The world hadn't ended when G.O.D. fell—
It just got meaner.
The cityscape of Saitama Prefecture was a ruin of steel and neon ghosts. Giant holograms flickered like dying memories—Mishima ads for luxury weapons, virtual idols, and loyalty-encoded employment now glitched across shattered towers. Once the beating heart of corporate dominance, the underworld now ruled these streets. Smog, silence, and fear settled in like a new monarchy.
A storm loomed in the sky. Acid rain pelted the bullet-riddled banners of collapsed conglomerates. And in the center of it all—like the eye of a brewing typhoon—stood a forgotten skyscraper: Mishima Tech Satellite Branch #09.
It had become the meeting point.
Not of kings.
But of survivors.
Inside the broken glass atrium, fires danced in steel drums. Former executives in torn suits, mercs with cybernetic limbs, exiled scientists, and displaced syndicate leaders circled around a rusted Mishima Company logo on the floor. Over a hundred of them—each waiting. Wondering.
They'd all heard the whispers:
The boy with green eyes. The one with the red lightning.
He was coming back.
A steel door groaned open.
Boots crunched glass.
Silence spread like a sickness.
Then came the voice—low, steady, but humming with restrained voltage.
> "Did you really think I'd stay gone?"
Gasps. Some reached for weapons. Others froze as if ghosts were walking.
Genji Maoshinara stepped out of shadow.
No longer the unsure heir hiding behind fists and fury. He wore a black longcoat stitched with crimson Phoenix sigils, sleeveless to expose the growing tattoos of his bloodline. His hair was tied in a loose knot, red strands falling over sharp eyes that glowed faintly green.
His right arm shimmered faintly—Vilerasa, now sealed but pulsing within.
Beside him walked Blaze—leaner, sharper than ever—with a crooked grin and a flamethrower guitar slung across his back.
> "Told you he wasn't dead," Blaze muttered.
"Genji..." someone whispered. "You're... alive."
He didn't answer immediately. He stepped forward, past assassins with blood on their boots, past engineers once loyal to Mishima's R&D, past syndicate thugs who used to spit when his name came up.
He stood at the broken Mishima logo.
Looked down.
Then raised his head.
> "This company… this empire… burned the world trying to own it."
"G.O.D. fell. The gods we feared are dead. But you all crawled into your holes, waiting for a new one."
"You waited for Kirika."
"You waited for Shin."
"You waited for someone to give you permission to live."
He took a breath. Lightning crackled faintly at his fingertips.
Phoenix heat coiled beneath his ribcage.
> "But I didn't crawl."
He looked each faction leader in the eye.
The Red Scar Syndicate. The Blacklight Coders. Former Helix Ops.
All of them. All broken pieces. All scattered fire.
> "I bled. I burned. I earned my survival."
His voice dropped. Intimate. Threatening.
> "And now, I'm giving you a choice."
He raised a single finger and pointed to the steel floor.
> "Follow me… and we rise. Together. Not as soldiers of a dead Mishima… but as architects of a new world."
"Or…"
He clenched his fist.
Crimson lightning crackled around him. The floor beneath hissed with heat.
> "You can stay buried with the old one."
No one moved.
Blaze glanced around. "Guess they need a little motivation."
He raised the flamethrower guitar.
> FWOOSH — A jet of flame roared over their heads.
The shadows on the walls danced like demons.
Screams echoed from a few faint-hearted mercs. Others reached again for weapons. But something stopped them.
Not just fear.
It was the look in Genji's eyes.
Not rage. Not arrogance.
Conviction.
Finally, a woman stepped forward—tattoos crawling down her neck, a neural implant blinking on her temple.
Rina Harada. Former tactical ops of Mishima's Ghost Division.
She bent one knee.
> "I lost everything when Kirika betrayed her own bloodlines," she said. "If you're building something new, Maoshinara—I'm in."
More followed.
The Blacklight lead bowed his head.
A group of ex-cybernetics engineers saluted with their wrists lit in old Mishima code.
Even the Red Scar Syndicate—led by the towering brute Tetsu—grunted and stepped forward.
One by one, the old shattered relics aligned themselves behind the fire.
Until only one figure remained at the back.
A silver-haired man in a white coat. Calm. Quiet.
Genji turned.
"Dr. Asukai," Genji said. "Didn't expect you."
The man stepped forward. "I was Kirika's chief of Project Yūgen. The AI brain division. Before she… repurposed our work."
Genji narrowed his eyes. "So why are you here?"
Asukai removed his gloves. His hands were pale, trembling.
> "Because I saw what she created with your mother's DNA."
"And I couldn't watch another legacy be twisted into a weapon."
Genji felt his chest tighten. For a moment, Naomi's memory flickered. Her final words. Her sacrifice.
He nodded.
"Then don't just watch," he said. "Help me build something worth her name."
Asukai nodded solemnly.
A loud clang echoed.
Tetsu stabbed a war hammer into the floor beside Genji.
> "What's our first move, boss?"
Genji looked around.
Flickering lights. Old data cores. Prototype weapons in crates.
A hundred pieces of an empire waiting for shape.
He saw the summit for what it was—not a meeting of rebels.
But a rebirth.
> "We reclaim the Ash Spire first," Genji said. "That's where Mishima's new satellite AI base is hidden. Juliet Carl is still in hiding there… and she has Kirika's codes."
"If we get her… we unlock the vault."
"Juliet Carl?" someone muttered. "That snake?"
"She wants Kirika's head more than anyone," Genji said. "We can work with that."
Blaze chuckled. "Can't wait to see that reunion."
"Then what?" Harada asked.
Genji looked to the horizon, where the sun tried to bleed through the smog.
> "Then we cut the head off the snake."
He raised his hand.
Lightning surged.
> "We turn the ruins of Mishima into a forge."
Everyone stood straighter.
> "And from that forge… we make fire that answers to no one."
A long silence followed.
The tension was no longer doubt.
It was anticipation.
And as the wind howled against the broken glass, Genji stepped atop the Mishima logo and crushed it under his boot.
> "I'm not running anymore."
The storm lit up the sky with red bolts.
> "Mishima is mine."
---
To be continued