Legendary Warrior Stealth : Steablon City Promise
The rain outside the Limitless Fortress never truly stopped; it just shifted from a dull drizzle to a heavy, synthetic downpour that rattled against the rusted iron grating of the lower levels.
Inside the dimly lit hall, the air smelled of ozone, old copper, and stale tobacco.
"I'm sure you received the warning from the Brain Trust," Masaki Kurusu said, his voice cutting through the hum of the auxiliary generators as he entered the room.
He stopped near the center of the chamber, his dark fantasy-inspired armor catching the faint, flickering green neon filtering in from the Shinjuku skyline in the distance. Gathered around a scarred wooden table were those who had survived the shift—the strange alignment of worlds that had dragged them all into the shadow of the Fortress.
Kyoji Kagami stood near the edge of the shadows, a pristine, unsettling smile on his face, adjusting his spectacles. Beside him, Tuxedo Mask—his traditional silk cape replaced by heavy, weather-beaten leather and a fractured, bone-like mask—leaned against a stone pillar, watching the rain. Across the room, Icky of the Kogarasumaru crew sat on a crate, idly spinning a rusted metal wheel from a pair of Air Grabs, while Akira, the King of Behemoth, loomed like a silent mountain of muscle and dark leather.
Masaki didn't look at them. His gaze was fixed on a man sitting quietly in the corner, nursing a glass of cheap whiskey.
"Regardless," Masaki continued, his tone hardening, "the fact remains that you were one of the ones who designed the Limitless Fortress."
He turned fully toward Paul, the grizzled owner of the Honky Tonk back in Shinjuku.
Paul stared down at his glass, the amber liquid reflecting the grim light of the room. He let out a low, tired laugh that sounded like grinding gears. "I remember it was real after all," he muttered, his voice thick with a decade of regrets. "Not just some childhood dream."
"Childhood?"
The voice came from the far side of the hall. Ban Mido stepped out from the deeper gloom, his blonde hair spiked and wild, his long duster coat torn at the hem. The usual arrogant smirk was entirely absent from his face, replaced by a hollow, burning intensity.
"I wandered the world looking for you all after the incident with the Brain Trust," Ban said, his grip tightening on the hilt of the dark sword slung over his shoulder. "And I even lost my memories."
He walked over to the table, slamming a heavy, dirt-caked hand onto the wood. "I spent years thinking I was chasing ghosts. Thinking the Fortress, the Trust, all of you... were just nightmares born from an overactive imagination. But the scar on my right hand didn't lie, even when my brain did."
Tuxedo Mask turned away from the window, the crimson crescent moon high above casting a bloody glow over his shoulder. "The memory loss wasn't an accident, Mido. The Brain Trust didn't just lock up the Fortress; they tried to delete the architects. They tried to delete us."
"They failed," Akira rumbled, his voice shaking the loose dust from the ceiling.
"For now," Masaki corrected, stepping into the center of the gathering. "But now that Paul has remembered, and Ban has found his way back, the Fortress is reacting. The neon lines in the lower city are turning green. The steel cable bridge is humming. They know we're here."
Ban looked up, a familiar, dangerous spark finally returning to his eyes behind his dark glasses. "Good. I've got a lot of lost time to make up for. Let them come."
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