Thankfully, the drive to the old man's home wasn't all too far, as Haruka had said; they encountered a few skags on the way there, and by the time they saw them, Michiru had gotten used to riding up there in the gunner seat well enough to shoot them, satisfied with her hit rate, allowing herself a few misses on accord of this being the first time she was shooting like this, using a machine gun mounted to the top of a very fast driving car.
"You okay up there?" Haruka called out to her after the skags had been dealt with, left dead behind them; Michiru reassured her that she was, still felt relieved though when what looked like a farm appeared up ahead, with a small field and a house which looked just as shabby as those back in Fyrestone.
To her surprise, Haruka didn't drive right up to it though, but stopped at a fair distance; momentarily, Michiru thought that she just wanted to have a look around, make sure no one was lying in wait for them to ambush them, but when she killed the engine, it became quite obvious that they'd have to walk the rest of the distance.
"We better approach on foot", Haruka confirmed that impression as she got out of the car, prompting Michiru to unbuckle the seatbelts and join her down on the ground, relieved to have firm earth beneath her feet again, "the old man's okay, but his granddaughter can be a handful if she thinks bandits are coming."
"Better to be safe than sorry, then", the sniper agreed, making Haruka nod; together, they started walking away from the car, closer to the house, a sudden feeling of unease nearly making Michiru slow down though, her fingers suddenly itching to hold her gun, even though she couldn't pinpoint where this feeling was coming from.
There was nothing threatening in sight, but the time she had spent as a treasure hunter so far had taught her to listen to her instincts and give in to her hunches; and her instincts were screaming at her in this very second, telling her to be careful, to be on her guard and to be ready to defend herself within the blink of an eye.
Making sure that Haruka wouldn't notice, since she had categorized the old man as okay and Michiru didn't want to offend her by obviously doubting her judgement, she let her hand move closer to the holster on her hip; she wasn't touching the weapon, not yet, but knew that she could have it out of the holster and aim at whatever threat might come up within the blink of an eye.
Her nerves still tingled, prompting her to glance around uneasily, something Haruka apparently didn't notice; and as they got closer to the house, now within yelling distance to anyone who might be inside, the reason for her feelings of unease became clear, in the form of a shotgun blast ripping apart the silent area, dust and small stones flying up two feet ahead, where the shot had hit the ground instead of one of them.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa", Haruka cried out, holding her hands up while Michiru, more out of reflex than constant thought, had her gun out already, even though so far, she couldn't see anyone in the building to aim it at, "hold it! It's me, Haruka, from town!"
"I'm not holding anything until your friend puts her gun down", a female voice called back, revealing the one who had shot at them as the granddaughter Haruka had mentioned; the blonde shot Michiru a pleading look, and even though it felt like the wrong thing to do, the sniper holstered her gun again after a moment, keeping her hand close to it though, just in case.
"There", Haruka called out the moment the gun had been put away, "she put it away, can we come closer now? We just want to talk to your grandfather!"
"Go ahead", the voice called back, the owner still hidden from sight somewhere in the house, "but no funny business, you hear? Last time you came here, that blonde friend of yours nearly blew up our garden!"
At this, Haruka winced while Michiru raised an eyebrow, figuring that the blonde friend had to be Minako; knowing though that now wasn't the right time to ask, she filed that little bit of information away for later, nodding when Haruka pointed out that she had brought along a much less dangerous friend this time.
"Her name's Michiru", the blonde added, "she's a vault hunter, she hired me to help her out around here, we're not gonna blow anything up, I swear."
"Fine", came the grudging reply, prompting Haruka to let out a relieved breath; lowering her hands, she got moving again, Michiru keeping up with her, still making sure to keep her hand close to her gun, just in case.
While they approached the house, the front door flew open – with enough force to make Michiru fear the whole building, not looking all too stable, might collapse – and a surprisingly young woman appeared, Michiru guessing that she was a few years younger than herself, probably closer to Minako's age than to Haruka's.
"Come on in", the woman told them, nodding at the house she had emerged from, "you're lucky, Grandpa's awake and wants to talk to you. Don't tire him out."
"Her name's Rei", Haruka whispered to the sniper while said Rei vanished inside the house again, leaving the door open though, "now you know why I said she can be a handful."
"Indeed", Michiru agreed at once, eying the shotgun Rei had leaned against the wall next to the door; it was an older model, just like Haruka's, but Rei clearly took good care of it, and Michiru didn't want to imagine the damage it might have done, had the other woman shot at them instead of the ground in front of them.
"Haruka, welcome", a new voice, with the scratchy sound men often developed when getting older, interrupted those dark thoughts, "it's been a while, you didn't bring your friend with her grenades, did you?"
"No, Mister Hino", Haruka replied at once, a bit sheepish, "I did bring a friend, but another one and she has no grenades. And if she had any, she wouldn't toss them around here."
"Michiru Kaioh", Michiru decided to do her own introduction this time, instead of letting the blonde do it the way she had done with Rei, "pleased to meet you."
As she spoke, she took a closer look at him; he was surprisingly tiny, making her wonder if Rei's height had come from the other side of the family, the few hairs he had left on his head and his rather thick eyebrows a mix of grey and white. Still, Michiru figured that he could defend himself, should the need to arise; his hand wasn't shaking when he held it out to her in greeting, and his grip was strong – and her trained eyes easily spotted the bulge beneath his vest where he kept his gun hidden, even though someone who didn't know what to look for might have missed it.
"Kaioh, eh", the old man surprised her, smirking at her, "I know that name. Been big on another world, but went belly-up, eh? So you are hunting for treasure to bring them back to the top?"
"Something like that, yes", Michiru gave back, not wanting to delve too deeply into her reasons with a complete stranger, but not wanting to lie, either; and while she still wondered how the old man had learned of her family and their misfortune on this dump of a planet, he nodded and smiled, apparently satisfied with the honesty of her answer.
"I know a bit about the vault", he then told her, "not much, mind you, but a bit more than your average joe on this planet. First and most important, you'll need a key to access it."
Michiru had heard this before, but, not wanting to risk his willingness to talk, she just nodded; he took a moment to shift in his seat, then continued, both the sniper and her blonde companion listening eagerly as he now started to tell them things they hadn't known before.
"I know the key has been broken", he told the two, making Michiru raise an eyebrow as this was new to her – she had heard that someone on Pandora was in possession of the key, but her sources hadn't mentioned anything about the thing having been broken.
"I know the location of two parts", the old man went on, "the other two, I only heard rumours and hear-say, nothing definite. One of them has been taken by a bandit leader who has his camp not far from here, Haruka, you may know him as Nine-Toes. The other is in the hands of a scientist who came here to study the key and the vault, she's supposed to have her camp up in the Arid Badlands."
"A lot of the areas here are called something-or-other-Badlands", Haruka added to that, making Michiru nod; she figured that knowing the location of two of the key parts was a good start, and that surely, they'd find out where the other two were during their quest to get the first two.
"And I've heard of that bandit", Haruka went on, making the sniper look at her, "he's, well… not described as exactly sane. Which is probably why he could beat a bunch of other bandits into submission and make them follow him, that takes quite a bit around here."
"You know what he looks like?" Michiru wanted to know in response, smiling that certain smile again which she knew unsettled people, even though, to her credit, Haruka didn't seem ruffled by it at all, "cause as long as you can point him out to me, he won't be a problem."
"Michiru's a sniper", the blonde clarified at the curious look Rei shot her at hearing that, "I haven't really seen her in action yet, apart from taking down a bunch of skags, but talk around town is that she's really good."
"You have to be if you want to find the vault", Grandpa Hino commented, "many others have tried before you, and many others have failed."
"I won't fail", Michiru gave back, the confidence in her words and tone making the old man smile; and just when he appeared as if he wanted to say more, the loud roar of engines came up in the distance, Rei snapping to attention immediately and hurrying for the door, Michiru not surprised the slightest when she grabbed her shotgun before she peered out the window, making sure the heavy curtain kept her hidden from sight.
"Well", she then said, glancing at Michiru again, "seems you like get a chance now to show off how good you really are, cause we got company. Two cars, three bandits each, and Haruka, they stole your gunner seat idea."
"Bastards", Haruka grumbled in response, her gun already in her hand while the sound of engines came closer; she moved to the window next to Rei, peering out as well, and while she did that, Michiru made her way to the only other window in the room, taking firm hold of her sniper rifle, the curious calm which always came over her in such situations taking over as she got ready to take out as many of them as possible before they could get any closer.