Editing Cute Kunoichis:Volume1 Chapter1 (section)

===4: Ninja Teacher===

Sugiyado Souha still had a lot of time to kill.

The unexpectedly slow passage of time hinted at something quite bitter rising up within him.

He was afraid to head back to the apartment where Ouka awaited him (even though it was ''his'' apartment). Since snacks were apparently not allowed, he visited an internet café inside an ordinary multi-tenant building. Due to the aforementioned prohibition on snacks, he did not take a bite or sip of the complimentary curry and drinks.

“Call it a rebellion against capitalism.”

Despite the country’s isolationist policies, New Yokohama Domain was treated similarly to Dejima, so the internet there had access to the outside world. In that sense, these cramped spaces separated out by partitions were a luxury item. You could connect to the national internet with your phone, but one of these desktops with a static IP linked to New Yokohama Domain land provided a lot more freedom.

A glance at the browser’s home page showed the same online news headlines he had seen on the street earlier and a few eye-catching ads.

“Sword training available in vibration, water pressure, blowtorch, and other varieties.”

“If you want to be a cyber professional, look no further!”

“Unlike in the samurai families, bloodline is irrelevant in the merchant families. Seeking people interested in immediate lessons on advanced economics!!”

The internet moved at such a rapid pace the word “inundated” seemed apt. That had greatly changed how education worked. Old-fashioned schools were used to provide a foundational education and foster communication skills, but that was not enough to get by in the modern age. Even if you graduated from elementary school, middle school, high school, university, and even graduate school, you still needed an edge if you wanted to receive a job offer.

So in parallel to ordinary schooling, students would carve open a future for themselves by learning some kind of specialized skill. Some self-proclaimed expert who appeared on talk shows had named this troublesome age the Age of Dual Education and made a killing on the business book he was selling.

The true identity of that dual education was the long-distance education system that made use of the internet.

In the modern age, anyone could be a student and anyone could be a teacher. The classmate studying alongside you in the ordinary classroom could be teaching something to the girl in the seat next to you.

Depending on the initial agreement, the teacher did not even need to reveal what they looked like, so it was entirely possible a baby-faced student could be using the internet to teach a special class to an elderly teacher at their school.

These classes were classified as “practical hobby lessons”, so they did not need to be registered with the existing educational agency, no teaching license was necessary, and the nationally designated curriculum could be entirely ignored. However, that had allowed the classes to branch out along a much wider breadth of subjects. There were as many individual education courses as there were stars in the sky, so some had started saying the ability to determine which ones would be useful for your future was a kind of talent.

When a class was useful, it was incredibly useful, but when one was not, it was a complete waste of time.

Among all those was the following ad:

“Modern ninja lessons available.”

It was thanks to the modern era that such a class could be advertised so bluntly. Of course, not just anyone who responded to the ad would be given lessons. They were given a background check and an interview via video chat first.

The ad was not one of the larger ones and a red warning label said “class full” over the banner.

(They’ve been working on the front line for a while now, but I guess they’re still technically registered as my students.)

It was obvious when he checked through an external internet connection, but that explained why he did not have any new hopeful students contacting him. That robbed him of his livelihood, but would complaining to Ouka and the others really accomplish anything?

If he was lucky, they would cutely insist they could support him.

If he was less lucky, they would claim he had no choice but to return to his life as a ninja.

“What a pain. My rehabilitation costs are not cheap, but I’m stuck with some selfish girls who refuse to move out.”

Now, did the boy realize how happy he looked as he said that?

The phone sitting next to the mouse vibrated. He grabbed it before it vibrated itself right off the edge of the desk and saw a familiar name displayed on the screen.

“What is it, Hoozuki?”

“Everything is ready, so you can head back home now.”

“Again, ready for what?”

Since the classes were supposed to be held online, physically meeting each other like this could be seen as a slight ethics issue. There was no definite punishment for it, but it may have been similar to how contact between an organ donor and recipient was frowned upon.

It probably made matters worse if his students were breaking into their instructor’s home and plotting something there. He was just about ready to complain about “kids these days”.

(That room really does have thin walls, so I need to get them to restrain themselves.)

With that oddly realistic thought, he paid full price despite not touching the drinks or curry and he left the internet café.

Just as he stepped outside of the multi-tenant building, he was greeted by the loud rumbling of an engine.

[[Image:Kunoichis_v01_BW01.jpg|thumb]]

Countless Calamities, a reddish off-road motorcycle, was stopped on the other side of the guardrail and a tall and slim girl sat atop it. Dirt bikes were generally made small and lightweight, but this one’s engine had clearly been forcibly swapped out. The rider was a cool beauty with a long silver ponytail and she was not wearing any sort of helmet.

Unlike the other members, Hoozuki always walked around in her ninja outfit. She wore a one-piece swimsuit held in place with various belts and she wore the baggy pants commonly seen on male ninja outfits. The motorcycle made it look something like a bizarre form of riding suit.

She rotated her hips to look his way while remaining on the motorcycle, which showed off the feline litheness of her spine and shoulder blades.

“Hoozuki, you stand out too much! You have padding inside there, so you can silence all that noise, can’t you!?”

“A silently-running motorcycle would stand out a lot more, if you ask me. Besides, you should praise my sensible restraint in not driving Ouka over to see you.”

Nantou Hoozuki gave him a thin smile. She was not the type to express her emotions much, but that was definitely a belligerent and sadistic smile.

He had a bad feeling about this.

“H-Hoozuki?”

“Yes, Sensei?”

“Um, all of that killer intent is about as obvious as handing me a business card and introducing yourself.”

“Like I said, praise my sensible restraint in not driving Ouka out here.”

The Countless Calamities off-road motorcycle suddenly lost its shape below the slender girl. A tremor of a warrior’s joy ran through her spine. Her black, gray, and orange ninja outfit seemed to symbolize pleasure signals. She was serious. Before the motorcycle could take on a different form, Sugiyado rushed into a nearby alley. The last glimpse of it he got showed her holding it at her hip like a cannon instead of like a vehicle.

“Hey!! I taught you mock battles aren’t allowed in residential districts, didn’t I!?”

“Don’t be ridiculous. We’re ninjas, so we have to be ready to work silently and swiftly no matter the time or situation, right? Yes, like performing an assassination in the middle of a national parade without batting an eye. Oh, I just can’t wait. You’re the only decent sparring partner I’ve had since becoming an Elite Ninja!”

He heard the final metallic click as the motorcycle completed its transformation into something else. A chill ran down his spine.

“And you need to isolate your target before negotiating with them, right? Wasn’t it you who taught us not to let the police or a Shogunate ninja near them?”

He just barely made it around a narrow corner before hearing a loud boom that shattered the concrete wall.

“~ ~ ~!?”

Would anyone believe that had been done by less than 50g of special steel?

It was a shuriken.

A number of types existed, but Nantou Hoozuki used one called a combination cross shuriken. It folded up like a pair of scissors, so it could be spread out to form a cross shuriken or folded up to form a stick shuriken.

However, throwing one of those by hand would not be enough to break a concrete wall.

“Technique 1.”

(Is she still using those lazy names!? And this means she actually used the motor, doesn’t it!?)

He could not get a surprise attack in on a projectile-wielding enemy just by moving around horizontally. And optical clones made by scattering a transparent powder were useless in such a narrow alley. A single sweep of the weapon would cover the entire space.

Modern ninja techniques were not magic.

They were only an extension of sleight of hand. But that made them the perfect kind of trickery and technological technique to thoroughly fool the people who boasted that they only trusted their own eyes. It was said to be an ancient yet cutting-edge martial art that could continue to grow as long as technology continued to advance.

(In that case.)

Sugiyado looked all around and spotted the drain spout and external air conditioning unit attached to the filthy building wall.

They were a little too high up to use as footing, but he did not hesitate to draw a Fierce Fang air pressure kunai from his back and throw it straight up. It lodged itself between the wall and the air conditioner, the nitrogen opened it up, and it easily tore through the screws and bolts.

Then he only had to grab the falling weapon and use the lowered obstacle as footing.

“Hh!”

He could not afford to forget the fundamentals.

He stepped on all the things sticking out from the wall to jump about 3m straight up in the blink of an eye. A moment later, Hoozuki leaned around the corner and fired. A fearsome horizontal downpour of steel flew through and blew away the trashcan and rusted bicycle that stood at about the same height he had been a moment before.

By then, he had already backflipped and gotten a look at Hoozuki’s weapon from directly above.

It was indeed Countless Calamities. However, its complex transformation had placed the two wheels against each other so they could launch the shurikens at ultra-high speed like a pitching machine. It could launch a maximum of 3600 per minute and a single shuriken weighed two or three times an anti-material bullet. To avoid the noisy sonic boom of breaking the sound barrier, she intentionally kept them at subsonic speeds. The video she had submitted for class had shown them obliterating training makiwara that were made to be almost as tough as a human torso.

That extraordinary firepower would be enough to defeat a Kingdom musketeer with brute force alone.

(But that unwieldy weight is your weakness, Hoozuki!)

“Wait, above!?”

The belts wrapped around her body audibly strained as she quickly tried to re-aim the wheel shuriken launcher upwards, but it was too late.

In the ninja world, life and death were determined in the blink of an eye. Sugiyado already had his Fierce Fang air pressure kunai in hand. He inserted a replacement cartridge below the grip to complete his preparations.

He descended like a lightning strike.

He landed right up against her lithe back. The kunai was inserted below her exposed armpit like it was a thermometer.

That device could pry open a tank’s hatch with 15 tons of force.

Her spider web ninja outfit could block a rifle bullet, but it would not fare so well if he activated his kunai here.

“See, you haven’t gotten rusty at all, Sensei. I’m glad I could see this.” Nantou Hoozuki remained motionless now that her opponent was behind her, but she smiled thinly. “And I’m glad Ouka didn’t get to see this. If she knew you were risking your health by using your old skills, she’d probably hunt you down and kill you.”
Sugiyado said nothing in response.

And after brushing off her casual comment, he thudded his fist down on the top of her silver ponytailed head.

“Owie!!”

She dropped the large gadget held at her hip and tearfully held both hands to her head while her silly voice sapped the tension from the air.

The sensuality of combat quietly burning at that cool beauty’s core instantly dispersed.

“Don’t give me that. How many times do I have to tell you not to fire so many shurikens!? Projectiles increase the risk of leaving some evidence behind, so you need to avoid them unless absolutely necessary!! Not to mention that your combination cross shurikens are especially complicated to make, so you might as well be leaving your calling card behind!”

“Ugh, but you used your Fierce Fang.”

“A kunai was originally a digging tool. And in modern times, it’s used to break open doors, much like a crowbar. I will admit you see them thrown a lot in ninja dramas, but I keep a careful count of how many I’ve used. So, Hoozuki, tell me exactly how many you fired and where? Right now!”

“Well, um.”

Strict Sugiyado breathed a heavy sigh when his student started fidgeting.

“Enough. I get it already. I was counting for you, so let’s go collect them all.”

“Eh!?”

“You were adjusting how much each shuriken was opened so you could control the air resistance and alter their speed and course, right? Did you think I didn’t know you did that?”

“Y-you really are amazing, Sensei.”

“We aren’t diplomats with special protections provided by international treaties, so recovering and destroying evidence is a life-or-death issue. Doing what is necessary should not make you ‘amazing’,” he spat out. “And you were the one who broke that bicycle, trashcan, and other things, so disposing of them is your responsibility. …Besides, I can’t lift anything that heavy.”

5kg felt funny and 10kg made his spine explode with pain.

So if a comrade collapsed in front of him, he would be unable to carry them to safety. A selfish coward like that could not be allowed on the front line.