Song had learned a long time ago not to take things for granted. She knew that a lot of things didn't come easy, but never did she expect that being able to wake up in peace was one of the things she'd wind up missing. Before her eyes were even open, a splitting headache came out of nowhere, and in an attempt to deal with the pain, she wound up rolling out of bed and falling flat on the floor.

"Agh…" she groaned rubbing the part of her hip that she fell on. "I'm gonna lose my god damn mind if this becomes a regular occurrence." She stood up, brushing the wrinkles out of her netrunning suit. She braced herself for a remark from V- something to the effect of, "Welcome to my world," but surprisingly, there was nothing. Song's mind got ahead of her, and for a brief moment, she thought that maybe everything from yesterday had been a dream, but the lingering headache quickly put an end to that theory.

Song reached for the jacket that she'd left crumpled up in a corner on the floor the previous night and put it on. That's when she realized that she may have had a general objective, but as far as any ideas on how to actually get there, she had nothing, no leads, no contacts, not even a general game plan. She was basically fumbling around in the dark.

Suddenly, V materialized in front of her. "Well, well, well, look who finally decided to crawl out of bed. Or, I guess 'fall out of bed' would be more accurate," she said with a teasing voice.

She looked at the construct sleepily, wiping her eyes. "What're you talking about?" She paused, looking around to spot the time. "It's not even that late."

V shrugged. "For you, maybe. Turns out constructs don't sleep. I've been active all night." She leaned idly against the wall. The boredom she expressed on her face was palpable.

"Oh…" Song looked down, feeling a slight twinge of guilt. "Sorry."

"Eh, don't be," V replied with an indifferent shrug. "Not like there's anything you could do about it. Back when I had Johnny stuck in my brain I'd be able to take some pills to shut him up, but I don't think you and I really have that luxury, considering I am literally in your brain."

Song let out a heavy sigh as she started pacing back and forth through the tiny, cramped hideout that had become her home. "Speaking of which… the way Viktor was talking made it sound like we don't have much time left to figure this out." And with the way that her brain continually felt as if it was ready to pop out from her skull, she was inclined to agree with him.

V nodded in agreement. "Vik's never been one to exaggerate- meanin' we gotta find a way to deal with this quick."

Song sat down on the side of the bed, hoping to steady her nerves enough to let her think clearly. After a moment of sitting as still as she could allow herself, she let out a heavy sigh. Despite all her years with the FIA, and as a netrunner prior, she didn't even know where to start. "Any ideas?" she asked the voice in head?

V's engram paced around the safehouse. For a moment, she was silent, almost as if she didn't even hear Song's question, but finally, she stopped. "As much as I hate to say it, I think Arasaka'll be our best bet," she said hesitantly. "Even after two years, they're probably still the only one's doin' ops on the human mind like this."

Song gave her a quizzical look. "What, you want me to walk in through the front door? Ask 'em nicely? I hate to say it, but I don't think that'd turn out as well as it did for you."

V shook her head. "No, there's gotta be some other way. If we could just get into Arasaka Tower, we'd be golden, but I doubt we'd be able to find someone willin' to crack a door open for us." She stopped, her eyes going wide as a realization struck her. "Wait, that's it!"

The longer V carried on, the more confused Song was. "What're you talking about?"

"I know just the guy to get us into Arasaka Tower- or get us closer to it, at least." The merc's engram quickly resumed pacing. She couldn't keep still. "Okay, maybe just calling him a guy isn't giving him enough credit, but still. If we can find 'im, he could help us get into 'Saka tower- guaranteed."

"Hold on a second, V. Slow down. Who the hell are you talking about?"

V looked at her host with a wry smirk. "None other than the former bodyguard of Saburo Arasaka him-fucking-self. His name's Goro Takemura- saved my life when the biochip first rebooted my brain."

"And how exactly do you propose we find him?" Song asked, finally rising to her feet. "I mean… it's been two years. For all we know, he might not even be alive, and even if he is, he might not even be in Night City."

V shrugged, which was hardly instilling Song with any confidence. "Try searching him up on the net- see if he pops up in any headlines."

Song let out an exasperated sigh, powering up the computer sitting on the safehouse's desk and maneuvering to the net. A quick search of the name "Goro Takemura" revealed pages upon pages of news articles, images, videos, and so much more. A brief filter by recency yielded exactly the results that they were looking for.

So Mi hummed to herself. "Looks like he's at the top of Arasaka's most-wanted list. They're saying he murdered Hanako."

V scoffed. "What a crock of bullshit. Goro's world practically revolves around the Arasaka's. Goro would never lay a fuckin' hand on her. It say anything else?"

Song shook her head. "Just to contact Arasaka if we have any news on his whereabouts. Wait… those two suits from yesterday. They must've been asking around about him."

V's eyes went wide. "Oh shit you're right. He's gotta be somewhere right here in Japantown, then."

Song turned around to give the construct a skeptical look. "How could you possibly know that?"

"Arasaka Counterintel protocols," V explained. "If they're lookin' for traitors by asking people on the street, they're getting desperate, but more importantly, they must know he's here. They wouldn't waste their time combin' through the entire city."

Song nodded along in understanding. V was ex-Arasaka. It made sense, or at least, it explained quite a bit, but yet it still didn't seem right. The idea of V, one of the most selfless and kind people she knew, slaving away for a corp, looking out for nobody but herself… it just didn't seem right. Then again, Song, of all people, would know a thing or two about bottling up her own feelings to focus on her work.

"So…" she finally said, we know he's somewhere in Japantown, but that's still a lot of ground to cover. Any ideas on how to narrow down the search area a bit?"

"Nope." V replied point-blank. "But I know a place where we can start lookin', at least- a street market. It's on a footbridge above the main street- used to frequent there quite a bit."

"What're waiting for, then? Let's get a move on," Song decided, standing up from the desk and slipping out of the hideout.

The walk down to the street market was surprisingly uneventful. Song kept her eyes glued to the dark corners and alleyways, worried that some merc would recognize her and try to claim the bounty on her head, but there was nothing. Night City may have looked a hell of a lot different, but it was still the same: nobody gave a damn about the people they passed on the street. After a brief elevator ride up, Song arrived, standing out in the middle of a commons area looking around.

"Well… we're here. What now?" So Mi asked.

V's constructed materialized in front of her, looking around to see how everything had changed in the last two years. "There's a CCTV station behind you- unmanned," V told her. "Slip in and hijack the cameras. We'll see if we can find 'im anywhere."

Song nodded, following V's instructions to the station. The door had a lock on it, but it was one that she could bypass with both hands tied behind her back and her optics forced shut. She stepped in hesitantly at first, peering around cautiously. Once she was certain that nobody else was around, though, she slipped inside and jacked into the terminal with her cyberdeck. The screen brough up a series of camera feeds, all playing live video.

"Scrub through all the camera feeds over the last hour," V told her. "I'll let you know if I see him."

Song did as she was told, putting all of the feeds onto the screen at once and doing her best to watch them all. With so many people passing by on each camera, it would be a miracle if V would be able to spot him- if he even showed up at all. As the feeds continued to play, Song deduced that Takemura must just have one of those faces that you could pick out from a crowd with no difficulty.

"Stop!" V told her, appearing at Song's side. "Look there." Her construct pointed to the feed at the top left corner of the screen, and after enlarging it, Song followed her digital finger to a man that had to be at least 50 with perhaps one of the most unremarkable faces she'd ever seen.

Song gave V a skeptical glance, raising an eyebrow at her. "This is our guy?" she asked in disbelief. "I don't wanna doubt you, or anything, but are you sure that this guy is gonna be our ticket into Arasaka Tower?"

"Trust me, you don't wanna get on his bad side. I've seen 'im fight," V assured her. "Takemura's our man- no doubt about it." She squinted at the screen as the footage continued, following him as he disappeared off one camera and appeared on another, moving further and further away from the elevators. "Looks to me like he's got some kinda hideout up here somewhere."

Song nodded along in agreement. "Looks like he's headed toward these abandoned apartment buildings," she observed, watching him continue to move from one camera to the next.

"C'mon, if we hurry, we might still catch him while he's here," V said eagerly, practically itching for her host to get a move on already.

Song obliged, and before long, the crowds of people sprawling across the street market were gone, and she was left creeping through an abandoned apartment with nothing but the voice in her head. It was times like this that she wished that she'd chosen a different career path- anything that was at all less interesting than this- but nevertheless, she proceeded. She opened the door to a big open area that was still under construction, but before she could take more than three steps inside, she felt the sharp edge of a katana held up against her neck.

It didn't take much work to see the one holding it either. It was the man from the camera feeds, without a doubt- Goro Takemura. "You have made a grave mistake in coming here," he told her in a thick Japanese accent.

Song threw up her hands immediately, doing anything she could to signal that she wasn't a threat. "Easy, easy! I'm not lookin' for a fight," she promised. "Why don't you put the sword down, and we can talk."

V appeared by his side, looking him up and down. "Sheesh. The last two years must've really taken their toll on the guy- looks like he's hardly slept since the last time I saw him."

Takemura's blade didn't move. "Who are you? Why are you here?" he demanded.

Song took a deep breath in an attempt to steady her nerves, although she couldn't tell if it was working. "My name is Songbird. I used to work for the FIA, but I left that life behind. You're Goro Takemura- formerly Saburo Arasaka's bodyguard, and you're on the run because the corp framed you for Hanako Arasaka's murder. I just wanna talk- promise."

Takemura paused for a good long while. Song could tell that he was weighing his options, and that her life was the balancer between them. Finally, he stepped away, sheathing the katana over his back. "Against my better judgement, I believe you. And yet you still have not answered my question: why are you here?"

"Came looking for you," Song answered. "I need your help getting into Arasaka Tower. Think you can help me with that?"

He stopped and turned around to face her once more, giving her an expression of confusion, along with a hint of what seemed to almost be amusement. "Do you have a death wish? What is in there that you need so urgently?"

V let out a heavy sigh. "Go ahead, So Mi- might as well tell 'im everything. He probably won't understand all the technobabble, but he'll get enough to know how to help."

"Y'see, I've got this… problem- the kind that some people go their whole lives without seeing," Song explained, following Takemura further into the wide-open room. "I've got another psyche in my brain, pulled straight from beyond the Blackwall. Problem is, the overflow in my head's gonna kill me sooner rather than later, so I need an Arasaka Relic to manage the data. V said you could help me get into the tower to make that happen."

Takemura froze. "What did you just say?"

"V- the merc with the biochip that you helped two years back," Song told him. "In order to save her life, she had to become a construct beyond the Blackwall, and now she's in my head."

Takemura unsheathed his sword once again, pointing it at Songbird. "She dares to come to me for help? After everything she has done?"

Song's eyes widened as her gaze flicked between Takemura and V's construct, who seemed just as confused as she did. "What the hell are you talking about?"

Takemura's grip on his katana tightened. "I have spent the last two years of my life as a fugitive of the company I worked for my entire life because she abandoned me. Without her, Hanako-sama and I had to confront Yorinobu alone. Now Hanako-sama is dead, and I am called her murderer. My life is the trash heap where I found her and she dares to ask me for more after all I have given her? I will cut her out of your skull if I must!" he shouted, lunging toward her.

Song dove out of the way as he swung with the fury of a man who'd lost everything. She wasted no time in dusting herself off and readying herself for his next attack. "Gotta say, V, this guy isn't exactly giving me the best first impression." Song said to the merc as her construct stood beside her.

"Look, I obviously missed a few beats. How was I supposed to know when I've been gone for two years?" V defended herself. "Just keep your distance. Even without combat implants, he can slice you to bits if he gets close enough," she warned.

Takemura rushed toward her once again, blade held high as he closed the distance between them. This time, So Mi held her ground. It may have been a while since the FIA trained her in hand-to-hand combat, but she still remembered enough to keep herself alive- or rather, she hoped she did. As the katana came down like an executioner's axe, Song slid to the side, hearing the woosh of the blade as it sliced through the air where she'd been standing just a second ago. So Mi was quick to get in a jab to his head while he was winding up for another strike, but it seemed to barely faze him. One swing after another, So Mi kept out of the way of Takemura's blade, but she couldn't keep this up forever.

"Fuckin' hell," V grunted. "I know we need him, but I swear if he hurts you, I'll find a way out of your brain just so I can kill him myself."

"You're not helping!" So Mi insisted as she jumped back to get out of the way of a wide swing from Takemura.

"Well, seein' as how all I can do is cheer from the sidelines, I dunno what you want me to do."

As Takemura swung his blade to the left, So Mi took her opportunity. She rushed in, armed reeled back as she struck him square in the jaw with a right hook. Takemura staggered backwards, clutching his jaw for a moment before shaking off the blow. He readied himself for another wave of attacks, and So Mi did the same- at least until she started to feel a tingling in her head.

Panic set in. "No, no, no, no, shit! Not now!" she cursed before another wave of pain- the most intense she'd felt so far- sent waves of pain through her head. She staggered backward, her hands pressed against her temple, before she tripped backwards and fell to the floor.

Takemura took slow, measured steps until he was standing directly over her. His blade was held firmly in both hands, and he looked down at her with a fire in his eyes. Slowly, he raised the katana over his head, preparing to send it crashing down directly over her forehead.

"This really what you wanna do- killing a dying woman with no way to defend herself?" So Mi asked in a last desperate attempt to save herself. "V made you seem like a good man. Guess she was wrong."

Takemura held the blade over his head, and he stayed there. It was clear as day to see that he was conflicted, but in the end, the decision on whether to end her life was up to him. Finally, he let out a heavy sigh, lowering the katana before sheathing it over his back. "Go. Leave," he told her.

So Mi groaned through the pain as she got back to her feet. "I can't to do that," she insisted. "You're my one lead- the only chance at living that I've got. You don't have to do it for V, just me." She paused, watching the man as he paced back and forth through the open room. "I can't imagine you're a fan of Johnny Silverhand either, and yet you helped V all the same. Please."

Takemura didn't meet her gaze. Instead, he looked out the window, gazing out at the streets and walkways below. Finally, he sighed. So Mi could barely see his eyes turn orange as he made a call. "It is me. Something has changed. We must meet tonight."

He paused, waiting for the person on the other end of the call to reply.

"Yes, in person- the usual spot."

Another reply.

"Yes, bring him as well. This may change the entire plan."

One final pause.

"Agreed. Until then," and the call ended. Takemura turned around to face So Mi. "We will meet tonight, after sunset. I will send you the precise location. I will say no more until then."

So Mi let out a heavy sigh. "Fine, then. I'll see you then." She wasted no time in getting out of the apartment building as fast as she could. Something told her she and Takemura weren't exactly going to hit it off.

V appeared next to her as they walked back toward the elevators. "Well, that… coulda gone better."

"You think?!" So Mi asked. "He almost killed both of us."

"I know, I know. I- I'm sorry, So Mi. If I'd known he would react like that, I never woulda suggested we go lookin' for him. I wouldn't put you in danger like that," she replied in a gentle, almost vulnerable voice.

So Mi shook her head. "It's fine- got us closer to getting this problem sorted out, at least."

V smiled, giving her a nudge. "See? That's the way. Gotta just keep your chin up. If we keep like this we'll be- AGH!" V's construct staggered and swayed, reeling in pain, but So Mi felt nothing.

"V? What's happening?" she asked the construct, wishing above all else that she was physical so she could offer some semblance of support.

All V could do was cry out in pain. "Fuck! I- I dunno… I think- oh shit. No, no, no, no-!" was all she had time to say before she vanished.

"V?" Song asked aloud, not caring one bit about what any passers-by thought. "V?!"

But there was no reply, and So Mi was alone.