235. Explosions aren’t always better.

235. Explosions aren’t always better.

“So what’s the plan?” Finally Hinata decided to steer the two complaining girls into a more useful conversation. Sure, she had complained her fair bit about the sand, the sand and lets not forget the fucking sand. Course, rough and it gets everywhere!

“I don’t got much for the time being. Having my thoughts go so slow is putting quite the hitch in my planning capabilities. So far all I got is: go to pacifica... profit.” Really, besides that she hadn’t had many other ideas. Maybe go ask for charity from Vik but she doubted that would work no matter how nice the old man is.

“Pacifica?” Nozomi asked while turning her head with an eyebrow raised.

“Yup.”

“The most violent part of the city.”

“Yheup”

“A city that is violent as it is.”

“Yheeup”

“Fair enough I guess.” Not bothering with it, Nozomi just accepted the idea. After all, it did make some sense.

“Nozomi!?” Hinata expected as much from Tomoka. What she didn’t expect was for Nozomi to just accept it like that. Currently they are weak, very, very weak. A bullet could very well kill any of them. Sure, Tomoka had assured them that they wouldn’t die die, or rather, they wouldn’t stay dead. Even so, she didn’t feel all that comfortable with the idea.

“I mean, it makes sense. We need eddies, the fastest and easiest way to make some is to do something illegal, like robbery-” As Nozomi explained Tomoka butted in with a single word.

“Or murder.” Both girls turned to look at Tomoka who just shrugged in response. Sighing they just accepted it. Afterall, when in Rome do as the romans. So when in Night city, do as its citizens.

“-Or murder. Pacifica being as lawless as it is would be the perfect place to start. We go in, kill some idiots-” Again Nozomi was interrupted by Tomoka.Yôur favorite stories at novelhall.com

“Gonks.” Once again both turned to look at her, once again she just shrugged. Being in Night city Tomoka would use every opportunity she got to use its slang. She found it funny.

“Right, as I was saying. We kill some Idio- Ahem, gonks steal their shit sell it somewhere somehow to make enough eddies to get started.”

“Yup-yup” Tomoka added with a happy voice as she began skipping forward. Hinata could see the reasoning behind the idea. That didn’t mean that she liked it. Not like she could do much about it. She didn’t have any better ideas herself anyway.

“Aight, with that out of the way. We should review what we have available. I’ll got first. I packed a few hundred kunai and shuriken as well as three katanas. A bottle soldier pills, a shit ton of hard rations. And even more paper bombs. Right, almost forgot, I also brought some insta-heals.” Of course she didn’t feel like mentioning her egg or clothes since those were a bit obvious.

“Uh... Tomoka, I just thought about this but... How will we get our stuff out of the scrolls without chakra?” Silence fell once Hinata voiced her worry.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Oops?” What else was she supposed to say? Tomoka had completely forgotten about that little fact. It hadn’t even crossed her mind after the fact because it was working so SLOW!

“Uh... Oracle will take care of it?” Her next answer earned her relieved sighs from her girls and an amused snort from Oracle. After that she received a small info download from Oracle explaining how that would work.

“Alright so this is how it's gonna work. We can take our stuff out of the scrolls by just thinking about it. We can’t put anything back in though, so let's not take out anything we aren’t going to use right away.” Nodding along to the explanation the girls continued walking towards the city. Idly, Tomoka wondered through which zone they would be entering.

“Well, I brought about the same stuff, except for the paper bombs... those also need chakra now that I think about it. Anyway, I have crescent rose with me and brough ten clips of ammo. One of PB(Propulsion-blanks), three of normal copper ammo, two of HE(High-explosive), two of AP(Armor-piercing) and two of FS(fragmentation-shrapnel).” Tomoka nodded along hearing of Nozomi’s selection. In total it would be around a hundred shots since each clip holds ten rounds.

“Nice, very nice. How about you Hinata?” The Hyuga girl just shrugged before listing her own stuff.

“Really Tomoka, really?” With a sigh Hinata turned around to look at the very exploded, very on fire car and corpses. She really didn’t want to go anywhere near there. The smell of cooking human flesh is nauseating.

“Heh, who told you to blow them up like that.” By this point Tomoka had finished picking up the guns and was instead bussy rummaging through their pockets for any spare change they might have.

“I hate you sometimes.” Hinata grumbled as she began walking towards her spoiled spoils. Unfortunately, she didn’t manage to salvage much. The guns had suffered damage from the explosion becoming scrap. Any eddies the corpses might have had, had gone in flames as well.

“What did we learn?” Tomoka asked with a cheeky grin. Earning herself a punch for her troubles. Ever since she gave Hinata Ember Celica the girl had become a little more punchy.

“Whatever, I won’t blow up the next one. That doesn’t mean I didn’t win though.” Like that the girls continued bantering for a while until.

“So, how are we carrying all this stuff, and who are we selling it to?” Nozomi suddenly asked, looking towards Tomoka.

“...”

“...”

“...”

“Uh, I hadn’t thought that far to be honest.” Sighing, the other two decided to just let it go. Their time and effort would be better spent thinking of a solution instead.

“I mean, there is a perfectly fine car right here so we could use that. As for selling, we could just go to a random gun shop and see if they are up to buy them. If all else fails we could just sell them to a recycling facility or something.” Looking towards the very crashed car the duo had their doubts about the idea. In the end, they decided to roll with it anyway.

Once inside the car Tomoka in the driver seat the trio began going around pacifica looking for more people to loot from. It’s not robbing if they are dead, it's looting. It does not change even if the people were alive a moment before.

“We shall become legends! The three musketeers-” Instantly Tomoka was interrupted by the other two’s shouts.

“NO!” There was no way in hell they would call themselves that, it simply sounded too silly.

“Hehe, alright but we still need merc names. Not only that but we also need to decide what each of us specialize in.” It didn’t take long for Nozomi to give her answer.

“Well, I already have Crescent rose, and I will get a kerenzikov so snipping and cutting I guess.” That made sense, in other worlds, Nozomi would be their long range fighter, mostly. Should they need to fight in an enclosed space then she would go cutting people up, nice.

“How about you Hinata?” What came next was something that Tomoka didn’t expect.

“I have Ember Celica which is a mid to short range weapon. So I am thinking of getting a sandy. I had thought of going net runner but I am not that good with tech stuff. So Tomoka, you will be the netrunner of the group.” Made sense but there was something she didn’t like about how it was said. She needed to make sure so she went ahead and asked.

“You know this is the real world right? we could get both a cyberdeck and a sandy.” Hinata's devious smile made Tomoka worry.

“Nope, you get the deck, I get the sandy.”

“But-”

“Nope, you deck, me sandy.”

“I-”

“deck, sandy.” This time Hinata said it in a somewhat condescending tone like talking to a two year old while pointing first at Tomoka and then at herself.

“You’re mean!” No, Tomoka did not pout, that is slander and there is no evidence nor witnesses of the event.

“Fine! You can keep your sandy then, I will just become the bestest netrunner ever! I will make Bartmoss look like a toddler compared to me! MUAHAHAH, gufha” Tomoka's evil laughter was interrupted by a smack to the back of the head. Turning around Tomoka sent an offended glare to Nozomi who just shrugged.