49. KK's Smile

Hanako's voice was soft, yet like a stone dropped into stagnant water, it sent clear ripples through the silent conference room.

"Let him come arrest me himself—the usurper."

These words were both an action she took for the emotions of the past and the first choice made by her own consciousness after gaining freedom.

She chose reality. She chose her living brother over her father made of data. She wanted to personally bring this rebellion she had chosen to an end.

Yet that surrender became the spark that lit the final fuse.

"—Utterly absurd!!"

Arasaka Saburo's projection erupted in an unprecedented, distorted shriek.

His image flickered and trembled violently, pixels frantically tearing apart and reforming. His once-dignified face became grotesque and terrifying beneath his extreme fury and sense of betrayal. Not a trace of realism remained; there was only the primal madness of a digital collapse.

"Traitors! Worthless fools! My two incompetent descendants!!" His voice was no longer one of synthesized authority, but a piercing roar mixed with electrical static:

"I created all this! I built an immortal empire! I alone am the only path Arasaka can take, yet you—you dared join hands to defile its sanctity! You dared question my will!"

His image suddenly turned toward the side, where Akira sat in silence, seemingly trying to minimize his presence. Saburo's projection extended a finger, which kept stretching and warping from the distortion, pointing straight at Akira.

"Akira!!" Saburo's shriek pierced the entire hall. "Execute the final order! The Jade Fragment Protocol! Now! Immediately!!"

Digital Saburo's frenzied voice was as mad as when he had once intended to kill himself over his country's surrender during the war—if anything, this obsession far surpassed that of the past.

"Since you have forsaken Arasaka's honor, since you have chosen to embrace this filthy