Maine was lost. The world had dissolved into a sea of static and false memories. He stood in the center of the room, his jaw set in a snarl of primal rage, his heavy machine gun sweeping across the space in a blind, stuttering spray of lead.
Suddenly, Faraday's face, distorted with three unblinking cybernetic eyes, appeared in the air before him. Without even thinking, Maine raised his weapon and fired. The image shattered into digital fragments, but the rage remained.
He knew he was slipping. He knew the hallucinations were rising like a tide. But in his shattered mind, every shadow was an assassin, and every sound was a threat.
"Dorio! Look out!"
Dorio, showing the incredible agility that had made her a legend in the underground, dove behind a stack of crates just as Maine's rounds tore into the wall where she'd been standing a second ago.
Akane, reading the scene, felt her heart skip a beat. 'Is he going to kill her? Is the man she loves really going to be the one to end her life?'
If that happened, Maine would never recover. The guilt would shatter what little remained of his soul.
In the manga, the perspective shifted. To Maine, the figures of his friends and enemies alike had been stripped of their humanity, reduced to flickering, black squares of digital noise, vibrant, shifting mosaics of static.
Dorio knew that they were running out of time. Maine needed the suppressants. Now.
"Damn it! You stubborn bastard!"
She screamed her frustration, her voice raw. She reached into her tactical vest and pulled out a high-grade immunosuppressant injector. She could have left. She could have sprinted for the exit and left Maine to his fate.
But she couldn't. She'd spent too much of her life by his side to abandon him when he was at his most broken.
In Maine's fractured vision, the world was no longer the hideout. He was standing in the middle of a vast, golden wasteland, the same sun-drenched plain that haunted his dreams.
Akane realized then: this was the "beautiful" world of a cyberpsychotic. They weren't just angry; they had simply migrated to a different reality where the rules of the world no longer applied.
A massive, black square of static lunged toward Maine from the digital fog. He didn't hesitate. He leveled his gun and fired a concentrated burst. The "target" collapsed, another casualty of his mental war.
But then, another figure appeared. It was moving with blurring speed, circling him like a predator. Maine swung his heavy cannons around, the barrels glowing red as he prepared to erase the intruder from his world.
However, in the next panel, the glitching world flickered. For a fraction of a second, the static cleared, and the face of Dorio (distorted but unmistakably hers) appeared in his HUD.
Akane's grip on the magazine tightened. She was holding her breath.
A blinding flash of light filled the following panels as Maine's cannons discharged. But he hadn't hit Dorio. In a moment of sheer, primitive instinct, he'd diverted the shot, the energy blast tearing into the floor behind her.
Dorio didn't waste the opportunity. She lunged forward, slamming the injector into Maine's massive chest. She was screaming at him, her face a mask of desperate, frantic love, trying to drag him back from the abyss.
Under the sudden deluge of chemicals, the static in Maine's brain began to recede. His eyes cleared, the golden wasteland fading back into the blood-stained reality of the hideout.
But the reprieve was too late.
Pew... Pew...
The sound of incoming rounds was represented by sharp, minimalist speech bubbles. Two small, dark holes suddenly appeared in Dorio's forehead as she stood over Maine, her eyes still locked onto his.
At the same moment, the shockwave from the rounds that had pierced Dorio's skull continued forward, shattering Maine's tactical visor into a thousand diamond-like shards.
Aoyama had added a final, devastating panel here. He didn't leave it ambiguous. He showed the NCPD officer standing in the doorway, his service weapon still smoking, his face as cold and robotic as the law he served.
Blood began to flower across Dorio's forehead, the vibrant red staining her pale skin. Her eyes lost their focus, turning into glassy pearls of nothingness. She collapsed onto the floor, her body as limp as a discarded doll.
Dorio... the heart of the crew... was gone.
The shock of it hit Akane like a physical blow. Her eyes burned with tears.
And then there was Maine. The man who had just regained his sanity only to witness the woman he loved die for his sake.
Everything that had happened tonight... the kidnapping, the failure, the transition into madness... was it all his fault?
"Dorio..." Maine whispered, his voice a hollow, broken thing.
Meanwhile, David had made a choice. He ignored Lucy's pleas, ignored the warnings of his own internal sensors, and pushed the Sandevistan into a continuous, soul-shredding overdrive. He was a blur of electric blue light as he raced back toward the hideout.
"Maine! I'm coming!"
Blood was streaming from David's nose, but he didn't care. "Tell me! I need to hear you say it! I can do this!"
But Maine was already gone. He'd descended into a different kind of darkness.
He stood over Dorio's body, his silhouette wreathed in smoke and the flickering lights of the sirens outside. He picked up his weapon, a terrible, manic grin spreading across his face.
"All of this..." he muttered, his voice dropping into a low, predatory growl. "Was it all my fault?"
Maine's blood-soaked frame was terrifying. He turned toward the approaching NCPD and Trauma Team units, the survivors of his initial rampage.
With a roar of primal agony, he lunged forward. He wasn't using his guns anymore. He seized the nearest officer with his bare hands and literally tore the man in half, the spray of blood filling the panel in a shocking, visceral display of violence.
The level of raw, unadulterated carnage was breathtaking. It was a scene of pure terror.
Outside, the Trauma Team medics looked at the mangled, "unrecognizable" remains of Tanaka against the wall.
"Target: Platinum Member... status: confirmed KIA..." the robotic voice reported.
"Hey! Is this my fault too?!" Maine's voice echoed through the fire-blackened halls.
The panels showed Maine's face one last time. The once-dependable leader was gone, replaced by a grinning, blood-stained demon.
"Hey! Tell me! IS THIS ALL MY FAULT?!"
For the fans reading along, it was a moment of profound, lingering trauma. Maine had finally, officially, crossed the line.
"Cyberpsychotic confirmed!"
"Requesting immediate MAXTac intervention!"
"Hostile is highly dangerous!"
The corporate and state forces were in a state of utter panic. Lucy, eavesdropping on the secure channels, realized the horror of the situation. She tried to warn David one last time.
"David! Maine's gone! He's a cyberpsychotic! Get out of there! MAXTac is on the way!"
Maine, meanwhile, had reached a level of power that defied logic. In his madness, he fought with a ferocity that made his previous, sane self look like an amateur. He was an "invincible" engine of destruction, a one-man war against the world.
The NCPD units trapped inside were being systematically slaughtered.
But the real hunters were arriving. MAXTac, the most elite and violent law enforcement unit in Night City, was already sealing off the perimeter.
David, ignoring everything else, finally burst into the center of the hideout. He found Maine dragging a heavy crate of explosive detonators toward the center of the room.
"Maine!" David shouted, his eyes wide with hope and relief.
But Maine just raised his cannon and fired.
The shot didn't hit David; it was a lucky miss, the energy bolt scorching the wall beside his head, but the message was clear. Maine didn't recognize him.
"Oh, it's you, David."
Maine's voice was suddenly, horrifyingly calm. The demonic grin had vanished, replaced by a look of profound, weary peace.
But it was a "peace" that felt entirely wrong.
"You're not hurt, are you?"
"Maine! I came back to help you!"
Maine ignored him, continuing to pile the explosives onto the center of the room. "Dorio is dead."
"What?"
David's world shattered. He looked to the side and saw the motionless body of Dorio lying on top of a heap of detonators.
"What are you doing?" David whispered, his voice trembling with a child's disbelief.
The scene shifted to Maine's perspective. In his mind, he and David were standing on the vast, golden wasteland. Dorio wasn't lying on a pile of explosives; she was resting on a bed of dry, sun-bleached wood.
"This is the only thing I can still do for her," Maine said, his voice filled with a quiet, hollow regret.
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]