Souma couldn't help but chuckle as Galina brought up the cowardly broker, recalling the conversation he had had with the man shortly after the attack on his clan.

It had not been a pleasant meeting for anyone involved. Too soon after the coals had cooled, Souma barely had the patience at the time to keep Soshitsu alive, much less browbeat him into acquiescence. The broker had held no connection to the ones who had burned the Takahiro compound, but his part in Galina's now-defunct plan to 'shame' Souma had been damning enough. No it had been a brief, angry conversation, with very little said on Soshitsu's part and little satisfaction wrought from it all.

Yet he could look back on it was some amusement, now. Recalling the broker's sweating, terrified visage, and how similar it might have looked to the one Galina witnessed. She had likely dealt with him in a better fashion, certainly one to use charm and grace to mask her threats. Souma had been more... direct, but the results had been the same for both. That alone was enough to respect her abilities as a peer in the same field... if everything before hadn't already helped with that.

He took a moment of his own, to savor his share of eel and pour another cup of sake to sip with his food. This was nice, strangely. A quiet meal speaking business with a peer, it was almost like his days used to be. Before he left Japan, heaving dinner with Ai and Raigo, discussing all that had been done that day, and what needed to be done the next. And after, when he was on his own, the meals he had held with Daisuke and Goemon, having those very same talks...

Of course, he couldn't sit down to either of those meals again. The empty seats at each would kill any conversation before it could start.

He choked back the thought, choosing to sample some of the ramen Galina seemed keen to devour. He spoke after a pair of quick, slurping bites, falling back into the strange enjoyment of this meeting.

"You're correct. American mercenaries, well-trained, good resources." He nodded along with the words, knowing his quarry had been the task that had gotten him through each day until now. It was a very familiar topic. "Agents in America are working. Know what to look for, will have information when we arrive." 

He paused a moment, pondering his plans with Galina's involvement, before speaking up once more.

"Blades, guns, gear needed, money not." A toothy grin slowly grew across Souma's lips, the thought of being able to lose himself in some of the 'old' work of his clan. "Money never important for us. Plenty to find for cheap, for free, if you look around."