Alyna stared at the door for a long, breathless moment, her mind a maelstrom of screaming static. The logical frameworks she used to navigate the world had shattered, leaving only the raw, gaping wound of his confession. Her legs gave out. Walking was too much; she stumbled, collapsing to her knees at the side of the wheelchair. She reached out, her hand grabbing Lina's, as an anchor in a world that had just dissolved into impossible, heartbreaking noise.

And then she wept. It was a howl, a raw, animal sound of a soul being torn in two, a sound she didn't recognize as her own. It was the sound of a universe of shared memories, of a love she had clung to like a religion, being declared a beautiful, tragic lie.

Lina did not flinch. She did not look down. Her gaze remained fixed on the apartment door, but she wasn't seeing it. She was seeing another door, eighteen years ago, through which her husband had walked, never to return.

There were no tears left for this story.

She turned her head, her eyes filled with a grief too deep for tears, finding the broken, sobbing girl at her side. With her free hand, she reached out and gently, tenderly, stroked Alyna's hair, a silent, steady presence in the heart of the storm.

Synth stood in the sterile hallway and shifted his perspective, his consciousness slipping through the digital ether to connect with the network of hidden cameras Ray had installed throughout their new home—a necessary, if violating, precaution.

The feed bloomed in his vision, a silent, high-definition window into the wreckage he had just created. The apartment was a stage for a quiet, devastating tragedy. Lina sat in her wheelchair, her back to the camera, a still, unmoving silhouette. Her hands rested limply on the wheels, her posture a portrait of absolute defeat, as if the very soul had been scooped out of her, leaving only a hollow, fragile shell. On the floor, Alyna had collapsed, her back pressed against the couch, her knees drawn up to her chest in a tight, protective ball. Her shoulders shook with soft, silent sobs, her face buried in her arms.

He watched them, and a knot formed where his heart used to be.

Life is pain, the ghosts of dead men whispered in his mind. And pain is the price of being alive.

He closed the feed, severing the connection, and the image of their grief vanished, leaving only the quiet hum of the hallway. He focused on the task at hand. He had preparations to make for Hell Garden. He was not going there to survive. He was going to tear a miracle from its mutated heart.

The Kamigami Strike-Z was a grey blade cutting through the city's gray heart. The journey took him east, around the sealed-off Drowned Core, where the ferroconcrete walls clawed at the smog-choked sky, and past the towering vertical gardens of Verdant Echo. He finally reached the unofficial border of Nexus Sprawl, a place that didn't appear on any official city map. He sent his motorcycle away on its remote pilot; people here would not be deterred by a few strong zaps if they wanted to steal it.

As the bike drove away, he stepped into a sensory apocalypse.

Nexus Sprawl was a vertical shantytown built in the skeletal ruins of an arcology, a chaotic, vibrant, and dangerous black market that defied all laws of physics and city ordinances. It was a maze of makeshift stalls, precarious walkways that swayed in the wind, and hidden courtyards where deals were made in hushed, paranoid whispers. A place where a single wrong glare would guarantee that no one would see you again.

The sights were a chaotic symphony of light and decay. Glitching holographic signs advertised illegal cyberware, bootleg skill shards, and combat drugs that promised a brief, violent trip to paradise. Wires hung from the ceilings like metallic vines, sparking intermittently, casting the faces of the thin crowd in strobing, electric blue and green. Heavily modded gangers, their skin a canvas of glowing, shifting tattoos and their bodies a fusion of flesh and animalistic cybernetics, acted as the Sprawl's unofficial, and utterly lethal, security. The sounds were a physical assault, a cacophony of a dozen different languages, the sizzle of unidentifiable meat on street-side grills, and the constant, aggressive thump of industrial music that bled from hidden, smoke-filled bars. The air was a perfume of desperate, vibrant life, a mix of ozone from shorting cybernetics, the sweet rot of discarded synth-fruit, the sharp spices of exotic cuisine, and, weaving through it all, the faint, clean scent of high-grade antiseptic from a hidden modding clinic.

The overwhelming sensory input didn't faze Synth. He pulled his hood up and lifted his neck gaiter. As he moved through the crowd with a quiet, predatory grace, his silver eyes scanning everything, his mind cataloging threats and opportunities with a cold, beautiful efficiency, he spotted symbols scattered around. More or less all looked the same: a red star enclosing a masked face with sharp, minimalist eyes, radiating points forming a symmetrical burst. Only one gang had this sign in the whole city. Sombra Libre. One of the most chaotic gangs of the city had its territory in the most chaotic parts of the city.

Synth began his hunt, using the skills and memories of the ghosts inside him to his advantage.

His first stop was a high-end data broker. The shop was called RPG—not for the weapon, but for the genre of games that let you customize your character. The sign above the door was a piece of pre-Collapse kitsch, a pixelated 8-bit sword glowing with a faint, tired neon.

Antiques or trash, Synth thought, lifting his gaze to the small, old shop name.

He stepped inside. The place was a hoarder's museum of forgotten joy. Every surface was crammed with objects that whispered of other worlds: dusty, pre-Collapse game consoles, action figures with missing limbs posed in eternal, silent battle, and faded posters of long-forgotten virtual heroes. The air smelled of old plastic and the dry, papery scent of ancient comic books. It was a graveyard of abandoned hobbies.

He walked towards the counter, where a man who looked as much a relic as the items on his shelves was engrossed in a comic book. He was middle-aged, with a soft paunch straining against a faded t-shirt featuring a pixelated spaceship from a game that hadn't been booted in fifty years. A network of old, faded tattoos, blurred by time and sun, snaked up his forearms, disappearing under his rolled-up sleeves. His face, illuminated by the lurid, shifting colors of the comic's pages, was a mask of profound, almost meditative boredom. Once at the counter, Synth tapped its scarred metal surface three times.

"Rolling a new class. Got anything off-meta?"

The man closed the comic and placed it on the counter. "I got something in the back, but it's heavy-spec. Come take a look," he said as he walked to the back door and waved for Synth to follow.

The room beyond was a small, claustrophobic storage box, filled with even more chaotic stacks of forgotten technology. They walked to an old, battered wardrobe. The man opened its creaking door and placed his hand on the back panel. Synth's scanner detected a faint energy trace—a biometric scanner activating. The panel hissed open, revealing a narrow, dark tunnel.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Synth followed the man into the gloom. At the end was a room that felt less like a shop and more like a hermit's cave. A bank of mismatched computer screens covered the walls, each one displaying a different game, a different data stream, a different world. In the center of it all, his back to them, a small, hunched man was leaning forward, his entire being focused on a massive 43-inch screen where a beautifully rendered fantasy warrior was locked in combat with a shimmering, crystalline dragon.

"Come on! Come on! YES!" the man screamed, leaping from his chair as a triumphant fanfare erupted from the speakers. He pumped a fist in the air, then froze as he realized he was not alone.

"Leader. I brought a client," the man who had brought him here said.

The man turned. He was older, maybe late fifties, with thinning grey hair pulled into a sad ponytail that exposed a cluster of outdated, bulky data ports at the base of his skull. He wore a faded t-shirt from a pre-Collapse RPG and thick, multi-lensed glasses that were constantly shifting focus between his game and reality. His three cybernetic eyes were mismatched models—one a cheap red dot, another a high-end scanner, the third a flickering, glitchy mess. He was a living embodiment of his shop—a collection of mismatched, functional parts. This was Argus.

He looked Synth over, his three eyes blinking out of sync. Synth had taken off his hood and neck gaiter, his face a carefully constructed mask of unremarkable features.

"New client," Argus said. He turned back to his PC and spoke into the mic. "Be right back, toilet break." Then he turned to Synth, his expression souring. "Pay the fee for first-time clients and then we can talk."

Synth sent the 5,000 credits. Argus snapped his fingers. "Good. I got a Raid with my guild in ten minutes so hurry up. What do you need?"

"Skill shards for acrobatics, throwing knives, and archery. Master level," Synth responded.

Argus rubbed his chin, a flicker of genuine, nerdy interest in his mismatched eyes. "Archery in this day and age? What are you gonna do with it? Go around acting like William Tell?" Argus asked, clearly entertained by Synth's request.

"Only if the apples have bounties on their heads," Synth responded. "Besides, nothing says 'don't mug me' like hitting a drone in the eye from 300 meters with a pointy stick."

Argus laughed at Synth's joke. "I had this guy, mega otaku, fat, unwashed, and unkempt—worse than some hobos laying around this place. Apparently, he had watched some edgy anime about a shadow assassin and thought, why not be one? So he bought a 'Master of Stealth' shard, right? Real cloak-and-dagger wannabe."

He made exaggerated ninja hands while squinting mock-seriously.

"Two hours later, security drags him out of a high-end gala, stark naked, covered in black paint, hiding behind a potted plant."

He leaned in, eyebrows raised like he was about to whisper state secrets.

"The guy wanted to sneak into the ladies' room but probably realized even with the skill of a stealth master, being as big as he was made sneaking around pretty difficult. But points to the guy for finding another way, by smearing himself in night-mode car polish."

Synth tilted his head. "How was he caught?"

Argus wheezed. "By someone who was watering the plant, who watered him by accident." He slapped his knee, cackling. "Told me next time he wants a stealth shard that includes common sense!"

Synth smirked.

A ping made him glance at his PC. "Yes, I'm back, just eating something before the Raid," Argus said into the mic. He moved to his PC and tapped something, then turned to Synth. "68k for acrobatics, 42k for throwing knives, and 31k for archery. This last one has been collecting dust for a while but it should still be good."

Synth sent the 141,000 credits. A fortune only two weeks ago but now it barely made a dent in his balance. Seeing the transaction was done, Argus walked to another desk to the left and took out three small shards with three symbols on them. They were sleek and metallic, their polished alloy casings etched with micro-circuits that shimmered under the light like the veins of a machine. Their size was slightly larger than the usual thick key, but faint, multi-colored circuit lines glinted from the light along their frame. At one end sat the interface prongs—golden, razor-thin contacts designed to slot seamlessly into neural jacks, terminal readers, or blackbox decoders. The other end bore a grip tab, customized and marked by its previous owner—scratches, engravings, even embedded LED tags for flair or function.

"Maybe you know, maybe you don't, but your brain can handle only two, at max three with some additional mods in your brain to handle the massive data influx."

"I know."

Another ping from the PC.

"Yes, I'm here!" Argus screamed as he sat back at his PC. Then the gatekeeper escorted Synth out of the room.

He had the shards. As he turned to leave, Argus called out, "Hey, Mr. Pointy Stick. If you're serious about that bow, there's only one person in the Sprawl who sells strings that bite harder than bullets. Look for the woman with teeth like knives."

"Thanks for the tip." Synth said as he left the room.

Now it was time for the gear. He had the schematic of Red's sniper, but even with a silencer, the powerful rifle could attract unwanted attention—and a potential confrontation with the mysterious Asura was a variable he didn't need. He required something silent, versatile, and utterly lethal. Following Argus's tip, he found a stall tucked away in a grimy corner of the market, one that smelled of ozone, metal, and something vaguely organic. It sold exotic hunting gear.

A woman sat behind the counter, polishing a wicked-looking combat knife. Her teeth had been filed into sharp, predatory points, and she watched him approach with the cold, unblinking eyes of a hunter assessing prey.

"Lost, little man?" she asked, her voice a low, gravelly purr. She didn't stop her work, the whetstone whispering against the blade. "Or are you looking for something with a bit more… bite?" She gave him a sharp-toothed grin.

"I need silence, precision, and overwhelming force. A bow." Synth responded.

The woman's grin widened. Setting the knife aside, she reached under the counter and brought out a long, matte-black case. "I have just the thing."

She opened it. Inside, nestled in high-density foam, was a "Whisperwind" composite bow. It was a masterpiece of lethal elegance. Its limbs were crafted from a polymer that had a smoky, almost translucent quality, revealing the dark carbon veins within.

"Instead of a traditional string, she uses a tensioned strand of braided synth-silk," the woman explained, her tone shifting from predatory to professional. "Carbon-threaded polymers. Flexible to the touch, but it'll hold against a truck. Responds to kinetic tension adjustments in real-time, adapts the draw to your strength."

Synth reached out and took the bow. The grip was ergonomic, molding perfectly to his hand as if it were custom-made. As his fingers closed around it, he accessed the data shard he'd acquired. The knowledge of a master archer flooded his consciousness—not as abstract information, but as muscle memory, as instinct. He knew the precise balance point, the exact amount of pressure to apply, the subtle cant needed for a perfect shot.

"You can test it," the woman offered, nodding toward a darkened alcove at the back of the stall. "Target's rated for anti tank rounds. Don't hold back."

Synth nodded. He picked up one of the "Ghost" arrows from the smart-quiver beside the case. Its flawless black shaft seemed to drink the light, and its monomolecular tip was so sharp it was almost invisible. He walked to the firing line, nocked the arrow, and took his stance.

The archer's data settled into place. His body aligned with perfect, practiced economy of motion. He drew the bow back. There was no creak, no strain. The synth-silk line shimmered faintly as it grew taut, the limbs arcing into readiness with a silent, deadly grace. For a moment that stretched into an eternity, he held the draw, the world narrowing to the small, glowing target at the end of the range.

Then he released.

There was no sound. No thrum of a bowstring, no whisper of fletching. The arrow simply vanished from the bow and reappeared, buried to its stabilizers in the center of the high-density target. A spiderweb of fractures radiated from the impact point, and the entire block of hardened material shuddered with a deep, resonant thump.

Synth lowered the bow. The woman was staring at the target, her predatory grin gone, replaced by a look of genuine, impressed shock. She slowly turned her cold eyes back to him, her assessment of him completely transformed. He was no longer just a simple customer.

"I'll take it," Synth said, his voice quiet in the suddenly still air.

There were no more words after, only the cold, impersonal finality of the transaction and the silence that followed once Synth left the store with the bow case on his back.

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