The rain sliced through the city like broken glass, painting the neon signs in streaks of distorted color. Ash Takeda stood on the rooftop, his coat flapping in the wind, watching the glow of District Seven pulse below him like a wounded heart. The memories of the Circuit still haunted him—each fight, each betrayal. He hadn't returned just to survive. He came back to win.
Below, a voice crackled in his earpiece.
"Ash, we got movement near Sector Delta. Not normal Syndicate traffic."
It was Juno, his tech specialist and only real ally left since the Specter Incident. She hadn't left his side, even when the bounty on his head grew larger than most gang vaults combined.
Ash crouched, his augmented eye scanning the skyline. Sure enough, a cluster of black-shelled transport drones hovered near the abandoned exchange tower. Syndicate protocol, but older models—repurposed. Someone was hiding in the shadows again, just like years ago.
"They're not Syndicate," Ash replied. "Too sloppy. That's repurposed tech. Rogue circuit?"
"No signal logs in the archives," Juno replied. "Whoever they are, they're ghosting off-grid."
Ash grunted. "I'm going down."
He vaulted from the rooftop, landing clean on the rain-slick steel balcony of a tenement block three stories below. A roll absorbed the shock, and he darted across the fire escape toward the alley. His body moved like it remembered the old times—before the implants, before the betrayals. Before…
"Takeda."
The voice froze him in place. It was cold, precise, and unmistakably familiar.
From the shadows stepped a man in a charcoal trench coat, his face obscured by a jagged scar that pulsed with faint circuitry—Kael Dray, the man Ash had buried six years ago under the ruins of Cybervault District. His old teammate. His old enemy.
Ash drew his pulseblade. "You're supposed to be dead."
Kael smirked. "I was. But you know how the Circuit works. It doesn't let its champions die so easily."
In a blur, Kael lunged. Metal clashed against plasma as their blades met. Sparks erupted, lighting the alley in bursts of red and white. Ash countered high, kicked low, but Kael was faster now—augmented beyond recognition.
"You left me to burn, Ash!" Kael snarled, slamming his blade into Ash's shoulder. "You and your crusade. You betrayed us."
Ash gritted his teeth. Pain seared through the wound, but he didn't fall. "You chose the Syndicate. You chose power over honor."
Kael threw him back, sending him skidding across the wet concrete. He stalked forward. "You don't get it. The Circuit was never about honor. It was about survival. And I survived."
Just as Kael raised his blade for a final strike, a flashbang dropped between them—Juno. The explosion of light and sound disoriented Kael just long enough for Ash to strike back, slicing across his attacker's chest. Sparks flew from Kael's armor.
"Next time," Kael growled, retreating into the shadows, "I finish what I started."
Ash collapsed against the wall, blood mixing with the rain. Juno knelt beside him, stabilizing the wound with a portable injector.
"You okay?" she asked, her voice laced with worry.
"Yeah," he grunted. "But we've got a bigger problem. Kael's alive. And he's working with someone new."
Juno looked at the exit wound. "Your shoulder's bad. We need to get off the grid for now."
Ash nodded. "Take me to the Forge."
"The Forge?" she blinked. "That's deep territory. Off-limits for months."
"Not anymore," Ash said. "If Kael's back, I need to upgrade. I need the Old Fire."
Far across the city, Kael entered a dark chamber beneath Syndicate Tower. In front of him sat a throne of steel, shadowed in smoke and data-streams.
"You failed," a voice rumbled. Deep. Mechanical. Alien.
Kael dropped to one knee. "He's stronger than before. But not invincible."
The throne shifted. A figure leaned forward, cloaked in layers of synthetic flesh and ancient cybermetal—The Zero Warden, the true architect of the Vendetta Circuit.
"Then break him. Find the pieces. He cannot reach the Nexus Key."
Kael's eyes flared red. "He won't."
Back in the city's deepest district, Juno and Ash rode a silent hovercycle into the heart of the outlaw zone—The Forge. Broken buildings loomed like fossilized giants, home to rogue engineers and old war veterans. This was where forbidden tech was born. Where forgotten champions reforged their strength.
Ash stepped off the cycle, pain shooting through his arm. The wind carried whispers from hidden eyes.
A massive figure emerged from the mist—grizzled, scarred, with a mech-arm twice the size of a regular man's. Drex, Ash's old mentor.
"So," Drex rumbled, "the stray comes home."
Ash looked up at him, defiant. "I need the Forge. I need to burn again."
Drex cracked his knuckles. "Then step inside, boy. But know this—the fire you seek will either forge you anew... or burn you to ash."
End of Chapter 9