I am Katashi Blade

Damn it's cold. Of course, it would be, at night, in the dead of winter, two-hundred stories in the air, wearing nothing but a skintight black jumpsuit. It didn't take an IQ of 180 and psychic powers to predict the chill. Incidentally, Acid had both the IQ and the powers, and he was still whining to himself about the brisk weather.

The things I sacrifice for my job.

Acid hooked his heels around a steel bar and straightened his body. He was suspended, upside down, over an enormous slowly turning gear, through the spokes of which he could see the brightly lit streets of Geneva Prime, and in particular, the opulent entrance to the most illustrious hotel in the Yutaka District. Psi-goggles, their hot-pink lenses activated by his own psychic energy from feeds at his temples, augmented his vision, allowing him to scan the environment for potential disturbances.

It was Acid's inexpert opinion that, for all the beauty of the geographical surroundings, Geneva Prime had really done the best job it could to uglify things. The architecture of the city subscribed to the Brute Metallurgism of the century past. Everywhere massive metal braces, columns, and buttresses upheld looming structures that challenged the mountains with their apparent indifference, belied only by their aggressive foundations gripping the earth like a jealous claw. Some impurity in the local metal, or the air, or something made everything in Geneva Prime a dull ash color, so even though the streets were brightly lit, the light seemed to go nowhere. Shadow is plentiful in Geneva Prime.

That suited Acid just fine, who didn't plan on making his visit to Geneva Prime into a tropical vacation. No, Acid was here strictly on business. Goshi Mining Corp hadn't been making itself any friends lately, and though the extent of the political ramifications were not Acid's to know, there were more than a few members of the Yogensha League that felt Goshi needed to be humbled. Normally, this sort of business would be handled by challenging the city's gladiator school to a duel. The only problem being that Geneva Prime was home to Washi San Academy, the finest piloting and gladiator school around. So, Acid's clients had chosen a quieter method.

Shiver. That wind really bites.

Riding along the myriad converging and diverging tracks that lace many Cheldrun city streets, a railcar, black-bodied, with luxurious curves and round white headlights, came into view. It shifted seamlessly over to the tracks which brought it before the hotel and came to a halt. A skinny man in a mantled coat and gloves climbed out, and pulled the silver handle on the rear passenger door.

Acid braced the butt of his rifle against a shoulder and peered through the site, one finger loose on the trigger.

Through the grinding of the massive gear Acid couldn't hear his own movements, let alone the words exchanged between chauffeur and master two-hundred stories below. Between each spoke of the gear he got quick glimpses of what happened next, like watching a film played too slowly.

An arm reached out, clad in white, with a white glove. It took the chauffeur's proffered hand, and then a perfectly shined white patent leather shoe hit the pavement. A lanky body in a completely white suit followed. The man had gelled and spiked his white hair in every direction. Over his eyes he wore opaque white shades. At night.

Acid pulled the trigger.

There was no kick or jolt. No report and no muzzle flash. This was no ordinary rifle. Acid liked to think it was one of a kind, though he knew that there were similar ones out there, perhaps none identical. The bullet that whizzed out of that barrel was a bolt of pure psychic potential; hot pink it plummeted through the sky trailing rifled tendrils of energy. This bullet could read minds, and like a homing missile it would target and destroy only the mind which held the thought, "I am Katashi Blade."

The deadly little missile streaked through the air toward the man in white, who, at the last second looked upward and his lenses seemed momentarily clear. His eyes met Acid's who nearly let go of his grip on the pole, from shock. Those were amazing eyes. In them there was just the subtlest suggestion of a laugh, but not an ounce of humor. Like a person who steps on a wounded kitten, killing it, and then chortles merrily. There was no time for anything to be exchanged in that glance, but something was.

The bullet turned away narrowly missing the man in white, who was thinking, "I am Acid Narita."

Up in his perch, dumbfounded by what had just transpired, the assassin Acid Narita was thinking, "I am Katashi Blade."