"David?"
The word came out trembling, shot through with the urge to cry — spoken to the soul that had reappeared before her eyes. As though a single name could hold everything: all the wandering, all the grief of more than a month apart.
David blinked, looking a little dazed. Then, as if searching for the right words, he went quiet. Lucy stood where she was, something unnameable rising in her chest.
Over to one side, Anthony watched the scene unfold. He narrowed his eyes, quietly rose from the sofa, and drifted back to lean against the far wall.
A couple reuniting after a long separation — the last thing they needed was a third wheel hovering around.
There were things he needed to talk to Lucy about, sure. But not right now.
Besides — even if Anthony was technically the one who had engineered this whole moment, he hadn't forgotten that he was currently squatting in someone else's apartment.
Hm. Breaking and entering. Hopefully Lucy wouldn't mind.
So, with that thought, he pulled up the chat group and settled in to watch from a distance.
[Lord of the White Holy Throne has started a live stream]
[Grand Flame Wordsmith has joined the stream]
[City Ghost of AAA has joined the stream]
[Himmel's Frieren Warrior has joined the stream]
[…]
Anthony swept his gaze over the viewers flooding in and let out a sigh.
Still peeping at other people's screens. Still hunting for entertainment. Getting everyone resurrected needed to move up the priority list, and fast. Living like this wasn't a long-term solution for anyone.
[City Ghost of AAA: What's happening?? Are the lovebirds finally getting together?]
[Konoha's Yellow Flash: The chemistry is practically dripping off the screen. Young love like this — it's almost nostalgic.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: Shh. Patient. I'm recording this first.]
[Lord of the White Holy Throne: This moment matters a lot to David.]
Anthony quietly activated the stream recording, then turned his full attention back to the two people reunited after so long.
David's soul gazed at Lucy in silence. After a long moment, a brilliant smile broke across his face.
"Hey, Lucy. Long time no see."
In an instant, emotion tore through what remained of Lucy's composure, and every ounce of longing she had bottled up came flooding out at once.
She closed her eyes softly.
She crossed the room in quick steps and threw her arms around him — and immediately felt it. The unreality of him. Her arms found nothing solid.
She couldn't hold him. Because the person in front of her didn't truly exist in this world yet.
But it was enough. It was enough.
That was what Lucy told herself, as she stood there embracing the air, maintaining the shape of a hug even though there was no warmth to be felt.
"Uh — Lucy?"
David spoke softly, a little uncertain. But Lucy just shook her head.
"It's okay, David. Let me… just settle down for a bit."
"…Okay."
David went quiet. After a moment, he said it gently.
And so they stood — held in an embrace that neither could feel — and waited together in silence, letting the weight of over a month dissolve between them.
"I missed you, David."
At last, Lucy spoke quietly.
"Yeah. I missed you too."
No hesitation. No pretense. David answered her almost immediately, and meant every word.
A light smile bloomed across Lucy's face.
"I'm so glad I got to see you again…"
She murmured the words, and tried to rest her head against David's shoulder — but when she touched only the intangible substance of a soul, she had to hold that position by her own will alone.
In the end… it's still like this.
The thought drifted through her mind unbidden, and a shadow of sorrow crossed her face. But she composed herself quickly.
Even so — just this was already so much more than nothing.
How sincerely Lucy wished this moment could stretch into forever.
Even if she couldn't actually touch David — as long as she could keep seeing him like this, hearing his voice, exchanging a few words with him in the course of an ordinary day — in this city, in the midst of their tragedy, that was already a treasure beyond price.
"Ahem. Sorry to interrupt."
Into that fragile, timeless silence, Anthony cleared his throat twice and spoke, visibly awkward:
"Can I steal a few minutes? I'm perfectly happy to keep watching the star-crossed lovers' reunion play out… but we do have some actual business to take care of."
As he said it, Anthony glanced at the group chat.
The others weren't too bad. Yoriichi, Minato — they'd both long since tasted the fruit of love, so watching a couple be adorable together didn't particularly faze them. The problem was…
[Himmel's Frieren Warrior: Ribbit!! I don't want to see this!! I don't want to see any of this!!]
[Himmel's Frieren Warrior: Don't make me watch this!! Do you have any idea how much damage this is doing to me!!]
Right. Himmel was clearly not a fan of secondhand romance.
Well — given his personal history, that was understandable.
Anthony glanced at the comments scrolling across the stream and couldn't help but laugh. But funny as it was, he had Himmel's feelings to consider — and real business to attend to — so he stepped in and put a stop to the couple's unlimited romantic broadcast.
David and Lucy separated for the moment, their attention shifting back to Anthony.
The young man with blond hair and blue eyes gave a slight bow, then spoke:
"Allow me to introduce myself. Miss Lucy, you can call me Smith."
"I'm sorry to interrupt your reunion with David… but I don't imagine you'd want this reunion to vanish into thin air the moment you blink, would you?"
"So — might I have about ten minutes alone with you? It would make it easier to confirm our next moves."
Anthony pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and spoke, while casting a sidelong glance at his points ticker — which was steadily, slowly ticking down.
Honestly, supplying points to sustain David felt almost comfortable at this point. David's soul hadn't required many points to begin with, and now that they were face to face — no transmission losses through the Primordial River — it was burning through maybe just over one point every two minutes or so.
At Anthony's current income rate, maintaining David's soul state in person was barely a drop in the bucket.
Which meant there was plenty of room to negotiate what came next.
With that in mind, Anthony smiled and looked at Lucy. Lucy instinctively glanced back at David, as if seeking his opinion.
"Mr. Sm… Mr. Smith is someone you can trust."
That was David's answer. Lucy nodded, and rose lightly to her feet.
It was as though that brief reunion with David had already lifted the heavy burden she'd been carrying all this time.
"All right. Lead the way."
She said it to Anthony.
One minute later.
Out in the corridor beyond Lucy's apartment, Lucy lit another slim cigarette amid the neon blaze of Night City, exhaled a slow drift of smoke, and through the haze studied the man before her — who looked for all the world like a phantom.
"Thank you. For this."
After a long silence, Lucy spoke first — the opening line of their conversation.
She couldn't possibly have missed it — this man, and the mystery surrounding him. Anyone could see that David's return from death had everything to do with him.
"I don't know how you did it. There's too much I don't know, and I don't have the energy to dig for all of it… but you brought him back. You brought him here to me. And I can tell it's really him. That's enough."
She said it quietly, a barely-perceptible gratitude threading through her voice: "I'll never forget what you've done."
Anthony waved it off with a casual hand. "Don't worry about it. Wasn't a big deal. I had my own reasons for doing it… and besides — the kid's good people."
Even setting aside the angle of wanting to leverage Lucy's remaining usefulness, Anthony would have found a way to resurrect David eventually. Never mind the chat group's missions — at the end of the day, they were all members of the group. David had done so much for this crew over time. Anthony genuinely thought of all of them as family.
Lucy gave a small nod, accepting his words. But quickly, her voice sharpened through the smoke:
"That said, Mr. Smith — I need you to answer me honestly. What exactly do you want out of this?"
"I don't believe true philanthropists exist in Night City."
She said it with a guarded edge, and Anthony simply smiled in the face of her wariness:
"Oh, I definitely want something. But you don't need to be too worried about it. You might even come out ahead."
"Mm. Before I answer that, let's talk about something else first — like David's current situation, for instance."
"What about it?"
"You've noticed, haven't you? David hasn't truly come back to life yet."
Anthony stated it plainly. A beat of silence fell over Lucy.
Of course she'd noticed. She would have had to be blind not to. There was a voice, there was interaction — but no way to touch him. The person in front of her was like a thin, fragile illusion. So brittle. So cruel.
"But what if I told you I could make him truly live again?"
Then, without warning, Anthony asked:
"Give him a real second life. One where he'd never have to worry about Cyberpsychosis again. Not a ghost of a soul like this — a real, flesh-and-blood person you could actually hold."
For just a moment, Lucy's pupils contracted sharply. Her head snapped up. Through the dissipating smoke, she found the man's eyes — blue irises glimmering with a faint, quiet light.
"…You can actually do all of that?"
Lucy hesitated for a moment before she finally asked.
"Yeah. I can."
"…Who are you, really?"
"Just a guy passing through. Likes to fish."
After tossing off that answer without a care, Anthony continued: "But look — if I can wake his soul up, bringing him all the way back is only natural, right?"
"There's just a price tag attached to all of this… It requires an enormous amount of [Value], Miss Lucy. And that's exactly what I'm after."
"If you want him alive again, I can make it happen — but I'll need you to supply enough value to cover the cost of his resurrection."
Anthony spread his hands. Lucy's expression shifted — and then, involuntarily, her brow furrowed, and the light in her eyes dimmed again.
There were still so many problems.
Even at this point, there were still so many problems.
The most obvious one being — even if he came back, then what?
This was Night City.
A city where gravity would forever shackle the souls of everyone who lived here.
The highest dreams, the lives people longed for, every desperate yearning for freedom — all of it would be dragged down under that weight and shatter completely.
No one could escape. Even if David came back to life — every time Lucy imagined it, every time she thought about him waking up only to face the immensity of Night City all over again, a wave of panic washed through her.
Fear of losing him again. Fear that she would bring him back, but have no good life to offer him.
Anthony watched Lucy hesitate. Drawing on everything he knew about the two of them, he thought for barely a moment before he spoke:
"You're worried about Night City, aren't you? You can put that to rest."
"Because I have another proposal for you. For example — Miss Lucy, do you want true freedom?"
True freedom?
Hearing those words, a flicker of confusion passed through Lucy's eyes. Of course she wanted it. She'd been dreaming of it her whole life.
The Moon — that was why she'd set her sights on the Moon. Because it was a world she longed for. A place that could be free. No corporations. No any of this.
But it hadn't been real. She'd been to the Moon. The freedom she was looking for wasn't there.
"I can give it to you."
And yet the man in front of her said it so lightly:
"When this is all over, I can take you and David somewhere else entirely. A place that is truly free. No Arasaka. No military-grade tech. No Night City. Nothing like any of this."
For a moment, Lucy just stared at him.
But then — thinking about the resurrection she had just witnessed with her own eyes — she thought… maybe it wasn't so absurd?
This Anthony was wrapped in so many mysteries that nothing he said seemed all that strange anymore.
"But… I'm afraid I can't pay that kind of money…"
In the end, Lucy raised the last question — hesitantly — and was met with Anthony's most enthusiastic response yet:
"Hey now, don't be a stranger. Who said anything about you paying?"
Anthony smiled brightly: "Obviously, whoever has money pays!"
"…Huh?"
Lucy blinked, thrown off. Then she watched as the blond man thrust out one arm, pointing excitedly down at Night City below —
"— Look! The Maelstrom down there, the military hardware over there, Arasaka Tower right there, and — what's that small corp — don't recognise them, but whatever, bottom line is the same!"
"Everyone's wallet can be your wallet!"
Lucy stared at the man who had, without warning, become extremely animated, and felt her brain struggling to keep up.
She wasn't entirely sure she was following him.
"I mean — none of these people are exactly good guys, right? So robbing thieves is fine, yeah?"
Anthony smiled, flashing a row of very white, very sharp teeth: "Money is all about circulation. It flows from your wallet into mine — so all you have to do is find a way to make it flow from their wallets into yours first. Simple!"
"Okay, wait, hold on — I don't actually mind doing this, but I'm nowhere near strong enough. I'd get disassembled for parts before I finished half of it…"
"Don't worry about that."
Anthony rubbed his hands together, barely containing his excitement: "I'll handle all the enhancement problems. Remote support too. As long as you're willing to work, I guarantee you won't die."
"One question: are you in?"
Under Anthony's intensely expectant gaze, Lucy swallowed.
And then, lured in by a certain dog's irresistible sales pitch, she nodded.
"I'm in."
A short while later, David — sitting on the sofa — watched Anthony and Lucy return to the room.
"All sorted out already?"
David jumped up and asked, then took in Anthony's expression — which was noticeably energised.
"Yep, all taken care of. Now we move into hands-on operations."
Anthony glanced back at Lucy and said: "Go find me some anesthetic, would you? I need to perform a little enhancement surgery on Miss Lucy here…"
"Sure."
David nodded, then looked at Lucy — who had followed Anthony in — and added a reassuring word: "Relax, Lucy… I'll be there to help you before long."
After all, according to Anthony's rough plan, Lucy alone wouldn't be enough to crack Arasaka Tower — the idea was to farm the surrounding areas first, grind up some levels, wait for David's full resurrection, and then once the two of them were fully kitted out, make the push for the top.
Lucy gave a solemn nod, then lay back on the sofa — which, Anthony had informed her, would serve as the operating table. She didn't entirely understand the logic, but she went along with it.
David quickly located the anesthetic. As Anthony retrieved it and loaded it into a syringe, he spoke:
"Right then — final rundown of the plan. I'll be performing an enhancement surgery on Miss Lucy's body. Going forward: Lucy handles the muscle work; David, as a soul, provides communication channels and scouting; and I handle logistics, recovery, and follow-up enhancements."
"Once the first enhancement surgery is done, the two of you can start prepping for the first score tomorrow morning… Don't worry. It'll be a pretty good time."
Anthony said it with a smile, and injected the anesthetic. Lucy soon felt a creeping heaviness pulling her toward sleep. After a long moment, she closed her eyes.
"Where do we start with the enhancements?"
David turned to ask Anthony. Anthony didn't answer immediately — he stood there in quiet thought.
He checked the inventory docked to The Angler's Throne. Unfortunately, he hadn't fished up anything like a K-Shard or a W-Serum — otherwise he could've kitted Lucy out like a proper street samurai.
With a regretful sigh, Anthony turned to the [Artificer's Frame] blueprints and let a concrete plan take shape in his mind.
Then, when he got to the [Basic Resource Extraction Series] blueprints, his eyes lit up, and a few more mischievous ideas occurred to him.
"Lucy runs a netrunner build — let's focus on pushing that further. That way she'll be able to hold onto more assets relatively intact as we go."
"I've still got around nine thousand points on hand, which should cover the basic kit for that path — and leave a little breathing room for me to slip in a small personal touch."
Anthony snapped his fingers. Two forging blueprints unlocked immediately, burning two thousand points.
Then he reached out his hand, and vivid blue Soul Flame ignited, burning through Lucy's body before him — through it he could see, as if gazing past flesh and bone, the soul within.
Small. Battered. Barely a flicker of strength to its name. That wasn't surprising — if anything, it was exactly what you'd expect from the Cyberpunk world. Under the long, grinding toll that cyberware took on the soul, the fact that Lucy's had held together even to this degree — rough-shaped but more or less intact — was already something Anthony respected.
"But if it's the universal condition, then I know exactly what to do about it."
Anthony looked over the blueprint he'd just unlocked and let out a low whistle.
The Artificer's Frame was divided into three broad series. The first was [Earth] — oriented toward raw power. The second was [Starfield] — the agility and versatility route. And then there was a third, specialized path that Anthony was genuinely curious about — except he hadn't unlocked it yet.
A first-level Forge Core could only unlock the first tier of Artificer's Frame blueprints — the foundational versions. Skimming upward, Anthony found the Forge Core appeared to have at least five tiers total.
For Lucy, what Anthony had chosen was a piece of equipment from the [Starfield] series.
[Artificer's Frame — Starfield Sequence · Eye of True Sight]
[Category: Soul Equipment (can be equipped directly onto the soul)]
[Description: The first-tier foundational eye-slot equipment of the Starfield Sequence. Possesses the ability to visualize souls. Has multiple upgrade paths and templates available downstream. Also grants a rudimentary soul interference capability.]
[Effect: Renders souls visible; expands and fortifies the user's soul strength; unlocks the ability · Soul Shatter]
[Soul Shatter: Upon making eye contact with a target, expend a set amount of soul energy to launch a soul-based attack that directly damages the target's soul.]
[Blueprint Unlock Cost: 1,000 points]
[Forge Cost: 5,000 points]
[Special Note: For the living, sufficiently high soul strength determines soul resistance and the soul's tolerance for modification.]
After reading through the full list of effects, Anthony knew at first glance — this was exactly what he needed.
In a world like Cyberpunk's — where cyberware was universal and Cyberpsychosis ran rampant, where souls were fragile as paper — this eye was a silver bullet.
He'd said it before: those garbage Cyberpunk implants? The Artificer series had already left them in the dust by a wide margin.
Do you have any idea what it means when transcendent craftsmanship is the real deal, kid?
So, with the Soul Flame blazing — let the forging begin!
It was as though the heavens and earth were cupped once again in his hands. As soul energy gathered and slowly settled, the ethereal and formless condensed into something real and tangible. Anthony slipped back into that mysterious state he'd entered before, and the forging commenced.
The solid soul-matter drifted down and sank into Lucy's closed eyes — dazzling, like the light of a thousand stars.
After roughly ten minutes, a full 5,000 points had been consumed. Within Lucy's shut eyelids, a brief flash of stellar radiance flickered to life.
[Artificer's Frame — Starfield Sequence · Eye of True Sight: Installed]
Anthony withdrew his hand. He looked at Lucy's soul directly — then looked at the thousand or so points he had left — and felt a whole lot of thoughts rise up at once.
Wow, still a thousand points left.
Wow, looks like there's still room to tinker.
Looking at Lucy's soul, Anthony finally understood what [soul modification tolerance] derived from soul strength actually meant.
Put simply: once you had enough soul equipment installed, your soul could accommodate more tech and enhancements layered on top — and it also gave the Artificer free rein to work in a little extra creative flair, weaving small, elegant structures directly into the soul.
And yes — the Artificer naturally came with the ability to modify other people's souls.
Back when he'd been forging his own Forge Core, guided by that same mysterious state, Anthony had felt himself growing increasingly comfortable with the sensation of shaping another's soul.
Why not try it out?
He stared at Lucy, her soul quietly asleep before him, and felt the itch become unbearable.
Mainly because he just couldn't help himself.
Every Artificer's deepest dream was to craft something truly their own — something that could be written into a blueprint and passed down. It was practically in the blood.
Telling an Artificer they can't slip in a little something personal is like hauling up a forty-jin fish and then forbidding the angler from losing their mind over it. It simply cannot be tolerated.
And so, after a full zero-point-one seconds of deliberation, Anthony happily extended his hand.
Exactly a thousand points left — and, as luck would have it, the [Basic Resource Extraction Series] blueprints he'd just unlocked contained one small gadget that was perfectly suited in both cost and effect…
With the Soul Flame burning, Anthony quickly completed his little personal addition, added a label as if nothing had happened, and withdrew his hand.
"My forging is done."
Finally, he turned to David and said:
"Now it's your turn. Go bring me back a victory."
…
The next day.
"This is the target in there?"
Standing at the entrance of what looked like an abandoned factory, Lucy chewed her bubble gum, dropped the several large canvas duffel bags from her shoulders onto the ground, and looked back at David — hovering beside her in soul form.
"Based on what Mr. Smith told us, yeah, this should be the place…"
David thought for a moment, then nodded. Lucy did a quick stretch, shrugged off the last of her gear, and walked toward the derelict factory ahead.
Inside was a minor gang's base of operations — the warm-up spot Anthony had hand-picked for the two of them.
Not that Lucy or David were exactly strangers to this kind of work. Still, Anthony had sent them here under the pretext of "getting familiar with the soul equipment." Neither of them had any particular objection.
At the entrance, Lucy hacked the door's system with a quick, practiced ease. A brief flicker of processing, then the lock spat sparks — zzt — and Lucy reached out and pushed.
At the same time, David, who had briefly phased through the wall ahead, drifted back out and turned to Lucy:
"Lucy, there are ten people in the main hall, and more upstairs. Be careful — they're all armed. Cyberware grades aren't that high, though."
"Got it."
Lucy nodded, and pushed the door open.
A sharp creak echoed through the room. For an instant, the gang members inside — mid-rager, some of them already flying high — froze. The energy of the room stumbled.
Lucy swept her gaze across them.
Honestly, she was still getting used to it.
She could see every single soul, clear as day — all of them dim, desperately fragile, looking like they'd shatter at any moment, collapse into full-blown Cyberpsychosis, or just… die.
What a…
"Bunch of trash."
Lucy murmured it softly.
There was no need to hesitate anymore.
She could feel it — something rising from deep within her soul. As if all she had to do was look, and she could reach out and touch those souls directly.
So she did.
She activated her newly acquired ability for the first time.
[Soul Shatter].
The next instant — the man Lucy had fixed her gaze on let out a scream like he'd been set on fire, and collapsed to the ground. White foam frothed at the corners of his mouth. Under her gaze, his soul began to disintegrate almost immediately, crumbling piece by piece until there was nothing left.
Dead.
"The hell is wrong with this chick!"
"All of you — get her! Together!"
"Don't you kick my — oh you're dead!"
Shouting, shoving, chaos. Then a torrent of gunfire tore across the open room. Lucy's brow creased.
The others would be pouring down soon… she had to end this fast.
[Soul Shatter] was devastatingly effective against junkies like these — but efficiency was still a problem. She couldn't guarantee she'd always be faster than a bullet. That was precisely why netrunners didn't fight on the front line. Netrunner was a support role, an information role. What kind of netrunner goes toe-to-toe in open combat?
The thing was — right now she didn't have a choice. Anthony probably didn't love this approach either, if she was being honest.
But that was exactly why Anthony had slipped in his little "personal touch" during the forging.
And now — Lucy discovered it.
After activating [Soul Shatter] for the first time, Lucy felt as though her own soul had been laid completely open before her own eyes for the first time. She examined it — and in the middle of that self-inspection, she saw something attached to her soul.
A button. And a… sticky note?
"What is this?"
Lucy stared, thrown off completely. She squinted at the note and read it aloud in a low voice:
"Use sparingly. For emergencies only?"
"Ah — Lucy, that thing is—"
The moment David heard Lucy say it, he remembered — Anthony had casually mentioned this to him at some point. He was about to explain, but found that Lucy had already gone still.
By her own judgment — this situation had, in fact, qualified as an emergency.
If it didn't say what it could handle, it probably handled most things, right?
With that thought in her head, Lucy pressed the button.
And in the next instant —
Explosion.
Firelight roared to life under that name, rampaging outward like a beast's savage howl, swallowing the entire factory whole.
The sticky note on her soul flipped over. On the back, at last, were the words hidden beneath:
[I installed a little something in your soul — nothing too major, just a small toy from the Artificer's Basic Resource Extraction Series…]
[A teeny-tiny bomb. Capable of blowing up an entire factory. If something doesn't satisfy you, remember to detonate directly~]
[After all — art is an explosion!]
____
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