Cute Kunoichis:Volume2 Chapter3

Status: Incomplete

1/9 parts completed

   

Chapter 3

1: The Difference Between Revenge and a Rescue Operation is Paper Thin

By the time they were safe once more, the sun had fully set.

Night had fallen.

They were inside a short-term apartment in New Sapporo Domain. It was one of the hideouts prepared by Sugiyado’s four students: Ouka, Bara, Hoozuki, and Asagao.

A banner saying “Congrats on Getting Your Job Back!” was hanging unnaturally in the room.

Opening the refrigerator revealed a homemade-looking cake with plastic wrap over it.

Ouka must have prepared all of it.

The only thing missing was Ouka herself.

“…”

“…Sensei.”

Asagao softly called out to him while he sat there staring at the cake. As expected, she had not fallen into enemy hands and had merely been jammed.

His students had been calling their work here a secret date, but no longer.

(I can’t let it get to me right now.)

He had dragged the girls into his business and made a poor command decision. He really should have been committing seppuku, but that would not bring Ouka back.

So he would use his life in a different way.

He was willing to use up his life if it would save his student.

“Hoozuki. Tell me what happened.”

The silver-haired ponytail girl’s shoulders jumped.

Like he was digging into an open wound.

He wanted to punch himself in the face, but he had to ask this right now.

“What did you and Ouka see in that lab protected by such thick armor? What does Princess Karin hope will be her new energy source? And tell me about Amamo too. Tell me everything you know.”

“It was thermoelectric generation.” She spoke slowly, like she was fighting something within herself to get the words out. “They aren’t using large nuclear reactors or turbines. They’re using the electricity created in semiconductors. In a closed circuit created by pressing two different kinds of metal together, the heat difference creates electricity. In this northern land, that temperature is easy to come by when using the outside and inside air temperatures or room temperatures.”

Asagao, their gadget expert, frowned.

“But wait. By thermoelectric generation, you mean using the Seebeck effect, right? No one has ever created a macro-level generator for that. It’s true it doesn’t need gasoline or natural gas, but I thought it only produced small amounts of electricity. I mean, it can only create electricity on the circuit board.”

“Which means they only have to increase the scale.” Hoozuki hung her head. “And if they use something that already exists, they can skip the major construction fees that would rouse suspicions.”

Asagao was still not convinced.

“What are you-?”

Just as the youngest kunoichi was going to ask more, she came to a stop. She may have thought of something.

“The abandoned underground linear motor train network,” said Sugiyado with a grim look. “They were lying when they said they had filled it in with concrete.”

Linear motor trains used massive amounts of electricity, but the rails themselves were exceedingly long electric circuits lined with electromagnets. Only slight modifications would be needed to reuse them as the closed circuit for thermoelectric generation. The temperature difference would not be hard to set up if they used the difference between the closed tunnel and the outside air.

A motor and a generator were two sides of the same coin.

Even an elementary schooler would understand that after seeing a cheap light that connected to their bike’s front wheel, but running across the idea again here showed the possibility had completely slipped their minds.

Hoozuki nodded like a scolded child.

“That massive rail system connects all six of the Hokkaido Area’s domains. It covers more than 3600km…no, twice that with the up and down tracks. And the linear network hadn’t been privatized like the general railways have, so Princess Karin would have had no trouble requisitioning it with her temporary Domain Lord powers. Each individual unit is small, but when the entire system is used as a closed circuit generator, its output should easily surpass 10 nuclear reactors.”

Electric eels could produce enough electricity to kill a human in the water, but each of their individual generator organs did not produce that much. They gained that great output by connecting so many of them together in series.

One of the ninjas here could be particular about electricity and power sources since she used coilguns.

Bara lifted her large chest with her crossed arms and leaned back against the wall.

“That explains why they only needed that one lab made of snow in the middle of the workshop district. The individual units must be even simpler than a cheap calculator powered by a solar panel. New Sapporo Domain and the other northern domains must have hoped to overcome their lack of resources like this. They never would have been in this situation if they could have pumped tons of materials into building up a massive facility from scratch. They ended up modifying something they already had to make up for that.”

Anyway.

They doubted there were any problems with the new power system using the underground linear motor train network. They had to assume that Princess Karin had already restored her defense system that included everything from early-warning radars across the entire Hokkaido Area to strategic anti-air laser beam cannons and 900mm railguns. She had only been working so hard to hide it because she did not want anyone to know she had breathed life back into them.

Sugiyado sighed.

“That means she isn’t just holding them in reserve.”

“If she could take the initiative without actually using them, she would probably show them off. You know, to say ‘don’t mess with me cause I’ve got these cool new weapons’.”

He agreed with Asagao.

“Whatever she is actually planning,” said Bara. “If we assume she was hiding this information as they approached readiness, we have to assume the generation facility using the underground linear motor train network is just about complete. And if she does have her defense system back up, what is she trying to accomplish by hiding that fact? Hoozuki?”

The silver-haired ponytail girl weakly shook her head at that one. She had only seen the technology at the lab. There must not have been any documents explaining how or why it would be used.

With her arms still crossed and her back still against the wall, Bara used her chin to gesture over toward the bathroom door.

“How about we get this out of Taganuma Yukizasa and Horisato Oume, Sensei? By any means necessary.”

“Stop. I’m not leaving them in your care if you’re going to be emotional about it, Bara.”

Sugiyado made his point very clearly. They of course could not let the hostages know about that, but those two were crucial bargaining chips if they were to rescue Ouka. Carelessly harming those two and “using them up” would be the height of folly.

(I was hoping this conversation would give me some other bargaining chip to work with, but no such luck. Those generator units cover 3600km in both directions, so destroying them all is unrealistic. And I still can’t get a good grip on the conspiracy behind it all.)

He also had to make a decision about the hostage exchange to retrieve Ouka. The more time he gave Princess Karin, the more she would recover from her shock and the longer young Ouka would remain in enemy hands.

Humans did not always act in their own best interests.

Even if someone believed they were acting logically, their emotions could take control at any moment.

Taking a hostage was much easier said than done.

It affected the hostage and the hostage taker both.

After all, you had to invite an enemy into your territory, even if they were being threatened with a weapon and bound with rope or chains. Think of it like trying to get a good night’s sleep with a serial arsonist or serial killer tied up on the floor of your room. Even if your rational side could calculate out that they could not escape, could your emotional side really rest easy? The stress would be constantly building. And when you had the upper hand, it could be hard to even notice it.

“…”

With that in mind, Sugiyado made a decision. He still wanted some other bargaining chip. If Princess Karin was formulating her plans while entirely focused on Yukizasa and Oume, he could rattle her all the easier if he attacked from a different angle.

So…

“Time to contact the Empire.”

“Running to your Cyrillic mistress again?” grumbled Asagao, so he patted her small head.

“I’m not interested in Ekaterina here. I want to contact Murakami Michihiko who we left in her care.”

“Oh.”

“That’s right, Hoozuki. Princess Karin tried to directly cajole and persuade him in the castle, so he must be important to her – maybe for a rational reason and maybe for an emotional one. That means he’ll be even more useful than Yukizasa or Oume.”

9

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