The anti-slip studs on the soles of my boots scrape against the cold, glowing nanocement floor 🌬️, while I sidestep the high-energy electric shock rounds fired by the corporate pursuers ⚡, causing blue smoke to sizzle from the exoskeleton interface on my back armor 💨. The bright orange glow in the palm of my hand feels warm, as if it had just been pulled straight from a 3D printer, and the hidden etched patterns along the blade’s spine tremble in sync with my heartbeat 🔮. This “scrap part” was salvaged from the junk heap at the base of New Tokyo’s floating city; no mercenary guild would deign to take this unfinished training prototype 👀, claiming it couldn’t even penetrate the lowest-grade nano-bulletproof armor ❌. Yet only I know that within the hollow triangular cavity of the blade lies the fragment of my sister’s neural consciousness—stolen by the corporation 🧬—secretly embedded there by the master craftsman who forged the blade years ago. Clenching my teeth, I press the tip of the blade into the seam of the lead pursuer’s armor, and an explosion of orange light erupts along the armor’s grain 💥. Surprisingly, the previously dull blade begins to slice through the reinforced layer, guided by the very consciousness it carries—turns out the consciousness backup chip the corporation has been hunting for three years was never locked away in some encrypted vault; it was right here, in this very orange-bladed weapon I’ve kept by my side all along 🌃. As the pursuer’s body collapses, I hear my sister’s voice echoing up the blade’s handle—soft as a neon breeze 🍃—but just as I reach to grasp it, it vanishes into the flickering lights and shadows of the advertising billboards…