Chapter 199

Chapter 199

I woke up the next morning feeling well rested and ready to take on the world. A full eight hours and I was ready to hammer life.

I hit the gym first. That final level for Body would mean I never have to stop at a gym again in my life. Which was a temptation that was too strong to put off.

The weights let me push and I found a good chunk of the morning disappear in a haze of aching muscles and willpower overriding my tired body.

No level ups, but it was all about the slow inexorable grind!

I spent most of the morning after that doing some clean up for the Tachikoma. Their brain was growing well, if slowly, but they were at the point where it was easy for them to follow a thought or assumption and come to incredibly wrong conclusions.

I considered calling for that meeting between my chooms that I had planned, but honestly we had been working for days straight.

Today was a rest day for sure. Plus Hiromi had school, which I really should try not to interfere with all the time. Better to give her some school time before I finish calling the meeting and get everyone on the same page.

Of course I wasn’t really feeling like putting my feet up and wasting the day. So instead I pulled out my laptop and started working on some design work.

The initial use of the Tachikoma had been an amazing success, but I still needed to get their mobile function working.

Getting them capable of climbing walls was going to be complicated, although the tech definitely existed out there already. I remember the Flathead was easily doing it.

But for now I needed speed.

Wheels.

Tachikoma were supposed to have wheels on their legs and that was a skill they would need to learn to use.

Adding wheels was easy. Adding wheels into their already packed together legs while somehow powering them was harder.

But it was the fun kind of harder.

—--

When the door opened and Jun wearily stepped into the apartment I was still a long ways from completing a working design.

So I happily pushed it away and looked over at my brother.

“You look tired.”

“Yep.” He muttered and stomped over to the fridge.

“Any reason why?”

“Been busy.” He finally offered after grabbing an XXL and throwing it in the microwave. But he wasn’t going to elaborate.

“Okay?” I mentioned realizing Jun wasn’t in the mood for conversation.

A minute later he settled on the couch and chomped into his burrito and life seemed to return to him.

“I’ve just been busy Imouto. A lot of issues came up, and I wasn’t able to handle them because of... Yuto.”

“Ah.” I looked away. We hadn’t really had a conversation about this yet. The room grew a little awkward and I considered what to do. For Jun Yuto was a friend, a companion, a brother in some ways.

And I had killed him.

“Hey Jun?”

“Hmm?”

“Do you want to set up a space in our shrine for Yuto?” I asked and Jun definitely wasn’t expecting that as he choked a bit on his burrito.

I patted his back a bit and he got himself under control again. “What?”

“You heard me. Despite everything... He was a choom right?”

Jun blinked and just looked over to our shrine.

We didn’t use it much, it mostly stayed in the corner and we just left it as is.

Finally Jun nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’d like that.”

I smiled as Jun’s mood improved and we made plans to head out to get everything we would need. I might have zero connection to the man, but to Jun... This might be the way to get over the guilt he obviously felt.

—--

As we left the apartment to head to some shops it was obvious that things had changed.

I was getting stared at. Normally when Jun and I walked around, he got all the attention with his reputation out there, but this time it was something more.

I was getting looked at, and people were whispering.

“Looks like I’m not going to be able to stay low key anymore.” I muttered as we passed a few TC gonks sitting on a set of stairs and all of them jumped for Jun but ended up flinching when they saw me.

“Well you did start working with Hayato Nakagawa-Sama.”

“Ugh. Don’t call her that.” I cringed, because it was hard to keep in mind Hayato was important when she was sort of a mess.

“You should start speaking about her with respect. It could cause issues.”

“Nah. I’ve punched her in the face too many times to do that.”

“Motoko!?”

“We spar together Jun. What do you think? I just didn’t touch her?”

“Huh.” Jun muttered as we reached the street and headed down the sidewalk.

I drew a blade, not my normal knife, but a throwing dagger that was tucked into my little strap on pouches, and chucked it.

Sub-Gonk number 2 had scrambled for his dropped Omaha and now had a knife in his shoulder. Ninjutsu made the throw so easy I could have lodged it right into his eye if I wanted.

His scream of pain was all the work I needed to do. Kind of hard to pull a trigger when you disable their arm.

Wise words from a movie drill instructor.

Walking over I kicked the gun away, he had dropped it anyway unable to grip it, and reached down, jerking the knife back out earning another scream.

I stared down at the three crying injured men.

I should kill them.

I wanted to kill them. Instead I closed my eyes and made a call.

*Fujimura. You have about ten minutes to send someone to pick up these Tyger Goons that just tried to have a chat with me, before I slit their throats and let them bleed out in the streets and carry on with my day. Here’s my cords.* Then I hung up and sat my own ass on the hood of the Quadra my Burya visible and keeping the goons on the ground.

—--

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

“Motoko!” Jun roared as he nearly jumped off his Kusanagi and rushed over. Akari, I noticed had been riding bitch behind him. Heh.

“I’m fine Jun. Just pissed.” I explained calmly. The three men were sitting on the ground in front of my Quadra, the fight thoroughly kicked out of them.

Jun looked me over and seeing the only blood I had on me was my chrome knuckles nodded.

Then he turned slowly, practically looming over the three gonks.

“Hey, c-chill Oni, we were-URK!” Jun didn’t finish listening. The man was lifted off the ground with one hand wrapped around his throat.

You know... Maybe I’ll let Jun stay tall instead of cutting his legs off to make him more normal sized. Because watching my Ogre of a brother hold a struggling dumbass aloft with one hand was really funny.

“Pfft.” I tried to restrain my laughter, the man's legs were kicking in the air, unable to find the ground that was a good foot away.

“You. Dare.” Jun rumbled his voice deeper than normal, a rumble in his chest adding bass to the worse.

“Oh my.” Akari whispered faux shocked, but as I looked her over I noticed she was very much enjoying Jun’s actions.

Ugh. Gross.

“Kushan-i.” The leader spoke in broken syllables still holding his face.

I might have broken his jaw.

“We-sh ‘ad o’rers.”

“What orders?” Jun rumbled the guy in his hand still struggling but I noticed Jun wasn’t going easy on his throat. He was turning blue.

“Jush a talk!” The leader spoke quickly hands raised as Jun looked like he was about to beat a motherfucker with another motherfucker.

I watched and sighed, because Jun wasn’t going to do that, or rip these guys apart. Honestly I’d have been mad if he had, because they were my XP if they were just going to be killed.

“Fujimura-sama will want to hear exactly what your orders were.” Jun finally said with a growl and dropped the other gonk. Who landed badly and rolled into a ball as he gasped for air. “Motoko, Fujimura-Sama will be here soon. And we’ll get to the bottom of this.”

“Perfect. I’m out then.” I decided as I stepped off the hood fo the Quadra. “I’ve wasted enough time on this shit. Let me know what three dumbasses were supposed to tell me later or something.” I offered with a wave and then Jun looked like he was going to say something but ended up nodding.

“Sure.”

I hesitated and sighed turned around and to Jun’s surprise hugged him tight. “Thanks Jun.” I told him and ran away before he could get mushy.

Jun was always Mushy.

—--

I got home and took a shower, and as the water ran over my head, I came up with an idea.

A sinister, evil idea.

It was an idea for a quick hack.

I considered it for a while, it wasn’t functionally any better than Optic Reboot, but sometimes you just needed to utterly fuck with someone.

I found myself in my room, Tachikoma beside me going through a small series of digital testing grounds for it I had set up, while I used both my hands and my agent to program at rapid speed.

The fact was, I was starting to build a rep. I had to accept that it was what it was, but I wanted something that made people think twice before ever, even considering messing with me.

So I needed to start becoming something more than just an assassin.

I needed the reputation of a monster.

Optical Hack Daemon: Onryo.

I pulled the data for my stealth daemon, as the base, as the Daemons carrier function was really really good. Then instead of simply focusing on making me invisible, I had it carry a holoimage.

The program came together without any issue, and by the time the sun rose it was done.

I installed the completed hack and then just stared at the wall for a second.

“Pfftt Hahahahaha!” I broke in evil laughter at the horror I was about to unleash. Now I just needed to find some targets.