In this situation, Dozer lost his head, hoisted his tech shotgun, and charged in furiously.
Kwaang!!
As he pulled the trigger, the buckshot tore mercilessly through the rain-soaked alley.
But as if mocking the hail of shrapnel, Ji-hwan vanished from sight, leaving only a red afterimage behind.
Thud, swish-.
From deep within the alley’s darkness, only the sound of someone moving fast echoed in three dimensions as they lightly stepped off the walls and puddles all around.
Dozer’s tactical lenses narrowed like crazy, chasing thermal signatures and biometrics, but they couldn’t catch even a single trace.
That red smoke circling an invisible blind spot. To Dozer, it was fear itself.
"Where the hell are you!!"
The moment the guy, driven to the edge by rage and frustration, shoved his shotgun into empty air and let out a desperate scream.
From that blind spot he’d just been glaring at a second ago before turning away, a shadow burst out as if it had come alive.
"It’s over."
Ji-hwan had somehow already slipped all the way into Dozer’s empty embrace. Carrying the force of his kick off the ground, Ji-hwan’s two palms shot up and slammed brutally into Dozer’s chest armor.
Explosive Palm Strike, Double Palm.
A shockwave tore through the air, and the condensed force punched straight through Dozer’s thick armor, flooding into his body.
The old windows barely clinging to the ruined building all screamed at once, shattering into pieces and raining down like a waterfall.
Boom!!
"Kh, huh...! Cough!!"
Dozer’s eyes rolled white.
Blood and coolant gushed from between his split lips as the heavy chrome mass dropped to one knee on the asphalt.
The vicious tech shotgun slipped from his grasp, rolled across the rainwater on the ground, and he collapsed unconscious.
In the face of that overwhelming force, the leader Viper’s arms, still gripping the trigger of his smart submachine gun, went limp.
The muzzle trembled in his shaking hands before dropping toward the ground.
The man in front of him was not something they could handle.
"H-how... How the hell do you have that kind of strength..."
"That’s what you’re worried about right now?"
Ji-hwan’s indifferent reply cut off Viper’s dazed muttering.
Step. Step.
As Ji-hwan walked closer, the despair reflected in Viper’s red ocular lenses only deepened.
The right hand that had been cut by Kenshi’s broken blade was already knitting shut with a faint haze rising off it.
The certainty that the bastard would destroy himself if the fight dragged on had been nothing but arrogance.
Viper gave up on everything and closed his eyes, accepting death.
'At least Pixel, the one still in the van, probably got away safely.'
Ji-hwan briefly saw a reflection of himself in the mercenary who wouldn’t beg for his life, but he only let out a short sigh.
"...You won’t feel pain."
Just as Ji-hwan was about to swing a heavy fist to finish off Viper.
"S-stop—!!!"
A woman’s shriek, raw with panic, cut through the rain. Ji-hwan flinched, and his fist stopped right in front of Viper’s face.
When he turned his head, a young woman in a worn hood was stumbling toward him.
It was the youngest member of the Viper Crew, "Pixel," with netrunning cables hanging all over her head.
Soaked through and shaking like a leaf, she still held a pistol in both hands, aiming it straight at Ji-hwan.
"P-Pixel?! Why the hell are you out here? I told you to run!!"
"NCPD! I hijacked the police sirens we heard earlier and rerouted them toward another shootout through the comm channels! They’re not coming here!"
Pixel’s shout was half sob, half desperate effort to stay calm. A flash of interest crossed Ji-hwan’s eyes.
She’d hacked Night City’s smug police network by herself in that short a time. For a street crew, that was a waste of talent.
But Ji-hwan didn’t show it, only tilted his chin.
"So?"
"S-so please... spare our leader and the others still alive. Let’s make a deal!"
At Pixel’s desperate plea, Ji-hwan snorted.
"Why would I? You said the cops aren’t coming. Then I can just kill everyone still breathing here, including you, and bury the lot of you."
At that cold killing intent, Pixel’s shoulders jerked hard. But she still didn’t lower the trembling gun, and instead shouted back with everything she had.
"I-if we don’t send a return signal within a certain time... the system will unlock the encrypted lock on your body scan data and location! If we all die, your data gets sprayed across every corporation and fixer network in Night City!!"
A netrunner’s dead-man switch threat, prepared with mutual destruction in mind.
"What...?"
The next instant, Ji-hwan’s figure vanished from Pixel’s sight in a red haze.
"...Huh?!"
By the time she realized it, Ji-hwan’s iron grip was already around her slender neck, hoisting her up into the air.
"Kh, kuhk...!!"
"Pixel—!!!"
Viper coughed up blood and screamed, but Ji-hwan glared at her with a face twisted in fury.
"You think you can threaten me with some flimsy scrap of data?"
At Ji-hwan’s growl, Pixel’s pupils shook. Even as the pain of having her throat crushed scattered her consciousness, she clutched at Ji-hwan’s wrist with both hands and squeezed out a hoarse voice.
"Kh... d-doing this... will only make... your situation... worse...!"
A last-ditch struggle. Ji-hwan’s hand around her throat loosened by the tiniest amount. As she tried to gather her senses, she heard Ji-hwan mutter near her ear.
"...Should I just kill you all and leave the city?"
That emotionless, chilling murmur made Pixel’s whole body tremble.
But then Ji-hwan closed his eyes and let out a long, deep sigh.
Thud.
The hand around her throat released, and Pixel was tossed to the ground like luggage.
"Cough! Khahk, huh...!"
While Pixel hacked up a storm, Ji-hwan looked back and forth between the gasping Pixel and the pale-faced Viper with a strange expression.
"Hey."
Ji-hwan scoffed in disbelief.
"You two are dating, aren’t you?"
"...?!"
An absurd question, completely out of left field for a situation where they’d just been trying to kill each other. Shock spread across Viper and Pixel’s faces in an instant.
"N-no, w-we’re not dating...!"
"W-what are you talking about...?"
Both of them were red-faced, avoiding each other’s eyes and flailing around. Watching that pathetic reaction, with their feelings obvious yet still unable to deny it properly, Ji-hwan wiped his face and let out a deep sigh.
"Haa... what a letdown."
So the reason they’d thrown themselves into death was just a netrunner’s tearful one-sided devotion to save her leader. Ji-hwan’s killing intent cooled off in an instant.
Ji-hwan crouched right in front of the coughing Pixel and spoke coldly, as if carving each word into bone.
"If what you said turns out to be a lie..."
He didn’t finish the sentence, but the killing intent in his eyes said everything for him.
Pixel nodded frantically without even daring to breathe, and Ji-hwan stood up without any lingering attachment.
"Why..."
Unable to believe the man was letting them live, Viper muttered in a trembling voice. Without stopping, Ji-hwan tossed the words back over his shoulder.
"Everyone except the sniper on the roof is just knocked out. Take them and get lost."
Viper’s eyes widened as if they might split open.
Kenshi and Dozer were both alive?
Leaving their shock behind, Ji-hwan gathered the dead sniper’s gear and Kenshi’s broken katana, then headed for the motorcycle lying in the corner of the alley.
It was the custom-modified Arch Nazare he’d borrowed from Mammoth.
"Ah... I’m screwed."
A hopeless groan escaped Ji-hwan’s mouth.
Thanks to getting swept up in the crossfire, the matte-black titanium armor plates were covered in ugly scratches, and one of the headlights had been completely smashed and was hanging loose.
Imagining Mammoth losing his mind when he got back, Ji-hwan kicked the bike into gear.
Vroooom—!!
The roar of the engine tore through the rain-filled alley like a beast, and Ji-hwan disappeared into the darkness of Santo Domingo without looking back.
The empty alley after Ji-hwan was gone.
As Pixel’s legs gave out and she started to collapse, Viper rushed over and supported her. Mercy from the monster who could have ignored the data lock and wiped them all out if he’d wanted.
Staggering and bleeding, Viper moved to gather up his fallen crew and muttered lowly.
"For a while... I think I’m done with merc work..."
"Why...? Once your injuries heal, you can start again."
At Pixel’s puzzled question, Viper silently stared toward the end of the empty road where Ji-hwan had vanished, his eyes filled with fear and awe.
"Feels like a huge storm is coming....."
At Viper’s bone-deep intuition, Pixel nodded wordlessly and gently wrapped her arms around the shoulder of the lover soaked by the rain.
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