Editing Cute Kunoichis:Volume1 Chapter4 (section)

===5: A Battle Outside the Ranking System===

To be entirely clear, the faceless ninja’s goal was not to drive back Sugiyado Souha and escape safely.

He or she needed to eliminate Kuhou Ouka and the other three on the floor below. Even if that meant putting Shirazaya Guren, Suiren, and 200,000 ordinary people in harm’s way.

So…

(I stopped the central heating, but largescale infrastructure like this is bound to have backup power. At this rate, it will turn back on and ruin everything!!)

That was the focal point of this battle.

They had to run around the large but labyrinthine central heating room while one tried to turn the power back on and the other tried to take out the backup power as well. Whoever achieved their goal first would win.

“Heh heh.”

A muffled laugh left the gasmask.

Something crawled behind them.

A moment later, Sugiyado Souha ducked his head while running. Something sliced by directly overhead and a straight diagonal line of sparks flew along the thick metal machinery next to him.

(A wire?)

His instincts told him that.

This was someone skilled enough to pull off a substitution technique by filling their coat with shape memory alloy, a high-polymer water-absorbing gel, or electric potential elastic fibers.

But his knowledge rejected that idea.

The gasmask ninja was being too careless about their own route for this place to be laid out with taut wires. Running the way they were would have gotten them tangled up in no time.

Then what was this trap strung up across the room? Steel wires too thin to see with the naked eye would be the most obvious solution, yet all he saw were…

Light and mirrors.

In other words…

“Is your Piercing Web made from laser scalpels and ultra-fine heat-resistant optical fiber!?”

As soon as he figured it out, the storm of invisible blades rushed toward him from all directions.

Several laser emitters extended from their back like octopus or squid tentacles to aim freely in any direction around them. And if these were little more than ordinary laser scalpels, they could be reflected like normal with high luminance mirrors. Yet these were still surgical tools. If they targeted the thick blood vessels in the limbs or neck, they could slice through them as easily as a normal blade, leading to heavy blood loss.

(No, I bet this was originally anti-electronic warfare equipment that overheated the ninja outfits that protect their wearer using their spider silk structure and computer-controlled adjustments.)

Cutting-edge ninja outfits could shrug off exposure to some flames, but if the heat was focused on a single point, it might be enough to destroy the computer chips.

Sugiyado could not see the IR beams.

And even if he could, his body could not keep up with a weapon that approached at the speed of light.

Unlike a normal wire, these could be switched on and off, so this enemy could move around freely without having to worry about being caught in their own trap.

That left Sugiyado with only his knowledge as the key to this fight.

He would have to read the position and angles of the laser emitters and the mirrors to predict the reflected path of the Piercing Web and dodge based on that.

“You’re pretty good!”

He did not need to respond to that praise. The two of them continued running while he threw a Fierce Fang.

Sparks immediately flew.

A laser sweeping through the air had hit the polished side of the air-pressure kunai and it had been reflected wildly. The gasmask ninja had not seen this coming, so they shrank down a bit.

It had taken more than the sparkle of the blade to do that.

The nitrogen gas used to open the kunai had locally altered the composition of the air and distorted the transmittance.

“Tch!!”

Meanwhile, Sugiyado threw a few Fierce Fangs in directions other than the gasmask ninja and used the nitrogen’s 15 tons of force to sever the wiring for the central heating’s backup power. He had remained focused on his objective. He had worked to stop the PCB9 more than ensure his own safety.

“You did that in your spare time!?”

“By the way,” he cut in. “The central heating is a very large piece of infrastructure used to manage the temperature of the entire giant underground mall. How exactly do you think it manages that?”

He changed direction and threw an air-pressure kunai to the side, still ignoring the gasmask ninja whose tentacle-like weapons were moving behind their back.

And he gave his answer.

“By consuming a hell of a lot of fuel.”

A mass of metal to his side suddenly swelled out and exploded, sending jagged metal and flames toward the gasmask ninja.

The damage to all the equipment and pipes must have allowed the central heating’s fuel to leak out.

“Aaaagh!?”

The gasmask ninja was blasted to the metal fence on the other side of the room, but Sugiyado was not going to let them escape now. He grabbed a new Fierce Fang in each hand and used the dark smoke to rush toward his target unseen.

He jabbed the tip of one Fierce Fang below their chin and pulled up to pry the gasmask from their face.

Based on his first impression of their face, this appeared to be a beautiful boy. So was the figure showing through the leather suit faked using padding?

“!?”

The assassin’s entire body visibly tensed. After all, this area was infected with his own poison gas. Even a faceless ninja would feel their throat go dry with fear.

Sugiyado hoped this would be enough to stop him.

But when he instead saw one of the tentacles moving behind the boy, he immediately stabbed his two air-pressure kunais into the side and chest of the leather suit.

“Obh!? Ugweehhhhh!!”

“Quit exaggerating. If that’s government issue, it’s spider silk and can stop a rifle bullet. But if you insist, I can open it up with my kunai’s nitrogen. Open your body up, that is. I’m honestly having trouble figuring out why I shouldn’t.”

Of course, even if the bullet could not pierce the suit, it could not fully absorb the shock and that would hit the body within.

Perhaps it was like pressing a flat-ended ruler against your stomach and trying to place your full weight on it.

“Kah, cough, cough!!”

Unable to bear it, the ninja slid down onto his butt while still leaning back against the fence.

“Th-there’s something wrong with you. This is PCB9. At your level, you must know what it can do! Breath it in and your liver stops functioning. Except it takes a full month while you watch all your skin turn yellow! How is this not freaking you the hell out!?”

“If panicking could change the reality around you, I would become a shaman who can enter trances at will.” Sugiyado sighed. “PCB9 generally enters through the mouth and gathers in your fat before the negative effects spread to your eyes and liver. So as long as you do something about the breathing part, you can survive. Just like you tried to protect yourself with that gasmask.”

“Yeah, but you destroyed-” The assassin stopped midsentence. “Hold on. You’re kidding, right?”

“I will only explain this once, so if you want to live, work your brain cells overtime to learn how to breathe. Got that?”

“What’s your price? I know you’re not going to save an enemy for nothing in return! Tell me!!”

“You will be telling me everything you know about the backup plan in case this one fails. Now, if you want to die that badly, you can pay me up front, but are you sure you want to delay this any longer?”

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