Chapter 6 - The Cloud Dragon Sets Forth 3

There was a spacious clearing behind Santa's Rest Stop. It served many purposes: a firing range for testing newly purchased guns, a place to repair large trucks, and a dumping ground for useless parts.

Today, it would serve as a sparring ground.

Cool night air drifted through the clearing.

"Mister."

Ash turned from swinging an old steel blade, apparently preparing for the bout. Akina's face was full of concern.

"Are you really going to be okay? Should we call it off while we still can?"

Ash lowered his sword and answered her.

"There is no need."

"You don't understand. Grandpa Santa is seriously strong! He's famous around here, you know? I'll just find another way. Screw it, I'll get a recommendation from someone else. This is such bullshit..."

The girl's voice gradually faded. Even as she said it, she seemed deeply reluctant to give up.

Ash regarded her for a moment, then spoke calmly.

"Lady A."

"Yes?"

"There is something I wish to ask."

"What is it?"

"I have been wondering for some time. Could not anyone become a Pathfinder? I believe the data card clearly said as much. Why, then, do you need a letter of recommendation?"

He had asked Akina, but someone else answered.

"Pathfinders fall into two broad categories."

It was Santa, emerging with his weapons.

"Assaults, who handle the fighting. And Technomancers, who extract data from ancient civilizations."

He continued as he slipped his weapons, a pair of custom revolvers, into their holsters.

"For Assaults, hell, you can hire any old nobody who knows how to shoot or swing a blade. All they have to do is fuck up the enemy. But Technomancers are different. They're precious."

His preparations complete, Santa took out a cigarette and lit it. With the cowboy hat he had put on at some point, the holsters, and now the cigarette, he looked every inch a cowboy.

"These Technomancers are human computers who beat incredible odds to survive cyberbrain conversion, see? They use those electronic brains to access the cyberspace of ancient civilizations. To dig out carefully hidden data and restore forgotten technology."

He exhaled, sending thick cigarette smoke drifting through the night air.

"The problem is, they pour all their resources into the cyberbrain module, so they can't install any other cyberware. They're practically made of glass. Never mind fighting—just staying alive is a struggle."

Ash nodded.

"I, too, understand how Pathfinders operate. Is that not why prominent Technomancers hire Assaults? To protect them? But what has this conversation to do with..."

Even as he spoke, something dawned on him.

"Surely you do not mean that Lady A is a Technomancer?"

Ash's optical sensors turned toward Akina.

Perhaps embarrassed by the intensity of his gaze, she silently turned around. Then she swept her thick hair to one side, revealing the back of her neck.

There, in the center of her pale nape, he could faintly make out a mechanical connection port and strands of thin cable, starkly unlike the smooth skin around them.

Presumably, they connected to her brain.

"Now do you understand why she needs a recommendation?" Santa asked.

"We can't let a valuable Technomancer like the kid die for nothing. She has to work on a team with a capable Assault, and an old bastard like me has to vouch for them—say, 'They probably won't get themselves killed'—before she'll get approval."

Santa flicked away his cigarette butt and looked at Ash, his eyes gleaming.

"Does that answer your question, Ash?"

"... It does."

"Then you understand what this bout means?"

"Perfectly."

"Good. Shall we begin?"

An unusual tension passed between the two men.

Standing between them, Akina looked from one to the other. Sensing the ominous atmosphere, she moved far away.

"..."

"..."

Ash held the steel blade upright. He gave it a turn, then settled into an opening stance.

"I am Ash. I have no affiliation; I am a wandering swordsman. I shall face you with this sword you have so kindly provided, Elder San."

Santa grinned at Ash, who was at once courteous and radiating an intense presence.

"Santa Claude. Bartender."

He raised both hands. Somehow, a pair of heavy custom revolvers had already appeared in them. A glance was enough to tell they were no ordinary weapons.

"I'll be using these Peacekeepers."

The unsettling atmosphere intensified until taut tension filled the clearing.

After a brief silence, Ash spoke.

"Here I come."

The words had barely left him before Ash moved, his figure seeming to stretch into a streak. He was unbelievably light and fast.

'He's fast!'

Santa was startled by how quickly Ash closed the distance, but his battle-seasoned hands were already snapping up to aim.

BANG! BANG-BANG!

Both pistols spat fire at the charging Ash.

This was nothing like the wild shooting of the REST-men he had faced before. These were seasoned shots, anticipating his path and firing into it to cut off his next move.

Instead of closing the distance in an instant as he had intended, Ash was forced to fall back a step.

That brief retreat determined who would attack and who would defend.

Employing Dragon-Form Steps, Ash waited for his chance to reverse the tide.

The moment Santa reloaded.

At last, both of Santa's guns clicked. Their cylinders seemed to be empty.

'Now!'

Ash, who had been circling with uncanny movements, darted forward, intending to end the bout with this charge.

But then—

BANG-BANG!

Santa's revolvers spat fire again.

'...!'

Ash's optical sensors reacted sharply.

Surely he should have been reloading? Ash hastily drew back his sword and instinctively twisted aside.

The brief exchange was over in an instant.

With distance between them again, the two stared at each other.

"... Ha! For someone who talks so fancy, you move like a terror. Were you built back in the Corporate War generation? No, that can't be it. They hadn't developed autonomous behavior processes back then."

Santa tapped his own neck with a gun barrel.

"What are you?"

"Precisely what I introduced myself as."

"What a shit answer."

"More importantly, did you not need to reload just now?"

"I did. And I reloaded."

"In so little time?"

It had been no more than an instant. Less than a second.

He had reloaded in that time?

Apparently amused by Ash's reaction, Santa raised his hands and demonstrated.

"... What...?"

His wrist split open, producing a cylinder with every chamber loaded. Then he swapped it for the cylinder in his revolver, the Peacekeeper.

The entire exchange took only an instant.

"... An intriguing technique."

Santa grinned. Unlike before, however, this was a decidedly combative grin.

"You're going to keep going, right?"

"If necessary."

His grin widened.

"Then how about we pick up the tempo?"

As he finished speaking, several thin cables shot from the bodies of the custom Peacekeeper revolvers in his hands.

Moving as though alive, they pierced his shirt and plunged precisely into connector slots in both his forearms.

CRACKLE!

Amid a brief shower of sparks and a twitch, a brilliant, intense blue light flashed in Santa's mechanical eyes.

That was no poetic description. His mechanical eyes were actually emitting light.

His blue gaze settled on Ash.

"I've got a rough idea of what you can do. Let's have a proper fight, Mr. Techno Swordsman."

His voice had become subtly flatter. The sly humor he had displayed until now vanished, replaced entirely by the cold ruthlessness characteristic of a Pathfinder.

Ash knew instinctively.

The real fight began now.

Santa aimed the revolvers, now extensions of his own body.

BANG! BANG-BANG-BANG!

Gunfire rang out again.

And Ash was stunned.

The bullets that seemed to be flying straight at him suddenly changed direction in midair like living creatures, striking toward his flank.

Nor was that all.

Among the shots that followed in rapid succession, one struck the ground and ricocheted at an uncanny angle, while others traced unpredictable arcs from the moment they left the barrels.

The attacks occupied every direction, converging at once.

It was an omnidirectional assault, a feat he would never have dreamed possible with direct-fire weapons.

Ash threw himself aside faster than his sensors could deliver their warnings. Like a reed in the wind, his body narrowly slipped through the hail of bullets.

Even so, several came from angles he simply could not evade.

Without internal energy, Dragon-Form Steps could reproduce only its outward form. This was only to be expected.

Had he attained a deeper understanding of the Neuro Internal Art, he might well have avoided them. But he had not, and there was no way to dodge.

'Then I shall knock them aside!'

Ignoring the screams of his artificial neural network, Ash raised his sword.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Sparks flew as bullets struck the old blade. Under their tremendous kinetic force, the joints of his mechanical arm let out rusty shrieks.

But rather than concern himself with such trifles, Ash drove his main core at full capacity to analyze the situation.

'Bullets that curve! Are they not comparable to the Tang family's throwing-blade techniques?'

Even as he dodged and deflected the shots rushing at him from every direction, he could not contain his astonishment.

Santa felt exactly the same.

'What the fuck? He's knocking bullets aside with a blade? Is that even possible?'

A trickle of cold sweat ran down his forehead.

Even after a lifetime of countless battles, he had never seen anything like this.

As each marveled at the other's skill, Ash was the first to change his approach.

A vague unease told him that at this rate, he would lose without ever managing to close in.

So he activated his new, still-incomplete power: the Neuro Internal Art.

Lightning energy began circulating fiercely through his artificial neural network. The remaining charge in his battery pack drained rapidly, while blue sparks began erupting all over his body.

With that lightning power surging through him, Ash found a fleeting opening in the endlessly shifting barrage.

KRRR-BOOM!

With a sound like thunder, he shot forward like lightning, drawing on the principles of Flying Dragon Shrinks the Earth.

"What!"

His speed far exceeded anything Santa had anticipated. As though space itself had contracted around Ash, the tip of his sword reached Santa's face in an instant.

Shocked, Santa tried to lean back, but it was already too late. Ash's sword had stopped just below his neck, at the boundary between cybernetic body and organic flesh.

Without the slightest deviation.

Had Ash applied even a little more force, Santa's head would have flown into the air.

A suffocating silence fell.

There was no ragged breathing—naturally enough, given that this had been a bout between a cyborg and a humanoid.

"Heh... heh-heh!"

Santa let out a low laugh.

"Seriously, what are you?"

Ash withdrew his sword.

"Precisely what I introduced myself as."

"Damn it. I really hate that answer."

Santa's face twisted as though he meant every word.

"See! I told you! My mister is super strong! Boo, Grandpa Santa's washed up! Booo!"

Akina came running from where she had been standing far away, spouting her infuriating taunts.

"Elder San."

"What?"

"Have I proven my worth?"

Santa sighed as he holstered his guns.

"Yeah. You're not just useful. You're really fucking useful. So much that I can hardly believe it even after seeing it with my own eyes."

"Then will you write the recommendation?"

"Yeah! Hurry up and give me my recommendation!"

Akina, who had reached them by now, spread both arms and joined in urging him.

Santa looked between the immature Technomancer and the one-armed humanoid for a moment, then shouted grouchily.

"Damn it all! I'll write it, I'll write it!"

For all his grumbling, there was something relieved about his expression.