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"Yeah, you get used to it." Maruyama lets out an almost deflated sounding laugh. As if he's had to deal with that many times by now.
"And!!! You can't beat me with that fuckin' Nightvision, Nicky! I see all!" Her blue LED eyes glow almost as bright as the streets you're walking through. "I got an update! I know all! I see all!"
"She got a discount Regional Analyzer module from some shitty defective Facility Assistant. Don't pay her much mind."
>+ANALYZER MODEL UPDATE. +2 COGNIZANCE!
"Wait, hold on. How do you know that? When the hell did YOU two started hanging out?" You're pretty damn curious, given how they only met each other once during a random mission.
The two glance at each other before shrugging in unison.
"I started bothering him because you went radio silent for a week. I heard he ran a Cleaner Office so I wanted to see what that was like." Kiara chirps in her usual upbeat cadence.
"She started bothering me and I didn't have the heart to say no." Maruyama shakes his head, as if disappointed at himself. "We've been chatting on and off ever seen."
"She's actually been helping out with spreading awareness of my Office, actually. I was only working with about a dozen or so Cleaners but now? 28 under my supervisor!" Maruyama's eyes sparkle for a moment."
"That's the benefits you get when the press help you out~!" Kiara coos with thinly veiled pride in her voice.
The three of you pass by what seems to be a small candle shop. You flinch a bit when you hear something shattering from inside the shop. Two older men are staring down at a man laying on the ground, next to a leaking bottle of A-Energy. The three of you quickly leave before it gets violent.
"Really? I just didn't expect that, really. You two didn't really seem to gel all that well beforehand."
"To be fair, the whole thing with that abandoned district brought back some bad memories." Maruyama tries his best to laugh but it comes out with little mirth or joy. <<span class="mu-b">"I'll find you, Yuriko. I'll fucking find you and I'll...I'll..."</span>> "I'm better now. That I don't have to think about it."
He still hasn't gotten over her, huh? You decide it's best to swerve the conversation to something else. You hand him over the ledger you found. "Can you make any sense of it?"
Maruyama and Kiara stare down at the highly classified ledger you seemingly manifested out of thin air before looking back at you.
"Where the fuck-" Maruyama is beyond confused at how you got this.
"Did you get this?" Kiara is equally confused yet excited at the pile of corporate info.
"Long story!" You pull out the many, MANY pictures you took over the course of the last mission and hand them over to Kiara. The moment her LED eyes scan over the contents of the photos, her system starts to overload.
"OOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!" Kiara's voice picks up in volume so quickly and with such fervent intensity, most of her words are barely legible underneath the static coming out of her voice box.
