Editing Cute Kunoichis:Volume1 Chapter4 (section)

===4: PCB9===

New Yokohama Domain had a few subway lines in addition to the major terminal station that connected to the giant bridge back to the mainland. The closer subway stations were linked to the large terminal station by underground corridors and plenty of shops had been built along those corridors. That meant the city sat above several subway stations linked on a scale and with a complexity beyond the norm. Some likened it to a house of tricks and it was a hotbed for rumors, like that it hid a secret nuclear shelter or a pure water pool for particle observation.

But there was one thing the people were unaware of.

The entire vast underground mall shared an air conditioning system, so infecting just one duct could quickly make the entire facility deadly. The civilians innocently believed they were being protected, so they never would have imagined the Shogunate might expose them to a biological weapon along with a rebellious criminal.

“!!”

After returning to New Yokohama Domain, Sugiyado Souha hid his mouth behind the largish scarf that helped block facial recognition before he ran through the city night and descended into one of the giant underground mall’s more than 30 entrances.

His earphone produced the concerned voice of John, an outsider. He was virtually sharing the boy’s eyes using his phone’s camera.

“H-hey, are you sure you don’t need any backup!? We’re talking about 200,000 people taken hostage! The queen has given me permission to join the fight, so wouldn’t it be best if you had some help?”

“Were you planning to charge into a crowded subway station during rush hour while wearing that huge thing? The Shogunate is hell bent on killing Ouka’s group to hide their secret. They’re willing to kill 200,000 innocent people and their own colleagues like Guren and Suiren to do it!”

“Don’t you have a bad feeling about this? It reminds me too much of what happened back then. I can’t get a read on anything and I can’t predict anything!”

“I’m saying they might flip the switch the instant they see someone as conspicuous as you there. So just sit tight and keep an eye on things from out there!!”

“I get it, goddammit! But don’t forget that you’re not alone. We’re on your side!!”

He did not respond to that one.

Because he was afraid trying to speak would let out a breath matching the shape of the smile on his lips.

That final mission had been hell, but maybe he had gained something from it.

(Now, then.)

The giant underground mall was like one big box, making it perfect for converting into a gas chamber. Since the air conditioning system was shared, infecting one duct would kill everyone there.

But it was not all bad. Risks and negatives were all in how you viewed them.

And ninjas lived in a different world from samurai and knights. More often than not, they were given infiltration and disturbance jobs while at a disadvantage. If your side had the upper hand to begin with, no one would turn to those who lurked in the shadows in the first place.

(This tells me the villain will only be after a single location. That means I won’t have to run all over this labyrinthine station disarming countless devices!)

“By the way, do you have any guesses what they will be using?” asked the queen over his earphone.

“PCB9. A toxic substance related to vision and the liver had its components pharmaceutically enhanced to create a colorless but strong-smelling poison gas weapon. The Shogunate officially stores 0mg of it, but they abuse a loophole in the various treaties by maintaining a lab that can manufacture it at any time. The actual ingredients are as common as can be and thus very cheap, so there is no concern of anyone detecting anything when they begin producing some. It has a death rate of about 55.8%. Once it gets inside an organism and accumulates, there is no hope of saving them but they will not die right away. Their liver function will drop over the course of a month and they can only lie around suffering until they finally breathe their last.”

It might sound like the other half would survive, but that was only technically true. Even if you were lucky enough to survive, you would face a life of hellish after effects. You would be bedridden forevermore and – to make matters worse – no one would suspect a thing if someone injected you with something in the hospital and your condition took a turn for the worse.

“I-I didn’t really expect you to have an answer. What makes you think they are using that?”

“First, I compared the candidates to the temperature, humidity, level of dust and other impurities in the air, expected distribution range, and other conditions of this particular attack. There were other poison gasses and biological weapons that fit the conditions, but like I said before, those would all be detected by foreign agencies while the Shogunate prepared them. There is no chance the Tuxedos of a #1 enemy state like the Kingdom would overlook it. Plus, PCB9 gives them an advantage when it comes to controlling the spread of the damage. There is no way to actually eliminate it, but since it accumulates in the fat, you can place animal fat along the borderline and have it soak up the toxin like a deodorizer. Without a safety measure like that, they would never use a chemical weapon in the middle of a city of a million, even if it’s separated from the mainland by the sea.”

“You make this all sound so simple, but that means you have the specs for hundreds or even thousands of poison gasses and viruses memorized, doesn’t it? You scare me sometimes.”

John kept a somewhat exasperated tone, but Sugiyado had to focus on his job right now.

There was only one possible target.

(The underground mall’s central heating.)

In order to cut down on energy usage, the underground mall did not install an air conditioner in each individual room. Instead, it used a single giant unit that sent air to the rest of the facility through ducts. Air was taken in through the many intake vents on the surface and it all passed through central heating before separating back out to the rest of the facility.

It was similar to the neck of an hourglass. If that one point was contaminated, everything else would be wiped out.

The central heating room’s location was not revealed to the public. Needless to say, that was because the normal visitors did not need to go there.

(But you can make a pretty good guess based on the layout and density of the ducts on the ceiling.)

“Oops.”

Just before running up some stairs, he came to a stop and faced a nearby drink vending machine.

Up ahead in the crowd, he had seen a pair of blonde twins in white dresses with red and white hair extensions swaying as they walked. Shirazaya Guren held a hand to her throat and Suiren toyed with her right ear. They appeared to be on their way to make a deal with Kuhou Ouka’s group. Sugiyado was officially missing in action, so running into them would cause problems he did not have time to deal with.

“Can’t you hide better than that?” asked Queen Violia who was artificially sharing his eyes using his phone. “Wouldn’t you be safer behind one of those columns?”

“That would make me more conspicuous. The crowd is the greatest form of cover, so as long as I don’t do anything suspicious, I can just go with the flow.”

Based on the duct layout, he was less than 50m from the central heating. He could already see the metal door labeled staff only that had a keypad next to the knob.

At times like this, he could not use smart cards that left a purchase record, but outdated methods had their advantages. He pulled his wallet from the pocket of his loose pants, inserted a few coins, and pushed the button for a soda while continuing his observations.

“They are pros too, aren’t they?” asked the queen. “Are you sure they will overlook you?”

“If you give up and turn around when the gap between buildings is too far to jump, you aren’t cut out to be a ninja. A pro will bring a rope or ladder with them to cross it.”

He crouched down and retrieved the can from the machine, but instead of standing back up, he gently rolled the unopened can below the machine. Finally, he nonchalantly stood back up and started following the flow of foot traffic.

“Nii-sama, they’re going to find you!”

“No, they aren’t.”

Vending machines used a lot of electricity since they had to keep so many products either heated or cooled. The large fan used to rid the machine of its heat would produce a fair amount of heat itself, so it was generally placed where no one would see it but also in an outwards-facing position where the air could cool it.

Also, canned drinks – especially carbonated ones – would explode when overheated.

So what would happen if an unopened can was lodged up against the motor attached below the vending machine to turn the fan?

He heard a muffled and wet boom.

“?”

“Over there.”

He only had to get both sisters to look in a certain direction. Similar to pressing against the opposite side of a revolving door, he slipped past the twins in military-looking white dresses while staying only a few meters behind them.

This was an underground mall full of people, not a strictly-guarded fortress. There might be trouble here, but it would not raise the alert level unless it could be proven to be related to their job. There was more to being a ninja than wielding swords and shurikens in stealthy battles.

There was now no one between him and the staff-only door to the central heating.

In his short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants, he casually held a hand to his earphone.

“At close range, they might detect my transmissions. You won’t hear anything from me once I go inside, but don’t panic.”

“Got it. We will be using a different route to monitor things.”

(This is NR East, so all the extra locks are done by Saitou Security. This model looks like a 34-B, so I need a direct link to the red and yellow.)

There might as well not have been a lock. Anyone who encountered a keypad and tried to search out the correct series of digits was not cut out to be a ninja. He pulled a Fierce Fang from his back, stuck the tip in the gap between the keypad and the door, used leverage to break it open, connected the internal wires to his phone, and forced open the electronic lock. It only took him three seconds, so it did not even look like he was standing there working on something.

“…”

He cracked open the door and slipped inside. The room beyond was dark and full of traps. Not even he could directly see IR lasers, but he could see the stamp-sized mirrors attached all over.

Several pieces of machinery were surrounded by metal fences and thick pipes connected them together. The central heating maintenance hallway was like a spider web woven of unseen light. Touching even one strand would inform the villain of his presence. That might even lead them to hasten their timetable and use the PCB9 poison gas weapon right away.

But on the other hand, the lasers controlled by those mirrors could only travel in straight lines. If he read the angles of the mirrors, he could tell which way the lasers were being reflected.

“Sh.”

He let out a light breath and performed an acrobatic flip. His largish scarf fluttered after him as he sometimes jumped and sometimes rolled to dance nimbly through the invisible spider web without making a noise.

(Setting it up to distribute the gas wouldn’t take long, so a trap of this scale suggests they were ordered to wait here until receiving the go-ahead.)

Once inside, he sensed a presence.

In his short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants, Sugiyado pressed up against a piece of metal larger than a small truck and viewed the scene further in. He already held a Fierce Fang in his hand.

“…”

There was indeed someone there.

That someone was curled up with their back to him and they wore a hooded coat. They were small, but he could not tell if they were a boy or a girl.

The rectangular maintenance hatch for the central heating was located nearly at the floor on the wall and the screws in the four corners had been removed to pop off the cover. A metal cylinder the size of a 2L drink bottle stuck out of the attaché case next to the hatch. It did not have any obvious labels, but that had to be it. Once the valve was opened either based on a timer or a remote signal, the PCB9 would enter the duct and spread throughout the entire underground mall. That would infect the 200,000 ordinary people using the multiple subway stations, the twin sisters Guren and Suiren, as well as Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.

He had no detailed information about the dissemination container.

If it was triggered with the movement of a fingertip or of the eyes, then throwing a single Fierce Fang would be a risky gamble. How could he safely eliminate this enemy? How could he switch off their life without letting them scream or even dilate their pupils? His ability to rationally analyze this showed that, as much as he cared for those on his side, he could never work as a guardian of the law or ally of the people who worked out in the open. And that was fine with him. He remained behind cover and wracked his brain, but then he heard a familiar voice.

It came from the radio sitting next to the enemy.

He realized the building layout showed the meetup point for the deal being directly below this central heating room. PCB9 was colorless but had a distinctive odor, so it was not difficult for people to realize something was wrong. Had this enemy set up a bug or camera so they could wait until the four kunoichis were too deep in to escape once the attack was triggered?

He doubted this was simply insurance in case Guren and Suiren lost. There was no hesitation or concern in the posture of that figure with their back turned. They clearly intended to use this no matter what.

He focused on the voices coming from the radio.

They most likely belonged to Kuhou Ouka and Shirazaya Guren.

Or maybe it was Suiren.

“The Shogunate’s dogs actually bothered to show up to talk it out? They must really not want the data on that storage to get out.”

“Sigh. He sounded so confident, so why does none of this have anything to do with the mint’s printing press? And let’s not get carried away. The higher ups told us what is going on here. Given the encryption method used, it would take 30 years to crack even using all the country’s supercomputers connected in parallel over high-speed lines. Maybe you did fish up a sunken ship, but you did not know how to unlock the treasure chest within. So you decided to threaten us to learn what was inside. Isn’t that right?”

“If you were that confidant we couldn’t get in, you wouldn’t have responded to our request for negotiations. The Shogunate is scared. Maybe all this country’s supercomputers can’t crack it open, but what if we took it to another country? What if we handed this over to the Kingdom waiting out at sea and in the air? Whatever their overall technology level, they should have an overwhelming lead when it comes to population and manpower. And thus the total number of computers they can use in parallel.”

“If you had any such connections, you would not have made this kind of demand in the first place.”

“Oh, really? But if we need connections, we can always make new ones. Remember, kunoichis like us excel at both combat and manipulating people.”

Sugiyado silently graded that a 60. Inspiring emotions in someone was indeed a ninja technique, but to do that, Ouka would first have to know what emotions she needed to draw out in order to succeed.

If she was only making her opponent angry because they could not perform at their best after losing their cool, then she was still unsure what she wanted to do here. Doing that could give your opponent the opening they needed to manipulate you instead.

“Hee hee.”

“Is something funny?”

“Oh, just that you don’t seem to have heard anything at all. I imagine it was Sugiyado Souha who taught you to act like that. If so, he might just be charged with criminal instigation, or maybe even as the mastermind behind it all.”

“He was retried and you’re the ones that dragged him back into it all!!”

If he were not so close to the enemy, he might have clicked his tongue. In a single move, the twin had turned everything around quite impressively. She must have known about Ouka’s psychological weak point from the beginning.

“He told us you were after the mint’s printing press, but this changes everything. Sugiyado Souha’s students were acting on his behalf to restore his honor. If we view this as an act of the Sugiyado Ninja School, there isn’t much room to defend him, is there?”

“You couldn’t even protect him.”

“?”

“You used him for your own purposes and then abandoned him to that tragedy on the rooftop! Listen, if anything did happen to him, I swear I’ll use that modular nuclear reactor to blow up the Tenshukaku, the very center of the Shogunate!!”

“Oh, you seem awfully shaken for someone making such a bold threat. You fear he could never have survived that, don’t you?”

“Yeah, I get it all right. I get that leaving our precious teacher with coldhearted monsters like you will only get him used like a tool and then thrown out. And I get that you could never understand how we feel!!”

“What did you just say?”

The tides were turning.

''Don’t get all heated up when you’re the host,'' thought Sugiyado with a cringe at the twin’s reaction.

“We used him like a tool and threw him out? We did nothing of the sort!! We have a duty to treat our cooperators right. Once we take them onto our team, we treat them like family and we rely on each other! So we could see just how much pressure your actions were placing on his shoulders. Yet he still never made a single complaint. He carried it all himself, wearing himself down in the process. All because you felt the need to cause trouble!!”

“Enough. Bara, Hoozuki, prepare for battle. Asagao, you provide support. We’ll kick their asses and swipe the answer from their pocket!”

“Now we’re talking. It seems neither of us actually suspect he is dead, so we must arrest you and reclaim the life he had. Suiren!!”

But he could not bring himself to outright reject what they were saying.

On one side, Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.

On the other, Shirazaya Guren and Suiren.

They were willing to speak from the heart when it came to him and even grab their weapons despite knowing that was not the smartest move. He reflected deeply on the fact that he was blessed with so many people like that.

How could he let them die here?

He no longer cared about reclaiming his honor. He had no desire he was willing to trample someone else to fulfill. But this was different. He swore to himself he would protect these girls who were standing up and crossing blades for him.

The villain had heard all of this as well, and they held a hand to their ear while still curled up. They were probably contacting someone with their earphone. They must have received some kind of sign because their back shook a bit, as if in laughter.

“Heh.”

A moment later, Sugiyado Souha threw three Fierce Fang air-pressure kunais toward that back.

One toward the back of the head, one toward the spine, and one toward the heart.

All three targets showed no mercy. No matter how dangerous this person in the hooded coat was, this was guaranteed to pierce their vitals. The power of nitrogen would produce 15 tons of pressure to shred whatever the kunais had embedded themselves in.

He revealed his skill in the modern ninja techniques known as Strategic Martial Arts, which had been developed to fight the foreign elites arriving by air and by sea.

Or it looked like he had.

The coat should have been reduced to shreds, yet it flew intact through the air. And the supposedly slain target was not bleeding at all. The scar on Sugiyado’s nose bent.

(A substitution!?)

The torn coat remained upright and seemingly filled with a body, so it was likely made with shape memory alloy, a high-polymer water-absorbing gel, or electric potential elastic fibers.

To fool an extraordinary Hidden One so fully meant this had to be at least a High Ninja, if not even higher than that.

He heard a footstep from overhead.

They were dropping rapidly toward him.

But his immediate reaction was not toward the attacker from above. It was toward the central heating machinery surrounding him.

If the PCB9 container was unsealed and the gas entered the ducts through the opened maintenance hatch, 200,000 people would be infected. And his students and the twins were part of that number.

So he did not need to think twice.

“!!”

He spun around in a breath.

He threw more than five Fierce Fangs in all directions and used the nitrogen to critically spread apart and destroy the wiring, circuit boards, and other Achilles’ heels of the facility. Bright sparks erupted all over and the machinery fell silent.

But he did not have time to observe his handiwork.

He had neglected the assassin directly above him and it was too late to react now. He rolled blindly to the side, but he still felt scorching pain across his back. Something had cut him through his short-sleeved dress shirt. The wound was shallow, but undeniable.

Blood dripped to the floor.

He grimaced at that fact more than the pain. Just like with the air-pressure kunais he had thrown, he had to update his mental list of evidence he would have to erase.

At the same time, he heard a noise similar to compressed air bursting out. He saw the sides of the large metal cylinder peel away to reveal small holes in something like a polka dot pattern.

Something colorless floated out like sugar being stirred into water, but it showed no sign of being absorbed into the boxy duct. He had just barely stopped the central heating in time.

“Not bad.”

That quick comment came from someone standing about 5m ahead of him. They wore a black leather suit and an octopus-like gasmask that covered their face. Their gender was still a mystery. The long brown hair and curvy figure made him think girl, but in this world, he could not deny the possibility of them having padding within the leather suit.

That meant he had no idea who this was.

He did not recognize them and nothing looked familiar.

But that did not speak poorly of their skills. In fact, being unknown was a status symbol in the ninja world. The “legendary ninjas” like Hattori or Kirigakure, who were famous enough to be answers on TV quiz shows, were usually ninjas who had lost their ability to fight and had the Shogunate sell off their personal information. Meanwhile, the unknown ninjas were the ones the Shogunate wanted to keep hidden. It may have been similar to the difference between Elite Ninjas like Ouka’s group who stood at the top of the ranking but whose total numbers were known and the Hidden Ones like Sugiyado Souha whose numbers were a mystery.

Did that mean this was another Hidden One?

Or was there some other exceptional category other than that?

Either way, they were top rate.

And this was the hellish front line where the extraordinary could be found anywhere. This was not a training facility where the difficulty was adjusted to an amateur’s level. Whoever this was, he had to fight them now that they had encountered each other.

“But are you sure that was a good idea? All you did was transfer the PCB9 from a big box to a smaller one. There’s no hope for you without a mask like this one. Was this really worth getting sliced up by my Piercing Web?”

“That is for me to decide,” spat out Sugiyado while pulling another Fierce Fang from the back of his torn and red-stained shirt.

This would soon be a world carrying a silent 55.8% chance of death. He would be fighting a deadly battle while also sharing a room with an invisible grim reaper.