EBO: Resume - Chapter 13

September 1st, 2024

Sparks flew. Swords clashed. In his hands, he held a sword with a serrated blade. His opponent was none other than the legendary Black Swordsman himself… Kirito. They were fighting in Laughing Coffin’s former base. He gripped his sword tighter as Kirito prepared another Sword Skill with Elucidator.

“You’re coming with me, Genm!” Kirito announced as he dashed forward with a Rage Spike, aiming to cut upwards at his opponent.

“Don’t count on it, Black Swordsman!” Satoshi replied as he maneuvered out of his attack, losing a slim sliver of HP as he prepared a Horizontal slash in retaliation. Before his attack could connect, everything faded to black.

March 3rd, 2026

“It’s been a year since then…” Satoshi mumbled as he woke up from his dream. He wiped the sweat from his face before getting out of bed and heading to the bathroom to brush his teeth and shower.

In the two months between his last appearance fighting Hunter and now, Satoshi had been toiling away, trying to figure out how Hunter got his hands on Level 0. He had been unsuccessful in doing so, so he gave up and began thinking of other methods of getting the upper hand. He concluded that outside help was his best bet, and that he needed to hire a mercenary to assist in his plans.

“Say, Nanaha,” Satoshi began as he left the bathroom and equipped his usual attire. “Do you know of anyone that we can hire to assist us?”

“Hm? What kind of support do you want?” Nanaha began looking through in-game advertisements for mercenaries and thieves.

“Someone preferably with a Level 20 unit, and someone stealthy.” Satoshi replied, sitting down at his desk.

“There’s tons of people claiming to be the best thief in this game, buuuuut…” Nanaha scrolled to the very bottom of the advertisements after filtering them based on Satoshi’s preference. “I have seen one of them in action.”

“How did you get to see a thief work?” Satoshi looked at her confused.

“Ah, don’t sweat the details! Point is, I know a guy!” Nanaha tapped on the last advertisement she saw. Unlike the other advertisements, which were bold, flashy, or otherwise fabulously-decorated, this one was plain and simple. It included a symbol, contact information, and a name: Kaito, the Phantom Thief of Vengeance. “There he is. I’ll talk to him, alright?”

“I’m coming along. We can’t afford to lead him here unless he really is as good as you say.” Satoshi began gathering his Units and his Driver.

“Sure thing,” Nanaha grabbed her equipment and called the Phantom Thief of Vengeance.

“Hello?” A deep, suave voice greeted Nanaha’s ears.

“Hi, this is the Phantom Thief of Vengeance, right?” She replied.

“Yes, this is Kaito. How may I help you?”

“I was wondering if I could arrange a face-to-face meeting with you. My boss wants to meet up with you concerning a contract.”

“I see… Any other parameters to concern with this meeting?”

“Um…” Nanaha turned to Satoshi, who was holding up a holographic list of requirements which she read off. “Somewhere on the private side, maybe over a cup of tea or coffee.”

“Understood. And your username, miss?”

“Sakushi,” Nanaha replied as Satoshi cracked his knuckles in the background.

“I’ll send you the information through private messaging once I’ve found the location. Do be punctual, dear.” With that, Kaito ended the call and began looking into coffee shops nearby that weren’t popular but had excellent ratings from their repeat customers. “Sakushi, huh? Sounds… familiar…”

= = =

Later that day, Nanaha received a message stating a location and a time, with an ornate “KT” for its signature. Forwarding the message to Satoshi, Nanaha quickly switched to her inventory and checked for confirmation that she had all her equipment ready. Satoshi walked out of his room with his usual outfit: a white shirt, black pants with white camo patterns, a white armored vest, a black glove on his right hand and a white glove on the left. He was adjusting his white hoodie before he put on a black leather jacket over said hoodie. They left for the designated location as soon as possible, making sure to forget nothing.

However, for our Phantom Thief friend… He was in quite a predicament…

He was hanging upside down tied by a rope as an older man in a business suit with the username “Kunikazu” paced around. They were in a chemical-handling plant, and Kunikazu in the suit was the owner of this plant. Kaito was dangling over a vat of superacid, the vat itself reinforced to withstand its content’s acidity.

“Now, listen here, kid. I’ve been spending an awful lot of money on developing this,” Kunikazu monologued as he held up a cartridge with a dial, a black body and screen, and various gold and silver details. “And you of all people, will not be getting their hands on it.”

“So what?” Kaito sighed, looking around him.

“‘So what?’ Kid, you need to learn that you can’t steal every single thing you want to get your grubby little hands on,” Kunikazu pointed at Kaito very aggressively, holding the unit with the dial in his other hand.

Kaito sighed as he unleashed his hidden blade, cutting the rope binding his hands before flipping upwards, grabbing his pistol, and firing at the old man. Yelping loudly, Kunikazu dropped the unit and runs away. Using himself as a pendulum, he builds up momentum before cutting the rope and landing feet-first on the platform, leaning back and forth to balance himself before dusting his shoulders and picking up the unit.

“Your Level 50 unit… is mine now.” Kaito smirked under his mask checking it. “It’s… empty?! Tch, what a shame. Here I am, following up on a rumor about some high-end unit that cost quite a bit of Levs, and it turns out that unit’s blank… Well, at least I don’t have to build a new unit entirely from scratch now.”

He sighed again before tucking the unit into his pocket and walking through the maze of vats. He held his pistol in hand, prepared for an ambush by Kunikazu’s guards who were surely roaming the facilities on high alert. Then… he took out a black cartridge and activated it.

“Fleeting Arsene!” It announced as a shadowy mist spread from the cartridge. Spinning the cartridge, Kaito loaded the unit into his belt before flipping the lever open, levelling up as a black and red demonic phantom appeared and enveloped him in a dark mist.

Dashing out of the mist, Kaito appeared with a red half-jacket over his black coat, his chest armor similar to that of a waistcoat, and black-and-red armor on his limbs. Some men in black business suits stepped out, holding all sorts of firearms. Kaito rushed to cover and smirked yet again underneath his X-shaped mask, now outlined in red with a black helmet around it.

“I’ll be appropriating all of your equipment for myself now…” He muttered as he sank into a nearby shadow.

“Check over here!” A suited man yelled, waving at some of his compatriots to help investigate the source of the mist. Running up, they handed out gas masks to each other in case the mist was toxic and examined the area.

As soon as they determined the area clear, Kaito leapt out of the shadows as if he were one himself, swiftly kicking one of the men and deploying a hidden blade in his boot’s heel. Stabbing the man in the back of the head, Kaito propped himself up with his other leg before spinning around and using the impaled man as a weapon, knocking down the other before stomping the ground with his leg and retracting the blade from the man’s head. Then, he reached behind his waist and pulled out a submachine gun, opening fire on the pile of bodies he had just created. Out of his gun came… shadow-powered bullets! Darkness left the gun’s barrel in a streak of smoky black as it punctured the men’s suits.

“He’s over h–!” One of the men tried to alert the others, but was shot in the face by both of Kaito’s guns.

“I’m here, I’m there, I’m everywhere. And yet, I’m also nowhere…” He spun his gun in his hand before sinking into the man’s shadows, moving through the shadows cast by the machinery and chemical vats within the plant.

Dress shoes stamping across the metallic scaffolding echoed throughout the walls of the building. The men searched for their assailant, only to be taken down one by one or in small groups. They opened fire on the shadows, only for shadows return fire and impale each and every one of them with a streak of darkness. If they tried to stab the shadows, Kaito would just dive out and cut them down with the hidden boot blades, performing high kicks and sweeping people off their feet before shooting them in the face.

“Stay still!” One of the men grunted in frustration as Kaito kicked him in the face before he was stabbed through the eye.

“I’d prefer to keep living, thank you very much,” Kaito cooly responded, shooting the man with his sub-machine gun before firing three bullets from his pistol into his chest where his heart is. “Do me a favor and stay down.”

He stabbed the bladed heel into the chest and twisting it around to make sure he was dead before firing another bullet into the man’s face. He retracted the heel blade before holstering his pistol and taking out another cartridge.

“Hooded Robin!” This one announced as a blinding light flashed around Kaito. He quickly replaced the Arsene cartridge as another blinding light shrouded his transformation. As the light died down, Kaito stepped out in very stylish white armor over his bodysuit. His chestplate featured segmented armor plating running along his abdomen with a white and blue color scheme; his arms and legs had white and gold armor plating on them; his shoulder pauldrons changed to golden armored epaulets; and his combat boots gained white armor plating. In place of black, his coat was now white with a small, tapered cape in red over his shoulder. In place of his sub-machine gun, Kaito now held a full rifle, opening fire on the blinded men as golden lasers pierced through them like lances of light.

“Now… time for me to get the fuck outta here,” Kaito released one more blinding flash before running across the platforms and heading for the exit, as labeled by a red sign that was standard in most factories. Just as he was about to kick the door open, he was shot in the back by a shotgun, knocking him to the ground. “Urgh… dammit…”

“Well well, the kid managed to escape.” It was Kunikazu, holding a very heavy-duty shotgun. “Give me the unit, and I won’t have to kill you.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you…?” Kaito turned around and held onto the doorway, still yet to open the door itself.

“I’d prefer the unit over your life. You know how it is with the game locking us inside and the death-everywhere rule. Just hand over the Gear Dual-type and you can leave alive.” Kunikazu took a hand off the shotgun, gesturing for Kaito to hand over the unit.

“Hm…” Kaito held up the unit in question, inspecting it before tucking it away in his pocket. “No thanks, I’ve got bigger plans than you. Besides, how would you even go about getting it to work? It’s not like you have any entities to fill it with.”

“What about you? You don’t have any entities, nor do you have a person capable of transferring any of your data over to it successfully.”

“I have my methods…” Kaito held his rifle against the door and holstered his pistol, tapping a button on the rifle that began to eat away at the door behind him with Void.

“Like what?” Kunikazu raised an eyebrow skeptically.

“I’m a thief, I’ve got contacts. In any case, I’ve overstayed the hell out of my visit, so I bid you… adieu!” Kaito released a blinding flash of light as the entire door disappeared from the void. Kunikazu was blinded and dropped his shotgun to avert his eyes as Kaito fell out of the doorway and into a pile of trash nearby to cushion his fall. “Thank god… now to get the fuck out.”

He scrambled to get up before running away, applying a quick healing item as he stumbled out of the alley and onto the street. Now, he had reverted to his default Phantom armor, walking away out of breath.

“I set that meeting 30 minutes from now, right…?” Kaito checked his watch to confirm. “Alright, cool. 5 minutes to get to the location from my place, 15 to get to my place and refresh. 5 minutes to spare, if we can get this right…”

Kaito switched to his Arsene form and dashed through the shadows to his home/business office, rising out of the shadows and cancelling his transformation before stepping into the showers to clean up the wounds and freshen up. Ten minutes later, he left the shower, wearing his usual outfit: a white dress-shirt, a pinstripe waistcoat, black slacks, black dress shoes, and his ascot. The lattermost of which, he was tying around his neck under the collar of his shirt.

“Quicker than expected… Good. Gives me 10 minutes to get there, but that should be plenty.” Kaito tightened the ascot just right before putting on his white gloves and grabbing a top hat off a rack on the wall and putting on a grey blazer. “The cafe is a five-minute walk from here, which will leave me five minutes to spare.”

As Kaito walked, he tucked his hands into his pocket while thinking about the potential offers his potential clients would like to make. Perhaps a simple job to steal from someone? Maybe protect something important? Or perhaps, take some high-end equipment from someone important?

“Lots of possibilities, let’s see what they choose for me.” Kaito thought out loud as he enters the cafe. An NPC waitress greets him as he sits down at a booth in the corner of the cafe. “I’ll have a cafe au lait, please.”

“Sure thing, sir!” The NPC chirped happily before walking off to get Kaito his drink.

“T-minus 4 and a half minutes…” Kaito checked his watch before opening up a news site. An article talking about how a chemical plant had been raided by a mysterious thief… which was posted by Kunikazu himself and it was offering a reward of several million Levs for his capture, preferably alive. “I guess I should up the disorientation factor of the light. Or install multiple settings to disorient for longer. Though it wouldn’t make much of a difference, now would it?”

As Kaito’s drink arrived, so did Nanaha and Satoshi. Kaito signalled them to come over and sit with him, and they walked over to do so.

“That was quicker than expected. Got here about half a minute before the scheduled time.” Kaito noted, checking his watch again.

“I’m not one to arrive later than expected.” Satoshi replied, sitting down and ordering some black tea as Nanaha ordered a milkshake. “So… you’re the thief she suggested?”

“Indeed I am. Kaito, the Phantom Thief of Vengeance, pleased to meet you.”

“Kaito? How about we forget our screen names and just use our real names… Kairi?” Satoshi smirked as Kaito, or rather, Kairi looked at him confused.

“How did you know that…?”

“Very simple. I am the god of this world. I know everything there is to know about its inhabitants, I can change the fabric of this world as I please. I control everything worth controlling here, Kairi.” Satoshi accepted his black tea as the NPC arrived.

“...God complex, duly noted.” Kairi took a sip of his coffee very slowly. “Well, miss Sakushi. Your contract?”

“I organized the meeting for my boss, so he’ll be doing the talking,” Nanaha shrugged as the NPC handed her the milkshake she ordered.

“I see. Very well then mister…?” Kairi trailed off his sentence, waiting for Satoshi to introduce himself.

“Genm.”

“I see God doesn’t want to use his real name.”

“Don’t sass me, Kairi. I can have you deleted within a single instant.”

“Very well. The terms of your contract then, Mr. Genm.”

“You work for me, acting as my my right-hand man. I’ll pay you back with equipment upgrades. You stole something important from the chemical plant owner, right? I’ll bet… it was his unfinished Level 50 unit. The ‘Gear-Dual-type’ as you labelled it. You need help finishing it up. I have all the equipment necessary to do so. Work for me, and I’ll provide you all the upgrades you need.” Satoshi leaned back in his seat and took a sip of his tea.

“Hm… Define ‘right-hand man.’ There are many applications for the word. I don’t intend to be a disposable minion for ‘God.’” Kairi leaned back as well.

“You won’t be disposable. I can guarantee that you’ll be handsomely rewarded for your services.” Satoshi leaned over the table and held out his hand. “You’ll be able to fight as you please, and you can do whatever you want. Just… try not to kill Hunter. I want to be the one to kill him.”

“I see… I can’t quite pass it up a deal this good, now can I?” Kairi reached his hand out and shook Satoshi’s, sealing the deal. “I’m in your hands… Genm.”

“Good to hear, Kairi.” Satoshi grinned as he stood up and paid for the drinks. “This should go without saying, but if you go against me, I will kill you.”

“Wordless warning heeded. To my base or yours?” Kairi got up and put his top hat on.

“To yours. Leave the coordinates with me, I need to grab some equipment so I can reconfigure your equipment.” Satoshi walked away as Kairi led Nanaha to his office. When they arrived, Kairi closed the door and locked it, then turned to face Nanaha.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” He asked her, removing his top hat.

“Yeah… You stole my Succubus unit.” She replied, pouting and crossing her arms, unintentionally puffing her chest up and making it seem bigger.

“I ‘pick-pocketed’ it from you. I still can’t believe you actually tried to seduce me to get it back…” Kairi chuckled as he put the top hat on the rack.

“Hmph… even after that, I still didn’t get it back…” Nanaha pouted. “I showed you quite a lot too…”

“You’re a bit of an airhead, aren’t you…?” Kairi said after chuckling slightly. “I mean, I’m interested in women, but at least buy me dinner and get to know me first. I have standards, ya know. And I’m sure you do, too.”

“Rude…I had to fight for it in the end.” She sighed.

“You’re quite the fighter, too… Gotta say, that stunt you pulled at the end made me cave in.” He leaned against his desk.

“Well, you gave into my charms at the end, didn’t you?” Nanaha teased, winking at him.

“Not really. It was just… a ridiculous move. Cancelling your transformation and whipping your girls out has got to be one of the weirdest, not to mention the lewdest, ways to surprise your enemies. Just as I was about to test out what would happen if I used your Succubus unit with my Phantom unit, too.”

“Well, I do believe my boss put an ID lock on it. I don’t think you’d be able to even activate it without bad things happening.”

“That so? Guess your, or rather, our boss is a lot more cautious than I thought.”

“He doesn’t take it easy. Ever. He’s uptight and cautious, but it pays off in the end. His Anti-theft mechanisms are very… punishing for the thief. You should’ve been glad I did what I did before you lost a limb, or your life. Or maybe worse.” Nanaha shrugged as Satoshi knocked on the door. “You’d better get that before he goes ballistic.”

“Right.” Kairi walked towards the door and unlocked it for Satoshi. “Sorry for locking the door, just wanted to make sure no one random walked in on our conversation.”

“What was it you were talking about?” Satoshi asked them as he carried a heavy backpack and a briefcase with him and began setting up equipment.

“How we met,” Nanaha replied, walking over and helping Satoshi set up. “It was a crazy time. He pickpocketed me, so I had to chase after him in order to get it back.”

“Got into a bit of an altercation, but she managed to take back what I stole.” Kairi interrupted to finish the story. “She’s… got interesting tactics.”

“How befitting of me to give her the Succubus unit, right?” Satoshi joked as he set up the cartridge-to-computer interfaces and booted up his laptop.

“She told me that you made the unit specifically for her, and the anti-theft system is lethal.” He replied.

“It is, indeed. I rigged the unit to activate properly only with Nanaha’s presence. Should any outsider activate it, all currently saved data on the unit will wirelessly transfer itself to my personal data cloud before the unit self-destructs. If the thief doesn’t die, they’ll at least be very grievously wounded.” Satoshi casually stated as he began running system checks on the hardware and software for his Entity unit creation.

“Yikes… Good thing she stopped me when she did…” Kairi raised his eyebrows, impressed, before reaching into his pocket and grabbing all of his units. The ‘Gear Dual-type’ unit, the Robin and Arsene units, and his Phantom unit. He then handed them all over to Satoshi. “You’ll be needing these, I assume.”

“I will, thank you.” Satoshi picked up the Gear-Dual unit and looked at it, sighing. “Such vain individuals… wasting money on external customization to make it look so sparkly… It hurts my eyes…”

“I don’t want to tamper with it. The gold and silver might be wired to the inner workings of the unit.” Kairi noted.

“I’ll analyze it and determine it for myself. All the precious metals weigh the unit down anyway.” Satoshi plugged the unit into the interface and began scanning it. A wireframe construct of the unit appeared on his screen before plugging in the Arsene and Robin units and reading their data. “I assume you want these two units updated?” “That’s correct. If you need, I have my base armor right there. Silent Phantom.” Kairi pointed to the dark grey unit.

Satoshi cracked his knuckles and began to code. He looked over Kairi’s forms’ data, then began compiling typing up data to upload into the Gear Dual. One half of the unit took on a silver and black color scheme as the form “Silver Phantom” was uploaded into it. It showed signs of increased speed, agility, free-running performance, and was equipped with energy pistols that retained the safe-cracking feature with enhance capabilities. Now, his safe-cracking abilities could breach any lock instantly, or erase the lock if it’s physical.

On the other side, Satoshi began creating its counterpart, the “Golden Wraith.” This form was the opposite of the other, focusing on enhanced strength, armor, and heavy weapons. This form was equipped with assault rifles, submachine guns, and a shotgun. The shotgun was designed for breaching purposes; the assault rifles featured underbarrel grenade launchers and armor-piercing rounds in addition to their standard ammunition; and the SMGs were designed similarly. The other half of the Gear Dual unit took on a gold and white coloration as Satoshi installed the final touches: an anti-theft system as per usual for all of the units designed by Satoshi, and an additional form.

“Here you are, Kairi. Your Gear Dual unit: The Picaro Tricksters. Golden Wraith is your heavy hitter, extra strength armor, and weapons. Silver Phantom is your speedster, with light armor and enhanced maneuverability. Your safe-cracker equipment is preserved, don’t worry. I’ve added a hidden function to your Picaro Trickster, but it’s up to you to earn it. For now, you choose between which form you want to use, then directly transform from the unit itself or load it into the Driver. Either way, the forms provided will be the same.” Satoshi handed over the unit to Kairi, who inspected it for himself.

“Good work, God. Glad to be in your employment now.” Kairi nodded in approval of Satoshi’s work as the self-proclaimed god smiled.

“Welcome to my employment, Kairi Touma.”