as wealthy and orderly as it was rumored to be, felt more like a myth to her. She'd only read about it in online archives. Her hometown? She had none.

Born in Night City, Sandayu had no concept of patriotism. Her life revolved solely around eating, sleeping, and following Ash. If he ever told her to leave, she would vanish quietly—return to the place they first met and end her life there.

Her obsession was invisible to outsiders, but Ash sensed it deeply. In a way, Sandayu was mentally unstable—dependent on Ash to keep her fragmented mind from collapsing.

What she endured in the "Red House," a gang-controlled brothel training center, didn't need explaining. Beatings, humiliation, psychological abuse, and mind-altering hypnosis—used and discarded as a tool for profit.

Few survived the experience. Most broke and ended their lives. Sandayu's mother, an addict hooked on a brainwave drug called "God's Nectar," had sold her off like scrap.

It took just a month to transform a lively young girl into a hollow-eyed shell. She stared blankly at others suffering around her. Her tormentors—fat, lecherous men resembling bloated pigs—didn't faze her.

Ash found her in an underground water prison. She had been locked away for refusing to entertain the clients.

She didn't even bother dressing after being freed. First, she hunted down those who abused her—ripping off their limbs, smashing their genitals. Even now, pieces of those men were preserved in what she called her "collection room."

"Let me follow you forever, alright?" she said, beaming as she twisted her own mother's neck in front of Ash.

"I have no home."

Ash could only feel helplessness and pity. He too was a stray soul. They were both abandoned by the world. If neither had a home—why not create one together?

Thus, Sandayu became the first to join Ash's crew.

Tanaka, the man later known for his cybernetic brilliance, joined under very different circumstances—but that's a story for another time.

Ash never kept secrets from Sandayu—not even about his transmigration. In truth, they weren't just comrades. They were family. A bond deeper than romantic love.

"She's one of the two that stirred up trouble at Konpeki Plaza," Ash said casually.

"Oh? Should we report it?" Sandayu raised a brow.

Ash smiled warmly. "Yui, what's it got to do with us?"

She paused and grinned. Yes—what did it have to do with them?

---

Two hours later.

After dinner, the pair arrived at the clinic. Viktor stood at the entrance, a red cross-emblazoned medbag in hand. V had already left to find Judy.

Without fanfare, they entered a Delamain-operated AV. Ash and Viktor sat in the back. Sandayu took the passenger seat and pulled a compact terminal from the glovebox.

"We should brief you on the patient's condition," Ash said. Sandayu uploaded the medical report to Viktor's onboard screen.

The moment Viktor saw the patient's face, his pupils contracted.

Evelyn Parker.

V had told him about her. She was tangled in the Konpeki Plaza incident. If she were in Arasaka custody, Viktor wouldn't be here—Arasaka's medtech dwarfed his capabilities.

Which meant… someone was moving outside corporate channels.

"She's critical to Arasaka. More accurately, to the fallout from Konpeki," Ash explained, reading Viktor's reaction. "She's valuable—but only if alive. Dead, she's worthless."

Viktor had never met such a blatantly opportunistic man. Still, Ash was honest about it.

"Aren't you with Arasaka? This feels beneath your status."

Ash chuckled. "Viktor, I'm just trying to survive in Night City's cracks. Is wanting more cash a crime? Everything here's a gamble. Might as well bet big."

"Arasaka won't forgive betrayal," Viktor said evenly.

"Then let's not get caught. You wouldn't break the Hippocratic Oath, would you?" Ash gave him a look that pierced deep.

Viktor met his gaze. His eyes—black as obsidian, like the void—felt like they could swallow him whole.

---

"Doctor Viktor? Doctor Viktor?"

Ash's voice snapped him out of a trance.

"We're here."

Viktor blinked, shook off the fog. What was that dream? He couldn't remember. It felt important.

No time to dwell. A life was at stake.

As they entered the secret research facility, Sandayu turned to Ash.

"Will hypnosis be enough? Or should we tweak his memory?"

"Yui, he's just an ordinary human," Ash replied.

"Install a neurochip, then wipe this session." She grinned mischievously, like a devil with a pitchfork.

Ash's eyes faded from inky black to normal.

Abyssal Eyes—a legendary facial cyberware unit equipped with Deep Hypnosis, Visual Hallucination, and Mental Resistance plugins. Top-tier tech from the Xinglu Division—known for a century of optical innovation.

---

Inside the lab, Viktor stared at the woman before him.

"Nina Kraviz?"

Both were stunned.

They hadn't crossed paths in six months. Cyberware doctors rarely left their clinics—too busy, too isolated.

Nina smiled. "I'd heard my assistant was good. Didn't expect it to be you."

"They didn't tell me this surgery needed two," Viktor replied, relaxing.

"I wasn't confident at first, but with you here, it might actually succeed," Nina said. "Follow me."

---

Doctors prepped. The surgery began.

Outside, Ash and Sandayu waited.

Inside, Viktor paused mid-surgery and sighed. "Poor girl. She's suffered too much."

Nina carefully extracted a three-millimeter shard from Evelyn's cortex. "Her neural system is chaos. She should be a cyberpsycho by now."

"Her brain's overloaded with traumatic memory loops," Viktor muttered.

"People who do this kind of shit are monsters," Nina spat.

"You don't think Ash and Sandayu did it, right?" Viktor whispered.

"What? Of course not!" Nina looked shocked. "They saved me. Six Street had me chained in a basement. Ash and Sandayu stormed in and rescued me. They've saved dozens of medics and paid relocation fees so we could escape the violence."

Viktor raised a brow. Arasaka agents—humanitarian?

"Different experiences, different perspectives," Nina said.

Ash may have been a corpo, but to her, he was a savior.

In Night City, where every story has two sides, truth often depends on who's telling it.

To be continued...