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Passing through the procedure of New Tokyo's docking ring, the pink-lighted Eagle descended towards the landing pads. The rain, typical to the equatorial regions of New Tokyo was all but done with it's torrential presence for the day, manifesting itself only as a warm drizzle.

As the autopilot navigated the fighter towards the hangars, Haze dispatched a text message to Sable. She did not indent to wait until her own ship would descend down that same route - especially that given the overall busyness of the main New Tokyo landing pad, her companion might be routed towards a completely different end of the complex.

"The place is called Komorebi. Rather easy to find. I'll wait there."

The drizzle still was not completely subsumed when she left the hangar. It was warm, but the precipitation excused her wearing a cowl in this otherwise hot weather. Similarly, knee-high heeled boots were useful in treading through puddles. She made her way out of the hangars into the streets of New Tokyo's busiest metropolis.

The steel architecture surrounding the planetside anchor of the docking ring was austere and, to her mind, oppressive. New Tokyo looked like a fantastic paradise from space, but down on the ground, especially here at the root, where form had to give way to function, it was anything but. The district that attracted most visitors, businesspeople and foreigners was simultaneously most repulsive to the eye.

A five minute walk later, she looked up from the cowl at the pretend-wooden facade of the cafe. A handful of Kusarian letters were painted on the door, along with a sloppily etched word Komorebi in capital Latin letters. She opened the door, a bell ringing softly to alert the staff that a new customer entered the building.

The cafe was not empty, with a handful of tables inside occupied by a wide cross-section through the Kusarian society. A couple of students were giggling over something in the corner. A few older Kusarian gentlemen played riichi mahjong on two tables joined together, a game she knew of but the convoluted method of play eluded her enough to never try it herself. Another table occupied by a foreigner, either Libertonian or Bretonian, staring into the screen of a console and typing furiously while sipping coffee.

She spied a transparent glass door leading out to a patio on the other side of the cafe. The scenery much different than the high street, she took an English menu sheet from a table by the door and headed outside, to one of the tables covered with umbrellas, glancing and nodding towards a Kusarian girl behind the cafe's counter.

Outside, Haze took her seat making sure to have a line of sight towards the cafe entrance and unclasped the cowl, carefully setting it aside on the seat to her right. A handful of raindrops still hit the ground as she started reading through the menu and awaited Olivia to reach the cafe.
Her Sutinga gently settling down into the soft embrace of the landing pad's gravity cushion, Olivia leapt out of the already open cockpit, her boots sending up a splash of water from a shallow puddle as she hit the ground. Annoyed, she glanced up at the sky. The roof of the hangar facility extended all the way to the pad one over from hers, leaving her and her craft to stand in the slow, warm drizzle of New Tokyo's rain. Hoping to avoid getting her flightsuit soaked, she hurried across the open area towards a row of air taxis waiting for passengers.

Settling into one of the unmanned vehicles, she fished her PDA out of an inside pocket of her attire, revealing a text notification on its screen. "Komorebi," Olivia said out loud. Immediately, the taxi's door slid shut and the craft lurched into the air, plotting a path across the spaceport towards the café.

A brief, relatively smooth ride through the district's busy air traffic later, the cab touched down on the far side of the road, across from the small, cozy looking establishment, its exterior styled to have the appearance of being made of planks of cherry wood. Olivia stepped out of the taxi and jogged across the road, through a large group of tourists enjoying a sightseeing tour on foot despite the persistent precipitation.

A small bell chimed as she entered through the simple door, the name of the café painted neatly in Kusarian across its face. Taking a moment to let her eyes adjust to the dimly lit interior, Olivia glanced around, letting her eyes briefly rest on each of the few patrons. Her gaze landed on a glass door, through which she spotted a clearly non-Kusarian woman with raven black hair sitting at a table by herself.

Nodding towards a somewhat bored looking waiter, Olivia mouthed the words sake and coffee before heading towards the patio and whom she assumed was her new drinking partner.



Jennifer glanced through the piece of card with the menu, looking for something she might be familiar with and enjoy. The café served a regular manner of both non-alcoholic and alcoholic drinks, likely switching style from a traditional-looking Kusarian tea-house into a more familiar, foreign bar come evening. She had yet to make up her mind on whether she would let the ethanol carry her through until evening or if she'd instead favour the clear head. In any case, she always preferred to be the one less drunk than her counterparts, and spending time around the crowds of Buffalo and Alcatraz taught her a few tricks on how to accomplish that.

Her purple eyes followed Olivia as she entered the establishment, looked around and headed towards Haze. The coloured lenses were the only bit of colour in her otherwise black outfit, a focal point that attracted attention. She still hadn't made her own order and the waiter would very likely come to the table in a couple of minutes.

"Well, darling," she greeted Olivia while nodding towards the blank space between the chair to her left and the chair opposite. "I suppose I am yours for the afternoon."
"Haze," Olivia replied in as casual a tone as she could muster. In a fluid motion, she pulled out from under the table the chair across from the seated woman and settled down into it, all the while keeping her eyes fixated on the bounty hunter. She took a deep breath, feeling the reassuring pressure of a pocket blaster nestled within an inside pocket of her flightsuit against her chest. Just in case.

For a moment, Olivia remained silent, sizing up the black-clad figure across from her. Then she nodded to herself, satisfied for the moment that the odds of hostilities breaking out between them in the immediate future seemed rather small.

She let out a soft chuckle.

"What to do with you, now that you're mine?"




Haze smirked. "Well, this was your idea, no? I don't suppose we're just going to sit here in silence sizing each other up, are we? Or, God forbid, engage in pointless verbal fencing as is so common up there," she pointed upwards.
"I suppose not," Olivia replied with a laugh. She looked around, searching for the waiter she'd given her order to. Seeing him stand behind the counter, fixing her coffee, she turned back to face Haze, a curious glint in her eyes.

"Why don't you tell me a little something about yourself?"




"Oh, you'll have to put in a little more effort than that, I'm afraid," Haze rolled her eyes. "My past is not available for anyone who just asks for it and my present is no more sophisticated than it looks on the outside. I'm an assassin, sweetheart, people in my line of work are notoriously boring and uninteresting. Most are just adrenaline junkies, frankly."
Olivia leaned back in her chair, throwing one arm up onto the backrest. Another secretive type, she thought to herself, annoyed. It was a trait far too common among hired guns, though she had to admit that she was guilty of it herself more often than not. Alcohol usually cleared it up easily enough but she had the feeling Haze wasn't about to get drunk with her. She sighed inwardly.

But there was no harm in asking some more harmless questions. They'd have to talk about something, after all.

"What about you? Also chasing the kick?"




"Oh, absolutely not." Haze's impeccable upper-class Bretonian accent harmonised perfectly with the theatrically feigned righteous indignation. She let it go in favour of a friendlier, playful tone before the next sentence. "Pursuing primitive sensual pleasures is rather feral and uncivilised, especially when one does it in a dangerous way. No, no. I just do it for the money," she smirked again. "I would like to believe that the adrenaline addiction hasn't yet got into my head. The money, at least—"

She paused, her train of thought interrupted by one of the café's waitresses entering the patio through the glass door. The waitress did not carry anything other than a small PAD for taking orders. As she reached their table, Haze gestured towards Olivia. "Oh, after you."
With a slight wave of the hand, Olivia dismissed the waitress, directing her towards Haze.

"I've already ordered," she explained, quickly glancing back at the counter. The waiter was putting the finishing touches on what she had hoped would be a simple black coffee, but would likely turn out to be some fancily decorated, creamy abomination. Returning her gaze to the woman opposite her, she tilted her head slightly. A taunting smirk played around the corners of her mouth. "Sound a bit odd, to be honest. You've got such a... snobby attitude - no offense - yet you work such a low-life job." She raised her hands to air quote the last words.


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