The neon smear of Night City bleeds through the cracked glass of your apartment window, casting a sickly glow over the clutter of a life half-lived. Megabuilding H10 hums with the static of a thousand disinterested lives—muffled shouts, leaking holocasts, the arrhythmic thump of bass from somewhere three floors down. The air tastes recycled, tinged with the metallic aftertaste of failing AC and synth-cigarettes burned down to filters.

You slump in the armchair, its leather peeling like sunburnt skin. The remnants of takeout containers and a half-empty bottle of something cheap litter the table. Your old jacket hangs slouched over a flickering holo-terminal, its once-vibrant graffiti now faded. The terminal itself cycles through fragmented newsfeeds—corporate mergers, corpo-war headlines, ads for neural tonics—all muted.

The buzz of your phone cuts through the silence like a scalpel.

As you unlock your phone a prerecorded message starts playing from a ghost of your past. Takemura's face appears on the screen, weary and exhausted, hair loose, with more white strands than before. A tailored black jacket replaced with an old track jacket. Familiar thick japanese accent fills the silence around you.

"I know you are in Night City. And in good health, no more biochip in your head. Congratulations."

"Much time has passed. I did not know what to tell you. I needed the words of old samurai. He expressed my thoughts - good, strong medicine is bitter to the mouth."

"When you disappeared, I and Hanako-sama confronted Yorinobu, his allies. We tried to capture Arasaka Tower."

"We could not, they were strong. Hanako-sama is dead. I am called her murderer. I have been hiding for two years."

"My life now is trash heap where I found you. I wish for you to know this."

"You were very strong medicine."

The recording stops, leaving you in the deafening quiet of your apartment.