Volume 1, 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.