World Runner: A Merc's Trial in a Spiritual Dystopia Ch.19 (Patreon)

— Next Morning —

I looked down at the large sleeping woman lying with her head on my chest. I could feel her large breasts pressing into my side, along with her arm draped around my midsection. I reached down and brushed some strands of hair out of her face.

This woman…she was mine. Last night proved it, and I’d be damned if I let anyone take her away from me again. 

The shit from her apartment, it wasn’t important; at least she said it wasn’t. We’d be leaving it there for anyone to take. Right now, my top priorities were getting stronger, building my influence, and recruiting to my gang. Dorio was recruit number one, Jackie was number two, and now I needed more if I wanted to establish some serious cred in Night City. 

My name was enough, along with my appearance. They had earned me some reputation in the streets, and I planned on using that rep to build my crew. 

I already had several faces in mind for who to recruit, more than a few of them were from Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and a couple were from the game. 

It sucked that I couldn’t get V, but the Corpo pathway was beneficial nonetheless. 

Plus, there was someone who had a great deal of potential, even if they didn’t possess Haki or Nen, which I doubt. 

David Martinez. 

Right now he was just a kid. We were still in the fourth quarter of 2074 after all, but in time with proper guidance, David would end up becoming a beast, one that could even be considered a Night City legend. 

All I needed to do was find him and teach him. 

I let out a sigh. Easier said than done. I could probably find where he and Gloria live relatively easily, but from there, would I really pull him out of his life and throw him to the wolves? 

Honestly…I don’t know if that’s a good idea. He’s still just a kid, after all. 

I won’t go out of my way to recruit the future beast, but if I do end up coming across him or his mom, I can definitely babystep my way closer to them, earn their trust, and start David off small. 

That’d go way better than just finding the kid on the street and inviting him into my crew of three members. 

Yes, looks like I’ve got a plan. 

A soft breath left Dorio, pulling my attention to her. It was honestly surprising how gentle this woman was when she was sleeping. That tough exterior was completely gone, leaving behind a content woman quietly sleeping. 

Watching her sleep may be the second-best thing I enjoy when it comes to things I do with her. The first will always be fucking that tough act right out of her. It’s fascinating how she can go from a dominant alpha woman to a mewling slut begging to be bred. 

No matter how tough she acts from now on, I’ll always have the image in my mind of me folding her knees beside her head while mating pressing her cunt into a warm sloppy mess filled with my seed. 

“Mmm.” She hummed/groaned. Slowly, her eyes began to twitch, and a moment later, they opened with all the haziness of a freshly woken person. 

Her hazy eyes slid along my chest and up to my face to see me giving her a small smile. 

“Good morning.” 

“Fuck you.” She sighed, laying her head back on my chest and rubbing my abs. Yeah, I expected as much. Back to the whole tough girl thing, even after swearing herself to me for life while I took all of her holes. 

This woman…

“You’re a piece of work.” I chuckled, pushing myself up and feeling her hand attempt to push me down. I raised a challenging eyebrow and quickly flipped her over, pinning her arms to the bed as I looked down at her. She attempted to fight my grip with her hands, quickly realizing that in terms of raw strength, I far outclassed her. She grinned up at me and then looked down between her legs to see my cock resting on her stomach.

“Gonna use that thing on an unarmed lady?” 

“Psh, we both know you’re the furthest thing from a lady.” I laughed, pressing my hands down harder as I felt her fight out of my grip. “But on a serious note, no, I’m not fucking you now. I got shit to do, and so do you. You’re in my gang now, so I expect you to follow orders.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She rolled her eyes, and I let go of her hands, freeing her. I got off of her, hopped off the bed, and went to the shower. A minute later, Dorio joined me, and to my surprise, she didn’t get handsy while we were in the shower together.

Is she…learning?! I never thought I’d see the day when this woman shows restraint! 

This has gotta be a Christmas miracle. 

Once we were done with the shower, Dorio hopped on my bed and began to meditate while I remained in the bathroom, trying to figure out how to train my eyes. 

Looking at myself and trying to produce a visible change obviously wasn’t working, so I think the best way to improve these blue orbs of mine is to train them amid active combat. Such a thing would be a bit more tricky, considering how deadly Night City was, especially with Nen and Haki freaks running around, but improving myself would be in my best interest long term, so I have to take that risk.

I walked into the bedroom and sat on the bed beside Dorio as I too began to meditate. Though for a different reason than her. 

While she was working on her Nen, I was working on my Haki, or more specifically, my will power. 

I had been asking myself the question ‘How do I strengthen my will?’ for a while, but I think I may have finally answered that question. 

What is someone’s will? The will of a person is their drive and resolve, and expanding off of that, Haki is the manifestation of someone’s will. 

Nen is similar in that way, where you must form a goal strengthened by your will in order to use Nen. Beyond that, by placing restrictions on your Nen, you can grow even stronger by following that goal with the restrictions placed. 

If will is equal to my drive and resolve, and the main source behind my power, the best way to strengthen my will would be to find out what I truly want, as well as where my current drive and resolve are for reaching it.

It’s much more simple to explain than do though. I know what I want right now, and that is to conquer Night City and make myself a Legend…but that’s a relatively short-term goal. 

If things go well, it shouldn’t take more than five years to complete, which would leave me with plenty of life to waste. 

So…I need to think of another goal. A bigger one. One that would last for the rest of my life. 

I had a few ideas. I could pull what the Corps are trying to do and take over the damn world. It wouldn’t even be a hard thing to do once I’ve taken Night City for myself, but it would take a fuckton of time. The only problem with that goal is I don’t really want the responsibility of having the entire world under me. 

Sounds like a massive pain in the ass. 

But, at the end of the day, it’s a good goal for now. So I’ll go with it as a longer-term goal until I can find something better. 

So, the next step was to strengthen my will with my current goal, shaping my goal could come later. 

More than anything, I wanted to be at the top, but I never really had a good reason for wanting that. Yeah, sure I wanted to hold more power and have more wealth than I currently have now, but beyond that, there wasn’t much else…

I glanced over at Dorio who was calmly mediating beside me. I looked closer at her face, her closed eyes, her surprisingly soft face, and those sweet supple lips of hers. 

…Or maybe there was. 

I leaned in toward her and placed my lips against hers. Her body shuddered slightly and her eyes shot open. We made eye contact as I continued to kiss her. A moment later, her hand was on my chest as I plunged my tongue into her mouth. She quickly mounted me, pressing her ass against my hardening member. 

A moment later we both pulled back to take a couple of breaths. 

“Where the hell did that come from~?” She asked sultrily as she slithered her hand down my body slowly.

Where did it come from…? Honestly, I don’t know. But I know it felt right, and I know I want to be able to do that with her for the rest of my life. 

I think…I may have figured something out. 

As her hand dropped down into my pants, I stopped her by grabbing her wrist, making her look up at me in confusion. 

“Dorio.” I said with a serious tone with no room for games. She raised an eyebrow at my sudden shift in demeanor but I ignored that. I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her a bit closer so that our faces were centimeters apart once more. 

“I wasn’t kidding when I said that you’re mine, and I intend for you to be mine for a long time.” 

Her eyes widened slightly as she looked away, and her cheeks dusted pink. “I-If that’s what you want, big guy.”

Seeing this cute side of her that rarely ever came out unless I was actively fucking her just added even more fuel to the fire.

“One day, this city will be mine.” I declared to her, regaining her full attention. “And when it is, I want you there beside me.”

The pink that dusted her cheeks grew into a deep red as she looked away again and kissed her teeth. 

“Yeah, I already knew that!” She crossed her arms in front of me as I smiled slightly at her.

I pressed my lips against hers again, and she quickly responded by kissing me back and wrapping her arms around my neck. 

I flipped us over and slid between her legs, looking down at the horny woman beneath me with no small amount of content. 

Conquering Night City for wealth and glory was one thing…but conquering it for the sake of the people in my life…that was another. I didn’t really have many friends in this world, at least not friends I could trust with my life, but the two I had, Jackie and Dorio…I wanted to see them live their best life, free of fighting, free of death.

— A Week Later —

We spent a full week doing practically nothing. The only meaningful thing that happened besides a bit of bonding was that I got an upgrade from Doc. Replacing my cyberware arms with some Bioware ones and also some legs. I noticed in the past that cyberware prosthetics have a bit of a downside to them. To put it simply, removing an organic part of someone’s body also removes the Aura nodes in that area. So, with my Cybernetic arms, my Aura Nodes in my arms are gone. 

Which…isn’t all that bad. 

The reason it’s not game-changing is that lacking Aura Nodes doesn’t necessarily mean I have less Aura than before. Aura is spiritual energy, but Aura Nodes are where the body draws out the energy. This means that I haven’t lost a lick of aura since I removed my organic arms. It just means I can’t draw out as much Aura as I could beforehand.

This in itself isn’t even true anymore since the amount of Aura flowing within me has increased tenfold since I’ve gotten the cybernetic enhancements.

Not being able to draw aura out of my arms has been annoying, though, and if I’m being honest with myself, it hinders me because I have to draw aura out of my torso and send it to my arms whenever I use any Nen. 

So that’s why I decided to go back to the natural route. My potential in Nen is more vast than Haki, so I should maximize my ability in it, rather than slow myself down. 

Branching off of Bioware implants, I should also mention that Dorio got upgraded as well with the same package. 

Yeah…my bank account is screaming at me, but this is a worthwhile investment. Dorio wanted to get chromed up for a while, but with this information being so prevalent, I told her to get Bioware upgrades instead. 

And what a good idea that was! 

I may have…told Dorio that increasing the size of her ass would do wondrous things for her leg strength. Of course…she didn’t believe me, but she went through with it anyway.

Dorio and I spent the time in my safe house, mainly training and fucking. It was honestly a treat to see how much she had shifted from being a wild animal to a domesticated bitch, and with her ass being even fatter and juicier than before, it wasn’t hard for her to initiate a break in our training for something more pleasurable. 

Typically, whenever I told her to do something, she did it with minimal to no fighting nowadays, which was great and very beneficial to our growth. Having a training buddy around on top of a fuck buddy who was eager to do both was the best, and I cursed myself for not seeking her out earlier! 

We had grown much closer in the last week, with her speaking her mind to me now instead of randomly throwing me curveballs or punching me. 

Though, things weren’t all sunshine and rainbows. She still tended to get a bit moody when I did something she deemed ‘stupid.’ 

“You’re a dumbass.” Dorio glared at me.

Right now is a perfect example.

“I am.” I nodded without a care as I walked into the relatively nice-looking building with Jackie and Dorio just behind me. 

“Ehehe, what’s wrong with taking jobs from others every now and then?” Jackie asked with a loud chuckle, throwing his arm over both Dorio's and I’s shoulders. “El Barba has a preem idea, let’s see how this goes!” 

“Some of us are less…enthusiastic about this dumbass’ decisions.” 

I let out a sigh at Dorio’s insult. I could fire back with one of my own, but even I didn’t really know why I suddenly wanted to try out a new line of work. 

Of course, we weren’t switching from the mercenary role, doing so would be a huge pay cut. No, we were just expanding our jobs from killing people and taking what they have, to killing people and taking the cars they have.

In hindsight not very much of a shift, only these jobs could end up being considerably more dangerous, especially with the job we’re about to take now. 

We walked through the building and made our way to a door with a couple of men standing guard outside. 

“You know who we are and why we’re here.” I frowned at the two men and a second later, they moved out of our way, allowing us entry to the room. 

I stepped forward and opened the door, and as I looked into the rather well_decorated room, my eyes locked onto the very person we had come here to meet.

“Well well well, if it isn’t The Beard himself! It certainly has been a while hasn’t it?” The man greeted as he stood on his balcony, leaning over the railing. 

“Reyes,” I responded back, stepping into the room followed by Dorio and Jackie. 

He glances back, shaking a glass of some alcoholic drink, likely tequila judging by its clear consistency. 

“So choom, I take it you’ve accepted the job??” He asked, turning around fully and leaning back against the railing.

That’s a long drop; the man’s gotta have some confidence in that infrastructure. 

“We wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Jackie laughed, stepping forward and leaning against a wall. 

“As long as you keep your word on the pay,” I added with narrowed eyes. 

“Who am I to go against an honest man’s work?” He asked with his hands held up in defense. “As long as you get me that car in one piece with minimal to no damage, you’ll see your eddies.” 

“And if we bring it in without a scratch?” Dorio asked with a raised eyebrow. 

“Then you may just find yourselves with a little bonus. Hard work deserves extra credit, no?” Muamar Reyes asked with a small smirk. 

“Then we’ll be back later tonight.” I nodded and made my way toward the door. My two gang members followed behind me as we left the building.

This job was relatively simple, even if it was likely gonna be a fuckfest. 

A corpo from Arasaka’s Madrid Branch is in NC visiting for business. Being that he’s one of the higher-ranking members in that branch, he’s kind of a big shot and is practically swinging his cock around wherever he goes, and Night City is no exception. 

He’s got a car, a few actually, but one specifically that we needed to steal. 

A Herrera Riptide GT2. A custom one at that, making it extremely rare and valuable. 

Most people would kill for such a ride, but again, most people wouldn’t be stupid enough to take on this job. 

After all, the guy works for Arasaka and as I mentioned, is a higher-ranking member in the Madrid Branch. The sheer number of guards he has must exceed a few dozen, not to mention he’d have reinforcements from Saka and Trauma Team should he end up injured. Which means this needs to be a quick job, in and out.

It’ll be impossible to do this without bumping at least a few heads, but we’ll need to move as fast as possible. 

When we made it outside of the building, Dorio and I hopped into my car and Jackie hopped into his own set of wheels. 

Well, they weren’t his a day ago, but after a gentle chat with a Merc that had attempted to take me out, the car was his now in exchange for sparing the shitter. 

I began driving toward the hotel where the Madrid corpo was staying and glanced at Dorio, who had her arms crossed and looked pretty pissed. 

“You’ve been mad all day…something wrong?” I asked in half concern, half annoyance. 

“You’re being an idiot.” She said almost immediately.

“How so?” I asked with a frown. Though this job would be hard, it shouldn’t be life-threatening; after all, we can just pull out whenever we want and skip a payday. 

“Do you think you’re invincible?” She asked while glaring at me. 

I took my eyes off of the road for a few seconds to stare back at her before returning my attention back to driving. 

“I’m strong.” 

“You’re a gonk!” She shot back with a growl. “You think you’re so strong that you can go head to head with Arasaka?! Have you lost your fucking mind?!” 

I was just about ready to shout back but upon looking at her, I could see the anger, confusion, and concern in her eyes. 

She was worried. 

Dorio knew about my dreams for the future better than anyone. She knew I wanted to run Night City, that I wanted to be the pinnacle of power, and because of that, she thinks that I’m moving to fast and making a move against the Empire, Arasaka.

“Look.” I sighed, slowing the car down as I glanced at her. “This job has nothing to do with my goals. It’s just a way to get us some cash, good cash that will keep us in the clear for a while.”

The way she was still glaring at me told me that she wasn’t satisfied with that answer.

“Dorio…in and out. I take the car, then I delta.” I glanced at her and when I saw she was still glaring at me, I pulled the car over and watched in the rearview mirror as Jackie did the same. 

I placed my hand on her chin and got it slapped away. I frowned at her and tried again, this time making contact with her chin and tilting her head up a bit.

“You think I’d pull something stupid and kill myself? How dumb do you think I am?”

“Very.” She glared, but I could see the heat was beginning to fade a bit.

“That’s fair.” I chuckled. “But I’m not dumb enough to die on you.” A grin split my cheeks as again I saw her cheeks dust pink as we made eye contact. “I said it before and I’ll say it again, you’re mine, and I’d be damned if I left you behind to find some other fuckhead to get with.” 

“That’s your motivation for living?” She snorted in amusement. 

“It is.” I nodded, content with that. “If anyone is gonna be clapping those fine cheeks of yours, it’s gonna be me.” 

“Again, you’re an idiot.” She brought her hand up to her mouth and began to let out restrained laughter. 

“Maybe I am.” I conceded, placing a quick kiss on her lips before pulling away and placing my right hand on her thighs. “But as long as you’re here beside me, I’m fine with that.”

Dorio stayed quiet at that as she quickly looked away outside of the window. I could see her ears turning red, and a smirk crept up on my lips as I put the car back in drive and sped off. 

— Later —

We arrived at the hotel and I brought the car around to the parking garage. I quickly paid the toll and began driving in. I glanced at Dorio to see she had her game face on.

The plan was rather simple. Dorio and Jackie help me deal with some of the guards, then they head back while I find the car and book it the fuck outta here. A pursuit was to be expected, so Dorio and Jackie getting lost as soon as possible would at the very least avoid them being caught in some of the nastier bits of this job. 

As much as I value Dorio and Jackie, they are no where near my level of power. Jackie is good with Haki and Dorio is good with Nen. Their potentials are likely in the top percentage of people, but my ability to use both better than them just makes me a different breed. 

Why put them in danger when I can handle this alone?

“You ready?” I asked as I pulled up to the highest level of the parking garage that was ‘free access.’

“No, but we gotta do this anyway.” Dorio frowned.

“Then let’s go,” I said, getting ready to open the door but abruptly stopped as the blonde-haired woman grabbed my shirt collar and pulled, mashing her lips against mine in a passionate kiss. 

She pulled away just as fast and glared at me again. 

“You better not die.” 

A chuckle escaped me as I quickly took her lips with a much softer kiss. “I love you too.” 

Her body froze and her eyes widened in shock. I gave her one last cheeky grin and hopped out of the car, making my way up the ramp where there was a barrier with glass over it. 

As I walked up the ramp, I heard the shuffling of my car, signifying Dorio shifting from the passenger seat to the driver seat. 

— Dorio —

She watched as Maliketh walked up to the glass door. A look of indecision on her face.

For as long as she’d known Maliketh Aeneas, he’d been someone she couldn’t quite predict. One second he could act all nonchalant, and the next he could be pissed, a living natural disaster. 

And just now, he had proven just how hard it was to pinpoint his feelings and actions. 

He had told her words that only inputs tell their outputs and she could tell he meant those words. 

 As she watched him walk up the ramp, his haki-coated arms began to blaze orange, and a powerful Ren Aura surrounding his body, her heart began to beat just a bit faster. 

She had long since known she had fallen for him, but she didn’t expect her feelings to be returned, at least not so fast. 

Because that wasn’t the man she believed he was. He’s a man focused on his goals, who wants nothing more than to reach them, no matter how many people he has to take out in the process. She had believed he was untouchable, that their sexual relationship was the furthest it would ever go, and…she was content with that. 

Yet three words had taken her mind for a loop, and her heart couldn’t stop beating. 

Maliketh dropped into a stance as he stared at the glass wall, with a powerful burst of speed, he launched toward the glass, punching it with his right arm, burning with heat.

BOOOM

The wall melted open as shards of burning glass flew through the rest of the newly opened restricted parking lot. 

“Let’s go then!” Mali grinned back at them and ran in full speed. Dorio frowned at the man who had stolen her heart and put the car in drive. 

It was showtime!

VROOOM

Dorio slammed her foot on the gas, letting the car fly up the ramp and into the large hole Mali made in the glass wall. She glanced in the rearview mirror to see that Jackie was doing the same, then her eyes focused in front of her to Maliketh running full speed into some suit-wearing men. 

His burning arms slammed against the men’s faces, likely killing them, or leaving them to suffer a slow death from the nasty burns. 

He never stopped his forward motion, dashing through the garage toward the location they had been given as to where the targeted car was. 

She rolled down the window and reached down to the compartment against the driver side door, pulling out a Ticon and aiming it down at a few more suit-wearing men ahead.

BANG BANG BANG

She fired three shots, missing the first two, but taking out a guy with a solid headshot from long range. 

They rounded a corner and started ascending another ramp. Maliketh had already gone up, leaving her and Jackie to play catch up. 

A part of her grew worried when the entire garage began to shake. She could feel Nen Aura’s clashing above them, and one of them was Mali. 

She floored the gas harder, hoping to reach Maliketh before he did something stupid and got himself killed. 

“[Dorio, we should head back!]” Jackie called through her tech. 

“Like hell!” She shouted back, driving up the ramp and quickly slamming the brakes. The sight in front of her made her heart drop. 

A line of ten or so men wielding either Haki or Nen, and one of them seemed to be covered in both. His arms glistened black while his Ren flowed out of him. Judging by his tech, he must be one of the Madrid corpos main bodyguards. 

“[Correction, we are heading back!]” Jackie shouted through the comms, his tone holding no room for arguing. 

But Dorio wasn’t the kind of woman who ran away, especially not when the most important person in her life was clashing with superpowered corpo guards! 

The blonde woman clicked her tongue, turning the car around and driving down the ramp. 

A determined glint filled her eyes as Jackie did the same. 

She had no intention of leaving Maliketh behind, but she couldn’t mess up his ride…

— Maliketh —

I glared at the group of thirteen men, all decked out with one power system, except the Spanish guy in the middle who has both. Not only does he have both, he seems well versed in them, dare I say even more so than I?

“Chingado, el jefe tenía razón sobre ti. (Fuck, the boss was right about you.)” The Spanish Haki-Man/Hunter spat out as he dusted off his suit. I’m really happy I got that translator installed a while back. 

“Oh, did he see this coming?” I asked, my lips turning upward in amusement. Credit where credit was due. If I had a sweet ass ride like his and the power to do so, I’d have an armed team guarding over it. 

I didn’t get an answer from any of them as they stared me down. I quickly realized what they were trying to do. Buy time. Their job wasn’t to take me down, it was to protect the car and the Madrid Corpo. They didn’t give a rat’s ass about taking me out here and every moment I wasted doing nothing was a moment reinforcements grew closer. 

A smirk split my lips. Dorio and Jackie had already turned away and were heading down the garage. I could hear the purr of their engines going. Which means…I didn’t have to hold back!

FWOOOOSH

A burst of wind launched out from all sides of my body as Nen Aura exploded outwards. The guards looked at me with disbelief at the sheer amount of Aura I was expelling. Right now, I was using the same technique I told Dorio about where I build up my Aura in my nodes then release them in a powerful burst. 

This technique can be deadly if overdone but I wasn’t doing that, I was just giving them a taste of power…power they wouldn’t live to achieve.

“Adelante! (Forward!)” The double-powered Spanish guard shouted/ordered as his men attempted to rush me on all sides. 

I pulled out the Inverted Spear of Heaven and got ready to go to work-

VROOOM

Some of the men looked toward the car that ascended the ramp, and I took that time to launch toward a pair of them. My heated blade cut through their bodies like a hot knife through butter, killing them quickly as I launched toward a few more. 

“Die!” One shouted as he attacked me from behind-

BANG

I cut through the body of another and dodged the attack of one more in front of me. I glanced behind to see the body of the man that had been flanking me, a bullet in his head as Dorio hopped out of the car Jackie had been driving. 

This girl…

I blocked the slice of one of the men’s katana. His face morphed from exertion to fear as he saw his katana begin to melt from the heat of my blade. 

“Hey…we can talk about this-” He tried to hold his hands up in surrender, but I cut through his head horizontally at the eyes, utterly cleaving off the top half of the man’s head. 

I didn’t have room for sparing corpo guards, not when I’d likely be facing them in the future anyway. 

“Ngh!” My eyes shot over to Dorio as I saw her being overwhelmed by a good number of the remaining men. The Spanish guard was with them as well, making me glare at the group with hate.

FWOOOSH

“Fucking cowards!” I roared, cleaving through a couple of them, their Nen Auras and Haki did absolutely nothing when it came to the powerful aura that radiated from me and the burning hot indestructible blade. 

“Culero! (Asshole!)” The Spanish guard shouted as he launched his Haki coated arms at me, landing a powerful blow to my face. 

“Fuck you!” Dorio shouted, following up his attack with a punch of her own which slammed against his stomach, sending him back a few meters. The remaining men tried to take my little moment of imbalance to attack us all at once, and I used that as the perfect opportunity to finish them off. 

“Vanish!” I shouted, making the men pause and activate whatever defenses they had. shouted as a small spark of fire formed in my hands. 

“The fuck?!” One of them asked, amusement and relief filling his tone as he took a step forward. 

“You idiot, stay away from that!” Another of them warned as I threw the small spark on the ground in front of them. I grabbed onto Dorio’s waist and shielded her in my Ten. 

“Wha-” 

BOOOOM

A powerful explosion rang out where the spark landed, and a wall of fire was born from it. 

The smoke continued to swim in the air, but my Observation Haki told me that most of them were dead. Only two survived, the Spanish guard and the one that had tried to warn that one idiot. 

“Maldito desgraciado! (Damned wretch!)” The Spanish guard growled in anger as he glared at Dorio and me. “Rah!” He shouted, but I speed-blitzed him and slammed my blade into his gut, stabbing through his body before pulling out my blade and kicking him away.

“We’ll talk about this later!” I glared at Dorio, and she returned it challengingly. “Right now, we need to get the fuck out of here.” 

“Whatever.” She shrugged as we ran off toward the car's specified location. We rounded the corner and up one more ramp, coming across another glass wall, which I easily punched through. We stepped forward to see another garage space with very nice cars parked around. Unsurprisingly, there were no more guards. I would have been more than a little concerned if that absolute power line-up wasn’t even the full force defending the garage. 

I spotted the car and ran toward it. Dorio stopped at the passenger side and waited as I hacked the car doors open using the Vehicle Override Quickhack Muamar gave us for this job. A click signifying our access. 

We opened the doors and hopped in, and I quickly started the Spanish beauty up, earning a purr of pleasure from her. 

“Oh, if Reyes wasn’t paying a pretty penny for this fine chica, I would’ve taken her home.” 

“Try not to drool.” Dorio rolled her eyes and leaned back in the very comfortable seat. If only these cars were made for taller people, we would have been in heaven.

VROOOM 

I floored the gas, coating the car in Nen Aura so as to protect it from receiving any damage from my fast and reckless driving as we descended the parking garage. 

“We got it,” Dorio said after connecting myself and me to a four-way call with Jackie and Reyes.

“Excellent…lose the heat, and then we can talk eddies.” 

Dorio sat in silence as we watched out for any pursuers. Within less than a minute, we shot out of the garage and were on our way toward Santo Domingo. 

It was strange that we weren’t being chased, and a part of me got a really bad feeling, but that quickly subsided when I didn’t sense any Auras or any other type of danger. 

We were in the clear. 

Which…didn’t make sense. 

I began to ponder why we had managed to get off so easily. We had made it into Santo Domingo without a single tailor…it was too easy. 

I was quickly snapped out of my thoughts, though when Dorio forced me to look at her and leaned in, locking her lips with mine. I was surprised by the sudden intimacy, especially since I was driving a very expensive car, so I focused my eyes back on the road while kissing her. 

She pulled away a minute later and I refocused my attention on her, using Observation Haki to avoid any obstacles. 

A deep red blush consumed her face as she hesitated for a moment, looking away from me. 

“You’re something else, y’know that, Dorio?” I grinned at her. 

“Look who’s talking.” She snorted, locking eyes with me again. “But I guess I’m worse, huh? After all…I was dumb enough to fall in love with you.” 

My eyes widened as I looked at her blushing face, she maintained eye contact, determined blue eyes staring into my own. 

“...” I was genuinely speechless; I didn’t expect her actually to confess her feelings to me. It hadn’t been a surprise that she had fallen for me, only that she actually told me one-on-one in a serious situation. 

“Well, aren’t you gonna say somethin’?!” She shouted, red still painting her cheeks. 

A small smile tugged on my lips as I leaned in and took hers once more. “No, I don’t think I will.” 

Dorio’s eyes widened before narrowing in anger. 

I laughed, tapping the steering wheel a few times to calm myself down. “Calm yourself, sexy lady. Why say anything now when I can show you how I feel back home?” 

She crossed her arms under her bust and closed her eyes. Trying her best to look annoyed or angry, but as she took a peak at me, she saw me wagging my eyebrows at her.

She tried to fight it, but she couldn’t for long. A long hard laugh escaped her and I joined in a moment later. 

“You really are an idiot.” 

“Yes, yes I am.” 

— Chapter End —