In the near-future city of Niihama, where cyberization and prosthetics are commonplace, Batou of Public Security Section 9 shares tiny romantic sparks with the super-wizard class hacker Ishikawa. Both are terrible at being honest with their feelings, and they spend their days exchanging awkward words during missions.
One day, they begin investigating a series of cyber hacking incidents. The common thread among the victims is the use of the latest chips from the major prosthetic manufacturer 'Po
Lovers in the Cyber Labyrinth - That love confession is being broadcast on all communication lines.
The emergency lights on the landing of the sixty-second floor of the Waterfront Tower flickered red — the only illumination in the stairwell.
With Siren cradled in his left arm, Batou took the stairs two at a time. The ankle servos of his prosthetic body groaned; his heels slammed against the steel steps with heavy impact. This wasn't the kind of cybernetic body that would lose its balance just from carrying a single seventeen-year-old girl.
"[gentle]I am perfectly capable of running on my own, you know."
Siren squirmed in his arms. Her platinum-blonde twintails, reaching all the way to her waist, whipped against Batou's face. The blue nano-luminescence at the tips of her hair glowed faintly in the darkness.
"Not happening. Your legs couldn't keep up."
"[angry]How rude! I received straight A's in physical education!"
"That's P.E. This is combat."
It was the moment they passed the fifty-eighth floor landing.
The steel door below burst open, and three SWAT officers clad in black leaped out, rifles raised. Night-vision goggles, helmets, bulletproof vests. A full-scale suppression unit, armed to the teeth.
"Freeze!"
Instead of answering, Batou punched the wall with his right hand.
*BOOM.*
Chunks of concrete scattered. The handrail warped at its base. In the split second the SWAT team flinched, Batou kicked off the wall, changed direction, and blew past the fifty-eighth floor landing.
"Open fire!"
Gunshots echoed through the stairwell. Behind Batou, bullets chewed into the concrete wall. Siren squeezed her eyes shut and clung to his leather jacket.
"[scared]Batou-san, SWAT has every floor from fifty-five and up locked down! It's the same below!"
"I know."
Beyond the steel door on fifty-five. Beneath the landing on fifty. His infrared sensors picked up at least twenty heat signatures. Above, and below. A pincer attack.
(*Tch. Damn it.*)
Batou clenched his back teeth. With the power of a full-body prosthesis, blowing away three or four SWAT officers would be easy. But he couldn't afford to be reckless with Siren in his arms. A stray bullet could hit her. If they used explosives, his prosthetic body might survive — but she wouldn't.
Forty-third floor.
Batou stopped.
The stairwell landing. A space of about three tatami mats, enclosed on all sides by concrete walls. The footsteps of SWAT closed in from above and below. Cyber-communication was completely severed by the electromagnetic shield. Zero. His only weapon was a single handgun.
No way out.
(*The first checkmate of my life.*)
There were situations where muscle alone couldn't solve anything. He was being forced to learn that lesson the hard way.
"Batou-san, I have the ventilation duct schematics."
Siren pulled out her rabbit-shaped plush terminal and projected the building's structural diagram into the air.
"In the ceiling space of the forty-third floor, there's a maintenance hatch for the fifth ventilation duct. According to this diagram, the closest access point from the emergency stairwell landing is—"
"Won't work."
"[surprised]I haven't even finished explaining the diagram yet!"
"I can see it. That duct's diameter — sixty centimeters, right?"
"……?"
Siren tilted her head. Her violet prosthetic eyes flickered.
"My shoulders are over seventy across."
"……Ah."
"You could fit through. But if I let you go alone, Ishikawa will kill me later."
(*If I had a body like Doraemon's pocket, I'd be out of here by now.*)
Batou cursed himself inwardly. Too much muscle to fit through a duct — a joke that wasn't funny at all.
—
Public Security Section 9 Headquarters, Underground Operations Room.
Ishikawa's fingers stopped moving across the keyboard.
The wall of monitors displayed satellite imagery. Centered on the Waterfront Tower, a dome of pale blue light spread out in a hemisphere. The electromagnetic shield. All cyber-communication from within was completely severed. Batou's heat-source signal had stopped dead at the forty-third floor — and hadn't moved for twelve minutes now.
(*He's alive. But he can't move.*)
Ishikawa bit her lip. The sensation of her thinly applied lipstick against her teeth. Unconsciously, she began twirling a strand of her emerald-green hair around her finger.
(*That idiot. He's being reckless again.*)
Her chest creaked and ached.
Ever since yesterday at the abandoned factory — ever since Kurasawa had said, "Come with me" — this feeling hadn't left her. She hadn't been able to say anything to Batou. Things had been awkward between them. He'd left on his own, carrying the taiyaki.
(*Does he even realize there are situations his precious muscles can't solve?*)
(*He must realize. He's an idiot, but he's not stupid.*)
(*He knew. And he still went.*)
Ishikawa glanced at the clock on her terminal. 2:14 AM. If she followed the proper route — reporting to her superior, waiting for authorization — estimated time: twelve minutes.
Twelve minutes.
Batou — might not last that long.
Ishikawa lifted both hands from the keyboard.
Deep breath.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
(*I've decided.*)
She closed her pale-gold prosthetic eyes, then slowly opened them. Her pupils narrowed, catlike.
Ishikawa's fingers began dancing across the keyboard again. This time, it wasn't the authorization request screen. She was hammering in code to connect directly to the access port of the military communications satellite, Amaterasu-3.
Unauthorized access to a tactical communications satellite — by a Wizard-class hacker.
If discovered, it was a grave violation that would bring down disciplinary action on all of Section 9.
Her fingers trembled.
(*Even so.*)
(*It's better than losing him.*)
Nineteen seconds later.
Ishikawa had successfully forced an override into the cyberbrains of every SWAT officer on the scene.
—
Forty-third floor landing.
In the corner of Batou's vision, an incoming cyber-communication indicator blinked.
(*A transmission? Now? We're inside an electromagnetic shield.*)
And then, he heard her voice.
"[scared]—This operation,"
A voice laced with static. She was speaking directly into the SWAT officers' cyberbrains — and her voice, threading through the gaps in the electromagnetic shield, leaked into Batou's cyberbrain as well.
"[angry]This operation is illegal. Withdraw immediately."
Batou's breath caught.
(*Ishikawa…… What are you—*)
This wasn't private hacking. She was using a military satellite to force her way into official communication lines. If she was found out—
"[scared]Batou is,"
Her voice trembled.
"[scared]Batou is…… my……"
Silence.
A single moment's pause felt like an eternity.
"[crying]He's someone precious to me!"
Batou's entire body went rigid.
Deep in his ears, the sound of his own heartbeat pounded unnaturally loud.
"[angry]If you lay a single finger on him, I'll leak every last bit of your military service data!"
Her voice was shaking. On the verge of tears, furious, and yet desperately determined.
This transmission was being broadcast via satellite relay to every cyberbrain inside and outside the building. Batou. Every SWAT officer. The operators at headquarters. Anyone intercepting the communication — everyone was hearing it in real time.
In effect, it was a confession of love broadcast to the world.
—
Tachibana District, Block 3. The counter of Bar "Shelter."
Gouda stopped polishing the glass in his hand and stared at the old communication terminal sitting at the corner of the counter. Ishikawa's shout still reverberated from the speaker.
"……There it is."
His left brown eye narrowed; his right golden prosthetic eye gleamed dully.
He set the glass down and pulled a vintage whiskey bottle from beneath the counter. The label was too worn to read.
"Gah-ha-ha. The little chicks have finally gotten honest."
In the empty bar, he raised his glass alone.
—
Waterfront Tower, forty-third floor.
His ears burning bright red, Batou cracked his knuckles with a sharp *pop*.
(*You've done it now, Ishikawa.*)
(*Making me say something that embarrassing to the whole world — you'd better not fail after this.*)
He opened the control panel on his full-body prosthesis and flicked the output limiter tab with his finger.
『Limiter Released: Output Restriction 60% → 100%』
Under normal circumstances, his output was restricted to sixty percent in compliance with the Prosthetic Body Regulation Act. But this was an emergency.
『Warning: Limiter release is a serious legal violation. Continue?』
"Shut up."
He ignored the warning and released the restriction.
In that instant—
Electric current surged through his entire body.
The joint servos of his prosthetic body let out a low, rumbling *gou*. The artificial muscle fiber sheets embedded as muscle-fiber substitutes expanded, and his body temperature spiked sharply. Steam rose from the nape of Batou's neck.
More than triple his normal power flooded through every part of him.
"Siren."
"[surprised]Y-yes!"
"Clench your teeth."
Holding Siren with just his left arm, Batou charged the steel door of the forty-third floor — right shoulder first.
*DOGOON.*
The blast-proof steel door blew off its hinges, tearing free from the wall entirely. The flying door mowed down the three SWAT officers standing in the corridor beyond.
"Wha—"
"What the hell is this guy— whoa!"
Batou leaped over the fallen officers and tore down the emergency stairs in a single burst. Taking them two at a time wasn't even close to describing it. He grabbed the railing to swing through turns, kicked off the walls to accelerate.
(*Ishikawa, can you hear me?*)
His inner voice reached her through the cyber-connection.
(*I heard your confession. Loud and clear.*)
Meanwhile, at Section 9 Headquarters—
Staring at her monitor, her face bright red, Ishikawa pulled her parka hood down low over her head.
"[whispers]I-it's not like…… that was, um……"
Even though no one was listening, she stammered out excuses.
But the corners of her mouth relaxed, just a little.
(*Thank goodness. He can still move.*)
—
Same moment.
A warning flashed on Ishikawa's terminal.
『Unauthorized Access Alert: Deep-layer cyberbrain intrusion detected from external source』
"—What?"
Her expression froze in an instant.
(*It slipped past my barriers?*)
(*The moment I connected to the military satellite line—*)
Then, a voice echoed directly inside her cyberbrain.
Sweet. Soft. And cruel.
"[gentle]Well, hello, Ishikawa. That was a lovely confession."
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
"[scared]Kurasawa—"
"[gentle]When you get emotionally worked up, your security gets sloppy. You've always been that way. Even back when you were with me."
The instant Ishikawa had breached the satellite line, Kurasawa had traced the connection path in reverse and broken through her barriers from the inside.
Even a world-class Wizard hacker developed openings in moments of heightened emotion.
"[cold]Now then — while the whole world is listening to your love confession, let me show them something else interesting."
"[scared]Don't……!"
The blood drained from Ishikawa's face.
She hammered desperately at her keyboard, but Kurasawa's intrusion had already reached the deepest layers of her barriers.
"[cold]Your 'past.'"
—
The screen switched.
Every cyberbrain in the SWAT unit. The monitors of Section 9. Every device connected to the satellite line — and directly into Batou's prosthetic eyes.
The footage began to play.
—
Desert.
Military vehicles engulfed in flames. The smell of blood. Gunpowder smoke.
Child soldiers running, clutching rifles.
Among them — a small girl, barely in her early teens.
Her emerald-green hair was cut short and unkempt. Her golden eyes were hollow and dull. A soiled military uniform, gaunt cheeks, fingertips chapped and swollen bright red.
Her cyberbrain terminal activated. She infiltrated the enemy soldiers' cyberbrains.
Her fingers struck the keys.
Enemy soldiers collapsed.
Foaming at the mouth.
Eyes rolling back.
One after an
Novelia is an AI-powered platform where you can create and read original light novels and fan-fiction, and chat with the characters as if they were real. Stories update daily, and you can start reading and creating for free.