Chapter 49: The R0N1N

Official Yuzhou statement regarding the Gold-Grade Mercenary known as ‘The R0N1N’.

The R0N1N is to be neutralized at first sight, his crimes against Yuzhou demand death. First appearing in the year 2487 in Central Asia as a Silver, he has since attained a Gold Grade and is considered one of the largest threats to the stability of our nation.

His list of crimes includes the following:

* Murder of 24 executive members of Yuzhou

* Property damage worth 6 Billion Shardyne

* Elimination of over 1,249 Yuzhou employees, including a Tier IV Division Commander.

* Theft of considerable private intel.

* Single-handedly destroying a Hydra Warmachine.

As of 2496, he is expected to be in the territory of America and is targeting numerous Yuzhou and Shandian facilities. Alongside this, he is known to be affiliated with anti-Yuzhou terrorist group, Muramasa Dynasty. In what capacity is unknown, as his allegiance to the terrorist group has been both of an alliance and a rivalry.

His combat ability is immense, and his speed even more so. We have tracked him moving at over 85 m/s, and wields two blades of high Silver-Grade. One of which is confirmed to be a former weapon of the Bladefather and forged by anti-SynTec terrorist Hammersmith.

For his crimes, we have put out a bounty of 490 Million Shardyne. Should you come into contact with any information regarding him you will be considerably compensated.

Diana

In one clean swipe, four people died as blood flashed into the air. I blinked, and another seven limbs came loose from a few meters away from where I last saw the R0N1N. The machinery of his limbs were light, barely uttering a sound as he disappeared from one location to another, blood spraying out from the machine of death he’d become. How fast was he moving?

“Jones!” Choirmen helped me up. “Nice going with the bombs, Josephina’s disabled four more! But get your ass up!”

I charged electricity through my leg, blood stitching together for Choirmen to see in person. His eyes in awe, but only momentarily as one-by-one our shields started cracking away. I took a hold of my own shield, hating myself for the sacrifice I was going to make.

It was like a nuclear reactor erupted through me, a wave of pure energy pulsing me into motion. It had been just a third of it’s charge, but that much had stuffed me to the point I could barely stop my arms from shaking. My vision flew through the room, taking in all the sights unbeheld by my previous confusion.

I’d missed four more bombs on the mind-numbed hostages, they were standing out in the open compared to the other crowds in police protection or huddled behind tables.

A tag on all four of them was sent to the Sergeant. His orders were simple. “Units, disable the remaining four bombs, then get to securing the VIPs!”

The police members each took their positions, the experienced Investigators pushing in forward ever so patiently. Wickett had shed her persona of Squad 13’s commanding Investigator, joining in with the R0N1N as armor clinked up and down her body, turning her short stature into a machination of her codename. Wicked.

Sonic wails burst from tiny cannons in her arms, bursting away at the eardrums of those misfortunate enough to be close to her, then she expertly dispatched them. It was a good thing that she worked alone then, as she single handedly chewed through several groups of Muramasa goons like a metallic wolverine. She was more feral than plenty of other Mercenaries, just wicked.

Stormspinner and the other mercenary who I hadn’t met, an older man by the name of Brimstone, shattered forces on their end. The former raising up a whirlwind of shrapnel gathered from the broken remnants of Shardware, the latter doing the breaking with precise shots from his revolver with bullets that burst apart the metal like it was sandstone.

Then of course, there were the STRIKE department members. Each of them tactically organized themselves around the firefight like it was a game of chess, taking precise shots with Josephina at the helm of it. Her large rifle came into play, breaking apart cover that the rest of her fellow STRIKE members exploited without a second of communication.

Finally there was the R0N1N, who single-handedly tore through Muramasa Irons and Bronzes as tempest of sharpness. He was efficient, simple. Where he appeared, death occurred. And when there was no more life for him to take, he switched to another group in the blink of an eye. Half of them didn’t even realize he’d moved behind them.

I processed all of that in less than ten seconds. We were outnumbered, and Muramasa had already moved to secure the VIPs in the backrooms of the stage. But numbers didn’t mean shit when we had a Gold Mercenary on our side… and I was Gold too. R0N1N alone was the spearhead of our advancement, a part of me feeling like his appearance here had been orchestrated.

“Jones?” Choirmen tugged me from the side as I observed.

Then before another word could come out, I moved. Condensed muscle fibers pushing me into the air towards a wall that I kicked off of, then I hopped across the tables to leap at the stage. They were getting away, I wouldn’t let them.

Three shots from my gun had landed by the time I joined the main cast, the max-powered shots disabling two Irons but tickling the Bronze mutant. His engorged arms came down swinging, but they were so slow. It was painful waiting for them to come down, and then another blast of electricity shattered across his face with my fist.

It wasn’t enough to take him out, his bones had felt like metal. But I’d already managed to dent steel, his wild strikes came down like a rain of cannonfire. Mine responded in the form of precise, quick rapier flourishes, a final pulse at his neck taking him down.

With that, I’d saved the last three hostages from being taken in. The remaining Muramasa goons were retreating now, I could feel the racing work of their limbs growing dimmer behind the curtains.

“Ulrich.” The Sergeant’s voice stopped me before I could move. “It’s a death sentence, hold your position.”

“They’re retreatin-“

“Into Yuzhou corporate security forces. They’ve already lost.” The Sergeant’s voice cut out, not pushing out any further explanation.

I gritted myself, absorbing another third of the shield’s charge as I pincered Muramasa from behind. Everything became a blur after seeing the R0N1N, he was so precise with his work. Calm as a feather with every heart he impaled, his demeanor was sage-like.

It inspired me, but I could only imitate him as a crude copy. He wasn’t teleporting or anything like that, he just moved that quickly. With my eyesight focused in, I saw him split apart bullets mid-trajectory like they were annoying flies. A single footstep carried him meters, and some function in his boots clinged him to the ground when he needed to stop.

Yeah, I was only imitating. I didn’t know how many more goons I’d shot at or punched before a stray bullet caught my shoulder, another one striking through my knee. The pain was horrifying, not as terrible as when I tore out my nail but it wasn’t easy getting used to pain.

They cornered me, three Muramasa masks heaving breaths as one raised their gun to finish me off. I reached for the remaining third in the shield, but the voice of my Gold had quieted down to a meek whisper in my attempts to wrestle my previous two charges.

A shard of metal dug into my would-be-killer’s neck. Just as quickly, the other two were torn up by scraps of steel. Stormspinner raised me a thumbs up as she launched needles through a bracelet in her arm at some other person. “I used to use that same gun back when I was an Investigator!”

She covered me, a table flipping over as steel pushed it towards me. My own voice was ragged, like I’d chewed nails. “You were in the police?”

“A decade ago! Left it! They caught me selling drugs to the juniors.” She merrily chatted as she expelled a dust cloud of iron powder at somebody who’d snuck up behind us, the swarm of iron clung to his eyes until a final blade sunk into his chest. “Do me a favor. I’m running low and there’s plenty of cutlery here, charge it up for me?”

I obliged, my own body was in tatters from how much I’d pushed it. Reaching out with my blood-stained arm, I flooded all my remaining energy into the various forks and knives cluttered around me. In seconds, they flew up and speared into eyeballs or throats.

“Thanks sweetie! I’m paid per body, I’ll be seein’ ya!” Stormspinner flew away, metal clumps under her feet rising.

I didn’t say anything, the fighting had died down now. A majority of the hostages were now secured, but I spotted blood-soaked formal wear too often. I scanned the numbers… they were mostly all above 250.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

Pushing my legs up, I placed my hand over the shield. There was one charge left. A moment before I drained that power into myself, a steel claw clasped over it.

“That’s enough.” Risa Wickett said, her body now an armor that made her the definition of sharp, and she was soaked in blood. “You’re being ordered to get off the field.”

“I can still fight.” I believed it despite the weakness in my voice, my knee was mostly together now.

“Diana, take a look at the blood on your hands.” She pulled my hand off the shield generator. “It’s your blood. You’re leaking it out of your pores.”

Shit… Had my blood pressure gotten that high?

“I-“ Just looking at my shaking hand she held, it set into reality how tired I’d become. “Affirmative.”

Choirmen escorted me, the amount of blood spilled here made his powers more effective than any time I’d seen him before. He had always been good, but I never got to see just how clever he could be in situations like this. Exploding blood underneath their feet, throwing crimson blades he hardened from his own.

He was far better than his Rank reflected. It was a comforting thought, one that my brain could settle on as it drifted off for a moment.

———

When I woke up, it’d been ten minutes later against a wall of the ballroom. We’d ‘succeeded’, Muramasa had been intercepted by Yuzhou security in the tunnels underneath the hotel but their Black Dragon leader escaped. Death toll was relatively low in comparison to Muramasa Dynasty’s forces, and among the hostages who’d died… only eighteen of them.

Was it a miracle? I didn’t know, I still had an off feeling about today’s mission. There were facts I didn’t know. A recurring notion about many things in my life. As the police regrouped themselves, Shandian security came storming through the room — I caught myself at the sight of them, they wore thick metallic armor that concealed their bodies, colored black and red, and the electric waves radiating off was like a furnace was beaming at me. Their thick guns raised up at one person in particular.

The R0N1N. I’d wondered why he didn’t leave, but he sat there patiently, alone as none dared to approach him. The private security forces were a league unto themselves, power wafted into the air the second their thick suits came rolling in. Heavy and imposing, they were easily far more terrifying than even the Muramasa goons.

“R0N1N!” Their leader called out, his body buried beneath a large suit of smoothed out metal that made him stand at a humble eight-feet tall. “You’re wanted by Yuzhou! Come quietly, drop your weapons, or we’ll open fire!”

“I disagree.” He cleaned blood off his blade, not even staring at the suited man who could crush a head easier than an egg. “Connect me to Himiko. I want to know what she’s trying to hide from me — enough to sacrifice these people.”

Himiko? I remembered that name, it’d been one I stared at often in my notes. Ms. Himiko was the woman who tried to buy the Gold MAL my Implant came from, she’d died by exploding her own frame.

Except maybe she didn’t.

It made sense to use a Proxy for deals where your life was in danger.

“You can talk to her from a cage. I’m sure she has a lot to say to you.” The armored man growled. R0N1N stood up, his blade shiny and ready, except now he unsheathed his second blade as well. A katana like his first one, except it had been formed out of silver-glinted scales that looked as though they’d been hammered together. It shivered through me, I’d never felt anything with that much electricity.

The shield I’d been carrying was an ember compared to the contained wildfire rumbling within that blade.

“All units. Clear out.” The sergeant said in our ears. “This is a Yuzhou company matter.”

One-by-one, we filed out. Though, I did catch Stormspinner chatting up one of the Shandian guards, him nodding at something she said. Surprisingly, she approached me, a happy smile plastered over her.

“Hey Jones, what would it take for you to stay back and charge up some metal for me?” She held my arm, supporting it.

“Why?” My head was aching like my skull had caved in, and the rest of my body felt like it’d been thrown into a blender.

“Helping Shandian secure R0N1N. Do you know what kind of bounties a Gold gets?” She waved off as though it’d been obvious.

“How much?” That would be a little bit good to know.

“R0N1N’s got a bounty of four-hundred-and-ninety-million. Yuzhou really wants him dead — and his Implant.”

“Yeah but… I really don’t have anything left in me. My body is just…” I could barely raise my arms up.

“Warp Burns.” She scoffed, before a sly smile replaced it. “Don’t push it, then… you know, you’re not the only one with a bioelectric organ.”

Slowly, her fingers revealed a momentary thin snap of electricity between them. “Ain’t much. But it’ll do me good. Stay safe and also-“

She took a gun out from her holster, it was a similar model to mine except it wasn’t covert. Plus, it was Shandian made.

“They’re giving me a new gun as a down-payment. Was thinking you’d do better with my old one, it served me well over the last couple of years. Maybe you can make up for a lot of the bad stuff I did with it.” She laughed, but behind her eyes was a pain.

I stared at the revolver. It was a heavy, electric piece called a Shandian Leizhou — ‘storm claw’ if my chinese was right, I was a bit out of practice — and favored for its ability to manipulate the strength of the shot depending on how long you held the trigger.

It was Iron Grade, but an extremely well-built one, and Shandian specialized in weapons manufacturing. “Thank you.” I whispered, my throat a little clearer now that some of the dried blood in mouth had broken down.

Soon after, I left. And the duel occured, the sounds of fighting lasted around a minute. Bullets, whistling metal, cracking furntiure… they slowly dwindled down as screams tore out for a momentary note.

Once everything went silent, police found the bodies. Six dead Shandian forces, and a single dead mercenary.

The R0N1N was nowhere to be found.

———

??? July 11th

R0N1N

The mask clicked off his face, a Yaksha mask unlike the one worn by Black Dragon Lifei today — The Dark Demon. It had been the one part of him that remained across the decade. This shabby hotel barely even had running water, but that didn’t stop him from rubbing the scar over his eye, as though trying to clean it off from the sight of himself in the mirror. It had been the duel he ever lost. Now Muramasa wouldn’t stop ingratiating themselves with him.

“Mission success?” His business partner smirked beside him, he’d gotten too used to not sensing Topaz’s presence. Topaz’ SIM was powerful, but it made sense considering its… origin.

“Unfortunately, yes.” The R0N1N sighed out, thinking as to when this war would end. “We have the personal access codes of Tanyao Wang… but it astounds me. The stupidity of Muramasa to take the party hostage, it would have been easier if they just cornered him in the bathroom.”

Topaz rubbed his buzzed hair. “You don’t make things easy for them, that’s true? I think War-Watcher used this as a moment to spite you.”

“They demand my presence… only to make a mockery of it.” The R0N1N gritted. “And the Bladefather wonders why I’ve rejected his empire.”

“Should have just hired me.” Topaz blew from his lips.

“You may be right about that, but I needed the police there. You’re too quiet.” The R0N1N’s jade gaze flowed over Topaz, the shirtless man was covered in scars that were painted over with tattoos and piercings. “Have you found which of the police are on Yuzhou’s pay?”

Topaz pulled out a souvenir from today’s battle, a Neurocuff, personally belonging to Sergeant Throm Solomon. “Mirage’s working on it. How’re you finding the building layout she got?”

“It’s going to be even more heavily guarded after today, they know I’m trying to do something. It’s likely that Prince War-Watcher is trying to impede my progress.” He doubted. “Maybe it would be smarter to delay it.”

“You sure?” Topaz’s eyebrows curled. “Bladedaughter’s already pulling a few strings to get us a distraction for that night, and I don’t know what exactly is going on with ‘Masa, but who knows how much longer she’ll stay in charge. Unless you-”

“I am not playing to that senile man’s wishes.” The R0N1N rose his voice in a rare moment of emotion. “Regardless of my… affiliation to him.”

“Well, any more delays and the project’ll be shipped past the Pacific.” Topaz was right.

“Then we have no choice but to continue. We’ll rise up a force that night, and we shall strike when their forces are scattered.” The R0N1N decided, and he dwelled on the upcoming heist. It burrowed into him, he had to stop Yuzhou, Shandian was a good place to start.

Goliath, whatever it was, had to be stopped.

Still, it was nice to think about topics other than war. “There was another Gold there. A girl, she had electricity powers.”

“Diana Jones, or Ulrich, got it from last month’s MAL attack. Funny you mention it, the BUG actually went to Missy’s newest adoption.”

“One mutt wasn’t enough?” He stared at Topaz, an infrequent smile crawling on his face.

“Please, he’s a pup. Been in crime only since last month, but he’s growing quickly. Honestly pretty good for a Shard Op’ only beginning in the merc business. Shows little to no fear now, Psyche shaped him into a shard-brained man of action if I do say so myself.” Topaz signed him over a profile of the man. Ripley Donovick.

“He’s doing this for his mother?” The R0N1N scrolled through the details, taking in each blur of words in seconds. Making sense of spilled ink.

“That’s what he tells himself.” Topaz slid nearer.

The R0N1N didn’t reject it, he needed some warmth in his life after all the cold death he offered. “Is he good?”

“At fighting?” Topaz left his hand parallel to the ground, shaking it lightly like a swaying boat.

“At Shardware.” The R0N1N clarified.

“Oh yeah, Anderson’s been raving about the kid. His grandfather used to work with him, or like… against him or something. I didn’t really listen to Di’s rambling.” Topaz’ hand slid over the man’s chest, only half focusing on the questions.

“My legs need tuning. If he’s as good as you say…” He slid the screen close, turning his attention over to Topaz. His own hands slid around the bare muscles of Topaz’s back, drawing their bodies closer.

Topaz chuckled as his lips skimmed the R0N1N’s neck, who would have seen little Ripley getting such a powerful benefactor?

“Shit. You’re going to make him cum harder than I will.”