Lissandra brings Rocky into the Mikoshi space where Saburo Arasaka's engram resides. The instant she links in, Mikoshi locks under her control. Every interface goes dark to anyone else. Saburo can't reach the outside anymore. He's trapped.
A moment ago, he was issuing orders. Now, confusion flickers. Then he sees Rocky inside the shrine of data and shows himself as a blue silhouette.
"Why are you here? I know you. L from Ascension."
"Why I'm here shouldn't surprise you," Rocky says, calm. "You know better than me how someone connects to Mikoshi."
He's right. To enter Mikoshi, you have to find an interface first. The fact that Rocky is standing here means Ascension has already found Night City's access point and cracked it.
Saburo's fundamental question is how they learned Mikoshi existed at all, and how they knew his consciousness was stored inside it. That secret was held by his diehards and Hanako alone. Hanako is under house arrest. The board died before anyone could leak it. In theory, Yorinobu shouldn't know.
If this fragment of Saburo had witnessed Yorinobu strangling his body with his own hands, he'd know Yorinobu had known for a long time. He hasn't, so he doesn't.
Saburo doesn't chase the thought. "I did not expect you to find and seize Mikoshi." He studies Rocky. "Ascension Technology. I've read your file. A nobody in Night City. A merc who made money running an underground clinic. Yet you reached this point."
"I admire you," Saburo continues. "Your ambition and ability matched mine back then. You don't have to work with trash like Arasaka Yorinobu. Cooperate with me, cut out Yorinobu, and I'll make Ascension the number one company under Arasaka."
He isn't guessing. Before coming to Night City, Saburo mapped Yorinobu's faction and ran the numbers. A century as Arasaka's emperor taught him not to walk blind. By his projections, Yorinobu shouldn't be able to reach Mikoshi at all. Ascension's arrival changed the board, so Saburo tries to turn Rocky on the spot. If Rocky swaps sides, Yorinobu's plan collapses, and once Saburo retakes a body, he'll deal with Ascension at his leisure.
What he doesn't expect is that his offer is worthless to Rocky.
"Saburo, don't you hear how ridiculous that sounds?" Rocky says. "Fine, here's the truth. The deal I made with Yorinobu is simple. After we take Arasaka, Ascension becomes the strongest company in the world. Every other company, including Arasaka, ends up under our heel."
The shrine is already sealed. Saburo can't make waves here. Telling him costs nothing.
"How dare Yorinobu?" Saburo snaps. "Handing Arasaka to outsiders. My empire, reduced to a stage for some upstart."
Anger changes nothing.
"And there's one more thing," Rocky says, twisting the knife. "Yorinobu told me that if I saw you, I should crush you and torture you to death."
For a man like Saburo, there's no such thing as going too far. His long rule wrote its own sentence.
"So you think everything is under control," Saburo says, voice hardening. "You think taking Arasaka Tower in Night City means you can destroy Arasaka? You don't know our true strength. My orders are out. Prepare for war. You'll see how naive and laughable you are."
Rocky hears it and doesn't slow down. "Nice speech. I'm looking forward to seeing your moves. But none of this concerns you anymore. Go to the soul prison I prepared and watch your empire fall. Your resurrection plan is over."
At Rocky's signal, Lissandra seals Saburo's engram, rips it out of Mikoshi's control plane, and transfers it to the soul cell that Atlas prepared.
There, Saburo will drown in pain. He'll feel the thirst and hunger of the farmers whose water and land he took. He'll feel the torn skin and broken ribs of civilians dragged into wars for Arasaka stock prices. He'll lie in Night City's filth and wait for a death that doesn't come. The people he exploited and harmed will surround him as whispering shades, tearing at his soul and calling out his crimes.
This is the program Rocky prepared. Crushing him outright would be mercy. A century of sins doesn't balance with a quick end.
Rocky will lock him away and break him again and again, until the engram shatters under endless pressure. And through it all, Saburo will watch the group he built with his own hands be destroyed.
Saburo can exist in cyberspace, but he isn't an AI. He's a human engram, a copy of a mind. The pain will register. The despair will stick. In Rocky's view, it's the only answer that acknowledges what Saburo did to the world.