Volume 2, Prologue

Avoid the Tomb at all costs.

Life in Abashiri’s special prison is bad enough as it is, but being sent there is a death sentence.

“Hey, you still alive? Looks like they won’t have to amputate your feet to save you, but what are you trying to accomplish? Is a guy like you hoping to be a tragic heroine or something?”

When Sugiyado Souha smelled disinfectant alcohol, he realized he must be in the medical building.

He still could not feel anything below his ankles.

He used just his arms to grab at the metal pipe railing and sit up in the bed, eliciting an exasperated sigh from the old man seated next to the bed.

He recognized that prisoner.

That fellow prisoner.

“Boy, you were only just released from the medical building, yet here you are again. This is Abashiri. I thought I warned you to avoid the Tomb.”

“It’s not like I had a choice in the matter.”

“My point was to not get on the bad side of the guards.”

The Tomb was a solitary confinement cell used to punish prisoners who broke the rules. All heating was shut off in that inescapable room, but they apparently built a pathway for the icy air from outside to pass directly below the floor, so the walls and floor were so cold your skin would stick to them. If you carelessly tried to lie down, you would either get frostbite or freeze to death. The point was to keep the prisoner from getting any sleep by preventing them from lying on the floor or leaning against the walls.

But the old man did not make that big a deal out of it.

“Why would you intentionally antagonize the guards? With your skill, sneaking up to the person you want should be second nature to you.”

“…”

“Do you refuse to use those skills for personal reasons? That’s an impressive ideal, but it’s only required for people on active duty. It means nothing to us retried folks who had everything stripped from us before we were thrown in a cell here.”

Sugiyado sighed.

He wore a bright orange jumpsuit. His special fiber ninja outfit and tank-destroying air pressure kunais were a thing of the past.

“The doc said you have light frostbite. You got a long stay in the medical building when you arrived here with your legs broken, but that’s not happening this time. You’re here for a few days at most.”

“I am aware of that.”

“You need to make up your mind before you’re released again. No one’s going to praise you if you choose to accept needless punishment and no one’s going to blame you if take the easy way out. You weren’t given a death sentence, so enjoy your life here the best you can. If you don’t, you’ll lose your life for no good reason.”

The old man in an identical jumpsuit stood up from his chair and left the medical room.

(…)

Sugiyado sank into thought now that he was alone.

Kuhou Ouka.

Hanasawa Bara.

Nantou Hoozuki.

Shizukuma Asagao.

Those four kunoichis were his students.

As was Sagami Oniyuri.

He had needed to covertly end the incident that began with them stealing a modular nuclear reactor. He had just barely avoided the worst-case scenario, but that had required acting on his own in ways that qualified as betraying the Shogunate. He was not going to be pardoned. He had simply been paying the price needed to save those girls, so he was not at all unsatisfied with his current circumstances.

However.

(If I do eventually leave this place.)

He had been running with all his might.

But now that he had time to stop and reflect on things…

(Is there anything I want to do then? I’m honestly afraid that absolute freedom would feel like too much pressure.)

The silence of this place seemed to squeeze at his very soul. The emptiness sapped the heat from his core even more than the Tomb had.

He heard a gentle knock on the door and the master of this room walked in. During the previous incident, he had failed a makeshift parachute descent while carrying Oniyuri and ended up shattering both his legs. This middle-aged female doctor had been looking after him since then.

“Are you alone?”

“I had someone with me a moment ago.”

“That’s fine with me as long as they aren’t an uninvited guest. Now, let’s see how your legs are doing.”

He sat up and she circled toward his legs.

She pulled back the thin blanket that would have raised eyebrows in an ordinary home but was a luxury in Abashiri.

And Sugiyado Souha made an announcement without even looking her way.

“Bara, I know it’s you.”

He heard a sweet and bewitching breath of laughter.

“Oh, what a shame. I was hoping you were kind enough to go along with this farce of a honeymoon despite noticing.”

There was no noticeable transition.

“The next thing he knew” was the only way he could describe it.

The middle-aged woman with somewhat loose skin standing in front of him was now an 18-year-old girl with her long red hair worn in gorgeous ringlet curls and with her bright and curvy body adorned by an Oiran-style shoulder-baring kimono. She accentuated her large chest to a gratuitous extent, but she did not stop there. She retained an unnatural innocence at the center of that top-tier seduction, so she seemed second to none in the field of kunoichi sex appeal.

She was Hanasawa Bara.

A set of high-power coilguns known as Serpent Monster was woven into her hair and she excelled at disguises and diversions.

She held the position of Elite Ninja, the highest of the Shogunate’s officially acknowledged ranks.

And.

She was one of the students Sugiyado Souha had once trained over the internet.

“Why are you here?”

“Make no mistake here, Sensei. I did not come rushing in here because you had collapsed. We have been here from the beginning. That means Ouka and Hoozuki too.”

The bed springs creaked.

Bara had climbed up onto the bed on her arms and legs with a feline litheness. She was now straddling his legs while he sat up.

She rubbed against his chest and whispered to him.

“You look so lonely in here, so if there is anything at all you would like, just ask. It must be so boring in here with nothing but other men. Just say the word and I will show you the kunoichi techniques you had me trained in. I won’t hold anything back.”

He did not bat an eye as he responded.

“Do you really think that’s enough to distract me from the question of the real doctor’s wellbeing?”

“Now there’s a scary thought. But to give away the trick, it’s actually a shockingly peaceful way to take someone’s place.”

She looked like someone who had set up a major prank only for it to fail. The pouting lips were childish, but she was still up on the bed practically lying on top of her teacher.

Some beads of sweat must have soaked into her hair because a sweet aroma rose from those ringlet curls and her large chest.

“Sensei, when will you be coming back?”

“When my sentence is complete.”

“That’s not what I’m talking about. If you want, we could easily get you out of this boring place.”

“Bara.”

“So what method would you like? A complete set of documents with official Shogunate approval? Or do you just want to vanish from your cell in the middle of the night? We won’t force you to do anything. You allowed this power to blossom within us, so think of this as using what you left in our care. You only need to tell us the method you prefer.”

“Bara.”

He repeated her name but more forcefully this time.

The usual mixture of bewitching and mischievous child vanished from her face and she instead had the look of a girl fearing rejection.

“It is true I gave you the skills you need to get through life. I gave you what you need to take on the world’s cruelties and use them to your own benefit, but that wasn’t so I could use you as tools down the line.”

“…”

“You’ll do anything for me? Do I really need to repeat myself, Bara? I’m imprisoned here because of what I did to save you four after you let someone trick you into doing their bidding.”

“But…”

“You said you’re not the only one in here, right? Then pass my message onto them.”

He had to be clear about this one point.

He had left it more up in the air in the past and that had led to problems.

It might sound coldhearted.

It might trample on the feelings she was offering him.

But he could not compromise on this.

No matter what.

“This is my life, so please stop trying to take control for your own benefit.”

The frostbite was not that bad, so feeling returned to his feet after they were warmed. Once he could walk on his own again, he returned to the general prison.

That critical old man greeted him.

“You really are a dumbass, aren’t you? You were granted a stay in that ‘hotel’, so you should’ve thrown a fit until they let you at least stay the night.”

The walls were made of cold, heavy stone and the metal bars increased the oppressive atmosphere further. Abashiri’s special prison had a square cloister design with a central atrium up to the third floor. The cells on the outside walls had small (but bar-covered) windows, but the inner cells did not even have that. It was said a lot of prisoners had their psyche destroyed by the oppressive isolation more than the biting cold.

The Tomb that Sugiyado had been thrown into did not exist on the officially-released layout of the prison.

He could not be certain since he had been blindfolded and earplugged, but he was pretty sure it was located even further in than the inner cells.

“Your cell is just the way you left it. If they thought you would die from that, the other prisoners would have rushed in to pilfer your stuff.”

“I didn’t bring anything much with me.”

“You moron, a struggle over a single wire can lead to a death here. Even though no one actually has the guts to try a serious jailbreak or to attack a guard.”

The old man in the standardized jumpsuit was pushing a mop along the floor, but he usually stayed in the medical building. He was part of the privileged class who were cut off from this miniature version of the criminal underworld and were actually given comfortable rooms and nutritious food. In exchange, they were supposedly isolated in a padded room and not allowed to use the exercise area or pool, but that did not seem to be the case with him. He freely moved between the prison and the medical building, getting the best of both worlds.

Simply put, he was a model prisoner.

He did not cause the guards any trouble and he did not influence the power balance among the prisoners. He was not just well behaved. He would have been chewed up and spat out if that were the case. People seemed to ignore him like the weeds on the side of the road, but he had actually discovered a safe zone where no one ever actually trod.

And despite being a model prisoner, he never received any visitors.

He had the same scent as Sugiyado.

He was hiding some kind of skill. Instead of lying in wait for the perfect moment to strike, it felt like hiding his skill was simply second nature to him. Sugiyado had no intention of asking about the man’s identity, but the man had the dampness of a shady area that never saw the light of the sun. And this was the professional kind of dampness that silently ruined the enemy army’s powder.

“What’s your plan?” asked the old man while using the mop to prop himself up.

“For what?”

“You aren’t going to antagonize the guards and get yourself thrown into the Tomb twice in one day again, are you? Like I said in the medical building, you have a good enough eye to easily curry the favor of the VIPs without drawing the attention of the fine gentlemen with back tattoos.”

“…”

“You wouldn’t have given up the comfort of the medical building if you weren’t planning to reach a compromise with this building’s rules, right? Then think about how you should behave. There are only two ways to survive in here: rely on the guards who love wielding power over the rest of us, or find a place for yourself in the marble pattern of underworld territories the prisoners have created. My guess is you’re innocent yourself, boy. Although you also don’t seem the type to abandon all your techniques for someone who has done something wrong.”

The old man was right.

To survive here, you had to learn the rules and make sure you never stepped out of line.

Sugiyado had failed to do that because he had no vision for his future.

He did not know what kind of life he wanted to live.

“You don’t need to bottle it up inside.” The old man sounded carefree. “Save that restraint and patience for when you’re on a job. Now that you’re behind bars, you’ve been freed from that burden. You’re free here, so you don’t have to stubbornly carry all of that baggage with you.”

“…”

“Enjoy your sentence. You might have fallen into the filth at the depths of the earth, but it’s your life to live.”

The general cells were shared by two to four prisoners each. The solitary confinement cells might sound more comfortable since you had it to yourself, but that kind of isolation for days on end was enough to break even the bodyguards who served criminal organizations. The size of the rooms was identical, but these cells were very different from a student apartment where manga and your phone were within arm’s reach.

Sugiyado was lying on the thin mattress sitting on the floor of a solitary confinement cell.

And then…

“Sensei.”

“…”

“I know you heard that. Answer me.”

He slowly sighed.

There did not appear to be any gaps at all between the bricks of the thick walls, but one of the blocks was pulled out from the other side.

“You too, Asagao? The four of you are the Shogunate’s trump cards, so what are you doing here?”

Would anyone have believed him if he said an 11-year-old girl had broken into his cell?

Abashiri was the Shogunate’s maximum security prison, so if she had worked out a viable jailbreak route and reported it to the Shogunate, she would have been immediately recruited to some important position. Yet if Sugiyado went to the guards and said there was a girl in his cell’s wall, they would assume he had completely lost it and finally send him to the medical building for good.

“At our level, we’re allowed some selfish actions. Although I feel like they had some greater purpose for sending us Elite Ninjas to this northern land. Moving us here as game pieces has put someone in check.”

“…”

“Sensei, if you keep ignoring me, I’ll have to take drastic measures. For example, I brought you some Happy Churn, but I might just eat it all myself while you can only helplessly watch on.”

That one shook his resolve pretty bad, but he was her instructor. He could not set a bad example for his student.

“Crunch, crunch. Hm, I should have brought a drink.”

“Wait, no, Asagao! Please stop! That sound…that smell…”

“These things are a real pain to eat. Your fingers get all sticky no matter where you touch them. Wipe, wipe. How are you supposed to eat them, Sensei?”

“Don’t just wipe off your fingers! Licking off that tasty powder is one of the best parts!!”

Most likely, the Shogunate had not sent Asagao and the others to the Hokkaido Area because they were needed there. Instead, they must have known those four would be going there anyway, so they decided to find a way to make it useful.

“Hey, Sensei,” said Asagao through the wall. “Don’t you want to hear about the new order in Edo?”

“It’s none of my concern. I’m just a prisoner.”

“Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.”

“Nhhhhhh!!!!!!”

“Here, you like licking off the powder, right? Well, it’s all over my fingers, so have at it. Nee hee hee. Don’t you want some of that Happy Churn flavor?”

The girl’s small hand poked out from the hole in the wall and tempted the ninja like a sea anemone.

It was time for Sugiyado Souha to be a man by biting his lip and resisting.

Asagao must not have understood just how psychologically painful this torture was, but he was starting to hallucinate Happy Churns floating around his cell.

“Well, I’m not going to force anything onto you like Bara and Ouka want to. You can do things your way and I’ll just come pay you a visit whenever I’m feeling lonely.”

“That isn’t how this works.”

“Hey, I’m showing restraint here. The others are being far less reasonable.” He saw her round eye wink through the dark hole in the wall. “More importantly, Sensei, you’ve found a pretty impressive friend in here, haven’t you? The way that old man carries himself is weird.”

“He’s probably from the same world as us. There are plenty of paths to being a ninja. Some are bandits or pirates given government approval, some are miners hired for their tunnel digging skills, some are swordsmen who were kicked out of their school for breaking the rules, some are firework makers who know how to handle explosives, and some are special forces specifically trained by the Inner Palace or the Shogunate. He’s probably one of the varieties we’re less familiar with.”

“What’s your guess?”

“Song.”

It was not clear what he meant from that word alone, but Asagao responded with the tone of someone trying to decide on a skirt color in the fitting room.

“Hmm, I know what you mean, but I don’t think that’s quite it. He seems more like me.”

11-year-old Asagao was not suited for direct combat and she was never meant to battle the armored samurai who had become absurd collections of weapons with mechanized armor irreversibly fused to their bodies. She had learned to make use of other skills instead: infiltration, disturbance tactics, morale reduction, forensics, and even cyber attacks. You could say she had mastered every form of information warfare.

That little monster whispered quietly from the hole in the bricks.

“Don’t let him affect you too much, Sensei. In some ways, a lonely old man inspires protective instincts even more so than a lost child or abandoned kitten. I use my position as a child as a weapon and he’s clearly butting in on my territory. We know he isn’t just an ordinary old man, so who knows what he’ll inject you with if you let your guard down. It won’t hurt to remain cautious at all times.”

“Asagao.”

“No, you’re the one that needs a lecture right now. Do not forget that the top of the Shogunate, for whatever reason, allowed us to visit Abashiri. That’s four Elite Ninjas. Not ordinary foot soldiers and not their armored samurai; the best of their ninjas who specialize in solving problems that cannot come to light. There must be something more going on here. Something serious enough to grant us our selfish request if it would place some of their strongest pieces on the board to keep an eye on things.”

“…”

“And the most important thing to remember here is that I, our expert in all things information warfare, have come all the way here yet I still haven’t discovered what that something is. We’re talking about expert level camouflage here, so isn’t it reasonable to keep an eye on every fellow ninja you’ve seen here, Sensei?”

Prisons were home to many different plans and interests.

Godfathers who ran a giant organization from behind bars, gold-egg-laying geese who had placed themselves behind bars for their own safety, ‘hotel workers’ who made sure they could work from the inside to create a comfortable place for any of their organization’s people who ended up behind bars – and who would make sure those people did not spill the beans about anything important – and more.

If those were like shining suns, then there were also plenty of planets revolving around them because they either wanted to help those suns escape from the prison or who wanted to kill them.

A prison was a clockwork device made from a complex arrangement of countless gears. Everything had a large or a small role in someone’s plans and anyone who failed to pick up on that when they arrived would be cast out of the giant device as a faulty part. Everything had a role because everything that did not was removed to trim the fat.

Prisons were meant to rehabilitate people so they could return to society, but the exact opposite tended to happen. Even an amateur pickpocket would become immersed in the rules of the criminal underworld after spending just a month there. Because there was no escape and they could not survive otherwise.

“I hear you got thrown in the Tomb again. That’s supposed to be a once-in-a-lifetime sorta punishment, but you’ve made yourself into a damn regular.”

In the cafeteria, the model prisoner of an old man spoke to Sugiyado in obvious exasperation.

The food was hard bread and bean soup. It was only meant to provide the bare minimum of sustenance needed to stay alive. The bread was too hard to bite through unless it was soaked in the soup first.

Sugiyado ate his meal in silence, so the old man sighed across from him.

“The guards are actually starting to panic, you know? They’ve used the Tomb so often this month your absence on the paperwork is looking pretty noticeable. If they get hit with a surprise inspection from Central right now, a whole buncha illegal practices might come to light and they don’t want that.”

“See, I’m helping.”

“Good grief. You really are a ninja through and through, boy. This prison is a public institution managed by the Shogunate. Did your love of justice and public service get the better of you when you saw how corrupt the government workers here are?”

Sugiyado did not give a clear answer.

He simply let the bland bean soup soak into a piece of bread he tore off.

“You’re not doing a great job of keeping a low profile either, old man. Hanging around me is only going to cost you points.”

“Probably so, but to hell with it. No one ever comes to visit me, so I’m bored out of my mind. Life is nothing without a little excitement.”

“…”

“Sorry if you don’t like it, but every kid your age reminds me of my grandson. I thought I did a decent job of looking after him once my son and his wife disappeared, but that little bastard hasn’t come to see me even once after I was cuffed.”

A prison was a giant clockwork device made from a complex arrangement of countless gears, but that also meant driving a single wedge into a choice location could bring the entire thing to a halt. They had tried their best to remove any obstacles like that, but Sugiyado Souha was different. The risk he posed could not be measured based on how hard he was, so he could not be destroyed just by blindly applying force from the outside.

A wild rampage was not the only way to take action.

Intentionally taking an inferior position could sometimes work to express yourself in a way that shook an institution to the very foundation.

The old man seemed to understand that.

“But be careful. Even the scum they hire as guards have families. When they’re in a bind, they’ll all of a sudden remember what it means to be righteous. People like that will escalate things endlessly if it will protect something they care about and don’t forget that you are the one who is threatening that something. So be careful. If they panic, who knows how far they’ll go to cover up what they’ve done.”

“Sugiyado,” called a deep voice.

Sugiyado looked back from his chair and saw two large guards walking across the cafeteria toward him.

“#1090, Sugiyado Souha! We need to discuss your lifestyle. Come with us!!”

That was the least specific topic of discussion Sugiyado had ever heard. They could try to detain a Martian using that one. The old man quietly moved away from the boy while leaving some advice in his ear.

“What did I tell you? They’re here to silence you. Sending you to the comfortable medical building was meant to placate you. Since that failed, they’re going to try threats and violence. Tread very carefully.”

They tugged on his arm to force him up from the chair. They did not care in the slightest that he still had more than half his paltry meal left. Then they shoved on his back to get him moving toward the cafeteria’s exit.

A moment later, a loud explosion and shockwave shook the room.

Since one of the walls had crumbled, dust filled the cafeteria much like a cumulonimbus cloud. The shockwave slammed into Sugiyado’s back, so he was thrown to the floor along with the two guards.

(An explosion!?)

It had not been aimed at him.

It had come from behind. Someone, either from the outside or inside, had broken through the cafeteria wall. He could hear a lot of yelling and shouting over the loud ringing in his ears. Order had entirely collapsed. No one was following the rules set up by the jailed godfathers and the prisoners.

“Ow.”

He heard an almost childish voice from right next to him.

The guard had collapsed onto his side and was curled up on the floor.

There was also something wrong with his silhouette, especially at the arm.

“Ahhh, it hurts.”

“A table leg flew over and hit you, didn’t it? Let me see your coat and baton. I’ll use those for a makeshift splint, so don’t move. You won’t die of shock as long as you don’t move the broken bone around too much, so you can still survive this. This is all I can do for you.”

“No, wait. Don’t leave me behind. I’ll do anything…anything.”

Sugiyado did not have time for anything more.

He heard something whoosh through the air.

“Kh.”

The dust kept him from seeing anything at all, but he still moved. He swung his head to the side to dodge the glint of a blade and then pulled the plastic radio from the collapsed guard’s hip. He aimed the bottom of that at the assassin and slammed it into their hipbone, which was the most difficult spot to dodge.

“Gyah!?”

Bone and nerve pain were unique, so training was not enough to build up a resistance. The person hopped up like they had been hit by a stun gun and Sugiyado used that opening to sweep their feet out from under them, sending their back slamming into the hard floor. He doubted a pro would be acting alone, so he stole the weapon form the dazed masked assassin’s hand, instantly assessed its heft, reach, and balance, and then swung it horizontally. Another enemy stepped forward to help their fallen friend, so the blow caught them more on the side of the neck than the face, knocking over their entire body.

Once both had been taken out, Sugiyado looked down at the weapon he held.

It was neither a sword nor a gun.

(A collapsible shovel?)

“Sensei!”

He gave another horizontal swing of the shovel, but stopped partway through.

The next person to appear through the thick cloud of dust was a middle-school-aged girl with her long chestnut hair worn in twintails. She made no attempt to hide her cutting-edge ninja outfit or her vertically-stacked double-barrel hunting gun called Midnight Tempest.

“Ouka? Just to be sure, you aren’t here on a Shogunate mission, are you?”

“Well, um, no. I’m not.”

This was Abashiri’s special prison which boasted the Shogunate’s best security, but it turned out his students and some other group of ninjas had infiltrated the place.

“Understood. Don’t worry about me. I can handle myself. Your gun would leave signs of your presence too easily, so you stay put and-”

“No, that’s not my point. Sensei, uh, over there.”

She did not seem quite sure what to say, like a scolded child desperately trying to calm their parent’s anger.

Then Sugiyado noticed it too.

The initial explosion had occurred behind the boy while he was leaving the cafeteria and it had not been targeting him. The later attack on him must have been a chance encounter in order to eliminate the unexpected pro who happened to be in the combat area.

So.

Who had been the true target of these people who had gone as far as using explosives to force their way into the Shogunate’s max security special prison?

“Old man.”

Asagao had said he was not just an ordinary old man.

Sugiyado himself had thought the man was from a different branch of ninjas.

“Old man!!”

He parted the dust to search for the old man and found a figure collapsed on the floor along with the splintered table and chairs. The old man in a prison jumpsuit was lying face up and a well-forged piece of steel glittered where it was buried deep into his chest and gut.

“A cross shuriken? And it’s been given a rough-skinned surface.”

Just like how racing swimsuits eliminated resistance in the water, the texture of a projectile’s surface could greatly alter its speed and trajectory.

However…

“Ha…ha ha. Killed by a ninja weapon I created myself. Oh, the irony.”

The old man apparently lacked the strength to even hold a hand to his wound.

Ouka crouched down to inspect him and then looked back at Sugiyado with a complicated look on her face. She apparently had enough tact to not actually shake her head right in front of the dying old man.

“But that’s not so big a deal. The inventors of deadly tools for torture or execution are often killed by their own creations, so that I can bear. But it’s more than that.”

“…”

“Curse that brat. This explains why he hasn’t even sent me a letter. He must have gotten himself caught up in some kinda trouble. …I made this shuriken for my grandson, you see.”

Ouka gasped.

If she thought this meant he had been killed by his own blood relative, she still had some learning to do.

A ninja never left any evidence behind. Throwing a shuriken and leaving it was an absolute last resort much like scattering caltrops, so it was only done when you were losing. In this one-sided surprise attack using explosives, the attacker had held an overwhelming advantage, so it was hard to imagine they would rely on this kind of “last resort” from the get-go. There were ninjas like Hoozuki that favored shurikens, but he made sure she always kept track of how many she had launched and where she had launched them. That was of course so she could collect them later on. It was unthinkable to just leave one conspicuously stabbed into your primary target like this.

Which left only one possibility.

“Old man, do you have any idea who would have left this ‘business card’? That is, who would want to frame your grandson for killing you!? He’ll be in serious trouble at this rate!!”

“Don’t get involved.”

However.

The old man found the words even as his breathing grew shallow.

“Boy, your life is yours to live. Use your skill for yourself. Don’t worry. My grandson’s a ninja too. He only ran away because the boring work of an underworld craftsman wasn’t for him. He lives in this world of constant deception as much you or me, so no matter what might happen, this isn’t any of your business.”

“I owe you for all the help you gave me here. I can’t leave that debt unpaid.”

“…”

“Don’t you want to do something for your grandson? You clearly care about him enough to use your specialized skills to make a weapon for him even after he abandoned the family business, so tell me what I can do! Tell me!!”

“Sapporo. New Sapporo Domain.”

He could barely get the words out.

In the very end, this was all Sugiyado managed to get out of him.

“Take care of that kid.”

Those were his final words.

But his death was not met by silence.

Several more explosions occurred elsewhere and fires were blazing. The attackers were likely spreading the damage across the prison so it was harder to tell who they had been after. That meant this violence was entirely meaningless.

Sugiyado could hear the roar of flames consuming oxygen drawing closer.

First he saw black smoke, then the firefly-like embers, and finally heat and flames bursting in through the exit.

“Sensei!!”

All of this would be blamed on the old man’s grandson.

The tool so carefully crafted to protect that boy’s life would be used as evidence to frame him.

It was like spitting in the face of the already dead man.

“We need to get out of here. Stay here and you can’t save anyone!!”

“Ouka, I can’t do that. I was given a guilty verdict, so I will leave this information with you four. I’ll search out any connections I can find from within the prison. Yes, I can see if anyone was surreptitiously taken to an unnatural safe zone just before the explosions.”

“During a natural disaster, all the cells are unlocked and the prisoners are temporarily freed to keep them alive. So!!”

His student took drastic measures.

She spread her arms in front of him as if preparing to raise them in a cheer, but then she climbed on top of him.

He did not have time to feel the girly warmth and softness of her skin.

His spine felt funny at 5kg and exploded with pain at 10kg.

“Gah!!!???”

“Sorry, Sensei, but we’re going!!”

To make up for an old injury, he had bolts in his spine and springs to replace the ligaments in his legs, so he now felt excruciating pain and had trouble breathing whenever he was burdened with too great a weight.

While he convulsed on the floor like he had been hit in the back with a stun gun, the Elite Ninja kunoichi lifted him up over her shoulder and easily parted the black smoke to reach the exit.

A panicked scene opened up before their eyes, but Ouka used the veil of smoke to hide her conspicuous appearance and left the thick concrete building without anyone spotting her.

No.

She did more than that.

“Pant, pant.”

When the twintailed girl finally lowered her instructor in exhaustion, they were not even in the outdoor exercise area.

They were outside the tall wall surrounding the entire prison grounds.

“Ouka.”

“Every day since you were imprisoned, it’s felt wrong to me that someone like you is trapped in there.”

She wiped the sweat from her brow and gave him a mischievous smile.

Annoyingly enough, she had not planned this and had simply taken advantage of the situation. Anyone who did not know better might have suspected she caused the explosions herself.

She really was a ninja.

And Sugiyado Souha had no one to blame but himself since he had trained her to be like this.

“But now you’re a free man, Sensei. They have a hard enough time confirming identities at the scenes of ordinary fires and Abashiri holds a ridiculous number of people since it’s the country’s largest special prison. It’ll take the guards a while to notice you’re missing.”

“Is that so?”

“Asagao can make you a new ID, so you can go wherever you want.”

He let out a gentle sigh.

The time had come to switch his train of thought as a ninja.

“If I’m free, then I’m free to do whatever I want. Even if that means getting to the bottom of this incident and taking revenge on that old man’s behalf.”

“Um, uh.”

Ouka sounded hesitant. She must have only now realized that life in that prison had not been pure misery for Sugiyado. She had only made up her mind after the explosion, but she had still taken advantage of it. With four Elite Ninjas there, couldn’t they have detected the attack in advance? Couldn’t they have stopped it if they had not been so focused on their own desires? She was probably afraid he would get after her for that reason.

But she was wrong.

In the end, it was Sugiyado’s fault the old man had died. He had been by his side all that time and the old man had helped him out in so many ways. He had spoken with the man so often, so if he had only asked, he may have been able to learn more about the old man’s situation. Even if that meant using his ninja conversational and negotiation skills to tear down the man’s mental barriers. Then he could have been ready for the attack when it came.

But he had not wanted to apply such cold logic and quantification to someone he considered a friend. That was the only reason he had not done that.

In the end, it had all been Sugiyado Souha’s decision.

He had the skills necessary, but he had chosen not to use them.

“Old man.”

The old man had told him not to get involved.

It was Sugiyado who had convinced him to make that final request concerning his grandson, so he could not pretend he had not heard it.

So.

Sugiyado Souha shut his eyes and called up his memory of the old man’s corpse left behind at the scene of the fire. Specifically, he recalled the nametag on the man’s prison jumpsuit.

Murakami Shouzou.

That strongest of ninjas, who had surpassed even the rank of Elite Ninja, opened his eyes with renewed resolve.

“A Hidden One is on the case, so you can rest in peace.”