James felt a strange kind of energy when he left the dojo. He should have been tired; Midoriko had put Suki and him through quite a workout. He was tired, tired and sweating too much into his clean uniform. And yet a current of excitement was running through him, almost inspiring him to suggest that they skip the bus and walk back to school.

  Almost. It was a long walk. Riding the bus and resting with Suki at his side was a much better idea. She had been worked as hard as he had, but she didn’t smell sweaty at all.

  “Where did you learn to use a sword like that?” he asked. They were seated a little apart from the others, who were teasing Mitsue over how much of a fool he’d made of himself over Midoriko. James hadn’t thought that the unflappable ninja could dissolve into a stammering, blushing mess. Although, with Suki sitting next to him, it wasn’t hard to understand the impulse.

  “I learned it in Hong Kong,” Suki said softly. “I don’t know if the style has a name.”

  Midoriko had asked about Suki’s sword style as well, but Suki hadn’t been able to name her sensei.

  “I thought you were Japanese, though?” James asked.

  “I have had… an unusual upbringing,” Suki said. “I’m still waiting, by the way.”

  “Waiting for what?” James asked.

  “For you to ask me out,” Suki said, simply.

  “Oh,” James managed to say. “We’ve… we’ve been hanging out a lot already, though…”

  “That was with the group,” Suki said, looking back at their quarrelling classmates. “It’s different, isn’t it, when a guy asks a girl out?”

  “Y-yeah, it’s different,” James admitted.

  Suki cocked her head to the side. “Is it because of the soul thing?” she asked.

  “No! No, I… don’t know what that’s supposed to mean. If it’s even true.”

  “Why, then?” Suki asked. She shifted in her seat and looked directly into his eyes. He swallowed.

  “It’s… hard. I’ve never done it before,” James said.

  Suki just kept looking at him.

  “Do… do you want to go out with me?” he asked.

  “Yes! I’d love to,” Suki said. Relaxing back into her seat, she clasped his arm and leaned into him.

  “Is that it?” James said involuntarily. Not asked, he hadn’t meant to say that aloud.

  “Did we do it wrong?” Suki asked, suddenly anxious.

  “No, I don’t think so, but… we are boyfriend and girlfriend, right?”

  “We are,” Suki said firmly. “You can take me on a date later this afternoon.”

  “I don’t know that there are many places here where I can take you on a date,” James said. His mind flashed to the hot spring. Japan had mixed bathing, right? Mitsue probably wouldn’t appreciate them taking it over, though. If he was busy, though…

  “I liked the ice cream,” Suki said, cutting through his lascivious fantasy before it got started.

  “Right! Ice cream! We could get ice cream,” he said quickly. Suki sighed happily and leaned in closer.

  James stopped thinking. The next thing he knew, they’d arrived back at the school, and everyone else had gotten off the bus.

  “Should we continue on to the town?” Suki asked.

  James shook his head, coming back to his senses. “No, I should get changed before we go. And have a shower, he managed not to say.

  “All right,” Suki said. “I’ll get changed as well and come find you. If you come over to the girls’ dorm, the others will want to come as well.”

  James nodded, and they went their separate ways. He came back to his apartment to find that the door had been fixed and Mitsue was packing a bag full of tools.

  “I have more work to get done on our hideout,” the ninja announced. “Do you wish to come?”

  “No, I’ll just get a shower,” James said. “Listen, Mitsue, would it be okay if…”

  He got as far as take my girlfriend to the hot spring in his head before his brain short-circuited at the next bit. Mitsue waited patiently for James to continue, and the silence grew awkward.

  “Never mind,” James managed to say. “It’s not important.”

  “Very well,” Mitsue said. “I will see you at dinner.”

  James had a shower. A cold shower at first, but he quickly changed his mind. He’d just finished changing when there came a knock at his door.

  Suki! he thought, his heart skipping a beat. He raced over to the door, but it wasn’t Suki on the other side.

  The girl who was standing there was dressed in the school uniform and had dark hair. James couldn’t see much of her face because her bangs covered half of it. From what he could see, though, she wasn’t Japanese. She looked white, and she was standing way too close to the door.

  James took a step back. The girl glared at him, or at least he thought she did.

  “This is Kageya Mitsue’s room,” she said, in perfect Japanese. As long as you ignored leaving off the honorific.

  “He’s not here right now,” James said.

  “You can be the message then,” the girl said coldly. “When you wake up, tell him to keep his paws off my sister.”

  “Your sister?” James asked, confused.

  “Ozu Shion,” the girl said. She raised her head, and her hair parted slightly, giving him a glimpse of one eye. Icy blue, it glared at him furiously. “I’m Ozu Kanon.”

  “But Shion-san is Japanese,” James said, confused. It wasn’t the most diplomatic of statements. Kanon hissed and raised her right hand. James was surprised to see electricity arcing between her fingers. Surprised and alarmed. Definitely alarmed.

  “Kotodama Heavy Industries, isn’t it?” Suki’s voice came from further down the corridor. Kanon froze.

  Suki kept walking forward, moving to place herself behind Kanon. Kanon backed away from James so that she could keep them both in view. The electricity, James was relieved to note, had disappeared.

  “I’m right, aren’t I?” Suki asked.

  “How do you know that name?” Kanon demanded.

  “It’s a well-known, public corporation,” Suki replied. “It's name isn’t a secret. I believe what you’re actually asking is how well I know Aiko-san. Is that right?”

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “You—” Kanon backed off another step. “This isn’t over.”

  She pointed at James. “Tell him to stay away from Shion!” she said. Then she turned and ran.

  “Tell her to stay away from him,” James muttered, carefully keeping his voice low enough for her not to hear him.

  “Ready to go?” Suki asked brightly.

  “Who is Aiko-san?” James asked, turning to look at Suki, “And why…” That was as far as he got before his brain shut down again. Suki was wearing a flowy chiffon blouse in a soft pastel pink, with lace trim around the neckline and sleeves. Her pleated skirt went high up on her waist, and she…

  “Aiko Kotodama-san is the CEO and founder of Kotodama Heavy Industries,” Suki said. “That’s also public knowledge, though I did meet her once, at a performance.”

  She cocked her head and looked at James more closely. “Are you all right?” she asked.

  “You… you look really nice,” James managed to say.

  Suki beamed. “Thank you!” she said. “Since we’re going into town, and school hasn’t started yet, I think it’s fine for me to be out of uniform. Are you ready?”

  “Yeah,” James said. “No, wait, should I change out of my uniform?”

  He’d gotten used to thinking he had to wear it all the time, so he’d just changed shirts without thinking about it.

  “No, it’s fine,” Suki said. “You look very handsome in it. Let’s go.”

  James couldn’t say why the date felt special. They didn’t do anything they hadn’t done the other day. They just bought ice cream and ate it on the beach. But it was just the two of them, and Suki was smiling, and that was all that James cared about for a while.

  Eventually, though, his memories of recent events asserted themselves.

  “Wait, that girl,” he said to Suki. “She had electricity coming off her hand, and I think she was after Mitsue.”

  “Mitsue can take care of himself,” Suki said placidly. “He’s very skilled. You should tell him about her when we get back.”

  “He can take care of himself, can’t he?” James said thoughtfully. He’d seen Mitsue fight today. Eventually. At first, he had been a stammering, clumsy mess in front of Midoriko. Then she’d become impatient and aimed a slash at Mitsue’s head.

  James was pretty sure that no martial school let you spar with live weapons, but Midoriko had a presence to her that he wasn’t able to stand against. That sword would have taken Mitsue’s head off if he hadn’t reacted. But he had.

  As if a switch had been thrown, Mitsue suddenly started moving like a combatant in a particularly well-animated computer game. The fight then began in earnest. Mitsue might have lost, but he held his own for quite a while, a feat that James was in awe of.

  “I think it’s brave of you to want to protect your friend,” Suki said.

  “I want to, but everyone is more capable than me,” James said. “Mitsue can fight, Harue can punch steel plate and Kana… is supposed to be even more dangerous. Even you are much better with a sword than I am.”

  Midoriko had spoken at length about the need for Suki to improve her strength, speed and stamina, but her blade work was light years ahead of James. They had been doing the same basic drills because Suki was unfamiliar with the style, but even untrained, he could see the difference.

  Suki shrugged. “It’s just knowledge. I’m not much of a fighter.”

  “You saw off Kanon-san, though. I remember what you said, but why did it scare her so?”

  “I implied that I knew Aiko-san,” Suki said with a faint smile. “Kanon-san is hiding from the Kotodama corporation.”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Aiko-san told me, a little while ago.” Suki looked off into the distance. “I guess it’s true, you never know when a tidbit of information will come in handy.”

  “Then… you do know her.”

  “I would say… I know her quite well, but I doubt she remembers me. It’s… hard to explain.”

  “Shouldn’t we tell them anyway? Those two are dangerous… Shion stabbed Mitsue.”

  “We shouldn’t,” Suki said firmly. “I’m sure they have good reasons for wanting to get away from Kotodama.”

  “Is there something wrong with that corporation? I thought Japanese businesses were pretty careful about keeping to the law.”

  “I may be the wrong person to ask,” Suki admitted. “Everything I know about it comes from extremely biased sources.”

  “So we should just let them run around, stabbing and electrocuting people?”

  Suki thought about it for a bit. “I’m sure that the school will rein them in. Midoriko-san is in charge of student discipline, remember? I’m sure she won’t let those two get away with anything once the term starts.”

  “Well, sure, but only if she’s got that sword of hers.” James paused as a thought struck him. “She wouldn’t… the PMC won’t actually be patrolling with real swords, would they?”

  “I don’t know,” Suki said, “But I think you’ve already guessed the answer. Let’s head back.”

  James was still fretting about the PMC when they got back to the dorms. He had almost convinced himself that carrying deadly weapons was a reasonable response to all the… weirdness of the students here. But did that mean that students were going to be cut down for running in the hallway? He hoped not.

  It occurred to him that he needed to go over the student handbook more thoroughly. He’d read it already, but he’d skipped over some of the more boring passages. There might be some really important details there.

  Since it was getting close to dinnertime, they elected to wander into the cafeteria rather than split up and go to their dorms. Just as they were about to enter, though, there was a cry from behind them. Looking back, James saw Kana jogging towards them with two… clubs, one slung over each shoulder.

  As Kana got closer, James could see that the clubs were reddish in colour and were… dripping… from the thick end.

  “Ha! Good timing!” Kana boomed as she got near. “I have decided to let you store some of my kill!”

  “Is that— are those deer legs?” James asked, feeling a little sick to his stomach. The leg looked like it had been ripped off the body of its original owner.

  “You ate a deer?” Suki added, sounding just as horrified.

  “I ate two! Well, one and one-half,” Kana said proudly. “I won’t need to eat for a week. But I had some leftover. You!”

  She held out one of the legs to James. “You will store this in your cold-box until I have need of it again.”

  “I’m sorry,” James said. His mouth had started moving without him thinking about it, motivated by a desperate need to keep him out of… whatever this was. “Our fridge is full of blood right now.”

  “Hrrm, unfortunate,” Kana said. She turned to Suki.

  “Matsuri broke our fridge,” Suki said quickly. “She took out parts to use in a robot.”

  “Hrrm,” Kana said again. She looked thoughtfully at the leg she was holding out. “I can fit one of these in our cold-box, but I will need to find another—”

  “It won’t work,” Harue said, making James jump. She stepped out from behind him. “Freezing keeps meat from going rotten, but it doesn’t help you. If it did, you wouldn’t have your problem with regular meals. It needs to be fresh.”

  She looked back at James and Suki. “Sorry about this. She’s still not fully domesticated.”

  Kana growled. “But I caught it!” she grumbled.

  “Then eat it,” Harue replied calmly.

  Kana looked at the meat again. “I’m full,” she admitted.

  “Should have left it for the scavengers then. Tell you what, why don’t we go to the kitchens and see if they’ll give you coins for it.”

  “I do like coins,” Kana said. “Trade, though? That’s for humans.”

  “Get used to it,” Harue said bluntly. “As long as you’re living in a human school, you’re going to have to learn the customs.”

  Kana scowled, but she let Harue lead her away. The last thing James heard from her was, “Not the ones with the holes in them, though, I don’t like those…”

  “So that’s confirmed then,” James said, his voice a little more shrill than he would like. “Those two aren’t human.”

  “I wonder…” Suki said. “It might be a good idea to keep a roll of new ten yen coins on our persons in case we need to placate her.”

  “That may be a good idea,” Mitsue said thoughtfully. The two boys were back in their room, getting ready for bed. James had filled Mitsue in on the important events of the day.

  “The thing that annoys me most, for some reason, is that Kana just accepted that a fridge full of blood was a perfectly normal thing to have,” James complained.

  “It is,” Mitsue said matter-of-factly. “I have no doubt she thought it was for consumption, rather than for medical purposes, but if you didn’t think she would accept it, why did you say it? You could have said it was filled with food.”

  “That would have been a lie,” James said morosely. “And I’m no good at those.”

  “We shall have to add that to your training curriculum then,” Mitsue said. “Goodnight.”

  “That was… a joke, right?” James asked. Mitsue didn’t answer. “Yeah, goodnight.”

  James woke up to a heavy thudding in his chest. There was light in the room, but it wasn’t coming from the ceiling or the window.

  It was coming from him. Everything looked green, but his body was shining. Shining with a green light that was filling the room and illuminating Mitsue’s worried face.

  “James, are you all right? You’re glowing.”

  “I know!” James said frantically. “I don’t know what’s happening!”

  Suddenly, it stopped. The room was plunged into darkness. James yelped and then yelped again when Mitsue turned on his bedside lamp.

  “What’s going on?” James asked.

  “I… do not know,” Mitsue said, looking around. “Nothing is out of place. The time is… midnight. To the minute. That may be significant.”

  James got up and went out on the balcony. The world outside was… peaceful. There were a few lights on in the buildings he could see, but not many. The grounds were well lit, and there were no signs of masked gunmen scurrying around. He looked up and didn’t see even one attack helicopter.

  He went back inside. “Whatever it was, it’s gone now,” he said helplessly.

  “Perhaps we should talk to the teachers about this,” Mitsue suggested. “They may know more than they’ve told us thus far.”

  “That— that would mean that they know there’s a reason I’m here,” James said. “Which would mean that… no, my parents enrolled me by accident!”

  “Perhaps they were tricked,” Mitsue said. “Or manipulated. There are ways…”

  “Magic ways,” James said bitterly. “You think that someone used magic on my parents to make them send me to this school?”

  “I couldn’t say, I certainly wasn’t there at the time,” Mitsue said. “But you, yourself, thought that it was very strange that they would have done that.”

  “Yeah. Strange.” James said. “I guess it can’t hurt to ask. And Professor Toei does seem to have a special interest in me.”

  Mitsue clapped him on the shoulder. “Get some sleep,” he said. “We’ll resume our investigation in the morning.”