Editing Cute Kunoichis:Volume2 Chapter1 (section)

===7: The Clash===

The wind whipped up.

80% of a ninja battle happened during the advance preparations. After all, they were primarily saboteurs. They would be easily crushed if it came to a head-on battle, so they always needed to do a thorough investigation before fighting. They would blend into the local area, construct false connections to gather information, locate enemy weaknesses and seams in their relationships that could be secretly widened into greater rifts, procure necessary materials, determine the optimum time and place, and then, after all that had been done, ''sneak in'' and make a surprise attack from the shadows.

So once things began, a ninja always moved swiftly.

In that moment, Sugiyado Souha swept aside his camouflage – the frozen down jacket – and rushed out with the force of a crossbow bolt. He had mastered the use of his body in the fields engineering and perception.

First of all, his movements were fast.

He suddenly sprang up from a curled-up position to reach his top speed almost instantly. If a normal person tried that, they could easily tear a ligament or muscle.

Also, his movements slipped outside of people’s perception.

After initially charging top speed toward his opponent to instill instinctual fear and caution in them, he began to jump irregularly around, kicking off the side of a large computer and then landing on top of it.

Those 3m obstacles could be cleared with sport techniques.

They were laid out like the bookshelves in a library.

That meant there was plenty of space between the top of the computers and the ceiling. But people naturally assumed other people would stay on the floor and use the aisles, so their eyeballs would refuse to move in the right direction at first. Meanwhile, he filled the nearly 20m distance between them.

After running to the end of the row of large computers, he pulled two air-pressure kunais from the back of his short-sleeved dress shirt. Once he spread those deadly wings, he only had to take flight.

He attacked from directly above.

On one side was the young man dressed in a pitch-black ninja outfit.

On the other side was the Japanese beauty in a junihitoe and with ankle-length black hair.

Sugiyado knew exactly which one to aim at.

His target was Princess Karin, who was temporarily ruling this domain.

The unpleasant clang of well-forged steel on steel reverberated through the room.

He had planned for a counterattack from Murakami – hence the two kunais. But who had deflected the second one?

Yes.

Airborne Sugiyado Souha pushed back against the Murakami youth’s attack, but he had also set things up so his other blade would tear into Princess Karin’s vitals.

There was only one possible person who could have deflected that air-pressure kunai.

“I see.” Sugiyado kicked off the wall to shift the timing of his fall just enough that they could not target him as he landed. “Princess Karin, it would seem you aren’t just a sheltered girl who was put in charge simply for being her father’s daughter.”

“…”

She had pulled something from her sleeve at the last second, but it was not a dagger like you expect of a powerful family’s daughter.

It was a handheld hammer.

The one-handed hammer was entirely made of metal, even the handle. It could be used to simply hit things, or the string wrapped around its handle could be unwound to swing it around more erratically. Also, the handle was hollow. Why was that? It was the same as the disguised knives the Cyrillic Empire specialized in. By loading a matchlock gun bullet, it could be fired from outside the hammer’s range for a surprise attack.

She used a mining tool combined with an explosive.

And she was skilled enough to deflect an attack from a former Hidden One like Sugiyado Souha.

She was definitely with the Hole.

She showed all the distinctive signs of the Stonewalls who specialized in digging tunnels.

Yes.

There was a lot of confusing information here, but only a few key pieces mattered at the moment.

A trap had been laid for Murakami and his blood-related grandfather had been killed.

He fought with an elegant iron flute. He was a ninja, but a very different type from the muddy hole-diggers.

If Murakami was a Song ninja a step removed from the Stonewalls, then Sugiyado was much more curious about what Princess Karin had said here.

“It’s all for New Sapporo Domain and the north as a whole, huh?”

He could make a pretty good guess what this was about.

“But I haven’t heard what exactly you’re doing. Anyone can claim to have justice on their side, but what that means differs a lot between different people. Now, I just hope this isn’t anything as dangerous as a destructive coup d’etat or joining forces with the Cyrillic Empire.”

“Insolent boy.”

“Whatever’s going on in this domain, I am praying that you are ''the real Princess Karin''. If a body double attacked her ruler and took her place to take control of the domain, there isn’t much hope left for you.”

Make no mistake here.

Sugiyado Souha was no longer a ninja serving the Shogunate. He was no more than a prisoner. Wielding a blade and even being outside the prison at all only added to his list of crimes. He was not fighting on the Shogunate’s command or to bring about world peace.

An old man had died with regret in his heart.

In his final moments, he had worried his fate would put his grandson in danger.

That lonely old man had taught Sugiyado so much while he was in prison.

So.

White steam erupted across the entire area. Sugiyado had jabbed an air-pressure kunai into a nearby pipe and the chemical coolant for the computers had rapidly vaporized.

He spun around.

He did not care about Princess Karin’s conspiracy right now.

“Hey!!”

Murakami tried to shout something within the obscuring steam, but Sugiyado was already on the move. He flipped the air-pressure kunai around in his hand and slammed the bottom of the grip against the side of the young man’s neck to knock him out like a switch had been thrown.

“Sensei,” whispered a voice in his ear.

“Take care of it, Ouka.”

He hated to admit it, but Sugiyado Souha had a weight limit. At 5kg, his back felt funny. At 10kg, it exploded with pain. He had no hope of carrying an unconscious person around on his own.

Then Asagao, the youngest girl who specialized in information warfare, spoke to him.

“(I’ve managed to piece together all the data on the Stonewalls. I’ve recombined all the necessary parts on my mobile device, so we can leave this place now, Sensei.)”

Then leave they would.

If Princess Karin was acting like this, taking a peek inside the castle tower would not be a good idea.

They needed to leave New Sapporo Castle.

“––––––”

Sugiyado heard a whispering beyond the white steam.

Either due to the ankle-length hair or the multilayered junihitoe, she appeared to have the silhouette of an inhuman serpent.

And that monster threw resentment his way in human language.

“You have sealed your fate here, insolent boy.”

Curses were common in this field.

But Sugiyado had yet to see one that actually accomplished anything.

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