Gearbound: Cyberpunk 2077
Chapter 244

Left with no choice, the Clemente family, unable to hold their position any longer, began a retreat. After abandoning more than half their dead, they escaped from Japantown.

While the Kiryu-gumi and the Clemente family were caught in a brutal gang brawl, neither side knew that just a short distance away, inside a nearby high-rise, several people were watching the entire scene unfold through massive floor-to-ceiling windows. They had witnessed everything from beginning to end.

Leo walked into the room and stretched out his arms. The Falchion armor detached itself from his body and transformed into a sleek silver suitcase, resting quietly on the floor.

"Good show?"

"That was fucking glorious," Jackie said, almost dancing with excitement. V and Lucy, being women, acted a bit more reserved, but from the looks on their faces, it was clear they were equally thrilled. Their gazes toward Leo now carried a hint of admiration and respect.

V couldn't help asking, "How the hell did you pull it off?"

"That? Not that hard, really. You could've done it too."

After learning from Rogue that the Clemente family and the Kiryu-gumi were set to meet at the Imperial Hotel, Leo began planning. His plan didn't require anyone else—he could handle it alone. Though the intel said the meeting would happen at 9 PM, Leo arrived two hours early. It wasn't that he didn't trust Rogue; it was simply that things often didn't go as expected, and arriving early reduced the chances of unforeseen variables.

He didn't walk straight into the Imperial Hotel. Instead, he hid in a location where he could observe the entrance. Sure enough, the Kiryu-gumi arrived early. The Clemente family, on the other hand, showed up right on time. After a round of friendly discussion at the entrance, the two sides entered together.

It was at that moment Leo activated the optical camouflage of his exosuit and slipped inside with them. Members of the Clemente family and the Kiryu-gumi each stood guard on either side of the hotel entrance, not fully blocking it. Leo didn't even need to do anything flashy like climb walls—he just strolled right in.

He followed Kiryu Zanma and the Clemente leaders all the way to the luxury suite. While one of Zanma's men scanned the suite for bugs, the others waited outside. When the scan was complete and everyone else stepped inside, Leo activated Time Zero, entering the room without touching a single soul.

By the time the effect of Time Zero ended, Leo was already quietly standing inside the luxury suite. And yet, from start to finish, neither Kiryu Zanma nor the Clemente members noticed that someone who shouldn't have been there was now in the room with them. Leo maintained his optical camouflage and stayed hidden throughout their discussion.

When Clemente finally conceded and agreed to pay compensation to Kiryu Zanma, and both sides reached consensus and prepared to leave, Leo revealed himself. He killed Kiryu Zanma and his three bodyguards.

Leo had the ability to wipe out everyone in the room—but he deliberately didn't. His goal was to make the Kiryu-gumi believe that Clemente had assassinated Zanma. That's why, after seizing Clemente, he neither harmed him nor left the room. He simply stood at the door in full Falchion armor, which could shrug off even rockets. So even if his body was exposed, he wasn't worried about one of Clemente's men pulling out a bazooka and blowing his head off.

He didn't speak to Clemente—there was no need. All he had to do was stand there and wait for someone to hear the gunfire and rush in. Whether it was Kiryu-gumi or Clemente's men didn't matter. Even if Clemente's crew opened the door first, Leo had ways to get them to turn on each other.

As it turned out, he didn't need the backup plan. When his helmet's built-in tactical HUD showed two Kiryu-gumi soldiers approaching, Leo calculated the timing and distance, then shoved Clemente aside. As expected, the moment Clemente was freed, one of his men impulsively opened fire on Leo.

Even though Leo's exosuit could withstand bullets, standing still wouldn't push the plan forward. He dodged the incoming rounds, which then struck and killed one of the Kiryu-gumi men who had come to check out the noise.

What followed fell into place naturally. No matter how hard Clemente tried to explain himself, the fact remained—they had killed a member of the Kiryu-gumi. Add to that the corpses of Kiryu Zanma and his three bodyguards lying dead in the suite, while Clemente and his people hadn't even lost a hair… What were they going to say?

That Kiryu Zanma wasn't killed by them, but by a mysterious armored figure? That the deaths at the door were just a misunderstanding?

Would anyone buy that?

Unless they had the script in advance, no one would believe such a ridiculous coincidence.

Someone might ask, "Wait, wouldn't there be surveillance in a luxury suite like that? Can't they just check the footage to see who really did it?"

But that's the thing—rooms like those were meant for private business between big shots. Of course, there was no surveillance installed. It's like how a CEO doesn't install a camera in his office to let the security team monitor his every move.

And so, just as Leo had planned, when the Kiryu-gumi's wakagashira returned to headquarters with the surviving members, they immediately declared war on the Clemente family.

Despite Clemente's repeated denials and efforts to communicate through various intermediaries—including a message passed to Wakako Okada in Westbrook, hoping to broker a ceasefire—the response from the Kiryu-gumi was three simple words:

"Tora Tora Tora!"

The same code the Japanese Navy had sent to headquarters after the surprise success at Pearl Harbor in WWII. The meaning was obvious: no peace, only war.

The entire Kiryu-gumi was now consumed by a fanatical desire for revenge. Even if someone within began to suspect something was off, no one dared voice it—not out of fear of being wrong, but out of fear of tenchū—heaven's punishment.

In their world, to question the clan's vengeance was to risk being seen as a traitor to divine justice itself. And that kind of doubt didn't earn a slap on the wrist—it earned a bullet.

Clemente's gestures of goodwill were all ignored. He was left with no options. Though he had never wanted to lead the family into a two-front war, it was now unavoidable. He could only try his best to prepare.

What happened at the Imperial Hotel in Japantown didn't go unnoticed. The Manuel, Juan, Gonzalez, Hernandez families, and Gustavo of the Valentinos all saw it as a rare opportunity. If things went well, they might even drive the Clemente family out of Heywood entirely.

Currently, the Clemente family occupied Vista del Rey—one of Heywood's three districts. Technically, Heywood had always been the domain of the Mexican-American community, and Vista del Rey should've belonged to the Valentinos. But a few years ago, a significant internal conflict broke out among the major Valentino families.

That civil war deepened the rift between them, further fracturing the Valentinos. It was during this period that the Clemente family made their move and took over the area.

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