"Of course," you say, smiling at Homura. You bite back a touch of disappointment, a sensation that you hadn't done nearly enough. But would an inspiring,
hot-blooded speech have had much of an effect on Homura? You're really not completely sure, but you doubt it, a little. She's not really the type.
Homura considers you for a long moment, before dipping her head towards you. She pivots sharply on one heel towards the racks of guns, her long black hair swirling behind her in the still air before settling into the familiar, improbable split tails. You ponder her hair briefly before discarding the thought, for that way madness lies.
She reaches the first rack - pistols by the dozen. Mostly Berettas, sleek, dark L-shapes sitting quietly in row after row, with a few oddities here and there, like the two Desert Eagles. Seems like even here in Japan, there's always someone going for the loud, flashy weapon in complete disregard for cost. None of them are particularly golden, or even gold-ish, you note. You're not sure why that's important, but indeed none of them are.
You watch as Homura simply unlocks the rack with another purple flare of magic -she probably gets
quite a lot of use out of that one trick, really- and slides the locking bolts back. She raises her shield bearing over the rack, and passes the shield over the pistols. It's like watching a magic trick, which, technically it is - one moment, they're hanging innocuously on the rack, then they're blocked from sight by the shield, and then... there's an empty spot there.
And another empty spot next to it, and another, and another...
It's over in less than ten seconds, as much time as it takes for Homura to make one pass. The entire rack is denuded of weapons.
You blink, feeling a grin begin to return to your face. You lock your hands behind your back with a rustle of your leather coatsleeves - look, don't touch, just watch the pro at work and everything.
Homura pauses in her tracks and glances back at you curiously, head tilted a hair to the side.
You raise an eyebrow at her.
She blinks slowly, deliberately at you.
A second eyebrow joins the first.
She shrugs, and returns to her weapons gathering - this time unlocking a rack of assault rifles. It does vaguely occur to you to wonder how on
earth they get
assault rifles in Japan... but then again, organized crime. This time, she needs to pick them up one by one to slide into her shield.
"So um," you say, a thought occurring to you. You glance around at the racks - the yakuza are sensible enough to store the guns unloaded. "Do you need to load these manually, or something?"
"Yes," Homura says, tone mild. "Those cabinets in the back have all the ammunition."
Some part of you cringes at the thought -
live ammunition kept in filing cabinets, but you nod. "I suppose that takes a while?"
Homura shrugs minutely, glancing wordlessly around the frozen greys of the timestopped world. Well, to be fair, is the world frozen, or are you going arbitrarily fast? You take a moment to contemplate that as Homura passes over two of the rifles, particularly worn looking specimens. Well, pragmatically speaking it's more or less the same thing, you suppose, except that's not really true. In principle, someone with an antimagic field would be able to move if the wolrd truly were frozen... on the other hand,
magic. Like getting electricity despite the timestop.
Magic is such bullshit.
"Those rifles jam," Homura murmurs, indicating those two rifles she'd passed over.
"Ah, gotcha," you say. "May I?"
She shrugs, already moving on to the next rack, picking around a yakuza lounging on a bench. The thug's been caught in a particularly unflattering expression, droopy eyes and droopy mouth. The whole freezeframe issue, really.
You pick up the rifle - it's an AR-15, you recognize. Plastic stock, of course, barely modified. You... sort of wonder how it wound up here. If you had to hesitate a guess, they probably diverted a few for their own use from larger shipments? You've no real idea.
You inspect it, turning it over in your hands before racking the charging handle and checking clear the chamber. Click the safety up, and pop the takedown pin... the lower receiver, butt, trigger, grip and all swing away. You rack the handle again, catching the bolt as it slams backwards out of the way.
A glance up -you can
feel eyes on you- and you catch Homura watching you curiously. "The buffer spring's worn," she notes. "No point to it."
"Oh," you say, shrugging, and reassemble the rifle before replacing it. "Umm... do you need a cleanse, Homura?"
Her eyes flick over to you. "Not yet," she says. She hesitates for a moment, before she makes a halting addition. "Thank you."
You smile. "No problem."
She goes through the racks, and you just watch her. Does she ever use those shotguns, you wonder? Probably, you decide - excellent for Familiars, if nothing else, at a bet.
Finally, she pauses at the end of now considerably emptier room, pulling open the cabinets to reveal... rows and rows of neatly filled magazines and clips, as well as boxes of ammunition. You walk up beside Homura, eyeing the
considerable quantity of ammo.
"So, um, you need to load... all the guns?" you ask.
"Yes," she says, sweeping her arm over the neatly stacked rows and hoovering them up by the dozen. She lowers herself to the floor, crosslegged, and holds her shield out. With a clatter, dozens of pistols drop to the floor, along with clips. She gives you a look, before picking up a pistol and a clip out of the pile.
You take that as an invitation, and seat yourself comfortably opposite her from the pile as she loads the Beretta and racks the slide, cocking it and flipping on the safety before slipping it into her shield. You squint at the pile for a moment, before a twist of will has spheres of Grief sweeping in. "Here, let me, Homura," you say, smiling.
You reach out with your mind and with your Grief in a dozen grasping tendrils, snatching up pistols and clips from the pile. With a dozen simultaneous clicks, you slam each and every single clip home at once, the sound echoing like, well, a gunshot. Another twist of will, and you cock and safe them all at once.
You grin proudly at Homura, holding out the now loaded pistols to her, grip first.
She blinks at you for a moment before claiming the loaded and readied pistols. Another pass of her shield over the ground, and she dumps a larger pile of guns on the ground.
Considerably larger. A few pistols mixed in with assault rifles. She stares at you.
"Oh fine, be that way," you say with a grin. You reach out again, snaking tendrils of Grief snapping out to sieze guns and load them with a metronomic rhythm. Homura accepts the loaded ones, replacing the rapidly depleting pile of firearms with fresh, empty ones.
You work in a companionable silence, Homura shoving the guns into her shield as fast as you pass them to her, and replenishing the pile when she has a moment. "Hey, Homura," you say, raising your voice a little to be heard over the clatter of loading guns.
Violet eyes cut over to you, an inquisitve expression on Homura's face.
"Do you think I could pick up something for myself?" you ask. "I kind of want something to cover my lack of options outside a hundred meters."
Homura shrugs with one shoulder, reversing a rifle -an AR-15- to you before pausing. "How will you keep it?"
[] Write-in
=====
Did you know that Japan ranks
6th in the total value of things smuggled through? Well, by some rankings, anyway.
Also, this is an armoury; if you want cash, you'll have to make a side trip.
