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Chapter 201 c
🕑 Added 2025-05-02 15:01:06 +0000 UTCChapter 201 c
V crossed her arms over her chest. "Forgive me for being blunt, Takemura, but you've already been kicked out of Arasaka, do you still have money? Wasn't your account deleted?"
"I... I can owe you first, when I return to Arasaka... I will pay you back with interest..."
"Yorinobu Arasaka already sent people to kill you, how do you plan to go back?"
Takemura Goro could not answer, he simply glared fiercely at V.
"Alright, V, don’t bully him too much," Leo said, smiling as he waved his hand.
Takemura gave Leo a long look, then leaned forward slightly. "I have some questions I would like to ask."
Leo raised an eyebrow. "You can ask, but I can't promise to answer everything."
Takemura nodded slightly, his expression serious. "First, where is Evelyn Parker?"
The three of them exchanged glances.
"Evelyn? Why does everything always come back to her?"
This job had originally been passed to Dexter by Evelyn, and then Dexter handed it off to Leo’s team. Although a series of twists followed, they had managed to successfully extract the relic from Konpeki Plaza.
But after the mission, Evelyn had disappeared without a trace.
Each of them had tried to contact her separately, but even her number had been wiped clean. They were left completely in the dark.
Now, even Takemura was asking about her.
Seeing their confusion, Takemura explained,
"She was very close to Yorinobu Arasaka... you could say, quite intimate. She knows how to get close to him."
In reality, it was nothing but a pure business relationship, all skill without any feeling, but Takemura phrased it very tactfully.
The three exchanged another look, and finally Jackie said,
"We're looking for her too, for certain reasons."
"It's the relic, isn't it? She hired you to steal it, right?"
Takemura, as if seeing through their attempt at evasion, directly exposed it.
Leo frowned slightly. "How do you know?"
Takemura's expression remained unchanged, and he explained in an orderly fashion, "First, although the surveillance system at Konpeki Plaza failed to capture your images, the anti-detection jammers you deployed did not completely shield the cryo case containing the relic. From the security logs, it was clear the cryo case's signal was momentarily exposed, which indicated it had been tampered with."
He continued, "Second, the timing of the incident. Immediately after the blackout and your departure, Yorinobu returned to the penthouse and erupted into uncontrollable rage. Yet no alarms were triggered, no full lockdown was initiated, and no massive casualties occurred among the security detail. If it had been an attack against Yorinobu himself, or a larger assault, the alarms would have been activated and security forces would have responded en masse. The fact that none of this happened clearly points to something else—a specific item was taken, not a general attack launched."
"And third," Takemura's tone deepened slightly, "the only item in the penthouse worth such a risk, which could make Yorinobu react with that kind of fury, was the relic."
Leo remained silent, acknowledging inwardly that someone capable of becoming Arasaka Saburo's close aide was not simple. From limited clues, Takemura had logically deduced nearly the entire truth.
Terrifying.
Since Takemura had already guessed most of it, there was no point in hiding it any longer.
"Yeah, the chip was supposed to be handed over to Evelyn so she could sell it, but we lost contact with her afterward."
"So it’s just as I thought, she has likely... fled far away."
V asked doubtfully, "Why do you think she's no longer in the city?"
"I tried to find her, but I couldn't. I suspect she deliberately concealed her whereabouts."
"Then your question is answered," Jackie said coldly with a snort.
Takemura continued,
"I just said that Parker hired you to steal the chip, and you didn’t deny it. Now let me ask, do you think she was working for another company? Another corporation targeting Arasaka and using her as an intermediary to steal the relic?"
Leo shook his head.
"No, I don’t think she was working for a corporation."
Takemura made a sound of understanding. "And why are you so sure?"
"Because she doesn't have that corpo dog smell about her. You know what I mean."
Takemura looked unhappy. "Are you implying that I smell like that?"
"When we first met, yes. Now... not so much anymore," Leo said with a teasing smile.
Takemura frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"
Leo grinned,
"Your questions are piling up."
"That's because you have a lot of interesting answers."
"Well then now it’s your turn to say something interesting."
Takemura knew he was not interrogating the three before him,
they were equals, not his subordinates. Even though he wanted them to spill everything, he understood that was impossible.
Without taking the initiative, their potential cooperation would break down before it even began.
"I want Yorinobu Arasaka to pay a heavy price for his crimes."
"Arasaka Saburo is already long dead, and you still want revenge?"
"You don’t understand, this is loyalty, this is the way of the samurai."
Leo sneered.
"When you were cleaning out Saburo’s enemies for him, was this how you justified it to yourself?"
Takemura pretended not to hear.
"I have allies, and we plan to bring Yorinobu to justice. All we lack now is evidence."
V glanced at Leo, then at Jackie. "But we can’t give you any evidence. When Saburo died, we were on our way down, we didn’t see it happen with our own eyes."
"That doesn't matter. All you have to do is claim that 'you were there and witnessed Yorinobu killing Saburo'."
V lowered her voice, emotions running high. "You want us to lie?"
Takemura emphasized,
"No, I want you to follow your heart."
Jackie waved his hand impatiently, like swatting at an annoying fly in the car. "Follow our heart to lie, huh? That’s the samurai’s way? What a joke. No wonder modern Japanese apologize with a bow instead of seppuku."
Takemura noted Jackie’s dismissive gestures and V’s undisguised contempt but said nothing and pressed on.
"Once Yorinobu falls, Arasaka will reward you handsomely, with sincere gratitude and a fortune in eurodollars—enough for a lifetime of luxury. If you want, you could even join Arasaka, like me, earning a position of respect and power."
Jackie laughed out loud. "A 'position of respect and power,' huh? You mean like being hunted down by Arasaka ninjas like rats?"
Among the three, Jackie was the least polite to Takemura.
He had no love for corporate suits, much less ones who had tried to arrest them before. Jackie didn’t have a goldfish’s memory.
"You..."
Takemura’s glare turned fierce, but realizing he still needed something from them, he could only grunt and look away.
Finally, Leo summarized on behalf of the group.
"We can’t agree to your request. Money’s nice, but we have our own principles."
Takemura still wanted to argue but, seeing Leo’s expression, he changed his tune.
"Fine, if that’s your decision... but we can talk again later, in case you change your mind."
"And one more thing—the relic you took, I need you to hand it over."
"Need? Takemura, what leverage do you have to make demands? Right now, you’re barely capable of mugging a few street punks, and that’s only if you catch them off guard."
Takemura’s eyelid twitched. He silently glanced at V and Jackie, who never once let go of their guns, and then at Leo, still clad in his exoskeleton armor.
His voice softened.
"Listen, I'm not threatening you, but you don’t understand.
Even if you keep that relic, it’s useless to you. I don’t care what Parker promised you, things have changed. That woman has already fled."
"I checked Parker’s files. They’re not fake. She was a sex worker, at most a spy working for someone else. That’s as high as people like her can climb."
"Keeping the relic will only make Yorinobu keep targeting you.
It’s a ticking time bomb— you never know when it’ll go 'boom.' Understand?"
V narrowed her eyes, staring at Takemura.
"If that biochip is a ticking bomb, why don't we just throw it in the river instead of handing it to you? Aren’t you afraid of getting blown to pieces yourself?"
Takemura said nothing. It was clear he was racking his brains for a response.
Seeing his constipated expression, the three exchanged a glance and decided to stop teasing him.
Finally, Leo spoke up.
"Actually, the cryo case holding the relic got wrecked when we escaped from Konpeki Plaza. Later, we saw the containment integrity drop to zero, so we just threw it away."
"Don’t lie to me! Do I look like an idiot?!"
"You don’t believe me? Fine, I’ll take you there right now, see for yourself."
Half an hour later, the Delamain cab brought them back to where Leo had dumped the cryo case.
At the time they threw it out, the area had been deserted.
