“You!” Junko shouted accusingly. “This is all your fault, Matsuri-chan!”

  She struggled against her bonds, no doubt trying to free herself to point accusingly. She was tied up, in what James wanted to call the traditional manner for a damsel in distress. Coils of rope wound around her waist, holding her arms to her side and binding her to the wooden chair she was sitting on. Further coils were around her lower legs, securing them to the legs of the chair.

  She was surrounded by around a dozen guys, all of them wearing Hawaiian shirts. The yakuza who had led them in waved to his compatriots.

  “Hey guys, the Neapolitan pizza is here!” He looked at Harue, who had turned back into an ordinary schoolgirl. “Hey, what happened to the pizza?”

  “I think it would be best,” Mitsue said, stepping behind the man and applying a complicated hold to his neck, “If you were to rest now.”

  “You can’t… not… pizza…” the yakuza said, slumping to the floor.

  Meanwhile, Matsuri, not one to flinch from a shouting match, was responding to Junko.

  “What are you talking about?” she yelled back. “I didn’t get you kidnapped!”

  “They were only on the island because they were looking for you!” Junko shouted. “Because of some Rimeikai family or something!”

  “Then they’re idiots,” Matsuri sneered. “The Raimēkai clan was looking for me, but I’d already talked to them and was on their damn island. These guys must be out of the loop.”

  “On their island—with my Frame that you stole!” Junko countered.

  “Hey, you can’t call us idiots!” one of the yakuza said.

  “Hey, you can’t do that to our buddy!” said another, looking at where Mitsue was carefully lowering their unconscious companion to the ground.

  “Hey, Junko,” Harue said.

  James blinked. Hadn’t Harue been standing right beside him? Now she was standing in the middle of the crowd of thugs, right behind Junko, leaning over the captive girl’s shoulder. She was holding a butterfly knife so that Junko could see it, right in front of the girl's face. It gleamed in the poor warehouse lighting.

  Everyone stopped shouting. The yakuza stared at Harue, wondering how she got there. Everyone else stared, wondering what she was going to do next.

  “Um, Harue?” Junko said nervously. “Why—what are you doing with that knife?”

  “Junko,” Harue said again. “I’m beginning to doubt your commitment to Idol Club.”

  “That—that’s ridiculous! I’m fully, um, committed to the club!”

  “That’s good,” Harue said. She kept the knife where it was. “You know, Junko, an idol can’t get involved in a scandal. I think it’s unrealistic not to have boyfriends, but we have to draw the line at crimes, don’t you think?”

  “Ye—Yes, of course.”

  “You wouldn’t do drugs, would you, Junko?”

  “No! Never!”

  “That’s right. So what makes you think it’s okay for an idol to associate with yakuza, Junko?”

  “I wasn’t—I didn’t do it on purpose! I was kidnapped!”

  “You think idols get to make excuses?”

  “No! I’m sorry! I won’t do it again!”

  “That’s great!” Harue beamed and pulled back a little. With one smooth motion, she sliced through the ropes holding Junko to the chair. “As long as you understand!”

  “Hey, you can’t do that!” One of the festively-clad thugs grabbed Harue by the shoulder. “That’s our prisoner!”

  The smile dropped off Harue’s face like it was never there. “Don’t touch the idols,” she said coldly. Quick as a snake, her arm lashed back to embed her knife in the yakuza’s arm.

  “Arrgghh!” the man yelled, pulling back and clutching at his arm.

  Junko started frantically tugging at the ropes still around her legs.

  A sudden motion caught James attention and he looked to see Mitsue silently rendering another yakuza unconscious. The entire group was transfixed by Harue and Junko, making them easy for the ninja to sneak up on.

  Without looking, Harue threw her knife into the leg of one of the yakuza. He screamed and dropped to the ground.

  “We’ll be going now,” she announced. “If any of you want to die, feel free to get in our way. Come on, Junko.”

  She held her hand out to Junko, who had just finished disposing of the last of her bonds. The girl nervously took it and was pulled to her feet.

  No one got in their way as they joined the rest of the group.

  “Shouldn’t we secure the rest of them?” Mitsue asked, looking up from his fourth unconscious yakuza.

  “Don’t bother,” Harue said, not breaking stride. “They’ve learned better than to mess with us.”

  “All this talk of pizza is making me hungry,” Kana declared.

  It didn’t take Junko long to recover her equilibrium. Only as long as it took them to get outside.

  “My Frame!” she exclaimed. “Lovely Princess Flower Heart Collidescope! You’re all scratched up!”

  She turned on Matsuri again. “You stole it and you broke it!”

  “I didn’t steal it!” Matsuri protested. “And those scratches will buff right out.”

  “You did break it!” Junko insisted. “That was why I couldn’t return it! Why Daddy cancelled my credit card! It’s all your fault!”

  “I didn’t break it, I made it better! Those idiots at the factory—”

  “Matsuri, dear, maybe you should give her the money?” Suki interrupted.

  “Money? What money?” Junko asked.

  “Uggghhh… do I have to?” Matsuri whined.

  “It’s what we went through all this for,” Suki replied.

  “What are you talking about?” Junko looked around at the group. “Why are you out here, anyway? Is it after curfew?”

  Matsuri, shoulders slumped, climbed back into the truck’s cab and came out with the aluminium suitcase.

  “Here,” she said, handing it over to Junko. “I borrowed the Lovely Princess so I could win the prize in this Frame tournament. A lot happened, but we got the money. So, here.”

  “Money? In a suitcase? Is this… cash?” Junko asked, seemingly appalled for some reason.

  “Twenty million yen,” Mitsue put in. “In cash, yes.”

  Junko stared at the suitcase with new respect.

  “If you use this to pay your father back,” Matsuri said reluctantly, “He’ll give you your credit card back, right?”

  “What sort of—I never heard of any—” Junko swallowed. “Is this legal?”

  She glanced nervously at Harue.

  “Don’t worry about it,” Harue said. “You didn’t participate in any underground Frame fights, so it’s fine!”

  “That’s—that’s good?” Junko said hesitantly. “I mean, if Father does…”

  “Come on!” Matsuri said. “If we hurry, we can make the last ferry and get back before curfew!”

  Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Ahem,” Kana announced. “I am still hungry. We should obtain a pizza? Or five.”

  “But we’ll miss the ferry!” Matsuri protested.

  “Um,” Suki put in. “I still have things to do here, so maybe we should split up? Matsuri, you can take the truck back with Junko and get to the ferry, and we can make our own way back.”

  “What could you possibly have to do, this late at night?” Junko objected.

  “I thought I made it perfectly plain,” Kana said. “That we should get pizza.”

  “Yes, that,” Suki said. “And some… other things.”

  “I’ll come with you,” James said. “If that’s all right.”

  Suki hugged him. “I’ll be glad to have you with me,” she said.

  “Well, I’m not missing this, whatever it is,” Harue said. “Shion, you should go with the truck. If anyone can’t afford to break curfew, it’s you.”

  “You’re not the boss of me,” Shion said immediately. “But walking sucks, so I’m out of here.” She jumped on the truck and made a rude gesture at Harue.

  “I will go with you as well,” Mitsue said. James nodded his thanks.

  They watched the truck drive away.

  “Where are we going?” Mitsue asked.

  “I’ve got an address here, let me put it in my phone,” Suki said.

  “Pizza first,” Kana insisted.

  Harue laughed. “Find me a late-night pizza place,” she told her phone. “It’s a shame that maid cafe isn’t still open.”

  Kana could eat an enormous amount of pizza. Everybody else shared one. It was good, but James was distracted from eating it by Harue’s insistence that maid cafes actually worked.

  “It’s about focused intent,” she said as they watched Kana plough through her second pizza. “A master chef will do it unconsciously when he makes the food, imbuing his ki into what he’s making. But even a teenage girl can push her ki into food if she thinks she’s casting a spell.

  “Puru-puru, make it magically delicious,” James repeated doubtfully.

  “Mitsue can back me up,” Harue claimed. James looked at Mitsue, who looked pained.

  “It could work,” he admitted, “If the girl was truly focused on the result. Not if she was just going through the motions.”

  “We should check that place out when it’s open,” Harue said. “If we can get some nourishment in her food, Kana won’t have to eat her own body weight every time she has a meal.”

  “This is not even close to my body’s weight,” Kana said through a mouthful of pizza. “But I am willing to try this magically delicious food.”

  “But if anyone can do it, couldn’t we do it to the cafeteria food?” James asked.

  “Sure,” Harue allowed. “If you want to donate your ki to the cause, be my guest.”

  James narrowed his eyes. “Don’t I need that ki to live or something?”

  Harue shrugged. “I doubt you can push out enough ki to harm yourself. That takes training. Humans make more than they need, and you just waste it if you’re not a wizard.”

  James thought about it. The experiment might be worth doing, but he wasn’t going to try and cast a magic spell in public. The embarrassment would be worse than any hypothetical loss of magic energy.

  “We should get going,” Suki said anxiously. “It’s getting late.”

  “I doubt a terrorist organisation goes to bed this early,” Harue snorted. “Call a taxi, but not right to the address. I’m not up with my tradecraft, but I know that much.”

  “A few blocks away, yes?” Suki agreed. “I’m not sure my allowance card works for taxis off the island.”

  Harue grinned and pulled out a thick wad of bills. She dropped a few on the table.

  “Same as the pizza,” she said. “The yakuza are paying for it.”

  James knew there was something wrong as soon as he got out of the taxi. From a few blocks away, the fire was only visible as a red light reflecting off the column of thick smoke rising in the night air.

  “That’s where we’re going, isn’t it?” Suki asked. “Should we… hurry?”

  “Nah,” Harue said. “See how the colours in the smoke change? Those are flashing lights. The cops are already there.”

  “I see,” Suki said. She leaned into James, and he put his arm around her. “We should still go, just to see… what happened.”

  They walked unhurriedly toward their destination. This area was part of the outskirts of the inner city, far away from the sections that were still active at night. It was mixed-residential, full of apartment blocks, retail outlets and the occasional townhouse.

  The excitement of the fire had drawn a few people out to watch. They were standing well away from the fire, held back by the police cordon. That was close enough for James to see what everyone was looking at, though.

  The building was a fairly modest townhouse, two stories high and set back from a high, wooden wall that was now mostly ruined. Most of the fire damage was confined to the first floor and the wall, but there was a huge hole in the second story, as if there had been a gas explosion or something.

  “Sit tight,” Harue said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’ll check it out.”

  “Shouldn’t Mitsue—” James started, but she was gone. Literally gone, she just disappeared in front of his eyes. James looked at Mitsue, who shrugged.

  “I could infiltrate the cordon,” he admitted. “But I can’t match her magic. We should wait for her and perhaps ask the onlookers about what happened before we arrived.”

  James nodded. It was better than just standing here.

  Asking questions, it turned out, helped them fit in. Everyone wanted to know what had happened, and no one had any answers. There had been an explosion, and several people had heard what they thought might have been gunfire. That had been before the cops showed up, however, and nobody had felt safe coming out before the police arrived.

  It wasn’t much longer before Harue appeared.

  “No bodies,” she said shortly. “Those ambulances are empty.”

  “But the building, it’s—” Suki started. Harue cut her off.

  “Let’s get somewhere a bit more private,” she said.

  They moved away from the crowd, walking down the street.

  “There was a fight,” Harue said quietly. “I found shell casings on the upper floor and a couple of these—” she pulled a yard-long arrow out of nowhere, “—embedded in the walls.”

  Everyone stared.

  “Are you serious?” James whispered intensely. “Arrows?”

  Mitsue took the arrow and examined it carefully.

  “It’s a traditional style,” he noted. “Armour-piercing point. From the length, I’d estimate a pull of fifty kilograms, maybe more.”

  Suki was still staring at the arrow.

  “Master… doesn’t like modern technology,” she said.

  “Doesn’t he work with KHI?” James asked. “Aren’t they all Frames and robots?”

  “And cyborg technology,” Suki agreed. “He works with them. But if he sent his personal agents, they might not use guns.”

  “Would they be… the same as you?” James wondered, feeling a little sick inside.

  “Perhaps. We weren’t allowed to know anything about the hunters,” Suki said softly.

  “There were hunters?” Mitsue asked.

  “Sometimes, a sister would escape,” Suki said. “Sometimes, they came back. Someone brought them back. We called those someones hunters.”

  “That is super creepy,” Harue said. “I approve! But I think we have to recognise that this mission is a bust.”

  “I suppose so,” Suki said. “We should get back to the island. But how?”

  Harue looked at Kana speculatively.

  “I am not a taxi,” Kana said firmly. “Carrying all three of you the whole way would fatigue me greatly.”

  “All three?” Mitsue asked.

  “Harue can fly on her own,” Kana said. “Not as fast as me, of course, but she can support herself and hold on to one of my scales.”

  “I can run for… some distance over water,” Mitsue said. “I’m not sure how long for if I’m carrying a person.”

  “Let’s just forget about it then,” Harue suggested. “We can get a taxi to the city centre, rent some hotel rooms—” she waved the wad of yakuza cash, “—And catch the early morning ferry.”

  “A hotel room? That’s—” Suki blushed.

  “You don’t have to share a room with James,” Harue said, grinning. “We can all get separate rooms, or James can bunk with Mitsue like normal. Or…”

  “I don’t—Isn’t it too soon? But if James wants to…” Suki stammered.

  Now it was James’s turn to blush. “I mean, I do, but, but is this? Should we?”

  “You can stumble through this minefield while we drive there,” Harue declared. “Look, that shopping centre will make a good landmark to call the taxi to.”

  She started shooing them down the street to the closed shopping centre.

  “Do you think we’ll get in trouble for missing curfew?” Suki asked, desperate to change the subject.

  Harue laughed delightedly. “It’d be pretty funny if that was what we got in trouble for, wouldn’t it? We’ve had a busy night!”

  “It is not over yet,” Mitsue said quietly. “Don’t look, but there is a car following us.”

  “Where?” Kana asked, looking around. “That one?” She pointed at the only car moving on the road. It was a black-painted modern sedan, moving at a walking pace about fifty yards behind them.

  “I said not to look,” Mitsue sighed, as the car stopped. Two figures got out.

  James blinked, unsure if he was really seeing what was in front of him. The two figures looked like samurai, directly from the pages of a historical novel or manga. They wore the traditional hakama and haori that James had studied in Japanese class, knowing that he would only ever see them as part of a historical costume.

  Both of them wore swords, but only one of them had his hand on the hilt of his. The other was carrying a bow, with an arrow in hand.

  The pair looked like siblings, twins maybe. James thought the one with the sword was male, while the other was female, but he couldn’t be sure. Both of them were very beautiful.

  The one with the bow stopped at about forty yards while the swordsman continued to approach. At twenty-five yards, he spoke.

  “Hand over the girl and you can live.”

  James took a breath, but Mitsue stepped forward first and gave the slightest of bows. “To which girl are you referring to?” he asked politely.

  “I believe she is calling herself Suki, now,” the man said, looking directly at her.

  “Ah, Mitsue said. “Then, may I suggest this counteroffer?”

  The bottle glinted in the streetlights as it arced towards the swordsman. The man drew his sword and took a step back, but it wasn’t aimed anywhere near him. It fell five yards short, shattering on the street.

  Thick, choking black smoke poured out of the bottle, blocking the visibility of the two agents. James expected Mitsue to urge them to run, but instead, he charged toward the smoke.

  “This will let us close without taking fire!” he called back. He was proved wrong a second later, as an arrow shot out of the black smoke, barely missing him. A moment later, the swordsman charged out of the cloud, wasting no time in striking at Mitsue.

  Mitsue parried, but his sword was much shorter than the samurai’s. The first blow drove him back, and the samurai followed with more strikes, putting the ninja on the defensive.

  James willed for his sword to appear—and for once it did, along with his armour. “Stay here,” he told Suki, “Or—stay behind me.”

  “We are killing them, are we not?” Kana asked.

  “Aw, but they’re so cute!” Harue protested. “If we captured them, maybe we could make our own Garden of cute people?”

  “I do not believe we are allowed pets on the island,” Kana said. “Since they chose to engage at a distance, we should humour them.”

  A ball of lightning appeared in her hands, blue light crackling. She didn’t throw it so much as she pointed in the direction it should go. Before James could move forward or warn Mitsue, it shot across the battlefield at the swordsman.

  Who parried it.

  Intercepting the lightning with his sword caused the ball to disperse and for the electricity to dance all along the edge of his blade. James saw smoke coming off the man’s hands, but that did not seem to bother him.

  “Cheek!” Kana hissed. An arrow flew through the smoke, right at her, but she dodged to the side.

  “I will teach you fear, doll,” Kana promised. Her body turned to smoke and twisted into her dragon form. Black and blue scales twisted as she rose into the air.

  “Your deaths will be long and drawn out,” she declared. “I will—”

  James only heard the shot after it hit her.

  First, he saw the impact, the blood spurting out from the wound in her flank. Second, she started to fall. Only then did he hear the faraway crack of a powerful rifle.

  Then Kana fell to the ground, unmoving.