CHAPTER 8
Kunoichi Always Appear Unannounced
Fourth Friday of May
…Man. I wonder why Komaba got all serious and said I’d be Skill-Out’s leader if anything happened to him.
Shiage Hamazura, Academy City delinquent, was, as customary, wielding several needles as he engaged in melee combat with the lock on the door of a sports car.
“…Sir Hamazura.”
“Hmm?” Hamazura stopped his work and looked here and there, suddenly hearing a woman’s voice. But there was nobody near this sports car parked on the road.
Guess I’m hearing things, thought Hamazura, beginning to clack the needles around again.
“…Sir Hamazura.”
What?! Some kind of weird fountain fairy?! Hamazura thought, quivering with fear. She’s not gonna do that crazy thing where water spouts out of a nearby manhole and she asks, “Was the sports car you dropped this gold one or this silver one?” or anything, right?!
“Sir Hamazura!!”
Suddenly, a face popped out from underneath the vehicle like a mechanic.
“H-huh?! The sports car I dropped was just a normal one!! Wait—crap! I didn’t drop anything to begin with! I’m not an honest person at all!!”
“?” said the mysterious figure as it wriggled out.
It was a girl.
She was technically wearing a yukata, but she certainly didn’t give off the impression of being a classical Japanese woman. She had black hair at least, but there was some brown speckling around her bangs, and she had a rainbow of traditional hair ornaments with beads on them. Her nails on both hands were covered in glaring nail art. She had a lace glove on one of her arms, too. Her footwear, while similar to geta, were actually just completely regular sandals, the kind with the thin straps winding all the way up to the knees. And for whatever reason, something that looked like a metal shackle was attached to only one of her ankles.
…In fact, even the yukata she wore was a bright yellow mini-yukata, the kind that would make a lot of stubborn old craftsmen froth at the mouth. Her dazzling thighs were exposed, and for some reason, the left sleeve was missing, and her arm was bare up to the shoulder. Her wide-width obi was, for some reason, made of a see-through material, and that portion of the underlying fabric itself was transparent to match, which managed to let her show her navel even though she was wearing a yukata. She had two thin leather belts wrapped around the obi, too, and to top it all off, she was adorned in awfully long chains.
Even Hamazura, a bargain-bin delinquent who was already plenty ostentatious, couldn’t help but judge her outfit as super gaudy. But the thing was, the cloth used in her yukata was surprisingly high quality. It made it feel like even more of a waste.
…If I’m getting aggravated over that outfit, I guess I have more of my Japanese spirit left than I thought.
He thought that only came out during the Olympics or the World Cup—it shocked him that it would show up for something so negative.
But this wasn’t the time for him to be awakening a weird, newfound sense of love of his homeland. “Er, Kuruwa, was it? If you’re looking for Hanzou, I haven’t seen him.”
“Mgh. I’ve yielded the initiative. If you know not of his whereabouts, Sir Hamazura, then where could Lord Hanzou be…?”
“……”
It wasn’t just her clothing—the way she talked was weird, too. Still, I guess anything goes if you’ve got a huge rack.
…No, more importantly, Hamazura didn’t know much at all about this Kuruwa girl. She seemed to have been hanging around his bad friend Hanzou for quite some time now. Just recently, only about a week ago, while Hamazura was in a hideout garage prying open the door of a safe he and Hanzou had stolen together, he’d run into Kuruwa by pure coincidence; she’d been searching for Hanzou. That was all.
It seemed Hanzou was avoiding her; every time he’d throw her off his scent, Kuruwa would come to either Hamazura like this or his other partner in crime, Ritoku Komaba, and ask about Hanzou.
Damn it, Hanzou. Her boobs are so big, too.
Hamazura groaned softly in thought as he stared at the tightly wrapped bulges in her thin summer yukata. Still, looking at her outfit—which Kuruwa had customized almost beyond recognition—he couldn’t help but think it seemed less of a kimono and more a kunoichi’s uniform or something.
And then, Hamazura thought, Hmm?
A kunoichi.
A female ninja.
Hanzou, being chased by a ninja.
Hanzou.
“Ah-ha-ha-ha. Hattori Hanzou!” he muttered in amusement without meaning to—then figured that couldn’t possibly be true. Was he stupid? Hattori Hanzou wasn’t real! He turned back to the sports car, fully intending to resume his battle with the lock, when…
“O-oh-no-no-no-no-no-no, I… I have to get rid of Sir Hamazura now?!”
“Gnrgh?! Such an obvious plot twist, and yet for a ninja, you reacted so stupidly!! W-wait, are you serious? Is Hanzou, like, the descendant of near-future shinobi warriors who survived until the present day or something?!”
Seeing as how Kuruwa started visibly fidgeting and panicking, that did indeed seem to be the case… But hold on, a descendant of ninjas? Hanzou didn’t know how to use some crazy ninja techniques or anything, did he? Strange images floated into Hamazura’s mind.
“But wait,” he said. “Why would a kunoichi be chasing him?”
“Urk?!”
“If Hanzou is from the Hattori clan, then what clan are you from, Kuruwa?”
“Uuurk?!”
“Hattori Hanzou, huh—just hearing those two names makes him sound like an ultra-important person. I bet there’s some kind of conspiracy in one of the shinobi clans, and now Hanzou is gonna charge into a battle of awesome proportions!!” Hamazura snapped his fingers, imagining his friend in danger, as if it had absolutely nothing to do with him.
Kuruwa, however, her whole body sweating and her eyes somehow uncertain, said, “…Now that you know too much, I truly cannot allow you to escape alive…!!”
“No way!! Are your world’s conspiracies really that cliché?!”
Hamazura buried his face in his hands, but Kuruwa really seemed to be freaking out. As he was wondering if he should just give up on the sports car and dash away, Kuruwa pulled something out of her right sleeve—which, unlike her left, was so long only her fingertips poked out of it. It was a black, metallic object.
According to Kuruwa’s very confident explanation…
“Ta-daa! It’s a gun!! Prepare thyself, Sir Hamazuraaaaa!!”
“Huh…?”
“Wh-why do you seem so utterly disappointed?! This is a serious development!! Please approach this with an open mind! Come hither—hither!!”
“I mean, uh, you’re a ninja, right…? Are guns, like…kosher?”
Seeing Hamazura awash with extraordinary disappointment, the modern kunoichi Kuruwa began to hastily explain herself, as though a little seed of guilt had sprouted in her mind.
“Shinobi have always armed themselves with the latest weaponry! It’s totally A-OK!! Even the veteran shinobi who supported the world from the Sengoku to the Edo would camouflage matchlocks within the likes of staves or pillboxes!! So it’s totally A! O! K!!”
“That’s not what I meant. I don’t give a rat’s ass about history or whatever; it’s all bullshit anyway. Just stop destroying my dreams!! I want to see a smoke cloud and a whole bunch of shadow clones!! I’m just sick of this now! I admit it!! I was a fool for clinging to such strange preconceptions!! I guess I’ll go over to the riverbank and cry for a while!!”
“W-wait!! Please hold!! Ahhh, please, I implore you to not run away with such sadness in your eyes!!”
There Hamazura and Kuruwa were, starting to act like a couple on the brink of divorce. Damn, I wanted to use that excuse to run away, thought Hamazura, cursing to himself.
Kuruwa, for her part, didn’t appear to notice Hamazura’s intentions. She seemed to have completely forgotten about her initial objective of finding Hanzou, to boot. “A-a-a-all right! I shall show you something special! Look—this nice young lady is about to show you a genuine ninja technique!!”
“…Really? You’re just saying that, right?”
“I’m telling the truth!! Real, bona fide secret ninja arts!! I—I must say, Sir Hamazura, you are a lucky one—chances such as these do not come often!!”
Kuruwa’s face wore the kind of half-smiling, half-teary-eyed expression that only came to truly desperate people. Wait, am I actually gonna get to see some real ninja shit? thought Hamazura, his interest slightly piqued. Kuruwa motioned for him to follow her, and then she wandered into an alley.
“Mm-hmm—maybe it really is a secret ninja move. Guess you can’t do it in public?”
“Well, not exactly, but… Well, it’s embarrassing, so…”
“Huh?”
Then came the rustling of fabric.
What lay before him was…
“Huh—? Wait, hold on. What the heck are you doing?!”
“Um, well—you did tell me to show you a kunoichi art, Sir Hamazura.”
“Yeah, but that’s not what I meant!! Hey—hey! I can see everything, you know! You idiot, everything’s visible!! Gwah—come on!! Father doesn’t approve of this! And why are you wiggling your hips like that—what exactly are you trying to do?!”
“What do you mean? I’m simply taking this here and doing this, then this, and…”
“Waaahhh?! I—this—this is…!! You’re coming at me with that angle?! This isn’t even just about being able to see anymore, it’s—garrghh, wah, waaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh?!”
“Hi-yah! You’re wide open! ?”
By the time Hamazura thought, Huh? it was too late.
With a dull ka-thump, he hit the ground.
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