"Stop! Unidentified individuals ahead—halt immediately!"
Karl and his team had only just left the Tiger Claw member's apartment when they were spotted by a nearby NCPD officer.
These days, NCPD patrol officers were nothing like they used to be. They were composed entirely of elite personnel, fitted with advanced cyberware and armed with high-grade weapons. To their optical implants, Karl's group—bloodstained, armed, casual in demeanor, and still smelling of gunpowder—stood out like a sore thumb on the street.
Ordered to stop, Karl and his crew complied immediately.
After all, they were all law-abiding citizens. When the police tell you to halt, you halt.
"You lot…"
The officer, holding an Ajax rifle, approached them. He was about to speak when he noticed Arasaka Seisen.
To be fair, Seisen's face was quite striking. Even the officer's attention instinctively locked onto him first.
He trailed off mid-sentence, frowning slightly. That face—it looked familiar, like someone he'd seen somewhere before.
"Hold on a second."
The officer had responded to a report of gunfire in Japantown. Even though he now had suspects in front of him, he didn't act rashly. Instead, he ordered them to stop and began scanning their faces through the NCPD database.
The first person he focused on was Seisen—the one who had triggered that sense of recognition. After a moment, the result came up:
"No registration."
A stowaway? A drifter?
The officer couldn't be sure, but one thing was certain: under Night City law, anyone without border registration was in violation.
"Your identity isn't registered. I'm going to need you to come with me."
The officer disengaged the safety on his weapon and tapped the squad call button on his chest to request backup. His intentions were clear—if Karl's crew didn't want trouble, they had better play along.
"No registration?"
Seisen blinked in confusion, then realized the issue.
To hide his identity, he had selected a younger version of his face—one from many years ago. Naturally, it wouldn't be in any current database, making him officially an unregistered nomad.
"What about us?" Oliver asked, pointing to himself. "Do we have to go too?"
Seeing they weren't resisting, the officer softened a little. He glanced at Oliver. "Your name's registered—Quinn, right? But if you're walking with an unregistered individual, you're all coming with us."
"All of us, huh? Fine. We were heading out together anyway."
Oliver didn't argue.
Sure, if they revealed their real identities, this would all be over in a flash. But they were in Japantown—crowded, public, and already drawing attention. If they unmasked themselves now, the entire city would know within ten minutes that the KK Squad had been spotted in Japantown, and that dozens of Tiger Claws were dead.
Anyone with half a brain could connect the dots between this incident and the ambush on sixty-five former Tiger Claws that morning, and suspect Karl's crew. But Seisen's presence complicated things. His arrival in Night City was still a secret, and the fact that the KK Squad was acting as his security detail wasn't public knowledge either. Exposing that now would be a disaster.
As Oliver saw it, it was like when he'd pissed off T-Bug and she leaked what color underwear he liked—embarrassing, but only among people who knew him. If some random drunk on the street knew what kind of braindance kinks he was into, now that would be humiliating.
In this odd alignment of thoughts, Seisen stood dumbfounded as handcuffs were clipped onto his wrists—while his so-called friends and bodyguards just watched, not lifting a finger.
He stared at the cuffs.
He didn't particularly mind getting cuffed. In fact, seeing Night City's law being enforced so by-the-book gave him a rare sense of respect. He was even willing to comply, drawn by the unfamiliar but oddly comforting idea of order. Still…
"Why am I the only one wearing handcuffs?"
"I only brought one pair."
"Then when backup arrives, cuff the others too—"
"No need. We've got enough officers. You're all going back to the station."
Thanks to Karl and the others' cooperation, the officer now seemed relaxed. "Just cooperate, and you'll have a Night City citizen ID in no time."
"Yeah, we're model citizens," Jack said with a grin, clapping Seisen on the shoulder. "One pair of cuffs was enough—for you."
None of them seemed the least bit concerned that their friend had just been arrested. In fact, they looked downright amused.
"Guess you only get to see someone's true nature after spending enough time with them," Seisen muttered with a sigh, looking at the cuffs.
Street folk. So warm and friendly—warm enough to get you cuffed and hauled away.
The NCPD van arrived quickly, and Karl's team boarded one by one, calm and orderly. Just as they left, a dozen motorcycles sped past them in the opposite direction.
"NCPD seems to have taken someone."
A red-haired Tiger Claw riding one of the bikes frowned as he watched the police van drive by. "Did they already catch the attackers?"
"The NCPD? Those jokers?" the rider next to him scoffed, slowing down as a sneer crept across his face. "They've been getting cocky lately. Think they can make arrests? Dream on. Those guys haven't gotten far. If the KK Squad was involved, we'd have heard something. Probably Seisen's crew. Keep watch."
"Don't worry. They're not getting away."
The red-haired Tiger Claw nodded, his cybernetic eyes glowing with a cold gleam. "That was bait. The rest of our people have the place surrounded. Seisen's men aren't getting out of this—not in Japantown."
The motorcycles continued down the road, pulling farther away from the NCPD van.
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