Editing Cute Kunoichis:Volume2 Chapter4 (section)

===4: The Battle Begins===

“Nekoyanagi has been lost. Which tells us a ninja capable of defeating her is out there.”

“They’ll have noticed us by now. That princess has already repaired their defense system and taken control of it.”

“What should we do?”

“Everyone, prepare to descend. Jump off before we’re shot down by the strategic antiair laser beam cannons.”



It didn’t matter this was a residential area. Fortunately, these were only the second homes of government officials who only visited a few times a year.

Maybe it used the air’s temperature difference and maybe it used the unnatural snow, but beams of light curved overhead like red rainbows and obliterated the boomerang-shaped flying wing transports filling the night sky.

Those were the laser beams fired from the city outskirts.

Wreckage and jet fuel rained down, but that wasn’t what worried Sugiyado.

“Everyone on alert. This isn’t stopping the Brown Bears’ main force!! They’re still coming!!”

Modern ninjas weaved between the wreckage, some pieces larger than cars, while they held their legs together and their arms against their sides to drop nearly straight down. There were more than 300 of them. They of course weren’t equipped with parachutes. Bara and Hoozuki began some antiair fire, but they couldn’t hit the Brown Bears who moved their arms and legs to adjust their air resistance and complexly weave through the sky.

Hoozuki’s voice came over the radio, sounding like her eyes were opened wide as could be.

“How the hell do they plan to land like this!? They aren’t going to crash into us like a meteor shower, are they!?”

“Instructor.”

Hidden One Oniyuri cut in, sounding somewhat exasperated.

Yes.

Now wasn’t the time to get bogged down in shallow issues of technique.

If they couldn’t shoot down the falling enemy, then this area would soon be flooded with 300 ninjas. And each of them would be Brown Bear class, making them at least on par with Nekoyanagi. It had taken three including Sugiyado to handle just Nekoyanagi herself. They would be hopelessly outnumbered at this rate.

If they played fair, anyway.

Sugiyado Souha was responsible for the lives of everyone here. And he instantly made a ninja’s decision.

“Princess Karin! Draw their attention! You’re their top priority!!”

“Hey, I told you about her condition, didn’t I!?”

“No, Murakami. He is correct in this case. It is risky, but none of us are escaping this if we are routed. Insolent fool, the most open space is the front garden. Will that be acceptable?”

“Take care of that. Oh, and you don’t have to try and be nice just because your husband is here. It conflicts with that nickname for me, for one.”

“Another thing, Murakami. Did you tell him about ''that'' without asking me first!? What about my right to privacy, you dumbass!?”

It sounded like Princess Karin was through with acting nice. It hadn’t suited her to begin with, but now it sounded like she wanted to ensure Murakami knew who was boss.

Sugiyado thought while quickly climbing back over the wall surrounding the grounds.

Pieces of the air transports fell from the sky like jagged guillotines. A lot of them had turned into fireballs when some jet fuel ignited. They stabbed into the roof, split the tiles, and spread fire everywhere. They were like fire arrows bringing down a castle.

Meanwhile, there they were.

Those reckless ninjas were diving straight down into the fiery hell they had created themselves. They didn’t use parachutes and they didn’t leave themselves vulnerable by decelerating on the way down. They were like a meteor shower or a cluster bomb. They carried extraordinary destructive power and they fell randomly across the designated area.

Just before they hit the ground, they made a sound like a spread bedsheet hitting the air.

(The Bugfall? And with such accuracy!?)

As a ninja and as an instructor, Sugiyado was astonished by their skill.

Whether it was an earthworm or a grasshopper, bugs were much smaller than humans, yet they could fall from a height of several meters without being crushed and killed. Doesn’t that seem strange when you think about it? Those soft bugs were easily squished between your fingers, so how could they survive an unassisted fall from a height that was equivalent to a fall from a skyscraper roof for a human?

(This technique borrows that process.)

They suppressed and eliminated the impact.

Of course, they would be killed instantly if their balance was even slightly off. The Brown Bears were dropping from the night sky at max speed, spreading out their limbs at only a few meters above the ground, using foam gauntlets and gaiters to increase the density and sturdiness of their human silhouette, and ultimately eliminating the impact just before it hit them. It was a lot like being caught by an invisible balance ball made of air.

If their timing was off in the slightest, if their body wasn’t fully horizontal, or if their fear won out and they failed to fully extend their limbs, they would crash face first into the ground and die instantly. Given the same equipment, Sugiyado could do the same from a height of over 10m with little difficulty.

He heard a sound much like grass rustling in the wind.

It was the Brown Bears.

After landing gently from a drop of more than 500m, the ninjas had an abnormal light in their eyes. They began to move toward their old leader Princess Karin based on the idea that this would improve things for New Sapporo Domain and the Hokkaido Area as a whole. Even with each of them moving as silently as possible, their disturbing presence was impossible to miss when there were 300 of them.

At this rate, Princess Karin would be surrounded out in the garden and torn to pieces by the Brown Bears rushing her from all directions.

However…

“Ouka, Hoozuki. It only has to provide some cover. Fire toward the garden!”

An artificial tornado guided by the pressure differences created with cold and hot chemical reactions and countless shurikens launched from between giant wheels roared out from the burning roof and attacked the open ground. This didn’t have to take out any of the Brown Bears. As soon as this scattered their attention, Sugiyado silently closed in on the tail end of the human wave.

He held a pair of Fierce Fang air pressure kunais.

“Gh!?”

“Gah!!”

Each time he swung the ninja tools, he reaped another one. It was hard to believe they had just had so much difficulty with Nekoyanagi. This was no comparison. He would strike the back of their head or their back to swiftly knock them out and then kick them away before they could even fall, knocking over more of them.

For one, it was always easier to defeat someone when their back was turned.

And…

(There are 300 of them. That’s as much as an entire school. Numbers only do the talking in the samurai world. In our ninja world, numbers aren’t always a good thing.)

Yes.

That was it.

300 Brown Bears were closing in on just one Princess Karin. As large as the garden for this government official’s second house was, it was too packed full of people. No matter how polished each individual’s skills were, they had difficulty moving their arms and legs in a crowd like the store during a good sale. Sugiyado only had to attack from outside of the commotion and they began falling like dominoes.

Sugiyado Souha and Murakami Michihiko stood back to back to keep an eye on their surroundings.

Princess Karin was safely positioned between their backs.

Her and one other life.

One used air pressure kunais and the other a metal flute to threaten the ninjas still attempting to surround them.

“Looks like 30-40% of them are down,” said Sugiyado.

“What now? They don’t seem bothered by climbing over their fallen comrades to reach us,” said the young man.

“We focus our attacks on their Achilles heel.”

He made it sound so easy even Princess Karin, who had her one-handed hammer at the ready, gasped.

Sugiyado kept his air pressure kunais raised and didn’t look back as he continued.

Yes.

This ninja hadn’t just been fighting. He had been grading the Brown Bears as he crossed blades with them. All so he could work out the details of their organizational structure as quickly as possible.

“Princess Karin. The Brown Bears have made it clear how powerful they are, but they all see you as in the way – no, they fear your very existence. But why is that? They’ve been guiding things in secret all this time, so why are they so scared now?”

“They came from the sky.”

The princess in the junihitoe was also the top-rate kunoichi who led the Stonewalls.

Sugiyado gave a small nod.

“Right. Preparing all those big stealth air transports couldn’t have been easy for the Brown Bears. And what about the repairs and maintenance? Since they disappear from radar and ground control won’t see them, they could collide with an ordinary passenger plane at any time. Stealth is a lot riskier than it sounds.”

“And there’s the reason I took the position of domain lord from my father. That is, why I poisoned him.”

“Let’s leave your hidden ‘puppy’ out of this.” Sugiyado smiled without looking back. “What do you and your father have in common? Yes, the answer was right in front of us the whole time. The mysterious Brown Bears didn’t want anyone to mess with the sky.”

“The defense system,” muttered Murakami Michihiko.

Sugiyado continued while back to back with that young man.

“Yes. They would have been fine with the defense system for New Sapporo Domain – no, for the entire Hokkaido Area – to exist in name only due to its chronic lack of power, but the domain lord – and then you in his place – were smart enough to figure out a solution. So they had no choice but to silence you and replace you with a more incompetent ruler who’s so busy thinking about the ground they forget to consider the sky and can’t solve the power problem.”

Meaning…

Meaning…

Meaning…

“Princess Karin, search for a reading on radar or sonar. You can negate their stealth by using concave parabolic antennas located in multiple directions. That can detect the reading even if the signal is scattered. There should be a distortion at one point in the night sky. Fire one of your giant antiair laser beam cannons there!!”

A roar split the air and a beam split the night sky in an arch like a red rainbow. The optical weapon’s path was curved either by the temperature difference or the artificial snow.

It did not fly all the way to space.

The thick clouds were scattered, revealing something beyond.

“Wha-?”

Even Princess Karin groaned in surprise.

The previous boomerang-like stealth air transports were nothing compared to this. This was so big it threw off their sense of distance and scale.

Thinking back, where had those air transports launched from? Even if the Brown Bears could get their hands on the transports, Princess Karin would have heard if they were using an airport in the area. But such large and unstable aircraft couldn’t take off from an airfield made by clearing out a grassy plain. Not even an aircraft carrier floating in the ocean could manage it.

This was the answer.

A flying fortress.

It was more than 5km long and it had 8 wings. That massive thing was the elusive Brown Bears’ safe zone.

Once it took off, it had to continue flying forever.

“Where and how did they launch something that big?” muttered a dazed Murakami Michihiko.

At the very least, it could never take off from an ordinary airport. But even if this northern land had a lot of space, building a runway big enough for that would have been discovered.

“It would also be noticed in flight. Was it hiding in the thick clouds? But everyone knows modern radar isn’t that easily fooled.”

“You and Amamo used single-molecule magnets to control the crust itself.” Sugiyado turned toward the junihitoe woman while protecting her back to back with Murakami Michihiko. “The principle is the same. They’ve covered the surface of that with tiny magnets to control its tiny grooves like the surface of a disk. It looks like they use those grooves to distort the high-altitude air currents surrounding it to precisely manipulate the surrounding temperature and thus distort all electromagnetic waves, including light.”

If you were familiar with mirages, it shouldn’t surprise you that light can be bent under the right circumstances. And visible light was one type of electromagnetic wave. There were differences in transparency and visibility, but the basic traits remained the same from very lower frequency waves to x-rays. And in fact, the previous laser weapon had been bent to an extent. Its surface had been scorched by the radiant heat.

Electromagnetic waves could be bent.

If they could only travel in a straight line, then TV and radar signals would be limited by the horizon, but that was not the case. Those were reflected off the upper atmosphere so they essentially bounced back down and beyond the horizon.

Asagao gave her own concerns over the radio.

“There are no radio transmissions about scrambling fighters on Honshu. No laser targeting from orbital weapons either. This is weird, Sensei. Something that huge has appeared, but the Shogunate is showing no sign of acting. But if they sent a nondescript gray stealth fighter from New Sendai Domain, it could be here in less than 10 minutes!”

“If what you see on the surface makes no sense, it means something is happening below the surface. The Brown Bears are ninjas, even if they’ve lost their way. They should know all about using threats as a type of negotiation. In fact, it wouldn’t be very ninjalike of them to not use any trickery at all.”

Sugiyado wasn’t going to let that scare him at this point. For one, the Brown Bears weren’t just a failure on the Hokkaido Area’s part – they were a failure of the Shogunate as a whole. There was a risk of the Shogunate intervening and suppressing the evidence – which would mean slaughtering everyone involved – so it was safer if Sugiyado’s group settled things on their own.

And from the surrounding ninjas…

“So you found it.”

It sounded like a curse.

Yet there was also some joy mixed in. The Brown Bears’ tone of voice was unusual.

“You found our castle.”

They sounded like a serial killer approaching the detective who had figured out the meaning behind the gruesome murders. They all readied their blades and approached on an emotional level.

An ordinary person may have been manipulated and helpless to respond.

But Sugiyado spoke calmly.

“Oniyuri, handle this.”

It didn’t matter that the delicate machinery embedded in 88 parts across her body had been removed.

It didn’t matter that she had chosen to abandon her position as a psychic.

That kunoichi was still an expert with the title of Hidden One, which was higher than Elite Ninja and placed her on the same level as Sugiyado Souha in his prime.

She was the most reliable of allies and the last person you wanted as an enemy.

That had not changed.

The threat she presented was the entirety of her reputation. 

So.

“Understood, Instructor.”

Her response didn’t even come via radio.

It reached him directly.

How was it even possible for her to whisper sweetly in Sugiyado’s ear when he stood back-to-back with Princess Karin while surrounded by the Brown Bears?

However she had done it, that kunoichi had slipped past both the internal and external nets and now she snapped her fingers.

Instantly, Sugiyado’s senses were obliterated by a dazzling flash of light, a deafening explosion, and a wall of heat that felt like needles shallowly piercing the skin all across his body.

“What did you do!?”

“My, my. And after you asked me to take care of it… New Sapporo Domain uses city gas, remember? Extract the liquid from the underground LNG pipes and a steam explosion isn’t hard to trigger. When transported as a liquid, that fuel is kept at around 50 below zero. Combine that with a 40-degree hot spring and you have a massive explosion on your hands. Well, you do need a spark of static electricity to ignite it.”

Underground and fire.

Oniyuri was still Oniyuri even without her psychic powers. This blazing disaster swept away or engulfed everything in its path, just like lava.

“Fire ninjutsu is all about chemistry. Violence should be an intellectual pursuit, you animals.”

With that casual comment, Oniyuri helped Sugiyado Souha and Murakami Michihiko guide Princess Karin through the fire and smoke. They were surrounded by the Brown Bears, but Oniyuri led them to a manhole designed to not disturb the view of the garden. Unlike a cramped rabbit hutch, this luxurious residence covered enough land that it was hardly surprising it had a manhole on its grounds.

But the idea made Princess Karin demonstrate how foul-mouthed a proper princess could be.

“We have to go in there?”

“That junihitoe is a disguise and you’re well-protected underneath it, right? You’re not as sheltered as you try to pretend, so you can do this. As long as you watch your breathing, it won’t harm the ‘puppy’ you’re carrying either. So hurry!”

Oniyuri created a makeshift opener out of a combination of blades and descended first to ensure things were safe belowground. The Brown Bears had attacked from the sky, but they had also sent out ground-based scouts like Nekoyanagi.

“If their main force is in that flying fortress, then the 300 in those air transports should only be an advance force,” said Oniyuri in her ninja outfit that resembled sleeveless Japanese clothing or a surgical gown with both sides open. “The construction workers who were watching over Abashiri can’t account for all of this.”

“They started out as civilians who were given compressed training, so you can’t rely on the initial numbers.”

“Can you really ensure quality like that?” asked Murakami Michihiko.

“I did the same thing,” answered Sugiyado. “As an instructor, I mean. I don’t mean to toot my own horn, but I took four ordinary people and trained them over the internet. And now they serve as Elite Ninjas for the Shogunate.”

And Sugiyado’s method was to take his time to gradually acclimate them to this new life. Because he didn’t want to damage his students’ minds or bodies. If you didn’t care how many of the total number died, you could do a lot more over a shorter time. That was a forbidden technique for a teacher, but there would always be fools who chose to use the forbidden techniques.

Yes.

That was obvious enough from Oniyuri who was artificially given a paranormal power by embedding delicate machinery in 88 parts of her body.

Sugiyado’s insistence on handing her over to the Kingdom at the end of the previous incident had largely been because he hadn’t wanted anyone to create another Oniyuri. He had wanted to avoid the creation of a ninja training method that ignored the wellbeing of its students.

Sugiyado came to a stop and looked straight up.

“This spot should do.”

“Why? We’ll reach the river if we keep going.”

“We would leave Ouka and the others behind if we did that. We only need to emerge behind the Brown Bears.”

“Oh? Instructor, you’re really into this teacher thing, huh?”

They climbed the ladder and emerged from the round manhole. Sugiyado spoke into a small device hidden behind his scarf.

“Roll call. You’re still alive, I hope?”

“Only just barely this time! Sensei, you do know I’m supposed to be a noncombatant, don’t you!? This is not my idea of a fun date!! These Brown Bears are all at least High Ninja level!!”

“I’m relieved to find you’re doing well enough to complain so much, Asagao. And, Bara, can you still use your hair coilguns? I’d like to collect your spare unit and use it for something else. Where do you have it hidden?”

“There’s a full set in the transformer outside the garden and another in the firehose box along the road. But what do you need it for?”

“You must be exhausted from all this fighting. I feel bad having you handle it all yourselves for so long, so I’m going to draw all of the Brown Bears’ attention. I want you to escape as soon as their encirclement breaks down.”

“That’s the most worrying response you could have given, Sensei! Tell us what you’re going to do!!” said Ouka, her voice practically a scream.

But he didn’t have time to explain it all to them. He also couldn’t push his students any further. He opened the red metal firehose box Bara had mentioned and found the spare parts for the coilgun: a solenoid coil, a battery unit, an amplifier, etc.

His back would feel funny with 5kg and explode with pain at 10kg.

“Kh.”

“I’ll take that, Instructor,” said Oniyuri, sounding like she was soothing a small child.

It was condescending, but she also provided just the help he needed. She easily lifted the heavy metal unit.

Princess Karin frowned.

“What are you doing, insolent fool?”

“Exactly what I said. I’m sick of lying to my students. …Oniyuri, you know how the induction coil works and how to wrap it, right? Head to one of the metal towers set up around here. The decorative flood shelters you told me about.”

Murakami Michihiko frowned while supporting the princess just subtly enough to not wound her pride.

“The towers?”

“That’s right.”

Bara hid coilguns in her red ringlets. They were powerful enough to blow away a tank if used right.

Which meant…

“With an even larger solenoid coil, we can reach that sky fortress. We’ll have a mass driver capable of launching a person.”

The tower was as tall as a 5-story building, so running up it was child’s play. Even if they were also wrapping a coilgun’s cable unit around the entire tower as they did so.

Princess Karin sighed while moving up the tower with precise movements.

“Will this handmade thing really work?”

“As long as we only need it to launch something. Princess Karin, it’s the same idea as the linear motors you’re so familiar with. The principle itself is simple, so as long as they have the power, even a child could build a working cannon. Increasing the size increases the speed, so expanding the specs is a simple matter.”

It took less than five minutes before Sugiyado, Murakami, Oniyuri, and Princess Karin were standing at the top of the tower. But that was five more minutes his students had to continue fighting a triple digit number of Brown Bears.

He had to relieve them of that burden.

If an assassin was sent to the Brown Bears’ main stronghold, not even the ones on the ground would be able to ignore it. They would be too busy pursuing that assassin to send any more Brown Bears down either.

He would draw all of their attention.

It was the best way of rescuing Ouka and the others.

“Will you be coming with me or watching me go?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. This is our domain.”

Princess Karin’s response put a thin smile on Sugiyado’s face.

“Then have it your way.”

He collapsed backwards like he was falling back into bed.

The four ninjas dove from the top of the metal tower into the jungle gym interior.

And eventually…

A mass driver with more than 15 times the carrying power of a tank gun activated with enough force to launch a human to the moon.