Cute Kunoichis:Volume1

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Prologue

Now.

What comes to mind when you hear the word “ninja”?

Maybe you are picturing shuriken, kunai, smoke bombs, and cloths made to blend in with the wall. You might even imagine someone clasping their hands in front of their chest and reciting some strange incantation.

But none of that is accurate.

A ninja has electronically-controlled multipurpose goggles and an outfit made from bulletproof and bladeproof spiderweb fibers, chemical winches made from a high-polymer water-absorbing gel or electric-potential-elastic belt cylinders.

That was considered the bare minimum these days.

In the abandoned B3 underground plaza of a large train station, Sugiyado Souha, a 17-year-old boy with a scar on his face, was crouched down while holding a metal cylinder the size of a large water bottle with lots of holes in the side. He wore a half-sleeved dress shirt, loose pants, and a large scarf. It was all old and worn out.

The boy was facing two fighting groups of kunoichis.

On one side was Kuhou Ouka. She was a girl of 13 or 14 with her long chestnut hair worn in twintails. She wore a special fiber outfit that fit snugly to her young bodylines and she held a hunting gun with two stacked barrels, a bayonet, and a multipurpose sight that resembled binoculars.

On the other side was Shirazaya Guren and Suiren. Those identical girls of 16 or 17 had semi-long blonde hair. They could only be distinguished by the white or red extensions attached next to one of their ears and by the flower decorations in their hair. The two slender girls each held a special-steel ninja sword and a kusarigama.

They both wore skintight full-body suits with kimono-like attachments worn on top to hide what would otherwise show through. They way the fluttering cloth drew the eye every time they moved may have been one of the weapons long used by the female ninjas known as kunoichis.

“…”

None of them needed to say anything at this point.

Without any signal, all three girls moved in perfect unison, as if they had stolen each other’s thoughts. With their very first step, they kicked off the ground, flew through the air, and kicked off the station’s pillars and walls to flip around.

Each time Ouka swung her bayonet, liquid nitrogen or flamethrower blades would fly out as if to slice across the entire plaza, but the twins Guren and Suiren still pressed closer with their sleeveless white kimono tops and short pleated skirts giving them a cheerleader-like silhouette. The flashy and astonishing attack was a bluff. The stacked-barrel hunting gun could select between types of ammo, so the twins used their special-steel blades to accurately cut down the bullets meant to actually hit them. Their point-blank range exchanges continued from there. Both sides were only young girls.

Their spiderweb ninja suits were several dozen times as strong as steel, but a direct hit from one of those killing moves could still slice their slender bodies in two. After all, they had trained their bodies, chosen their equipment, and come here for that purpose.

Sugiyado could not stand it any longer, so he shouted to them.

“Stop this! Keep this up and you’ll die!!”

Both sides briefly came to a stop.

No, for a brief moment, Kuhou Ouka and Shirazaya Guren and Suiren’s killer intent was diverted elsewhere.

“Who do you think we’re doing this for in the first place!?” shouted those cutting-edge kunoichis. “And whose side are you on anyway!!!???”

Ugh, thought Sugiyado Souha while looking up toward the sky.

He lamented to himself while confirming the sensation of the sealed poison gas container in his hands.

How did I find myself in this mess?

It all began just a few days earlier.

Chapter 1

1: A Kunoichi, Twintails, and a Lecture

The rectangular plastic package was just a little larger than the postcards that seemed so nostalgic nowadays. It was colored a reddish orange and the thick text on the front said “Happy Churn”.

Sugiyado Souha, a 17-year-old boy with a scar on his nose, was seated in one corner of a small single-room apartment. He was gesturing wildly as he desperately tried to argue his case. He wore a half-sleeve dress shirt, loose pants, and (even indoors) a long scarf around his neck, but it was all very uncomfortable after absorbing so much nervous sweat.

He was speaking to a twintail girl standing past the Happy Churn box with her hands on her slender hips. She wore a baggy long-sleeved white sweater and a miniskirt adorned with pink pleats. It was certainly a cute outfit, but if she moved any closer, he was pretty sure he would be able to see the cute underwear within that miniskirt. And do not ask how he could know it was cute without having actually seen it. You are reading too much into this. He definitely had not seen it and he double definitely had not seen the small ribbon on the front!!

“No, wait, Ouka. There is a perfectly good reason for this.”

“Your room is already so messy it’s a miracle you haven’t gotten yourself sick, so you have to stop sneaking this junk food, Sensei!!”

“Junk!? You take that back!! Happy Churn is my manly soul food!”

“Oh, the very thought of it scares me. Sugar, carbs, chemical seasonings, artificial preservatives, and artificial coloring. Snack foods are an incarnation of evil intent on destroying the world, so I will be throwing out every last crumb! Even if it will probably all be back in a few days knowing you!!”

“Not so fast! Happy Churn powder is a mystery seasoning with a secret recipe, so you have no basis for your critique, Ouka!!”

“Please don’t eat mystery substances full of who-knows-what, Sensei!!”

“Oh, no. At this rate, cute Ouka could turn into a truly monstrous woman as she ages. Any course corrections need to be made now. Strike while the iron is hot, as the saying goes. You can do it, 14 year old! You have time to fix this!!”

“You were the one that told me to watch out for sugars and fats because a kunoichi’s body is a crucial asset.”

He was simply reaping what he had sown.

Sugiyado dripped with an unpleasant sweat and turned his head like a broken fan to avoid looking her in the eye.

“I-I’m a guy, so I’m not a kunoichi?”

“Shall I carve that into your grave, Sensei? (Smile)”

“No, no, no! But if I’m being entirely serious, things are different between a retired instructor like me and someone like you who is still sent to the front lines to battle the knights and musketeers who arrive by sea and air.”

“Sensei!!”

“You have every right to be angry, but that is a historical fact. I already put in the work, so let me pack on a few kilos now.”

“I…” Ouka kept her hands on her hips but also pouted her lips like a disobedient child. “I refuse to accept that you have retired. I mean, no one can defeat you, not even Bara or Hoozuki. And that includes me.”

“I am honored that a Shogunate-approved Elite Ninja thinks so highly of me.”

“…”

Ninja techniques might seem old and busted.

But the arresting techniques and martial arts adopted by the police and militaries of different countries were generally based on the ancient and traditional martial arts of that country or region. In Eastern Europe, that meant wrestling. In Western Europe, that meant mixed martial arts with an emphasis on grabbing and pinning techniques. In South America, that meant an alternate version of jujutsu. In China…well, that one goes without saying.

The modern reliance on ninjas was a sign of the times. Foreign warships and aircraft carriers were stationed uncomfortably close to the isolationist Shogunate and the mechanical knights and musketeers aboard those ships only had to be sent the go sign. Those things could not be dealt with by traditional means, so new tactics had to be built from the ground up and that required individual fighters to adjust their own tactics on the fly. While karate, judo, and kendo received more attention, the necessities of the modern age had led to a resurgence in a different but equally ancient form of martial arts.

Even if they were reliant on modern technology, their techniques were still built on a foundation of martial arts to bring about a bizarre evolution in the traditional methods. This evolution that had developed to combat cutting-edge foreign weapons was known as Strategic Martial Arts.

“But you must understand that you are only talking about direct sparring matches fought on the limited field of a training ground and with a time limit. That has no bearing on what would happen in a real battle.”

Sugiyado remained seated on the floor and winked while tapping his fist on his lower back like an old man.

“I have three bolts in my spine and springs to make up for the torn ligaments in my legs. I’m far from helpless, but my spine feels funny when I lift something weighing 5kg and it explodes with pain when I lift something weighing 10kg.”

Of course, if that was really true, his spine would explode from the inertia of high-speed movement or when he blocked an enemy’s blade, yet that did not happen.

In the end, it was a complicated mix of his old wounds and psychological symptoms.

Knowing it was only in his head made his inability to get over it all the more frustrating. Any doctor he asked would likely tell him it was not that simple, but that would not be enough to fix his stubborn pride.

“You want to know how to defeat me? It’s simple. Make constant attacks with projectiles while endlessly falling back on a wide-open field. As long as you aren’t relying on thick and heavy bulletproof equipment, that will be enough to wear me down and kill me. I can’t dodge things forever, so my focus would falter at some point.”

“That’s nonsense and you know it, Sensei. We’re Elite Ninjas ranked above the standard High, Middle, and Low hierarchy, but you’re one of the Hidden Ones ranked even higher than that. No one even knows how many of those there are!!”

“Ouka, we are not samurais or the Shogun. What is victory for a ninja?”

“Kh.”

“What is victory for a ninja, Ouka?”

“To use every means available and follow any path available to achieve your objective no matter what. To swiftly and surely create a foothold for the rest of the army to advance without getting bogged down in matters of personal glory.”

She looked like she was silently cursing herself for being able to rattle off that definition.

Sugiyado Souha smiled bitterly at how good a student Kuhou Ouka was.

“Real battles are cruel and you don’t get to complain that something ‘isn’t fair’. If you’re carrying a bombshell, of course someone is going to poke at it. So if you carry a bombshell that could ruin the entire army’s timetable, you will be kept away from the battlefield. It is a perfectly sensible decision.”

He slowly exhaled and stood up while she bit her cute lip and said nothing in response. He was glad she was so worried about him, but this was his life and she did not have to carry these problems for him.

He placed a hand on her small head and smiled.

“Don’t let something so insignificant shake you, Ouka.”

“How is this insignificant, you dummy?”

“Even when you don’t think it’s affecting you, the enemy might sniff out the feelings lingering in your heart. You can never predict what will be the dividing line between life and death. If you don’t want to be forced into retirement by some unexpected turn of events like I was, then you need to stay strong.”

Those words were entirely meant for the girl named Ouka, but that also meant they contained no comfort at all for Sugiyado himself.

“But that’s what makes it all the more frustrating, Sensei.”

“That part is an entirely psychological issue, so you have to overcome it on your own.”

He sighed and lifted his hand from her head. The short girl looked over somewhat regretfully, but he was not the type to be drawn in by his excellent student’s sex appeal (although in her case, it was more of a protective desire). He turned his back on her and waved as he left the room.

For a while, the twintail girl clasped her hands in front of the flat chest showing through her tight sweater as she stared at the door Sugiyado Souha had left through, but then…

“Ah!? I was supposed to be lecturing him, but he somehow twisted it around into a quiet goodbye! Sensei!!”

2: The Floating City of the Shogunate and a Daimyo Procession

Your efforts are undeniable.

We have confirmed the extreme chaos on the scene at the time.

But the fact remains that your injuries prevent you from carrying an injured comrade. No matter how skilled they might be, someone who cannot protect the lives of their comrades in arms cannot be placed on the front line.

Please understand.

“…”

Ouka was one of the Elite Ninjas considered the strongest in active duty, so she would find him immediately if all he did was leave the apartment. He alternated travel routes in a complex pattern to eliminate any trail to follow and blended into the crowds of people.

(Really, this is like a pleasant stroll for me.)

This much exercise was not going to detonate the bombshell in his back. Theoretically, anyway. But while carrying a bombshell like that, he ended up worrying about it even when he should not have to.

He was weak.

He did not avoid admitting to himself he had a handicap. He could not rid himself of his concerns, unease, and even fears when doing something as simple as this. No matter how jokey he might seem on the surface, this was something he could not let his students learn about. He knew it was pathetic keeping secrets from those so close to him, but even instructors had their pride and dignity they wanted to protect.

He had left to escape Ouka’s lecture, which meant he did not have a set destination in mind. So how was he to kill some time? He might b a ninja, but he did not perform any flashy backflips or create clones of himself. He waited at the light for the large pedestrian scramble like anyone else would and he lost himself in thought while watching a line of vehicles cross by in front of him.

However, these were not ordinary cars or trucks.

Two large white police motorcycles took the lead, various bodyguard and escort vehicles were next, and a black luxury car bearing the large family crest of a samurai family followed that.

The police motorcycles were blasting an announcement from their speakers while driving quite slowly (which had to be difficult with motorcycles).

“A special alert is in effect. We know this is an inconvenience to you all, but please do your part to facilitate our official business.”

This was known as a Daimyo Procession.

The term Sankin Kotai was no longer even used these days, but not because the mandatory policy no longer existed. It was just that no one considered it worth arguing about any longer. Modern meetings could be held remotely with a single internet line, but the Shogunate still insisted on direct meetings on the pretext of safety. And of course, the funding for such meetings came from the annual taxes paid by the people living in the New Yokohama Domain.

There must have been some frustrations because people had stopped bowing their heads when they encountered a Daimyo Procession of late. Some young men in the area were aiming their phone cameras toward it and a small girl was eating a corndog while holding her mother’s hand, but none of the bodyguards got after them.

However, there must have been a coordination mistake this time.

The large monitor covering a department store wall was brightly and loudly spreading a wide range of information unrelated to the Daimyo Procession.

“New Yokohama Domain, the reclaimed land known as the modern Dejima, is a unique intersection point with many foreign cultures within this country’s isolationist policies, so it is also a land of many strange gourmet surprises! For example, here we have yaki udon and a pilaf sharing the same plate with a line of shumai running down the center to divide the two.”

“The age of a single OS’s monopoly has come to an end. We in the Kyushu University Computer Machinery Alliance have brought together domestic hardware with a brand new operating system that is estimated will increase the GDP by…”

“Breaking news: Several ships have been detected in the ocean off of the Pacific coast. They appear to be carrying Kingdom knights who plot to steal our data, but the unusually great number of aircraft carriers has led the Shogunate to announce…”

“Happy Churn!! X Day draws nigh! Strap your helmets on tight, everyone!!”

(The world is sounding as dangerous as ever. And what was that about everyone’s beloved Happy Churn?)

Sugiyado Souha prepared to take a mental note about the one topic he could not afford to miss out on, but then the screen switched over.

“In response to the dangerous signs at air and sea, the Tenshukaku at the center of the Shogunate is preparing a conference attended by all Daimyo with more than 500,000 koku of land as they will be the foundation of any regional defense. With the outstanding skill of the great 52nd Shogun Osaie at work…”

High officials in their formal dress were lined up in a large hall where a single tatami mat probably cost as much as a commoner’s entire house.

And in the very, very back sat a single figure.

The Daimyo Procession must have cost a fortune, but it paled in comparison to this.

Sugiyado Souha gave a look of pity toward the family crest on the luxury car, but he was still mostly thinking of Happy Churn. And then a bewitching voice reached his ears.

“Oh, dear. If it isn’t, Sensei. If you make Ouka wait too long, you will lose your chance to apologize, you know?”

A floral scent wafted over to him.

She was tall for a girl but still shorter than Sugiyado. This was a sexy girl with long red hair worn in gorgeous ringlet curls and a dress so bold a red it almost looked dyed in blood. The buns on either side of her head may have been a floral symbol. She did wear a kanzashi, but she still had a mostly Western appearance. She looked splendid enough to make an appearance at an evening party or on a theatre stage.

The fact that someone like this had blended into the background until now was all you needed to know to see her great skill.

“Oh, Bara.”

Sugiyado whispered without moving his lips and without looking back. He kept his eyes on the opposite red light and the luxury cars of the Daimyo Procession.

When he carefully studied the reflection in the highly-polished cars, he could indeed see the beautiful kunoichi standing behind him.

“You’re getting better. I thought I had hidden my presence better than this.”

She was 18 which meant she was older than him, but he still ended up speaking like her superior.

But the red ringlet curls girl did not seem to mind.

“Only because my specialty is in disguises and deception instead of direct combat. Knowing how to disguise myself means knowing how to see through other people’s disguises.” That star of the stage giggled while crossing her arms in a way that lifted her large breasts up from below. “Plus, these techniques are all things you taught me.”

“You have already made them into your own techniques. I have nothing left to teach you there.” He relaxed his shoulders. “So where are Hoozuki and Asagao?”

“They went shopping to buy some ingredients for tonight.”

“Hm? Hold on. What are you four starting now?”

Something seemed to dawn on him after he asked that. This explained why Ouka was so upset about him eating snacks. The problem was not with the Happy Churn itself; she had been behaving like a mother refusing to let her child snack before dinner.

“Forgive her, Happy Churn. My student lashed out at you unfairly, but I know you have a big enough heart to laugh it off like an adult for my sake.”

“I’m pretty sure Ouka’s problem is that she likes you so much she’ll even get jealous over your fondness for an inanimate object.”

“But this is a problem. I was thinking of killing some time at a family restaurant or burger shop since I have nowhere to go.”

“That would only add fuel to the fire, but I won’t stop you if you are the kind of ‘expert’ who enjoys seeing a cute girl erupt at you.”

“What do you even want from me?”

“Oh? I like you a lot too, Sensei.”

She dropped a bombshell with a straight face. They were student and instructor and he wanted to complain about the kids these days, but Bara gave a mischievous smile and toyed with one of her ringlet curls using nail-polished fingertips. That was enough to squish her large breasts together from the side with her arm, so he really, really wanted to complain about the kids these days.

Kunoichis were taught to distract their opponents with their bodies, but the scent of nectar coming from Hanasawa Bara was especially strong. If she transferred in, she could probably bring down an entire prestigious girl’s school on her own.

“Now, Ouka’s ‘like’ is a much narrower kind of thing, but mine is much broader. I absolutely love the general atmosphere when you, Ouka, Hoozuki, Asagao, and I are together.”

“But…just to be clear, isn’t that atmosphere in trouble? If Ouka erupts, won’t that beloved peace of yours crumble away?”

“My, my. Who ever said the atmosphere I like is a peaceful one?”

That was the end of it.

The parade-like Daimyo Procession finally left. The pedestrian light turned green and the waiting people began to move. That girl in a bright red dress had been by his side a moment before, but now she was gone.

However, he did hear a giggling breath. Just as he realized she was still close by, he felt a soft touch on his cheek.

It was a maiden’s lips.

Only a thick floral scent reminiscent of a red rose’s petals remained in his nose.

“So if necessary, I am willing to throw in some sparks or add fuel to the fire. Just like this.”

Now she really was gone.

He shook his head side to side and then started across the pedestrian scramble a little later than the others waiting.

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!!”

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.

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.

5: The Four Girls

Once they had finished cleaning up, they finally got moving.

“Why do we have to be so thorough? Normal people would never know what they were looking at.”

“Don’t get sloppy in training, Hoozuki. That will only lead to sloppiness in actual combat. I taught you your subconscious is always less disciplined than you think it is, didn’t I?”

“Yes, yes.”

The cool beauty transformed her wheel shuriken launcher back into an off-road motorcycle and tossed Sugiyado a C-shaped plastic device she had been toying with in her hand.

“Place that behind your neck and it will function like an airbag. A gyro sensor will monitor the angle of your head and protect it with a balloon bag in case of emergency. It’s single-use, but convenient.”

He flipped the device over in his hand and spun it around.

“You do love your gadgets, don’t you? I bet you like looking through electronics catalogs.”

“Of course I do. Spec tables for new products are humanity’s greatest literary achievement. Everything needed to spark the imagination is found there. Not even Shakespeare or Doyle managed to invent this.”

“Hmm, so you’re some kinda weirdo?”

“I won’t criticize your zealotry for the Church of the Happy Churn, so how about being a little more openminded, Sensei?”

What a silly thing to say. Sugiyado Souha was openminded enough to accept any person of any age or gender. For that reason, he was not about to say no to riding behind a female motorcycle rider.

He might as well have been embracing the feline litheness of her spine and shoulder blades and he placed his hands around her hips. He had to watch himself to make sure he did not end up hooking his fingers around the belts binding her body.

“Nh.”

“Let’s not make weird noises, Hoozuki.”

“You’re acting calm, but your heartrate doesn’t lie, Sensei. But I’ll take that as a sign that you see me as a woman. I was a little worried about that, but I don’t have anyone else to ask about it. Heh heh heh.”

He cleared his throat, but she must not have meant it as criticism. She provided him the feminine softness and warmth of her back while she set Countless Calamities in motion.

They rushed through the city while the engine rumbled so deeply it almost sounded like a bass instrument.

“I heard you were out shopping with Asagao.”

“I doubt Ouka would give away the surprise, so that must have been Bara. She really has this annoying fetish for causing trouble while pretending to be an innocent bystander.”

“Call it an annoying ‘habit’, Hoozuki.”

“But anyway, I sent Asagao back to your room with the food. So this is my second time out here.”

Hoozuki made sure the others could not even hope to threaten her position as the most mobile of the four. She was a kunoichi whose transformable off-road motorcycle functioned as a means of transportation and a weapon. She could, in all seriousness, leap from rooftop to rooftop or lift up the back wheel and spin on the spot to swing it around like a roundhouse kick. If she was going tightrope walking, she would be safer roaring across on Countless Calamities than spreading her arms to balance herself on foot. That machine was becoming a part of her body.

“Can you stop your ponytail from slapping me in the face?”

“Bear with it. Not even I can make the air resistance go away.”

“Fine, but I’m afraid I’ll eat it if I’m not careful.”

“You’re into some surprisingly kinky stuff, Sensei. Ouka would probably freak if she heard. Y’know, swinging her twintails around like a den-den daiko.”

It did not take long at all to arrive at the rundown apartment despite how far from the station it was.

After arriving back in familiar territory while the roaring engine probably triggered some noise complaints, they found an extremely small girl seated out front.

Her glossy black hair was worn in a bob cut, making her look something like a symbol of Japan, but she was dressed in a white military uniform with a tight skirt. She was 11 years old. With her appearance, any police officer that spotted her would 100% mistake her for a runaway child and drag her away.

“Asagao?”

“Ahh! Ahh! Ahh!!”

Her small head popped up and she started swinging her baggy sleeves around while screaming. She sounded like someone who had spotted a ship on the horizon after a month stuck on a desert island.

“You’re mean, Hoozuki! And you too, Sensei! How could you leave me all alone in that horrific cage!?”

“All alone? What happened to Ouka and Bara?”

After Sugiyado hopped down from the off-road motorcycle’s back seat, Shizukuma Asagao stomped her long boots on the ground and practically tackled him to cling to him. She looked up at him with a tearful and confused face that was not quite angry and not quite relieved.

“I’m saying you left me all alone while those two were emitting crazy auras at each other! It was so scary! Ouka was looking forward to surprising you and Bara went ahead and spilled the beans, so they were just glaring at each other in the scariest way!!”

He had no idea what was waiting for him inside, but he could tell it was not going to be pleasant. And with Hoozuki’s roaring engine, those two would know he was back home, so running away now would be silly.

Expressionless, Hoozuki held a hand out to Countless Calamities and transformed it into something like a rectangular bag.

“Asagao, you specialize in manipulating and dealing in information, right? All you have to do is use your conversational skills to guide them back to a calmer state.”

“Ugh. If you think that’s remotely possible at this point, then take a peek in there. Unlike the rest of you, I’m purely a scout, so I can’t actually fight. It’s a miracle I survived this long here.”

Incidentally, changing shape did not change the mass, so the bag making Nantou Hoozuki’s shoulder blade crawl alluringly below her skin weighed more than 90kg. Her every step caused a strange creaking from the rundown apartment’s stairs. Again, Sugiyado felt like complaining about kids these days.

“Sensei, you’re my Onii-chan, so it’s your duty to protect me.”

“Don’t think you can use that argument to get any New Year’s money out of me.”

Shizukuma Asagao was more than half serious as she tearfully clung to the side of his hip. Since her small head was in the perfect position, his hand naturally ended up petting it while he sighed.

Kuhou Ouka.

Hanasawa Bara.

Nantou Hoozuki.

Shizukuma Asagao.

The four of them really were like precious gems. Sending them out into the world as proper ninjas may have been even more impressive an achievement than anything Sugiyado Souha had done during his time as an active ninja.

Now, could he think of any way to peaceably end a face-off between those Elite Ninjas?

“No, that’s just not possible. Okay, Ouka, Bara! The only solution here is for you to grow up!! I’m making adults out of you right here and now!!”

When he threw open the door and made that announcement, he did indeed see Kuhou Ouka striking an intimidating pose and Hanasawa Bara looking like she was enjoying herself.

However, the chestnut twintails girl showing off her undeveloped bodylines and the red ringlet curls girl crossing her arms to lift up her enormous chest were not fighting to the death using legitimate ninja techniques.

“You want to ‘make an adult out of me’ in this tiny, filthy room, Sensei!?” (Ouka)

“And ‘the two of you’? Does that mean it’s at least going to be a threesome!?” (Bara)

(Um, uh oh.)

He realized too late that he had phrased that last part poorly. Asagao’s warmth had silently left the side of his hip and he could hear the clanking transformation sounds of Hoozuki’s Countless Calamities.

He recalled what he had read in some textbook or another.

Q: What is needed to bring multiple opposing forces together?

A: A common enemy.

“Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhbwahhhh!?”

His screams were not going to convince the girls he was not in fact a pervert.

Four active-duty Elite Ninjas attacked him from four different directions at once.

6: The Hotpot Party Begins

How many times had he narrowly avoided death tonight?

But after Sugiyado Souha was left in worse shape than the exterior of the old apartment building, something was thunked down in front of him.

“Oh, a hotpot.”

“What kind of reaction is that!? See, Bara, this is what happens when you tell him in advance!!”

“I never said anything about a hotpot.”

Hoozuki had come out and told him all the ingredients, but he kept his silence like a ninja should. Some truths were better left hidden.

“Sensei, I couldn’t help but notice the sad state of your diet. This was a party-size recipe, but it can be made into a single-serving vegetable hotpot as well. You have a small pot for stewing udon in your closet, so fix this for yourself from now on. …Surely you aren’t going to claim you’re so pathetic you can’t even stew something in a pot. Right, Sensei?”

It looked like this recipe was boiled in water. She also added some chicken broth, but she apparently did not like using a powdered chemical seasoning for that.

Silver ponytail Nantou Hoozuki expressionlessly tilted her head.

“How did you manage when you were an active-duty ninja? You must have had to gather ingredients on-site and cook outdoors.”

“You’re on active duty now, so I know you know the answer. Official Shogunate spies receive such thorough logistical support that it never felt necessary. The deployment team would give me as many combat rations as I wanted.”

“Those might as well be big chunks of chemical seasoning. I’ve never been able to even finish the ones I’ve been issued.”

“And if worse comes to worst, you can always catch a snake or a rat. There are animals everywhere, from the city to the jungle. Cook it enough and most any meat is edible.”

“And what about infectious disease, Sensei!? Learning to cook like a normal person is a lot easier than showing off your superhuman skills there!!”

Meanwhile, the hotpot on the portable stove had apparently finished cooking. White steam blew from the small hole on the top, so Kuhou Ouka lifted off the thick lid while using a cloth in lieu of a potholder.

“I swear I will bring your diet up to normal human standards. Here you go, Sensei.”

“You didn’t have to do this, you know? But thanks.”

After receiving a serving in a bowl, he started with trying a sip of the clear broth. Next, he ate some of the well-cooked cabbage and chicken meatballs and enjoyed the texture between his teeth.

After swallowing, he gave his thoughts.

“It’s surprisingly normal.”

“Are you saying the home cooking a girl made especially for you is on the same level as a snake or rat crawling through the ditch!?”

“I’m saying it’s a normal amount of tasty.”

“Kh, what does that even mean based on your standards!?”

After all, he had revealed his tastes to include snakes, rats, combat rations, and Happy Churn. The sample set was too bizarre to draw any real conclusions.

“Let me see,” said curvy young Bara, cool beauty Hoozuki, and small Asagao while they used serving chopsticks or a ladle to move the hotpot’s contents into their own bowls. And after trying some…

“I see. That is very normal.” (Hanasawa Bara)

“Yes, I see what he means about it being a normal amount of tasty.” (Nantou Hoozuki)

“Normal. Very normal.” (Shizukuma Asagao)

“Stop calling it that! You’re making it sound like it should have been more surprising or something!” (Kuhou Ouka)

Skinny Ouka grew a bit tearful, but she should have been more observant. No matter what the others said, they were not slowing down in their consumption of the hotpot. They were even fighting over the serving chopsticks and ladle.

“Why are the chicken and the fish both made into a paste?”

“Ouka can’t help it. She’s a ninja teacher’s pet who wants to turn all rice into riceballs and all meat into meatballs.”

Hanasawa Bara squished her large chest between her upper arms as she held her chopsticks and bowl and her comment made still-growing Kuhou Ouka poke her index fingers together in front of her chest.

“B-but that’s what Sensei taught me to do. What’s wrong with doing what your teacher told you to do?”

“While it does take a lot of work, it helps cook the meat more evenly and helps you digest it more easily. For example, if you make meatballs out of the frogs or rats you catch, they really will taste like chicken, so-”

“D-do not talk about that right now!! You’re going to make me feel like I’m eating something else!!”

“?”

Time seemed to fly, which may have been all the proof anyone needed that Kuhou Ouka’s hotpot had been a success.

It was soon time for the finishing touch.

Youngest Asagao spoke up as part of the shopping team.

“Hoozuki and I got in a fight in the supermarket over whether to go with udon or rice soup, but we ended up settling on rice soup. If you use a package of white rice, it’s just as easy to make.”

“Wha-!?”

The shocked party was red ringlet curls Hanasawa Bara. She had apparently expected to finish things off with some kind of noodles, be it ramen, udon, or champon.

“Th-this can’t be happening. While the broth doesn’t pack as much of a punch as with sukiyaki, this water mixed with chicken broth is pretty powerful, so everyone knows you follow that off with noodles that are merely coated with the broth, not rice that soaks it all up! Hoozuki, you should have fought harder. No, you should have called me up so I could come running and join the fight!!”

“Oh, Sensei. I’ll be shutting the lid and letting this cook, so it will take a bit of time.”

Ouka ignored the harsh critic who was only interested in the eating side of the equation and she shut the clay pot’s lid with a smile.

“How long will it take?” asked small-faced Shizukuma Asago while she kicked her skinny feet below the low table.

“Cooking it won’t take long at all, but you need to shut off the heat and let it sit afterwards so the rice can soak up the broth, right?”

Cool beauty Nantou Hoozuki explained that while raising her arms and stretching her back in an alluring way. A much lazier time had just set in. With nothing to do, Sugiyado reached for the remote and turned on the fairly small flat-screen TV.

“Welcome to our documentary on modern ninjas. The Shogunate uses its isolationist policies to protect our nation’s advanced technology, such as ultra-miniature processors using molecular wiring, modular nuclear reactors which can be transported by train, and printers that can mass-produce the world’s most complex and detailed currency. But behind the scenes, there is conflict with other nations, most notably the Kingdom. Today, we will be shining a spotlight on that unseen backstage.”

Bara laughed.

“Imagine if the truth about our secret units really was broadcast to everyone’s living rooms like some kind of quiz show.”

“This is necessary.” Sugiyado toyed with the remote in his hand. “When they surround a construction site with tall walls, they will intentionally make one panel transparent. Because everyone can rest easy when they can see what’s going on inside. This is the same. A perfect secret force like you see in the movies would only worry the people, even if they aren’t doing anything wrong. The CIA is the best example there. They’re the world’s largest intelligence agency, but everyone knows their name. On the other hand, no one actually knows what they’re up to. …For people like you who protect the country in ways you can’t explain to the average person, it’s crucial that you can make everyone feel like they’re in the know even though you haven’t revealed anything at all.”

“Not just people like us.” Kuhou Ouka pouted her lips in a way that made her look childish. “For all of us. That includes you.”

“…”

He did not respond.

He hoped they could see his hesitation and conflict in the fact that he did not simply laugh it off and lie.

Now and in the past, he was one of the Hidden Ones who could not be ranked by the usual Low, Middle, High, and Elite system.

“Oh, shouldn’t it be done now?”

Shizukuma Asagao’s eyes widened on a small face which was further emphasized by her bob cut. Ouka sighed before deflating her puffed-out cheeks and going along with it. Sugiyado knew what a kind girl she was.

“Then I’ll drop the beaten egg in. Just a little longer.”

However…

“I know this is sudden, but I’m feeling kind of full.”

“That does happen when you wait a while after eating.”

“This is why I told you to go with lighter noodles instead of this heavy rice soup! Urp.”

“Can you all quit complaining when you didn’t lift a finger to help cook!?”

Young Ouka lightly clenched her teeth in frustration, but the eaters would generally eat whatever was placed in front of them, even if they were complaining all the while. Taking the food away from them would only inspire more complaints, so it was best to just ignore them.

“Here, Sensei. Eat up.”

Ouka made sure to at least serve Sugiyado. While she went all out in serving him, she also had the resolute eyes of a girl who was not going to overlook a thing.

But when she handed him the bowl full of rice soup, it felt surprisingly heavy. It was like she had handed him a whole apple.

“Oh.”

“What was that surprise directed at, Sensei? That might seem trivial, but it is actually very important.”

The twintail girl smiled, but since it was a forced smile, she must have been worried already. She may have noticed the excessive weight herself.

To escape the pressure from directly ahead, he used his chopsticks to take a bite.

“Huh? It isn’t that heavy at all. It’s perfectly edible.”

“Did you think I was making you something inedible!? I wasn’t so hopelessly flustered that I boiled up some plastic! Could you please give a thought to how your comments will affect a maiden heart, Sensei!?”

Her previous worries led her to talk awfully fast, but her face was bright. She must have been breathing a sigh of relief that he had actually accepted it. She kept switching between her “student” and “big sister” identities.

“Huff puff. Yeah, it really is edible.”

“I would still prefer udon next time, but this is good enough I suppose.”

People had a tendency to look down on people when it was their turn to be the critic, so it was best not to take the things they said too seriously.

Once they had finished off every last drop, rice soup time was over and the laziness had returned.

Sugiyado Souha really did bring his hands together in thanks.

“Thank you for the meal.”

“You’re welcome, Sensei. This is what they call human food.”

“Yeah, it’s not bad.”

“It scares me how little this seems to have affected you. To be clear, this isn’t meant to be a rare treat! You should be making sure to eat three proper meals a day!!”

“Which is why I’m so thankful.”

Red ringlet curls Hanasawa Bara’s large chest rose and fell in a sigh while she thought to herself and cooled her heated body with the breeze entering through the window.

She and cool beauty Nantou Hoozuki whispered to each other.

“(Hey, Hoozuki. Should we assume Sensei never learns his lesson because living like this gives his caretaker an excuse to visit him regularly?)”

“(I doubt he’s doing it on purpose, but I also doubt he cares if that is the result. In fact, this should be a lot more entertaining if we never point that out.)”

7: The Final Moment of Peace

He could no longer return to the front line.

But if this was what the future held for him, attempting that final mission may not been a bad idea after all. It seemed to him that it had been worthwhile. He had been saved by these students who so adored him.

He honestly wished things could stay like this forever. Or maybe he wanted to believe it was possible.

But that did not last even 72 hours.

Before dawn, a certain radio transmission was made within New Yokohama Domain.

“This is Guren. I have confirmed the first report of the incident. I will now regroup with the main unit and pursue Target Group A.”

“This is Suiren. To learn Target Group A’s behavior patterns, I would like to secure Instructor B, a former Hidden One with a strong connection to A. Do I have authorization?”

Even if an individual came to a stop, the world continued to turn.

Sugiyado Souha’s true battle was about to begin.

Chapter 2

1: Outbreak

“It’s finally here! The incredible product you’ve all been waiting for has arrived. Never again will you have to wonder what snack to buy. Enjoy this extra-hard Happy Churn created with a new and improved thickener!!”

“Oh, ohh, ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!”

The 17-year-old boy named Sugiyado Souha gave a bizarre cry inside the supermarket’s snack section.

“I-is this what they meant by X Day? There must have been signs, so how did I overlook them!?”

The core of his body was shaken by the news.

Yes. Happy Churn was humanity’s greatest invention, but it was brittle. The slightest impact would cause the short-lived snack to break. The family packs had each one packaged separately, so how many times had he shoved a couple in his pocket only to find his partner crumbled to dust within the clear wrapper? But that would never again be a problem. No longer would Happy Churn be bound to the home. It could finally spread its wings and fly out into the open world!!

(Th-this is it. With this, I can have Happy Churn with me 24/7!)

Most people discussed how the flour could be improved, but that was not what truly mattered. The Happy Churn God understood where the true foundation lay. It was all about the thickener. It was the same as cooking soba. Yes, Happy Churn had an English name, but it was built on a much more local foundation. And just like arare or rice crackers, this was a snack where you enjoyed the crunch between your teeth.

He nonchalantly grabbed a value pack and placed some random items like bread and milk in his basket to hide what he was really after, but his heart would not stop pounding wildly. After all, this harder version meant 24/7. He could eat them at home and on the go. No one could stop him now. He had to wonder if this was really legal. It was like finding a cheat code to make yourself Level 99 in an RPG.

“That will be 399 yen. Would you like a bag?”

The young wife working part-time saw him off with a smile and the legendary item was finally his.

It was a weekday morning, but no one was going to question his presence out here these days. Skipping school years or skipping straight to employment was fair game in this age where the merit system reigned supreme, so insisting kids should be in school was seen as discriminatory in some circles.

(Hell yes! What do I do now!? I can eat them at meals, as snacks, and even in the bath. No, no. I really need to try eating them on the go. Time and place are no longer meaningful constructs!! Mwa ha ha! Who needs to visit another world when my paradise is already here!?)

However, reality was not so kind.

It happened the very moment he set foot outside the supermarket’s automatic door.

“Don’t move!!”

“Mfh mrh mrh mfh ghh!!”

He was surrounded by extremely concerning metallic noises in all directions.

With men in black pressing the muzzles of their carbines against his cheeks, Sugiyado Souha’s face was transformed into something hideous while he tried his best to protect the shopping bag by holding it close.

“D-don’t…what!? Were they illegal after all!? But hold on! Unbreakable Happy Churn should be a dream come true for every last member of the human race!!”

The boy stubbornly insisted on protecting the shopping bag, but then he heard a solid footstep.

This sort of person did not generally produce audible footsteps. Moving silently was the most basic of basic skills. This was being used in lieu of a business card

The different schools had distinctive ways of moving silently and those in the know could tell them apart. It was similar to how shurikens had been developed to be as logical and efficient as possible, so their distinctive shapes could be used as evidence of who had been at the scene.

“Sugiyado Souha-san, I presume?”

The voice was as clear as a bell.

But the boy managed a frown on his hideously distorted face. He could tell which direction the sound had come from, but he could not pinpoint who had spoken the words.

Because he saw two girls in white dresses there.

Their long skirts with large slits fluttered in the wind.

The twin girls stood alongside each other with such precision they almost looked like each other’s shadow. Their semi-long hair had a golden glow reminiscent of heads of wheat after soaking up the sun’s blessing. There was no mistaking this for bleached blonde hair. One sister had a white hair extension next to one ear and the other had a red one, so that my have been how they distinguished themselves from each other.

The girls manage to be lovely and flashy simultaneously, but that was why the “shadowy scent” they carried with them seemed so out of place. Almost like they were being swallowed up by the shadow cast by the very light they produced.

“I am Shirazaya Guren,” said the one with the red hair extension.

“I am Shirazaya Suiren,” said the one with the white hair extension.

He was finally able to tell them apart. Although if he had not focused on the movement of the lovely buds of their lips, he would have remained trapped by the illusion.

“I apologize, but we have paid you a visit in order to ask your assistance.”

“…”

This apparently had nothing to do with the miraculous invention of hard Happy Churn, so Sugiyado breathed a sigh of relief and slowly put his hands up while wearing a short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants that made movement easy. The itchiness of his large scarf bothered him.

“I’m sure we have much to discuss, but isn’t this public location a problem for both of us?”

“If we were second rate or worse, perhaps,” replied one of the twins, Suiren, while she shut her eyes and teased her right earlobe. There was a hint of mockery in her voice. “But surely one of the Hidden Ones is aware of a way to speak in public without any of the uttered secrets reaching unwanted ears.”

He sighed.

They knew of the Hidden Ones rank which was a secret in and of itself. That alone placed the twins beyond a certain line. Whoever they were, they were not going to just let him leave.

It was possible this would become a case of kill or be killed. Even though he had already withdrawn from the front line.

Shortly afterwards, his lips stopped moving altogether. No, his tone of voice had changed entirely as he whispered in a way that vanished into the chatter of the surrounding crowd.

“Like this?”

“Well done.”

No one outside of 3 meters could hear them and the average person could not make it out even within that range. Even if it was recorded, the wavelengths of the background noise and their voices would match too closely to be decoded.

This technique was known as Chirping.

In a field kept hidden from ordinary people, this was as basic a technique as hiding one’s footsteps or presence.

“This tells me you’re active on the front line, so what do you need with someone like me?”

“We would like your assistance as Instructor Sugiyado.”

“Sorry, but the class is full. I am only accepting four individualized digital courses. I wish I could handle more, but I can’t. Besides, what could I teach you if you can do all this?”

“We are aware of that.”

They had introduced themselves and everything, but he briefly lost track of which was Guren and which was Suiren. Although those twins with black bracelets may have been fine with that perfect symmetry.

At any rate, the two girls spoke.

“We would like details on the thought patterns of the four Elite Ninjas you teach: Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.”

The meaning of his silence changed entirely.

Going after the girls’ instructor to learn how their targets thought showed extreme persistence. This was not just for a love of fighting. They intended to come up with a plan and lay a trap to deal with their target.

“I am sure you were very proud of your students. They have all reached the position of Elite Ninja, the highest rank among the spies working directly for the shogunate. And even though they are already working on the front line, we hear you get along well enough to have exchanged addresses so they can periodically return to ask for lessons.”

“And as a former Hidden One, you would know better than anyone how those four think. Yes, enough to predict their actions.”

Of course, he was not just going to agree to this.

Even if they normally only interacted via their phones, they were his students.

“What we have is nothing so special, dammit.”

He was already surrounded. Since his opponent was using the power of an organization, there would already be people watching his home and friends. How much could he do? How much could he protect? He was honestly having a hard time finding any option other than doing as he was told.

But he still said it.

Straight to their face.

“I just wanted someone else to fulfill the dream I lost, so I handed out all of the techniques I had. And those girls decided to stick with this selfish bastard. …How can I abandon those kind girls after all that?”

The white dress twins breathed exaggerated sighs.

This was their actual voice rather than the Chirping. The parents with children arriving at the supermarket finally noticed something was amiss and looked over at them.

Shirazaya Guren’s throat moved alluringly as she breathed.

“We are not unregistered ninjas, you know?”

“Shogunate spies have come to you, so please think about what that means.”

In other words, this was about an incident the ordinary police could not handle.

A crisis threatened the very survival of the country and it was on the same level as the unseen war with the heavily-equipped knight sand musketeers who targeted the country’s technology openly and in secret.

But what did that have to do with Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao? As ninjas, they were supposed to be the ones standing up to those threats.

“It looks like he is unaware what has happened.”

“Are you sure he did not run out to buy some snacks to soothe his sulking heart after they failed to contact him well after they were supposed to?”

That hit the bull’s eye.

But there was no need to let it show on his face.

“What are you saying those girls did?”

The twins shrugged at that question. They had to be skilled kunoichis, but the action perfectly matched their blonde hair and bright skin.

“They stole and ran off with a modular nuclear reactor which can be broken down and transported via freight train. If modified, that could function as a dirty bomb, or it could simply be set to detonate. To be clear, we are acting on the assumption that they will actually use it and not simply use it as a bargaining chip. So please help us.”

“We are front line ninjas as much as they are, but they are a step ahead of us. They seem to have a half day or full day lead on us. So we need to fill that gap somehow. That is where your understanding of their thought processes and ability to predict their actions comes in to play.”

2: Beautifying the Flowers

In a simple shower without a tub, a middle school girl with chestnut twintails let the warm water wash over her. Countless drops spilled down her somewhat curvy but still undeveloped bodylines.

In a life on the run, it could be easy to forget how you smelled. It could slip your mind since it was neither visible nor audible, but it could create an unidentifiable sense of something being “not quite right” that could gather attention. Thus, you could not neglect basic hygiene.

Also, the soaps and shampoos provided in these simple shower booths tended to be for men, and that was a problem.

“Think of it like a muscular bandit standing out because his hair has the sweet scent of a women’s herbal conditioner, Ouka.” Her teacher had once explained it like this. “So you need to acquire that along with suitable clothing and makeup and use them before an infiltration as the specific situation warrants.”

Kuhou Ouka had then asked him a question with a mischievous smile.

“Oh? And what kind of scent do you think suits me, Sensei?”

“…”

There was one thing she always remembered when seeing her undeveloped naked body in the mirror while washing away the sweat as part of that “necessary work”.

But she was dragged out of her thoughts by a voice from surprisingly close by.

“Ouka, it’s cramped in here, so quit spreading your hair back behind you with both hands like in a conditioner ad. Restrict your movements a little.”

“Hey, Bara. Did we really all have to cram in here together? The shower booth is cramped enough as it is.”

Ouka was answered not by sexy Hanasawa Bara, whose red ringlet curls were wet and flattened, but by cool beauty Nantou Hoozuki, who had undone her ponytail so her long silver hair was plastered against her lithe back.

“Because this is the shower at an internet café. It would actually gather more attention from an unsavory sort if a single young girl went to the shower alone. It is best not to underestimate amateur peeping toms who put their talents to the most useless use imaginable.”

Black bob cut Shizukuma Asagao was a head shorter than the rest, so she seemed to be drowning in the soft flesh surrounding her. She managed to puff out her cheeks and ask a question.

“What do you think Sensei would think if he knew we were about to be living out of places like this every day?”

In front of Sugiyado Souha, those girls had demonstrated the moody and meaningless pride so common in teenagers, but they had analyzed their own profiles and taken things in the opposite direction. He would never imagine all four of them were cramming themselves into a shower booth as small as a phonebooth.

In the past, finding places to sleep would not have been easy because hotels and inns had built a network with the police that supplied them with photos of wanted criminals. But the spread of room sharing and share houses had expanded their options considerably. At first glance, the advance of digitization seemed to have laid everything bare, but this age was actually convenient for those who lived in the shadows.

Silver-haired Hoozuki grabbed the body soap that sexy Bara held in her arm and reached below her own arm to apply it to her back while asking a question.

“So why have you been staring at your reflection with such a troubled look on your face, Ouka? Checking on your day-to-day growth?”

“No, it’s not that. But bath mirrors always remind me of something.”

The other girls crammed into the shower booth looked over to the cheap mirror that tended to get fogged up.

They all had a faint bitter look on their face. Like they were remembering some kind of failure.

“You too, Ouka?” asked alluring Bara while water dripped down her flushed skin.

“I think it happens to everyone. Everyone knows that’s part of being a kunoichi.”

Even the youngest, bob cut girl Shizukuma Asagao, stared sadly into the distance with her small face buried by the other three girls’ chests.

Ouka sighed while catching her fellow kunoichi’s face with her body and getting their wet legs tangled together.

“Yeah, when you’re training to be a kunoichi, you just know you have to seduce the closest guy to you.”

“On that note, Ouka, what look did Sensei give you when you went all out in your attempt?”

Bara skipped past what that “attempt” entailed, but Ouka still fell silent for a moment.

If he had blushed and angrily told her she was too young for that kind of thing, she might have retained some of her pride as a girl. She might have even found it cute and accelerated further.

But their teacher had provided the “perfect” response.

The resurrected memories brought an ashen look to her face.

“He said everyone has to start somewhere and that I could keep trying until I was satisfied. He didn’t even have to think about it and he looked downright bored. Heh. Heh heh.”

“He wasn’t even interested!? At least look up from the newspaper, Onii-chan!! What’s more important, the TV guide or me!?”

Asagao’s complaint shouted down by a modest chest suggested that their teacher had not mechanically provided them all the same response. But the depressed looks on all four faces staring at that mirror suggested they had all given it their best shot and been shot down.

“Sigh.”

Ouka lightly stretched her back to forcibly push out her still-growing chest while the shower water poured down her body and she looked to the mirror once more.

“I’ve been working on my looks since then, so maybe I could make his heart skip a beat now.”

3: The Four Girls – Again

“Sensei, Sensei.”

Those girls had always been following him around like baby chicks.

The modern ninja class was meant to be done over their phones with the materials shipped to them, so it was not designed for in-person contact. Nevertheless, they had worked out his location themselves and arrived uninvited.

“Heh heh. I finally outdid you, Sensei,” Ouka had said with a beaming smile. “A ninja needs to excel with information. Isn’t that what you taught me?”

She had apparently long since learned that he lived alone.

He could still remember it like it was yesterday.

And it had not just happened the one time. They had patiently supported him.

The hotpot they had made for him had been delicious. He had made sure to lecture them on not letting their personal lives interfere with their duties, but they had ended up laughing together, making rice soup out of it, and finishing off every last drop.

They were good kids.

Or he had thought they were. So why had they done this?”

“If I may be so bold.”

After he was led onto a black SUV, Shirazaya Guren cleared her throat and stopped Chirping. The special vehicle had thick bulletproofing and he imagined it was made so shining a laser on the windows was not enough to eavesdrop.

“We have concluded that you did nothing wrong. That is why we have asked for your assistance.”

“We were unable to acquire your records, but we have heard how fiercely you fought against those powerful knights and musketeers.”

“I didn’t do much. The only thing left to prove I fought at all are these scars on my body.”

“Officially speaking, yes.”

“Yes, but only officially speaking.”

Past glory was a double-edged sword.

Especially when you had three bolts in your spine and springs inserted in your legs to replace your ligaments.

A 5kg weight would make his spine feel funny and a 10kg weight would make it explode with pain. Plus, ordinary clothing with no bulletproofing or bladeproofing weighted about a kilo and a winter coat would add another kilo onto that. Frontline combat gear was out of the question.

He could hardly believe those kids had stuck around with an empty shell like him.

“Let’s get started. I want to know details.”

A modular nuclear reactor.

That was what Ouka and the others had supposedly stolen.

No matter which side they were on to begin with, that was too much to smile and ignore. He could not let them use the ridiculous power of a nuke as a bargaining chip no matter what their reasons were.

Shirazaya Suiren traced a finger along the edge of her right ear.

“As the name suggests, it is a nuclear reactor with its design simplified and size reduced to the extreme. It is contained in several linked containers that can be transported by freight train when separated.”

“Although it was not designed for domestic use. It was being researched as a form of infrastructure business to be shipped overseas from Dejima.”

The twins sat on either side of him in the back seat and they took turns providing the explanations. They could only be told apart by the white and red hair extensions next to their ears.

“Shrinking it down makes it easy to transport,” groaned the boy. “But that also makes it easier to steal, or it could be suspended from a plane or chopper and dropped on a target site.”

This had been developed under the fishy-looking title of a mobile nuclear reactor that could be set up anywhere on the planet. If they were lined up along a national border, they would likely function identically to a line of nuclear landmines. Plus, the country could claim it was a peaceful use of nuclear power, so if another country sent out a bomb squad in secret, that other country would be accused in an international conference of using their ninjas, tuxedos, or other special forces to commit infrastructure sabotage. It really was a convenient toy.

When Guren traced a finger along her throat, Sugiyado’s phone rang and it received mission relevant documents he had not asked for.

“Early this morning, the four ninjas under your instruction broke into the Resource Energy Agency’s nuclear physics lab located here in New Yokohama Domain and stole a single Hinata Type-1 Modular Nuclear Reactor. The lab was performing a final stress test in preparation for a demonstration in Southeast Asia, so all of the units were installed with fuel rods. That means they could detonate it at any time.”

“Why would they do that?”

“That is what we would like to know. The Elite Ninja spies you instructed already had status and honor, so why would they suddenly turn on the shogunate they are meant to serve?”

“No, not that.” Sugiyado corrected them while teasing the large scarf over his mouth. “They went to the trouble of breaking into a shogunate lab and then they only steal one of them? If they risked their lives on this, isn’t it human nature to want to steal as much as they could get their hands on?”

The twins exchanged a glance with the boy between them.

“Well…wouldn’t it be a simple issue of the weight limit? While they are simplified and small, these models are still only meant to be transported by freight train. Even with a specialized vehicle at their disposal, a group of just four would only be able to carry out so many.”

“If they got greedy and tried to take too many with them, they could have lost everything.”

They made a good point.

However…

“Then why did they break into a shogunate lab? Wouldn’t it be easier to head overseas where security is laxer and ‘borrow’ one of the reactors lined up on a national border?”

“Oh.”

“I won’t name names, but not every country has as many hang-ups about nuclear power as we do. Some leave rusted nuclear subs sunk at the bottom of a bay or power lighthouses with nuclear batteries and don’t bother to track what happens to them.”

That made him extremely curious why his students would break into the nuclear physics lab.

“Are you suggesting they are not that fixated on the modular nuclear reactor? They went to such lengths to obtain a bargaining chip as absurd as nuclear power, but that was no more than a smokescreen?”

“It worked, didn’t it? Thanks to that, no one knows what their true objective is.”

The SUV seemed to have reached its destination.

Sugiyado Souha stepped out into an underground parking garage somewhere, but he was not guided to the elevator or the stairs.

He was brought to the back of a giant tanker truck parked in the same garage.

And a glance down the maintenance hatch in the top showed the walls were covered in mission documents and it was filled with a fridge, a microwave, and sleeping bags for overnight work.

Within the faint smell of fancy Western sweets, Suiren toyed with her earlobe and whispered to him.

“Welcome to our home.”

There were no windows. The twins closed the hatch after climbing in with him, so he had no way of even guessing where they were headed. He could not even see the 1000m broadcast tower that could be seen from any part of the city. He could only tell they were moving thanks to the inertial forces affecting his body.

“Allow me to introduce myself again. I am Shirazaya Guren, a shogunate spy.”

“Likewise, I am Shirazaya Suiren. We are ranked as High Ninjas, but they say we could take an Elite Ninja’s head when we work together.”

They did not ask for a handshake.

Guren pointed at the wall of documents with her slender chin.

“I know this is sudden, but we would like to fill in the gaps in our information. You claimed earlier that the modular nuclear reactor is no more than a diversion. Would you care to elaborate?”

“It isn’t their style. They wouldn’t know what to do with nuclear power if they had it.”

Images of the four girls’ faces were displayed in the center of the document wall. The photos were probably the ones from the resumes they sent in to be registered as shogunate spies.

“Listen.” Sugiyado Souha recalled a memory of a more pleasant time that was hard to think back on now. “I am going to teach you many things. Some of them will be ways to hurt and harm people, but if you always work toward a righteous goal, there is no fear of your knowledge and techniques getting the better of you. So do not laugh and do not feel shame as you carry in your heart a righteousness you can believe in. That will support you more than you could ever imagine.”

He could remember them cheerfully replying on the screen.

As if shaking free of something and readying himself to fight, he pointed at the photos on the wall one by one.

“Kuhou Ouka. Age 14. Specializes in direct combat. She can control fire, water, wind, earth, and all else with only Midnight Tempest, a bayonet-equipped vertically-stacked double-barrel hunting gun she made herself. That might not sound very ninja-like, but carrying that high firepower in case of emergencies helps reduce the psychological pressure on the other members.

“Hanasawa Bara. Age 18. Specializes in disguise, camouflage, and other recognition interference techniques. If a door can’t be opened from the outside, she will get inside and open it from there. On the combat front, she is the assassin type. She sows confusion, yet her single attack is extremely powerful. In a way, she is the most ninja-like ninja.

“Nantou Hoozuki. Age 16. She uses Countless Calamities, a transformable multitool of an off-road motorcycle, and those close to her call her a stunt master. Her job is to construct a route into wherever they need to go. She is also skilled at using ropes and ladders. Plus, she can fight. Be on your guard if you don’t want to be on the receiving end of a roundhouse kick from that bike of hers.

“Shizukuma Asagao. Age 11. She is an information gathering expert and she can sneak into enemy territory using the tears and cuteness of a child, but she is also growing into something akin to a hacker. The ninja world is a world of data. You can assume she is the one who gathered all the information needed for a pre-mission briefing. She has no direct combat ability, but she excels at breaking apart enemy groups by causing friendly fire and paranoia. If things seem to be going badly, you should come to a stop and make sure no outside factor is artificially influencing things.”

Of course, those were all fake names.

In fact, anyone who reached their level would have their family register entry and national ID number erased. That meant they had no way of proving their Japanese citizenship.

Each of them was worth their weight in gold and it was said four Elite Ninjas together could bring down a feudal lord holed up in their castle. To reiterate, modern ninja techniques were an extremely dangerous form of Strategic Martial Arts that had been developed anew on top of a foundation taken from existing arresting techniques and military martial arts based on judo, karate, kendo, etc. Even with his injury, Sugiyado could destroy a unit of tanks as long as it was in a limited environment. Ouka and the others were in their prime, so how far could they go while working together?

That was an impressive roster, but Suiren silently tilted her head while toying with her right ear.

“I notice none of them specializes in mass destruction. The closest one would be Ouka, the direct combat expert.”

“She wouldn’t do that. For better or for worse, her only firepower is Midnight Tempest, that hunting gun with a bayonet. If you look through her past records, you should see she never even tries to detonate a gas pipe or gas tank. Unpredictable fire sources mess with her calculations and she wants to avoid the possibility of harming her allies.”

“Then what are they trying to do?”

That question suggested the four girls had not sent any kind of demands. Although it was possible they had contacted some high official and it was being dealt with internally.

If they were going to negotiate, they would isolate the target.

They would demand the target did not let the police or the shogunate ninjas get close.

Sugiyado himself had taught them that.

“The city seems to be continuing as normal, but the theft of a modular nuclear reactor must have messed with some plans below the surface. Do you have a list of the effects?”

Shirazaya Guren’s alluring throat tensed as she pointed wordlessly toward the wall.

One scrap of paper toward the outer edge of the documents appeared to be what he wanted.

“The foreign VIPs scheduled to visit New Yokohama Domain have delayed their visit, a popular motor show was canceled, a new smartphone announcement was canceled, and various others.”

“A major bank, a stock exchange, an insurance company, a government library digital archive, and a cellphone data center have gone into lockdown, but I imagine they are afraid of a largescale EMP attack. The VIPs with delicate medical implants have been evacuated into shielded shelters deep underground.”

“…”

Sugiyado viewed the documents on the wall, approached them, and flicked one.

“This motor show was canceled at the last minute.”

“Yes, what about it?”

“But not all events were canceled. This wall wouldn’t have enough space to display it all if they were.” The boy thought for a moment. “Was this motor show canceled because it is backed by the shogunate’s Ministry of Transport and the people running the show were warned?”

“Keep going.”

“Canceling the show at the last minute will leave tens of thousands of people with nowhere to be. They went to the trouble of traveling all the way here, so they aren’t just going to head home. That means the other events will be more crowded. In the worst cases, the expected occupancy of the venue may be overrun two times over.”

“Are you saying that will inevitably leave the security understaffed?”

“And this might seem crude, but not everyone visiting a motor show is there to see the cars. A lot of them will be there for the companion girls.”

Suiren stopped teasing her right earlobe and rushed over to a laptop. She called up a list of the events being held in the next few days. She must have found it online.

Sugiyado viewed the screen over her shoulder and pointed at one entry in the list.

“That’s it. And it’s only 200m from the motor show venue.”

“An idol festival supported by the international airport? But with 100 groups participating, it looks like it will be a real mixed bag quality-wise.”

“That fits the demographic perfectly. Some self-proclaimed idols might even work as a companion girl for the time being. If you don’t need a ticket reserved in advance and last-minute entries are allowed, they’re probably getting a huge influx of people.”

It looked like Ouka’s group of kunoichis had broken into a shogunate lab and stolen a modular nuclear reactor in order to cancel the motor show and send tens of thousands of people to the idol festival at the international airport. With so many extra people flooding in at the last minute, security would be completely overwhelmed.

Shirazaya Guren gulped.

“But what do they hope to accomplish by sneaking into an idol festival?”

“Beats me. They’ve never been into idols before.” Sugiyado glared at the screen. “But have you forgotten? That festival is taking place at one of the airports that have been doing poorly against the country’s linear motor train network. Sneak in there and you can accomplish most anything.”

4: Strategic Martial Arts

The Dejima-like New Yokohama Domain was an area of reclaimed land built out at sea. The only land route in was a large bridge known as the Umbilical Cord. The airport was an extension added onto the edge of the reclaimed land like a second scoop of ice cream. New Yokohama Domain itself was large enough to grow into a city of a million, but its land was not unlimited.

When the tanker truck arrived near the scene, Guren and Suiren left through the tank’s maintenance hatch.

They focused on their earphones.

“As planned, please ‘clean up’ the runways, fuel storage, and anything else that could cause major damage! After that, deal with the digital threats such as the control tower and server room!!”

“We don’t know how they intend to take people’s lives, but we need to assume they are planning something big enough for a modular nuclear reactor to be mere bait! Act accordingly!”

Sugiyado Souha left shortly thereafter and shielded his eyes from the sun with a hand.

There were more people than even he had anticipated.

With so many customers stolen by the linear motor trains, the airport had remade one of its vast international flight terminals into a festival venue. There was no entrance fee and they made their money on the drinks, but that meant the place was entirely out of control. The people who could not get inside were flooding the area outside the building.

“Is this wall of people too much of a challenge for shogunate kunoichis?”

“Do not be ridiculous.”

“You wait out here, advisor.”

By the time he heard the sound of large clothes beating at the air, the twins had both stripped off their white dresses to reveal their ninja outfits made with a spider web structure.

It was like a magician’s handkerchief. The dresses twisted around and the twins’ silhouettes seemed sucked into them before they transformed into the ninja outfits with collars and belts to cover the important parts and some decorations like a large flower on the back of the hip.

Overall, they were a mixture of Japanese and Western. They looked like a sleeveless kimono with a pleated miniskirt added on. They looked as revealing as a cheerleader uniform, but the entire body would be covered by a special flesh-colored material, similar to figure skaters. …Although that was similar to wearing full-body bike shorts, so they still had to wear something on top.

It was strange, but just like with figure skaters, the short skirt was still distracting even when you knew their entire body was covered.

The girls disappeared before anyone in the crowd could turn back their way.

(Does that flesh-colored part support their movements with electric potential elastic belt cylinders? That would be Soaring Wings Ver…what’s it up to now? Regardless, that’s a lot of support. Overusing accessories like that will wear down your own cartilage.)

He could not help but start grading them.

He shook his head, exasperated with himself. That was not his role here.

There was no point in looking up into the blue sky to watch the girls leaping from rooftop to rooftop. He had his own idea of where to check.

“…”

He lifted his large scarf up over his mouth.

The cloth covering his face like a mask had been given some special decoration so it would fool facial recognition. It was not much different from the sunglasses and other commercial products to that end. It was all in how you used it.

He had never hoped to get in through the main gate stuffed full of people and he no longer had it in him to leap around between rooftops, so he made his move on the ordinary backdoor. It was of course locked, but he pulled one of his Fierce Fang air pressure kunais from the back of his hip.

(The nitrogen would be too powerful here.)

He simply stuck the sharp tip in the gap and used leverage to force off the electronic lock’s cover. Then he messed with the wiring within to get inside.

Airports seemed so spacious, but the corridors were cramped when you entered through the back.

Shirazaya Guren and Suiren seemed to think Kuhou Ouka’s group was trying to attack the airport and that the idol festival’s presence was happenstance. Sugiyado had somewhat led their thinking in that direction, but he had another idea.

(A mixed bag of idols, huh?)

A total of a 100 idol groups would take turns performing on stage. They were treated with a lot less care than with ordinary concerts where a single idol or group rented out an entire domed stadium, but this really was a mixed bag. There really were some with the “national” title who earned a billion or even ten billion yen in a year.

A modular nuclear reactor was definitely expensive, but not many people could do business with them. And that included with threats. So if you were after profit, it would be a lot better to use the reactor to get close to an idol whose value most everyone could see.

And despite their value, an entertainer was a lot less strictly guarded than a giant diamond in a museum’s glass case or a gold bar in a bank vault. It was laughable to think you could protect a diamond or gold bar if it was free to wander around town with only a few muscular bodyguards.

It pained him to think Ouka and the other three would be committing crimes purely for money, but this was a professional job at this point. Combat was not kind enough to change its result if you prayed hard enough. He had to harden his heart and assume the powder keg had already been lit back when they stole the modular nuclear reactor.

He borrowed a pamphlet from a cardboard box that probably contained excess stock, he viewed the list of participating idols, and he tapped his finger on the photo of the biggest earner there.

(Shitou Kyouka. It’s gotta be her.)

This might be a largescale idol festival with 100 groups performing, but the organizers and sponsors at the top had their own plans.

This was likely all a way to give their prize girl the trophy so they could claim she fought fair-and-square with a hundred competitors and emerged victorious. And if you ignored the fixed game that was first place, the other unknown idols did have a chance here.

Locating her was not hard.

The internal staff had welcomed that superior idol very differently from the rest. Listening in from the edge of the corridor told him a lot. She was not to be given any cold drinks before her performance, no part-timers were allowed in to play amateur paparazzi, and so on.

When Sugiyado visited her location, he did not find a dressing room.

She had been given a rehearsal booth that was the exact same size as the main stage. It was impressive. With 100 groups participating, it was hard to give them all separate rooms. Idols from the same production company were probably forced to share a room. Simply giving this one a space larger than a school gym all to herself was enough to know how much of an advantage she had been given.

The rehearsal booth was lit up by several lights powerful enough to act like heaters.

In the center of the stage stood a girl with short hair and a mostly black costume with a flashy miniskirt, small wings, and a tail. It was probably supposed to look like a demon.

That was Shitou Kyouka.

Her refreshing voice contained an odd intensity and charm that ruled this vast space even during meaningless voice training.

There was no sign of any staff in here. It was so convenient you would think she had known this was coming.

Sugiyado Souha frowned, slightly twisting the scar on the tip of his nose, and spoke.

“Who are you?”

That national someone tilted her head with microphone and stand in hand.

Everything down to her fingertips was identical to what he had seen on TV and in that pamphlet.

However.

He immediately pulled a Fierce Fang air pressure kunai from the back of his hip and threw it toward her cute little face. A hit from that special assassination weapon could pry open a tank.

Time seemed to stop and silence covered all.

Yes, the girl who was supposedly a professional idol and a combat amateur instinctually tilted her head the other way so the deadly weapon passed right by her.

He asked another question as if that came as no surprise.

“Are you planning to sing and dance looking like Shitou Kyouka?”

Yes.

Kidnapping a top idol would not mean getting paid a massive ransom. Even if her family handed over her credit card or bank information, the bank would reject any request to withdraw all the money from her account.

And no matter how valuable an idol was, she could not simply be sold for that supposed value. She was the same as the modular nuclear reactor in that sense.

So the cleverest method was to use abducted Shitou Kyouka’s body to copy her fingerprint and iris patterns. If her family could not give you access to her bank account, then you only had to disguise yourself as the idol herself.

The top idol on the stage answered him with a bewitching grin.

The microphone stand she held shook.

In the blink of an eye, she revealed a black, chrome steel gun with a grip and stock decorated like a katana. That vertically-stacked double-barrel hunting gun was known as Midnight Tempest.

He knew what that meant.

“Ouka.”

A memory meaninglessly flickered in the back of his mind.

He decided this was a form of coquetry meant to capture a target, so he forced it out of his mind. Time was flowing all the while.

She threw off the stage costume to reveal the spider web ninja outfit that seemed to proudly display the undeveloped bodylines of a middle school girl. That bodysuit revealed all of her shallow curves and it was covered by a hybrid outfit that looked like the combination of an old-fashioned sleeveless kimono and a lower-body apron. Decorative cloths blew in the wind, a red rope danced behind her hips like a cat’s tail, and long chestnut hair was worn in twintails. He recognized it all.

His thoughts immediately turned to Midnight Tempest, which could control fire, water, wind, earth, and all else and was equipped with a bayonet and a multipurpose sight that resembled binoculars. She was like an incarnation of direct fighting power, a rarity for ninjas. He took a few steps back to adjust the distance between them. It had a close-range blade and its capsule rounds could contain incendiary, freezing, electric, acidic, or adhesive materials. Taking a rush of those varied attacks head on would not be the best idea.

But then it hit him.

She was an incarnation of direct fighting power, but chestnut twintailed Kuhou Ouka had lacked the skill in disguise needed to fool a crowd of a hundred thousand and all the TV cameras.

Which meant…

“No, is that Bara!?”

As soon as he saw through the disguise, the silhouette melted once more.

The ninja outfit he now saw had an entirely different design. This one was a bodysuit worn below a flashy oiran-style kimono that left her shoulders exposed and left the ends of the large obi draping down past her knees. At 18, her bodylines were more alluring than cute. She had a large chest and a slender waist. Her fiery red hair was worn in splendid ringlet curls for a luxurious look very unlike a ninja.

But now was not the time to stare.

He could already hear the sharp sound of something like a long needle stabbing through the air.

It had not been thrown by hand.

Each of Hanasawa Bara’s ringlet curls had a powerful electromagnet woven in, for a total of 18. Each of them was a coilgun that used powerful electromagnetism to launch a metal core, similar to how a linear motor train worked.

She specialized in disguise and camouflage, so her job was to sow confusion and then assassinate the enemy with a single powerful attack.

In this case, she had used the double disguise to alter the distance between them and then destroyed the stage lighting to “increase” the number of flying weapons. It was all an issue of the focal point. If you held a finger in front of your face and then tried to look into the distance, the number of fingers would seem to increase. And adjusting the eye’s focal distance was not the only way to adjust the pupil size. It could be done against your will when the brightness of the light changed. The confusion did not even last two full seconds, but that was plenty of time when you wanted to make a projectile attack.

If he had not been familiar with her habits, it would have all ended here.

“!?”

His hand danced around before his mind could catch up.

He had drawn a new double-edged knife-like Fierce Fang from the back of his untucked short-sleeved dress shirt. He had never submitted the designs to anyone and it was a delicate enough weapon that he doubted even Ouka and the others could use it.

He took that thick, tungsten steel blade and slashed up from below to knock down the pin-like weapons flying toward his eyes. A kunai was originally a digging tool, not a projectile weapon, so it was plenty sturdy.

But that had not been the best move.

(Crap.)

He was familiar with Bara’s thorns. Her weapon was named Candy Needle. Those were special poison needles made by mixing various chemicals with melted sugar and letting them harden. They must have also had iron sand mixed in to launch them with those coilguns. If stabbed by one, your own body heat would melt it and allow it to infect you, but if you deflected one, the shattered pieces smaller than glass shards would enter your body through the mucous membranes of the eyes, nose, and mouth. Targeting his eyes had been no more than a way to get him to reflexively move his hand.

(Ghhh!?)

He immediately shut his eyes and turned his head away, but the right half of his vision immediately died. The poison was already being carried around his body after being absorbed by the mucous membranes. But he did not have time to tremble in fear. The enemy was approaching fast.

Sugiyado Souha was not the kind of guy who would let himself be killed just because he could not use one eye. He was suffering from extreme pain and fear, but on a different level, his strategic thinking continued.

(Bara uses the coilguns made from the electromagnets hidden in her hair. That means she needs a large power source – a large-capacity lithium ion battery. If I destroy that, I can bring down her strategic support system.)

Then where was her second heart?

There was only one possibility.

(That oiran-style shoulder-exposing kimono seems like it doesn’t leave much to the imagination, but just like an unzipped coat, her back is always covered. She must be using a harness or something to carry the battery pack like a backpack!!)

It might seem unrelated at first, but the way her large chest seemed lifted by something was likely due to the harness. He could tell a slight difference there compared to her usual red dress. It was like she was wearing a push-up bra.

“!!”

He forcibly cut the pain off from his mind.

He accurately launched one of his air pressure kunais into the groove between panels forming the stage floor below his student’s feet. He had already spun the dial with his thumb, so after exactly three seconds, the nitrogen activated the device and mercilessly destroyed the floor below Bara’s feet.

First, he knocked her off balance.

Once she showed her side or back to him, he would aim for and destroy the large-capacity lithium ion battery that would be hidden below her kimono and obi.

“Was that your plan, Sensei!?”

A moment later, Bara let out a roar while embracing her own body as if squishing her large chest.

Did she fold up her arms like that to avoid accidentally hitting herself?

Her 18 red ringlet curls all floated up and became cannons. She actually fired the coilguns at the floor all around her as if to add damage atop damage. The floor material burst up around her like a crater or splash.

This was not an attack from the Candy Needles that shattered upon impact. This had to be Final Cannon, thick and heavy metal needles that wove depleted uranium into well-tempered steel. Unlike the easily-shattered Candy Needles, these supplied the full power of the coilguns. But what was Hanasawa Bara’s true intent here?

(A makeshift barrier!?)

In terms of modern weapons, his Fierce Fang was similar to a precisely-aimed rocket. Instead of piercing the target like a sniper rifle, it would shred the target from within once it recognized a hit.

That made it vulnerable to obstacles. A single tree branch of leaf in the way would block the line of fire and it would shred the wrong thing.

Both sides of the fight knew each other well enough to block their tactics and ninja arts with simple tricks.

While Sugiyado’s air pressure kunai was blocked by the pieces of the floor, Bara’s Final Cannon could break through that obstacle like it was wet paper and break his entire body and her Candy Needles could weave through the gaps and inject him with powerful poison.

Normally, this would be the end – a hopeless checkmate.

However.

“Is that all you’ve got, Bara!?”

“!?”

He was not broken.

When reaching out toward a student being swallowed by the depthless darkness, his spirit would never be broken no matter how desperate his situation. He had no reason to doubt himself here. He was willing to make an enemy of the world if it would save them. He did not need to think twice to know that.

This was why he had agreed to help Shirazaya Guren and Suiren.

The situation was worsening at an accelerated rate. If it continued on to the end, they would lose everything. And here he was working to save people within it all. He felt like he was once more floundering in that nightmare where he had broken his spine, but that changed nothing about what he had to do.

He could not abandon someone he had grown so close to.

No matter what.

It was in fact his student Bara who looked shocked when faced with that willpower of steel.

He knew they would not hit his target, but he still threw a few more Fierce Fangs. They hit the flipped-up floor panels before reaching Bara, but that was fine. He used the devices to tear apart and destroy the floor material, rearranging the layout in midair. In a shape that Bara had not expected.

Her ringlet curls finally fired the Final Cannon needles of depleted uranium alloy at Mach 7.5, but it was too late.

Just as a bullet fired through glass would have its course diverted every so slightly, Bara’s Final Cannons had their paths bent by the unexpected number of obstacles in their path. They shot right past his face.

He did not even blink.

There was now a narrow empty space between them, much like the eye of a needle.

“!!”

“!?”

A Fierce Fang left the boy’s hand and poisonous Candy Needles left Bara’s hair, but the kunoichi girl would only have noticed something after launching her attack: Sugiyado Souha had lured her into making that attack.

And.

His target was not Bara who had been disguised as an idol. In fact, he could not hope to hit her body that continued its living motions even as she fired from her hair. With an eye taken out and poison in his bloodstream, it was hard to hit a target that could escape the single point of a sniper blast.

So he did to her what he had done to himself.

As soon as a Candy Needle was launched from her ringlet curl, he hit it with his kunai. From the front, that was like targeting the tip of a needle, but the ringlet curl coilgun barrel could only launch the Candy Needle straight out. The ballistic path was easy enough to predict if he already knew which way that barrel was pointed. Especially when the line of fire between them was limited by so many obstacles. That was far easier than targeting Bara herself who continued evading as if dancing.

By throwing the kunai through the open path, it naturally flew toward the Candy Needle. He only had to use the guidelines already set up for him. Unlike Bara’s flowing, living movements, this was as easy as completing a tutorial.

The shattered Candy Needle burst in front of the kunoichi and covered her small face with its small fragments.

“Ah!?”

She leaned back, unintentionally jiggled her large chest, and quickly held a hand to her face, but it was too late.

The flow of time seemed to revert to normal for both of them.

The floor materials spreading out around her like a crater or splash clattered back down.

Sugiyado cautiously pulled a Fierce Fang out into his hand as he spoke.

“Now we’re even, Bara. No, we aren’t. What are the basics of poison effects? I taught you this!”

“…”

She held her right eye and bit her lip a little before finally giving in and answering.

“It comes down to the speed of blood flow and your weight.”

“Yes. And your smaller body means it takes less to reach a lethal dose. Plus, standing under those bright spotlights must have warmed you up like a halogen heater. That means the exact same poison will spread through your body faster. This is checkmate, Bara!”

“Kh…Sensei.”

Given the poison, she needed to avoid getting worked up and thus accelerating her blood flow.

But the boy was at his limit too.

Each of the girls had their own circumstances.

He had taught them all of his secret techniques in order to give them the strength they needed to face this harsh and cruel reality without being crushed.

He had believed it would lead them to happiness.

So why was this happening?

“Then tell me this before we both collapse! Why did you do this? And where are the others!? Ouka and Hoozuki are a part of this too, aren’t they!? Where are they!?”

But in truth, he was in the more dire situation.

I am going to teach you many things.

Some of them will be ways to hurt and harm people.

But if you always work toward a righteous goal, there is no fear of your knowledge and techniques getting the better of you.

That was what he had tried to teach them.

No, he had taught them that.

“Yes, Sensei. Your Ouka is over here.”

He heard a voice from behind him.

Even with the poison’s effects, he had been careless to let someone sneak up on him. Or was this a testament to their skill?

He recognized the voice.

It was Kuhou Ouka, the strange ninja who specialized in direct combat.

“…!?”

He tried to spin around like a tornado with Fierce Fang in hand, but the active-duty Elite Ninja was several times faster.

A dull pain ran through the back of his neck.

Impossible sparks filled his vision.

Once he realized he had been hit with the stock of her unique gun, he had collapsed forehead-first to the stage without bracing for impact.

“Ouka!!” shouted sexy Hanasawa Bara. But she did not sound happy to see help arrive. “Wasn’t there a better way of doing that!? Poor Sensei!!”

“Yes, I’m sorry, Sensei. Are you okay? That hurt, didn’t it?”

She gently flipped him over onto his back. He saw someone with still-growing bodylines peering down at him. He saw chestnut twintails and red ringlet curls. If not for the sinister bayonet-equipped hunting gun named Midnight Tempest and the coilguns hidden in those curls, they would have been beautiful enough to forget all about the ninja outfits and fall in love.

And.

They really did sound worried about him. They were exactly how he remembered them, but that was what made no sense here.

“You…two.”

One wore a sleeveless kimono plus lower-body apron and the other wore an oiran-style shoulder-baring kimono. They both wore bodysuits below that. Those kunoichis made no attempt to hide their ninja outfits made with a cutting-edge spider web structure. That proved they were willing to turn this city of a million into a battleground.

They had stolen a modular nuclear reactor and abducted a top idol. Those were not your average crime.

“Why are…you doing…this?”

He could barely even see while collapsed on the stage, but he still squeezed out a voice as if groping through the darkness.

“Did I…do something wrong? Tell me, Ouka, Bara.”

“Bara, hurry and give him the antidote. Anyone could get their hands on it, but the shogunate’s dogs can be careless in the weirdest ways.”

“Aye, aye, ma’am. It’s really not much more than an animal tranquilizer, so it doesn’t have a lethal limit. Oh, I’m feeling dizzy now too. That’s not good. Ouka, carry me if I pass out, okay?”

“Will do.”

They briskly made preparations just like they always did. He could not even imagine what had caused everything to go wrong.

While peering down at him, Kuhou Ouka smiled in an alluring way that did not suit her undeveloped silhouette.

“Nothing has changed, Sensei. Not for us.”

“What?”

“ ‘I am going to teach you many things. Some of them will be ways to hurt and harm people. But if you always work toward a righteous goal, there is no fear of your knowledge and techniques getting the better of you.’ Right?”

She sounded like she was begging for his praise. Almost like a puppy.

But wait. Could that mean…?

“Hold on. What are you trying to do?”

“Shitou Kyouka is a top idol who makes 10 billion yen a year. If you earn that much, you’ll get the VIP treatment in asset management. She should be immediately welcomed into the special sectors of banks and stock exchanges. It wouldn’t make sense otherwise.”

“But the shogunate will have secret external storage for any information they don’t want to keep too close by. They’ll use the excess space that not even the server administrator is aware of. That defeats the purpose of the usual security methods, but they’re afraid of rival factions learning about the skeletons in their closet.”

Based on the documents shown to him by blonde-haired Shirazaya Guren and Suiren, Sugiyado had guessed that stealing the modular nuclear reactor would cancel some other events and have the bank and stock exchange servers isolated in fear of an EMP attack. But what if those servers contained more than just money?”

“…”

He felt like his brain was tingling.

And not from the poison. He was probably subconsciously refusing to connect these hints together into an answer.

This was about information the shogunate would want to keep hidden no matter what.

And also information they would fear to keep nearby.

“Sensei.”

And his students had said they were working toward a righteous goal, just as he had taught them.

“We want to learn the truth of the final mission that led to your position being unfairly taken from you.”

“We would do anything for you, Sensei. Tch. What an embarrassing line. Stop making me say stuff like that.”

His brain froze.

Yet his heart pounded wildly like it was going to boil over and burst.

(For me?)

This, he had not even remotely expected.

(To save me?)

No. That was the one thing they could not do! Warning bells blared in his mind.

“Ouka, Bara!!”

“It isn’t just us. Hoozuki and Asagao feel the same way.”

“It’s over for me. I’ve accepted it. So you don’t have to dig this back up! No one wants that!!”

“But we can’t accept that. You can’t return to the front line because of your injuries? You can only work as an instructor now? Not a chance. I don’t know what actually happened back then, but they clearly treated you unfairly. If they hadn’t intentionally delayed your treatment, those wounds wouldn’t have been so bad! And making you an instructor wasn’t some kindness from the shogunate. It was the opposite! They didn’t know what you would say if you were given your freedom, so they surrounded you with us. I can’t think of any other explanation for every scrap of evidence we’ve seen!”

“It’s wrong for us to get all the credit. Someone else clearly deserves more praise than anyone. Isn’t that right, Sensei?”

“~ ~ ~!!”

To be honest, he was glad they cared so much for him. It helped immensely to know they remained true of heart and were not kidnapping people for money.

But they could not do this.

The darkness of that final mission was too deep.

If they got involved, not even those four Elite Ninjas would escape unharmed.

“Don’t worry.” Kuhou Ouka crouched down and gently smiled while peering down at his face. “Sensei, we won’t cause you any trouble. You report everything that happened here and continue pursuing us as an enemy. The shogunate’s dogs need some kind of assistance to keep up.”

“And it should help rattle the shogunate bigshots who have something to hide here.”

Sugiyado just about cried out in a desperate attempt to stop them, but he must have predicted that they would have slipped from his grasp before he could do anything.

“You do the honors.”

“Really? I wouldn’t hold back if I were you.”

Kuhou Ouka laughed and took a swig from the vial that Hanasawa Bara handed her. But instead of swallowing it, she kept it in her mouth and moved her face in close. Her slender fingers pulled the scarf down from his mouth.

Her lips tasted of medicine.

The bitter liquid that flowed into his mouth dissolved the toxin wreaking havoc on his body.

“That was my first? What about for you, Sensei?”

After a short bashful pause, it was finally over.

That acted like a dividing line.

“Okay, Sensei, we will be leaving for today.”

“Once this is over, let’s have another hotpot party. We can finish it off with udon this time.”

After laying limp Sugiyado down on the stage, the two girls in cutting-edge ninja outfits stood up. They were really going to leave this time. Without Bara remaining to play the role of Top Idol Shitou Kyouka, the alert level would go up, but they must have decided staying would be too dangerous.

That meant they were moving to the next stage of their plan.

They were headed toward near certain doom.

They really would reach that final mission at this rate. If his students were headed toward the abyss, he could not just sit idly by and let it happen.

(Kh!!)

He desperately tried to reach out a hand while collapsed on the stage.

But he could not do anything.

A moment later, the girls had entirely vanished from view.

Chapter 3

1: Captivating Beauties Behind the Scenes

“Hm, Sensei will always be Sensei, won’t he? Maybe I should have gone with those two.”

A small girl leaned against the railing on a building rooftop while restlessly pulling some fries from a paper takeout bag.

She was about 10 and her glossy black hair was worn in a bob cut, so she might have looked something like a Japanese doll. Except she was wearing a pure white military uniform with a tight skirt. Add in the long boots and she provided a strange mixture of Japanese and Western.

She focused on the earphone that was linked to her phone.

“I never got to say it because he would have gotten after me for it, but Sensei is so cute. He looks like he’s cool and sharp, but he’s a softy on the inside.”

The small-faced girl slowly narrowed her eyes as if thinking back on some memory or another. That proved that she too had memories that she liked to indulge in.

But it did not last long.

“Asagao.”

A voice reached her from the rooftop instead of over her phone. She had not heard a door opening and the emergency buzzer for the emergency exit had not sounded, yet the speaker was there all the same.

Unlike Asagao in her white military uniform with the tight skirt and baggy sleeves, this girl wore a ninja outfit that showed off her figure. In what looked an open-backed one-piece swimsuit plus the baggy pants of a male ninja, Hoozuki was a fusion of extremes in a different way than Shizukuma Asagao.

The cool beauty tightened her various belts and straightened her beautiful back.

“Bara screwed up and we’re on to the next phase. You need to get ready.”

“I just received a call about that. And Bara can hear everything you’re saying. Want to get on the line? She’s pretty mad about you saying she screwed up.”

“But it’s the truth.”

The silver ponytail girl gave a bitter look. Hanasawa Bara was older than her, but this girl was certain she was older mentally.

Nantou Hoozuki was wearing something like a student bag on her back, but when she tossed it to the side, it assembled an off-road motorcycle similar to some kind of spring-loaded 3D puzzle. That was Countless Calamities. Its engine normally produced a loud roar, but the internal components could be directly covered with soundproofing materials on the level of a gun’s silencer, so if she shut off the headlight at night, she could sneak up behind a target in almost near silence and end their life.

“The shogunate’s dogs should catch on soon and lock things down. We’re going to be a lot busier now, Asagao.”

“Sensei won’t sell us out. I mean, he’s so cute deep down!”

“We have to prepare for the worst. Besides, I would prefer it if he gave them an honest report. I don’t want him getting hurt trying to protect us while surrounded by those dogs.”

“You sure sound confident you can handle this.”

“Of course I am,” spat out Hoozuki while leaning forward a bit and curving her back to climb aboard Countless Calamities. “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to take back our precious teacher’s life. I intend to win this no matter what, even if it means making an enemy of that very teacher.”

2: Further Problems

The twins wearing cheerleader-like ninja outfits made from a combination of a sleeveless white kimono and a miniskirt were hurriedly working within an ambulance.

“Suiren, prepare the blood test. I want to see what he was given.”

“Understood, Guren. I will also prepare the stomach pump and the full-body dialysis. If this is slow-acting, there’s still time.”

Sugiyado Souha in his short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants had been taken aboard an ambulance they had called instead of heading back onto their tanker truck. He was lying on an electric stretcher, his shirt was opened, and several electrodes attached to cords were pasted to his chest. The truck likely had the equipment for this sort of thing, but they probably did not want anyone associating it with something that stood out so badly.

All three of them left the international airport aboard the ambulance.

“…”

At this rate, they would discover he had been given an antidote for the poison. That could lead to suspicions about collusion between him and his students.

He briefly considered what was going to happen.

If the antidote was discovered, no matter what reason he gave for it, he would be removed from the team since he clearly still had some kind of favorable connection with the targets. That would be an option here. In fact, it would be the best option if he wanted to avoid fighting his students. He might be confined for a while afterwards, but he would be freed soon enough.

But that would prevent him from having any involvement in this incident.

Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.

They had not grown corrupt and they were not abusing their ninja skills to cause some major incident. They were obeying the conviction in their heart and attempting to find the truth of the final mission that had so greatly influenced his life.

At this rate, they would never return alive.

So he could not sit idly by and let it happen.

He knew all too well that taking on a burden beyond his abilities would come with a terrible price, just like it had back when he lost everything.

But.

Even so.

It was their time with him that had raised them to feel this righteous anger toward what had happened during that final mission. If he did nothing as they walked toward the precipice, he would have as good as murdered them himself.

His actions here were restricted, but it was still the best place for him to gather information related to the threat those girls faced.

He could not let himself be kicked out.

Ouka’s group did have to be stopped after stealing the modular nuclear reactor and abducting a top idol, but he knew nothing good would come of letting things play out according to the scenario drawn up by the shogunate’s darkness.

He had to outdo them.

He had to use them.

And what did he need to do that? What could he do to avoid suspicion, acquire information on their quarry, and sow confusion within the investigation team?

(The antidote.)

He focused on that.

His options here were limited, so he materialized the smallest of the hurdles he had to clear.

(First, I need to stop them from analyzing the antidote or researching where it came from. I need to trick them. If I don’t, I won’t make it any further. I can’t let them think the antidote came from Ouka. If I’m kicked out of here, I can’t stop those four.)

“Ugh.”

He wrinkled the scar on his nose while groaning and twisting on the stretcher. He rolled from his back to his side and used that movement to catch some of the tape between his body and the stretcher and peel it away to lift up an electrode. Then he only had to place his phone on it and have it vibrate by setting off an alarm in silent mode.

The unnatural vibration messed with the contact between electrode and skin to create an abnormality on the EKG monitor without the need for an outside electrical source.

“His heartrate is abnormal! The amplitude pattern is fluctuating! He’ll go into shock at this rate!!”

“Damn!! Sugiyado-san!!”

It was a little more complicated, but the idea was not all that different from a small child in the school infirmary messing with the thermometer to get an excuse to skip class. Everything had its uses. Even silent mode was fairly loud in quiet places, but it could go unnoticed when there was a lot of other noise around.

Shirazaya Guren gulped and quickly grabbed his shoulders to roll him onto his back again, but he gathered his strength to fight it and kicked his legs in a way that would not put pressure on his damaged back. It would look a lot like he was convulsing as deadly poison circulated through his body. Forcing your way through with brute strength was not the only way to do things. A ninja needed ways to make themselves look weak as well.

If he was rolled onto his back, the phone’s presence would be discovered, so he ended that trick and reduced the intensity of his feigned convulsions.

“Has he stabilized?”

“No, we can’t know that for sure. He could deteriorate at any moment. Prepare the stomach pump!”

While the twins were focused on the monitor, he snuck a hand behind his back and pulled one of his Fierce Fang air pressure kunais from below his untucked short-sleeved dress shirt. He may have been able to aim for defenseless Guren and Suiren’s throats, but he that would mean wiping out the investigation team he needed to use.

(The stretcher uses electric assistance. That means it has a large motor…and a magnet.)

The kunai’s tungsten steel was not the most magnetic of materials, but that was not what he was interested in. He used the pointed tip to unscrew and pop off the cover and then he pulled out the powerful neodymium magnet used for the motor.

The preparation was simple.

“!!”

With an extra large “convulsion”, his back and the rest of his body hopped up and he pushed his palm against the side of a piece of precision machinery in the cramped ambulance. No, he pressed the neodymium magnet against it.

Needless to say, pressing a magnet against a medical computer would cause a malfunction.

“Ah!?”

Shirazaya Suiren’s white hair extension swayed as she cried out and Guren quickly reached for the wiring behind the device, but he used that moment to slip the magnet behind his hips and then return it to the stretcher’s motor while they were not looking. His phone, the air pressure kunai, and the neodymium magnet were all like balls he was juggling. But right now he needed a certain type of courage more than skilled fingers. He was redirecting the attention of more than one person right in front of him while performing tricks right out in the open. This was the standard method of stage magicians, of con artists, and of ninjas.

He had taken out the EKG. There was no more need for restraint in his performance. He shook his body, breathed erratically, and let his eyes crawl around unnecessarily while grabbing at the chest of Guren’s white dress.

“Oh…bh!?”

“Oh, no. The convulsions are back. Suiren, restart the device immediately! Sugiyado-san, I do apologize, but I must strap down your arms and legs.”

“No…wait…my breast pocket…”

“?”

“My school’s…antidote. If they used the poison…I taught them…”

Guren sprang into action. What she found in his short-sleeved dress shirt’s breast pocket was a small bottle of commercial eye drops, but not many professionals would walk around with a set of bottles actually labeled “poison” and “antidote”.

She removed the cap, and…

“Please open your mouth, Sugiyado-san. Suiren, help me! Hold his hands down!! I’ll pry open his mouth!!”

It was said bitterness was the sign of a good medicine.

Now he only had to swallow it.

Blonde Suiren actually gulped louder than him.

“He’s…settled down?”

Of course he had.

He had been given the real antidote quite a while before. But he no longer had to fear the medical equipment recovering and then discovering an antidote in his body. He had created a reason for it to be there.

“Pant, pant.”

(Will that allow me to stick around for the time being?)

He was finally released from his tension.

But the end was not in sight yet.

The ambulance’s radio received a transmission.

“This is Azure Dragon 01. You say those runaway ninjas have made their move? Then hurry up and tell us where to aim and who to shoot. I’m so bored I swear my entire body is gonna rust.”

“Azure Dragon? Who’s that?” asked Sugiyado.

“The armored samurai handling our firepower support,” replied one of the twins.

“This is Yellow Dragon 00,” the other twin said into the radio. “Azure Dragon 01, please remain on standby until you receive further orders. Unnecessary transmissions have a chance of hindering progress of the mission.”

“Sorry, Little Miss Doll, but I’m not good at all that awful sneaking around.”

For once, the calm and composed twins clicked their tongues.

But not at what was said over the radio. They had both looked out the white smoked window.

A heavy gust of wind blew in as a large moss green shogunate truck pulled up alongside them.

This was clearly a military vehicle.

The back had no canopy covering it, so the giant forms curled up in two rows were exposed to the elements.

Instead of adding armor to human silhouettes, these looked like their silhouettes had been remade into those of carnivorous dinosaurs. They were masses of artificial muscles and full-body armor with sinister Gatling guns and grenade launchers worn over the shoulders or back.

These were the armored samurai.

Unlike Sugiyado or the twin kunoichis, this high firepower did not know how to hide. The crests of their samurai families were emblazoned prominently on their chests to identify themselves and these physical manifestations of death would not hesitate to reduce anyone to a puddle of blood in their efforts to uphold the law. These were the berserkers of an insane world that heaped on praise when they heaped on the killings.

This kind of firepower was not meant to be used for domestic criminal matters. These were weapons of war meant to stand up to the extraordinary knights and musketeers arriving by sea and air to steal the nation’s technology.

Guren audibly gulped before responding.

“Azure Dragon 01!! Know your place in this! If you trip us up by practically announcing our presence, you might as well be destroying your own eyes and ears here!!”

“That’s more like it. Do you shut-in cowards need a nice spanking now and then to keep you on your toes? I mean, I’m sure it hurts to kill some fellow kunoichis even if they did run away.”

“Do you question our professionalism!?”

“You know what we call a so-called professional who hasn’t fought in a real war? A virgin. Oh, but I guess virginity makes you more valuable when you’re a girl, huh? Heh heh.”

The sexual turn of the conversation seemed to actually calm the twins down. Using such things to lower a target’s defenses was a kunoichi technique, so this must have put them in work mode.

“But don’t you forget, blondie. You might be working on that Dejima-like reclaimed land, but a doll with those looks is only allowed to strut around working as shogunate spy – instead of being hunted down by them – because you do the work we give you. You won’t like to find out what happens if you can’t manage it. You can guess what might happen if you lose the shogunate’s backing in this isolationist age, can’t you? No one from overseas can ever be truly trusted and there’s not going to be a formal investigation. We’ll have you sit down, place heavy stones on your lap, and keep doubling the weight until you confess to letting the criminals escape.”

“Kh.”

“Get the picture now? You call yourselves kunoichi? Don’t make me laugh. That’s just a fancy word for gloomy cowards without the guts to make a frontal assault. Ninjas have no honor. At best, you’re the gofers for us samurai. If you get it, then work like a workhorse and guide us to our prey. We’re using someone for target practice – you can decide whether it’s them or you. So please, even I’d find it a little distasteful to slice up my formal colleagues and make mincemeat out of them. Gya ha ha ha ha ha ha!!”

…Sugiyado Souha could not abandon them.

That was the honest thought on his mind as he clenched his teeth and saw those two bite their lips while pale in the face. This would have been so much easier if they were soldiers pursuing his students after being manipulated by the shogunate’s darkness. But now that he knew the reality of the situation, he had one more hurdle to overcome. He could not just fool these twins and rescue his students. That would place a great debt on the shoulders of these twins who had done nothing wrong. And in the most unfair way imaginable.

So he made up his mind.

He had one more burden to carry, which put him one step closer to death. Just like during that final mission, he was surrounded by an unpleasant atmosphere that seemed to be leading him toward a major failure.

Nevertheless, he did not break. He only quietly updated his list of objectives.

He had to rescue both the pursuing twins and his runaway students.

And he had to escape with them all.

3: Battle Preparation Delivery

A smooth rustling sound could be heard.

It came from Hanasawa Bara, a girl with a curvy body and overly-bright red hair worn in gorgeous ringlet curls to increase the volume. She had brushed her hair back from a face of such beauty that it would have looked at home awash with a spotlight on center stage, not as a ninja who lived in the shadows.

Her red dress and the ample figure showing through were enough to steal away the starring role in this space.

This elicited an exasperated comment from Nantou Hoozuki, the cool beauty with a long silver ponytail who was riding her lightweight but powerful off-road motorcycle called Countless Calamities. She had never changed out of her ninja outfit.

“That’s quite the weapon you have there.”

“I could say the same about you.”

Bara had woven coils in to her ringlet curls to transform her hair into a sort of linear motor and coilgun. With a total of 18 of those, she could cover all directions around her, but they were also hidden in a blind spot that let her slip past ordinary checkpoints and police searches that only thought to check people’s pockets and bags. It truly was the ideal form of a ninja.

They could fire the Candy Needles made from melting sugar and letting it harden with poison mixed in or the Final Cannon that used an armor piercing needle of depleted uranium alloy, and the entire weapon was known as the Serpent Monster.

“Sensei got mad when I named it the Gorgon. He said I had to go with mythological names for everything or nothing.”

“You made him mad on purpose for some fun, didn’t you?”

“How is that any different from the way you make him grimace by naming each of your bike’s new transformation gimmicks Technique 1, Technique 2, Technique 3, and so on?”

“I just want to make it harder to come up with a countermeasure based on the name, but he’s more of a stickler for aesthetics than you would think.”

“He’s a romanticist. The way he makes it so obvious despite refusing to admit it out loud is so unbearably cute.”

“You mean like that scarf he always keeps around his neck? Well, at least I’ve never seen him stick a scroll in his mouth and hop onto a giant toad.”

“You just know he wishes he could, though.”

“I’m glad he isn’t the type who accepts genetic tampering as ethical. I mean, he gets so obsessed he’d take it way too far once he got started.”

The teenage girls chuckled together in a way that no one would have guessed was part of some dangerous criminal plot.

The four of them had not come from the same place before seeking out Sugiyado Souha’s ninja instruction. They each had their own reason for leaving their peaceful lives, moving into the shadows, and aspiring to be ninjas who got by with trickery. They relied on each other in battle, but they had not seen everything of each other’s lives.

The only one who had done that would be Sugiyado who had gently gotten them to open up their scarred hearts.

Hanasawa Bara came from a noble family and never should have found herself in the shadows. But in order to prop up the samurai families, the shogunate had ordered the number of noble families to be reduced. When her family had been crushed and she had found herself under Sugiyado’s tutelage, she had wondered how she had ended up stripped of her former status and asking a younger boy to teach her.

But when he had noticed she was not committing herself to her studies and training, he had not jumped straight to scolding her. He had instead smiled and told her she did not have to change who she was.

He had simply told her to get the job done. If she could become a ninja who could use her dazzling beauty as a weapon, then she could stay true to herself. So he told her to think up a way to do that.

“…”

In a show of that mature sex appeal, she crossed her arms and alluring lifted her large chest from below, but she narrowed her eyes like a pure maiden daydreaming.

Believers in sports engineering might laugh it off as silly idealism and wishful thinking, but that rose who stood on the front line could tell. The more harsh the scene, the more important and reassuring it was to have a solid sense of “yourself” as a central pillar.

She was certain she had him to thank for not becoming a machine that had missions mechanically inputted and did nothing more than spill blood with blades and shurikens. When her heart had felt in tatters and she had given up on any path other than throwing it out, it was undoubtedly Sugiyado Souha who had held onto it, gradually picked up the pieces and repaired the cracks, and restored her into someone who could find friends and laugh with them.

He had saved her.

No amount of money filling her bank account as payment for missions would ever have fulfilled her heart. She never could have restored herself with that. But he had shown her the way. She was willing to say that her current life was even more fulfilling than life in that luxurious estate before she had become a ninja. She no longer thought of it as a fall or a collapse. She had used those empty days of nothing but wealth as a stepping stool to reach an even greater place.

So now it was her turn.

He could call it insolent if he liked and he could raise his fist and tell her not to do this, but she still wanted to save her master. She wanted to give him the life-saving thing he had taught her. That was the whole of her motivation here.

She toyed with her precious hair and showed off her beauty to the world while holding her head high and asking a question.

“Is it time for the next step?”

“Yes. Let’s get this over with.”

4: Buried Ninja Sword

After transferring to a different vehicle in an underground parking garage, they arrived at Sugiyado Souha’s apartment in an ordinary car.

He had been accepted onto their side, so he would be sleeping in that tanker truck from now one. But first, he needed to pack a bag with clothes and whatnot.

He gave a self-deprecating smile while propping himself up on the shoulder of Suiren, one of the twins in white dresses with bold slits.

“So this place was already being monitored, huh?”

“Yes. But only by other spies. Do not worry; none of those samurai were spying on you.”

“Ha ha. Yeah, I don’t want to see one of them hiding behind the vending machine.”

Guren went in ahead of them to make sure the place was safe and then the other two entered the rundown room.

It felt so terribly nostalgic now.

It was a lot like returning home from a trip. The furniture was in the same place and the amount of dirty laundry had not changed, but it did not smell like home.

“I checked around, but there is an awful lot of laundry and trash bags piled up in here.”

It had gotten this bad in just the few days since Ouka and the others had cleaned up for him.

“This cluttered world is unbefitting of an instructor. You will be away from home for a while, so it would be best to clean this up now.”

He was just about to beg them not to expect much from a guy living on his own, but then the twin kunoichis got to work on the towering mountain range themselves.

“Hold on. I can’t have shogunate spies do this kind of work for me.”

“Our duty is to fulfill whatever task is required of us, regardless of what it entails.”

“Oh? What is this? Um, a value pack of Happy Churn???”

“Oh, if you ladies are not prepared for the difficult path that awaits you, I recommend stopping here. You must keep strong or you will be dragged into the abyss before you know it. Don’t blame me if you try one and are addicted for life.”

Meanwhile, they split into a trash bag team and a laundry team and got to work. Having those composed girls emitting a silent pressure while observing what brand of underwear he wore was unbelievably awkward, but he had been placed on the trash bag team. He could not approach them, so he could not use his ninja techniques to surreptitiously obstruct their work.

“Garbage pickup is tomorrow morning, but we cannot wait until then. We can report a tree branch cut down on the roadside out front and have them send in a truck now.”

“Thanks, I guess.”

Eliminating those mountains made the space feel a lot bigger.

He was reminded of how Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, and the others had paid him a surprise visit, rudely said he would get sick living in a place like this, and cleaned everything up for him.

Also, the better view of the room had brought something into view.

A sword in a black scabbard and wrapped over and over by a very long decorative cloth sat in a corner of the room. Unlike ordinary Japanese swords, this one had no curve.

Instead of simply cutting down an enemy, it could be used to create footholds while climbing tall fences, it could be used as a grappling hook for scaling walls by unwrapping the cloth that had a weight at the end, and it could be held out ahead in the dark to check for obstacles.

Shirazaya Guren gulped, sighed, and spoke in an impressed tone.

“Is that a ninja sword?”

“It’s called Salvation & Punishment. It’s too much for me now, but I never had a chance to get rid of it. I’ve just kind of held onto to it even though I have no use for it.”

“That alone shows how much you once relied on it. I see nothing to be ashamed of there.”

Normal(?) ninja swords were made shorter than the average Japanese sword for easier use indoors, but this one was actually longer than average. All of his personal idiosyncrasies must have been woven into its design. It was obvious to everyone that he was fond of the blade.

Guren narrowed her eyes while carrying the last trash bag to the front door.

“Can I ask your story?” said Sugiyado while leaning against the wall.

“It is not a pleasant one.” She toyed with her beautiful blonde hair and let out a slow breath. “We were in an airplane crash. We never had any business with this isolationist country, but once we were swept onto the shore here, we had no choice but to stand on our own two feet. Fortunately, we had talent. Talent at hiding in the shadows and laying out strategies. That has allowed us to avoid the horrors that you heard the samurai mention.”

“…”

“I will not lay all blame at the feet of this era or this nation’s system. There are times when I am so engrossed in a mission that I forget all else. I have enjoyed using the shogunate’s power to act as the hunter. Some of those we have hunted down were blonde-haired girls younger than me. But this is the life we wanted because it suits us. That is all there is to it.”

It was true that most everyone who dedicated themselves to the shadows had some kind of circumstances leading them in that direction. Sugiyado Souha did and so did his students.

But there was something different about Shirazaya Guren’s story that she told with a tremor in her small throat.

They had not chosen this.

The bracelets on the sisters’ wrists likely tracked their location.

It was like they were given money and forced to make more and more high-rate, high-risk gambles with it, but if they screwed up and ended up in the red just once, they would be sold off themselves. Pointing at the losers of those gambles and telling these sisters they had destroyed those people’s lives seemed wrong somehow. At the very least, those samurai, who had grown fat on taxes, were in no position to say it.

“Have you ever wanted to return home?”

“I dream of it every night. But it simply isn’t possible anymore.”

She seemed to be referring to more than just the country’s isolationist policies.

Normally, other countries wanted Japan’s technology badly enough to repeatedly send in scouts and take military action against the isolationist country. They should have rejoiced if some of their own people returned after infiltrating so deep into Japan.

So why would it not work that way?

“Didn’t I say we have already cut down several people with this same hair color? The knights across the sea have us on a list of dangerous individuals, so we could never live a normal life even if we did make it back to our homeland. Without the government’s backing, we would be branded traitors and I imagine we would actually be in even more danger than staying here.”

There had to be more to it than that.

The higher ups had almost certainly intentionally sent those twins to hunt down their compatriots. Both to test their loyalty and to leave the shogunate as the only place they could ever hope to survive, thus making them easier to control. It was a lot like a gang initiation ritual in which the initiate had to shoot a police officer or teacher to cut off any hope of help and isolate them from society.

These were victims.

No matter how much power they might have, Sugiyado could not think of any other word with which to describe these twins.

5: Smokey Maze

Once all the necessary preparations were complete, Sugiyado Souha was finally invited into the tanker truck that acted as the investigation team’s headquarters.

(Now, then. It’s 3PM – time for the banks to close.)

He checked the wall clock while losing himself in thought.

He had already gotten himself involved and taken a sympathetic view of the twins, but he could not forget that Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao had no future if the twins captured them.

He had to prevent the investigation from making any progress while still allowing Guren and Suiren to save face.

That would be the best plan. Perhaps it was best described as allowing them to fail gracefully.

He toyed with the large scarf over his mouth as he thought.

(Ouka’s group is headed to the stock exchange’s server room now that they have a copy of Top Idol Shitou Kyouka’s biometric data. They’re after the classified information secretly stored there because the shogunate is afraid to keep it too close at hand. A normal bank wouldn’t have the capacity to store that. Ouka’s group thinks the secrets of my final mission are hidden there.)

That much was correct.

But he could not allow Shirazaya Guren and Suiren to discover that answer.

How could he create a convincing false answer on top of that?

(Ouka’s group made an appearance at the airport and Shitou Kyouka has gone missing. That much is already known.)

Since the entire event had been fixed and the top idol was planned to win from the beginning, she would not have left early. That would normally be seen as a slight to the sponsors who had paid a lot of money setting it all up.

Also, the twins knew about the poison Sugiyado had been given there. At this point, trying to claim he had nicked himself with his own poisoned blade would only arouse suspicions against him.

If anyone could not put two and two together here, he would honestly be impressed.

(I suppose the best option is to send them in the wrong direction when deciding why my students abducted the idol.)

But only if saving his students was his only goal. If he set up a spectacular failure for Guren and Suiren, who could say what those cruel samurai would do to them.

He had to send them in the right direction but have Ouka’s group stay just one step ahead of them. Also, the reason for the delay had to come from the armored samurai, not the kunoichis. And the failure had to so obviously be theirs that they could not possibly shift the blame.

That was no easy task, but that was why it would win him a reward as great as the survival of both sides. It was worth doing.

(Those girls clearly wanted to abduct Shitou Kyouka badly enough to use the modular nuclear reactor as bait. What reason can I invent other than the real one? Or to put it another way, what answer would I find a surprise yet still accept as legitimate? Can I up the scale to a level above a nuclear reactor?)

He breathed in and then out.

And he began speaking.

“There may not have been a real reason for it.”

“What?”

Both twins wrinkled their brows.

He himself was unsure if this would hold water, but right now he had to gather speed, like he was pushing a minecart down a sloped track.

“Shitou Kyouka is known even outside the country, right?”

“Y-yes. The Shogunate must think a talented entertainer will help give them a good name because they have taken the unusual step of releasing her songs overseas. Similar to how we can see Hollywood movies and Western action movies here.”

“That makes her the perfect target that even foreigners would recognize.”

He chose his words carefully.

He used the lag in conversation as a “gap” to draw the twins’ attention.

“I don’t know what led those girls to strike back at the Shogunate, but I doubt even Elite Ninjas could last long against an entire nation while on their own. They need someone new to back them.”

“You mean…?”

“This was a demonstration. By abducting a world-famous idol, they’re advertising that their skills can help anyone hoping to attack this isolationist nation. For that matter, the original modular nuclear reactor may have been intended as a souvenir. Those people circling the archipelago’s skies in their giant flying aircraft carriers must be dying to get their hands on some new ‘made in Japan’ merchandise.”

“You’re saying they did all this not for some physical cash or diamonds, but to create intangible connections!?”

“I doubt that’s their only objective, of course. You two should know all too well how much a powerful backer increases your options. They could flee overseas and enjoy themselves there, or they could use all the new equipment and funding to continue sneaking around Japan and cause trouble here.”

“…”

The psychological scars of their past experiences helped make it sound all the more real to them. Anyone other than those twins might not have fallen silent like this.

He did not let it show on his face, but he apologized to them in his heart.

“So once they have made contact with the knights and musketeers waiting out at sea and in the skies, they hope to throw a big party. This is going to be much bigger than what four individuals can do. They will invite those bored foreign berserkers into the country to start a legit war. Guren, Suiren, give me a list of the important targets those heavily-equipped knights will likely attack first. If any of those are facilities or people that Ouka’s group would want to see attacked, then that’s probably what they’re after.”

He upped the scale again.

The modular nuclear reactor was a nuke, but it was still small. Even if it was made to explode, its destruction and contamination would only cover a diameter of a few hundred meters. The word “nuke” held a lot of power, but when looking at the actual number of people who would be harmed, there were other, crueler ways it could be used.

Now he only had to wait for the enormity of the threat to sink in.

In his short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants, he peered into the twin kunoichis’ eyes. It took more than a deluge of words to convince someone of something. At times, silence could be a powerful weapon.

“Understood. We will take that into consideration for now.”

“Of course you will. The more options you’re looking out for, the better.” He shrugged while hiding his joy inside. “Then could it be possible they’re after money? Like having the idol agency pay a ransom or something? Or do they have some direct connection to Shitou Kyouka? This might actually be a cheap grudge or jealousy. If not, maybe we should consider the possibility of it being an attack on the airport or idol festival management.”

He rattled off possibilities in quick succession to keep their minds off of any more attractive possibilities than the wrong one he had given already. If Shirazaya Guren and Suiren came up with a list of better theories and even arrived at the stock exchange answer he had to steer them away from, it would sound a lot cheaper if it bordered on the variety of answers he had already given. The weight of words had more of an effect than people thought. It was hard to rid yourself of an impression you had already arrived at.

“I still don’t see why it had to be Shitou Kyouka, but I suppose we should follow the foreign backing theory for now,” said Guren.

“If we narrow our focus down to the front line in New Yokohama Domain, the options look like this.”

While toying with her right earlobe, Suiren added several pins to the map on her laptop.

The water services, the power line in from the mainland, the communication cables, the New Yokohama Aeromonolith broadcast tower, New Yokohama Station, the various Shogunate facilities, and the people given VIP treatment – from samurai to wealthy merchants. The aforementioned stock exchange was even on the list. Seeing it there was enough for his heart to leap in his chest.

But he could not back out now. If he was going to work with the twins to stop his students, he had to guide the Shogunate almost all the way to the goal.

“Here.”

He boldly pointed at one option himself.

It was a location across the street from the stock exchange he could not have them discovering. It was a mere 20m away.

“New Yokohama Mint. Now that new ATMs can detect the Ultra 8 counterfeit money created by the Kingdom, they lost one inroad to gathering foreign capital. But if they gained one of the real printing presses, they could turn all that around. The profit from that would far surpass a black market deal over a mini-nuke. Hand that over when they’re in their time of need and Ouka’s group is sure to earn their praise.”

“But those supposedly have three different tracking devices installed. Even if they gained the plans to the mint and located one, could they really remove all three of them on the spot?”

“Good point. That just means they need some way of instantly destroying all of the sensors without dismantling the device. What the Kingdom wants is the hardware made by expert craftsmen, not the programming inside.”

“?”

The twins both tilted their heads, making their hair extensions sway, so Sugiyado winked and told his biggest lie yet.

“The modular nuclear reactor. Powerful radiation should be able to destroy the circuitry used for the transmitters. If you’re after the components rather than the circuitry, you can wipe out the tracking devices with a burst of radiation. No light or noise necessary.”

6: Offline Strategizing

“Mh.”

The underground mall was as complex as a spider web and it connected one giant train station with an entirely different subway station. Extremely-small Shizukuma Asagao groaned at a café there.

The small-faced girl in a white military uniform with a short tight skirt used the fingertips sticking out from her baggy sleeves to operate a handheld game system capable of ordinary internet browsing.

“Alert: a stir is running through the crowds around the stock exchange. They seem to be noticing an oddity in the flow of traffic.”

“Roger that, Asagao. Keep watching via satellite,” said Nantou Hoozuki over the radio. “I’ve confirmed some things while walking around outside. There are an awful lot of vehicles with large enclosed spaces, like a delivery truck, a hot dog stand, a TV broadcast van, and a refrigerator truck. Nothing conclusive yet, but there must be dogs hiding out here. Be on the lookout for heavy equipment they can’t let out in the open.”

“They might all be Shogunate jack-in-the-boxes,” said Hanasawa Bara, also over the radio. “But isn’t their formation odd? They are scattered around the building, but they don’t seem to be surrounding the stock exchange.”

Financial institutions closed even earlier than the schools. Even regional banks closed their general teller windows at 3. Maintenance workers like cleaners and electricians might still go there, but it seemed unlikely a hot dog vendor could do business there in the evening.

“Maybe they intentionally left a hole in their security because they figured we would leave after scoping the place out if they were too obviously surrounding the place,” suggested Asagao who was acting as the host of this chat.

“It might be Sensei,” said Ouka.

“If so, why? To capture us? Or to let us escape?”

Either way, it was rare to find a complete answer on the scene. More often than not, there was no correct answer. They could only use what information they had to search out the most likely candidates and make their choices based on whether they had the upper hand or not, whether they could take an optimistic or pessimistic view, and whether they were on the offensive or the defensive. Instead of using the flexible thought processes of a human, the best way to survive was to use simple, insect-like thought processes: did they smell anything sweet or not, was there light there or not, was the ground wet or not, etc.

“It doesn’t really matter. This isn’t enough to get rid of ush!”

“Hm? Is there something wrong with your tongue, Ouka?”

Small Asagao frowned, but there was no response for a while. And when one came, it was from Bara instead.

“Oh? Having a flashback, you dirty girl? Was kissing Sensei that much fun?”

“What!?” “What!?”

Hoozuki and Asagao had not heard about that and shouted on reflex, but Ouka remained silent and Bara must not have understood the power of the bomb she had unleashed.

“Okay, technically she gave him the antidote mouth-to-mouth. Besides, greeting him with a kiss is perfectly normal. I do it all the time.”

“What!!!???” “What!!!???” “What!!!???”

Ouka snapped out of her confusion to join the shouting this time. Bara was referring to how she would surprise him with a touch to the cheek, forehead, or top of the head while gently biting his neck, but she intentionally left that part out.

Bob cut Asagao trembled in her seat.

“I can’t believe this. Now I want to know how Sensei has been interpreting my ‘I’m going to marry you when I grow up’ magic spell!”

“You’ve been abusing your cuteness to seduce him too?” “You’ve been abusing your cuteness to seduce him too?” “You’ve been abusing your cuteness to seduce him too?”

Based on this, it seemed likely that Hoozuki, the impeccable cool beauty biker girl, had prepared a special helmet for a certain someone and wore a special perfume when letting that certain someone ride with her.

The four girls began seriously thinking they should have gotten to the bottom of those questions before leaving him, but what was done was done. They would have to ask him after solving this problem and reclaiming his honor.

They were willing to fight against everything to do that.

Even if someone they respected from the bottom of their hearts was included in that. They had to figure out whether this formation was meant to rescue them or meant to trap them.

Kuhou Ouka made a decision on her end of the radio.

“It doesn’t matter what it was meant to do because we can slip past this either way.”

7: Hidden Battle

Sugiyado Souha left the tanker truck’s maintenance hatch and entered the evening financial district.

He hid his mouth behind his largish scarf and immediately commented on what he saw.

“That is way too conspicuous.”

“Believe me, it’s a miracle those Azure Dragon armored samurai went along with their ‘sit and stay’ command at all.”

“They do not understand why they should ever have to hide themselves. Words are meaningless with someone who uses their heavy equipment to brute force their way through frontal assaults.”

The blonde twins in white dresses remained expressionless, but there were obvious barbs in their words. He hoped these apparent complaints were proof that they were opening up to him at least a little.

(The vehicles everywhere are partially blocking the flow of foot traffic, but nothing has happened to cause a panic yet.)

That was good news. Not even he could hide the true target if there was an explosion in front of the stock exchange.

He glanced across the road at the square smart building that was the mint.

“Where are the presses?”

“Thanks to the Third Economic Measures, they apparently must print a trillion yen by the end of the month, so they rejected our request that they stop the presses and remove them to a safe location.”

That was the policy that had been deemed a disaster even by the sports newspapers sold at the train stations. While it was true foreign exchange rates were of secondary importance given the nation’s isolationist policies, this was still taking it much too far. It was a miracle hyperinflation had not already set in.

“Good grief. So we’re stuck defending the place against four of the shogunate’s Elite Ninjas?” he asked. “Our cutting-edge equipment can’t exactly run or hide.”

“They might be former Elite Ninjas, but they are on the run now. Do not forget that,” said one twin.

“Officially recognized spies are on a different level from those unrestrained dangerous elements,” said the other.

When they had nowhere else they could go, their pride in that position would naturally grow. It was sad once you knew how it worked. That samurai may not have just been talking about their looks when he called them dolls.

“By the way, why are you acting like my bodyguards or something?”

“Have you already forgotten? At the idol festival, those runaway ninjas went out of their way to attack you, their old teacher.”

“It is unclear if they were afraid you would share information with us or if they simply felt betrayed, but that set a precedent. If you show up on the scene, they will attempt to contact you separate from their plan’s timetable. Thus, we have deemed it best to work with you this time.”

He could not criticize the plan, no matter how much he wanted to.

If not for the fact that he wanted to end this without either side going down, it was a decent plan.

But as accurate as their reasoning was, their presence still restricted his freedom, effectively checkmating him.

He had heard records related to his final mission were hidden in the stock exchange’s server since the Shogunate wanted to keep that at arm’s length. Letting Ouka’s group find that would be devastating. They would be hunted down and eliminated by the Shogunate. It was important to prevent those four from encountering Shirazaya Guren and Suiren, but he also had to stop them.

So…

“Seems like overkill, but I won’t say no to a double date.”

“That is not what that means. Joke if you like, but try to use your romance terms correctly.”

Just as Suiren said that while flicking at her right ear, Sugiyado walked forward and kicked up a small rock with the heel of his shoe. He moved his hand behind his short-sleeved dress shirt’s back to silently catch it, hold it tight, and make up his mind.

With a snap of his wrist, he chucked it toward a large window nearby.

The twin ninjas would not know how deadly an attack it had been, but they would know that a reinforced glass window had loudly shattered right next to them.

So if he added some dramatic flavoring, they would buy it.

“Sniper! Get down!!”

He shouted a warning and shoved Suiren behind a car. She was a lot lighter than he had expected, so she gained too much speed and her dress’s skirt flipped up, but it was too late to redo that now. Guren gulped nervously and leaped in the same direction to support her sister, but he dove the other way to hide behind a convertible parked on the curb.

Still behind cover, the boy in a short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants pointed toward a random building. The blonde twins looked that way to check almost on reflex, but the instant their eyes were off him, he used the air pressure kunai in his hand to break the door window of the convertible he was hiding behind.

Suiren ducked down and spoke.

“I did not see any light or hear any noise. They may be using subsonic rounds.”

“Gunfire makes Ouka the most likely suspect. Her hunting gun doesn’t use any rifling, so she uses fletching to stabilize the rounds when firing long distance. I want to capture at least one of them, so I’ll head that way through the alleys. You two are too far from the next viable cover, so just ask those heavily-armored samurai to rescue you. Their full-body composite armor should be able to deflect anti-materiel rifle rounds. Once they’re with you, make your way to the sniper’s building along a clockwise route. I’ll approach with a counterclockwise route.”

“Understood.”

“Shouldn’t we send one of the samurai with you?”

They let him reject that idea with a simple wave of his hand. They did not want to be indebted to those samurai any more than he did.

With his mouth hidden behind his scarf, he followed his supposed plan by diving from behind the convertible and into the nearby alleyway, but he ignored the plan after that. One wall of that alleyway was the stock exchange. If he was going to use the confusion to get inside, he would have to do it now.

The back entrance was a steel door with a heavy-duty electronic lock, but he ignored the keypad altogether. He instead focused on the thick communication cables running vertically along the wall. He used a Fierce Fang to slice through a few of those and attached them to his phone.

The inside the of the building was naturally filled with security cameras, but if he cut the footage, the dark screens would tell the security room something was amiss. The general solution seen in movies and dramas was to play an endless loop of the same footage, but that was not as easy as fiction made it seem.

(I’ll set the brightness to maximum.)

Modern pros would take this route.

The footage would continue to be recorded, but he secretly altered the settings. By changing the contrast between the bright areas and the dark areas, he made it impossible to see anyone lurking in the shadows. That would leave no unnatural changes in the length or number of video files.

Once the necessary preparations were complete, it was time to head in.

He stuck the Fierce Fang’s tip between the door and wall at the upper end of the knob and released the power of nitrogen. He could pry open the thick hatch of a military tank with this thing, so it neutralized the lock by physically breaking the thick latch.

The door slowly opened inward.

There was no need to discuss something as basic as fingerprints at this point. Even without gloves on, coating your entire hand with a thin layer of clear nail polish was enough to deal with that. You would be sorely mistaken if you assumed everyone working shady jobs wore thin rubber surgical gloves or black leather gloves. Wear something like that on a midsummer beach or in a sauna and the police would be asking you a lot of questions.

He glanced down at his fingers.

(The trick is finding a good product that properly eliminate your fingerprints without losing the feeling of your fingertips.)

As soon as he set foot inside, he could tell there were still people here.

All trading was done for the day, but that did not mean everyone immediately left and the building’s lights were shut off. This was when the real work began in maintaining the giant communications system used to perform ten thousand transactions every second. There were a lot of actual maintenance workers and a lot of security personnel keeping an eye on things to ensure none of them inserted malware on the system or swapped out a circuit board. Allowing a malicious device to be hooked up here would cause far more confusion than at a pachinko parlor, so this much security was to be expected.

(How will they actually go about this?)

Sugiyado thought to himself while carefully staying in the darker parts of the staff corridors and set up some traps along the way.

He quietly reeled in some fishing line as he continued.

(They stole the biometric data of Top Idol Shitou Kyouka, but word can get around fast and someone might already know she went missing. Especially people who deal with stocks and trading. If they strut in wearing a disguise, they could find her account has been frozen and have metal bars drop down to surround them. So how will they avoid that risk while assuming it’s already known she’s gone missing?)

He knew where he had to go.

In addition to the normal reception area occasionally depicted on the TV news, this kind of stock exchange also had a VIP dealing room. The primary advantage was not needing to go through a public server, which increased the transaction speed up by a thousandth of a second. That was too small for normal people to even be aware of, but to reiterate, computer-controlled financial transactions were carried out at a rate of ten thousand per second. So by obtaining one of the small glass-encased booths in there was enough to perform ten transactions for every one a normal person was capable of. In terms of a turn-based RPG or TRPG, that would be like getting ten turns for every one turn the enemy received. That would obviously make you unbeatable.

And again, the end of trading for the day did not mean everyone left the stock exchange. In a world where a system malfunction could mean the loss of billions in a single day, it was not uncommon for people to only allow their own hired workers to work on the machinery in their booth.

This was where it got interesting.

It was also not uncommon for the VIPs arriving at the exchange to not be the best with computers. For example, with an idol who was not all that knowledgeable in the fields of finances or computer science, the exchange workers would salivate at the chance to “assist” and put their precious client’s mind at ease.

(There they are.)

“Yes. Like I said, I would like to know what is going on with my money.”

He heard a girl’s voice that was not all that loud but traveled oddly far.

But this was not Bara who excelled at disguises and camouflage.

“My mother usually handles this money, but the account is in my name. Just in case, I thought it would be best to know the basics of how all this works.”

In fact, this was not even a disguise.

Hanasawa Bara and Nantou Hoozuki were there.

The two ninjas were waiting behind her in work jumpsuits with baseball caps pulled down to cover their eyes. Their young age was no reason to suspect them in an age of meritocracy where people often dropped out of school to get a job when they had the talent for it. Going after a stock exchange server from the outside would be difficult, but the hurdle was much lower when you physically snuck inside. With some advice from Shizukuma Asagao who was skilled at cyber attacks, they would be able to work their way in pretty deep. Perhaps even to the secret Shogunate data that the actual exchange workers were unaware of.

In other words…

(Instead of copying her biometric data, they manipulated her into bringing them here herself?)

Word would have gotten around that Shitou Kyouka had disappeared, yet here she was in the flesh and not just someone pretending to be her. Even if the exchange had received word already, they could not afford to be suspicious here. Customers were the top priority even at a stock exchange, so they had no possible excuse for turning her away if she was the real one.

The most they could do was view her companions with suspicion, but if no weapons were drawn, no threats were made, and Shitou Kyouka herself introduced them as her trusted engineers, they could not kick them out either.

The entire point of the VIP dealing room was to use money to trample on the entire concept of fairness. Just like an F1 driver would get mad if they were given a pit crew other than their personal team and a businessman would be furious to receive some unknown court-appointed attorney instead of their personal lawyer during a major trial, finding fault with someone’s engineers could be seen as an attempt at obstruction.

Also.

Finding a way to control a specific individual or group through external means was apparently a romantic ideal on the level of immortality, time travel, and world domination. Various scientists had worked at that one for over 3000 years. The list of attempted methods was endless: incense, drugs, parasites, bacteria, bioelectricity, magnetism, nutrients, sleep deprivation, subconscious stimuli using low-frequency waves or vibrations, patterns of color or sound, etc.

And Sugiyado Souha could make an educated guess as to what his students had done here.

(Is this a form of shadow binding?)

That ninja technique stabbed a short sword or shuriken into the target’s shadow to keep them from moving. It was actually a way of invading someone’s personal space so they felt a pressure that made them hesitant to approach any further – and did so in an instant using the powerful presence of a deadly blade. It was even thought to make people submit to your will on a fundamental level. Anyone would lose the will to fight and fall silent if they had a gun pressed to their head or a blade tip to their heart. This was a lot like a compressed or instantaneous version of that. It affected them before they were even aware of it on a conscious level.

To repeat, this was the same shock that people felt with a gun pressed to their head or a blade to their heart.

And in that state, people would obviously obey any instructions they were given instead of just standing still.

(But this is an awfully long-lasting example of shadow binding. This kind of trick was always the favorite of Asagao since she doesn’t fight directly.)

He was impressed, but his goal was still to end this without losing his former students or the Shirazaya twins.

Unfortunately, he did not have it in him to focus on anything more than that. He had set some things up on the way here, so now he only had to make the decision.

He gave a tug on a long, long piece of fishing line.

As soon as a Fierce Fang was dislodged from the wall, it finished severing a power cable there and the entire windowless floor was plunged into inky darkness.

This was a stock exchange where billions of yen were moved around in transactions made at a rate of ten thousand a second, so they were bound to have backup power. The darkness would last two or three minutes at the absolute longest, but that was enough to engage in a battle without anyone else seeing it.

He ignored all of the presences moving far too obviously in the darkness. A professional ninja would not be that easy to detect. Those were the ordinary VIPs.

He pulled out a new kunai in each hand and leaped more than ran on top of the office desks and reinforced glass booth dividers to take the shortest route toward his students.

The ability to move as easily in darkness as in light was the most basic skill for and true essence of a ninja.

For example, there was an ancient technique of holding your ninja sword’s scabbard out ahead and slowly walking. By feeling the wall before you ran into it, you could quietly avoid it. And if you came across a person, you could finish them off with a thrust of the blade before they could cause a scene.

Sugiyado Souha did something similar here.

By paying careful attention, he could see small flashing lights similar to starlight. Those were the sparks of static electricity that were especially common with long hair. If he focused on what mattered, he could tell where the kunoichis were.

He attacked as if jumping down on them from directly above.

The entire space had gone dark, but he definitely felt the pressure of two gazes looking up at him.

“Sound.”

“Smell.”

Hanasawa Bara and Nantou Hoozuki kindly explained how they had done it. Then multiple blades intersected. Bara used her hair guns made from the solenoid coils woven into her ringlet curls. The darts she fired were designed to confuse people in a non-visual environment by producing ultrasonic waves with the special grooves carved into them. The sound was similar to a dog whistle and the weapon was known as Ringing Ears.

Hoozuki used a combination cross shuriken given plenty of force by placing it between the tires of her folded-up off-road motorcycle in a process similar to a pitching machine. She was using an engine, but by padding it on the level of a gun’s silencer, she had eliminated almost all the sound.

Their dual attacks crashed into his thrown air pressure kunai in midair, sending orange sparks everywhere. For a brief moment, that blossom in the dark burned the ninjas’ beautiful outlines into his retinas like with a camera’s flash.

(I only threw it with my arm muscles. That isn’t enough for a direct competition with Bara and Hoozuki’s powered weapons!!)

He accepted his disadvantage here.

If he was going to give up just because he did not have the upper hand, he never would have come here in the first place.

(Hoozuki’s attacks can break the sound barrier and Bara’s coilgun can reach Mach 7.5 when she uses the max power of her Final Cannon using depleted uranium alloy. …But what does that matter? I have nothing to fear from a projectile that won’t hit me!!)

He landed and rolled to the side while pulling a kunai from his lower back. He heard a roar of air in response. They too had move to the side, so their paths were drawing a large circle.

There were plenty of simple ways of peeling back the veil of darkness, like anti-personnel radar and IR goggles. Hoozuki in particular could install all sorts of gadgets on Countless Calamities. But Sugiyado concluded that was not the case here. Using the simple enhancements of a machine made you susceptible to disturbance and deception tactics using chaff or flares. He doubted they would rely on something like that in a once-in-a-lifetime battle.

(In the end, they’ll rely on their own senses. That much won’t change.)

There was no obvious exchange of words at this point. Naming yourself before battle could be left to the combat-obsessed samurai who did not have to hide themselves. That could be handled once you had won and secured your safety.

The girls had not forgotten his teachings.

Ironically, that was what made them such a great threat here.

(I should target Hoozuki first. Because she uses that off-road bike as a giant launching gadget, I can get it to destroy itself by lodging a Fierce Fang in there and messing with the transfer of force. Bara detects her target via sound, so the loud noise should affect her more. I can use that to deal with her.)

Bara and Hoozuki could both fight on the level of a tank or fighter craft when at full power, but that destructive force and penetrative power could work against them too. Their job here was to acquire the Shogunate’s unofficial classified data hidden in the financial transaction server, so they could not afford to destroy that device with a stray shot before their work was complete.

(Then again, I’m in similar situation myself since my Fierce Fangs can be used against tanks, but I can’t afford to hurt my cute students with them.)

They had to be finishing their calculations on how to get at him too. After all, ninja battles rarely lasted long. The very next move would change things significantly.

Yet he was interrupted by something else.

It came from his earphone.

“Yellow Dragon 00 to all units.”

(Hm? Is that Guren or Suiren???)

“We cannot find Advisor at the base of the building designated as our rendezvous point. I repeat, we have lost track of Advisor.”

They played by the rules far too much.

He considered risking a transmission during the confusion to invent some reason why he was running late, but things took a turn for the worse.

“All units, please prepare for the worst. We must assume Advisor was attacked like last time, so put together a search team immediately. Select personnel from White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, and Vermilion Bird Units and follow the path Advisor is thought to have followed.”

“I will continue to the rooftop to secure the sniper there while Guren joins the search team. We must fulfill our allotted roles. Armored samurai, it is time for the combat you so love.”

He thought not just his throat but his lungs had gone dry. At this rate, they would make it in here. Even if they did not think this was the true target, they might search all of the nearby buildings just to be thorough.

That cut off any hope of escape for Hanasawa Bara and Nantou Hoozuki.

What would happen if they were surrounded by multiple armored samurai?

With Gatling guns, grenade launchers, and rocket launchers, those warriors were embodiments of firepower, so if they pushed in en masse, even his Elite Ninja students could be overpowered and turned to mincemeat. It was not an issue of strength; this was an entirely different type of combat.

He had no time.

(It would be quicker if I did something, but that would arouse suspicion. A call from me is a card I can only play once, so I don’t want to use it up right away.)

He had to make a decision.

He changed direction in the darkness and jabbed his elbow in the gut of a wandering civilian guard to swiftly knock him unconscious.

His goal was the radio in the guard’s hand.

He made sure to spray a borrowed bottle of deodorant onto the microphone to alter his voice on the transmission before sending it out on the standard guard frequency that anyone could pick up.

“Alert, alert! Wires and a glass bottle spotted near Exit A4. It appears to be an acid bomb, so don’t touch it!! Even environmental suits can be melted through with aqua regia or hydrofluoric acid!!”

That would stop the armored samurai. Their banana-thick fingers were not suited for precise work and, as well-protected against explosive blasts and bullets as they were, they should feel an almost superstitious fear of chemical corrosion.

The back entrance would garner suspicion and everyone, including the bomb squad, would focus on it, but that was fine.

“We will be activating the ventilation ducts in preparation for the worst, so stay clear of the ventilation ports on the outside walls! Acidic gas could escape from there, so you’ll be killed if you’re close by!!”

Needless to say, those ducts would be Bara and Hoozuki’s escape route. No one would want to check inside there until the presence of an acid bomb had been completely refuted.

Now he only had to take one more step into danger.

He moved up alongside his students in the dark and whispered one quick comment to them.

“Do what is necessary if you want to survive this.”

He could not stay long, so he resumed moving from shadow to shadow.

“(Sensei, why?)”

“(Stop, Bara. Not now!)”

He heard whispered voices in the darkness, but he did not stay any longer.

After slipping out of the dealing room, he discarded the radio.

It did not matter if it was discovered the acid bomb was a ruse as long as it was not revealed who had sent the message. And he had a bigger issue to worry about now.

(I need to invent a reason why I entered this building and I need to let them know I’m safe before they complete their search of the inside.)

His excuse had to be good enough to save him here and preserve his spot on the investigation team. He had to leave them with as few suspicions as possible.

Once out in the hallway, he tugged on the long fishing line to recover the air-pressure kunai he had used for the blackout trap. Then he escaped to the emergency stairs. He was mostly focused on his earphone as he made another transmission, but as himself this time. He put together a few different response patterns in his head because he could not afford a mistake here.

“This is Advisor. Can you hear me, Yellow Dragon 00!”

“Yellow Dragon 00 here. Where are you?”

“In the stock exchange across the street. My route was cut off by their line of fire and I couldn’t make any further progress that way, so I decided to climb atop a nearby building to pursue the sniper on the rooftop level. Play the rest of this by ear!”

“Are you sure you can do that on your own? How do you plan to deal with the sniper even if you do reach the roof?”

They were weirdly worried for him and it was nothing but a nuisance at the moment. He simply had to interpret it as them treating him with care instead of suspecting him.

“We aren’t being targeted with an anti-materiel rifle in the middle of the desert. The range of a sniper rifle in an urban environment full of buildings, is only 100-150m. Meanwhile, the world record with hand-thrown weapons is more than 200m. I could actually hit them using a curved parabolic arc and they could do the same if we’re talking about Ouka’s unrifled Midnight Tempest. She forcibly stabilizes her sniper shots with dart-like fletching, so we’re on even footing here!”

“But…”

“I’m not going for a headshot here. I can use a random downpour of blades to pin Ouka on the rooftop while the rest of you climb to her position as planned. This won’t last forever, so I’m only holding your target in place for you. The sooner you secure the sniper, the less time I have to spend being viewed through their multi-purpose sight!”

“Understood. But you need to provide a report on this afterwards.”

“Gladly, if I live to do so. I’m ending this transmission.”

He had arrived at the rooftop.

He threw open the metal door and looked around.

The entire story about a rooftop sniper had been a bluff meant to get him away from Shirazaya Guren and Suiren’s watchful eyes, so he was not going to find Kuhou Ouka up here. And if they found no one up here after he made such a fuss about it, the samurai would likely force him and the twin sisters to take responsibility for the blunder.

But he could not offer them the real Hanasawa Bara and Nantou Hoozuki in the stock exchange either.

At this rate, they would hold an indiscriminate search of the financial district and his four students would be found. That would undoubtedly lead to bloodshed and that was not what he wanted.

He had to get Guren and Suiren to back down as soon as possible.

And he had to get Ouka’s group to give up on the stock exchange server.

What did he need to get both sides to spontaneously back off without anything appearing unnatural? What did he have to do? He wracked his brains in the short time he had.

(That’s the only option.)

After focusing himself so hard it seemed to take years off his life, he looked up once more.

He had reached a conclusion.

(Guren and Suiren are on official duty here. Soldiers will withdraw if they take an unexpected level of damage.)

He breathed in and out.

(Ouka’s group is doing all this to preserve the honor of someone other than themselves. If they lose that person before their very eyes, they will lose any reason to keep going.)

Was that really the right answer?

Was he wrong about this?

He put his thoughts to words as if checking over every little thing in his head.

(I’m on the investigation team and I’m those girls’ teacher, so both sides will quickly withdraw if I die in some spectacular way.)

8: Handmade Diversionary Tactics

There was an etiquette to faking your own death. The most important rule was to prevent anyone from confirming the presence of a corpse until your objective was complete.

If this was an oceanside cliff or a volcanic crater, he would only have to jump in…or throw in a doll disguised as him. But the corpse would not disappear after jumping from a building rooftop. They would quickly check the surface and discover it was a lie.

Which meant…

(I need something that blows up the entire rooftop. It needs to be as flashy as possible. I’m a bit worried on the intelligence front since I’ve been away from those twins, but whether or not I’m going to return to them later on, I need to sow confusion right now.)

Modern buildings had industrial air conditioning units, power transformers, and water heaters installed on the roof. If they shoved all that in the basement, the building would burn from the bottom up if something malfunctioned and no one inside could escape, but if the fire started at the top, the number of casualties would be greatly reduced. That meant he only had to tamper with the gas pipes a little to give him what he wanted.

The problem was explaining who had blown him up and why. Needless to say, he would be framing them for a crime they did not commit.

He had caused enough trouble for Kuhou Ouka’s group already with the nonexistent sniper story, so he did not want to make it even worse. If he took it too far, it could rob his students a chance at returning to their positions as Elite Ninjas.

That meant he had to prepare a different candidate.

(Dammit, I guess I’ll have to get their help with this.)

Some frustration entered his emotions, but his rational mind made a quick decision.

The metal pipe leading to the industrial water heater did not have any kind of valve, so he was forced to pull out a Fierce Fang and stab the tip in to create a small hole. He did not even need to pry it open with the nitrogen. He heard an ominous whistling sound and a unique stench reached his nose. He could sense it clearly even through the scarf.

(This uses city gas instead of propane, so it’s lighter than air. I’ll need to cover it with a sheet or something to gather up enough gas.)

While making that assessment, he spotted a small plastic greenhouse for a home garden on one corner of the roof.

That was when someone else arrived.

The entire rooftop seemed to shake from the weight of all that armor forming a silhouette more like a carnivorous dinosaur than a human.

The standard army grade samurai armor could not fly, but it also looked too large to have fit through the doors all the way up here.

That left just one option.

“Did you use your precious artificial muscles to climb the wall? Not that that means a thing about your own muscles.”

“I don’t care who I’m up against; I just want to get some exercise and fight a real fight. I’m only willing to put up with all these pain-in-the-ass odd jobs if I get a firefight afterwards as a reward.”

The monster with a samurai family crest emblazoned on his chest spoke with a creaking from his giant jaws.

“So what the hell’s all this? I don’t see any sign of the rumored sniper firing on us and I’m detecting the scent of an unnatural gas. …Should I assume this means you’re my reward? As a paper target, I mean.”

Sugiyado Souha did not respond.

More than that, he was honestly relieved. If Guren or Suiren had shown up first, he could not have looked them in the eye.

If he was spotted, he had to do this.

That much was certain.

The worst possible version of that would have been if he had been forced to silence one of those innocent twins.

So.

As long as that was not the case…

“Oh?”

The armored samurai finally noticed something was amiss. His datalink to the other samurai had been silently severed.

There was no need to hide it now.

Sugiyado Souha slowly reached to his back and pulled an air-pressure kunai from below his untucked short-sleeved dress shirt.

There was no need for fear.

Ninjas never played fair. They were generally ordered to find a solution when all hope seemed lost. Their techniques had been polished to the point of earning the name Strategic Martial Arts and they were designed to be used in a dire situation. He found himself in such a situation now and that was the only thing on his mind as he faced that great mass of military weaponry.

“A smokescreen full of metal powder, huh? Scattering aluminum powder to cut off my communications counts as throwing down the gauntlet, right? Were you hoping for a one-on-one duel?”

“If you’re going to name yourself, then hurry it up. I’ll go along with it, but I see no value in that tradition.”

“Hah! I have no name so worthless I’d give it to a lowly gofer like you. Besides, what’s even the point of a male ninja?”

“…?”

“The shogunate takes ‘golden’ kids, poor kids, and kids with certain connections and trains them, but those kunoichis are never worth keeping around in battle. But I do think I can see why those perverts at the top are willing to invest so much money into them.”

“…”

A clear change came over the type of silence coming from Sugiyado.

But the soul protected by thick armor and great firepower failed to notice.

“I mean, they’re creating a bunch of professional ‘women’ who’ve had all proof of citizenship erased. I’d love to know how they’re being trained and what they can do for you with that training! Gya ha, gya ha ha!! Come to think of it, you instructed some of them, didn’t you? Did you get to try them out ahead of everyone else!? How was it? I bet you’re glad you get a taste before they’re all wrapped up and sent to the higher ups! Gya ha, gya ha ha ha ha!!”

The samurai’s crude laughter continued without end, but then he heard something odd.

The dried lips in front of him had moved to form certain words.

“Yes. I am glad.”

That berserker, who had lost his human form inside that thick armor, must not have known what those words meant even in the very end.

Sugiyado Souha’s brain felt like it was on fire, so the words slipped out of him.

“I am so glad you aren’t a good person. Now I can silence you without feeling any guilt whatsoever.”

9: Heavy Body, Heavy User

That special combat unit was called Samurai Armor Mk. III – Mountain Beast.

All the necessary armor and motors had been added on atop the human body. That had “just so happened” to make them enormous and it had been declared a success. The wearer’s flesh and blood had gone through a unique change to endure the internal pressure and overall weight, so their body had completely fused with the artificial muscles on the armor’s interior surface and any overhauls or updates to the device literally required major surgery. The armor was not simply removed; it had to be cut off and peeled away. There was no dividing line between flesh and steel and it was the exterior armor panels that divided inside from outside. That was how dedicated they were to combat. Those obsessed freaks had started to forget that they were even human. Protecting their family’s honor and displaying valor in combat was only an excuse at this point.

Those berserkers had so fused with their armor that there were urban legends saying they would produce flesh and steel children if they were to reproduce.

According to their specs, those monsters could instantly move their 600kg weight at speeds exceeding 250km/h. Their bodies had enough power to level buildings and they were also equipped with weapons of war such as Gatling guns and grenade launchers.

Meanwhile, his opponent was a washed-up ninja who could not even carry a 10kg bag.

“Is this some kinda joke? Well?” growled the armored samurai while towering above the boy like a carnivorous dinosaur.

He carefully observed the air-pressure kunai that Sugiyado Souha held.

“Did you think you could dance around my attacks because I’m a big lumbering beast? Well, think again. Do you have any idea how many sensors and radars I’ve got in this thing!? Throw that toy at 10 times the speed of sound and I’ll still shoot it down with 100% accuracy!! Meanwhile, a skinbag like you has no hope of dodging my very first shot!!!!!!”

With heavy metallic sounds, the Gatling gun and grenade launcher on his shoulder took precise aim.

Lasers and microwaves had already accurately located his target. No matter what the boy did, he was doomed to be mincemeat.

And yet.

Nevertheless.

It was a captivating sight.

By the time the ninja flipped through the air, he had already fully dodged the Gatling gun barrage.

“Wha-?”

This was not possible.

This went beyond misjudging the distance with the naked eye. The boy was being tracked and automatically targeted with radars and lasers superior to human senses. Missing even once would have been surprise enough, but the machinegun sprayed 6000 rounds a minute without a single one hitting.

“What the- this thing doesn’t need to be defragged, does it!?”

The armored samurai fired the Gatling gun again, but it could not keep up with Sugiyado Souha as he ran right to left in a circle around his foe. His speed was not even the issue here. The targeting reticle could not keep up and the original lock could not be maintained.

(What? That chaff he used doesn’t explain this. He must have some other way of messing with my sensors.)

Then the samurai noticed something sparkling in the light of the setting sun.

“Water spray? Is that the sprinkler for the home garden!?”

Water could reflect radar waves and obstruct lasers. In fact, weather maps used more than just satellite photos; they also used a weather station’s doppler radar to measure the distribution of clouds.

However, pure raindrops would not fully incapacitate a radar.

Fortunately, this was a home garden. It contained chemical fertilizer and other agrochemicals. Mix those in with the sprinkler and the water might gain some extra effects.

But understanding how it worked did not present a solution.

It would be a bad idea for Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, or Shizukuma Asagao to take on a fully-equipped armored samurai head on.

But things were different for this boy who had been eliminated from the list of Elite Ninjas when he became a Hidden One.

After performing a flip to dodge the ferocious storm of lead, he landed and raced across the roof. He could not be hit by the wild gunfire of the armored samurai whose targeting system had been neutralized.

Meanwhile, the armored samurai sensed no real danger in the boy’s approach.

His guns did not work on the boy, but so what? That was not his only weapon. He still had free use of his 600kg body that could move at speeds greater than 250km/h. His fist alone possessed the power to break down a reinforced concrete building. If the puny human moved too close, he was the one who would be turned to mincemeat.

True, the samurai’s sensors could not get a solid lock, but that just meant he had to use an attack that did not require a mechanical lock. He would aim by eye and kill that exposed flesh that was getting cocky after taking out just one or two cards in the samurai’s deck.

Thick, heavy metal blades extended from the index and middle fingers of that mass of artificial muscle’s right hand. They were a katana and a wakizashi. Those true samurai weapons could cut right through a bank vault door.

“I’ll slice your spine in two!!”

The attack scorched the surrounding air with friction. A flesh-and-blood human had no chance of dodging or defending against this deadly attack.

Nevertheless, the samurai man clearly saw the ninja holding a Fierce Fang air-pressure kunai in each hand and wrapping them around his attack with a spiraling motion.

Before even seeing the result, he was strangely certain that he had screwed this up.

Then his vision flipped around.

At 600kg, that mass of special steel rivaled a bulletproof European car, but he was twirled as easily as a baton.

“Wait, what!?”

Sugiyado had not touched the blades or the armor. The air-pressure kunais’ cartridges had burst and disturbed the air current produced by the blades. Since none of the weight bore down on him, the 10kg weight limit did not show itself here. Yes, that limit was only in theory.

Using those swords had been a mistake.

The samurai could have flailed his arms like a small child to crush that squishy flesh and those brittle bones. He would not even have needed to know any martial arts. But by drawing those swords, he had allowed his enemy to predict their path. When swung at such high speeds, the blades were greatly influenced by the air, so a change there had twisted the samurai’s arm and thrown his entire body around like an airplane flying through turbulence.

Still, was this really possible?

Most modern martial arts were divided into different weight classes because differences in size could be used as a weapon. There were legends of people killing bears or tigers with older martial arts designed for use in actual combat, but the true masters who could accomplish that were few and far between. And most of those were exaggerations made by people hoping to become a legend.

Yet this boy had not hesitated to stand up to a carnivorous dinosaur made of armor and artificial muscles.

Facing a powerful foe required precise movements without the slightest mistake, but that was a lot like performing a tightrope walk between tall buildings. The more it was necessary, the more people’s bodies would freeze up with fear and excitement.

This was a monster.

This boy was a monster.

The armored samurai barely had time to realize that before Sugiyado Souha twisted around and threw multiple Fierce Fangs. They flew true toward the gaps in the joints at the neck and along the torso. They had only been thrown with his physical strength, so they could not pierce through. Only the very tip lightly lodged itself in the gap.

But did you forget about the 600kg weight of that armored samurai? That was twice the weight of a man-eating tiger.

And it was falling.

The Fierce Fangs were caught between the ground and the samurai, so they could not escape that pressure. They were driven further and deeper in. They tore through everything in the way to move from the joint gap and inside the special combat unit.

Just like someone stepping on a rusty nail sticking out of an old board.

“Agwah!? Bwah, gbeh! Ggbgegh!!”

The samurai could only produce a distorted voice and he could no longer get up, suggesting some crucial artificial muscles or nerves had been severed.

“Here’s a lesson for you.” Sugiyado Souha did not bat an eye. “The kunai was not created as a projectile weapon. It’s a ninja tool meant to dig into dirt, snow, or whatever else.”

This time, that “whatever else” was the samurai’s armored body. The kunais played their role perfectly, just like they were digging a hole in a garden.

“W-wipe that smug look off your face. We’re not so different, you know!”

“…”

“You ninjas aren’t fighting without assistance either! You couldn’t! Human strength isn’t enough to throw a 600kg weight through the air! I bet you’re wearing one of those spider silk ninja outfits below your clothes. This is all thanks to the program-controlled assistance of those chemical winches made from a high-polymer water-absorbing gel and those electric-potential-elastic belt cylinders. It all comes down to tech! It’s all about the compatibility between branches of the military! Don’t act so tough just because your spring-loaded rock beat my scissors!!”

But the broken dinosaur’s words ended there.

The boy crouched down and collected something: the buttons that had popped off of his short-sleeved dress shirt during all his vigorous movement. As he did, the shirt fluttered open in front of the stabbed samurai.

There was nothing there.

Not a single piece of technological enhancement.

“A-are you- wait- are you kidding me?”

It was all pure martial arts.

This boy had polished it beyond a tactical level to reach a strategic level. He was one of the Hidden Ones who existed outside the standard ninja ranking system and whose total numbers were unknown. Skills like his were known as “ballistic stealth” because sending him overseas would have political meaning on the level of launching a ballistic missile.

“Are we done here?”

“You had nothing? You really destroyed my Mountain Beast with nothing but your body? Are you kidding me!? I have my honor to preserve!!”

“Are we done here?”

He slowly repeated himself as if to end all of this.

Someone with their family crest emblazoned on his chest desperately continued speaking. He might as well have been begging for his life now.

“Do you have any idea who I am!? You won’t get away with treating me like this!”

“Stop. I thought you had no name so worthless you would give it to a lowly gofer like me.”

That exasperated comment stopped that someone’s words. He had lost the ability to resist even verbally.

The items Sugiyado Souha held were not just traditional digging implements.

Those air-pressure kunais were a combination of instant nitrogen foam and a device used to pry open bent doors. By adjusting the time limit using the dial on the grip, they could trigger 15 tons of force, enough to pry open a tank’s hatch and break the lock. These were handmade tools that would blow off the fingers of anyone else who tried to use them and he had never submitted the design to anyone, including the Shogunate.

Everything he had done was for his adorable students.

But once that wolf threw off all the chains binding him and bared his true fangs and claws, this was what he could accomplish.

With his mouth hidden behind his large scarf, he made one final statement.

“You can go to your grave without anyone knowing your name, monster.”

A moment later, the old wolf’s fangs shredded the flesh of that fat pig from within.

10: Pure and Impure

It was all over.

But there never had been a sniper and the scene now contained the dismembered corpse of a samurai who had been monstrous but held a legitimate position in the Shogunate. Everything was going to fall apart at this rate. Sugiyado had to do something and fast. Disturbing the investigation from the twins’ side would have to wait.

(They would have suspected something if I disappeared on my own, but with one of those powerful armored samurai dead, they’ll just assume we were up against someone not even I could handle.)

That enemy would have to be someone with enough firepower to obliterate an armored samurai to the point that the cause of death could not be determined. Not even Ouka could manage that.

But there was someone else who was the perfect candidate for that. Someone who everyone would think of and who everyone would accept as the culprit.

While continuing his work on the gas explosion, he manually dialed a number he had erased from his phone.

“John, are you free right now? I’d like to ask you a favor.”

“I can make time for this. I was wondering how long you were going to make me wait before I could repay you for that old debt. Now, what do you need from this bored knight who was given a court rank by our lovely queen?”

“Please. I’m about to set off one hell of an alarm clock, so can you knights take the blame for me? If it’s known the Kingdom did this, they won’t be suspicious when they find one of their armored samurai was blown up.”

Chapter 4

1: It Refuses to Fade to Sepia

His final mission had been a lot more complex than most everyone thought. After all, it began with the Shogunate and the Kingdom competing to be the first to kill some terrorists, but eventually ended with him being pursued by both the samurai and knights while he tried to protect a small queen of only 10 years old.

It all started with the queen studying abroad in the Dejima-like New Yokohama Domain.

But a faction that wanted to extend those Dejima-like rules onto the mainland threatened the Shogunate with a letter written using the queen’s forged handwriting and took over a university on the island. However, they failed, their deception was discovered, and they had no choice but to hole up on the campus where the queen happened to be.

That faction was quickly suppressed and it looked like the incident was at an end.

But that was only the beginning.

It came down to a series of truly bizarre events, but the Shogunate’s armored samurai and the Kingdom’s armored knights worked hard to thoroughly slaughter that criminal group with their extraordinary firepower. Like some kind of sick military exercise held in the presence of the queen, they seemed to compete to see who could reduce more enemies to mincemeat as if that would earn her favor. Not only that, but they competed to see who could reach the small queen first and worked to obstruct each other, creating a devastating firefight on what should have been an enemy-less battlefield.

She was, after all, the queen of the Kingdom, one of the world’s most powerful nations.

Despite their isolationist policies, the Shogunate officials wanted a diplomatic contact point, and the Kingdom’s military officials were desperate to earn the distinction of having protected their queen. The samurai and knights below the officials went berserk in their attempt to prove their valor in battle. From top to bottom, it was utter chaos, like a game of ultra-heavyweight beach flags where steel and gunpowder blossomed. They were all supposedly working to protect the queen, but no one there was paying any attention to whether or not their stray shots would hit her or their steel feet would trample her slender body.

You would almost have thought they were more interested in retrieving her corpse – or a small piece of it – and bringing it back to their country for some kind of reward. It was like watching people who so revered the blood and bones of the saints that they started physically grappling over their relics.

And for those who wanted to do the Kingdom a favor to create a solid diplomatic connection, maybe that really was enough.

They all obeyed the righteousness and desire within themselves by grabbing for that soft flag with such strength they were bound to crush the life out of it, but very few actually managed to reach the queen.

From the Kingdom, only a knight named John Kniferidge.

From the Shogunate, only a Hidden One named Sugiyado Souha.

One used extraordinary armor and the other used an extraordinary blade.

When Sugiyado saw that 10-year-old queen in the greatest danger of her life due to so many people working to “rescue” her, why had he decided to intervene in a major world event even if it meant betraying his own country? No, why had he decided to protect that small life?

He could not put to words exactly why the scales of his heart had tilted in that direction.

But he felt it had been worth it.

That close yet distant neighbor had said she loved this country built atop outdated isolationist policies and that she had moved there to study abroad so she could learn more about it. That girl had held such an awkward, immature, and flawed ideal in her heart. But as wild as he had been at the time, he had decided she was worth fighting to protect even if it meant betting his entire life on it.

It had ended in a draw.

He had successfully protected the queen, but he had been stripped of his wings as a result.

Yes, because a true monster had shown itself there.

2: The View from Outside His World

The sun set and night had fallen, yet a different, irritatingly bright sun had risen to the deck of a tanker anchored out at sea.

“Hello, honored guest!! I hear you have yet again been brought to tears by some lovely ladies. You never change, Mr. Greatest Ninja!! Hah hah!!”

A blond man, who would seem more at home with a soda than tea and who looked more like an American football player than a British gentleman, greeted Sugiyado Souha with booming laughter. He appeared to be wearing a leather jacket over a thick jumpsuit, but that was not technically accurate. It was based off of a flight suit designed to withstand a high-g environment.

Sugiyado sighed.

“You never change either. And thanks for the replacement buttons. The Kingdom’s maids are on a whole other level.”

“Enough flattery. I’ve heard from our Tuxedos how dangerous your kunoichis are.”

The boy showed off his short-sleeved dress shirt with new buttons sewn on.

“Did you cover up the evidence like I asked?”

“Don’t you underestimate my armor. This stuff is so much nicer than those ugly things the cowards in the Shogunate threw together.”

The large blond man winked and tapped some polished armor with the back of his hand. It stood 2 or 3 meters tall. It barely fell into the category of something that was “worn” rather than “piloted” and it was the source of the Kingdom’s high firepower.

That knight’s armor was known as Claiomh Solais.

It was technically categorized as a fortress-class mobile powered suit.

Compared to the samurai’s dinosaur-like combat units, these retained more of a human shape. They were made of beautiful silver armor and a large-caliber railgun designed like a lance. The designers had clearly had some fun with it beyond simply pursuing practicality. It was said that many other countries would attack Japan in order to steal the isolationist country’s technology, but some were better at it than others. The Kingdom was five or even ten steps ahead of everyone else in this particular field.

Although their biggest flaw was the purely military focus of their technology that gave them nothing to give back to the people.

This ship looked like a rundown tanker, but it was actually a disguised carrier ship for this one device.

The other machines standing further back where unmanned musketeers connected to the knight with a datalink, so this was quite the reception.

“As requested, I used this bad boy to scrub that stock exchange’s roof clean, like I was scratching off a lottery ticket. They’ll assume I killed that armored samurai and you will be considered missing in action.”

“Thanks.”

“It’s fine, it’s fine! I was excited being deployed to the Far East, but I didn’t have much to do here. Now if I’m being honest, I would have loved to continue enjoying this ocean cruise while getting to know the maids better, but if I don’t show some results every once in a while, they’ll send one of those damn inspectors here. In that sense, I should be thanking you. The honor of killing a samurai was exactly what I needed, so don’t worry about it.” John laughed. “Oh, right. You should really speak with Queen Violia about this later. I’ll prepare a secure line for you. If you don’t explain what really happened, I might just be charged with the crime of killing an honored guest.”

“Oh, god. Not that little thing.”

“She’s not so little anymore; her figure is starting to fill out. And in exchange, she seems awfully irritable once a month. Now, I don’t know what her exact cycle is, so you just need to pray you aren’t catching her at that time of month today.”

Once inside the tanker’s pilothouse, they used a satellite link to call up “that little thing” who was finally developing secondary sex characteristics. Once she heard what the Asian had to say, she puffed out her soft-looking cheeks.

“How could they do such a thing? This might just mean war.”

“No. No, it does not. What happened to that transfer student who advocated love and peace?”

“Anyone would give up on that after being pursued by a true monster like you Hidden Ones. Besides, I think it was what you two did that helped me mature most of all.”

The footage was unsteady, so she must have been walking around while holding a phone or tablet. She wore a fancy, shoulder-baring dress with a long skirt that spread out like an umbrella and she cheekily held the camera overhead to maintain her best angle.

“I’m acting based on careful thought here, so please don’t make a mess of my plans by wielding the long arm of a powerful nation,” said Sugiyado. “That will just mean another mess I have to clean up in secret.”

“Says the person who essentially rummaged through the armor decorating my mansion’s lobby. Still, I never thought that I would be hearing more about that incident now, even if it did create an eternal bond between us.”

“Yeah, neither did I.”

“Also, I never knew there was more to that incident we weren’t aware of. It feels like it sullies what I thought was our own lovely story. Yes, war is sounding better all the time. Maybe I should bring down that broadcast tower, the…New Yokohama Aeromonolith, was it?”

“Did I choose the wrong way to solve that problem back then!? Is this some form of delayed divine punishment!?”

He could not help but look fondly back on “that little thing” who had tugged on his clothes and called him “Nii-sama” based on some weird interpretation of Japanese culture she had picked up somewhere.

“Also, why are you so full of energy? There’s a time difference of more than 10 hours between our countries, so what are you doing up and moving around?”

“Oh, nothing. I just have somewhere I need to be, you silly fool.”

“Hm? Wait, please tell me I’m just being paranoid!”

She told him no such thing.

“I’m right heeeere☆”

Small arms hugged him from behind.

He had never expected her to make a surprise visit to the front line of the technological conflict between armored samurai and armored knights.

“I detected the repulsive odor of a dangerous conspiracy much like back then, so I decided to take a quick trip halfway around the globe with a ramjet engine. You should really praise me for being so worried for your wellbeing.”

Sugiyado Souha snapped not at the head of state but at her bodyguard knight.

“Are you insane!? Wipe that grin off your face!! Have you completely forgotten what happened in this country just a few years ago!?”

“Like I had a choice. The Kingdom is an absolute monarchy that believes in the divine right of kings. Parliament is just for show, so if the true head of the nation says to do something, then you’re playing strip rock-paper-scissors, dancing in the nude, or doing whatever else she asked of you. In this case, I had to put together and host a ninja tour for her.”

“Hey, honored guest, the queen of an entire country has risked her life to come play with you, so stop being shy,” said the queen in question. “Shouldn’t you be crumpling up your face and turning on the waterworks?”

“Oh, god. You really have changed, haven’t you!?”

“What, did you like me better the way I was? If you weren’t an honored guest, I would be pinching my skirt and stomping on you for that lack of decorum, but have it your way. I am prepared to comply with your perverted demands, Nii-sama.”

“Oh, shut up! Why don’t you realize that’s the problem right there!?”

He made the queen laugh while she intentionally peered up at him from below – which meant she was giving him a glimpse of her growing chest. When he shouted back at her to avoid some dishonorable false charges, something fell out of his pocket.

It was a long, skinny snack food wrapped like a piece of hard candy.

“Hm? What is this? …E-extra-hard Happy Churn???”

It truly was a stupendous product. He had snuck a few into his pocket when he saw an opening, but they had actually retained their beautiful oblong shape without breaking during all that intense fighting. Bravo, Happy Churn. They had not abandoned this ninja.

“Hold on, honored guest,” cut in John. “Do you have any idea how risky it was to bring unbreakable, and thus portable, Happy Churn out to sea like this!? Did you sell your soul to the devil on Dejima!? Is this really safe!? Gulp.”

“N-now, now. I am a forgiving queen, so if a commoner is offering me a gift, I would be willing to accept it to further our diplomatic and personal bonds. So hand it over. Yes, hand it over. (Glance, glance)”

“N-no, this isn’t a gift!”

Sugiyado tried to argue his case, but no one was listening.

He was saved by the disguised carrier ship’s communications technician.

The man pressed one side of the headphones to one ear as he turned back toward them. His gaze was on John instead of the little girl, so he may have decided it would be rude to speak directly to the queen without going through his superior officer first.

“We have received a report, Count. We have intercepted a radio transmission from the New Yokohama artificial island. After decrypting it, we found some information related to the honored guest.”

“Provide a summary.”

“Yes, sir.”

After speaking that word which carried a different weight when directed at a noble with a real court rank, the communications technician did as requested.

“Four ninjas who deserted from the local military have acquired some information at the New Yokohama Stock Exchange. They appear to be using that classified data to make some kind of deal with the higher ups. It is effectively blackmail.”

Sugiyado slapped a hand against his forehead.

“I warn them so much and those morons still feel the need to open that can of worms!?”

Now the Shogunate would be unable to back down even if they wanted to. They would be unable to rest until they had caught up to Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao and received their four heads on a platter.

Worse, this blackmail method meant they had ultimately failed to extract the shogunate data they had wanted from that stock exchange server. At most, they had found the proverbial lizard’s tail of that final mission. In poker terms, this was a bluff meant to apply pressure to an opponent. Yet they had placed their own lives on the scales in the process.

And it was all just so they could reclaim Sugiyado Souha’s life.

They had no proof at all that he was still alive, but they clung to the hope that he was and continued down the hopeless bloody path they had set for themselves.

“Could they be any more stupid!?”

“Don’t say that. This shows how much they care about you. Enough to trust for no reason that you would never die.” John chuckled and casually slapped Sugiyado’s shoulder. “We have been monitoring the situation ourselves. First the theft of a modular nuclear reactor, then the abduction of a dollhouse idol, and finally hacking into the mainframe of a stock exchange. Each of them was a shocking enough case to leave its mark in the annals of crime, yet they impressively harmed zero people in the process. They’re going out of their way to preserve your reputation. There were countless easier ways to go about this, but they intentionally restricted themselves and took the long way around. All to prove that you made no mistake when training them.”

“…”

He was briefly unsure how to respond to that.

He was weak, so he ultimately dodged the issue by focusing on the job at hand.

“But the Shogunate is bound to pick up on that soon. The profilers will have noticed how blatantly they’re avoiding any casualties.”

“Probably so. So do you think they’ll go for that method next time, or maybe the time after that?”

The little girl clinging to Sugiyado’s hip pouted her lips at that.

“The Shogunate, huh? I guess declaring war would be going too far, but maybe I should load John up with bombs and send him for a pleasant cruise above their capital. The pressure might be enough to slow down their reaction speed.”

“They might decide to settle their domestic issues ASAP so they can focus on the Kingdom instead. Violia, your presence is a little too powerful to use as a wakeup call. Anything you did would make predicting their next action nigh impossible, so please stay put.”

“Boo.”

“Please, Your Majesty.”

He patted her head while she clung to the side of his hip and then he spoke to the communication technician.

“Excuse me, mister. If possible, could you provide the details of the deal my idiot students are trying to work out?”

“Yes, sir, honored guest. The local military set up the details. They will meet in the B3 indoor plaza of New Yokohama Station’s Combined Underground Mall at 7:30 tonight. All further details will be discussed then.”

“That’s less than half an hour from now.”

“Plus, this is the evening rush hour. The station is sure to be flooded with businessmen headed home from work.”

That just about settled it. Just as John had suggested, the Shogunate intended to use that method. Ouka’s group would be wiped out with no hope of defending themselves. It was not an issue of skill – their un-ninja-like warmth would trip them up.

“But I doubt Guren or Suiren would choose to do that.”

“I have a report for our honored guest. The local military on New Yokohama artificial island appears to be sending out two sets of orders. It is extremely likely that they are commanding an official unit and another unit behind the scenes.”

“So they plan to leave Guren and Suiren in the dark and let them die along with Ouka’s group? All so they can end this as quickly as possible!?”

The queen tilted her head while clinging to Sugiyado’s hip.

“Um, what exactly is the problem here?”

“Ouka’s group is not willing to take innocent lives for their objective. That much is clear from their past actions,” spat out Sugiyado. Even he had killed that armored samurai to silence him and to help Shirazaya Guren and Suiren. “So the Shogunate only has to release poison gas or a biological weapon inside the station building during the evening rush hour. Even if Ouka’s group could escape on their own, they’re bound to stop and try to help the suffering people. They’ll know saving all of them is a futile task, but they’ll still draw out every last ounce of strength from their dying bodies to save as many as possible. Goddammit!!”

3: The Boy who Watered the Girl’s Seed

She had run out of time.

That was what had led Shizukuma Asagao to enter the ninja world.

In this age, everything was a meritocracy. If you had the knowledge and skills, you could skip ahead in school or even go straight to work, but that made things all the rougher for those who could not keep up. Simply studying the core subjects and going to college was not enough to get you anywhere. This was apparently the natural result of needing to secure a working population in an isolationist nation that refused to accept foreign laborers, but Asagao did not have a good feel for the specifics of the issue.

She had always grown bored with things quickly and never stuck with anything for long.

She had been something of a prodigy, but everyone was inundated with information these days. Even if you won an award or three, you were quickly forgotten by the general public.

And with a poor connection to her family, she had been cut off from the internal cycle as well.

Unable to accomplish anything, she had let time pass until the meritocracy’s time limit had arrived.

The public institutions required her to choose further education or a job.

Either way, she would be working for the nation’s benefit. The Shogunate officials had kicked her out of the room she had optimized for a lazy life and she had been more or less forced out into the world.

“That’s a real shame. If you had worked up your courage and spoken with your parents first, they might have been willing to help you out.”

If she had not met Sugiyado Souha then – albeit over the internet – her young mind may have been diluted and washed away by the great ocean out there.

“Well, maybe we ran into each other for a reason. I’ll teach you how to get by. Although this will be like teaching a sunflower how to survive in the shade.”

After so long without any human interaction, her tongue had grown rusty. She had found it hard to speak with anyone even through a screen. At the time, she had even had trouble judging how to approach her parents and convey her thoughts to them without introducing misunderstandings, but Sugiyado Souha had been patient with her. Even though someone on his level could easily have ended the remote interview and chosen a more talented candidate.

Why are you doing so much for me?

Her words had come out in intermittent bursts and she had been unsure if she was successfully communicating her question, but he had answered her all the same.

“No real reason. I chose you because you have your own unique charm. Well, just take your time and you’ll come to realize the world isn’t as apathetic to you as you think.”

He had allowed her a connection. He had said she had her own unique charm. It had been no more than a casual comment for him.

But it had definitely saved her.

Strangely, she had not grown bored of following him. Not all of it had been fun – if anything, he had been a strict teacher – but she had never once complained. She had shown no talent in direct combat wielding a sword or shuriken, but she had not given up after finding something she could not do for the first time in her life. She had instead asked herself what she could do and she had worked hard to hold her ground. She had learned how to dig in her heels and stick with something.

When he had given her the new name of Asagao, she had thought it did not suit her.

But he had told her to start with the name and learn to become a bright flower who could smile with anyone. She had realized it was not about if the name suited her now; it was about becoming someone who the name did suit.

Once she realized his thoughts behind that, she had come to understand something else too.

She found she was capable of grasping other people’s feeling. She no longer had trouble judging her distance from them. The rust had fallen from her tongue and lips. She could approach people the way everyone else did.

He was not as close to her as her parents, but he was not as distant as an adult.

Yes, so that small girl had started to think of him like a big brother.

“Okay.”

The bob cut girl slapped her extremely small face between the hands sticking out from her baggy sleeves to refocus herself.

“I refuse to believe that was enough to kill him.”

And she gave a smile that suited her name.

“Wait for us, Sensei. We’ll save you.”

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.

5: A Battle Outside the Ranking System

To be entirely clear, the faceless ninja’s goal was not to drive back Sugiyado Souha and escape safely.

He or she needed to eliminate Kuhou Ouka and the other three on the floor below. Even if that meant putting Shirazaya Guren, Suiren, and 200,000 ordinary people in harm’s way.

So…

(I stopped the central heating, but largescale infrastructure like this is bound to have backup power. At this rate, it will turn back on and ruin everything!!)

That was the focal point of this battle.

They had to run around the large but labyrinthine central heating room while one tried to turn the power back on and the other tried to take out the backup power as well. Whoever achieved their goal first would win.

“Heh heh.”

A muffled laugh left the gasmask.

Something crawled behind them.

A moment later, Sugiyado Souha ducked his head while running. Something sliced by directly overhead and a straight diagonal line of sparks flew along the thick metal machinery next to him.

(A wire?)

His instincts told him that.

This was someone skilled enough to pull off a substitution technique by filling their coat with shape memory alloy, a high-polymer water-absorbing gel, or electric potential elastic fibers.

But his knowledge rejected that idea.

The gasmask ninja was being too careless about their own route for this place to be laid out with taut wires. Running the way they were would have gotten them tangled up in no time.

Then what was this trap strung up across the room? Steel wires too thin to see with the naked eye would be the most obvious solution, yet all he saw were…

Light and mirrors.

In other words…

“Is your Piercing Web made from laser scalpels and ultra-fine heat-resistant optical fiber!?”

As soon as he figured it out, the storm of invisible blades rushed toward him from all directions.

Several laser emitters extended from their back like octopus or squid tentacles to aim freely in any direction around them. And if these were little more than ordinary laser scalpels, they could be reflected like normal with high luminance mirrors. Yet these were still surgical tools. If they targeted the thick blood vessels in the limbs or neck, they could slice through them as easily as a normal blade, leading to heavy blood loss.

(No, I bet this was originally anti-electronic warfare equipment that overheated the ninja outfits that protect their wearer using their spider silk structure and computer-controlled adjustments.)

Cutting-edge ninja outfits could shrug off exposure to some flames, but if the heat was focused on a single point, it might be enough to destroy the computer chips.

Sugiyado could not see the IR beams.

And even if he could, his body could not keep up with a weapon that approached at the speed of light.

Unlike a normal wire, these could be switched on and off, so this enemy could move around freely without having to worry about being caught in their own trap.

That left Sugiyado with only his knowledge as the key to this fight.

He would have to read the position and angles of the laser emitters and the mirrors to predict the reflected path of the Piercing Web and dodge based on that.

“You’re pretty good!”

He did not need to respond to that praise. The two of them continued running while he threw a Fierce Fang.

Sparks immediately flew.

A laser sweeping through the air had hit the polished side of the air-pressure kunai and it had been reflected wildly. The gasmask ninja had not seen this coming, so they shrank down a bit.

It had taken more than the sparkle of the blade to do that.

The nitrogen gas used to open the kunai had locally altered the composition of the air and distorted the transmittance.

“Tch!!”

Meanwhile, Sugiyado threw a few Fierce Fangs in directions other than the gasmask ninja and used the nitrogen’s 15 tons of force to sever the wiring for the central heating’s backup power. He had remained focused on his objective. He had worked to stop the PCB9 more than ensure his own safety.

“You did that in your spare time!?”

“By the way,” he cut in. “The central heating is a very large piece of infrastructure used to manage the temperature of the entire giant underground mall. How exactly do you think it manages that?”

He changed direction and threw an air-pressure kunai to the side, still ignoring the gasmask ninja whose tentacle-like weapons were moving behind their back.

And he gave his answer.

“By consuming a hell of a lot of fuel.”

A mass of metal to his side suddenly swelled out and exploded, sending jagged metal and flames toward the gasmask ninja.

The damage to all the equipment and pipes must have allowed the central heating’s fuel to leak out.

“Aaaagh!?”

The gasmask ninja was blasted to the metal fence on the other side of the room, but Sugiyado was not going to let them escape now. He grabbed a new Fierce Fang in each hand and used the dark smoke to rush toward his target unseen.

He jabbed the tip of one Fierce Fang below their chin and pulled up to pry the gasmask from their face.

Based on his first impression of their face, this appeared to be a beautiful boy. So was the figure showing through the leather suit faked using padding?

“!?”

The assassin’s entire body visibly tensed. After all, this area was infected with his own poison gas. Even a faceless ninja would feel their throat go dry with fear.

Sugiyado hoped this would be enough to stop him.

But when he instead saw one of the tentacles moving behind the boy, he immediately stabbed his two air-pressure kunais into the side and chest of the leather suit.

“Obh!? Ugweehhhhh!!”

“Quit exaggerating. If that’s government issue, it’s spider silk and can stop a rifle bullet. But if you insist, I can open it up with my kunai’s nitrogen. Open your body up, that is. I’m honestly having trouble figuring out why I shouldn’t.”

Of course, even if the bullet could not pierce the suit, it could not fully absorb the shock and that would hit the body within.

Perhaps it was like pressing a flat-ended ruler against your stomach and trying to place your full weight on it.

“Kah, cough, cough!!”

Unable to bear it, the ninja slid down onto his butt while still leaning back against the fence.

“Th-there’s something wrong with you. This is PCB9. At your level, you must know what it can do! Breath it in and your liver stops functioning. Except it takes a full month while you watch all your skin turn yellow! How is this not freaking you the hell out!?”

“If panicking could change the reality around you, I would become a shaman who can enter trances at will.” Sugiyado sighed. “PCB9 generally enters through the mouth and gathers in your fat before the negative effects spread to your eyes and liver. So as long as you do something about the breathing part, you can survive. Just like you tried to protect yourself with that gasmask.”

“Yeah, but you destroyed-” The assassin stopped midsentence. “Hold on. You’re kidding, right?”

“I will only explain this once, so if you want to live, work your brain cells overtime to learn how to breathe. Got that?”

“What’s your price? I know you’re not going to save an enemy for nothing in return! Tell me!!”

“You will be telling me everything you know about the backup plan in case this one fails. Now, if you want to die that badly, you can pay me up front, but are you sure you want to delay this any longer?”

Chapter 5

1: A Flower Garden in the Depths of Hell

Perhaps it was fortunate that PCB9 was a poison gas and not a biological weapon that could self-replicate from a small leak, expanding the infected area indefinitely.

Sugiyado wiped up his blood and retrieved his kunais. The gas could escape when he opened the door, so he would have to go to the effort of setting up a dual-layer barrier with plastic tarps, but it was not enough to trap him in this room.

After retrieving the empty container that had holes in its side, he ground to a halt like jammed gears.

“Kh.”

(With my clothes, my gear, and the empty gas container, I’m just past my first limit. It’s probably about 6.5kg.)

At 5kg, his back felt weird. At 10kg, it exploded with pain. He could not forget that passing the next limit would mean dropping his weapons and writhing in pain regardless of his surroundings.

(But I’m not there yet!)

“H-hey,” said the former gasmask ninja with a stiff smile. “What am I supposed to do?”

“If you don’t want to throw away the life I saved, then bind your arms and legs with these zip ties and stuff yourself in a coin locker. You should fit in the large lockers for suitcases if you fold up your limbs.”

“Are you insa-…um, I mean, I’ll see what I can do. Y-you’d better come get me soon, okay?”

After giving Sugiyado a look, the boy completed the necessary work, so Sugiyado locked the locker, removed the key, and placed a hand on his earphone with blood soaking the back of his short-sleeved dress shirt.

“John, no more need for radio silence from me. Can you hear this?”

“Took you long enough! So how’d it go!? There was apparently an explosion and the customers are flooding out!!”

“I stopped the central heating itself, but the room was contaminated. The seal is holding, but this is still a battlefield. Something could break the airtight seal at any time. John, do what you can to keep people away from this area. I’m counting on you!!”

“Any other requests?”

“I set up a cleaning sign in front of the door, but an overzealous employee still might take a peek inside. The Kingdom has some people on this island, right? Can you get any of them to secretly decontaminate the place? They’ll have to get there fast to beat the brave police or firefighters there.”

“I know you wouldn’t ask a favor of me unless you really needed it, so don’t worry about a thing. I’ll get it done.”

“I also secured the empty container wrapped in plastic. I doubt it will matter, but it’s still evidence. The Shogunate is behind this, so handing it over to them would only get it destroyed. I’ll hand it over to you along with the culprit I captured, okay?”

“Fine, but you’re talking about someone who attempted mass murder against their own people. You’re handing us one hell of a good diplomatic bargaining chip. It’s like a joker you can use over and over.”

“Anything’s fine with me as long as we can take out the idiot at the very top who approved this. Do whatever it takes to apply pressure on that bureaucratic advisor. And keep it up until it seems better to abandon that explosive official than to cover this up for them.”

“I see. But there’s more to this than simple harassment, isn’t there?”

“This will never end unless it’s stopped at the source, but I’m only one person. I can’t reach the true source myself. …But if they fall from power and are booted from the national system, I can pay them a visit in the wild darkness.”

“Heh. Ha ha. Doesn’t that count as inciting a foreign threat? So even if you take the head of your direct superior, you can still find a way around it, huh? You really are a ninja!”

“We’re not like knights. And don’t forget to check over the scene before decontaminating it. …I’ll be going now. I need to get to the heart of this issue soon.”

“So you’re joining that youthful catfight, huh? Reminds me of my teenage years.”

“I’m hanging up.”

Unfortunately, the battle was not yet over. His students and the twins had continued their deadly battle while he was stopping the spread of the poison gas and he could not allow any of them to receive a fatal wound. And with the other customers and the employees evacuating after the explosion, those girls no longer had to worry about having any eyes on them. Things were bound to be bad there.

He silently descended the stairs to reach the B3 plaza where the deal was to have taken place.

That large space could be used for public events. It looked large enough for a basketball game. The ceiling was tall and supported by evenly-spaced rectangular pillars. A bronze statue of a naked woman stood near the center, but the statue and its pedestal must have been movable to clear room for events.

And now.

That entire space had devolved into chaos.

Explosive flames and a flurry of steel poured down. This was now a battlefield too intense to seem real.

2: Chance Meeting

––On one side were his students Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.

The ninja outfits they all wore were designed to be practical while also supplying an alluring sex appeal.

The most conspicuous of them was their direct fighter Ouka, who wore a bodysuit that showed off her undeveloped figure, a white sleeveless kimono top, a long front and back skirt, and a red rope that hung down from the back of her hips like a cat tail.

That twintail kunoichi twirled around Midnight Tempest, a vertically-stacked double-barrel hunting gun with a bayonet and a binoculars-like multipurpose site attached. The blade-shaped gadget erupted with fire like a flamethrower and that fury took the form of a tornado around her.

No, that was more than just fire. She sometimes used explosive flames of more than 2000 degrees and sometimes used liquid nitrogen of less than -195 degrees to create a double tornado around her.

Still, the light filling the entire plaza was unnaturally intense.

That was thanks to the secret efforts of Bara, the redhaired ringlet curls girl who specialized in disguises and camouflage. She wore a body suit plus an oiran-style kimono top that exposed her shoulders and cleavage, and used the hanging sash in place of a front skirt, but that ninja outfit danced in the air as she moved now. She was probably scattering lead or zinc powder from her hair tubes. She called that weapon Pressurized Light. Metal powder with a low melting point was scattered around and the residual heat of the flames would paint it across the floors and pillars like a mirror. From there, the mirrors would control the light much like the board reflectors in a photo studio.

Based on that, it was clear that the bright and conspicuous flames were no more than a smokescreen.

From a step behind, Nantou Hoozuki, a girl with a silver ponytail and with an open-back one-piece swimsuit and baggy pants, broke through the wall of fire, arched her lithe back, strained the belts binding her body, and moved her shoulder blades to launch large shurikens at a rate of more than 3000 a minute using the pitching machine she had created by transforming her off-road motorcycle named Countless Calamities. Her combination cross shurikens could fold up like a pair of scissors, so they functioned like a cross shuriken when open and like a stick shuriken when closed.

Seeing through to that attack was very impressive.

But the true grim reaper’s scythe was sneaking up on the twin sisters from an unseen and unheard location.

Sugiyado Souha’s focus landed not on the direct fighter, but on the small bob-cut girl wearing a bleached white military uniform with a short tight skirt.

(Asagao’s their commander. She does love hiding her claws and feigning powerlessness.)

Kuhou Ouka was moving her lithe and growing body like a rhythmic gymnast or a figure skater to alternately use hellfire of more than 2000 degrees or liquid nitrogen of less than -200 degrees. The intense temperature difference created a drastic fluctuation in atmospheric pressure, which would likely help create a vacuum blade.

But that was not its purpose.

The final weapon was an impurity. It was really only specks of nitrogen oxide that would generally be called soot, but by placing it in that artificially heated wind and rapidly accelerating it, it could take out people’s senses in a different way from a vacuum blade. Anyone would notice the instant their eyes were taken out, but what about their ears or nose? If their effectiveness was reduced without your knowledge, it could cause a fatal delay in how long it took you to notice the next attack coming.

(I doubt even Ouka can see the minute impurities she’s wielding. Asagao must be monitoring the airflow while separated from the direct fighting, so she can move her limbs or clothing around to fan the nitrogen oxide in. Impressive teamwork.)

––On the other side were Shirazaya Guren and Suiren. Those kunoichi twins let their beautiful blonde hair flutter behind them along with their pure white sleeveless kimono tops and pleated miniskirts.

Chain links could be heard scraping together.

“Randomize the Steel Rope’s path.”

“Understood, Guren.”

The identical girls wielded ninja swords, kusarigamas, and stick shurikens. With ABS and polycarbonate, there were plenty of nonmetal materials that could withstand use in combat, but they had a good reason for using well-tempered steel for every last weapon.

They bent.

They curved.

(Steel Rope. Are they using magnetism? No, is it the Lorentz force!?)

They were likely scattering microscopic iron sand to give electricity a path through. While the twin sisters danced in perfect unison, they only had to throw out the kusarigamas or stick shurikens and they would fly along impossible paths, sometimes even turning at acute angles. Their straight, noncurved ninja swords also raged about with an accuracy that ignored the girls’ skeletal structures, muscular strength, and centers of gravity. The blades seemed to move with a mind of their own to guide their wielders to victory.

Sparks flew.

The combination cross shurikens were 5 or 6 times the weight of an anti-materiel bullet and should have been impossible to dodge under normal circumstances, but the twins repeatedly knocked them from the air, creating blossoms of sparks. Shizukuma Asagao was sending in nitrogen oxide as a sense-numbing grim reaper’s scythe, but even that was blown away all at once by the wind produced when a kusarigama roared around like a tornado.

Sometimes it was from the sides, sometimes it was from the front and back, and sometimes it was from above and below.

Shirazaya Guren and Suiren used their steel weapons to surround and isolate one of the four and either tore into them or made repeated minute movements to aim for the best timing.

Both sides were extremely skilled.

They had beautifully mastered the Strategic Martial Arts of the modern ninja. If they used that power for good, how many people’s smiles could they protect? Just as the design of a nation’s weapons was linked to its dignity, these state-commanded kunoichis perfectly combined practical skill and aesthetic beauty as they danced in combat.

Which was why it would be such a shame if any of them were needlessly lost here.

He could not let that happen.

And beyond that direct battle, he also had to consider the contaminated central heating room directly above this B3 plaza. The Shogunate had left behind deadly claw marks in their desperate attempt to end all this by any means necessary. If this ninja fighting grew too intense and the ceiling collapsed, the sealed PCB9 poison gas weapon would be a threat once more.

“I won’t let anyone trample on Sensei’s honor. I will reclaim him from you Shogunate dogs!!”

“Why don’t you understand that selfish decision will only destroy his current career as an instructor!?”

“Don’t you dare suggest that!”

“Don’t make me laugh, little girl. Did you really think you were the ones working in Sugiyado Souha’s best interest!?”

Even now.

Even after all this.

None of them were bad people. His students had done all this to learn the truth and the enforcers of justice had only tried to protect him by stopping it all.

He felt thankful.

He was so very, very thankful, but he still felt like it was not enough thanks.

The next move was bound to take a life on one side or the other, so now was the time.

He had to protect them, even if it put his life at risk. It did not matter what it broke within him. It was the same as that final mission, so he did not care if people thought he had not learned a thing since then.

No matter who he had to fool, he could not forget what truly mattered.

Simply put, he had to save every last person on both sides!!

In a split second, a ninja who had lost his wings soared down the stairs and onto the front line.

“What!? Sensei!?”

“Sugiyado-san!!”

In one hand, he held a Fierce Fang air-pressure kunai. In the other, a thick gas container. He forcibly moved between them and caught the bayonet and kusarigama blades that should have crossed in their pursuit of each other’s vitals.

A hand each was not enough.

If he tried to compete with them directly, he would be overpowered. He knew the limit on his spine was an illusion created by his brain, but he could not shake free of those self-imposed bonds.

“Kh, ohhhhhh!!”

So he deflected them instead. He spun like a whirlwind and had the two blade-wielding girls pass each other by like they were pressed against opposite sides of a revolving door.

That was the most he could manage.

After stopping that one exchange of deadly slashes, his momentum got the better of him and he slammed back-first into a nearby column. The impact knocked the breath out of him and he slid down to the floor while turning his eyes toward the girls.

First, Kuhou Ouka.

Good. She had no obvious injuries. The fact that her eyes widened on a pale face was worrying, but contradictorily, he was also glad to see she had not changed.

Next, Hanasawa Bara.

He was relieved by what he saw there too. Her mind must have been spinning with questions of how it had come to this and where they had gone wrong. Even though he had told her time and again to quit that since those questions did not help her do better next time.

Then, Nantou Hoozuki.

She was fine too. Only she thought of herself as expressionless because the light wavering in her eyes was highly expressive of her emotions. He wanted to tell her she did not need to feel so shaken right now.

Finally, Shizukuma Asagao.

Good. She was fine too. As much as she liked to play the knowledgeable strategist, she was still the smallest girl and could not actually fight. He had been worried a stray bullet might have found her, but she appeared unharmed.

And.

From the twins, Shirazaya Guren.

He was relieved to see she was uninjured. He had been in charge of those girls, so she could have blamed him for their actions. But she had instead seen him as a companion working on the case together and she had even grown furious on his behalf. Even though she had to be living in much worse conditions than him.

And the second twin, Shirazaya Suiren.

She was fine. She should not have had any real reason to support someone she had just met the other day. She should have prioritized her own conditions, but next thing he knew, here she was. He was actually worried that this side of her personality would lead to her taking on more of a burden than she should. That would be nothing but a negative influence on her life, yet she was almost certainly proud of what she was doing.

“…”

He had trouble breathing and felt close to passing out.

There was not much he could say right away, but if he said nothing at all, they would likely resume their meaningless fight to the death.

So he leaned his bloody back against the column, held the poison gas canister close, and gasped for breath while forcing out what mattered most.

“Stop this! Keep this up and you’ll die!!”

Both sides briefly came to a stop.

No, for a brief moment, Kuhou Ouka and Shirazaya Guren and Suiren’s killer intent was diverted elsewhere.

“Who do you think we’re doing this for in the first place!? And whose side are you on anyway!!!???”

Ugh, thought Sugiyado Souha.

How did I find myself in this mess?

That was obvious enough.

They were all endlessly kind people, so this was the natural result when they set foot into the world of ninjas.

He knew that.

He understood it.

He just about laughed, so he tensed his face and worked to maintain his consciousness that had nearly been shredded by pain.

This was not over yet.

Now was not the time.

He did not care how many bolts he had in his spine or what he had in his legs to replace his torn ligaments. At 5kg, his spine felt odd. At 10kg, he could no longer fight. But so what? Now was not the time for him to collapse. He could not let it end here. He had to hold onto his consciousness and recall everything that had been built up thus far. All so he could protect those foolish but kind girls.

“Ouka.”

“Y-yes!?”

“Guren and Suiren too.”

“What…do you want?”

Both sides turned toward him when he spoke in a scratchy voice. They almost looked like classmates in the same classroom in this moment.

And he vaguely felt like that might not be a bad future for them.

Which was all the more reason to keep his words ice cold now.

“Put your weapons away, you utter morons. There is no reason for you to throw your lives away over something so stupid.”

The girls’ powerful emotions started to shrivel at his scolding words, but then he distinctly sensed them flare back up. They readied their weapons, creating a series of quiet metallic tones. But he had planned for this. He had known no one who made it this far would be broken by a single statement.

So he silently apologized to them from the bottom of his heart.

He had intentionally trapped them in this. He had dragged them toward unavoidable battle when they might have been able to turn back had they tried.

There was no turning back now.

Fighting was the only option.

But that fighting would not take the form of the lovely girls working to kill each other.

Their wordless rejection creating a piercing atmosphere.

After feeling that wash over him, he tossed aside the special container and held a hand forward while still seated with his back against the column.

This was like that final mission all over again. He was taking on too great a burden and he was clearly going to crash and burn for it.

But that was fine with him.

He pulled back his index finger and winked.

The instructor announced the beginning of a special lesson.

“If you’ve got a problem with that, then come at me as a group. You idiots are not easy to teach, I’ll tell you that.”

3: An All-Out Battle Begins

He had known negotiations would break down.

They had all come here because they had something they refused to compromise on, so fighting was the only option. Crossing blades with them was the only way to respect their respective feelings to the fullest.

“…”

The girl in front of him inhaled and exhaled.

She showed off her undeveloped figure in a bodysuit, a sleeveless kimono top, and a front and back skirt.

That was Kuhou Ouka.

She kept her eyes on Sugiyado Souha who could not even stand up, but she suddenly aimed Midnight Tempest to the side.

She was targeting a kunoichi whose ninja outfit included a pleated miniskirt, giving it a combination of Japanese and Western styles. This one had a red hair extension.

That was Shirazaya Guren.

“!?”

With a boom, the merciless gunshot was blocked by a ninja sword guided by Steel Rope and the blonde kunoichi with small throat trembling nearly toppled over from the impact on her weapon.

While bending the gun to load a new round, twintailed Ouka made an announcement.

“Bara, Hoozuki…and Asagao. Work with me.”

“Wait, are you really doing this!? We’re talking about Sensei here!”

“Words won’t get us anywhere here. He’s as dead set on his course as we are ours, so we can’t make any progress without tearing down this wall. Isn’t that right, Sensei?”

Just as he smiled, vertically-stacked double-barreled Midnight Tempest produced a storm of flames that scorched the entire column he was leaning against.

But which side truly deserved the praise here?

There was no mass of carbon writhing in pain within those flames. Only a few light sounds. How in the world had he moved from his seated position leaning against the column? The next thing they knew, he had flown up to the top of the column and in fact was clinging upside down to the ceiling. Needless to say, he was not burned or even singed.

He could not carry a single injured companion, so his nimble movements were his one point of pride.

Ouka’s surefire attack had been easily avoided, but she smiled while her sleeveless kimono top and front skirt fluttered around her. She had the look of someone seeing a demotivated boxer climb back into the ring.

“You’re the best, Sensei!!” she roared.

She fired more flames, but none of them could find him. With light sounds, he set foot on the side of a different column and ran straight down to the ground.

At this point, the other ninjas were done hesitating. However it happened, they would fail to reach their goal if they were defeated here. That obvious fact had finally gotten through to them.

Kuhou Ouka flexibly moved her growing body to use bayonet-equipped Midnight Tempest as a blade and a gun. In addition to simple bullets, she used paintball-like capsule cartridges containing powerful acid or high-voltage capacitors. Combined with the unit that could fire ignited rocket fuel or liquid nitrogen, she was an all-rounder who could fight with every element.

It had two stacked barrels and she could choose which one to fire.

By loading each barrel with different types of rounds, she could choose to fire one or the other depending on the situation. While swishing around the rope that dangled from her hips like a cat’s tail, she danced across the battlefield and used a variety of combinations to make a weapon out of all types of phenomena.

At the same time, silver ponytail Nantou Hoozuki used the pitching machine made from her off-road motorcycle to launch combination cross shurikens while suppressing the recoil with her back muscles. She no longer bothered hiding the roar of the engine.

Camouflage specialist Hanasawa Bara pulled some paper from her cleavage, loaded it into the tubes in her ringlet curls, and launched a colorful powder called Dizzy Eyes to the floor to mess with Sugiyado’s depth perception. In her bleached tight skirt military uniform, Shizukuma Asagao was sending her eyes around at dizzying speeds to work out a predicted course of action for Sugiyado.

But none of it went as planned.

Because those four students were not the only ones here.

“Dammit!! Stop right there, Sugiyado-san!!”

Chain links scraped together while guided by the invisible Steel Rope.

Those four were joined by Shirazaya Guren and Suiren who wore a combination of a sleeveless white kimono top and a pleated miniskirt. Sugiyado was up against a total of 6 elites. He had already withdrawn from active duty, so this was too much for him to handle.

Or so one would have thought.

“Eh? Ah!?”

The first to bring her baggy sleeves to her mouth and speak up in confusion was the youngest girl, Asagao, who was rapidly moving her eyes around the scene. Yes, when the outsider twins appeared on the board as allies rather than enemies, it had broken down all of her predictions and calculations.

If he were fighting any one of them head on, he may not have been able to win.

Not against Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, or Shizukuma Asagao.

And not against Shirazaya Guren or Suiren.

They were truly powerful.

But what if those powerful ninjas were suddenly forced to work with someone they barely knew and they kept tripping each other up? Then their great strength would only cause greater damage to each other during any accidents.

“What!?” shouted twintailed Ouka.

Her flamethrower and the weight at the end of a kusarigama struck the exact same point on a column, but Sugiyado Souha was no longer there.

He had flipped up into the air an he landed with his back against startled Ouka’s.

“Ouka, what is your greatest weakness? I believe I taught you this lesson over and over again.”

“What!?”

He did not give her time to load another round.

Ouka’s clothing swelled out and the tail-like red rope behind her fluttered while she spun around and launched a liquid nitrogen cartridge from Midnight Tempest despite being at close enough range to catch herself in the blast. She also used her spinning motion to make a horizontal sweep of the weapon.

But he nimbly ducked blow the ultra-cold attack while the sprinkler on the ceiling activated.

He swung a Fierce Fang so its ferocity tore through the artificial rain and the moisture flash frozen by the liquid nitrogen formed a clear blade around it. The kunai now almost looked like a katana of ice.

But while slender Kuhou Ouka took a fighting stance, he suddenly made a merciless attack on Shizukuma Asagao to the side.

“You always assume you’re at the center of the action!”

“!?”

Asagao did not know how to fight directly, so she could not dodge or defend herself. Her small face was colored only by surprise. Below her tight skirt military uniform, she was protected by an ultra-thin suit with a spider silk structure and solidified by a high-polymer water-absorbing gel and electric potential elastic fibers, but her exposed face was defenseless. That was an unavoidable fact of life for a kunoichi who augmented their more traditional strength by using their beauty as a weapon. Slamming that ice sword into her temple would knock her out much like a strike from the back of the blade.

“By the way, Asagao. I believe I told you to fix your bad habit of assuming ‘that couldn’t possibly be meant for me’ during group fights.”

“Don’t you dare!!”

A complex metal roar followed as Countless Calamities changed shape from its pitching machine form. Nantou Hoozuki, who wore an open-back one-piece swimsuit and baggy pants plus belts that bound her body, had transformed it into a different gadget. It looked like a giant brutal axe with two rollers that alternately sliced through everything. She bent her back like a bow and used her full body weight to swing it down.

But it did not matter.

She had mistaken what she was up against here.

“Hoozuki.”

The weapon of steel and the weapon of ice clashed. Sugiyado’s transparent katana was shattered far too easily.

But the kunai was still a kunai.

Hoozuki had been led astray by the apparent blade there, so she failed to stop her momentum and staggered forward. With his blade back to its original length, he reversed his wrist and stabbed the Fierce Fang forward as his true attack.

But not at Hoozuki.

At the giant axe made from her off-road motorcycle. As soon as she swung Countless Calamities down too hard and it carved into the floor, sending sparks everywhere, he caught its rapidly-rotating axis on his weapon.

“The number and complexity of your gadgets is impressive, but your focus draws too far inwards while you transform it. Your focus always needs to be on the world around you.”

He used the nitrogen to open up the air-pressure kunai’s blade to destroy the motor within, sending steel pieces flying off. The blast hit her so close up that her entire body was pummeled through her bulletproof ninja outfit and her back was slammed into a thick column. He did award her some points for not screaming.

Then he threw the already-opened Fierce Fang toward the center of her chest.

A sound like a bullet hit burst from her chest and the silver ponytail girl crumpled down. No matter how much the force was negated, the impact would still reach her, and this was a deadly weapon. Without that cutting-edge ninja outfit that could block a rifle bullet, it would have broken through her sternum and pierced her heart.

That left Kuhou Ouka in the sleeveless kimono top and front and back skirt and Hanasawa Bara in the oiran-style outfit that left her shoulders bare.

No, there was also the beautiful twins Shirazaya Guren and Suiren who created a cheerleader-like silhouette using their combination of sleeveless pure white kimono tops and pleated miniskirts.

Those two may not have cared if they hit Ouka’s group too because they kept sending their kusarigama weights and stick shurikens in from the side. The weapons followed unnatural paths that included right angle turns, so simply throwing them was not enough to explain it. That should have sent them along unpredictable paths that pierced the target’s body, yet that did not happen.

“Got him!!”

Guren’s throat trembled beautifully as she raised her voice at the tactile feedback she felt from the bracelet around her wrist. With Steel Rope’s guidance, the thick chain of her kusarigama had tangled itself around the kunai in Sugiyado Souha’s right hand. That would prevent him from using it.

If it were your average weapon.

At first, she seemed to find something off about how he did not even bat an eye at her supposed accomplishment.

“!?”

A moment later, the air-pressure kunai’s blade was forced open by the nitrogen, mercilessly breaking through the thick chain from within. It was likely made of a thick chromium or tungsten alloy, but that was no match for the 15 tons of force Fierce Fang could provide. The destruction was entirely thanks to how tightly she had wrapped the chain around it.

And it did not end there.

Sugiyado grabbed the end of the broken chain and swung it toward Guren, its actual wielder.

It did not hit, of course.

Those twin sisters could use their Steel Rope that used electromagnetism to alter the paths of their ninja swords and kusarigamas in midair. A thick chain swung with only one’s physical strength would simply have control retaken.

But that did not mean there was no risk to the blonde kunoichi. She would bleed just as red if the blade she was controlling hit her. She had to focus on even the slightest fluctuation in the electromagnetic control.

And.

Simply by twirling around and leaping like some kind of dance, he continually dodged the metal weapons their Steel Rope controlled using the Lorentz force.

“What!?”

“Keep moving, Guren!!”

Shirazaya Suiren was right. Guren could not afford to come to a stop just because she could not believe her eyes. Time was still passing.

Before she could analyze anything or reach any kind of solution, an unidentified ninja moved right up to her.

“!!”

The blonde girl swung her ninja sword with all her might. The steel blade was externally controlled via the Lorentz force, so it ignored her own muscles and moved almost automatically, as if according to a computer program. The Steel Rope could have dislocated both of her shoulders if it tried and it could also bring down all the steel balls launched by a directional landmine, but Sugiyado Souha did not change tack in fighting the ninja sword it controlled. He took a dancing step and slipped right past it.

He accurately stuck the tip of his Fierce Fang into the slight gap between the sword’s blade and its guard.

Then he opened it.

The brutal force of the nitrogen tore the ninja sword apart from within.

“Tch!?”

Thanks to the Steel Rope’s Lorentz force, the remnants of the broken sword remained floating in midair, but that did not change that the weapon had been destroyed while it was being swung down in a supposedly surefire strike. In a way, that was more difficult than simply taking her life and it was pure humiliation for the one on the receiving end.

“Damn you. Doing that in a serious battle is as infantilizing as patting me on the head!”

At this point, the kunoichi with a red hair extension noticed something was wrong. This was too much for an ordinary person to accomplish. Predicting the path of her and Suiren’s blades was impressive enough, but why was his kunai not captured by the Lorentz force? The lines of guiding magnetism and electromagnetism filled the space in a complex marble pattern and it would take knowing that like the back of your hand to pull off what he did.

But that was as far as her thoughts got.

The bottom of a Fierce Fang, where the instant nitrogen foam cartridge was inserted, struck her on the back of the head. The blow to her central nerves led to a pause. The light in her eyes faded in less than a second.

Her throat trembled irregularly and the air burst from her lungs.

Aim for a weak point and you could knock someone out even in a bulletproof spider silk ninja outfit. Even if you were a washed-up ninja whose back felt odd at 5kg and exploded with pain at 10kg.

“…”

He approached Shirazaya Suiren in the same way.

Those twins were meant to work as a pair, so they were far too fragile with one of the wings broken.

“Sorry.”

“Gh!?”

After a dull sound of impact, Suiren doubled over.

But she managed to stay on her feet for a moment.

“The bolts…in your spine? Yes, that explains it. You could feel the tug on the metal in your body, so you could read the electromagnetism.”

But only for a moment.

After another dull sound of impact, she dropped down.

With a new Fierce Fang in both hands, he faced his final foes.

This time, it really was only twintails Kuhou Ouka with her undeveloped figure and red ringlet curls Hanasawa Bara with her sexy figure.

But taking out the twins had removed the interference.

With a solid thunk, Ouka returned her bent gun to normal.

Their group of four was not complete, but Ouka and Bara were excellent partners who could draw out each other’s power more than if they fought alone. And the purity of their combat had returned. Sugiyado Souha would be chewed up and spat out if he challenged them head on.

Yes.

If he did that.

“Ha…ha ha.”

Someone could be heard kicking off the column directly above.

(There he is.)

Sugiyado smiled in his heart, but the poor puppet had no way of noticing that.

It was the faceless ninja who had worn a gasmask before.

It was the assassin who had supposedly been stuffed in a large coin locker.

“You dumbass!! Never take your eyes off a pro ninja until you’ve delivered the killing blow!!”

“Welcome, fool. You’re right on time.”

If he had not wanted this, he would have killed the boy or knocked him unconscious. Why did the boy not realize that? Apparently even pros had a hard time breaking the bad habit of wanting to believe the convenient lies.

Just like Sugiyado Souha had when he had not noticed that his own students were rebelling.

The beautiful boy in a leather bodysuit truly caught Ouka and Bara off guard when he jumped in from above. After all, they had never even noticed that they and the Shogunate spy twins had nearly been slaughtered by PCB9.

And you could not plan around something you had never imagined.

After finally getting back on their feet, slender Ouka and curvy Bara were tripped up once more.

They were thrown into a three-way brawl without any time to prepare.

A storm of steel raged.

First, the beautiful boy wanted to have the upper hand over Sugiyado, so he tried to take the students hostage. However, that only led to the instructor’s air-pressure kunai roaring out and knocking the boy away. Redheaded ringlet curls Hanasawa Bara was caught in the blast, knocked onto her stomach, and squashed beneath the boy’s weight. Her large breasts squished softly between her body and the floor. The 18 coilgun launch tubes in her hair could not aim while similarly squished by her body.

“Sen-”

“Go to sleep, Bara.”

When he used a blow from the bottom of a kunai to send a nonlethal impact to the back of her neck, she went limp.

That left just one – Kuhou Ouka.

“!?”

“!”

The air was sliced through.

She raised Midnight Tempest and he raised a Fierce Fang, but they were too close together. He was already close enough to hug her. When it was time to use the bayonet, Midnight Tempest functioned more like a spear, so this range was better suited for the kunai.

He jammed the tip of the blade into the gap between the vertically-stacked barrels and used the nitrogen to pry them apart until they dully snapped.

When speed mattered more than weight, he could make good use of his body with three bolts in the spine and springs in the knees.

“We…”

The pieces of the hunting gun fell to the floor.

It had truly been one-on-one in the end there, but Sugiyado had still pushed through. Something escaped Ouka’s trembling lips while she showed off her growing figure with that white sleeveless kimono top and front and back skirt.

She sounded like she was enraged with the absurd violence, but also like she had seen the thing she had so longed to see.

“We only wanted to help you…even a little bit.”

“Thank you.”

In this Sugiyado Souha was entirely honest.

But then he reversed the hand holding the opened Fierce Fang and said more.

“But you still have much to learn.”

The bottom of the kunai roared over like a hammer.

With a dull thud, it knocked the girl unconscious.

Chapter 6

1: Unforeseen Yet Inevitable

The battle was over.

Sugiyado Souha sighed while viewing the girls lying unconscious within the B3 plaza. He had been protecting them. This had been the only available method. He had achieved everything he set out to achieve. And yet it took all his might to avoid punching himself in the face.

He made a conscious effort to shift his focus.

He picked up his scattered Fierce Fang air-pressure kunais, swapped out the instant nitrogen foam cartridges, and stored them within the back of his short-sleeved dress shirt. He would have to locate all the blood, sweat, hairs, and signs of destruction as well. He could not call himself a ninja if he did not at least eliminate any evidence that could be used to identify him.

(They were taught by me, so I should be able to borrow their tools.)

He scratched the scar on his nose, reached into collapsed Ouka’s pocket, and used the special sprayer he found there to clean up while focusing on his earphone.

“John, I’m done here. As promised, I will hand over the empty poison gas canister and the criminal. Tell me where to meet you.”

“Geez, you actually took them all out with your handicap? Now I feel dumb worrying about you, teach. I just sent some Tuxedos your way. You can’t carry someone thanks to your spine, right? Let my men take care of the girls.”

“Thanks.”

“Don’t mention it! The Kingdom’s gentlemen love this sort of job most of all. Anyway, we went ahead and threatened our Shogunate contact, but things aren’t looking good. You should probably be on your guard.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“We’re still negotiating with the isolationist government’s contact, but we can’t get anything solid out of them. I thought they were just panicking at first, but it doesn’t seem that way anymore. It’s like they can’t seem to contact their higher ups.”

“You mean those higher ups made a run for it while we still hold their Achilles’ heel? Not a chance.”

“Yeah. It’s possible they’re taking us for a ride here.”

“…”

Someone was taking advantage of this chaos.

They had predicted that things would be shaken up to an abnormal degree and they had used the confusion to accomplish something.

Sugiyado Souha himself had thought pressure from the Kingdom would make it too difficult for the Shogunate to continue covering for the bureaucratic advisor behind all this, so the villain would be cast out of the system and brought to a position where an individual could reach them.

But had someone else set things up so they could cause even greater damage?

“I should probably ask Ouka’s group why they decided to look into my past in the first place.”

“Yeah. Same with those Shogunate spy twins. I would recommend looking into what information they received that led them to ask you for help. The same person may have been behind both decisions.”

“You mean it was all to pit Ouka’s group and the twins against each other as two of the Shogunate’s most powerful ninja groups?”

“No.”

For the first time, their opinions diverged.

John had something else to say.

“They wanted to pit the old against the new – a Hidden One against Elite Ninjas. I don’t know who it was, but I bet you fighting your students was a part of their plan. The twins were only the detonator.”

“…”

“Since they tried to make it an even fight instead of a one-sided slaughter, they must have wanted to prolong the chaos as much as possible. But what did they hope to accomplish using that cover?”

And who was this person?

Not only had they planned something so ambitious, but they must have known about Sugiyado Souha’s final mission that the Shogunate had kept hidden. They also must have had no qualms about putting 200,000 innocent people in harm’s way to cover it all up. Even though they should have been assured a comfortable life by secretly threatening the Shogunate officials, so that ambition plan should have been unnecessary.

They had rejected that idea.

Even though they could have been given a secret position of absolute privilege where the government protected them so much they could kill someone in broad daylight and see no repercussions. So why? The Shogunate officials were nigh untouchable, but why discard that easy route in order to “eliminate” them?

While thinking through this issue, something crawled up in the back of Sugiyado Souha’s mind.

“It can’t be.”

“What?”

“No, it can’t be. It just can’t. She can’t possibly make an appearance now.”

He sounded like he was trapped in a nightmare.

But the questions from John had stopped. Ironically, it was the knight waiting up in the night sky who encountered the truth first.

Yes.

Physically encountered it.

“What the hell is that? …Wait. This atmosphere, this scent.”

“John?”

“Dammit. I get it now. Unless my sensors are broken, it’s that ghost!! This is indeed beyond your abilities. Engage!! I’ll start a defensive battle here and call in support from the aerial aircraft carrier even though this is nowhere near my jurisdiction! This warrants it!!”

“No, John!! If this is what I think it is, then not even a Kingdom armored knight can handle it!!”

The conversation ended there because the connection was severed.

(Dammit!!)

He could not control his heartrate. The bad feeling inside him only continued to grow. Waking up the others and taking them with him would only put them in more danger. He decided to do this alone. He hurried up the stairs to reach the closest exit from the underground mall. On the way, he passed by several people in the supposedly deserted place. Unlike him or Ouka, they were nondescript and inhumanly cold, so they had to be the Kingdom’s Tuxedos. They would look after Ouka and the others even though that would put them at greater risk. He gave them a bow out of obligation and not just appreciation.

He caught glimpses that something was amiss even before leaving the underground mall.

It was hot, but not due to the weather. It was like being thrown inside a stone oven. If the heat was this scorching from a distance, just how abnormal a situation would he find outside?

(Yes, it’s the same.)

As he ran, he was reminded of his past. He remembered when death had been a constant companion, when he had failed to predict anything at all, and when he had needed to constantly adlib ways to slip from the grim reaper’s grasp to survive. He had felt like he was crawling through an ocean of blood and mud. This had the same scent and atmosphere, but now was not the time to rejoice at the reunion.

(Come to think of it, I caught glimpses of this the entire time I pursued Ouka’s group with Guren and Suiren. This scent was in my nose the entire time. Yes, none of it ever actually ended. This is all a continuation of that final mission!!)

He finally reached the exit to the surface.

A scorching wind hit him like a solid wall as he set foot in the city night.

Everything was colored by a golden-burning hell.

The usual neon signs and car headlights were nowhere to be seen. Not even the ordinary darkness of the night was allowed to exist.

Molten rock covered everything.

A boiling sea of magma bubbled up like the fountain of youth, gas erupted out, and all forms of life were robbed of a livable environment.

There was no sign of John Kniferidge in his silver Claiomh Solais knight armor. However, some arms and legs from the unmanned musketeers who served the knights could be seen floating here and there in the bubbling lava.

He had almost certainly been shot down and the pilot’s survival was unknown.

It took dozens of this country’s armored samurai to just barely be powerful enough to defeat one of those armored knights, and victory was even more difficult when that knight was accompanied by a full unit of unmanned musketeers.

Yet one of those knights had been so easily defeated here.

That nightmare was back.

According to John, Kingdom agents who had infiltrated this country had come up with an excuse to evacuate the civilians from this area to protect them from the possible poison gas leak. Ouka’s group and the blonde twins would have been collected by the Tuxedos. But those were the only two pieces of good news.

Sugiyado looked up toward the moon as if mimicking his past actions.

Yes.

Sugiyado Souha had been badly injured during his final mission.

But who exactly had done it?

There was nothing to stand on for kilometers around. With a bit of bad luck, the tall reinforced concrete buildings might even tilt and sink into the lava.

Nevertheless, a beautiful girl in a ninja outfit was illuminated by both the lava erupting from the depths of the earth and the cold moonlight pouring down from the heavens. Her clothing was similar to Kuhou Ouka’s, but also different. It was still a bodysuit combined with a white sleeveless kimono top and a front and back skirt, but the sides of the top were left wide open and the back fell below her hips like a coat, making it look like a cross between an ancient queen’s dress and a surgical gown.

It would not have been originally designed to create such obvious sex appeal. It would have been designed to best draw out the special trait of a young girl – that is, a protective desire and a cute impression that would cause any attacking hands to hesitate. A split second could be the difference between life and death in the ninja world, so being adorable could be a deadly weapon there.

But the impression changed entirely when the person within it had changed.

You could say she had matured and then some as a girl, and you could even say she had begun to rot. That monster’s demeanor – no, her seduction – was reminiscent of a fruit with an intensely sweet smell. The fact that she was originally the cute type made this change seem all the more alluring, sweet, and (most of all) immoral.

Her madness drew people in to a gruesome extent.

She was like a Venus flytrap.

You could even say she embodied the seduction of death. The grim reaper’s scythe that gave people everlasting peace may have been coated with a poison this sweet. He knew the truth here, but if he did not focus his mind, his thoughts would have been stirred up from outside and his concentration would have been forcibly disturbed. Even though she was not trying to do anything of the sort.

“…”

To reiterate, there was nothing to stand on and she was not standing on the ground, yet there she was.

She was floating.

She hovered about 5m above the sea of lava.

What were ninja techniques?

The ones used in the current age were best described as an adaptation of stage magic. Special tools were set up in advance, wires were laid out in secret, and then you waited for your opponent to be fooled. Realists who claimed they only believed what their own eyes showed them would fall for the illusion and be left in the depths of confusion. It could all be explained using tricks, so it all came down to one’s breadth of knowledge. That was how it was supposed to work.

But this girl was the one exception.

This was something entirely different from the ninja techniques that used an extension of existing techniques to create new, modern equipment. This took things so far that even a front-line Hidden One found it grotesque.

This absolute absurdity was even more bizarre than the ninjas seen in old stories.

She had taken ninja techniques to a truly occult place.

She used the term “psychic” to realize the illusions behind ninja techniques. The inside of her skull was covered in a material that absorbed electromagnetic waves to remove all external EM interference and a pacemaker had been implanted in her healthy heart to let her consciously alter her heart rate like changing gears. Thanks to those changes, she could guide herself into an extreme trance whenever she liked.

The bolts in Sugiyado’s back ached ominously.

No, the ache came from the wound a certain girl had given him.

That sword strike had not just physically wounded him; it had left its scars on his psyche as well.

He knew her name.

The figure showing through her spider silk ninja outfit was awfully sensual. Long hair flowed down her back and two shorter bundles of hair fell to either side of her head. That glossy black hair contained a bewitching sheen. But he could never forget. He still vividly remembered the name of the one who had slashed his back.

They belonged to the same rank, the same system, and the same world.

She existed beyond even the Elite Ninjas who stood at the top of the existing High, Middle, and Low hierarchy. She was one of the Hidden Ones, whose total numbers not even he knew.

So he shouted her name, as if facing his past.

“Oniyuri!!”

He heard a quiet voice.

It was a laugh.

Her head tilted at an angle, a stray strand of hair had found its way between her lips, and a sticky clear liquid dripped from the corner of her lips. The red of her cheeks had to be more than just reflected lava light. One look at her excessively damp eyes was enough to tell she was using Divine Decree. She had consciously turned an invisible dial to send herself on a “trip”.

With her melted gaze on him, that disaster in human form continued laughing.

She was undoubtedly one of the Hidden Ones.

She was one of the elites of the elite who had been there with Sugiyado Souha in an older era.

“So we meet again, instructor.”

“…”

“I can call you that now, can’t I? I have been dreaming of you this whole time. It is too late to try to save someone only after arriving on the battlefield, so you wanted to teach people everything they needed to survive before the fighting began. Wasn’t that your dream?”

This was an inner motivation that not even Ouka’s group or the twins knew about.

Oniyuri’s knowledge of that fact hinted that she had not simply been an enemy originally.

She had not been an ally by any means, but he had not wanted to call her an enemy.

Like a marriage scammer, she had a way of remaining in your heart even after you were deceived. Not even someone on Sugiyado Souha’s level could find quite the right word to describe her.

She truly embodied the feminine side of being a ninja.

She was the perfect kunoichi.

“What have you been doing all this time?”

“Nothing really. I lived through that past, I’m facing this present, and I need to decide what future to seek out. Although if I hadn’t done anything, I doubt anything would have changed.”

What did it feel like to mechanically alter your brain using an external device?

Whatever the case, Oniyuri could not stop smiling while drawing out psychic powers from her brain’s trance state.

She stuck out her unexpectedly long tongue and wet her lips.

“But that would have been boring, so I decided to break free of the Shogunate’s chains. The Tenshukaku at the top is protected by this country’s most powerful system, but that security will temporarily freeze during an incident so earthshattering that the entire Shogunate hierarchy is shaken. So I just had to make my move in that moment.”

“…”

“So don’t worry, instructor. All the sketchy people keeping watchful eyes on you have been returned to the earth. Oh, but I do apologize if you wanted to kill them yourself. I didn’t even leave any ashes behind.”

It finally started to sink in what Sugiyado had been a part of here.

It had all been so she could leave.

The series of shocking events beginning with the modular nuclear reactor had been too much for the top of the Shogunate to bear. They had wanted something to rely on to escape that pressure, so they had opened this Elite One’s cell so she could eliminate those four Elite Ninjas. They had chosen to release this calamitous beast if it would bring about a swift end to their problems.

Had they felt there was no point in holding back?

But surely they should have known who their assassin would devour first once that cell door had opened.

“How far did you take it?”

“Hee hee. You really have changed, instructor. You have found a path of comfortable change taking you in the direction you desired. I, on the other hand, have been stuck in a standstill this entire time.”

“How much damage did you do to the Tenshukaku and how many samurai heads did you take, Oniyuri!?”

He just about overlooked it, but it hit him a moment later.

Stuck in a standstill?

She had not changed – could not change.

“Wait, no, it can’t be.”

“Are we done talking now? Hee hee. My blood hasn’t been pumping like this in a long time. Yes, I thought I might not know what to do with myself after finding freedom for the first time in forever, but I didn’t. Yes, this is what I really wanted to do.”

The floating girl glowed bewitchingly in the lava light within her ninja outfit that resembled an ancient queen’s dress or a surgical gown, and she pointed her skinny index finger toward the heavens.

Immediately, the world converged.

All the scorching lava covering kilometers of the ground began to move like a living creature as she controlled it with her psychic Divine Decree power. The hellish deluge that had swallowed up everything here began to swirl, break free of the planet’s gravity, and gather on a single point. Yes, directly above Oniyuri’s raised finger.

In the end, the blazing hot mass was smaller than a basketball.

That flood of lava could have swallowed up an entire small village, so this extreme pressure caused it to glow all the more sinisterly. Sugiyado Souha gulped as he looked up at it.

His hand trembled while holding a Fierce Fang.

It’s all happening again, he thought.

He had once fought behind the scenes to save a foreign queen caught between the Kingdom and the Shogunate. It had ended in a draw and his body had been left scarred. This was the secret technique he had seen back then.

With her tongue hanging limply from her lips with a thin strand of saliva dripping from it, the horrifyingly beautiful girl spoke with a crazed smile on her lips.

“Hee hee. How about this as an opening move? I am a bit tired right now, so we can finish this later, okay?”

This was not the Strategic Martial Arts approved by this country and its Shogunate. Modern ninja techniques took the arresting techniques and military martial arts based on old-fashioned karate, judo, and kendo and updated them in order to save as many people as possible during times of turmoil. They were powerful techniques, but that was all they were. So this was different. What could you hope to protect using a power as sinister as this?

This was an uncontrollable power that would simply destroy everything in its path.

“An annihilating sun,” muttered Sugiyado Souha in a daze.

A moment later, the girl snapped her fingers with a meaningful smile and the raised sphere burst. A scorching hell erupted in all directions with more than twice the intensity with which it had been gathered.

A paper tiger like his air-pressure kunai was entirely useless in the face of the truly supernatural.

2: The Final Heroine

There once was an unfortunate girl.

That was the only way to describe that small girl who crawled through a living hell thoroughly calculated out and managed by the state.

But the one thing she hated more than anything was for people to feel sorry for her.

Anyone could tell she carried a misguided sort of pride.

The purpose she saw in her life had likely been implanted within her by someone else. People could survive in the worst of conditions if they had a goal to work toward. They could bear with it if they had hope. If they thought of themselves as a special chosen one who could do what no else could, then they would not question the special role given to them and they would in fact find pride in it. All because the adults around her – the Shogunate officials who were supposed to be the guardians of law and order – had taught her to believe those things.

There had never been any need for her to go along with it.

She had Divine Decree. Her skull had been sliced up like tofu, a material to absorb electromagnetic waves had been pasted to the inside, and a pacemaker had been implanted in her healthy heart to externally control her heartrate. Perhaps it was true that she had been chosen. But was that really an honor? Hadn’t they only been looking for a convenient person who would not complain as they did all of that to her?

The ugly duckling was really a swan.

But was it really all that great to find out you were a swan who no one wanted to be around?

Long ago, Sugiyado Souha had met her.

The Shogunate and the Kingdom had been fighting over the young queen in an extreme game of beach flags where they wanted to be the first to the queen for their own selfish purposes, even if they crushed her in their grasp or only managed to take a piece of her corpse.

That had been his final mission.

She had been one of the pursuers and he was assisting the pursued queen, so they had been enemies. But after attempting to understand her thoughts so he could predict her actions, he may have developed a deeper connection to her than anyone else.

He had learned about her and she had come to understand him.

Which was why he had failed.

He could have stopped. He would have been perfectly justified in focusing on the Kingdom’s small queen and cutting down that formidable foe.

But it was one more person.

Just one more.

That was how he had seen it.

And then he could not escape another thought: I want to save this girl.

Even if no one else wanted it, he had wanted to bring Sagami Oniyuri out into the light.

That was all he had wanted.

3: Rebooting in the Apartment

“Sensei!!”

Even the stirring of his body felt weird. Sugiyado Souha gave a scratchy groan that did not sound like his own voice and opened his eyes to find himself lying down somewhere. He also saw four girls looking down at him.

They were Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.

“Are you okay? Honestly though, what even happened!?”

Twintail Ouka was wearing a knit sweater and a miniskirt as she moved her face in close as if leaning over him, but he did not respond as he slowly sat up. He wanted to know the current situation. What had happened since Sagami Oniyuri’s Divine Decree had covered a quarter of New Yokohama with lava?

“The ordinary people are safe,” said slender Ouka. “The entire city was on edge after the central heating explosion in the underground mall, so they had mostly evacuated indoors. They fled to the upper floors once the lava showed up, so apparently no one was caught in it. I’ve heard everyone is terrified because they think those were linked terrorist attacks.”

“We can only be grateful that social media can get word around quickly and that this country is so good at disaster relief despite being horribly unprepared for war,” said Bara who was wearing a cardigan over an otherwise light outfit.

“I see,” sighed Sugiyado.

He knew he was being naïve, but he could not deny how relieved he was to learn so little damage had been done. Even though Oniyuri must have already left the Tenshukaku soaked with blood.

This had revealed the handiwork of a ninja to the public on an unprecedented scale, but that very scale left the ordinary people unsure what had happened. Social media could not track down the truth on this one. No one thought a single individual could have caused that.

“Then where are we?”

His torn and bloody clothes had been replaced with new ones. A new short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants, to be exact. So who exactly had known his taste in clothing and actually changed the clothes for him? When he looked at the girls, they all avoided looking him in the eye for some reason. Why were all their faces red? Especially Ouka. The way she held a hand over her nose made it look like she had a nosebleed or something.

Also, he had not been taken to a hospital room. This was a small rundown room with a tatami mat floor. It was a super-cheap apartment. The lack of light coming through the window and the clock on the wall told him it was night had already fallen. He looked around and finally remembered where this was.

“Hello, honored guest. Neither of us fared well out there, did we? But it was a slap from a beauty, so I’m willing to forgive her.”

John Kniferidge was wrapped in bandages, had one arm in a cast, and wore a leather jacket over a flight suit.

“From the look of you, I take it your knight armor is in the lava.”

“I’m actually glad it was melted so nicely. I don’t want the Shogunate retrieving some half-destroyed scraps.” John sighed. “I’m also glad there was a room we could use. I’m not a spy or a Tuxedo, so I’d be in trouble if I tried to wander around in enemy territory like this.”

They were interrupted by an exaggerated sigh.

It came from someone with a white dress and beautiful blonde hair shining in the room’s light, but who was on the opposite side of the conflict from John. It was one of the Shogunate spy twins.

Shirazaya Guren’s slender throat trembled as she spoke up.

“I never imagined we would be using a Kingdom spy hideout.”

“If it is true this man has been assisting you, then this is a very alarming development, Sugiyado-san.”

Both twins were icily glaring at him.

Yet they were somehow hesitant to say too much, so they may have had a hunch that it was the Kingdom’s Tuxedos who rescued them from that lava hell while they were unconscious.

Before he could say anything in his defense, Hanasawa Bara crossed her arms in her cardigan and tight skirt, lifting up her large breasts, and opened her mouth.

“That is not true. In fact, it is quite the opposite. This is a room Sensei prepared for himself and they copied his key and started using it without his permission. The room belongs to Sensei.”

“That doesn’t really matter.” The young bob cut girl in a knit dress passed him a cup of water with the hands sticking out of her baggy sleeves, so he rubbed Shizukuma Asagao’s small head while finally opening his mouth. “Guren and Suiren? Ninjas like us are not an official army like the samurai or knights. We are nameless spies gathered to achieve the results that are needed but cannot be written in any official paperwork. So don’t get caught up in the official lines between enemy and ally. The world is overrun with problems that can’t be solved from just one direction.”

One blonde kunoichi held out her arm to show him the tracking bracelet she wore.

“The Shogunate will not defend you in this.”

“Of course they won’t. The day they start officially defending stuff like this is the day they’re finally overthrown. Although I’ll be curious to see how they plan to get back on their feet now that the Tenshukaku at the top have been slain.”

He said it so matter-of-factly, so the twins had to sigh again. Were they impressed by how he lived his life, or had they decided nothing could ever fix his stupidity?

The girls gathered around the uncomfortable bedding began speaking once more.

First up was silver ponytail Nantou Hoozuki who stretched her back inside a loose sweat hoodie.

“Sensei, it’s about time you told us just what we were made a part of.”

“I suppose so,” said Sugiyado.

He chose to speak it all aloud here to help him organize his own confused thoughts.

“There was a kunoichi named Sagami Oniyuri.”

John stiffened at that name since he had been directly involved in the final mission.

The girls had arrived later than that, so it did not mean much of anything to them.

“The general public thinks of ninjas as people who can clasp their hands together and hold a scroll in their mouth to create an explosion of smoke and solve everything, but that kind of ninja does not really exist. Oniyuri, however, is an exception. Her body has been modified in 88 places – primarily in the brain and heart – to give her the psychic powers needed to take a step into the mystical realm with her ninja techniques.”

That was what had created that lava sea.

Sugiyado held his head in a hand.

“Oniyuri has made those psychic powers her own and I doubt anyone but her knows what exactly Divine Decree is. I have tried to explain it rationally, like that she uses telekinesis to float and that she rapidly vibrates molecules to create heat, but all I have is speculation.”

“But why do this now, Sensei?”

Black bob cut Shizukuma Asagao tilted her extremely small head.

“You’re looking at this wrong.” The boy’s answer was obvious. “Oniyuri has been crawling through that same hell ever since what happened back then. Because I failed to grab her hand, she has continued to sink into the darkest parts of the Shogunate.”

“Sensei…”

“So she plotted a way to escape on her own. I can’t even imagine how many layers of security are generally applied to a kunoichi who can use that psychic Divine Decree as a weapon, but she was waiting all this time for that perfect hierarchy to be shaken. All while she occasionally leaked some information to you four or to Guren and Suiren as they pursued you.”

It was now the white dress twins’ turn to bring a hand to their foreheads where they stood over by the wall.

“You mean we were being manipulated too?”

“We are Shogunate spies, but we have never even heard the name Oniyuri.”

Sugiyado shook his head.

“In a way, she is a more perfect ninja than I am. If me having connections to both the Shogunate and the Kingdom was enough to surprise you, then you can’t even imagine how deep the rabbit hole goes with Oniyuri.”

Besides.

“Ouka, Bara, Hoozuki, Asagao. I know you were angry that I was being treated unfairly, but where did those feelings begin?”

“What? But…but we don’t need a reason to want-!”

“The Shogunate is thoroughly covering up everything about what happened to me back then, so you would never start to question my past for no reason. That alone is proof that their media manipulation defenses were falling apart.”

“…”

“Someone must have been giving you glimpses of that information out in the open and in secret. For example, hearing ‘multiple sources’ insulting me behind my back but where you could hear them. But those people who thought themselves so knowledgeable while they whispered questionable secrets to each other were only being manipulated by a game of telephone that began with Oniyuri back in her cell. They played right into her hand without noticing any of it. Then you picked up on that and began developing exactly the emotions she was hoping for.”

That technique was more like the Machiavellianism of a harem than a ninja technique, but that too was part of a kunoichi’s repertoire. This was not a sport with separate weight classes where arm strength and lung capacity did all the talking. For better or for worse, they brought those “feminine” aspects to the battlefield.

She had slipped malicious information to the people who visited her cell and used their mouths to spread rumors like a game of telephone to ultimately have Ouka’s group cause trouble. She had never expected Guren and Suiren to be able to stop them. In fact, the trick had been to delay the conclusion until the Shogunate leaders panicked and decided to release her from her cell to resolve it as soon as possible. And once she was out, she immediately bit the hand that fed her and assaulted the Tenshukaku. Everything that had happened was connected.

She had soaked the Tenshukaku in blood.

That was simple enough to say, but Sugiyado guessed that she had made it look like an indiscriminate slaughter when she actually intentionally left a certain number of survivors behind. But not out of the goodness of her heart. Then the Council of Elders would see it as a chance to take power for themselves or to assist the Shogunate’s recovery as a favor they could cash in on later. The many conflicting plots that would spring up would end up binding them. The fact that news of the attack on the Tenshukaku was still being thoroughly suppressed made it clear that something was up.

Ninjas did more than make use of preexisting cracks. At Oniyuri’s level, they could smash a solid monolith to pieces.

“And with Guren and Suiren, it was a little too convenient that they managed to reach me so soon after Ouka’s group got into trouble. While they’re irreplaceable students for me, they were already Elite Ninjas working for the center of the state, so they must have connections to tens of thousands of people, including the invisible ones of profit even they aren’t aware of. I doubt you could have pinpointed me as a relevant party so quickly without assistance. I imagine someone casually dropped you a hint or went around eliminating all your other theories. All while they had no idea they were relaying a message for Oniyuri. There would have been no material evidence there. John or Violia could probably have smelled it, but that only works for someone who was in a direct confrontation with her.”

“Understood. We can reach a conclusion about that later, so let’s learn about our enemy now.”

“I find this hard to believe, but those doubts will only delay us right now. Please go ahead.”

“Sure.” Sugiyado Souha nodded. “You really could call it a grand plan. I can’t even imagine how many people now lie dead in the bloody Tenshukaku. But her actual objective must be incredibly simple.”

“?”

Kuhou Ouka tilted her head with her growing figure contained in a knit sweater and miniskirt.

“She wants freedom. She wants to travel the world as she likes without anyone restricting her. That is all she wants. It is all she has ever wanted since I first met her.”

In other words, in the years since he had let go of that freedom-seeking girl’s hand, she had been meaninglessly imprisoned, subjected to insane human experiments at the hands of the Shogunate which claimed to advocate justice, and only been allowed outside when it was time to defeat and kill someone. That feeling of being trapped and hopeless was something that Sugiyado could never even imagine after living his life as an instructor and supported by so many people.

“Who’s supporting her?” John sounded exasperated with his arm in a sling. “Biting the hand that feeds you and devouring the rest of them to escape your cage will only get you so far. I doubt any individual who attacks an entire nation will last long. We won’t touch this one, but what about Asia or the New World? Does she have some hidden thread connecting back to a force powerful enough to rival the Shogunate?”

“No, I doubt she has something like that. She simply wants to rejoice in her freedom. It might only last a minute or a second, but she loves true freedom. The protection of some other organization would only sully it. Those bonds would only get in her way.” Sugiyado slowly exhaled. “Why did she use her psychic Divine Decree to fly to New Yokohama Domain immediately after slaughtering the Tenshukaku in Tokyo? Why did she burn down a quarter of the city upon seeing me? Why was she waiting there to speak with me? The answer is obvious: she’s going down the list of things she wanted to do once she was free. This isn’t about some larger group and its interests. This is all there is to her.”

Someone audibly gulped.

This insanity was enough to fill the room with silence.

“B-but doing that is suicide.”

“John. She has not changed at all since we last saw her.”

John initially frowned, unsure what the boy meant, so Sugiyado broke it down for the man and restated it.

“I’m saying she still has those body modification implants in 88 parts of her body. The simple act of walking creates enough force to lift up her internal organs. Plus, she has her psychic flight. It might look like she does not feel any weight, but when she ends the flight and lands, the burden is even greater than what we feel. Yet she is still the same as she was on the inside. Do you get what that means?”

“That would make a complete mess of her insides!”

“It’s honestly a miracle she’s lived this long. She has nearly 90 implants in her body and just one of them catching on a blood vessel or organ can kill her.”

“But…but why, Sensei?”

Kuhou Ouka looked pale and Sugiyado shook his head.

“I’ve never heard of Divine Decree ninjas being mass produced. That means they never could make another one of her, so I imagine the Shoguante wasn’t willing to let go of such a valuable specimen. I mean, no one can explain how she works, so swapping out any of the parts could ruin the perfect balance and make her lose the psychic powers.”

The Shogunate had intended to force her to live that life for years or even decades until they finally cracked it. They knew deep down that analyzing it was not possible, but the prospect was too attractive to let her go.

That was why Sagami Oniyuri had quickly given up on obeying the Shogunate.

She would not last long either way. The Shogunate had no intention of swapping out her parts and she could not acquire the parts or update them on her own. And of course, simply pulling the implants out of her body would not save her either. She was blocked at every turn. So even if it was only for a moment, she wanted to experience true freedom. That may have been how she broke.

“So is that psychic stuff the secret of your final mission that the Shogunate was so desperate to hide? Not that it matters now that Oniyuri defeated the villains in the Tenshukaku.”

Twintail Ouka pouted her lips a little bit in her miniskirt and sweater. That girl with an undeveloped figure must have wanted to bring the villains to court to recover Sugiyado Souha’s honor, no matter what the secret turned out to be.

“Most likely. But come to think of it,” said Sugiyado. “Yes, I think Oniyuri’s presence may have settled all of that.”

“Hm? What do you mean?”

John looked puzzled and Sugiyado shrugged.

“Back then, I wasn’t aware that her psychic powers had been created under the name of Divine Decree. John, you didn’t either, did you? That means she wasn’t being used in actual combat yet back then. They were only sending her in for a trial run to gather test data.”

“You mean they sent such an unstable form of firepower to that battle over our queen? To be clear, our Kingdom saw that entire event as one step away from doomsday.”

“I imagine the Shogunate had not planned for what happened there either. In their original scenario, they only wanted to test her against you knights who were fighting for the honor of rescuing that little thing – or as they saw it, using that as an excuse to test our strength and steal our tech. She was unstable and difficult to control at the time, but her initial objective was to pursue you and that led to attacking the queen. The chain of command meant to bind her then must have collapsed.”

“Yeah, if it got out they chose another country’s head of state to test their new experimental weapon on, it could only lead to all-out war. We would have to respond to such arrogant provocation.”

“Although I bet the Shogunate officials were more aghast than anyone since they had only wanted experimental data on the psychic powers. They completely lost control. Oniyuri was wandering around without anyone capable of accurately aiming her, so she could have killed your queen at any time. If that huge a mistake ever got out, they were done for. It didn’t matter what they had intended to do. Sending in such a risky weapon at all would be enough for a major international incident. And explaining themselves would have required revealing their top secret Divine Decree research. They would have to tell everyone about the tech they thought they had entirely to themselves, so they were all forced to pretend they knew nothing at all about what was happening.”

“Um.” Twintail Kuhou Ouka raised her hand. “But, Sensei, wasn’t staying quiet the more dangerous option?”

“Which is why the interest was piling up all the while. Right up until Oniyuri used the recent chaos to take off the officials’ heads.”

They finally had a picture of the entire incident, but it was too late. Everything had changed from the moment Sagami Oniyuri appeared out in the open.

The red hair extension girl, Shirazaya Guren, spoke while crossing her arms by the wall.

“Do you have any idea what she will do next?”

“She must have a long list of things she wants to do. But while she wants to enjoy her freedom to its fullest, she doesn’t have much time. She won’t be able to create any new friends or lovers, so she should try to use her old acquaintances to act out her desires.”

“Hold on…are you saying what I think you’re saying!?”

“Me, John, and the queen. We are the only ones who reached an understanding with her during that final mission. We’re the only ones she has to rely on. There are billions of people out there and she can manipulate them with her Machiavellian trickery, but we are the only ones she has established a real connection with.”

Also, given what she had been through, it was unclear if she had ever learned how to hold ordinary relationships or how to judge her distance with someone.

They had come to understand each other during their pursuit and fierce fighting. They had needed to understand each other to threaten them, persuade them, fight them, escape them, outdo them, and kill them. And beyond Oniyuri’s calculated Machiavellianism, if she had only ever learned one way to search out what someone thought, she might very well throw a flood of lava at someone like anyone else would ring their neighbor’s doorbell.

In a way, Sugiyado and John had been the ones to teach her to do that.

By engaging in such an extreme form of communication with her in the past.

“So if we use you as bait, we can draw out Oniyuri?”

“I couldn’t tell you which one of us she’ll go after first, though. John, you fought her when you lost your armor, right? How did she react?”

“She entirely ignored me. She didn’t seem happy to see me and she didn’t seem to see me as a threat either. She held out a hand without even looking in my direction and then…crash. Maybe she’s only interested in fellow ninjas.”

“If so, the little queen won’t work either. So she’s only interested in me, huh?”

Everyone’s eyes focused on Sugiyado sitting on the futon.

A stiff smile appeared on Kuhou Ouka’s face.

“Y-you’re kidding, right? You barely survived what happened earlier! You can’t do that!! A-and based on what I’ve heard, um!!”

“You can say it. I couldn’t beat her. And that’s why I lost my wings.”

Even in his prime, his entire body had been destroyed in multiple ways and he had just barely survived it. Now a 5kg weight made his back feel funny and a 10kg one caused it to explode with pain. If he tried that again with that extreme handicap, the odds of survival would be even lower. Victory was entirely out of the question.

However…

“I have to stop Oniyuri. You see what her psychic powers can do, right? This is too much for even the Shogunate to cover up.”

“Kh.”

A sea of lava had covered everything.

She had done enough damage to wipe a small village or town from the map. But instead of the result of thorough preparation, it had been done in lieu of a greeting. It was the result of overwhelming talent.

Sagami Oniyuri was neither good nor evil.

She simply wanted to rejoice in her true, unrestricted freedom for as long as possible. But if the needle of her interest turned even slightly toward destruction, tens of thousands would die. No, it was even possible that one girl’s power could bring down an entire country.

The pure destruction was not the only threat. If she continued causing mass destruction on a scale too large to cover up, the people’s fear and dissatisfaction would grow to the bursting point and mass hysteria on the level of the witch hunts could sweep across the country. If enough people began to think the Shogunate was not going to save them, the entire system would collapse in no time.

After all, there was no way of testing to see if someone had psychic powers.

That unrestricted freedom would swallow up all else.

It was her lack of good or evil that made Oniyuri’s catastrophe unavoidable. You could not behave yourself as a good boy or girl so she would spare you and you could not slip her a bribe under the table. So once the people’s fear and dissatisfaction passed a certain threshold, the dominos would already be falling.

“We have to do something.” Silver ponytail Nantou Hoozuki stretched her back in her sweat hoodie and kept a hand on her downturned forehead. “Sensei is right. We can’t just let her do this. If the Tenshukaku was wiped out and the Shogunate isn’t functioning, then we’ll have to do something ourselves.”

“Yes,” said Shirazaya Suiren over by the wall. “While I do find it hard to believe the Shogunate is no longer functioning, the spies like us can still act. If a monster is threatening the peace of our world, I can see no reason not to set out to slay it.”

“Don’t worry,” said bandaged John Kniferidge. “Like I said before, you aren’t alone. You have your connections with me and my queen. Besides, with her power, she could probably attack the Kingdom’s homeland by messing with the earth’s crust or something. This is already our problem.”

Sugiyado Souha thought for just a moment.

He realized just how blessed he was.

He bowed his head once before stating his conclusion.

“Then this will be the final battle. I’ll be placing everyone here on the board, so prepare yourselves.”

4: Briefing Before Facing the End

Listen up, everyone.

There is no need to review past combat data. I actually fought Oniyuri in that erased past, so I can explain her behavioral patterns to you.

She should make an appearance wherever I happen to be. Even if it is an obvious trap. For better or for worse, she is confident in her psychic Divine Decree power. She will assume she can break through whatever we have prepared for her.

Which means I want to avoid any kind of populated area.

We will use the container yard at New Yokohama Harbor’s #2 Wharf. That area has rapidly expanded thanks to the popularity of online shopping and flea market apps, but if we have the night guards leave, it will be almost entirely abandoned at night.

I want as much help as I can get, but I believe I taught you in that giant subway station that it’s hard for a makeshift team to immediately pull off professional level teamwork. So I would like to split you into your pre-existing teams and leave each team in charge of a specific section.

Ouka and Bara will act as our direct fighters.

Oniyuri has her psychic powers, but she is still human. She has vital points and she can bleed out. Do not feel more fear than necessary and do your job.

Hoozuki and Asagao will patrol the area and analyze the combat situation.

The earlier we locate Oniyuri’s presence, the better our odds. And after the initial clash, you need to constantly track the locations of enemy and ally alike while sharing that intel in real time. Intelligence is crucial in a ninja battle. If our soldiers lose their eyes and ears, they can’t win. We’re counting on you.

Guren and Suiren will be my bodyguards.

I hate to say it, but I can’t join the battle properly with these injuries, so I’m counting on you two. That might make you sound like passive defenders, but since Oniyuri’s top priority will be going after me, you will be on the front line.

John, you focus on providing logistical support since you lost your knight armor.

Arrange for a motorboat we can use to escape out to sea if my students screw this up. Our opponent can throw lava at us, but the vast ocean should rapidly cool the lava and make it a whole lot less deadly. You are our final safety net. Don’t let your guard down.

And one last thing.

Needless to say, Oniyuri can control a whole lot of lava using Divine Decree. Think of it less like fire and more like powerful acid being magnetically pulled around. That means moving around on the ground will be suicide – you’ll just be swallowed up by that scorching lava. Always take the high ground on piles of containers or a gantry crane or wherever. But height alone isn’t good enough. Don’t forget to choose a location that has at least two escape routes. Fail to do that and you will die.

The lava does not just form an ocean or a flood. It responds to Oniyuri’s will and moves around like it has a mind of its own. I said it’s seemingly being magnetically pulled around, right? That means keeping the high ground only gets you so far. Let your guard down and you’ll be taken out even there, so be careful.

Do you understand the situation now?

Oniyuri is not an easy opponent to beat, but there is no such thing as a truly unbeatable enemy. I want you to surpass me by doing what I once failed to do: defeat Oniyuri.

Good luck.

I will see you on the battlefield.

The promised time of 2 AM arrived.

Twintail Kuhou Ouka had arrived at New Yokohama Harbor’s #2 Wharf with her undeveloped figure dressed in her ninja outfit of a bodysuit, a sleeveless kimono top, and a front and back skirt. She looked around worriedly, causing the red rope hanging from the back of her hips to sway like a cat’s tail.

“He’s not here?” she muttered under her breath before speaking to the other ninjas hidden in the darkness. “Bara, Asagao! Have you seen Sensei!?”

“No,” said the bright red ringlet curls girl in an oiran-style outfit that left her elbows bare. She crossed her arms in a way that lifted up her chest and the sash that dangled down in place of a front skirt fluttered in the night breeze while she looked in a different direction.

She viewed the blonde twins who were leaning against a metal container with a combination of a sleeveless kimono top and a pleated miniskirt that gave them a cheerleader-like silhouette.

“We have not seen him either.”

“But that would mean…”

The injured knight in a flight suit and leather jacket had come all this way for his old friend, but now he breathed a heavy sigh while scratching at his head.

Then he threw his tablet full of mission information to the ground.

“That son of a bitch!! He intentionally gave us the wrong location! Is he trying to do it all himself, just like he did back then!?”

5: Once More

Why he could not bring the others with him could not have been more obvious.

First of all, Oniyuri was powerful. There was no guarantee they could win even if they worked together to fight her and, even if they managed to win, who could say how many of those beautiful girls would have bubbling lava dumped over their heads in the process. He could not force that choice onto them.

And second.

He knew it made him dumb as could be, but even after losing everything, Sugiyado Souha still could not imagine defeating Sagami Oniyuri while she continued to crawl through the darkness. He could not imagine killing her and just moving on.

He wanted to save her.

After all, what was different about her from other people? What made her different from Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, Shizukuma Asagao, Shirazaya Guren, Shirazaya Suiren, or even the ordinary girls who walked through the city eating ice cream?

After his final mission, he had hoped to become an instructor and that dream had come true.

It was too late to start working to protect people once the action had already begun, so he wanted to make sure they were prepared in advance. He wanted to give them the skill they needed to survive.

But.

However.

He had also wanted one more name on his list of students: Sagami Oniyuri. No, she was the reason for it all in the first place. He had met a fundamentally misguided girl on the battlefield and he had wished for a place that could teach her what was right. He had wished to give her a chance at a real life. That was what had motivated him in everything he had done since.

He felt like he had reduced the number of girls like Oniyuri since then. Now that Ouka’s group could laugh together as friends, they would not have to wander the world with such a dark look in their eyes.

But that did not mean he had saved Oniyuri herself.

He had long since given up on that.

He had bit his lip and hoped that carrying an impossible dream would at least give him the drive he needed to accomplish other important things.

But now she had reappeared before him.

She was once more within arm’s reach.

Now was the time to risk his life.

He would not have another shot at this.

So after sending his irreplaceable students and other acquaintances away, he had searched through his apartment.

He had needed to face his past.

He had needed to face what a foolish, inexperienced, and dazzlingly bright person he had been back then.

This battle was too much to get by using the Fierce Fang air-pressure kunais he had come up with to compensate for his scarred body. But another weapon slept in this room. He had never been able to actually throw it out and had even kept up with its maintenance.

He owned a ninja sword called Salvation & Punishment.

The blade was contained in a black scabbard wrapped over and over in a long, long decorative cloth. The sword was slightly longer than a normal katana and it had no curve.

Including the scabbard, it weighed 8.7kg.

Meanwhile, his upper limit was 10kg. His normal clothing weighed 1kg, so even if he left behind all his other ninja gear, this was cutting it close. In a risky battle when any kind of unexpected thing could happen at any time, a leeway of 300g was simply not enough.

That ninja weapon was only useful when he was planning to only fight a 1-on-1 battle with a specific opponent.

“I know it’s presumptuous of me to ask this of you after so much time.”

He had a self-deprecating smile on his lips.

His fingertips wandered as he nervously reached out.

He had completed the ritual he had tasked himself with.

And he opened his mouth.

“But just once more, will you help me save that girl?”

He grabbed it.

His trembling hand held the symbol of his former glory.

While feeling the weight of Salvation & Punishment like it was the weight of his own life, a single ninja finally set out for the final showdown.

He would reach out to a girl trapped at a dead end, offer her what he had, and give her a different path in life.

That was all he hoped for. As a teacher.

6: A Late Night Date with a Wanted Criminal

He had no scientific evidence.

But everything he needed to pursue Sagami Oniyuri was found hidden in the past.

Specifically, in the words they had exchanged during their truly deadly battle based on the odd and inexplicable connection they had developed as not quite enemies and not quite allies.

“I can’t help but be drawn to things that claim to be the ‘most’, the ‘biggest’, or whatever else, no matter how cheap it might sound,” she had once said. “Buildings are especially prone to that kind of language. Japan is crawling with buildings that claim to be the tallest, the biggest, or the most beautiful. Ah ha ha. Don’t tell anyone, but I’ve actually snuck into a lot of those at night.”

That told him exactly where to go first. He only had 300g to spare. He had roughly wrapped Salvation & Punishment in a plain colored cloth to carry it around with him, he wore his usual short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants, and he covered his mouth with a large scarf while making his way there.

The New Yokohama Aeromonolith.

At 1000m tall, that wide-range broadcast tower covered not just this domain, but all of Kantou. Needless to say, it had recently broken the old record to become “the tallest building”. No matter how isolationist the country tried to be, this island was a fusion of countless cultures and that brought new cultural change.

“…”

Steel beams were complexly arranged to make the structure more solid, the hexagonal exterior was covered in reinforced glass, and the slight opacity of the windows were used to draw various kinds of laser art on the tower. But at 2 in the morning, the shopping mall at the bottom was closed, and the tower’s lights were off. It was wrapped in true darkness, but just as Sugiyado stepped over the thick chain hanging between the metal poles meant to keep cars out, a lovely voice shook his heart.

“Good evening.”

“Oniyuri.”

No one knew how many Hidden Ones the Shogunate had, but two of them were reunited here.

This was not some fancy location. A girl with long black hair stood with her arms behind her back in the center of the ordinary concrete square built in front of a mall. If not for the late hour and the cutting-edge ninja outfit she wore, it might have looked like they were meeting up for a date.

She wore a bodysuit, a white sleeveless kimono top, and a front skirt. That combat equipment used a spiderweb structure and its expansion and contraction was controlled by a processor. The white clothing looked like an ancient queen’s dress or like a surgical gown.

Sagami Oniyuri may not have held a distinction between combat and days off. This may have been the only way she had been taught to approach people.

Who was at fault there?

Was this really something that could be resolved with weapons and armor?

“Um…are you okay now?”

“I am, now that you mention it. Sorry about earlier. When I use my psychic powers, my other senses fade away. It’s kind of like being in a dream.”

Based on that, you might think she was alternating between sane and insane states.

But she was not.

The depths of that girl were deeper than that.

The line she considered sane was already well within the stagnation of madness. There was no essential difference between the two worlds of which she spoke. She might seem calm now, but she was still floating in some psychedelic world only she understood.

He had misread that in the past.

He had assumed his words would reach her when she was relatively stable, so he had attempted to contact her…and it had backfired in the worst way.

Approaching her was not about waiting for the right timing. If you were not prepared to attempt it at her worst, you should never try it at all.

He had to face her madness.

He could not flee from her psychedelic side.

“It’s strange, isn’t it?” She looked up at the giant silhouette towering into the night sky. Her long glossy black hair blew in the night breeze. “I want to be free and not be tied down by anyone. That was the only thing on my mind, yet I was still following the usual path I had created for myself. I fit the pattern well enough for you to catch up with me. Almost like I was tying myself down to put my mind at ease.”

“Did you want someone to find you?”

Hearing that, she turned back toward him with the night breeze blowing into the open sides of her top and passing through below her chest.

She looked surprised at first, but then her eyes narrowed gently.

“That sure is a romantic interpretation.”

“I’ll take that as a no.”

He scratched the scar on his nose and she let out a soft sigh.

“I don’t think I have it in me to plan out anything like that. I don’t know how you view me, but I’m a lot more aggressive than that. I’m not going to sit around waiting to see what the other person does.”

He heard a sizzling sound like someone had pushed in a car’s cigarette lighter. He heard it from more than one direction. And the number of sounds continue to grow all around the two of them.

Was this a sign of danger?

No. She was her normal self. She was not in a bad mood.

She licked her lips and the wind blew a few strands of hair between her lips as she continued speaking.

The fruit of death began to give off a sweet aroma.

“Hey.”

“Yes?”

“I’m starting to get bored. Can you show me to somewhere more interesting?”

The darkness was swept away all at once. The concrete ground was now orange and bubbling.

She could control this liquid that was even more dangerous than fire.

It would quickly form a great sea that would sweep everything else away.

That poor girl only knew how to approach people like this, or by mechanically manipulating them through calculated Machiavellianism.

The adults had raised her this way, creating exactly the monster they had wanted. No, since the Tenshukaku had ended up splattered with blood, she may have been an even greater monster than they had wanted. They had created the strongest ninja like they wanted, but now no one could control her. Her designers had misread the situation.

But Sugiyado Souha slowly shook his head in the face of that overwhelming power.

He felt no fear. He only felt sad.

That was why he had chosen to once more face his past defeat.

“And if I refuse?”

“Didn’t I tell you? I don’t know how you view me, but I’m a lot more aggressive than that.”

The boiling lava covered the surface.

She touched her long tongue with her index finger.

A moment later, Sugiyado Souha jumped 10m straight up.

His spine ached.

He only had 300g to spare. Even if it was mostly psychological, he still felt like he was walking on thinner ice than with his usual air-pressure kunais.

(Ow. I really am going to have to use every trick in the book for this one!!)

He removed the thin cloth covering up his sheathed ninja sword, discarded the cloth into the lava, and landed on the railing of the mall’s second story passageway. Sagami Oniyuri laughed when she saw that.

Her switch had been thrown.

She was floating a meter above the lava sea with her legs positioned neatly side by side. She toyed with the stray hairs in her mouth.

“Oh, how lovely.”

She clasped her hands together in front of her face and shifted them to the side, almost like she was begging him for something. She continued smiling throughout.

“So you can do it when you try.”

The scorching lava roared below her as it took in oxygen. He did not hesitate. He immediately turned his back and fled from that girl whose ninja outfit looked like an ancient queen’s dress. The entrance to the mall at the bottom of the tower was of course locked, but he drew Salvation & Punishment, stuck it in the gap between the double doors, and swung it down to slice through the lock itself.

The lava defied gravity to form a rainbow-like arch. The glowing liquid weapon rushed in and filled the open-air passageway. More than that, it melted all the windows and an orange flash flood burst inside, but he had already run up a stopped escalator to escape to the next floor up.

It was not normal to seek out destructive power with a ninja tool.

He had not corrected Ouka with Midnight Tempest because she showed a lot of unique growth in that direction, but that was not how a ninja’s tools were meant to be used. Even the kunais Sugiyado usually used were meant to expand one’s options by digging holes that could not be dug barehanded.

So the same was true of the ninja sword.

His previous leap was something like a pole vault using the compressed air pile driver installed in the sword’s scabbard. It was the same basic idea as Fierce Fang, but the greater size of the scabbard allowed a lot more instant nitrogen foam to be contained within. He could use it multiple times without swapping out cartridges.

In fact, his Fierce Fang was really a downgraded product that borrowed that one portion of his ninja sword. While suffering from his old wounds, he had let go of the sword he had once relied on with his life and instead split its abilities up and carried them around separately.

The sword had a tungsten steel blade because he needed a sharp enough edge to slice through locks and thick chains. It had a few other gimmicks included as well, but they all had their origin in mobility rather than combat.

His immediate defeat against Sagami Oniyuri earlier had been because the air-pressure kunais alone left him with nowhere to stand while the lava sea pushed in, so he had been helpless when the raging sun had burst. But if he had been able to freely move around in that hell, he might have been able to continue fighting.

Showing off obvious firepower was a job for the samurai and knights. A ninja first had to secure their freedom of movement, whether it was on the wall, on the ceiling, on the water, or in the air. They would select the option everyone else had written off as impossible and surpass their opponent’s expectations. That confusion was a ninja’s greatest weapon.

However…

(Gh!?)

The bolts in his spine ached. The springs replacing the ligaments in his legs screamed. The external support surpassed what a normal body could do, so the nonhuman parts within him caused a rejection reaction. He was made all too aware of how little 300g was and he could feel death approaching. This was why he had stopped using this ninja sword specialized for mobility.

That nameless armored samurai had been shocked to find Sugiyado did not use a cutting-edge ninja outfit made with a spiderweb structure, a high-polymer water-absorbing gel, and electric potential elastic belt cylinders, but it was quite the opposite. That high-quality equipment had a different weight and output, so he could not use them properly with his injured body. It was about compatibility, not a conviction or stubborn pride.

He had nothing to boast about.

He knew all too well that he was washed up.

He knew he was nothing but baggage who should stick to the logistical support of being an instructor.

(But I will have my way here. Just this once! Just for tonight!!)

“Yes, yes. You really are entertaining.”

After covering the lower floor with boiling lava, Oniyuri floated up along the escalator while smiling. Her flowing black hair and surgical gown of a ninja outfit absorbed the glow of the lava, she embraced her own breathtakingly beautiful body, and she gave off a sweet aroma.

She did not think of this as killing someone.

“I love someone who is not broken by fear. It feels like finally getting to stretch your arms and legs after being stiffly curled up for far too long.”

This was normal for her. It was no different from giving a casual greeting to someone you met on the street. The people who immediately died were like an awkward silence on the elevator and Sugiyado was like someone who would keep the conversation going.

“And I love freedom as well. Oh, how I envy you.”

She stuck out her alluring tongue and another attack manifested from her.

The entire 1000m structure tilted far too easily.

This was what lava was.

It erupted from the depths of the earth and destroyed all structures in its path. It did not matter if that structure was the tallest broadcast tower. Once the ground below it had been melted from a solid into a liquid – from dirt and rock into ultra-hot magma – no structure could remain standing. Not even a feudal lord’s castle.

In another few minutes, the mall, the broadcast facilities, and the upper observation deck would all collapse like a stick stabbed into a pile of sand. When caught in that fall and collapse, no flesh-and-blood human could survive.

But that was fine.

While even the directions of up and down were shaken in the mall, Sugiyado Souha continued ever upwards. He only wore a short-sleeved dress shirt and loose pants with no equipment to boost his strength, so he only had that one ninja sword to assist him in running, leaping, and continuing onward.

The entire mall was 5 stories tall. The 6th floor contained the ticket counter for the observation deck. From there, it was a straight shot to the observation deck at 700m using either the elevators or emergency stairs. The remaining height could only be climbed using the work gondolas or open-air stairs only used by workers.

It was like being caught in a never-ending flood. Each consecutive floor of the mall was covered in and consumed by the lava while he climbed over the ticket counter and ran to the emergency stairs.

He had finally left the mall and arrived at the actual broadcast tower.

Beyond the reinforced glass and complex arrangement of steel beams, he climbed further while awash in the light of the moon from above and lava from below. He ran up the emergency stairs that coiled around the central elevator shaft that contained a few different elevators.

There was no sign of Sagami Oniyuri.

But he did not relax. He had not shaken her. He had simply lost sight of her.

The wall right next to him glowed orange.

(The elevator shaft!?)

The wall melted and burst out toward him as a 2000 degree weapon. It truly was like a scorching flash flood. Trying to block that with his sword would have been foolish.

Simply following the stairs up would not be enough anymore, so he twisted around and leaped out onto the complex arrangement of steel beams beyond the railing and just inside the reinforced glass.

He gathered strength using the compressed nitrogen pile driver installed in Salvation & Punishment’s scabbard and flew upwards with his spine protesting.

Once the glowing drops from the melted elevator shaft had settled down, Oniyuri emerged from within.

She looked up at him and spoke in amusement in her ninja outfit that’s bodysuit accentuated her figure and that otherwise looked like an ancient queen’s dress or a surgical gown.

She licked her lips like she was feasting on the fierce high found in a true fight to the death.

“Oh? You shouldn’t have been able to predict that, so how did detect me through the wall? Hee hee.”

Or was she simply applying that state to her own mind?

In the air, he untied the exceedingly long decorative cloth wrapped around his sword’s scabbard and threw the weighted end toward a steel beam overhead. After confirming it had caught solidly on the beam, he swung like a pendulum and ran along the steel beams near the glass interior wall.

Scorching heat swept through that space.

Oniyuri gathered a ball of lava below her feet with Divine Decree and used its explosive power and the liquid’s jet propulsion to rocket upwards.

A direct hit from this would kill him instantly, but even if he dodged it, the lava being scattered in all directions would be devastating enough.

He desperately moved from the outer steel beams to the emergency stairway railing toward the center and then jumped to a different steel beam, but a sweet voice slipped into his ears along with the wet sound of the saliva on her tongue.

“Hee hee.”

Black-haired Sagami Oniyuri had moved out ahead of Sugiyado after missing him. Her front skirt fluttered as she pointed her slender index finger skywards.

“The sun☆”

The compressed lava burst and flooded the world.

The New Yokohama Aeromonolith was like a giant transparent smokestack that used reinforced glass to cover the entire hexagonal tower built from steel beams.

Boiling lava filled that entire space and gravity pulled it down like a suspended ceiling. It swallowed up and melted everything in its path, including the steel beams and reinforced glass.

“!!”

His soul told him to run – to get as far away as he could. He needed to move down to avoid the deadly lava sealing things off overhead. His short-sleeved dress shirt and pants were no defense against that. A single drop would burn him to the bone.

But he chose to ignore his instincts.

He could not survive if he only ever thought one step ahead. Besides, the ground was already covered in the orange lava.

If he wanted to save her, and if he wanted to seize victory here, he had to continue upwards. He had to face the falling lava!!

“Ohhh!!”

He let out a quick breath.

He twirled around with the tungsten steel ninja sword in hand and intentionally altered his center of gravity to throw his axis off balance and create an irregular rotation.

Steel beams crisscrossed in a complex pattern overhead. Since the melting point of steel was around 1500 degrees, it was no match for the 2000+ degree lava, but it was not liquefied in the blink of an eye. With even a slight moment of resistance, the liquid lava would splash off of it and the suspended ceiling would be torn through. It was a lot like threading a needle, but there were small gaps there.

Those slight safe paths wriggled like amoebas and kept opening and closing.

By slipping through there, he passed through the blazing hot suspended ceiling.

He continued up.

He continued on.

“Ah ha ha! Incredible!!”

When he caught up to her in an instant and began running alongside her as she flew with her psychic Divine Decree, Oniyuri’s face bloomed in a truly unrestrained smile. With a stray stand of hair in her mouth, she licked her lips with her seductive tongue.

She held herself tight in her arms, which seemed to accentuate the chest of her sleeveless kimono top, and she seemed focused on the back of his short-sleeved dress shirt.

“I see, I see. The pain from the bolts in your spine let you detect the faint magnetism from the moving lava. You transform your risks and weaknesses into weapons and you obtain further freedom from your irremovable restraints. Incredible. Yes, freedom truly is incredible!!”

“…”

Was that how it looked to her?

But the freedom she sought should not have been restricted to this small and bloody world. Why could she not envision a freedom where she could get together with friends for karaoke or look up at a planetarium with a romantic partner? She had forgotten that even she had written it off as impossible and turned her back on that hurdle.

He had to teach her how big the world really was.

He had to correct her so she could stand on her own two feet in that world and reach an understanding with it.

So.

So he could not afford to lose here. No matter what.

More and more steel and concrete melted and lost shape and the resultant liquid was guided by Divine Decree to attack him like a great serpent. The entire broadcast tower groaned ominously and the angle of its tilt grew. The New Yokohama Aeromonolith was not going to last much longer. Sooner or later, it would fall. He knew that, but he still climbed it.

He climbed up, but even that concept was changed little by little as the tower tilted.

His spine ached. The grim reaper was approaching from behind.

Climbing the stairs was not enough. The complex arrangement of steel beams was not all-powerful. He finally set foot on the reinforced glass. It felt like a steep slope, but that was because the vertical glass had tilted enough to stand on. The windows must not have been built to withstand the distortion in the overall structure because more and more cracks formed in them. Once he started stepping on it, it broke and shattered. He could only rely on the slight moment of resistance as it broke, so it was a lot like running on water.

“Ah ha ha! Ah ha ha ha ha ha!!”

The pursuing girl’s empty laughter seemed to ring endlessly. The simple act of walking lifted up one’s organs and the shock of taking flight and landing had to be considerable. Her implants should have been replaced since they gradually shifted out of place every time she moved, but they had been left in there, making her life as fragile as glasswork. She wanted to leave the destructive marks of her life on the world in order to celebrate her freedom that could come to an end any minute or any second.

She was strong enough to follow that path wherever it might lead, but also hopelessly and pitiably weak.

She may have been the strongest, but no one would ever follow her. No one would praise her or look up to her.

“What will you do?”

Instead of using the unsteady footing, the psychic girl used Divine Decree to fly around within the tower. Her speed caused her skirt to whip around and she asked a question with a smile.

She almost sounded like someone sad that a fireworks show was ending.

“This game of tag is fun and all, but we’re approaching the end of the course.”

She was right.

The tower was now angled at more than 45 degrees as it leaned out over the city below. He passed through the general observation deck and used a maintenance door to burst outside. The chill of the late-night air hit him while he ran directly along the exposed steel beams.

This was past the point any ordinary visitors would go.

Only the workers were allowed on the giant antenna rod here.

Once he reached the very top, there would be nowhere else to go. Once he had nowhere to run, the rising orange lava would swallow him up.

He was approaching a hopeless precipice.

But he did not hesitate to answer while running alongside her.

“That’s none of your concern.”

“Ah ha ha!! Good, it sounds like you’ve got more fun planned for me!!”

The area around him exploded violently, the entire scene melted around him, and the amount of lava rapidly increased. It all moved to attack him.

(I won’t give up on you.)

He clenched his teeth, ignored the pain from his overloaded back and knees, and renewed his resolve.

(Even if every last doctor on the planet throws in the towel and even if every spokesperson of justice in the world condemns you, I will never give up on your future – on your possibility! Oniyuri!!)

The top of the diagonally tilted tower was approaching fast.

Their game of chicken was coming to an end. He could not move past that point.

Yet there was a smile on his lips.

But this smile was very different from hers.

“I was waiting for this.”

“?”

He ran across several parabolic antennae, reached the antenna rod, and came to a complete stop at the very top of that 1000m tower.

While rocketing upwards with the lava’s explosive power, Oniyuri moved to crash into his hips with bone-shattering speed. But he twisted his body to dodge her at the last second.

And after passing him by, the girl dressed like an ancient queen seemed to notice something was wrong. She licked her beautiful lips.

“What…is this?”

Her flight wavered as she started to move past the tower and into the night sky.

Just like a stalling aircraft.

She quickly flailed her arms and legs to regain control and found the top of the tower in front of her again.

That was when she seemed to catch on.

Sugiyado Souha smoothly drew Salvation & Punishment’s uncurved blade. That thick tungsten steel blade was designed to cut wires more than human muscle and bone. The tip reflected the cold moonlight and hot lava glow while pointing calmly at floating Oniyuri.

“I…see. Ah ha ha.”

“To be honest, your flight was a much bigger problem than the more obvious lava. I mean, you can fly from Hokkaido to Okinawa in half an hour with Divine Decree, so you could directly combat a stealth fighter with your psychic powers. The worst case scenario would be if you flew circles at Mach 2 and at an altitude of 10,000m while covering the surface below with lava. If you had gone for that kind of strategic bombing tactics, even I would have been helpless to stop you.”

But she had not done that.

Why not?

“Your flight has its limits.”

“…”

“I don’t know if it’s a physical thing or a mental issue of control, but it works kind of like a hovercraft or ground-effect vehicle. You can pass freely over the ocean or the land, but you can’t fly all that high. Had you never noticed that limit yourself? I’ve never seen you fly more than 5m off of the ground or away from a wall. Not now and not in the past.”

In other words, the pointed end of a tower was the best terrain shape to stop her. She was reliant on the tower, so she could not move beyond a spherical space with a radius of 5m. She could not use her fearsome speed of Mach 2 or 3 to continually fall back while destroying him with lava attacks.

Her position as the strongest had ironically never given her a chance to test the limits of her psychic powers.

What did she feel while facing someone who understood her better than she did?

“Ha ha.”

She formed a truly and hopelessly gentle smile that caught a stray strand of hair while she floated in the night sky.

“Simply incredible. But it’s hard to say you’ve captured me here. I mean, I can move anywhere within 5m of my footing, right? That means I can fly anywhere I want along the 1000m length of the tower.”

“Yes.”

He had thought of that.

So…

“I just have to sever that to fully bind you.”

The battlefield was sliced apart.

The impressive broadcast tower was an enormous mass of steel, but the very top was only a delicate antenna rod. It was only about 50cm thick and it was hollow on the inside, so it was actually thinner than the logs or makiwara he used in training.

It was possible.

He only had to use the tungsten steel ninja sword that had been designed to slice through thick chains and locks like a pair of wire cutters. He only had to convert weight, speed, and a sharp edge into a destructive force.

That allowed him to cut away the very top of that 1000m tower.

“Ah,” said Oniyuri.

She even forgot to smile.

By then, her body had already been dragged away. She could only fly within 5m of solid footing, so if that footing was taken away, she was taken with it.

Of course, Sugiyado was standing on the tip of the tower he had cut away.

Both of them were dumped out into the night sky.

She panicked at having her flight taken from her for the first time, but there was no disturbance at all in his eyes.

This time, the Hidden One faced the other Hidden One.

And the ninja whispered while holding the blade that had once failed to reach her.

“Let’s make this a fair fight, Oniyuri.”

7: What I Wanted to Teach You

Oniyuri could do nothing while she fell.

Her freedom of flight had been taken from her. Out in the open air, heating her surroundings with Divine Decree could not create new lava. She may have been able to lift up the existing lava from the ground, but it was too far away to stop Sugiyado Souha as he tried to cross blades with her right this instant.

Nevertheless.

Her wings had been taken from her, but in something like a magic trick, she pulled a standard 30cm dagger from her risqué surgical gown of a ninja outfit. Their weapons clashed a total of 6 times.

She really was a genius and the strongest in everything she did.

“Ha ha.”

She was unable to fight the earth’s gravity and fell toward the carpet of boiling lava below, but she laughed all the while. Her hair whipped around her and she alluringly licked her lips.

“Ah ha ha!! Incredible! Only you could keep up with me like this! Only you could speak with me like this! Yes, yes. I have never felt so fulfilled. It’s fun. So much fun!!”

If not for the speed of her fall, she might have clapped her hands together and held her sides as she laughed.

But Sugiyado Souha was not laughing.

“Hey, Oniyuri,” he said. “A truly happy person has more than just fun and they don’t push away everything else. We can call ourselves happy because we have overcome the hard times by working together with others.”

In that instant, he saw her expression silently but undeniably collapse. She finally had the look of a girl her age. Or so it looked to him.

“That’s more like it.”

She may have already known this.

She may have known it, but she had not had anyone to ask for help and was forced to continue on the only path she had. Because she was the strongest and a genius, turning back may not have been an option for her.

“You look much more human and pretty like that, Oniyuri.”

That was why he felt the way he did.

Yes, she had once slashed him in the back and he still carried the effects of that with him. Yes, she had bitten at the hand held out to help her and cruelly betrayed him. Yes, she possessed a soul that actively chose to trample on her own hope.

But when he had seen the way she lived her life, he had wanted to save her.

He had wanted to tell her she could live her life without following that path that was like walking on broken glass.

That was all he had wanted, and he was dead set on pulling it off.

Strength gathered in the hand holding Salvation & Punishment.

He suppressed the fear of falling into the abyss with her.

And he looked straight at her.

This was not an enemy to defeat. This was not an evil to be slain. She had simply strayed from the path and fallen into the mud without ever being taught how to find her way back.

So.

In that case.

“Isn’t this enough, Oniyuri?”

“Kh.”

“I will teach you everything you should have been taught in the first place! So stop here!! You can’t make any progress without first owning up to what you’ve done wrong!!”

He would catch her.

No matter how many times she fell, he would stay with her until she returned to the path she was originally meant to walk. He would work at it until she could do it.

Seeing her had made him want to be that kind of person.

And that was why he had become an instructor.

So he could not forget that here. No matter how many bolts he had in his spine and no matter what had replaced his torn ligaments, he could not forget that. He could not!!

“Gh!?”

With the seventh slash, her dagger finally came to a stop. His ninja sword had landed a solid blow on it. But that was not his only weapon.

He had the scabbard.

He spun it from his hip to push up the bottom end like a seesaw and it contacted the side of her dagger. The instant nitrogen foam burst out and the fearsome pile driver slammed into the side of the dagger’s blade, shattering it. The hand holding the remaining haft was knocked outwards and the kunoichi’s body arched backwards.

She was entirely defenseless now.

This was his first and last chance to get a unilateral attack in on her.

The boy reversed his ninja sword in front of the unarmed girl.

He would end it with his eighth attack.

He knew exactly what to aim for.

Her form-fitting cutting-edge ninja outfit used a spider web structure and her odd additions to that looked like an ancient queen’s dress or a surgical gown. That outfit’s defenses could stop a rifle bullet, but he ignored all of that while holding Salvation & Punishment in both hands and stabbing it toward her stomach.

It did not pierce through, but its weight could not be ignored.

This was a mass of well-forged tungsten steel, so the impact it provided had to be greater than a blow from a boxer.

“Oniyuri, this is your first lesson.”

He ignored the pain in his back as he raised his voice.

If he could find victory here, he did not care what happened to his breaking body. Some fights in life were simply that important.

So…

“I will teach you how to lose! And how to accept that defeat!!”

With a great roar of impact, Oniyuri doubled over, her fingertips went limp, and the artificial madness in her eyes faded away.

Epilogue

At that time, the New Yokohama Aeromonolith had been tilted at more than 45 degrees, but it was still a 1000m tower. When he had cut off the tip of the antenna rod to begin their freefall, they had to have been more than 200m up.

Settling things with Oniyuri was meaningless if the two of them simply plunged into the lava below.

He could not let it end here. He could not free her trapped soul if things did not continue on from here.

If he could not take care of his students, how could he call himself an instructor?

“Kh!!”

He sheathed his ninja sword, stretched out his arms and legs to reduce air resistance, and accelerated in the same way sky divers adjusted their speed. Sagami Oniyuri had been falling ahead of him, so he pulled her limp, unconscious body toward him.

He could ignore her weight since they were falling.

(But this is going to be hell once we decelerate and the weight hits me. This will go well past my back’s 10kg limit!!)

Salvation & Punishment was the only thing he had to rely on.

The tool wrapped around the scabbard was meant to function as a rope, but it was actually a sash-like decorative cloth. It was thin enough to see through to the other side, but it could still gather air.

By folding it back and forth on itself every few meters, he could turn it into a large parachute. It might look like a bunch of bananas since each individual parachute section would be long and narrow, but that did not matter as long as the total area was enough.

His body was suddenly pinned in place.

Oniyuri’s weight assaulted him all at once.

“Ah…kahhh!!!???”

He had broken the rule he had been following all this time.

And he swiftly paid the price.

It felt like sparks were exploding at a point in his spine. His vision really did shatter and he nearly bit his tongue. All of his senses felt vague and unclear, but he still managed to hold tightly onto the girl in his arms. That alone he would not give in on.

They drifted below the broadcast tower leaning out over the city and he desperately tried to catch his breath while his vision refused to fully return.

He could not even focus on his earphone.

He would not let go of that girl no matter what.

He focused only on that while clenching his teeth.

Temporarily losing his vision ended up being painful indeed.

He misread when he would land and misjudged the timing at which he contacted the ground. Parachutes might look like they brought people gently and safely to the ground, but it was not uncommon for soldiers to break an ankle or knee after screwing up the landing.

“Gwah, ahh!?”

Instead of the lava-covered road, he had landed on the roof of some multi-tenant building. The hard landing produced a devastating sound from his legs as the springs replacing the ligaments shattered. He had failed to absorb the shock properly. He could not even stand up anymore and the parachute made from the decorative cloth dragged him to the side as the night wind blew at it.

However.

To the very end, he did not let go of Sagami Oniyuri’s warmth in his arms.

“Vio…Queen Violia.” He finally managed to touch his earphone and get out a scratchy voice while still collapsed on the roof. “Sugiyado Souha to Queen Violia. End radio silence. It’s all over.”

“I don’t know why, but your ninjas and even my John have been making a real fuss over the radio. What in the world happened out there?”

“Ow… I have one thing to ask you in the end here.”

“I’m willing to do anything as long as you stop calling this the end, Nii-sama.”

He heard some static.

He turned his head even though his vision had barely recovered and was still full of noise, but he did manage to see who was waiting there for him.

“John. I’ll admit this was a pure gamble, so I’m glad you were the first to get here.”

“What are you going to do now?” asked the man.

Sugiyado slowly exhaled before answering.

“I want you to look after Oniyuri for me. Her body is the same as it was after those experiments from years ago. She still has the Divine Decree devices needed for her psychic powers. Can you have those surgically removed back in the Kingdom? You only have to use X-rays or ultrasound or whatever to get an image of them, use a 3D printer to create a mockup, and replace them. I know I can’t count on the Shogunate to do this since they would never give up their successful specimen. But you’re different, right?”

“…”

“The parts you will surgically remove are some of the Shogunate’s biggest secrets. If you take away Oniyuri’s psychic powers, you will have eliminated the reason why Queen Violia was targeted back then. Not a bad deal. Right, John? And Your Majesty?”

“You idiot. You didn’t need a word beyond ‘look after her for me’,” spat out the man in a flight suit and leather jacket.

“Hey, are you sure you only want us to look after Oniyuri?” asked the queen on his earphone. “Two is no more difficult than one, so we could take you too.”

“That would be great.” He smiled while still collapsed on the roof. “But then I couldn’t end this properly. If no one is around to take the blame for all of this, someone else will be placed on the chopping block as a scapegoat. Most likely Guren and Suiren. This incident was all about our past, so I can’t let anything happen to those girls over this.”

“You mean?”

“Yes, it’s the only option.”

Sugiyado Souha was unable to get up, so John crouched down and gently lifted Sagami Oniyuri from his arms. The man still had one arm in a sling, but he did not let any pain show on his face.

“Can I count on you?”

“Of course you can,” spat out John while turning around, but Sugiyado could not even watch him go.

The next footsteps were already approaching.

He heard two sets walking in perfect unison, so he slowly raised his hands.

“I surrender.”

He knew what he had to say.

“I threatened my students into doing what I wanted so I could restore my honor!! They were in a state of diminished capacity and cannot be held accountable for what they did!!”

“Do you honestly think anyone will buy that ridiculous excuse?”

“Whatever your reasons were, we all know you wanted to end this as quickly as possible and even risked your life to do so.”

He was glad to hear them say that.

But he could not agree. Oniyuri had escaped and the four primary criminals had not been captured. Meanwhile, the Shogunate had taken considerable damage. The only way to pacify the Shogunate was to hand them a ringleader who had been pulling all the strings behind the scenes of everything caused by Ouka’s group and by Oniyuri.

Someone had to be thrown in jail. Even before Oniyuri’s involvement, Sugiyado had known it could only end like this.

Kuhou Ouka, Hanasawa Bara, Nantou Hoozuki, and Shizukuma Asagao.

Shirazaya Guren and Shirazaya Suiren.

He had only ever been focused on protecting every last one of them and not letting any one of them die.

Guren’s throat trembled and Suiren restlessly toyed with her right earlobe.

“An unreasonable conclusion will only draw those girls to a new battlefield,” said one. “Just like that past mission led to the current fight.”

“Distortions will only lead to misfortune and tragedy,” said the other. “Even if that decision appears to be the cleverest one to you.”

“That’s fine,” he said.

He did not lower his arms while still lying limply on the roof. His legs had been shattered, but he did not use his hands to support his weight. He had already decided those hands would stay up until the twins with red and white extensions to their blonde hair had handcuffed him.

“They should understand now that even their seemingly flawless Elite Ninja skills can be defeated. And with me in prison, the techniques I used could be passed on to the Shogunate. And thus to the Shogunate spies like you. They won’t be able to put together another criminal plot so easily.”

“That is not what we meant.”

“We do not approve of what they did, but do you really think they will be satisfied with this result? We all know they won’t.”

“Of course they won’t,” he spat out. “After everything they did, how could they ever conveniently get off scot-free, without losing anything? I am on their side 100%, but not even I am going to spoil them that much. The thing they most wanted to protect will be taken from them and thrown in prison because of their actions. …And they should count themselves very lucky that is all they lose. That trauma should be enough to ensure they never again use their ninja techniques for their own personal desires.”

“…”

“…”

Shirazaya Guren and Suiren fell silent for a while. Their reluctance to accept this was written plainly on their faces. He could tell they really were good girls. But he was not budging on this. He would have his way here.

He smiled thinly with his legs shattered and his hands raised.

“Please.”

“But…”

“Please. This will help you save face too. There is no other way to save everyone but me.”

“No one ever asked you to save them!!”

Come to think of it, that was true.

These twin sisters had not.

His four students had not.

Even Sagami Oniyuri had not.

They had all clenched their teeth, suppressed their tears, and fought against the cruel reality facing them.

They were all such strong girls. In a way, his half-assed meddling had condescendingly sullied their dignity and pride.

But there was no turning back now.

“Then I’ll have to ask it myself.”

This time – this one time – he would have his way no matter what.

“Guren, Suiren. Please help this frail and broken ninja. You’re the only people I can rely on in that hellhole we call the Shogunate.”

Silence followed.

The blonde twins tried to say something, but no words came out. They squeezed the white cloth of their slitted skirts as their hesitation continued without end.

But in the end, they were indeed strong.

“Sugiyado Souha.”

He heard a solid metallic sound. Guren, with the red extension to her blonde hair, had pulled a pair of handcuffs from her ninja outfit.

“On charges of inciting a largescale disturbance, providing false testimony, obstructing an official investigation, inciting a foreign threat by working with the Kingdom, hiding a crucial witness, and assisting her flight from the country…”

Her words faltered at that point. No, she had bit her adorable lip.

Suiren placed a hand on her shoulder, but Guren managed to get the words out of her trembling throat.

She renewed her resolve and finished her statement.

“You are under arrest.”

Afterword

Welcome, everyone. This is Kamachi Kazuma.

Ninjas! I have actually included them on occasion in A Certain Magical Index and the Zashiki Warashi of Intellectual Village that I wrote for another publisher. If you read Index’s SS2 in particular, you should be able to grasp my image of fictional ninjas.

Since I was writing about ninjas, I placed the main focus squarely on the desire to protect the heroine students while making everything else be a series of deceptions. That is different from a police story where you can focus on solving the case once all the surrounding information has been established. I just hope it was enjoyable enough to create a solid foundation for doing what I wanted to do.

The protagonist possessed a great power but was too kind to soak himself in the darkness and lost everything as a result. He can tell standing back up is only going to cause him to crash and burn like he once did, but he still struggles to save those girls regardless of what side they belong to. I hope you enjoyed it.

I give my thanks to my illustrator Tajima Ryuushi-san, to my editors Miki-san, Nakajima-san, Yamamoto-san, and Mitera-san, and to someone deserving special thanks. Giving them all unique kunoichi outfits instead of a standardized school uniform may have been a cruel request that emptied out the drawer of ideas all at once, so I am truly grateful you went along with it.

And I give my thanks to the readers. I love using this genre for minor characters, but I was honestly pretty nervous about using it as a main theme. I have nothing but thanks for all of you who still picked up this book. Thank you very much.

And I will end this here.

You’ve gotta go with kunais over shurikens, right!?

-Kamachi Kazuma

Beyond the Epilogue

It was a dark night.

On the surface, countless lights gathered together to create the vast nightscape of a city, but the rooftops of the skyscrapers were actually wrapped in deep shadows.

“What should we do, Ouka? If the records from that farce of a private trial are accurate, he’s probably being sent to Abashiri, which is practically a legend at this point. This will be our last definite shot at this.”

“I would love to,” said the twintail girl. “But Sensei wouldn’t want that.”

After everything they had experienced, that was the only thing they had learned.

But if they had learned that tiny lesson beforehand, they never would have caused that major incident in the first place.

Their teacher, Sugiyado Souha, had risked his life and his reputation to teach them that. He had remained their teacher to the end.

So they could never forget it.

An instructor’s true value was determined by the path their students took, so they would not make that mistake again.

So.

A defenseless prisoner transport truck and its escort vehicles passed by below them. They could have attacked that puny assortment of vehicles a hundred times and never failed even once.

“But this isn’t the end,” said silver ponytail Nantou Hoozuki while watching the vehicles drive away. “He might be in prison now, but once the Shogunate needs help, they will come to him, bow their heads, and beg him to solve whatever problem they’re having.”

Countless incidents of varying severity were occurring all over the country even now. Friction with foreign nations continued to grow, so no one could predict when some accident would lead to a true war.

While those four had left the Shogunate, they had been Elite Ninjas at the top of the Shogunate’s spy ranking system. They had seen a lot of classified information. They knew all too well that a precarious balancing act was underway to prevent the country from falling apart on its own.

So.

Shizukuma Asagao, the youngest, spoke last, in what almost sounded like a prophecy.

“The time will come when Sensei is needed once more. And it will arrive sooner than anyone expects.”

Inside the thick prisoner transport truck, the twin sisters were working as guards.

“Is there anything you need?”

“We will make as many concessions as we can, so just tell us what you want.”

They used soft, blunted voices that were not at all what a Shogunate spy would normally use when speaking to a violent criminal. The ordinary prison guards gave them quizzical looks, but the twins in white dresses paid them no heed.

Meanwhile, the boy smiled thinly with handcuffs on his wrists, his legs in casts, his back leaning against the wall, and his butt on the floor.

One of the twins wrapped her hands around his restrained ones.

He felt a solid object there. It may have been a small metal clip.

But he shook his head.

He could escape if he put his mind to it, but that would be meaningless.

His position seated on the floor must have been more comfortable for him than in a chair. His shoulders relaxed while he responded in that space surrounded by metal bars.

“In that case, could you bring me some Happy Churn? I’ll take as many of them as I can get.”

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