Cute Kunoichis:Volume1 Chapter1

Status: Incomplete

3/7 parts completed

   

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!!”

7

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