Shuten Dōji and the Great Tengu were already going at it—meat-on-meat, ground-shaking, gods-brawling kind of "ORA ORA ORA" slugfest.
It was the manliest sort of flying-haymaker exchange: every punch heavy enough to punt Edo Castle's keep across the district; every guard tough enough that a direct hit to the pecs only made the chest ripple. I smash you with a hundred and eighty blows, you snarl, "RAAAH!", power up, one-shot me into a wall; then the roles flip and you batter me for a few hundred more. Rinse, repeat.
Now and then they threw in a classic shōnen set piece—a beam-clash. Left side usually lost, got launched, powered up in rage, and counterattacked.
Every rage spike kicked their power another rung higher, flipping the momentum each time. Before long even Li Pan's dynamic aug-radar couldn't track them—just a red and a black streak colliding again and again through the samurai quarter.
Two demi-gods tore up the map: leveling, uprooting, overturning—ground to sky, sky to underground—like an artillery regiment was mopping the field with fire.
And for some reason, they wouldn't shut up. Different species, different voices, yet the whole time they were bellowing at each other—"RAAAH!" "GYA-GYA-GYA!"—call and response, like dueling folk songs.
Li Pan squinted, baffled.
"Kotarō and that Hanzō… they know each other? What's their beef?"
Ashiya Shigui winced. "I…"
A-Qi filled in:
"Back at the ninja academy, Seal-Breaker and Mr. Hattori were best friends—old-clan ties, partners and rivals. The bond ran deep.
"Then they fell out—past words. Now it's a fated duel between men. If this were a movie, only one walks away."
Li Pan and Ashiya both stared.
Spider-Eighteen leaned in. "If they're friends, why fight?"
A-Qi sighed.
"People can't truly understand each other. Fate's a prank. Their bond even moved their elders—Fūma and Hattori once planned a marriage alliance…"
Li Pan gaped. "Huh? Marriage? They're both men!"
Spider-Eighteen: "Boss, that's so old-fashioned. It's the cyber age—liberate thought, erase bias, transcend boundaries, return to pure 0 and 1!"
Li Pan didn't quite follow, but he was, indeed, shaken.
A-Qi hurried to clarify.
"No—Hattori was to marry into the Fūma house, to Kotarō's sister, Sayuri."
Spider-Eighteen: "Lame…"
Dangerous thoughts, that one…
Ashiya, intrigued:
"But Oda's court always stoked infighting among the three ninja clans. Would they allow an internal alliance? And Hattori—give up his name and lineage to marry in?"
A-Qi nodded.
"Hattori wasn't 'Hanzō' yet. Constantly around Kotarō, he fell for Sayuri. Rare for two ninja-born to be genuinely in love. Kotarō vouched, persuaded both families to bury old grudges.
"Takamagahara had already lost; the Court Guard disbanded; no one minded their business. The engagement went through.
"Then Fūma's clan was wiped out. Sayuri died with them."
Li Pan got it. "So he thinks Kotarō demonized and killed his own?"
A-Qi:
"The Court Guard's purge of Fūma ended with Hattori himself capturing Kotarō—maybe to avenge his beloved, or to end his friend-who-fell-into-demonhood with his own hands. He earned the merit to become the next Hattori Hanzō.
"Kotarō, for his part, believes he was betrayed—suspects Iga plotted it all, that Hanzō exploited their friendship to spy, steal Fūma's legacy, wrong Sayuri, and murder his whole house. Hence mortal enemies."
Spider-Eighteen whistled. "Spicy. Streaming this would chart."
A-Qi: "Life is theater."
Spider-Eighteen: "tru~e dat."
Li Pan: "…A-Qi, how do you know all this?"
A-Qi: "Fūma told me when I onboarded him. Had a moment, vented. He's… lonely. No friends now. Always asks me for coffee."
Ah. So that's where the office beans went.
Ashiya frowned.
"Wait—you're saying Fūma remembers the massacre clearly? No memory gaps?"
A-Qi: "None. I told him to take it easy, maybe medicate, but he can't forget."
Ashiya's frown deepened.
"Odd… so it wasn't his hand? Truly Iga? To wipe out Fūma and also deceive the Court Guard's senses… hm… unless… could it be…"
Li Pan rolled his eyes.
"Quit the 'masaka' and say it."
Ashiya thought, then:
"I've only seen it in our family secret texts: Iga has a terrifying illusion art—not elf-lineage magic; unknown origin.
"When Iga refused Oda and wouldn't work with their archenemy Kōga, Takamagahara's army besieged them. Lord Oda the First would have razed them.
"An Iga shinobi used a strange illusion to modify both sides' memories and perceptions. Not only did Iga survive—they joined the Court Guard.
"Even Ashiya Rokudō, First Onmyōji of Takamagahara, sensed and resisted the influence but couldn't break it or find the caster. He left a warning to later generations.
"Iga seems to have used it only once. It may be lost."
"Modify perception? What a busted skill set…"
Li Pan suddenly jerked the comm live.
"Kotarō! Your 'three minutes' are up! Wrap it—we're on the clock!"
Shuten and the Great Tengu ignored him, still trading "adadadada!" and "ororororo!"—drunk on the thrill of flesh-on-flesh.
Then 0113012 spoke:
"Horus: battle-readied. Course—Earth. Space clear. WARP 500. Jump."
Perfect. Exactly what he feared.
Li Pan glanced up. As the words fell, the sky changed color.
Blue.
Not cleaner air—Doppler. The massive moving emitter—Horus—was jumping in on Night City, superluminally closing; its EM shifted blue as it braked into low orbit over the city.
The firmament turned deep blue-violet; auroral sheets rip-sawed the atmosphere. Radiance spilled from the horizon like someone switched on an enormous blue lamp overhead.
Seconds later, a shadow dragged across the sky—as if a giant hand reached from the void to cover Night City.
The blue day became black night. The whole city drowned in the ship's shade.
That size… Horus was an ultra-flag dreadnought?
For a pickup run?! You brought a super-flag to haul cargo?!
Li Pan took a hit of black ice and steadied.
In short: Titans are mostly prestige projects. Carriers faded with SMS obsolescence.
Modern space warfare's sweet spot for cost and firepower is still the battleship. Length 1–3 km depending on yard and tech; some need thousands of crew, some run on one admiral and an AI. If it mounts a battleship main gun, links into fleet systems, jumps with the line, and trades broadsides—it's a good battleship.
A dreadnought is that, turned up: heavier weapons, wider-area sensors, fuller command stack, harder network armor. The original concept: even alone, it could face a whole line and not blink—fearless.
With upgrades and black tech, dreadnoughts also flag fleets, suppress worlds, crack fortress-stations and dead-star citadels, or duel enemy dreads and titans.
Above battleship you get dread, flagship, super-flag, planet-killers—labels vary. Broadly: anything tonnage/firepower way past a line ship is "dreadnought."
Horus blocked half a district with its shadow.
From 0113012's live feed: low orbit, visually at least ten kilometers long—super-flag class.
Shape: a stretched pyramid, irregular tetrahedron. Not standard alloy but some uncanny crystalline mineral; under sunlight, the hull shimmered with prismatic black—coating or refraction?
Eerier still: no visible turrets. No engine bells. No clear acceleration geometry. Just an eye at the pyramid tip—the bow.
Yes, the super-flag had an eye. A human eye. Iris. Pupil. Staring down at Earth—intimidation? Sick joke?
In short—it looked like a ghost.
Takamagahara's stuff is cyberpunk robots, sure, but their starships at least look like engineering. 0113's boat? Straight UFO. And this is just Earth 0113. There are a hundred-plus Earths before that number.
How wide is this tech gap?
Even the demons paused. Shuten and Hanzō both looked up—one demon head, one dog face—slack-jawed at the descending god.
Iga melted into the shadows; the bald loudmouth shut up, masked up, and burrowed.
Only Tokugawa's samurai kept screaming as they drew out their guts loop by loop and coiled them on the ground to mimic the pyramid overhead.
0113012, flat as ever:
"0791001, our fleets have cleared the local space and taken firing position. Entering fortress state. Charging main gun. On authorization, we execute Correction."
Great. Exactly two hours. The fleets finished their sweep as the flag undocked.
Li Pan coughed twice.
"Nice work. I'll take it from here. Stand by—no firing without my order. And don't you dare 6 me with them—let me repeat: do not glass me. Do not fire!"
"Confirm. Fleet standing by."
Li Pan wiped cold sweat and bellowed on open net:
"Everybody down there—listen up! If you want to live, hand over Tokugawa Nagamatsu!
"Tokugawa! You made this mess—you pay. Don't drag the city into your grave!
"Small fry—get lost! I don't have time for you. Keep pestering me and I flatten Iga!
"I haven't authorized fire—hold your shots and cool it!"
0113012: "…Instruction confirmed."
The two demon-gods finally broke off and drifted apart.
The Great Tengu beat his wings and vanished into cloud. Shuten let the hellfire gutter, sprang once, and landed atop the skiff.
A heartbeat later, Kotarō staggered through the hatch. In a blink his body shrank back to human; tiger-stripe sigils still crawled his skin like branded scorch. His qi was snuffing fast; in moments he was a guttering candle, flopping into the hangar where A-Qi jabbed him with a crash cart's worth of stims and nutrient.
With everyone aboard, Li Pan popped the holo-map.
"Eighteen, status at Hakone Hot Springs—can you reach Shiranui's team?"
Spider-Eighteen:
"Lady Shiranui went in as envoy to negotiate with President Ōkubo. Yamazaki Ayato is infiltrating from Mount Hakone. Military jamming over the area—will take time to hack."
Li Pan thought.
"Hakone's far, and we've sent a team. No need to swarm. We start with Night City's outer ring. We must bag Tokugawa Nagamatsu before nightfall!"
He flagged nearby bases from the spy-sat sweep—military airfields, officer schools, field camps, a fleet HQ, radar and comms sites—plus what they had on Nagamatsu.
"This is the man who enraged the Company. We drag him out and beat him down—to soothe 01's wrath.
"He's not inside the city, but he won't run far. Wherever he is must command troops, resist net intrusion, and have triple-defense wartime hardening—so, military grade infrastructure.
"If he dared hand off headship instantly, he's probably not in Tokugawa facilities. That narrows HQ options.
"I'm seeing two military airfields, two officer academies, four field regiments, one fleet command, three radar/comm hubs—all with brigade/regiment garrisons—best candidates.
"We can glass from orbit any minute, but until he apologizes sincerely, he doesn't get the quick death.
"Any ideas to find him fast and deliver him alive for a public apology before 8 a.m. tomorrow? Speak freely."
Spider-Eighteen: "First we need his location. Every base has its own ICE. I can hack, but slow—call it two hours."
Kotarō, panting, scratched off a few sites on the map.
"Night City's negotiation lead is Tokugawa Medical's COO, Honda Masayuki. Outer-ring logistics is CFO Ōkubo Chūtai. The besieging force is led by four generals—Tokugawa's 'Four Heavenly Kings.'
"They each hold real military-administrative power. If Nagamatsu truly wants to hide, he may already have taken a private medical transfer to another world."
Spider-Eighteen:
"Boss! We've got company!"
The feed flipped—outside Edo Castle, the sky was suddenly a swarm of lights.
"Perfect. Yatsu wants in now? Can't you see I'm busy?!"
A cloud of bat-drones. Of course the Night Clan wouldn't sit out any longer.
Two hours ago, they might have smirked at Li Pan's sudden tantrum beating down Takamagahara. But now that a super-flag sat over the city staring with a giant eye—if Yatsu, the local steward, didn't respond, they could quit polite society.
But this wasn't the moment to break with Yatsu. 01044 wasn't ready yet.
What to do…
Ashiya palmed a divination orb, voice low.
"The Hattori have served Tokugawa for generations. Hanzō likely knows Nagamatsu's hide. I've already sent shikigami to tail him—we should have results soon.
"We shadow them quietly. Unless Nagamatsu is buried very deep, divination will fix him; then we seize him.
"Hattori is no concern—his yin-yang reserves are spent. If he forces another demonization, he dies.
"Iga's Fujibayashi Nagato is dead by my hand. Only Momochi Sandayū concerns me.
"But the ninja who showed himself was his upper-rank Kamaitachi—Sandayū's left arm. I estimate Sandayū remains in Kansai, watching Hashiba.
"Tokugawa has no one left who can stop me. I will bring him."
Li Pan didn't hesitate. "Do it. He's yours."
Ashiya coughed. "May I borrow the skiff—"
"Fine. I'll stall Yatsu. Ashiya, take the team—deliver Tokugawa straight upstairs. Don't wait for me."
He jumped from the craft to the ramparts.
Seeing him step forward, Yatsu's drone cloud held fire on the company skiff and swept to encircle Li Pan.
A Night Clan gunship arrived. K disembarked with a squad of fully kitted Night Knights. She paused at the sight of him, then schooled her face cold.
"The Secret Party's Exarchs—Her Highness Princess Emilius and Grand Duchess Camilla—invite you to appear before the Council."
Li Pan nodded and stepped aboard.
Knights moved to block him.
"Disarm, please."
He clocked the ring around them—him and K at the center.
He smiled at K, unbuckled sidearm and sword, and handed them to her.
"Make sure I get those back."
K frowned as she took the scabbard.
"What's going on—"
Before Li Pan could answer, two knights lunged from the ring, hands clamping for his shoulders; two more came from behind, shackles like electro-manicles snapping for his wrists—
—but K was faster. She ripped Catherine's Sword free, slashed—two strokes, two severed manacles—blade blazing gold to force the blood-knights back. She shouldered Li Pan behind her.
"I said: invite."
Li Pan eyed the spider-sigil pins on the knights' gorgets, then lifted his hands.
"I get it. Tea time. If it makes you feel safe—here, you arrest me."
K glared the knights aside, sword in one hand, Li Pan's arm hooked with the other, and marched him up the ramp.
.
.
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⚠️ 30 CHAPTERS AHEAD — I'm Not a Cyberpsycho ⚠️
The system says: Kill.Mercs obey. Corporates obey. Monsters obey.One man didn't.
🧠💀 "I'm not a cyberpsycho. I just think... differently."
💥 High-voltage cyberpunk. Urban warfare. AI paranoia.Read 30 chapters ahead, only on Patreon.
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