Cute Kunoichis:Volume1 Chapter4

Status: Incomplete

3/5 parts completed

   

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.”

5

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