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Over the next few days, representatives from Prime Manga made several more attempts to persuade Haruto, but their efforts were in vain.
Realizing they couldn't move him, the editors temporarily tabled the discussion. Initial D still had a fair number of chapters left before the planned conclusion, and they held onto a desperate hope that Haruto might have an epiphany and change his mind before the final ink dried.
Soon, another weekend arrived. While Sword Art Online and Initial D were locked in a fierce battle for the top spot in the tankobon market, the animation world saw Cyberpunk: Edgerunners establish absolute dominance over the seasonal rankings.
Haruto had also spent the past week attending two major fan meetings in the city.
While he couldn't breathe a word about the final two episodes, he made his personal stance very clear. In his eyes, this work was the equal of Madoka Magica.
This bold endorsement, combined with the fact that episode eight had shattered the 5% ratings barrier made the anticipation for episode nine larger.
Tokyo TV1 had been running teaser ads all day, ratcheting up the suspense to a breaking point.
By 7:00 PM, the live ratings for the station began to climb. By 7:40 PM, while a mundane weather report was still airing, the numbers had already reached 4.2%.
This was a rare phenomenon.
In Japan, top-tier animation is equal to that of live-action blockbusters. And Edgerunners was outclassing the ratings of primetime dramas on rival networks. It was no wonder the station was pouring so many resources into its promotion.
As 8:00 PM struck, Episode 9 officially began.
Nami sat on her sofa.
The premiere rating for the episode hit 5.14%, a staggering figure that sent a jolt through the industry.
The plot was relentless from the first second.
The previous episode had ended with Lucy being successfully ambushed and captured by the crew's fixer, Faraday, with the betrayal of their own netrunner, Kiwi. David, still oblivious to the treachery, had accepted a high-stakes contract from Faraday. He was currently outside the city, preparing to hijack an Arasaka armored convoy transporting a top-secret weapon.
The weapon was the Cyberskeleton.
It was a massive, experimental exoskeleton designed to be integrated directly into a human nervous system.
While David prepped for the heist, the scene shifted to Faraday and Kiwi, revealing the conspiracy. Ever since David proved he could handle the Sandevistan with freakish efficiency, he had been a marked man.
The entire plan was to force David into a corner where he would be "volunteered" as the test pilot for the Cyberskeleton.
Powerful hardware was easy for a megacorp like Arasaka to build. The bottleneck was finding a "high-spec" human who could pilot the machine without their brain liquifying instantly. If ordinary cyberware turned veterans into psychos, the Cyberskeleton was a death sentence for anyone but a freak of nature. In terms of "Cyberpunk talent," David was the highest-spec human the city had seen in years.
The episode also finally clarified Lucy's erratic behavior. She had been hunting down netrunners not out of malice, but to erase any data regarding David's compatibility with Arasaka's project.
She was trying to turn him into a ghost so the corporation would leave him alone. But with her capture, the secret was out. Arasaka's netrunners were already diving into her mind to extract everything they needed to ensnare David.
Faraday's heist was the final trap. He wanted David to put on the suit.
Nami finally understood the weight Lucy had been carrying alone. She hadn't told David the truth because she knew his character; if he knew she was in danger because of him, he would have charged into Arasaka Tower the next morning.
But as Nami reflected on the romance, the screen exploded into the most impressive action sequence the series had produced to date. High-speed chases through the badlands, firefights, and massive explosions were interspersed with David's internal struggle.
Everyone knew hijacking Arasaka was suicide.
Why was David leading his crew into a meat grinder?
The audience remembered the ripperdoc's warning from the previous week.
David was on a countdown. He had days, maybe hours, of sanity left. Was he doing this for the money?
A flashback revealed the truth. David was slumped on the floor, his body wracked with tremors. Rebecca rushed to his side, her eyes wide with terror. His belt was lined with empty immunosuppressant canisters. His nervous system was so eroded he couldn't even stand.
"Can you... help me into my mom's jacket?" David whispered, his voice a ghost of its former self.
The yellow jacket. His mother's dream.
"We're calling this off, David. Let's just go," Rebecca pleaded, trying to pull him away from the gear.
"Rebecca... I have no one else I can trust with this," David said, his face a mask of agony.
He wasn't doing it for the "legend" or the fame.
He was doing it for Lucy. He wanted to leave her enough money to finally reach the moon, even if he had to spend his final sparks of sanity to earn it. He let Rebecca inject him with a massive, dangerous dose of suppressants just so he could stand up one last time. Back in the present, after five minutes of combat, David successfully forced the Arasaka convoy to a halt, though he was already wounded.
Meanwhile, Faraday contacted the Arasaka board, offering to sell them Lucy, the "stray" child netrunner they had been hunting for years, for a premium price.
Then, the situation turned from desperate to catastrophic. Hundreds of armored units from Arasaka's primary rival, Militech, appeared on the horizon.
They were there to seize the Cyberskeleton for themselves. Trapped between a army and a literal desert, David's crew was forced to retreat inside the convoy's hold.
They stood before the Cyberskeleton, a horrific, towering mass of experimental chrome. Suddenly, David's comms crackled to life. It was Lucy's voice, urging him to put on the suit to fight off the Militech army. Though David sensed something was wrong, he was out of options.
"Are you insane?! I told you not to put that on!" Rebecca screamed, trying to block his path. She knew he was on the edge. If he merged with the Cyberskeleton, he was never coming back.
Nami felt her vision blur with tears.
In a city without saints, David had two people who truly loved him. Lucy was fighting for him in the shadows, and Rebecca was currently standing in a war zone, willing to die just to keep him from losing his soul.
She just wanted David to stay human. Then the final betrayal was revealed. Kiwi's true colors were exposed as she confirmed she had been the one leaking their location. And the "Lucy" on the comms was an AI simulation programmed by Faraday to trick David into becoming Arasaka's test subject.
The real Lucy was bound and gagged, being trampled under Faraday's boot. He opened a video link to David, arrogantly mocking him, revealing the betrayal and his plan to sell Lucy to the highest bidder.
Nami was shaking with rage.
David, already in the process of integrating with the Cyberskeleton, watched the video feed.
As he saw Lucy, the final anchors of his sanity began to snap. He teetered on the brink of total Cyberpsychosis.
At the critical moment, Rebecca slammed a final, massive needle of immunosuppressants into his neck.
He snapped back. His eyes turned from a crazed red to a focused, lethal gold.
"I'm going to save Lucy," David growled, the machine around him beginning to hum with a terrifying power. "And I'm going to tear Faraday into pieces."
David, now fully merged with the Cyberskeleton, became a god of destruction.
On the verge of mental collapse, he manipulated the experimental suit's gravity-well weapons to absolutely dismantle the hundreds of Militech tanks and aircraft. He was a force of nature.
But the power came at a cost. Every shot, every surge, was a nail in the coffin of his mind.
After the slaughter, David stood before Rebecca, the desert behind him a graveyard of steel.
"I'm going back to the city. I'm getting Lucy back. And Faraday is paying for everything."
His silhouette against the setting sun was iconic, yet heartbreaking.
Nami's heart was hammering against her ribs. The episode was a masterclass in emotional stakes and visuals.
As David declared war on the entire city to save the woman he loved, the audience felt a primal surge.
Are you going to be a hero for a day, or a coward for a lifetime?
David had made his choice. He was going to burn his life out to save his girl, and he didn't care if the whole world turned to ash in the process.
He was a legend of Night City.
Nami felt a fire in her soul, an adrenaline high she hadn't felt in years.
Then, the ending theme began to play, and her face went stiff.
'One week. I have to wait a whole week for the end?'
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