In Night City, law and order were nothing more than corporate theater.
Still, the city had its enforcers—two organizations responsible for keeping the chaos "under control."
The first: NCPD, the so-called guardians of public peace, answerable to the City Council.
The second: MaxTac, officially known as the Cyberpsycho Suppression Unit, a force assembled by corpo funding and city oversight to handle the kind of monsters that normal cops couldn't.
…
NCPD was a joke—underpaid, under-equipped, and overworked.
Their job was to mop up gang fights, fake clean streets for tourists, and make sure Night City still looked "functional" on the surface.
MaxTac, on the other hand, was an entirely different beast.
Their only mission: eliminate cyberpsychos.
Because in Night City, a dead civilian wasn't a problem—just another statistic. But a cyberpsycho? That was bad for business.
A cyberpsycho could level half a block, destroy corpo assets, or slaughter half a client's security team in a minute.
That kind of chaos hurt profits.
And nothing offended the megacorps more than losing money.
…
On paper, NCPD and MaxTac were "equals." In reality, the NCPD was an antique revolver trying to compete with a railgun.
NCPD field agents had secondhand pistols, off-brand optics, and maybe a low-tier cyberarm if they were lucky.
MaxTac soldiers, on the other hand, had full-body conversion veterans, top-tier Sandevistans, and chrome so advanced that Arasaka would call it "classified."
Their vehicles floated, armed with auto-turrets and plasma guns. Their squads moved like machines, clean and coordinated.
Someone once joked that MaxTac troopers were just leashed cyberpsychos themselves—psychopaths bound by protocol, using madness to hunt madness.
That wasn't a joke. It was the truth.
Melissa Rory, current commander of MaxTac, was living proof of it.
Once, she'd been one of them—a cyberpsycho. Now she was something worse: a cured one.
Arasaka doctors rebuilt her body from the bones up, fed her the best meds, wired her with bleeding-edge chrome, and layered inhibitors into her nervous system until she was stable.
Stable enough to think and kill for the city instead of against it.
But the sickness never really left. Deep down, buried beneath the clinical calm and sharp uniform, that hunger for violence still pulsed like a second heartbeat.
…
Melissa crouched beside the corpse of James Norris, tracing her gloved fingers over the severed wounds.
Her lips parted slightly.
"Oh…" she whispered, almost reverent. "Beautiful."
The cuts were so clean—surgical in precision, merciless in force. A single stroke had cleaved chrome and bone alike.
She could feel the artistry in the destruction.
"Elegant," she murmured. "So perfectly executed."
No MaxTac operative could do this. Not even her. No known weapon system could either.
There was only one explanation.
Something—someone—stronger than a high-threat cyberpsycho.
A monster that hunted monsters.
Her pupils dilated. Her breath came faster. A dangerous smile curled across her lips.
"I'll find you," she whispered. "Whoever you are."
And for the first time in years, she felt alive.
…
Watson District. Neo's Apartment.
Hours later, Neo stepped out of the storm.
He'd returned straight home after severing Norris's spine and taking the Sandevistan.
The moment he entered, he stripped off his coat and walked straight to the bathroom.
Hot water gushed from the shower, steam rising around him as the blood and grime of the night washed away.
It hissed against metal fragments and dried stains, trailing down his chest like molten chrome.
As the last traces of battle bled off his skin, his mind finally quieted.
He called upon his system panel.
[Host: Neo]
[Role: Roronoa Zoro]
[Current Role Synchronization: 30%]
[Weapons: Wado Ichimonji , Twin Nameless Blades]
[Sword Styles: Basic Swordsmanship, One-Sword Style, Two-Sword Style, Three-Sword Style]
[Haki: Observation Haki]
Neo smiled faintly.
Thirty percent. Finally.
He shut off the water and stared at his reflection, hair clinging to his forehead, droplets running down his jawline.
When he'd first arrived in this world, he'd dyed his hair green. He'd done it to blend in, to match the legend he was channeling — the swordsman from another world, Roronoa Zoro.
But the truth was, he hated it.
Walking around Night City with green hair had made him feel like a circus act, not a warrior. And as his reputation grew, he began to realize something else—if the people of this city ever started whispering his name, he didn't want to be remembered as "that green-haired merc."
So after finishing the Sandra Dorsett job, he'd stopped by a backstreet salon and dyed it black again.
The moment the dark color settled in, his reflection looked right.
Suddenly, the system chimed.
[New Ability Unlocked: Observation Haki]
The world seemed to slow—not in the way of the Sandevistan, but deeper, more primal.
He could feel the air. The faint hum of the building's lights. The heartbeat of a mouse behind the wall.
And for a brief moment, Neo's mind expanded outward, brushing against the invisible threads of life that webbed through the entire city.
The instinct that had let him slice through Norris mid-Sandevistan had been no accident. It had been this—Haki, flowing quietly through his veins.
Now he could control it.
Predict movements. Read intent. React before his enemy even realized they'd attacked.
He smirked at his reflection one last time.
"Let's see," he murmured, "how far thirty percent can take me."
He sheathed the Wado Ichimonji, and the faint hum of its edge whispered through the steam.