241. Back in action

241. Back in action

Days turned into months with Tomoka, Hinata and Nozomi making names for themselves within the edge-running community. Funnily enough, although Kiwi did end up joining Maine’s crew, Lucy did not. Afterall...

“Was that really necessary?” Lucy asked, looking at the very demolished three floor building that her crew had turned into rubble.

“I had a talk with the client. The job said they wanted the area cleared of scavs but not why. It just so happens that the guy wanted to demolish the building anyway. I just negotiated a bonus for ourselves should we bring it down.” That made sense.

Despite working with the trio of frankly insane women for a month already, Lucy didn’t really know how to feel about it. The way they worked, the way they approached a gig, the way they didn’t give a shit for the unsaid rules. It all stressed her out, yet she had gotten more eddies working with them than working alone.

“Won’t the fixer get cross with you again for talking with the client behind their back?” It had happened more than once before. Tomoka had the bad habit of contacting the clients directly behind the fixer’s back. There are very few fixers out there that wouldn’t take that as a personal insult.

“Probably, if mister Takashi askes then I will just say I got myself a second job from the same client and be done with it.” Looking around Lucy saw the other two just shrugging without a care in the world. Sighing Lucy just accepted the fact that she was running with a group of weirdos.

After saying their goodbyes Lucy went back to her apartment happy to have another seven thousand five hundred eddies to her name. The job was worth twenty thousand eddies originally taking into account the number of scavs infesting the building. With the demolition bonus it went up to thirty.

“No matter how I look at it, that girl is insane.” Lucy mumbled to herself as she relaxed on her couch while taking sips of her broseph.

Matter of fact is, Lucy is a good net-runner, a really good one. However, she feels she falls short of Tomoka. The woman didn’t have a single quick hack installed in her deck. Instead, she had pieces of code she could quickly arrange into hacks.

Lucy had no idea how that could possibly work, not now and not then. She had asked of course, she didn’t expect a straight answer but she got one. Even so, she couldn’t wrap her head around it. She had tried, both understanding the “Trick” Tomoka did. Long story short, she failed.

Not like it matters much any way, she would get there... eventually. Afterall, Tomoka has been teaching her some. Normally, netrunners don’t like teaching others all that much, just another mark for Tomoka’s weirdness in her opinion. Then again, the girl could very well be Bartmoss’ reincarnation with how advanced her own skills are.

Her thoughts were interrupted by a call from the very same girl she had been thinking about. Lucy debated whether to answer or not. They had just finished a gig and to tell the truth, she didn’t feel like going on a second one right away. That is another thing with Tomoka’s group. Sometimes they could go days without gigs and then take three or four in a single day.

“Hello?” In the end she decided to answer. There was nothing stopping her from saying no and not participating in a gig, not like she had done so before though.

“Hey Lucy, just calling to say we will disappear for a while, how long? No idea.” Lucy raised a brow at that. She knows Tomoka to be impulsive but this felt a little odd in her humble opinion.

“Uh, what?” Once she managed to get her thoughts properly arranged to ask what was going on the call was cut. Even worse, after trying to call back the contact appeared as out of range.

“Great, my crew decided to disappear without telling me why or for how long-” Sighing Lucy took a long drag from a freshly lit cig before continuing talking to herself.

“-Wonder if Maine will let me run with his crew for a while.”

Back with Tomoka and Co, they came back to the Naruto universe as Oracle notified them of a development.

“Now hurry, I don’t want to be late to the summit!” And so the trio quickly got themselves cleaned up before getting dressed. A small debate whether to use the Yugure getup ensued though in the end, they decided not to.

“Last checks!” Hearing Tomoka excitedly shout as they were about to board the quinjet, Nozomi and Hinata got to check their equipment. However, they were soon distracted by Tomoka taking a rather large weapon.

“What is that?” Nozomi asked, looking at the weird weapon. It looked like some sort of weird grenade launcher.

“Hehe! This beauty right here is my mechashift weapon! Making it was a pain in the ass but now it’s ready! A combination of a Halo-4 type-33 light anti-armor weapon and a one headed battle ax! I call her: plasmatic emerald!”

As she said that the weapon shifted into said ax form with a really huge blade. Not only that but the whole shooting mechanism was contained within the ax head. With a fluid movement Tomoka slammed the ax blade first onto the concrete before pulling the trigger on the handle. The result was a big explosion of green plasma.

“That looks very pretty... and destructive.” Hearing Nozomi’s comment Hinata smiled wryly seeing the crater the attack had made. Not to mention said crater was glowing due to the heat the now slagged concrete had absorbed.

Shrugging, Tomoka shifted her weapon back before reloading the used shot. Once that was done she proceeded to seal it for ease of travel. A few moments later, the trio found themselves flying at top speed towards the land of iron.

Meanwhile Jiraiya found himself inside his room within the land of iron. Tsunade had agreed, although reluctantly, to come as one of his two guards. The other guard being Dragon, one of the most skilled and loyal ANBU within his guard. Although now he is going by Junichiro.

“What do you think of all this Jiraiya?” Tsunade asked as she tapped her foot against the floor. She didn’t like this, at all. Whatever this Akatsuki group was planning couldn’t be anything good.

“I don’t know but I have a bad feeling. By this point, Naruko might be the only one left without having had her Biju extracted. Not to mention that other group, Yugure. We know little of Akatsuki but we know even less of Yugure.”

Not to mention their own personal problems. Ever since Tomoka appeared in his office like it was her own he had been trying to get information on her. Nothing, complete information black out. It was as if the girl had banished from the face of the earth.



“Do you think they are working together?” It was a good guess by Junichiro but all three of them knew that it was unlikely.

“No, their modus operandi is different. Not to mention, how little Yugure has been active lately. It just doesn’t make sense. Let's hope the other Kages are willing to share information, maybe then we will be able to figure things out.”

Tsunade scoffed. They were ninjas, it is highly unlikely any of them would share any meaningful information. At most they would share some already known information to say they did their part. With a sigh Jiraiya spoke again.

“Well, we won’t figure anything out sitting here and brooding. Let's go, the summit will be starting soon.” With that said, the trio stood up before walking towards the meeting room.

Once inside they looked around to see that the Raikage was already on his seat with a very prominent frown. The other already occupied seat was that of Suna with Temari acting as the voice piece of Suna seeing as their council hasn't yet chosen the next Kazekage.

Not bothering to say anything, Jiraiya sat on his spot before giving the room another once over. He took his time to see the faces and expressions of everyone present after a while he came to a conclusion.

‘Today is going to be a very long day’