The cigarette lit in a brief orange blaze of butane lighter as she shouldered her way through the threshold of the Jig-Jig Street NCART platform. The immediate exhale was the heaviest and freshest of the entire cigarette; it was pure fire and chemically laced tobacco. The chemicals were largely filtered by her internalized systems, and the tobacco was one of the few things Sora found herself grateful about regarding NUSA's existence. A few looks were tossed in her direction, but she had waited until she was outside the designated no-smoking section of the platform and surrounding station itself--so the looks bothered her as little as ants passing in front of her as she walked in the direction of the market. 

The main drag of the market changed, over time, but not enough. Though the names of the businesses changed, their purposes hadn't since she spent more time than she would have liked in the area as Danger Girl duties had required her. Being back in Night City was a nuisance, but at least it was the familiar kind of nuisance. The irritants weren't fresh and mysterious, even the signage was largely the same; blue and pink hearts, BD lounges, Joytoys in cramped, tiny sex clubs, and rent by the hour 'hotels' there were little more than fuck cubbies stained with sweat and blood and cum. A Joytoy tried to approach, but Sora's vision stayed transfixed, the thousand-yard gaze that saw through and past people, not at them. Even the vocally aggressive were walked past like they didn't matter. 

The ground was cracked painted cement, the walls of the market seeming to lean overhead, like they might just collapse in on it all, as signs and cables and unofficial and unapproved add-ons to buildings were crowded into an already claustrophobic location. The pachinko parlor was still passed the slurp shop, now manned by a different cook than she recalled, around the corner, over the foot bridge spanning the small drainage ditch now protected by a metallic grating, and across from a window front of black mannequins modeling bondage suits and strap-ons. A plastic red chair was just outside the door, the same beat up old public terminal that had been there the last time Sora was still on the other side of the doorway. 

It was in a back corner of Jig-Jig Market, the other buildings alongside it had no entrance, not that they needed to be--they were all just extensions of the same pachinko parlor. They were all property of the 'Fixer' that Sora had come to see: Wakako Okada. Okada had been wary around her even back during the Danger Girl days, but that had more to do with the connective tissue between Danger Girl and Arasaka, of which there had been precious few, than anything Sora had done...until one of the Danger Girl clients complaints led to the doorstep of one of Okada's sons. The favor Sora had done for the old woman, even then, hadn't gone forgotten by either party. The son still lived, still thrived in their little gang. 

Sora had simply satisfied the client's thirst for revenge and need for safety in other words, with the blood of others, and a simple warning to Okada's involved son. 

Even in the height of the afternoon the interior of the pachinko parlor was dark, moody, as if the negative energy of the past and current deeds of it's proprietress infected the very air of the place. The sounds were classic pachinko, and like every classic pachinko parlor Sora had ever been in, including the ones she would cut through as short-cuts on her walk home from school as a teen schoolgirl, were heavy with cigarette smoke with walls yellowed by it. Sora hadn't begun smoking cigarettes then, but even now she could smell it's toxic light-grey suffocation like she was still the same fresh-faced teenage schoolgirl from her past. 

These walls were metallic, hued blue with neon, the floor black and white checkered tile also shaded blue with the blue neon strip under the gaming counter at the back of the parlor, under a wide advertisement screen, manned by a Tyger Claw. Sora never seemed to look at him, but she noted every line on his face, the way he favored his left side, the likelihood of which weapons he had on him, and a general guesstimate on just how capable he was as a combatant. Instead she stopped at an empty machine between two glass walls separating the empty machine from two occupied machines, and reached into her blazer pocket to retrieve some tokens she still had from the parlor dating back to her last visit, black spots of dried blood still on the token from that last visit. 

She played the rigged game for a few minutes before the man behind the gaming counter disappeared. He needed to because the cameras got nothing but a dark blue from Sora's image. Where some optics blurred faces with surveillance blocking lenses, Sora's cyberware went farther, on more technical levels. She might as well had been a blurry wraith to optical surveillance systems. Sora began the count the moment the man behind the counter disappeared. He came back to his seat behind the counter after four minutes and eleven seconds. 

The old woman wasted no time. The man behind the counter announced the parlor would close in five minutes. There was a sound of discontent by an old spotted man, but the rest of those at the machines just gathered their tokens, and left then and there. They knew the reputation of the parlor, and weren't going to end up dead because of Tyger Claw business. Sora stayed where she was, never looking up. Just token, game buttons, and wait for the screen to give her the cheated result of the loss. Sora got a win, just to keep her on the line, shortly before the five minute mark hit and the man behind the counter saw the last patron out, and locked the door behind them. 

The old woman had been standing in the back doorway for a few minutes, staring a hole at the Arasaka operative. 

"Sora Hayami. How is it you haven't aged a day in thirty years?"

Sora's response was no more than a shrug. After the win, she was straight back to back consecutive losses. She allowed a small sigh, putting the cigarette out on the cheap little aluminum ashtray that sat on the machine near it's buttons. "Your games are still rigged."

"They most certainly are not."

Sora stopped, and her head finally turned towards the woman, "I'm doing the math in my head with each turn, Okada. You never did know when not to lie to me." When she moved her body on the padded synth-leather stool, updated since the last time Sora was here, to follow her head in facing the old woman, the man behind the counter now standing sentinel at the front door tensed. The old Fixer shot him a look, Sora smirked. 

"You can leave, Ryuin. She'd kill us both without breaking a sweat if she was here for that."

He left, but Sora didn't move, "Who says I won't?"

"Why would you?"

Sora's head nodded, her eyes dropped, and a deeper kind of sigh slipping past her lips, "Wakako, did you think we wouldn't know? Takemura. V. Hanako was kidnapped because of you."

The old Fixer remained steel-faced, stubborn, emotionless. "I can't say I know what you mean, Sora."

"I see your anger towards us never waivered...where's the sword?"

The old Fixer shrugged, "Not here. I gave it away a while ago."

Some of part of what Wakako said wasn't true, Sora was sure of it, but somehow Sora doubted the part about the sword being gone wasn't a lie; that was just how Sora's luck had been with good blades lately. "That's a shame. I liked that sword."

"If you're here to kill me, th--"

"--don't, don't do that," it wasn't anger, it wasn't a reaction of pride, it was...boredom. Sora was just plain tired of the same old dances, the same old dares, the same old attitudes. "Where is she, Wakako?"

The Fixer was, as far as Sora could tell, genuinely confused, "Who?"

"I know she's in town. I know she's active, in some way, and I will tear this city apart down to the irradiated bedrock to find her. So, Okada..."

"...I really don't k--"

Sora's eyes dropped, her eyelids shutting hard, tight, angry. Her fists shook so hard Sora didn't even realize they were clinched until she pushed off the pachinko machine she sat at and stood, unclenching her fists and regaining her composure. "Fine. You don't know enough to know, I'm honestly a little disappointed. So then let's discuss this betrayal."

"I am not an Arasaka pawn, Sora."

"Your precious children are, all of the little Tyger kittens. Should I go visit them, instead?"

The hidden anger filled the creases and wrinkles and spots of the old woman's face at the threat to her children, and grandchildren. Sora hadn't threatened her grandchildren, but Wakako knew the danger Sora Hayami represented better than most. "Do not bring them into this. I did what Fixers do, would you murder every person who touched anything V touched?"

"I would burn the city just to watch it burn, Okada, and you know this."

Wakako's head tilted right, then left, as her mind worked over the problem before her. "I did what I had to do, Takemura represented a connection I could not ignore cultivating, and V...a Fixer that neglects opportunities to put top Mercs in their debt are not successful Fixers for long, Sora, I know you do not understand this world. If I had the sword, I would give it to you, but I do not. When you were operating out of Night City last, you had an associate named Jonathan. A Nomad."

This time, it was Sora's turn to look slightly confused. "I remember. I liked him. He didn't die because of me."

Wakako let out a low breath, something close to frustration, her old slender shoulders deflating, "I don't mean to suggest you did, last I heard he had children and ran away with the Aldecaldos. This was months ago. I mean to suggest, however, that there is another Nomad that recently came looking for work. His name is Dusty. Perhaps history repeats itself in this case? If I recall, that is how you met Jonathan."

Sora's face had lost all the life and passion it had held when demanding an answer on Etta Autry. The former spy and lover was in Night City, but Wakako didn't know anything that could help with the limited information Sora had on the subject. Instead she just looked bored again, retrieving the lighter and a cigarette, putting the cigarette butt between her lips and staring at Wakako as she sparked the light, and took the first, freshest, drag to light the cigarette and start the smoke. 

"How do you look like you haven't aged in thirty years and yet smoke those things? I had to give them up decades ago."

Sora never answered, just pocketed the lighter in the same blazer front pocket the tokens were retrieved from, and exhaled a tendril of pale gray cigarette smoke in the blue and pink neon tinted darkly lit parlor. "Sure, Okada, send me the Nomad. Why not. Betray Arasaka like that again, threaten the safety of Michiko, and, well...you know exactly what I'll do."