[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/W4PJKu7.png[/img]
[sub]Collab with [@Ruby][/sub][/center]

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Little China still irritated her. Since her days stalking Night City for Danger Girl, there had never been something quite 'right' about this stretch of city. It wasn't meant to be like this. Sora could have blamed the Triads, but there wasn't much left of the Triads--she had largely seen to that, herself. Walking the strip of Little China that should have been something closer to City Center than it was to slums left a metallic, harsh taste in her mouth as the tip of her tounge rolled across back of her top, perfect, white teeth as she ignored the looks and stares from the excuses for life that inhabited the back alleys of Little China. He had dropped her off at the end of the alley, next to the same sex club that had existed before, just different names and different owners...a common theme in this rejection of a normal, functioning, city. 

Tokyo this was not. 

Sora's movement down the alley became listless, her head tilting this way and that, her black lashes fluttering as eyelids opened and closed with no apparent rhyme or reason. Her nostrils flared, her mind racing through the sensory overload, black gloved hand just barely tracing the edge of every wall and door she came across on this side of the alley. Her lips formed the words she didn't say, her head tilting back as she tasted it: [i]it was written in blood.[/i] All or nothing, dressed in black, unable to look back for longer than a moment just long enough to see the memory of her face. By the time her eyes opened, she had wandered off the main alley, pushing past a small, flimsy, metal gate. 

The woman occupied her sigh, black eyes opening to the stairwell. A cat hissed, arching in defense, sensing the arrival of a predator. "Oh, shut up."

Her gaze flashed from the back door of the storefront that was closed, smelling the incense and hearing the heartbeat beyond. The placid surface of the killer betrayed the sudden, inexplicable, white hot rage that erupted under the skin. Sora could almost taste the Mercs. Sora knew the truth of it; she would always, no matter what, now, be a broken girl. There was no going back. There would be no savior, even if she found the woman. Nothing could be the same, nothing could be pure again. Arasaka had taken it's pound of flesh, corrupted her life before it even started, ruined the dreams of a little girl and turned her mean. And they thought they could get away with what they did?

Sora audibly snorted as she restrained the impulse to go crashing through the back of the store front and impale the child, then and there. She nearly gasped as the ease of the door sliding open, or pouted at it. It shouldn't have been so easy. He shouldn't have been so easy. Prey should put up more of a fight. Sora had no respect for cowards, and when there was nothing but her, the victim, and the blade between them...that's when people showed who they really were. That's when Sora saw people no one close to them ever could; that's how Sora knew, truly, who was a coward and who was not. What would Vik Vektor be today?

Very little illuminated the garage turned clinic but a Kiroshi neon sign, and data screens, except for the vid feed of the boxing match. He sat there, hunched on his stool, sunglasses on like it was mid-sunny day, entranced by the violence. There was no sound, only a black shadow creeping at the edges. It was hard to say just how long she stood there, staring at him. Somewhere in the void beside her mind, Sora started to blink in and out as her eyes shuttered again and her anger started to boil through. When her eyes opened again her forehead was brushing the closed, but unlocked, security cage of the entrance at the bottom of the stairs in which she haunted as shadow. 

The sound he noticed, the image he realized was no shadow. She heard his heartbeat, she felt his intense gaze, it made her feel as close to orgasm as anything had in months. She wasn't a bad person; she was just overwhelmed, that little voice of that little ghost repeated in the back vaults of her brain. By herself, by choice, chance, or strange reward, she ignored what he said to her then. Ignored it, or just wasn't present enough in the now to hear it. She tried to whisper to him, but he didn't figure it out, he didn't hear it. 

Sora was cold. 

"I don't have any drugs," he said, as uncertain and on edge as he was irritated, like she were just another junkie to roll into his clinic to beg. 

Sora giggled like a school girl as she threw open the gate with a sudden, dramatic, motion. "You do. You are a purveyor of the only drug that seems to sate me these days, Vik Vektor." The giggle was gone, leaving behind only the ghostly grin on haunted lips and the menacing black eyed gaze of the predator. In that very beat of his heart, she saw it, smelled it, TASTED it: fear. A sharp, deep, inhale, and Sora smiled, "There it is. There's my drug, Vik Vektor...you loved them, didn't you? Did you think the love was free?" She stared, somehow looking more confused than he felt and hid. "Did you think there would be no price to pay?"

"Arasaka," it was only a word, spoken in a tone that he might as well had spat. The devil's grin that enveloped her face as she felt the fires of hell warm her back. He moved for the weapon. That's all it took. He might as well had moved in molasses as she moved in bullet-time. He was so fucking slow she wanted to scream at him, she wanted to complain and condemn his bad form. His surgically repaired and enhanced Ripperdoc's left hand [b]crunched[/b] as she held it between her index finger and thumb, and SQUEEZED. He howled in pain, Sora howled in heat, dismissing his body like a little sack of meat and bone as she flew across the clinic and landed at the foot of his surgical chair. 

The whisper was delicate and soft, sad and torn in regret, the tone of heart-wrenched apology, her black gloved hand gentle at his chest as it held him down, "Someone must get hurt." She had come too far to make it easy, the tedious dances of quiet meltdowns and consented abuse had driven the madness and boiling rage to a hushed moment of sheer desperation and tragic realization; the Ripperdoc was analyzing her. Guessing at what had turned her to demon. 

"...what the fuck are you..."

Her free hand curled and coiled, making pain wrench across his face as it grabbed the back of his head by his thinning hair and started to press with the hand on his chest with the kind of force that would be snapping bone and popping organs in but a few, short, minutes. "Pay attention, because it's all over; this is the price you weren't willing to pay." She gripped tight at the back of his head, the hand at his chest pulling his upper body up by his dirty shirt. Sora had to give him credit; he never betrayed the woman. He never looked in that direction. Nothing on his face even hinted at her presence. 

Didn't matter. Sora knew. The shot of gunfire rang out hideously loud and violent in the confined space of the clinic, as Misty Olszewski pulled the trigger. The spiritualist had enough skill to not murder Vik Vektor. The woman tracked the blur enough that the bullet only ripped across Vik Vektor's right shoulder in a grazing blow, leaving to man to cry out and put his near limp left surgeon's hand over the searing pain. Panic hit Misty Olszewski as her target was there, then just wasn't there, leaving Vik to take the round that grazed and ricocheted off the surgical chair behind, sparking as it hit a wall off to the left. 

"Misty!" He yelled, his eyes unclinching from pain just in time to see the dark shadow behind the spiritualist. They moved so slowly, children to the unreal enhanced speed of the Arasaka Ninja. The gun was gone, crushed and discarded, Misty's body tensed and struggling as Sora took the girl from behind. The heat of the spiritualist, the flesh pressed against Sora tight. She felt her eyes closed as she felt Misty's heart as much as she heard it now, one hand around the girl's throat, the other still around the wrist that had held the gun, beginning to slowly, carefully, apply the kind of pressure that would crush it in less than a minute's time. 

Sora didn't hear the girl's cries. Eyes closed, mind torn, all Sora felt and heard and saw was Etta Autry. All she knew in that haunted heartbeat was love and misery and pain. The desperate, erotic, whisper hitting the girl's right ear. "...I want to fucking tear you apart."

The gurgled cry didn't sound right. The scent wasn't right. The body against her wasn't right.........Sora saw vision ascend as her black eyes opened, her face frowning as she saw Misty Olszewski and not Etta Autry. Her vision focused on the bleeding man on the ground, moving, screaming in a growl about...something. In her haze it took Sora another beat to realize he was yelling about the girl.

"STOP IT! SHE DIDN'T DO ANYTHING! LET HER GO!"

The girl was discarded like the gun had been, just tossed to the side there in the entryway at the bottom of the stairs. Sora moved again, more concerned with the Ripperdoc than the spiritualist. The sound that came out of the old man was ear piercing as the katana blade came out and pierced flesh in the kind of quickness that left the human mind reeling to catch up. It took him a moment to do more than be in shock and silence; but when the sound came it was blood curdling, it was anguished and it was enough to make the girl on the ground behind them scream in horror: the sight of the katana sticking shoved into the concrete floor, through Vik Vektor's right thigh. 

"...stay." The color had drained from Vik Vektor. His heart was near explosion, his heartbeat in full shock and panic, his system beginning real overload from the mind-breaking amount of pain and distress, sweat beading at his receding hairline, his body twitching and shaking. Sora didn't even care now that the girl scrambled and darted up the stairs of the entrance, screaming into the Night City night like a raving lunatic for help. Sora's tone never changed; automatic, chromed, with a muted volume. "Etta Autry. Where is she?"

His voice quivered and shook as violently as the rest of his body as his eyes dazed and blanked behind the sunglasses from the shock of the trauma. "...wh...who? I...don't..."

Sora growled like a beast, eyes clinching shut and head tilting as she let her heartbeat remind her mind to calm. "I hope your 'children' were worth it. May you serve as a warning to any others who would strike against us."

She stood, her right hand slowly curling and gripping the black handle of the black bladed katana that ran through the thick of his thigh. One pull, one swing, all in one motion, and his head would fall from his body. Before that, she looked down at him, and sighed, taking a last measure of Vik Vektor. "How I wish you would have known where she was..."

Dusty had been up the street, a smoke in an alley keeping an eye on some Maelstorm punks trying to give a few working girls a hard time. He gave a whistle and flashed iron, NCPD were just a block over and they never hassle a Nomad for street cleaning. They were close to Misty and Vik’s place, but he didn’t have any ripper work to be done and tarot cards just weren’t his thing. He liked to think Nomad’s made their own luck not fated to go down a certain way, the Clydesdale was parked in an alley hidden from view to avoid someone trying to boost it.

The Maelstrom punks had just been leaving when he heard a faint scream, one that no cop would answer. The gun shot he’d heard but assumed it was the police mopping up someone, he bottled towards Misty’s place, that voice was one he remembered from nights spent drinking and partying with Jackie Welles. He rushed through the beads sliding over the counter and out the back door before jumping the railing landing, barely on the stairs. A short jog past the security gate hand over his holster, well it was until he saw his new boss was standing over Vik with a glare that could have killed if Arasaka had the tech yet.

“What in sam hell do you think you are doing!” He spoke, he didn’t pull iron, knowing it sure as shit wouldn’t help. Moving in slowly hands up looking at Vik. “Vik and Misty? They never hurt nobody, well... Vik used to punch people and Misty’s got a biting tongue but... that ain’t never been a reason to go lopping off heads?” He spoke hands up moving towards the woman carefully.

“Even if they done did wronged ya it was a small slight or blunder on their part, Vik... Misty, somebody explain why the fuck a Saka ninja wants you two dead?” He spoke slow and calm like, trying to be rational and understanding, namely the side of friends against his boss. A fine line to walk when a razor sharp sword is involved but he was good at keeping balance came from a life in the saddle. 

“Listen whatever’s going on before ya going stabbing folks like it's a Japanese Samurai revenge flick or your righteous Silverhand himself, prick he was. Maybe think about it, how could these folks ever damage you or them Saka goons again?” He added confused as he removed his hat trying to be honest and open here.

Her head turned at the sound of the man. At the sight, her black eyes narrowed. Hand gripping the blade's handle, now, in anger. It came and went like a Night City breeze; gone as fast as it appeared, if it was ever there at all. The blade was removed with the force and precision of an assassin, leaving nothing but a sudden surge of blood in the wake of it's removal, save for the dripping of Vik Vektor's blood as Sora walked across the clinic, katana in hand, staring a burning glare through the eyes of the Nomad as she simply walked out and climbed the stairs. 

Indignance was the appearance of the Arasaka Ninja as she passed a bum in the back alley, ripped the shirt off his body, letting him run away to leave her to use his rag to wipe Vik Vektor's blood from her katana. If Sora were more vocal a presence, she would have been muttering about the damnable fool Nomad. She was prepared to skewer him through the chest and pin him to his damned car; she'd fucking walk back to Arasaka Tower. 

It was utter annoyance when she realized the Nomad was staying in the clinic to call a fellow Ripperdoc friend of Vik's for help, and to assist Misty in applying emergency first aid to Vektor. There was even dulling gall in her that Vektor had enough presence of mind to walk the two through his own first aid. Sora jerked her head in the direction of the once more hissing cat at the top of the stairs that had led down to the clinic. "Are you fucking happy, now?" 

Disgusted, Sora simply sheathed the blade back on her back and straightened her suit jacket, wandering off to find the Nomad's car, lighting a cigarette as she walked to calm her temper and nerves. Nomads were never far from their cars. 

The Clyesdale was sitting pretty parked about two blocks down, the trail of all terrain tire marks and his unique blend of tobacco would lead her right on to it. The car wasn't covered in stickers and markers, instead the Jodes family emblem was on the hood. Thick armor of the vehicle was shined and blue, along its side painted strikes along it as it cut marks or decals. Each one a deep black with a red outline as if a beast had gored them in. It was bigger, an extended cab and trunk meant he’d probably tuned the engine to keep the power able to move all this weight. It was a one of a kind car, the kind of thing most nomads dreamed of rather than owned.

Dusty for his part, had moved Doc into his own patient's chair doing his best to listen and apply first aid. He’d learned some on the farms up north when guys got gored by horns or work equipment. But this was sure as shit new level he was dealing with for stab wounds, so breathing deep with a phone in one hand applying tourniquet to the wound as he breathed out. He focused, Misty cried off to one side while assisting as he finished up blood still on his hands. “You got him till doc Ryder gets here?” He spoke hugging Misty tight before taking a breath heading back for his car, probably a lose of real fucking easy payday.

But he could live with that... He couldn’t live with himself if he’d let Misty and Vik just get... Fuck. Great, he was starting to remember he didn’t usually take big high paying gigs, always fucking something about them! So exiting out through the alley behind the place he tossed his smoke while walking back towards the car, as he started to leave a couple of Maelstorm goons were eyeing him no doubt pissed about earlier. This had to be something to do with Jackies death, even from the Afterlife he was still managing to rope Duston in on bad ideas.

So with Maelstorm’s spider eyes on him not worried about it he walked to his car, to his boss to have what was probably going to be a very heated chat. He just prayed that if she killed him wouldn’t ruin his car... His sister would take care of his baby at least, he’d spent more on that care than some Mercs do on Apartments, guns, sex, and liquor combined.

She stood facing the car, on the passenger side, staring a hole through the Nomad with dark, dark, brown eyes. Her voice much as it ever was, so calm it sounded bored, "Did you know Jackie Welles and V?" He had, obviously to her, known Vik Vektor and Misty Olszewski. It was no great leap of logic or deductive reasoning to think he might have.



“I did know Jackie, T-Bug too. Been out of the city awhile, wasn’t here to meet this V. Merc’s are a tight clique, Jackie wanted to go big time but... I can’t, I got people to think about. Family, Clan, and more of what I earn goes back home to help them if harvests get bad.” He paused, drumming his fingers on the hood as he stood by the driver side door. “What I can tell you is this. Misty does her best to help people and try to guide them down a good path... Vik, well he gives away as much as he makes in that little back alley. They didn’t mean to rock the boat, they ain’t mercs and Edgerunners. They just live in a shit city where the only people who ever mean anything are those who are gonna die going against the system. If you don’t... You become part of it, till the corps or the city kill you.” He answered looking back the way he head come more Maelstorm goons now loitering watching the pair eyeing the car. 

Sora's head bowed, as an audible, deep, sigh escaped her lips the moment before she brought her cigarette up to the same lips for another drag. The smoke made her voice just that much deeper than normal. "...I warned you not to interfere. Is it that you don't understand what I am? Is it that you don't get the zero-sum game Arasaka plays? Explain this to me, [i]Nomad.[/i]" The word, she exaggerated both syllables of, as one might a heavy handed curse. Dark brown eyes now staring up at him through bangs of black hair, and inner rage that came and went like a ghost in the system. 

“I get that but... That, that shit was personal beef. Not Saka corpo cleanup detail, you were doing this for them heads would have been off and you’d have been in the car before they spoke.” He answered bluntly, looking right back into her eyes without fail, soft hazel eyes meeting her own. “...I ain’t gonna make you spill but maybe we'll trade little details... Because whoever you really want it ain’t some people who don’t know anything about living.” He breathed slowly as he shut his eyes. “Cause vengeance we can do. But if you want it, we get the bastard who did you wrong. Not those with cut strings left laying on the floor.” He spoke, casting a glance at the Maelstorm mercs. “Let’s ride, you can give the lecture as we go, I’d rather not shoot my through fucking borgs.”

Sora flicked her cigarette, removed the sheathed blade from her back, and got into the car's passenger side, letting the katana rest between her legs. "El Coyote Bar. It wasn't personal to me, I don't care if they live or die, but you don't get to hurt Arasaka and have no one pay some price. Welles paid with his life, fine, but V did not. Well...they're probably dead or dying, but not by our hand, and in not in a way that serves public notice that you do not FUCK with Arasaka in Night City."

She didn't look his direction, but the opposite. She enjoyed looking out windows, she enjoyed watching the world blur by. It reminded her of trains, and home.

“Then find V or people who helped them, hell I’ll help if it keeps you from stabbing civvies.” Dusty spoke climbing behind the wheel of the car, flipping the Maelstorm boys the bird as they shut the armored door and the screens projecting the view outside. “And you don’t fuck with Nomad clans but killing everyone who knows a person is a bit much.” He added as they crawled out into the clamoring traffic of night city heading for the highways.

“Mama Welles has lost all of them, she’s working dead end in a bar... You thinking killing her will send a message? Only message it sends is really more people living there to stand up to Japanese interests, Saka isn’t getting anything from a dead old lady, a Mystic, and a doctor. Way I hear it, V has created a movement, more Mercs than ever. More Fixers, more high risk jobs and shit tons of brave new souls.” He shook his head as he stopped at a light.

“But, you wanna make things right with Saka? You wanna put fear in the Night City Edge Runners. You gotta hit them back... Killing a handful of people who knew a person won’t change nothing, gotta kill the idea that now is an age where the many take from the few.” He spoke as they finally started up onto the highway, the engine humming as his hand moved each gear up manually.

“I never said I was going to hurt ‘Mama’ Welles. Or that I gave a fuck about making things ‘right’ for Arasaka. They’ll be content with brutalization and ‘he probably died.’ That’s fine with me.”

"Lady, sometimes I wonder if your speaking in riddles just to fuck with my head." He answered as they got to speed, moving through the traffic. "I just... Trying to understand ya, you ain't the usual corpo type and you ain't just another hired gun." He added heading down the ramp towards the bar as they slowed down once again.

When the Nomad looked again, he’d find Sora staring at him, instead of outside the passenger ‘window.’ And smiling. “I have my own agenda in this city, this time. Vic Vektor and Jackie Welles’ beloved were agenda items for Arasaka, not for myself, personally. We’ve tried finding V; they’re gone. Either dead, or my guess, off world. If off world, that’s someone else’s job to track…I’ve had my off world time. I’d rather not, again. If dead, nothing we can do. Mr. Welles has no grave, but I’ve heard El Coyote has the closest thing to it. So I want to see it. I want to…pay my respects, such as it were. If that confuses you…I suppose I don’t blame you at all. I’ll leave the katana in the car, if it makes you feel better.”

To say nothing of showing up at El Coyote was expected of her by those at Arasaka watching the streets. She could say anything she wanted about what happened once she was inside, but she would, at the very least, have to make a show of going in.

“Well good, still got a color to bring... And to pay my respects too... If you like, I could... Tell you about’em? Jackie used to drink with me, I met the guy years ago. Right after he got out of the gangs and I was still sleeping in my back seat with a shotgun.” He chuckled a bit as he gave the ninja a smile. “I met T-Bug shortly after I got my first invite to the Afterlife... She was the runner on that job, wasn’t she?” He asked quietly, as they neared the parking lot. “I’d... I’d like to pay respects to her too, they were both friends. Pour one out as we do, say a few words maybe... For whatever god will have my friends' souls up above.” He added taking a breath as they slipped into a space next to a few Valentino’s bikers as he reached down towards the center console where a bottle of Firewater sat next to his smokes.

“Sora... Seems like you and I are gonna be an interesting pair, ain’t we?” Spoke the younger nomad, giving her a somewhat cheeky smile as he tipped his hat back.