Editing Cute Kunoichis:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===3: Fierce Fang===

(I should probably see how my shoulder is doing while I’m at it.)

With that thought, Sugiyado Souha decided on a destination. He chose a place with very few visitors even in the shopping district. That was hardly surprising when it was a parking garage that had been waiting in vain to be demolished for quite a while.

There were no official dojos or training organizations for ninjas like there were for samurai sword fighting. Ninjas had to construct their own training grounds to train their own bodies and minds and to keep themselves honed so they would not forget what they had already learned. Of course, using private property would mean leaving your real name in the official registries and they could not exactly put out a big sign saying “Ninja Village”, so they generally borrowed other people’s land. But if they sensed anyone approaching, they had to remove every trace of their presence before they were found and then search out a new location.

A ninja’s agility was their selling point.

Unlike the samurai or warrior monks, they worked best when they were free to move without any restrictions.

In order to keep their decisions sharp when it really mattered, it did not hurt to continue training on a daily basis.

This (abandoned?) parking garage was not interesting enough to become a hangout for local delinquents and it did not have any stories creepy enough for people to visit for a test of courage, so it was perfect for his needs. He had been using it for nearly a month now.

But that was not necessarily a good thing.

(If I stay too long, I end up gathering too much stuff. I hope that doesn’t come back to bite me when I do need to withdraw.)

“Now, then.”

He had passed a thick rope through one of the old tires he had found somewhere and stacked up in here and had it hanging from one of the pipes overhead. Even without giving it a push like a pendulum, the irregular vibrations from the trains running nearby made it shake in unpredictable patterns.

(20, 30, no, I need to reach 35 for a passing grade with a straight line shot.)

He measured the distance with his steps and then faced his target from a distance.

35 meters.

A handgun bullet could fly a distance of around 180 meters, but opinions were still divided on the range at which it could actually hit a target or kill a fleeing opponent. Some said 30 meters and others insisted it was less than 8 meters.

During an indoor battle with lots of cover, a range of 35 meters was so-so.

He did not time the shot himself. Ninja battles were not like samurai duels, so he used the noise from outside the parking garage as a cue.

(Yes, I can use the squealing of a car’s tires for today.)

Once he had defined his terms, it was time to wait. It might come one second later, or he might have to wait an hour. It was also possible he could wait all day and never hear it at all, but he could not let that distract him. Ninjas would perform sniping and assassinations, so it was crucial that they performed all their tasks with equal proficiency at all times. If nothing happening was enough to get you down, you could never survive a life of lying next to a sniper rifle on a mission that only ended when further orders came in.

''Do not let success or failure affect your state of mind,'' he silently told himself. It was not uncommon to only have a 2 second opportunity during a mission that lasted 96 hours. But if you could not produce your best possible performance during those 2 seconds-

''Squeal!!

Whether someone had slammed on the brakes or the gas, the squealing of tires cut off his thoughts. His arms rose seemingly all on their own and moved to his lower back. He pulled two kunai from below his half-sleeve dress shirt. He crossed his arms to throw both kunai without a moment’s delay.

Even the rustling of his clothing seemed delayed.

Unlike stick shuriken, kunai were not thrown with the vertical rotation seen in throwing axes. The broad shape of the blade itself sliced through the air like wings to provide lift and stabilize its flight. Instead of throwing them with the arm like in darts, the entire body was used as a spring to place your full body weight on the end of your hand, so it was more like throwing a solid paper airplane than throwing a blade or ball.

Sugiyado Souha’s mind was entirely focused in that moment.

A nearby train shook the tire dangling from the rope, but that did not matter. His side-throw was perfectly accurate. It felt like he was watching the kunai follow a line already drawn out in the air. Missing would have been the real shock here. The old tire was drowning in an ocean of equations that would have the average mathematician struggling in front of a whiteboard, but the two kunai flew right into it.

But that was all they did.

“…”

It appeared to have been the thick low-pressure tire for a large truck, but his kunai caught on the edge more than stab in. It was much harder than a sandbag, but this still meant the kunai were hopelessly deficient in penetrative power. They could never finish off a ninja wearing thick bulletproof equipment. In fact, the average boy in a T-shirt and shorts would walk away alive.

“What am I doing, dammit?”

As much as he claimed he wanted to live an easier life now, he could not forget the feeling of the ninja gear in his hands and he kept practicing with it day in and day out. Or rather, he feared he was continuing to grow weaker after already deteriorating quite a bit. He could not relax unless he made sure he still had what it took. And that bad habit was only getting worse.

Also, he had not moved a step.

When a frontline ninja decided they would defeat an opponent, they would do so with the very first attack. Because that was safest. Yet now he could not even take out an old tire swaying irregularly from the roof. The world had grown awfully cruel of late.

“Cruel…”

Was he referring to the three bolts in his spine? Or to the skills that he used to take for granted that were slipping from his grasp? Either way, his complaint was misguided. Who did he have but himself to blame for the decline in his skill? Also, complaints held no power on the front line. Those battles were fought based on the assumption that your name would not go down in history. Outsiders had no chance to decide what was right or wrong and the losers were left behind as nothing but corpses.

If you could not keep up, you had to step aside.

If you were even one step short, you were still too slow to survive.

That was probably why he had trained those girls. He had lost his wings and could no longer fly, but he still selfishly sought a place for himself in the great expanse of the sky.

“Goddammit,” he quietly cursed while looking away from the old tire pendulum that displayed the miserable result of his efforts.

But a moment later, there was a loud pop.

That loathsome donut-like silhouette was shredded from within and blown away.

Would anyone who saw that have realized what just happened?

Sugiyado had thrown kunai at it. They were alloy ninja gear made by sharpening one-handed gardening trowels. However, the two things that fell to the concrete floor were both shaped differently. The silver blades had a groove along the central line that opened up in parallel lines to the left and right like a U-shaped tuning fork.

These were special weapons that’s blade included a rescue device used to force open car doors and that’s grip included a nitrogen rapid-foaming agent used in airbags. It could provide a maximum pressure of approximately 15 tons. If the very tip managed to work its way into a gap in the target, it could even break the lock of a tank’s hatch and force it open.

So in an urban warfare environment where he had plenty of cover he could use to approach, this allowed him to single-handedly defeat a unit of tanks.

And ninjas never looked for fairness in their battles, so they would lure the target into the perfect environment beforehand.

It went without saying what happened when you stabbed one of those into a personal bulletproof jacket or into actual flesh and blood.

These were Sugiyado Souha’s true fangs.

These were the Fierce Fang air pressure kunai.

They did not require weight or speed to destroy a target. As long as he could throw the tip into the gaps or joints of the target’s armor, the deadly equipment would be shredded from within. That meant he needed accuracy and nothing else. That old wolf had received critical injuries to his spine and the ligaments of his legs, but this was his last resort for staying relevant that he had found after struggling and crawling through the mud for so long. Of course, these were not in general(?) use for the simple reason that they were of own his handmade design and he had not shared the plans.

“…”

He slowly walked over and reached into the shredded tires to collect the two Fierce Fangs that had their beaks open in parallel, but then he sighed.

“I am no longer worthy of the Hidden One title.”

Only bitterness colored his face.

“These are like training wheels on a bike. No, they’re like adult diapers, dammit!!”