Tyger Shore

"What? Wasn't me." Ori offers innocently.

Her eyes widen as she points an accusatory finger at his face, "YOU GOT LAID DIDN'T YOU!" she suddenly shouts.

"W-what!?" Ori utters in response.

"You heard me! You're acting like my bro the morning after he sticks it in a joytoy! Thinking you're big shit! Where'd my wimpy-lampost go!?" she questions, stepping forwards and gripping the lapels of his jacket to shake him, "Did one of those ho's steal you with her beef curtains!?"

"Quit it!" he tries to brush her off to no avail. "Yeah I got some but it isn't anything-"

"You got some!?" she squawks, pushing him at Six while relinquishing her hold on him, "Whatever! Like I wanna hear about you and some bitch slobbering over each other!" she states before quickly stepping down the street.

Ori glances at Six, "You gonna bitch at me too?"

The merc shrugs, "Fuck who you want. Not my business." he remarks before following after Rebecca.

Ori lets out a sigh and sweeps his hair back, "Hard to tell if she's playing around or actually mad..."

--------------

The trio stop in an alleyway just outside the shanty town, "So what's the plan?" Ori asks, usually Max was the one to decide this, Six took charge during the 'Marv hunt', but that obviously hadn't gone so well... Not to mention his usual reticence to speak at all.

Come to think of it, Rebecca probably wasn't a good person to ask either... He blinks erratically, was he the one in charge right now...?

Ignorant of his thoughts, Rebecca just shrugs at him, "Thought Q would've written one up before we got here. That bitch is like a control freak plus one..."

"No, I've met an actual control freak and she isn't it." he retorts but continues after she challenges him with a glare, "Susie ever do a full background check on you, bank shit, birth certificate, probably even knew where you took your last dump?"

. . .

"Wait, you met someone like that...? Was it the ho-"

"No. And I'm not gonna name her either, the chances of it summoning her like Cthulu aren't zero."

Rebecca snorts at that before seemingly remembering that she was mad at him, "Got a plan metal-man?"

Six shrugs, "Go to Kuroda's house and take him."

...

"Do we even know where he lives?" Rebecca questions.

"It was in the shard Q gave us..." Ori retorts before shaking his head, "Besides, we're trying to do this hush-hush, remember?... Rebecca, check his home, Tygers'll be less suspicious if a girl goes asking around for him. Six head to the bar, see if you can overhear something."

"And what're you gonna doing?" she asks.

Ori shrugs, "Sightseeing. Who knows, we might get lucky."

-----------------

"Maybe walking around alone in this place wasn't the best idea?" Ori inwardly remarks, doing his best to ignore the scathing glares sent his way by most of the population. His clothes weren't torn and hanging off of him, so he didn't look homeless.

He wasn't Asian either, prompting suspicion from the Tyger Claws who patrolled the area... The gang members who belonged to different ethnicities heavily tattooed or modded themselves to fit in better, leaving Ori a regular-looking person in a crowd of freaks.

He'd heard casual comments about robbing him multiple times already, plus the few calling him a reckless kid... Seems like his age was throwing them off a bit, which he wasn't complaining about. Still, Six must be having a hell of a time... Or maybe his size and Cyberware would scare most off.

Seriously though, the shanty town was shittier than even Casinha was, an alleyway wasn't complete without a corpse attracting flies, and he swore he saw a rat the size of a dog earlier...

While he'd like to leave as soon as possible, the job was turning out harder than he'd thought. He'd visited most of Kuroda's haunts, yet hadn't spotted the man. Six and Rebecca hadn't found him either, leaving the with few options... They might even have to come back tomorrow, making their presence more suspicious.

Sighing, he meets up with Six and Rebecca in an alleyway, both looking fed up with the situation, even if Six was doing his best to hide it.

"This sucks!" Rebecca complains as Six wipes off what is presumably someone's spit from his shoulder. "Can we go yet? I've had enough of old creeps coming onto me, one more and I'll shoot their iddy-biddy nuts off!"

"I've checked every public area, so either he's hiding inside somewhere, or..." Ori turns and gestures down the road to where the river was. "He's on the shore for some reason...?"

The other two look at him as if he was stupid, why would their target be on the shore of the beach? This wasn't a tropical island after all, the only thing you'd find there is discarded plastic, toxic water, and probably a few bodies if you looked hard enough.

"I'm just saying, it's better we check now then have to come back tomorrow."

"Fine, but I'm burning these things as soon as we're clear." the chibi states, scratching at the jogging bottoms he'd bought her.

"You just want me to buy you something better..." he drawls.

"Duh."

---------------------------

...

"Is... That the guy...?" Rebecca wonders aloud as they step onto the boardwalk overlooking the beach. Not far from the water they spot a man laying next to an old boom box which was blaring old summer music at top volume. He was singing along at the top of his lungs, two women passed out next to him as he drinks a beer between breaths.

"Yeah..."

"He's supposed to be one of those, super-serious brokers... Right?"

"Yeah..."

"Did he have an identical tw-"

"Look, that's him! Stop asking me dumb questions! Let's just bag 'em and get paid, alright!?"

Rebecca nods, "Not gonna say no to that... Might be a bit difficult though." she states, eyeing the few Tyger Claws sitting around enjoying their own drinks.

"Don't worry. I've got a plan." Ori reassures her.