Chapter 66 - The Calm Before the Storm

A week had passed since Team BLADEZ was formed.

In that time, the rest stop's backyard had been transformed into a proper training ground, and the team members devoted themselves to practice without missing a single day.

Zero and his siblings concentrated on their internal art and footwork, further enhancing the destructive power of the Thirteen Swords of the Cloud Dragon they already knew.

Interestingly, the killing intent clinging to their swords gradually faded as time went on. Their sword strikes, once steeped in a cloying bloodlust, now gave off an energy as clear and pure as the clouds in the sky. Ash was delighted to see it.

Akina, who ran around the training ground every day, had changed as well.

Her once-pale skin had acquired a slight tan in the sunlight, and the baby fat had melted from her plump cheeks, lending her a healthier appeal.

This brought her natural beauty into even sharper relief. If not for her somewhat tomboyish behavior, her refined air might have convinced anyone that she was the youngest daughter of a corporate owner's family.

But Akina was still Akina.

How could anyone separate her from that "somewhat tomboyish behavior"?

She raced around the training ground covered in dust, obscuring her increasingly radiant looks. The moment training ended, she dashed straight to the workshop and got grease all over her pale hands.

Outward beauty was only a shell.

At heart, she remained a cybernetic engineer and a Pathfinder, pressing tirelessly toward her goals.

Yet something was strange.

Anna, whose obsession with the sword surpassed everyone else's, was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Ash, who could be called their collective teacher.

The reason was quite simple.

The two were setting aside time of their own to research the Neuro Internal Art.

"Whew..."

Anna let out a long, deep breath.

She sat cross-legged in a modification pit specially prepared inside the rest stop. Numerous data cables were plugged into her body, each connected to a monitor displaying her cyberware synchronization rate and power status in real time.

Taking another deep breath, Anna closed her half-lidded eyes completely and murmured,

"I'm ready, Eldest Martial Brother."

"... Even you are calling me that now, my lady?"

"It just rolls off the tongue. I like it."

"Do you even know what it means?"

"No?"

"... Haah."

Eldest Martial Brother.

There was a story behind how Ash had come to be called that.

A week earlier, immediately after Team BLADEZ was formed, Zero and his siblings had begun calling Ash "Great Big Brother."

Horrified, Ash had waved his hands in protest.

["Not even Eldest Martial Brother, but Great Big Brother! What are we, a band of forest bandits? Stop calling me that at once!"]

["Uh, you don't like it?"]

["Do you even need to ask!"]

["Then would Eldest Martial Brother be all right? The title you just mentioned?"]

Not wanting to be a bandit, Ash had dismissed the matter, saying anything would do as long as it wasn't "Great Big Brother." From then on, he had become Eldest Martial Brother.

Zero and his siblings said it so often that Anna, who lived alongside them, had naturally taken to calling him that too.

And that was how Ash had somehow ended up with fellow martial siblings.

"Eldest Martial Brother isn't a title you use just because it rolls off the tongue... No, never mind. We can discuss that later. Let us focus on the Neuro Internal Art for now."

Setting the troublesome matter aside, Ash positioned himself behind Anna.

His steel hand reached out and touched the artificial neural network matrix running along her spine, at what could be called its starting point, where it connected to her battery pack.

"Do you remember what I told you before?"

"Yes. That internal energy and electricity are fundamentally different kinds of power, right?"

"Correct. Since you and I have mechanical bodies, accumulating internal energy would do us little good. As such, gathering energy through an internal art is meaningless as well. It means we cannot accumulate power through our will alone."

A faint trace of lightning energy emerged from Ash's hand and entered Anna's artificial neural network.

"We must use the electricity stored in our battery packs as though it were internal energy. Our first priority, therefore, is learning to manipulate the electricity within our bodies through will alone."

The lightning energy from his hand completed a circuit through the artificial neural network inside Anna's body. Its flow was far too orderly to be dismissed as a mere electrical signal.

"Can you feel the path?"

"Yes."

"That is the central channel of your neuro matrix. The main stream. First, try sending power through it manually, following the path I guide you along."

Following his instructions, Anna focused her entire mind on the battery pack attached to her back.

But it was not easy.

The automated systems built into her cyberware thwarted her will at every turn. The electricity she tried to force out merely scattered into unrelated circuits, as though mocking her efforts.

In truth, this was only natural.

Asking her to manually manipulate the electricity flowing through her body was, in a sense, like asking someone to control the blood flowing through their veins.

[WARNING!]

[SYSTEM OVERLOAD]

[ENERGY FLOW: UNSTABLE]

Red warning messages appeared across the monitors displaying her status in real time.

'The key is the signal. I have to send signals according to my will.'

Anna set aside the question of whether this was even possible and focused on Ash's lightning energy, which was still flowing through her artificial neural network.

What if she rode that signal instead?

Anna stopped trying to "draw out" the electricity. Instead, she focused all her awareness on the path Ash had created.

Like setting a small leaf afloat on a flowing river, she gently placed her will upon the endlessly circulating lightning energy.

It was a kind of enlightenment.

A tiny trickle of electricity from her battery pack began inching along the main stream under Ash's guidance.

[ENERGY FLOW: STABILIZING. . .]

[MANUAL CONTROL SYNC: 12%]

The flashing red warnings vanished.

In their place, the numerous monitors around her displayed a variety of system messages, as though something was happening.

It was an utterly unfamiliar experience.

Until now, the electricity flowing through her body had been something she could scarcely perceive, controlled by various processes and systems.

But not anymore.

Though the electrical signal was too weak to produce even a tiny spark, it had finally begun to obey her will.

"...!"

A brief shiver swept through her entire body.

To control her own body completely, exactly as she willed, was an experience that exhilarating.

She heard Ash chuckle softly.

"You've finally got the feel of it."

As Ash lifted his hand from her back, Anna slowly opened her eyes. Overwhelming emotion welled in her black eyes.

"... So this really is possible."

"This is only the beginning."

Ash gestured at the monitors mounted throughout the modification pit.

"When that power begins circulating ceaselessly through your body at a world-shaking speed, every monitor here will display a single, unified number under your will. You could say that is where the Neuro Internal Art truly begins."

At his words, Anna looked back and forth between her hands and the monitors.

The road ahead stretched immeasurably far, but for the first time, she felt she had reached its starting line. Her black eyes blazed with a fighting spirit unlike anything before.

"Once I get there, I'll be able to beat the ninjas too, won't I?"

"Haha. Who can say? They aren't standing still either, are they?"

"... I'll have to train even harder."

"Indeed you will."

"Thank you, Eldest Martial Brother."

"... Are you going to keep calling me that?"

Just then—

KNOCK. KNOCK.

Someone knocked on the workshop door.

Ash and Anna turned toward it at the same time.

A moment later, the door opened and Akina stepped inside.

"Mister!"

Ash could not have been happier to hear that "Mister." The mere fact that it was neither Great Big Brother nor Eldest Martial Brother made it wonderfully welcome.

"Miss Akina. What is it?"

Akina, who had been waving hello to Anna, turned at his question.

"Grandpa Santa's back."

"Master Santa?"

"Yes! He came back with a guest, and the guest wants to see you."

"A guest?"

Ash's optical sensors blinked a couple of times.

Something about the word "guest" struck him as out of the ordinary.

He soon nodded and rose to his feet.

"Where is Master Santa now?"

* * *

Santa's Rest Stop. First floor.

When Ash came downstairs, an eerie silence hung over the counter. The music that usually blared through the room was nowhere to be heard.

There was not even a smell of cigarettes.

Santa simply sat there, his face somewhat tense, jiggling one leg.

Spotting Ash coming down from the second floor, he slowly nodded.

"You're here."

"Master Santa. I hear you were looking for me."

Santa jerked his chin toward the space in front of the counter.

"Not me, precisely. This lady."

Following Santa's gesture, Ash turned to find a group of strangers standing there.

There were three in all.

The first to catch his eye were the two enormous men flanking the third figure. Dressed in black suits, they stood like walls, utterly motionless.

Neither seemed to be the "guest" Akina had mentioned or the "lady" Santa had indicated. Bodyguards, perhaps.

Naturally, Ash's gaze moved to the final figure standing between them.

It was a woman.

And her attire was utterly out of place in the rest stop.

Amid all the grease and dust, her presence felt profoundly incongruous.

She wore black from head to toe: a black dress that followed the curves of her body, black gloves, and even a black veil concealing her face.

She looked rather like a noblewoman attending a funeral.

Neither her appearance nor her elegance belonged in the rest stop's surroundings.

After watching her for a moment, Ash took a step forward. The woman slowly turned her head toward him.

From behind her veil, her gaze examined him from top to bottom.

A moment later, a clear voice like birdsong rang through the rest stop.

"Ash Blade?"

"That is me. But I have never seen a woman like you before."

"No, you wouldn't have. This is our first meeting."

The woman took a step toward Ash in turn.

Then she slowly lifted the veil covering her face.

"... Oh."

At the sight of her unveiled face, a small exclamation of admiration escaped Ash before he knew it.

Her doll-like beauty seemed not of this world.

Here, "doll-like" meant something both good and bad.

In the good sense, she was incomparably beautiful.

Pure white hair. Eyelashes as white as snow. Even her lips were utterly bloodless.

Her perfectly symmetrical face seemed sculpted by a master artisan, a work of art in its own right.

But in the bad sense, not a trace of the vitality unique to a living human could be felt anywhere in that perfect face.

It held neither joy, nor sorrow, nor anger.

Even her eyes, so lacking in melanin that they appeared red rather than brown, were chilling at first glance.

The doll lifted the corners of her lips and extended a hand.

"A pleasure to meet you, Ash Blade. My name is Findriel. I've come here on behalf of Foundation Systems."

Ash's optical sensors brightened at her words.

He looked from her to Santa and back, then extended his steel hand.

"A pleasure. I am Ash Blade, Team BLADEZ's main Assault."

"I've been most eager to meet you."

"In a sense, the feeling is mutual."

Their outstretched hands clasped.

Above them, their gazes met and shifted, each studying the other.