Festival Lootbox! (Open)

Where was he? And why was he there again? Sora took a moment to ponder these questions as he gazed down at the spectacle below him. The streets were lined with all manner of stalls and multi-colored lights and crowded with people in strange dress. So... some sort of festival then. The area wasn't quite congested enough to be Tokyo or Osaka, and he didn't remember traveling particularly far so... Musutafu maybe? That made a bit of sense at least given his surroundings. Okay then, a festival in Musutafu, that answered the where, probably, but what about the why? That one would more than likely be a bit trickier to logic out.

He was perched atop a two story building, nestled between some paper lanterns that were rigged along a shop's buildboard. He was dressed in his normal operational gear; a long hooded cloak, tactical vest, and military style pants, so it stood to reason that he was there for business rather than to attend the festival. The question then became what the job was... was it even a job actually? Hard to say, he'd run operations on his own dime before after all. The only real clue that came to mind was that he was looking for someone...

"Fat lot a' good that does, eh Izzy?" He spoke to the evening air as his eyes scanned from one person to the next in the crowd. "They've all got masks on 'em, how the bloody hell am I 'sposed to find someone in this mess?" He scratched his head as he tried in vain to search for any more clues to fill in the gaps in his memory. After a few seconds, he raised and eyebrow and then shook his head. "No, I don't 'spect you to have all the answers... But you're right, not gonna get anywhere by standin' up here."

With a final shrug, Sora took a step toward the edge of the building and let himself drop into an alley connecting tot he street below. Landing in a crouch, he quickly pulled his cloak close to hide the hardware that he was packing beneath. No need to draw unnecessary attention to himself when he didn't even remember why he was there... well, not yet at least. Moving out into crowded street, he quickly snatched the first unattended mask he could find, in this case a pretty standard kitsune mask, and then let himself merge into the masses while he looked around for anything that could jog his memory.

Well this was going nowhere fast. Sora's eyes continuously swept back and forth as he went about meandering through the crowds of people. Normally his fits of memory loss didn't really bother him that much, it almost always came back eventually and those things that did manage to slip away forever were seldom all that important. That meant that normally he'd just enjoy the festival while waiting for the answer to come to him, but things were a little different this time. Something was telling him that this one was important, enough so that his mind was fully focused on reclaiming that memory. What could possibly be so pressing though? A rather short list came to mind.

As Sora made his way down the main stretch of the festival grounds, he heard someone suddenly cry out that their wallet had been filched. While that drew the gazes of most of the people nearby, Sora only offered a passing glance before continuing on his way with a shrug. He almost never carried his wallet on him, especially when he was geared up for a job, so it wasn't like he had much to worry about from a thief... Wait a second.

Thief. Thief? Thief.

He stopped dead in his tracks as his brain clicked. That's it, he was looking for a thief, one that had stolen...... Something. Well, it was a start, better than nothing. It had to be pretty important if his mind clung to it to tenaciously. Now, it was just a matter of connecting that last- Did someone just frisk him?

Sora's gaze sharpened beneath his mask. Due to the nature of his quirk, he had a very acute understanding of all of his equipment; he knew their weight and shape by heart, ever curve, every imperfection. They were practically part of him, hell occasionally they were part of him, so they were just as much a part of his senses as his eyes or ears. All of this meant that he knew very well that someone had just tried to take his knife... the question was, was this the one he was looking for?

It took a second to scan the crowd, even with his training and experience this one was fairly skilled, but eventually he caught sight of a figure moving almost directly away from him. Rather than shouting or running after, Sora simply started forward as he had been before. Contrary to the typical reaction, drawing attention to a thief actually tended to make it harder to keep track of them in a crowd, so instead he locked his gaze onto the stranger and approached the situation patiently, following after them in the most casual manner possible.

It was a bit of a strange feeling, to be following someone and not really know the reason why, but here was Sora anyway. He calmly and quietly kept pace with his target, weaving through the masses with care so that he didn't lose sight or get left behind. For awhile he could see the thief continuing to go to work through the occasional gaps in the crowds, clearly making a profit of the evening's festivities. There was a time when such blatant thievery probably would have riled the former hero up quite a bit, but Sora had changed a lot since then. Hell, because of what happened, most days he couldn't even remember what it was like. He was practically a different person now.

Sora continued to tail the thief for several minutes, and it was mostly more of the same, but eventually his behavior changed a bit, no longer taking detours to perform the odd lift. Given how much money people tended to carry at events like this, it was perfectly possible that he'd simply amassed enough of a trove for the night, but the change also could have meant that he'd been spotted... Which could be problematic if Sora lost track of him. Luckily he didn't seem like he was bolting, and Sora let the distance widen a bit as they started to move into more secluded areas.

Not long after, they broke free of the festival grounds and Sora tracked his target to a secluded clearing. Peeking around the corner of a building a decent ways back, he could see that there was no one else around. A voice in the back of his head warned him that if the thief had noticed his tail, then this could well be a trap, but he dismissed the thought almost as quickly as it came. This situation worked just as well in his favor as it would for his target. There was no one to get in the way, and that feeling of urgency for his mission was still just as strong as it had been a few minutes ago.

Throwing caution to the wind, Sora stepped out from his cover and approached the clearing, eyes locked on the thief from behind his mask. "'Evening lad, 'hope you don't mind if I have a word with you." He stopped about ten feet away, briefly glancing back and forth to make sure this wasn't some sort of ambush. His arms crossed under his cloak, ready to grab any of the equipment he had stashed away, just in case. "I believe you've got somethin' that don't belong to you. How 'bout you give it back, eh?"

Sora tilted his head oddly at the thief's response to his request. From the voice he couldn't really tell anything about the person behind the mask, so no clues there... Still, this was the only lead he had to work with, so he didn't have much choice but to keep going with it. "Now, now, lad, just 'cause you didn't take anything from me, don't mean that it doesn't belong t' me. You get me?" His emerald eyes narrowed as he noted the thief try to increase the distance between them a bit, and he responded by simply taking another step forward to maintain the spacing. He wasn't going to let this one have even the slightest chance of getting away, not when the job was so important this time... probably.

As the thief continued, he tried to turn the situation back around on Sora. True, he was rather out of place, was very well armed at a place that didn't warrent it, and he couldn't exactly explain why he was there properly. Unfortunately for the thief, despite raising a perfectly fine point, Sora Just really didn't give a damn. He just shook his head as if disappointed. "Oi, there's no need for name callin' here... Look, I'm just tryin' to give ya a chance before... Aw, screw it." He trailed off and looked past the thief and spoke to his unseen companion with another shrug. "Looks like you were right 'bout this, Izzy. Just a waste a' time. We'll do it your way then."

The thief took another step back and Sora followed again, this time taking his hands out from inside the cloak. They were both empty, but as his right hand came up toward the stranger, a shotgun materialized as if from thin air. He leveled the barrel at the kid's chest and worked the pump action to get the point across that he wasn't joking around. "See, a knife is th' least of yer worries. Now how 'bout you show me what you've got, an' I let you know if it's mine, eh? 'less you'd rather get a bit more ventilation in your system." The fact that the gun was loaded with non-lethal shells was besides the point, not that they'd be able to tell from looking at it.

Sora once again cocked his head, an eyebrow raised as the thief suddenly struck out at something behind him. There was nothing there, what the hell was he aiming at? Maybe he knew something that Sora didn't, or perhaps it could have just been a freak muscle movement caused by stress.... whatever, didn't matter much to him anyway. The second the guy noticed the shotgun pointed at him, Sora could practically feel the death glare that got thrown his way. There it was, that feeling of murder that he'd gotten to know oh so well... If only he had a dollar for every time someone in this business wanted to kill him. It wasn't so strange, afterall, for someone to get just a bit irked when they had a gun pointed at them. He just grinned beneath the mask and adjusted his grip on the weapon slightly.

"Lighten up, lad. No need for that broodin'."

When the thief finally put up his hands in surrender, Sora slowly approached him, shotgun still carefully aimed at his chest. "That's right lad, I'm the arsehole here. I'm sure you're robbin' these people blind outta th' goodness of yer heart." He pressed the muzzle of the gun to the thief's chest as he took one hand off and did a quick frisk. "'Sides, I'm not even after money. I'm looking for a... a..." He paused his search, tapping his chin as he struggled with his memory for a few moments before snapping his fingers with a bit of flair. "That's right, I'm after a flash drive. Tiny little thing, black with a big blue dot on it." Another piece of the puzzle snapped into place, and with the newfound revelation, he continued going over the thief.

Aside from a few bottles of what looked like protein drinks, the guy had been telling the truth, just whatever cash he lifted and those carbon bindings... He ran a hand over one of the strips of cloth as his mind probed at it a bit, analyzing the structure. Not bad... he could use something like that for that one project that... No, not now, more important things. He shook his head and took a step back, letting the muzzle of the gun drift slightly off target. "You... you don't have it, do ya lad?"

He took another step back and slapped a hand against his mask in frustration. "Aw bloody hell... what are the odds there'd be two right tossers stealin' shit at this fair... No offense, lad." With a sigh he brought the shotgun up to rest on his shoulder, where he tapped the barrel several times while mulling something over.

"Oi, you feel like makin' a bit of cash tonight? Not that pocket change you've been collectin', I mean."

Sora resisted the urge to roll his eyes as the kid tried to justify his reasons for stealing, some lingering whispers rearing their heads from a life he'd long since forgotten. How many times had he heard excuses like that before? The voice in the back of his head said that 'no faith in the system' usually just meant that the person didn't have the guts or drive to do things the right way. That was how he used to think... however, things were just a bit muddier now. "Lad, do I look like I fit into this system a' yours? I get by fine without stealin' from normal folk... 'course some a' what I do might be a wee bit worse but..." A brief pause. "Know what? Ignore me, you do you." He shrugged as whatever memory had possessed him passed just as quickly as it had come. There were more important things at the moment, and he'd stopped seriously judging people's life choices a long time ago.

Seeing that the kid, and he was certain he was talking to a kid at this point, had shown any interest at all in his offer, the redhead glanced back his way with a smirk beneath his mask. This one did like laying on the hollow threats, didn't he? "Well, let's see... If ya agree to help me out, I can give ya 150,000 yen, just for th' trouble. If ya can manage to get me what I'm after, ya get a bonus, 500,000." He tapped the shotgun against his shoulder a few more times before dispelling it, letting it fade to dust in his hand. "'Course, if you'd rather not take straight cash, I can offer ya up to that value in equipment as well. If ya don't know what I'm on 'bout, try lookin' up th' name Arsenal sometime."

Truth be told, he didn't have a huge amount of wiggle room in his budget right now, but that's how important getting that drive was. "Not bad for an hour or two a' work, eh? So do we have a deal lad?" He tilted his head to the side slightly as he asked, lingering for just a moment before his gaze turned back toward the festival. Whether the kid decided to bite or not, the arms dealer's night seemed to be far from over. An extra pair of eyes would be nice, but he wouldn't stop until he found the guy anyway.

Sora chuckled at the kid's response to the offer. It really didn't matter to him which way they ended up taking the payment, a batch of equipment was getting made either way, it was just a matter of whether or not it was going to the kid, or to someone else so he could hand over the money instead. One thing the exchange did was cement the fact that this little thief wasn't exactly the leading type. Was this Akuma guy the one he was threatening him with a second ago? That could always be a fun little meeting, though the odds that anyone this kid knew could make good on such a threat in the first place were pretty low. He didn't get to where he was by bowing down to random punks on the street. "Oi, what the hell are you on about? I haven't forgotten a bloody thing. Not my fault you look like the arsehole I'm after." He reached into his vest pocket and produced a small notepad and pen before scribbling something down and handing it over to the thief. Not a name, not a phone number, just an address and a note that read "150 + 500k", though whether that part was more for his or the kid's benefit was up for debate.

"That'll take ya right t' my humble li'l shop. Don't be a stranger." As his new colleague asked about the their target's appearance, Sora gave a bit of a shrug. "Not sure, never seen 'em before. He's s'posed to be about your height, maybe a bit smaller, an' wearin' a mask, red an' blue markings on it." He glanced back with a smirk that was still hidden beneath the fox mask. "Now ya can see why I'd make the mistake, can't you? This guy's just a short bastard though, not a kid. Chances are he doesn't even know what he's got, and'll still be takin' whatever he can get his hands on."

"Now, if you find the tosser an' he starts t' make a run for it, throw one a' these a 'im. You know how they work, right?" He pulled a flashbang from his bandoleer and tossed it over. "Should buy ya' a few seconds for me t' get over there. I don't bloody care if ya make a scene, if you find 'im an you let 'im get away, I don't pay you a cent." His voice, which had been almost pleasant up until that point, turned rather hard as he delivered that last bit. It never hurt to give someone a little extra motivation. "If we're clear on that, let's get to work. You got a name, lad?" He asked as he started moving in the direction that had been indicated.