Cyberpunk: From Dogville to Legend

Chapter 238 Life is Like Wild Grass (Part Two)

"What are you looking at, you bastard!"

"Hey! What kind of attitude is that—"

The standard Kansai trilled 'r' sound is very similar to the black society tone most commonly found in Japanese culture. The vocabulary for insults in Japanese is not very rich; most of them are just loud, drawn-out shouts.

Suzuki stood before him, the scabbard of his katana clattering against flesh. The Tiger Claw Gang leader had long, flamboyant light blue hair reminiscent of a Saiyan from a manga, and his sword hilt was adorned with cheap, kitsch tassels made of colorful leather. His limbs were long and thin, and his neck was almost touching Suzuki's face as he stretched out his neck.

He stared intently at the man with those terrifying prosthetic eyes, which were surrounded by only a faint red glow, as the man pursed his lips and glanced sideways at the scabbard of his katana on his shoulder.

Shortly after the Tiger Claw Gang left, half of the bustling Japanese street vendor area was emptied.

"Cough..." The Tiger Claw Gang always had a pungent smell of the drug [Sparkling]. If there were two gangs in Night City with the least moral bottom line and whose members' mental state was mostly a mystery, it would only be the Tiger Claw Gang and the Vortex Gang.

"Where did this loser come from..."

At first, the Tiger Claw Gang's voice wasn't loud, but they started yelling again when they uttered the last few words, "Don't you have the guts to speak?!"

These people, influenced by Japanese black culture, never consider the consequences of their actions. Many companies like to hire them to carry out murders or settle disputes. "Mad dogs" is a fitting description for them. As long as they haven't locked onto their target, they will willingly jump into an abyss that could bury themselves and their enemies.

The underlying reason is very likely the so-called morbid ideology of sacrificing oneself for a moral principle that does not distinguish between right and wrong.

Of course, it could also be a simple overdose of the drug Pin or the abuse of cybernetic implants, just like the person in front of us.

At this moment, the world in his eyes was distorted like a funhouse mirror, and everyone in front of him was strangely distorted. He could only stretch his neck as much as possible to see Suzuki's face clearly.

Suzuki's eyelids twitched; he wasn't paying any attention to these lowlifes at all.

On the contrary, he was constantly sensing the actions of his superior behind him.

Just then, a soft thud was heard…

The chef, who had been so talkative just moments before, squinting as he introduced the food and chatted, was now kneeling on the ground. This sudden bad news left him speechless for a moment; his hands and lips trembled, and then a sob escaped his throat.

"Xiao Qi..."

He moved to his child's side, his knees lightly scraping the ground as he knelt.

Two hands moved over the child's body a few times, seemingly trying to find any wounds, but the child was so dirty that no injuries could be seen. Only Suzuki and Lin Yue knew what the child's limp neck meant: an extremely violent force had completely destroyed the child's fragile neck bones...

A soft laugh followed.

The Tiger Claw Gang member, who had gotten himself into a drunken stupor, seemed to have found a new source of amusement. He swayed unsteadily toward the chef and gently tapped his neck with his golden prosthetic arm. "I'm really sorry," he said, "I just gave this brat a light lesson with the back of the knife, and who knew it would break like that."

"Hey! Can it be fixed?"

The cook was holding the child in his arms, and sure enough, the dislocation of his head and neck made it seem unlikely that he could survive.

A sob, tinged with deep sorrow, came from behind Lin Yue. His fists, which were tucked into his pockets, clenched tightly. It turned out that the child's name was Xiao Qi, but he didn't know her surname.

The child lay limply on the man's lap. He used one hand to urge the dirty child not to lie on the cold ground, and with the other hand he covered the child's face, barely daring to cry out loudly.

"Say something?!"

The Tiger Claw Gang member shoved the cook hard with the handle of his knife, sending the man staggering to his back and onto the ground.

The helpless cries only aroused the bastard's violent and irritable emotions, who was still under the influence of the drug, so—

Wow!
The sound of the blade being drawn echoed all around.

The Japanese street's underclass people hiding in the shadows all shrank back slightly. It was obvious that bloodshed was about to break out again, and even the two men surrounded by the Tiger Claw Gang were about to face considerable trouble.

No one would mess with the Tiger Claws in Westbrook. If they set their sights on you, even if it's just on a whim, you'll be in trouble.

"You bastard!"

The chef's eyes were small, and the area around them was even redder and more swollen from crying. His dry hair was disheveled under his headscarf. Even with a gleaming blade waving in front of him, he still roared and rushed forward to grab the man's collar.

"Xiaoqi said she wants to join you guys when she grows up and do great things—we've already paid protection money and all sorts of other fees for our business! Why?!"

The Tiger Claw Gang was jolted awake by this sudden pounce.

That damn pervert! While being torn apart and questioned by the innocent child's parents, this guy actually made a satisfied "hmm" sound, as if to say, "Suddenly got some guts?"

"Answer me, why?!"

The cook grabbed the guy by the collar, his small eyes filled with anger and pain, and kept shaking the indifferent-looking guy in front of him.

The more the other party acted this way, the angrier the chef, who was also the child's father, became...

He shoved the guy in front of him, pushing him several meters away while constantly questioning him, just wanting an explanation.

Throughout the entire process, Lin Yue's attention remained focused on the child.

He still remembered the hound and its mother who were secretly silenced because of Hansen's business, their lives fading away in Night City—or rather, in this world—at an unimaginable speed; he was just a little bewildered, because no matter how many enemies he killed, he would never truly consider letting such young and vibrant lives wither away.

Night City is like a barren land, because in such a broken world, almost no one is willing to continue new life. These young lives, which come with love or due to various accidents, are like weeds, growing up in a less than ideal environment.

But if you have to exert all your strength just to grow, where will you get a thick stem to withstand the storms?

Suzuki rarely saw this side of Rin.

It was more like a living, breathing human being than a powerful, cold-blooded fighting machine.

Suzuki had no idea what Rin was thinking, from his patience with the child earlier to his hesitation in dealing with the Tiger Claw Gang who had provoked him... He only knew that Rin had been happy all the time before finishing his meal.

He didn't let Suzuki do it just now because he was afraid that the poor child's body would be damaged again.

Lin Yue's ingrained memories from his past life told him that the child needed to have a complete corpse. After the child's father pushed away the Tiger Claw Gang, Lin Yue squatted down, just like when he was talking to the child earlier.

He reached out his dark prosthetic hand and gently closed the child's half-open eyes, then lightly pinched his still slightly chubby cheeks.

This corporate dog, who can wield a knife and slaughter a large group of enemies in seconds, wanted to do something for a life he had just met.

Suzuki's fists opened and closed. In a way, because of the premise of their conversation at Arasaka Tower, he knew clearly that Rin and he were the same kind of people. They knew where the problems of this world lay, but could only fight desperately for their immediate survival.

But when things are presented in a bloody and gruesome way, the flames of anger in one's heart burn even brighter.

"Fuck you!"

not far away.

The guy from Tiger Claw Gang, who had been drinking too much, was shaken for a while and almost vomited up the horse urine and inferior food he had drunk. After sobering up a bit, he kicked the chef in the chubby belly caused by overwork.

The leg lift was clearly the operating logic of the prosthetic body, with a slight mechanical stiffness, yet it was incredibly fast.

The chef immediately fell to the ground and slid several meters.

"Want to know how that bastard died?" Tiger Claw Gang, carrying knives, said, "There's a nice car parked outside by some idiot. He came here without even saying hello, so of course we have to deal with him."

boom!
The Tiger Claw Gang's blade struck the ground with a buzzing sound, the pale silver-gray metal surface of the blade reflecting the Tiger Claw Gang's cruel smiles. "And guess what that bastard said? He said he was watching that car and asked us to give this smooth-talking little guy a favor—" "Looks like the cook's son is quite bold."

It's not that saying this is a big deal, but the main problem is that it was overheard by a dangerous guy who was still immersed in grief.

The Tiger Claw Gang was oblivious to their surroundings. The other members were smoking and seemingly chatting about other things. They didn't even need to look; that fat chef was doomed!

They would discuss what to eat that night, where to go for fun, and which businesses and clubs hadn't collected their fees yet, but they showed no intention of taking responsibility for a child's death.

"I heard... this child was dumped at your doorstep by some unknown slut from Twisty Street?"

"Let's check, what if it's my child?"

A burst of laughter followed.

One of the short-haired members of the Tiger Claw Gang, arms crossed, joked, "Yoshikawa-kun, can't a chef go out and have fun? That's really underestimating people."

Like plucking the wings of a grasshopper and toying with it, the game became boring. The guy named Yoshikawa raised his knife. "You always pay the least. The little money we spend on food can't cover your bill. Go meet your adopted bastard... We need to check on the next business."

"Hurry up, Yoshikawa!"

Some people were impatiently urging them on.

Even as the blade fell, the father who had lost his child was still crying out in protest.

In such a bustling area, not a single NCPD officer was present.

Deng!
The blade's slashing motion went awry, abruptly stopping halfway through, freezing the ferocious expression on Yoshikawa's face.

A rusty steel pipe blocked the blade. Yoshikawa turned his head and saw a muscular man staring coldly at him, the scar at the corner of his eye making him look like a battle-hardened wolf.

"I--"

Before Yoshikawa could even utter his curse, he saw Suzuki's waist twist slightly backward.

These guys who only worship sharp blades, motorcycles, and prosthetic bodies with superior appearances don't understand Hokkaido's fighting style. It's a prelude to delivering a brutal kick that could cripple the opponent.

call!
There was only a dark shadow; nothing else could be seen.

The Tiger Claw Gang members arched their backs slightly, and time seemed to slow down for a moment.

Bang!
Yoshikawa stretched his neck like a choked rooster, his body like a cannonball accelerating instantly, even the air seemed to distort.

"屮!"

Completely unprepared for this turn of events, everyone stared blankly as a living, breathing gang member, heavily equipped with a prosthetic body, hurtled through the air like a rag doll, crashing into a nearby pile of garbage swarming with eagles, before slamming into a makeshift shack with a loud clattering sound…

Because of inertia, the blade, which was suspended in mid-air, was caught steadily by Suzuki, like a tall pine tree, lying between the two groups of people.

Suzuki's movements were clean and efficient, leaving one of the Tiger Claw Gang members stunned, the cigarette butt in his mouth falling to the ground because his mouth was wide open.

At this moment, the young man behind Suzuki slowly stood up.

He slightly raised his hand and snapped his fingers lightly—

scoff!

All the surrounding network devices seemed to have lost their ability to control the voltage, and orange-yellow sparks burst out one after another, exploding along the alley. From time to time, streaks of blood-red light would wander across the smoking devices, as if venomous snakes were clinging to them.

The chef, who had narrowly escaped death, did not run away immediately. Instead, he scrambled to Xiao Qi's side, pushed Lin Yue aside, and tightly hugged his already cold child.

The father was wary of everything and just kept crying out.

Lin Yue looked down at the chef's dry hair and the child's dirty hands, and said softly, "Suzuki, leave no one alive, bring that guy over here."

Suzuki tilted his head slightly. "Yes."

The Tiger Claw Gang finally realized that these two guys who hadn't made a move for half a day were tough guys who were going to cause trouble!
They were yelling and shouting, some drawing their guns, others their knives, and in an instant, Suzuki found himself in a situation where he was fighting against many.

Among the best soldiers in the Arasaka training system, Suzuki was a genuine Arasaka samurai with a military rank, possessing standard supervisor-level combat strength. He could even fight Sasha of the Black Wall, let alone these second-rate guys.

Blade and the man charged into the crowd together.

Suzuki's attacks are characterized by skill; he only manages to inflict damage within the fatal range, never leaving too many openings. Every time he turns around, the hem of his robe and the stray strands of hair on his head flutter in the wind, the blade will slit his throat.

The Tiger Claw gang members, firing their guns, retreated as they fought. Suzuki, with his immense strength, pulled a man over and used him as a shield. After the bullet pierced the body, the corpse was instantly thrown to the side, along with Suzuki, who was holding a knife in a reverse grip.

Lin Yue reached out and pulled over a plastic chair with a bullet hole in its back, slowly sat down on it, and patiently waited for Suzuki.

Just a few minutes...

Suzuki sliced ​​open the throat, which was oozing hot liquid and breath, and the corpse spun around. With a sudden flick of his wrist, he splattered blood and then pointed the knife at the last enemy.

His head was tilted slightly, as if he were trying to find the best way for the other person to die.

When that bastard named Yoshikawa spoke rudely, he seemed to have picked up on the conversation. Lord Suzuki Sairin will definitely make sure he doesn't die a quick death.

Upon seeing that look, the short-haired guy opposite him almost lost his balance, his legs slightly buckling inwards.

Is this even human?!

Suzuki wouldn't give him a chance to beg for mercy or speak; his temper was no less fiery than Rin's...

A chorus of groans and cries of pain rang out alongside Suzuki's breathing, along with the sound of a blade piercing flesh—a mournful wail...

When Suzuki dragged Yoshikawa over, all four of Yoshikawa's limbs were broken, but Suzuki injected him with an adrenaline-fueled injection. Yoshikawa spun around on the ground like a top, howling and waiting for his life to end.

Lin Yue hunched over and looked at Yoshikawa lying on the ground. He searched the guy's body a few times and found the atomizer that had been modified into an electronic cigarette but was actually a shiny one.

He weighed the object in his hand, then reached out and beckoned it.

"Wake him up, and give me a knife while you're at it. I need to see him repent."

"By the way, when did he die? Then we can go to Twist Street to find Mrs. Westbrook and see what's going on with the Tiger Claw Gang."

Suzuki drew a short sword from his waist that could be used with a samurai sword, then stepped on the guy's stomach, offering a helpful tip: "Lord Rin, his limbs are all prosthetics, so I suggest you start with his body."

Lin Yue gently tossed the knife in his hand up and reached out to pull Yoshikawa, who was lying on the ground, his eyes filled with terror and the effects of the drug had worn off, up.

This was the first time Suzuki had heard Rin-sama speak Japanese.

I guess I wanted to make sure this bastard could hear me clearly?

“This kid is someone I hired temporarily, and—that car outside is mine, you bastard.”

……

……

(End of this chapter)