The pace never slowed.
There was no time to mourn for Kiwi. The battlefield shifted to the summit of Arasaka Tower.
Adam Smasher had reached the top floor.
"Your opponent is the Cyberskeleton," the executive said through the comms. "Are you interested, Adam?"
Smasher looked at the readout of David's carnage. "A boy trying to carry a weight he can't even lift without an anti-grav unit..."
"He's not worth my time."
The arrogance was cold. Terrifying.
Readers held their breath. Could David even touch a monster like this?
Faraday arrived at the penthouse, dragging Lucy with him. But Aoyama had prepared a surprise for the readers.
David was already there.
He was standing on the very top of the spire, looking out over the glittering lights of Night City. In his mind, he saw his mother, Gloria.
"Mum... look at me. I finally reached the top floor of Arasaka Tower."
Shuu Fumiya felt his eyes sting. It was the "Top Floor" his mother had wanted for him, but it was a literal summit of steel and glass, not a corner office.
David's mind was a storm of static. He injected the final dose of immunosuppressants.
"This is the last one, Doc..."
As the green liquid entered his veins, the memory of the Black Market Doctor's warning echoed in his head. 'Once you go beyond the edge, you can't come back, no matter how special you think you are.'
"I know," David whispered to the ghosts. "But I have to go anyway. I don't have anything else to lose."
Faraday was in the middle of negotiating his "promotion" when the world turned emerald green.
SANDEVISTAN.
David appeared in the room, moving so fast the security detail was frozen in time. He reached Lucy, breaking her bonds and pulling her out of the chair.
When the world synchronized, all hell broke loose. Faraday and the execs dove for cover as David activated the gravity Metropolisles.
The room's security detail was pulverized into meat in a split second.
But as David turned to finish the executives, a shadow intercepted him.
'Adam Smasher.'
The presence of the "Legend" gave Faraday a surge of desperate hope. "SMASHER! KILL THIS BRAT! THAT'S AN ORDER!"
Smasher didn't even look at him. He slammed his fist into the floor, generating a localized gravity anchor that kept him upright while everyone else was being crushed.
He turned to the executive. "Who is this idiot?"
"He's the fixer... just follow the contract, Adam!"
"The boy is the only thing here worth killing," Smasher said.
David turned, practically face-to-face with the giant.
"You're Adam Smasher? I heard stories. I didn't think you were real."
"You have a weak frame that can't handle that chrome, Cyberpunk. Yet you can still speak. I'm impressed."
"You're the one talkin', tin-man. Do you even have a brain left in that bucket?"
"You could say I'm special."
"I'm special too."
"DON'T MAKE ME LAUGH!"
The two monsters clashed. But even in the middle of a battle that was tearing the penthouse apart, the "Night City" cruelty continued.
A Trauma Team unit burst through the glass to rescue Faraday, the high-value client.
"I'm saved!" Faraday cried.
David's eyes flared. He lost focus for a fraction of a second, his rage at the "system" overriding his tactical sense. "YOU!"
Smasher didn't miss. He punched through David's midsection, his mechanical fist emerging from the boy's back in a spray of blood.
"In the middle of a fight with me, you look away?"
David roared, activating the Sandevistan for a tactical retreat. He grabbed Lucy and jumped through the shattered window, raining lead on the Trauma Team unit in his way.
But then, the world froze again.
Behind David, the massive form of Adam Smasher was also surrounded by a green afterimage.
'He has the Sandevistan too.'
The realization was a nightmare. The one thing that made David "special" was just standard equipment for a Corporate Legend.
Smasher fired a burst of rockets. The explosions threw David out into the open air, thousands of feet above the streets.
And that's when it happened.
The "Edge" vanished.
David's face began to shatter into a thousand ghostly images. The cyberpsychosis was absolute.
"DAVID! DAVID!"
Lucy was screaming his name, her voice lost in the roaring wind.
As they fell, she grabbed his face. She pulled all those flickering, screaming versions of David together and kissed him.
Under the massive, cold light of the moon, they hung in the air for a perfect, silent moment.
When they landed, David was himself again. Just for a second.
"Lucy..."
"David... you installed it anyway," she whispered, looking at the Cyberskeleton.
"I know," he said.
"I didn't want this! I didn't want you to save me if it meant losing you!"
"I'm sorry," David said, holding her tight. "But this was the only way I could keep you safe. I couldn't protect Mum. I couldn't protect Maine. But I can protect you."
"I'm taking you to your dream, Lucy. That's my only dream now."
Smasher descended like a falling star.
The high-altitude fall ended with him becoming a messy collection of parts on the pavement, a fittingly hollow end for a hollow man.
On the ground, Falco and Rebecca were holding the line against the NCPD.
"We're back!"
David and Lucy landed in the center of the square. With a single wave of his hand, David crushed the remaining police units into scrap metal.
Rebecca looked up at him, a wide, fierce grin on her face.
"Welcome back, you idiot!"
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]
There might be a mistake somewhere, im sleepy as heck when doing this shi, do tell the mistake you found on that paragraph comment, ill fix it asap later, yeah im uploading these chapter in advance cuz i want to sleep early, cya next week