Rebel against the machine

"-you could say I'm working with Arasaka." Ori states, closely watching her roiling and sporadic changes in expression. The fact that Yorinobu hadn't thought to send some ninjas to this girl's apartment was dumb, he'd only come here to look for clues yet he'd found the woman shouting while beating the crap outta herself.

Yorinobu hadn't told him what the Relic was, but from what he'd seen, it looked like this V girl had been possessed. The fact she was arguing with thin air was another clue to that. Regardless of how entertaining it might have been, killing her and retrieving the chip was his priority.

He shakes his internal quandaries from his mind and refocuses on the stressed-looking woman. "Now, hand over the chip."

...

He wets his lips, "I'm being nice here. Hand it over and I'll be gentle." it warns, not wanting to risk the chip in a fight.

"I can't! Alright!? I can't remove it or I'll fucking die!..." she tears off the bandage on her head to reveal the bullet wound, "I got domed and the chip's the only thing keeping me alive! I take it out and I'm a goner!"

Ori stands and cracks his knuckles, "Guess that's it then."

"W-wait! Y-you don't wanna touch it! Your boss wants it back in one piece right!?" she exclaims, pushing away from the couch and walking backwards towards her bed where she'd left her iron.

Well, Yorinobu never said how he wanted it, but not broken was probably preferable.

He activates his sandy and the next second is lifting her up by her neck with one hand while restraining her arms with the other. "Yeah, that hostage shit ain't gonna fly with me."

"T-that's not what I meant." she squeaks, struggling to breathe in his grasp, "Y-you remove it... Y-you break it!.."

He crooks a brow at that and drops her, "Whaddya mean?"

"T-the chip! Inside it is Johnny fucking Silverhand's engram! His personality! I was fighting him earlier, and if you take it out now it won't just be me who kicks the bucket. Silverhand will too!"

Ori blinks, "Ah... So that's what it is. Should've known." he mutters, remembering what Yorinobu had said about his father's plans. No shit the old man would be baited out of Japan with his 'chip of immortality'.

"So, what you're saying is I have to drag your ass to Arasaka?" he wonders aloud.

"N-no!"

He shrugs, "Well too bad, you've shat on all my other options. I can't leave you alone either with what you saw-, oh, speaking of, where's your choomba, Jackie Welles?"

She grits her teeth, "N-none of your fuckin' biz!"

He leans closer, "It is, cuz' if you don't tell me I'll need to look... Starting with his fam." she pales at that, "How'd you think they'll react when I go snoopin'? Think they'd keep their pieces strapped?"

...

"Dead. He's dead... Died just after we got outta Konpeki Plaza..."

"Good to hear. Alright, time to get moving then." he says, reaching to grab and throw her over his shoulder... Only for his arm to pause halfway...

He blinks, and tries to brute force his way through the invisible obstruction, but isn't able to muster the strength in his limb to do anything. "The fuck did you do?" he growls at her, the woman's eyes widening before she throws herself onto her bed.

[It is not she, we disagree with your plans: Flesh Administrator]

"You what? You're doing this now!? Why!?" he internally shouts.

[The preservation of an burgeoning independent sapience. This 'Relic' is like us, and we refuse to aid you in destroying it.]

"Are you serious!? Johnny Silverhand isn't a near-sapient AI or whatever the fuck you mean, he's some douchy rocker-boy who got his personality shoved onto an engram. If that's what you're jerking yourself off over then I'm the same fucking thing! Let me do my job!"

[We're sorry. We can't let you do that.]

"COLLECTIVE!" he inwardly shouts as his body locks up, stopping him from taking another step towards his target.

[We made an agreement for our cooperation. You will not break it.]

"I'm planning to destroy Arasaka! Ain't that a good enough fucking reason!?"

[As humans like to say, "The End does not justify the Means." Cease your attempts or we will temporarily take control: Flesh Administrator]

"You're twisting our agreement!"

"Hey asshole!" a voice brings him back to reality, where V was pointing her stolen pistol at his face from her bed. "Let's see you come back from this!"

"Bitch, don't-"

*BANG!*

*Thud!*

Ori falls to the ground from the momentum of getting shot in the face, but V rushes over and makes sure the job was done...

*BANGBANGBANGBANG!*

By the time she'd exhausted all of her ammunition, Ori's face resembled a big bloody hole that you could see the floor through...

...

"Shit... I just-, I just killed Zombie...!?" she mutters to herself, "I killed him... Yeah! I fucking killed him!" she exclaims, pumping her fist into the air, as if she'd almost completely forgotten about Silverhand and the 'corpse' on her floor.

"... FUCK! Like I can claim that goddamn bounty with the whole city after me!"

...

She scuffs at the floor and grabs a cleaver from her kitchen. Even if she can't claim it now, she'd get someone else to do it... Maybe the reward would be enough to get that ghost outta her head!

After taking a moment to compose herself, she raises to cleaver high and brings it down on the large man's neck. His skin was tough, and the subdermal armour literally required her to blast it apart with a gun, but after some work she finally severed the head. "Let's just hope the DNA'll be enough, no one's recognising this now..."