"Yorinobu Arasaka's initial obstruction greatly complicated the investigation. So many days have passed, yet there's barely any useful lead left inside Konpeki Plaza. The only thing we can confirm is that two Voodoo Boys were present at the scene. According to the scan report sent back by the Adam Smasher unit, they also took Saburo Arasaka's body. I originally planned to have Security launch a purge against the Voodoo Boys, but Militech and other corps are watching like wolves, each wanting to take a bite while Arasaka is at its weakest. To catch the culprit as quickly as possible, I had no choice but to compromise and initiate a joint anti-gang, anti-Voodoo operation under the banner of the Corporate Alliance. That required financial support from all corps and inevitably damaged Arasaka's prestige. I acted on my own—please punish me."
V bowed deeply. Michiko Arasaka shook her head slightly, raising a hand as if to help her up.
"Since it's a joint operation, naturally the other corps must contribute. As for prestige—best not even talk about such a thing." Michiko exhaled softly. "V, you handled this well. Even I might not have dealt with it as cleanly."
"You flatter me."
"No. I mean it. I'm grateful you stand on Arasaka's side."
"Thank you for your praise. I merely did what falls within my duty." V lifted her gaze. "And on your end…?"
"To be honest, not well. Someone must take responsibility for my grandfather's death. The Family Council intends to push me out as the scapegoat."
V frowned. "Compared to you, Yorinobu Arasaka is far more suspicious."
"Indeed. But he is Saburo's only son. That alone is enough to earn him the majority's support."
No wonder, V thought. In the original storyline, Yorinobu went from a near-outsider to Arasaka's new leader the moment Saburo died—even Hanako couldn't suppress him.
V, merely twenty-three years old now, still didn't quite get it. By 2076, technology could already customize gender on demand. If she wanted, Hanako could've easily installed a chrome cannon and had children. The notion that "sons outrank daughters" was ancient history.
But then again—Saburo Arasaka was a 157-year-old relic. From that angle… everything sadly made sense.
Arasaka's decline wasn't without reason. Saburo used technology to conquer era after era, and in the end, the era conquered him.
"I'll find the killer as soon as possible. Please rest assured." V reaffirmed.
Michiko, however, shook her head. "Your most important task now is to secure Arasaka's foothold in Night City. Don't let other corps—especially Militech—find any opening."
V paused deliberately. "But Saburo-sama's vengeance…"
"It no longer matters," Michiko murmured. "The ones who wished most for Saburo Arasaka's disappearance weren't outsiders—it was us, his descendants. Such cold-bloodedness… is the true Arasaka family creed."
"V, Night City is my home. I'm entrusting it to you."
"Yes, ma'am."
Michiko flickered once, then vanished.
Along with her, the surroundings dissolved—the pink, cozy lady's boudoir evaporated like mist, replaced by V's cold, sterile modern office.
It'd been a holo-call. Michiko's real body was in Tokyo.
The investigation into Saburo Arasaka's murder ended with nothing.
V wasn't surprised.
Back then, even when she had "killed" Saburo, Arasaka never hunted her down—after all, letting the "killer" stay at large deepened public impression and gave them a perpetual excuse to stir trouble. Once the real culprit was caught and the truth revealed, things would become a neat "debt belongs to the debtor" situation with far less maneuvering room.
Crystal-clear water has no fish—simple as that.
As for Arasaka's internal power struggle, V had no intention of involving herself. She didn't have the standing anyway. Being Arasaka's top authority in Night City was enough.
Michiko had granted her enormous authority. Aside from deep family secrets, Arasaka essentially operated in a "give V whatever she wants" mode.
Even including Mikoshi.
The forbidden zone she once fought tooth and nail to reach… was now nothing more than her private garden.
"Power… is one hell of a drug."
V sighed sincerely and began her workday.
Though the higher-ups no longer cared about Saburo's murder, the Voodoo Boys still had to be wiped out. Those black-skinned bastards not only occupied a chunk of Pacifica but had their own home-grown Neptune subnet. The bigger fish didn't care for these things, but for people like V, Meredith Stout, or Joanne Koch—ordinary corporate grunts—they were priceless.
Most importantly, V had spent a ton on previous setups: massive renovations inside Konpeki Plaza, the purchase of the Sovereign sports car… She needed to recoup costs.
So a massive joint enforcement force—Arasaka, Militech, Biotechnica, Kang Tao, Zetatech, and various big and small corps—stormed into Pacifica and completely surrounded the Voodoo Boys' base: the Batty Hotel.
To their credit, the Haitian gang had some spine. They stockpiled goods and built fortifications beforehand, ready for a prolonged fight.
But with V's single command, twenty-seven air-to-ground missiles rained from the sky, wiping both the Batty Hotel and the Voodoo Boys clean off the map.
Did they think she was still the lone wolf from back in the day?
She was Arasaka's boss in Night City now.
The joint task force wasn't there to assault—it was there to take possession.
Opposite the Batty Hotel stood a Haitian chapel. Beneath it was an old-world maglev tunnel repurposed by the Voodoo Boys into a secret net center—the server hub of Neptune Net.
The task force stripped the place to its foundations before notifying NCPD to come clean up.
Even then, the next day's news showed NCPD's fat-bellied commissioner thanking the task force, the Corporate Alliance, the corps' "social responsibility," and especially V—Vice Director V—for enabling the elimination of the "Voodoo Boys scourge" and improving Night City's safety statistics by several percentage points.
And since favors go both ways, V had Jenkins praise NCPD in return.
It wasn't arrogance that kept her from appearing in public—she was just too busy.
The anti-gang funds from various corps were substantial. She skimmed thirty percent off the top, distributed the rest.
Neptune Net was a high-tech, self-built smart ICE meant to survive beyond the Blackwall. The bigshots didn't care, but for V, Stout, and Koch, it was a treasure.
V simply made the tech public for all Corporate Alliance members, citing "humanity's common enemy: rogue AIs." Small corps could build their own security layers; big corps could still extract insights.
Some weren't thrilled about this communal sharing, but V was covered by the righteous "for humanity" narrative. Even if they complained inside, they had to voice approval.
Society at large praised V highly. Even Arasaka's shit reputation developed a faint golden sheen on the turd.
The biggest headache, however, was Pacifica's land.
Pacifica had two sections: Dogtown, and the "seaside zone" around the Batty Hotel controlled by the Voodoo Boys.
Dogtown was Hansen's domain, but the seaside zone was now a power vacuum—both in territory and authority.
Every corp wanted it, especially Militech and Kang Tao.
Militech coveted it as a bridgehead for reclaiming Dogtown and punishing Kurt Hansen—their ex-NUSA colonel turned renegade king.
Kang Tao's motives were simpler: Bridget and Placide's bodies were missing, and Jiang Ping hinted heavily that they were in Kang Tao's hands.
Eager to redeem herself at HQ, Jiang Ping desperately wanted Pacifica's seaside zone as a political achievement.
She secretly contacted V, promising that if the zone went to Kang Tao, she'd hand over Bridget and Placide.
V didn't know what price the two fools had paid for Kang Tao's protection, but she knew they'd been reduced to doormats again.
Since Arasaka's upper ranks no longer cared about the real culprit, V didn't care either. She wouldn't obstruct Kang Tao—but they'd have to win the zone fair and square at the corporate meetings.
Maybe Chinese people really are good at meetings—Jiang Ping was pleased. That same night she delivered Placide as a token of gratitude.
V didn't bother showing up for such trivial matters. She texted Carter and had him deal with it.
One culprit was enough. The rest… were redundant.
Days passed with Meredith Stout and Jiang Ping screaming at each other: small fights, big fights, and eventually an all-out brawl in the meeting room. Stout relied on youth, but Jiang Ping was a seasoned martial artist. They fought to a draw and nearly drew guns—V barely managed to defuse it.
Thankfully, nothing catastrophic happened. The other corps finally realized Militech and Kang Tao were dead-set on the seaside zone, so they withdrew.
Biotechnica bowed out first.
Joanne Koch had obtained lots of Arasaka top-tier tech from V. Combined with Biotechnica's own expertise, it opened new horizons. She practically lived in the lab and had no interest in fighting over a shabby seaside district.
She was a medical researcher, not a politician. Biotechnica was a "technology victory" corp.
"I heard your boss is researching literal resurrection?" V asked in the lab.
"Yeah—rumor has it he wants to revive a family member using a virus." Koch sighed. "I don't think much of that direction, but I am jealous. He can commit one hundred percent to his project, and I still have to drag myself to work every day. V, you're already Arasaka's boss in Night City. Why don't you go one step further and wipe out Biotechnica's presence here? I'll work for you—just let me research twenty-four seven."
V chuckled. "You're giving me too much credit. I can't do that."
Koch rolled her eyes. "I might've believed that before. But after what you pulled in Konpeki Plaza? Please. Your brain works better than a damn supercomputer. You're not incapable—you're just lazy."
V didn't argue. She went after Arasaka because she wanted Arasaka's tech. She had no motivation to dismantle Biotechnica.
"How's the Relic chip?" V asked.
"It's already installed in Saburo Arasaka's brain. But we need more time."
"Why? Shouldn't it revive him immediately?"
"Immediately? What a joke. If resurrection were that easy, Biotechnica's boss wouldn't still be slaving in the lab at one-hundred-sixty-nine."
"But when I—"
"When you what?"
"When I previously reviewed the Relic's research logs—" V nearly slipped but changed her wording swiftly. "There was a case where a merc took a bullet to the head, got dumped in a landfill, but because she had a Relic chip installed, she revived quickly and crawled out of the trash."
Koch stared at V for a long moment—long enough that V wondered if she'd exposed herself.
Then Koch said:
"…You need to stop watching those garbage-written sci-fi Braindances."
V: …
"Hermann," Koch called to her new underling. "I'm busy. Go educate her."
"Yes, ma'am." Anders Hellman behaved like a meek lamb. He'd tried to posture at first, but after V personally dug Saburo's corpse out of a pile of frozen beef and dropped it before him… he wisely became obedient.
"Vice Director V. It's an honor to meet you again," Hellman said with a hint of flattery.
"Spare me. Just talk."
"Yes." Hellman, being competent enough to survive in Arasaka, explained Relic's mechanism in simple terms.
"The commercial Relic chips you've heard of only allow communication with the engram inside—that is, reading. But the one you recovered is a prototype capable of installation and activation within a new body—that is, writing."
V nodded. "Right. That merc suddenly had another person in her head—loud as hell."
"No, what you described is impossible," Hellman said firmly.
"Why?"
"Because the 'new body' I mentioned refers to a corpse."
Hellman continued, "The Relic can only activate inside a dead host. A living immune system would attack new neurons and cause catastrophic rejection, damaging the chip and destroying the write-in. Only the recently dead—whose brain hasn't fully shut down but whose immune system has—can serve as hosts."
"The Relic modifies the host's neural system bit by bit until the stored engram fully overwrites it. The process takes three to six months. Once complete, the corpse 'revives,' but the person who wakes up is the engram in the chip."
V shook her head. "But that merc really came back to life."
Hellman pondered. "You said she was shot in the head, correct?"
"Yes—but the caliber was small. The bullet lodged in her skull. She did die, though."
"If so, I have a hypothesis."
"Go on."
"The Relic also repairs brain tissue during neural modification. Since her death was due to brain trauma—but not full penetration—her damage wasn't catastrophic. While the Relic rewrote her neurons, it repaired the damaged brain tissue, enabling her 'revival.'"
"You said she had another person in her head because her newly-regenerated brain effectively belonged to both individuals. As the Relic continues to work, new neurons increase, rewrites intensify, and her original consciousness weakens. She will suffer nausea, vertigo, vomiting—eventually blood vomiting—the symptoms worsening over time. With a three-to-six-month overwrite period, that's exactly how long she has left. Her mind will be killed by her own body, and then the engram claims the nest."
V frowned. "Can't you remove the Relic?"
"You can—but she'll die anyway," Hellman replied. "Remember what fixed her brain? The Relic. Those regenerated tissues aren't biologically hers. Remove the chip, stop the neural rewrite, and her immune system will attack the foreign tissue, causing lethal encephalitis and complications. Her body will kill her consciousness."
One scenario: the body kills the mind.
The other: the mind kills the body.
Looking back, V didn't even know how she had survived step by step.
The only thing she knew was that she wanted to fix herself—she wanted to live.
"Saburo Arasaka is waiting for the Relic to finish writing in?" V asked.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Three months and twelve days," Hellman said excitedly. "At that moment, the greatest rock legend of the early century will resurrect in the body of the corporate emperor he despised most!"
V suspected Hellman might be a bit of a joker, but she didn't mind—because she found it hilarious too.
She couldn't wait to see Johnny's expression when he woke up. That would be priceless.
Plenty of time—over three months.
V turned to Koch. "What are you working on?"
"A new drug."
"What drug?"
"A new treatment for the H4 Megabuilding infectious disease."
V teased her."Oh? You used to dump wastewater into Santo Domingo—grew a conscience all of a sudden?"
Joanne Koch didn't argue."Yeah. When you're fed and clothed, a conscience just… comes back.Help me out when the time comes, will you? Your face works better than the FDA's red stamp."
V raised an eyebrow."When it's ready, call me."
The next day, Meredith Stout was at it again, having another argument with Jiang Ping.Seeing she was losing ground, Jiang Ping struck first.
"Deputy Director V, I heard Arasaka's still hunting for the killer of Mr. Saburo Arasaka.I happen to have some leads.So now I'd like to ask—does your previous promise to allocate the Seaview District to Kangtao still count?"