In a room within a school hidden in the shadows, a meeting is taking place, a tall woman with her hair tied in a ponytail turns to her students, nodding along to their report of their respective fights with the Hanzo Academy Shinobi. "So, their strength was disappointing is the summary of the events?"
"Yeah." Homura mutters derisively, "How they can keep ahold of the Super Secret Ninja Art Scroll is a miracle."
"'Pride comes before the fall.'" Their teacher reminds her off-handedly turning to the other girls, leaving the tan girl chastised as she turns to the final three girls of the group. "Did you manage to get the hostage?"
"Sadly, no~." Haruka hums with a hint of disappointment in her voice. "He wasn't there when we got there."
"I woke up early for nothing." A shorter girl wearing a gothic-lolita outfit with an eyepatch over an eye. Mirai, grumbles to the side. "No one came in and no one came out from three in the morning 'till the time we entered."
"He wasn't in the nearby area and none of the local homeless knew anything." Yomi adds before continuing with a slight blush. "But they had a lot of nice things to say about him."
Before they could continue, Homura pipes up with a haughty huff, "Ha! As if we need to involve a civilian as a hostage, they're so weak we don't even need him."
Yomi just puffs her cheeks, an obvious blush dusting her cheeks as she grumbles to the side. "I wanted to meet the cute boy too. Now I might never get the chance to do so."
At her words, Haruka's brow twitches while Homura blinks at her in surprise, leaving Mirai and Hikage with the least obvious reaction, that of a raised brow.
Their teacher's shadow's shoulders shake twice while holding a fist to her hand to stifle the amusement she felt. Shinobis these girls may be, they're still young girls.
Before she could say anything, Homura whirled to Yomi, the leader laying into Yomi with an exasperated tone in her voice. "Honestly, stay focused, we're not here to see you become boy-crazy, we already see how you are when you're bean sprout-crazy so anything else is just too much. This is a mission, not a meet cute with some boy, our target, and yours specifically, is the rich Hanzo girl."
"Oh I know." Yomi says, holding a hand to cradle her cheek, the atmosphere darkening almost visibly as Yomi adds. "I can handle some rich pampered Shinobi princess any time of the day, but~," She adds with a dark smile, "If he just so happens to be there, I'll show her how better I am than some rich girl."
Suzune simply sighs and swings her hand outward, "Enough." With that single word, the candles go out and leave the room dark, signifying the end of the meeting. "Continue with your training."
"Yes!" The five say before disappearing, leaving Suzune alone as she returned to her paperwork diligently.
"So, you're teaching Katsu-nee how to fight without seeing?" Asuka asks, the rest of the Hanzo class circling as he nods along.
"It's more like to see with more than just her eyes." Caleb explains as he rests the tip of the rapier on the ground and crouches down, resembling a thug more than a trained martial arts but no one points it out. Except for Yagyu.
"You look like a thug."
"Quiet you old bitch." Caleb growls out, narrowing his eyes and raising his chin, resembling a thug even more as he begins to stand to try and give her a piece of his mind.
"I don't think we need to use such crass language, Caleb-kun." Asuka says as she pulled him back while Hibari did the same with Yagyu, who was more than happy to meet Caleb midway.
"Yeah, that's mean Caleb-chan!" Hibari said and Yagyu just smirked smugly.
"Yeah Aridam. How cruel can you be to insult such a maiden?" She asks despite the way the light hits her makes it look like her bangs are hiding her eyes.
"Oh I can do it easily." Caleb practically growls out, glaring at the red-eyes girl. "But then it'd be rude to insult the elderly, not to mention the blind."
"I'm not blind." Yagyu retorts while Caleb scoffs.
"If you can't even see the wrinkles on your own body then you're too far gone." Caleb huffs as Yagyu tries to gently push off Hibari and savagely tear Caleb a new one, but Hibari was trained by Caleb in grappling techniques. Her grip was practically iron with how solid it was and even Yagyu was surprised.
Though Katsuragi piped up, "Oi~, Ikaruga-sama! Is anyone there~?" She said while waving her hand in front of Ikaruga's eyes, causing her to blink as she straightens up.
"A-Ah, yes?" She asks, confused as she looks around, watching Hibari hold back Yagyu and Asuka do the same with Caleb. Her brow twitches as she sighs. "Caleb-san, please stop insulting Yagyu so crassly, Yagyu stop provoking a civilian."
Caleb was impressed by Ikaruga's problem solving skills, though it's probably more pattern recognition than problem solving. Though he couldn't help but wonder why Ikaruga was so distracted.
Though it's probably just a bad day. "Speaking of, I see you have a new sword. A rapier too."
"The toothpick has a-Argh!" She cried, jumping as a new mark appears on her thigh where Caleb swatted at her. "Again!? Do you have some fetish with marks?"
At the words 'fetish' and 'mark', Asuka and Hibari's imagination went will before shaking themselves out of it before they could go too far, or, in Asuka's case, begin to imitate her grandfather, which is a nightmare for Asuka.
"Yes, and it's actual name is espada ropera." Ikaruga says, pointedly looking way from Caleb hitting Katsuragi. "It translates to 'dress sword' since the sword itself was mostly used for decoration and denoted a person's status as a noble or a gentleman in Western Europe during the-."
"Oi! Are you just going to ignore that! He just hit me for no reason!" Katsuragi complains out loud while pointing at her thigh and at Caleb. "He can't curse at Yagyu but he can spank me whenever he wants?" Katsuragi stopped, blinking at her word choice for a second, as if she was about to take it back, only for her grin to become perverse as she looks at Caleb, stripping him down in her mind as she giggled perversely. "Actually… uhehehehe, I wouldn't mind."
While Asuka and Hibari blushed and inwardly agreed with Katsuragi, Ikaruga brought out her sword and grasped the handle, pulling it as the wind blew extremely hard as her bangs hid her eyes but showed the frown on her face. As the wind flew by her sword, it created a whistling sound as she seemed to mimic a samurai of old and was about to cut down an evil yokai as Katsuragi blinked. "Wait, Ikaruga, I-I didn't mean it, well I did," she muttered under her breath to the side before she quickly turned to the rest of her teammates and desperately scrambled for a lifeline, "but I can' be the only one to notice how hot thins hunk is! I mean, look at him!" She said as she pointed to Caleb, who tilted his head in confusion. "His height is perfect hugging height." She says as she hugged Caleb to display her point, to the man's confusion.
Despite the singular point that Asuka and Hibari nodded at with visible blushes on their faces, Ikaruga did not budge as she stepped another step forward and Katsuragi continued. "Look at these arms!" She said, raising Caleb's arm to show her point but not pulling it up, much to Caleb's anxiety, "They can carry three of me like a princess." In an attempt to prove her point, she jumps up and holds him around his neck as she leaps on him in genuine fear and anxiety, expecting him to hold her in a princess carry. "See-yah!" She yelped as she fell on the floor, with Ikaruga still on her way to deliver holy punishment on the pervert.
Quickly bouncing back up, Katsuragi grabbed Caleb's leg and raised it. "Look at these legs! I'm almost jealous! These," she slaps his thigh that only seemed to make Ikaruga's wrath stronger, "could support entire families and still have enough left over to give any gal a good night!" She says desperately before looking to the others resembling a salesman, "Maybe even multiple gals!
Katsuragi was starting to panic and the only thing running through her mind was perverted thoughts, how she wanted Caleb to treat her in bed (it varied but it was rarely wholesome), to how she really doesn't want Ikaruga to punish her. Meanwhile, Hibari and Asuka were blushing up storms from Katsuragi's words and their nature worked against them, Hanzo's bloodline and Hibari's spirit animal as their imagination ran wild.
"Ka~tsu~ra~gi~!" Ikaruga sounded out each syllable as she was close enough to dish out heavenly punishment while Katsuragi attempted to hide behind Caleb.
Only to find herself on her knees and with two new marks on her legs and Caleb looking at the embarrassed Asuka and Hibari and the disgusted Yagyu, who somehow managed to portray different variations of disgust with the exact same intensity with only one visible eye and little actual change in her expression. Though that embarrassment quickly became horror as a loud whoosh rang out followed by a dull think and Katsuragi yelping. "Don't objectify a civilian!"
Caleb made the executive decision of not turning back and turned to the other girls. "So, wanna know more about the sword?"
Quickly Asuka and Hibari nodded while Yagyu's face relaxed as Caleb stepped towards them until he was beside them but looking the opposite way, the other girls quickly joined him and ignored Katsuragi's pleading.
"My adorable underclassmen, wai-Ahhhhh!"
"Filthy!"
This one's story is different from the Unfettered, unlike a story about sacrifice and the love found within bonds, the story of the Supernatural Clarity-
"Is that it's actual name?" Yagyu asked with narrowed eyes.
"Yes, now quiet, I'm telling a story."
The story of Supernatural Clarity is a story of action, usually reckless ones, as the style that's usually connected to the sword actually uses it as one of its core tenets, 'Action before thought.'
"No wonder it suits Katsuragi so much." Asuka mutters under her breath.
"You know it! Now let me give those sweater puppies some-ow!" Katsuragi yelps before she can finish her request while Ikaruga slowly returns her sheathed sword to her side.
Now, the origin of the sword is unknown, but according to the stories, it couldn't have been made by human hands because it was made by a swordsmith githyanki by the name of Veselka, forged with dragonfire, this sword was the most prized of her possessions and the most beautiful one too.
"Yankee?" Yagyu mutters under her breath in confusion before turning to the other person who knows the most about such creatures that wasn't Caleb.
Hibari just shrugs so she turns to Caleb with regret and he also shrugged but reached into his bag and brought out a small book. "They had yellow skin, sunken eyes and had sharp teeth." Before anyone could comment on that, he continued. "They were also enslaved for a while in the Astral Plane."
The sword was given to the finest Warblade the githyanki there was and it stayed there, until a man by the name of Reshar came and challenged him for it. After a hard-fought battle, he won, leaving him with the simple, but beautiful, no-name blade.
Though such a loss broke Veselka's heart, she knew that the blade's full potantial couldn't be reached until she let it go. Despite this, she hoped day-by-day to one day see it again.
Reshar took it to his temple where he was teaching other the styles he learned throughout his journey and it stayed there, that is until it was taken by a rakasha, a demon prince. This caused the downfall of the temple and many believed it was tainted because of such an action.
"That's stupid." Katsuragi piped up in the midst of the story as she leaned back. "Swords don't have a will, everyone knows that."
Ikaruga looked like she wanted to retort but Caleb interjects. "Well, that's what some think, but the more open-minded wondered if that's how it was supposed to be."
"What do you mean?" Katsuragi asks and Caleb just jerked his head towards her.
"'Action before thought', remember? What the demon did is in line with it." Caleb explained, giving the others a bit to think about before returning to his story.
At some point, far in the future, a humble swordsage by the name of Radigan came upon the Supernatural Clarity. For years he wielded the sword among other, but at every step, he could feel the potential in it, potential he couldn't reach. He tried everything and anything to unlock the last reservoir of power but nothing worked. In the end, he stepped into the Astral Plane in hopes of finding the descendant of the blade's creator.
But, instead, he found Veselka herself, still working her forge in hopes of performing a miracle similar to the one that created the Supernatural Clarity.
"I have proven myself incapable of learning its final secrets." He said, "So I must be unworthy to wield this great blade."
Veselka smiled at the naive adept's words-
"No…" Hibari trailed off with tears welling up in her eyes, already recognizing where this is going.
-and though it hurt her much, she refused the great gift Radigan offered her since her time with the sword was over a lifetime ago. Instead she asked for his company at the ruins of the Temple of the Nine Swords to pay homage to Reshar. Radigan didn't know this, but he was currently witnessing Veselka's last journey.
Once there, the githyanki she slumped onto the floor-
"Noooo~." Hibari whines, burying her face into Yagyu's chest, the white-haired girl glancing at Caleb and flashing him a thumbs up with an elated glint in her eyes as Caleb just gave her a tired look.
-her life already over when Reshar took the sword, her spirit now truly free as Radigan watched it all end.
The other girls lean forward in interest as Caleb finish his story. 'Anyway, from then, things happened and I managed to get it in my hands. The end."
"Mouu~." Hibari glares cutely at Caleb pouting as she asks, "Why are all the stories really sad?"
"Are they?" Caleb asks, tilting his head in confusion. Sure, some of the stories can get a bit dark, but isn't a death or two expected for stories involving dangerous weapon normal?
"They're quite…" Ikaruga starts, probably already used to similar stories with how important her sword is to her. "Interesting, for a lack of a better term."
"They are, personally, if you remove a few things from some of them, they'd make for pretty good children's stories." Caleb adds with a shrug and a smile.
"See! Even you can agree they're dark." Hibari points out with a pout and Caleb just shakes his head.
"For children." Caleb points out and Hibari just ignores him, crossing her arms and looking away with a pout.
"There there, ignore the mean man, I think it's also pretty dark." Yagyu says, rubbing Hibari's head as the girl turns to her with bright eyes.
"Really Yagyu-chan!?" She asks and the white-haired girl just nods.
"Of course." She says with a genuine smile. But Hibari knows better and she frowns pouting as she looks away.
"I don't like liars, Yagyu-chan!" She says with a pout as Yagyu freezes like a statue, cracking a second later as she reached for Hibari.
"Hi-Hibari-chan, I-." Hibari ignored her, looking away and turning her back on her as Yagyu freezes completely, and was practically swept up by the wind, a gentle breeze knocking her over and sprawling her on the ground.
"Yagyu has become Yamcha." Katsuragi mutters under her breath, causing Asuka to sputter in surprise and amusement, quickly hiding it by turning away and trying to muffle her chuckles along with trying to calm her shaking shoulders.
That said, Yagyu was still in shock when Caleb's stomach quickly reminded people of its existence. Groaning for long as Katsuragi had to stifle a chuckle. "What was that, a monster?"
"That was my stomach." Caleb says, reaching into his bag and moving his hand about for a while. "You know, the same stomach that's kind of hungry since we skipped lunch?"
"Ohhh…" Katsuragi trailed off, now assailed from all sides by her very angry teammates, "right… Sorry."
"It's fine." He says, almost excitedly as he slowly brought out an object wrapped in paper. "I've been looking for an opportunity to eat a piece of this."
Slowly, he unfurls the paper, revealing a block of cheese, white as snow and with a strange scent coming off of it. It wasn't bad or particularly smelly, but the girls had trouble pinning the scent coming from it to anything in particular. He reveals a knife next, practically glinting with how clean it is and almost reverently, he cuts the thinnest slice any of the girls have ever seen anyone cut.
He catches it as it falls and slowly, he raises it and the girls confusion could not be any clearer if they tried. The cheese was practically translucent, and he was eating it with so much reverence that it was almost unbelievable. It probably would have been more believable if he brought out an entire table and chair with wine to enjoy his mystical cheese with.
But what was worse was when he chomped down on the cheese itself, he slowly chewed on it, savoring each and every piece of the cheese with everything he could, and he made it look good.
Slowly, he practically performed what amounted to food porn and all it needed was moaning and groaning. He practically made all of them hungry with only his movements and nothing else to the shock of the girls, who now really wanted the cheese.
Finally, he finishes the piece of cheese and sighs very satisfied. "That was good. It didn't fill much, but it was very good."
The girls watched as Caleb got back up, stretching as he asks, "Well, since we skipped most of the class, wanna go get something to eat? I'm really hungry."
"We still have to go with Katsuragi to report to Kiriya." Ikaruga starts, looking to turn him down, but…
"Once we're done we can go get something to eat." Asuka says while Hibari nods along.
"Maybe we can go to a rest-/my family's-." Asuka and Hibari start simultaneously but are interrupted by Katsuragi.
"Ramen!" She says, her face practically etched in stone with how serious her expression is.
"Ramen?" Caleb asks, as if to confirm as he rubs his stomach at the memory of the scent that usually came with ramen. "Mmmm...Ramen."
"Ramen?" Katsuragi asks.
"Ramen." Caleb confirms as he turns to the disappointed Hibari and Asuka, who were both looking to invite him to a place with a date-like atmosphere in Hibari's case, or in Asuka's case, have him meet her parents.
"So, is Katsuragi paying?" Caleb asks as Katsuragi sputters.
"Wh-wh-what?" She starts, blinking at him as if he was insane. "You're the guy, shouldn't you be paying."
"Oh~," Caleb moans, hugging his stomach as he falls to his knees. "How hungry, I haven't eaten anything since this morning." He begins to crawl turning to Katsuragi with eyes filled with unshed tears. "Oh how cruel my upperclassmen is, if only she'd find it in her heart to look out for her underclassmen, just once."
"Wait-I."
"Horrible." Ikaruga said with a glare as Katsuragi flinched as if an arrow pierced right through her.
"Rude." Yagyu was next, not really interested in defending Caleb but more interested in getting Hibari some free food.
Hibari sniffed, "Katsu-nee, you brought Caleb-chan out here against his will and made him train you. You can't even give him food?"
Katsuragi frantically looked around as she tried to find a way to escape this, "Wait, didn't you do the same?"
"I didn't." Hibari said, catching Yagyu's attention as she looked at her intently. "We'd go out to eat afterwards and sometimes I'd pay."
Yagyu was regretting sticking up for Caleb. But if they win, Hibari will have free ramen, and that'll make It all worth it in the end, so she ignored that. Asuka on the other hand was not very happy ignoring it, but Hibari's dates with Caleb are unimportant. "Yeah, Katsu-nee, you should at least treat him something."
At this point, Katsuragi was practically sobbing on the ground and holding her stomach like she was stabbed. "Fine." She groans out, standing up and only looking moderately ashamed. "I did drag you out of class and made you miss lunch. That said, I'm hungry myself, so let's go!"
"Wait just a minute." Ikaruga stops her with a hand on her shoulder, looking over her as she slowly and lowly said, "You still have to go apologize to Kiriya-sensei."
A shiver seems to run up Katsuragi's back, "Ah-Ahahaha, I-I don't think we need that yet, I mean, c'mon, it was an honest mistake, and I don't want to leave this poor underclassman hungry, y'know?" She starts, quickly propping up Caleb but he was gone a second later.
"Don't worry, it shouldn't be for too long, right? We'll wait." Caleb said with an innocent smile, as if he didn't know what was going to happen but the others knew, they knew very well.
"Thank you for being so understanding, Caleb-san." Ikaruga starts as she bows, dragging away Katsuragi whose scratching at the ground to try and impede the judgment that will befall her. Sadly, she will not be strong enough.
"Wait, please, help me!" She pleaded for the second time that day. And for the second time that day, she will go ignored. "Noooooooooo~." She said as she disappeared into the direction of the old schoolbuilding.
The other four watch her go, faces blank until Caleb turns to them with a smile.
"Well then, shall we go get some ramen? My treat until I can get Katsuragi to pay me back." Caleb asks.
No one refused.
With a loud slurp, Caleb consumed the noodles at a steady pace, his hunger moving him forward with the large bowl. Beside him, a familiar blonde did the same, but unlike him, she ate her ramen at a master's pace, a few bowls already beside her as she refused to talk to anyone in childish anger.
Beside them, a group of three girls do the same but at a more sedate pace, enjoying the noodles with a few comments and a bit of talking in between. All of them were enjoying it greatly since the shop is renowned for their noodles, especially ramen.
Finally, the two particularly hungry students place their hands beside the bowl, the sound made wasn't loud but it caught the attention of the other girls as they turned to stare. Meanwhile, the two place their hands on the bottom of the bowl and raise it, slowly resting the edge of the bowl on their lips in unison. Tilting their heads back, they drink the broth slowly, letting the warmth spread through them slowly, smacking their lips before sighing slowly, a slight hint of mist coming from their mouths as they slump in relief. "Man, that was good. Hey, can I have one more?" Caleb says as he leaves his bowl of ramen aside while Katsuragi nods.
"Yeah, maybe we should remember about lunch next time we train." Katsuragi notes out loud as Caleb scoffs.
"I'll do that when you learn how to hold back." Caleb answers as he takes a sip out of the soda to his side and places it gently on the counter. "A few of those kicks you threw could have knocked my head off."
At this, Asuka, Yagyu, Hibari, and Ikaruga frown at that since it sounds strange. While Katsuragi is strong and has problem holding back due to the nature of her fighting style and her own personality, she's at least disciplined enough to hold back enough to make her hits normal.
"Yeah, I nearly forgot to hold back a few times." She admits off-handedly, probably forgetting that the rest of her team was with her.
"You what?!" Ikaruga nearly yelled out as Katsuragi flinched, whirling around and raising her arms as Asuka, Hibari, and Yagyu gave her a dirty look.
"Wait, wait, wait! Hol' up, you didn't see him in training." Katsuragi said in an attempt to defend herself. 'Sure, a few kicks were a bit harder than normal, but he kept evading them! Hell, he somehow had the time to spank my ass a few times!" She adds as the dirty looks from Asuka, Hibari and Yagyu whirled around to him this time as he quickly raised his hands as the ramen was set in front of him.
"With the flat of the sword Katsuragi. Don't forget the important details." He says as Katsuragi laughs out loud and Ikaruga just sighs. "I might just remind you of our lessons tomorrow at random times."
"Please don't, some of those hits hurt." Katsuragi says while rubbing her own thighs and leaving Ikaruga to her own thoughts while Asuka and Hibari grilled Caleb on his activities with Katsuragi.
How could he outspeed Katsuragi? Probably their best hand to hand fighter in all of Hanzo and one of the physically strongest and the most agile shinobi that she knew, could that technique somehow made his reflexes faster?
It's a possibility, those who are blind usually have their other sense enhanced so the chance that his technique works like that is high, but how else would it work? Could it be something else, a different skill? He did say he knows a lot of thing but has never actually mastered any of them. Could this be one of the nine styles that he referred to in his story?
Speaking of, his rapier, while the idea that he was faster than Katsuragi is possible, it's more likely that he used the form of the rapier to his advantage, using it like a whip rather than a sword due to the rapier's more flexible nature in comparison to a longsword or a katana like she does.
That's the most likely option, but she feels like she's missing something, something incredibly important.
Her thoughts were interrupted by Caleb as he places the bowl down and sighs. "Thanks for the food. It's getting late so I've gotta get home."
Though the girls still directed narrowed eyes of suspicion at him, they saw him off. "Bye Caleb-chan~."
"See you tomorrow Caleb-kun!" Asuka says with a wide smile as she waves him away. Yagyu says nothing and returns to her seafood ramen.
Meanwhile, Katsuragi leered at his back before trailing down his spine to his rear as she whistled. "Hate to see you go, love to watch ya leave." She mutters under her breath with a perverted and fond smile. She found herself almost relating to Asuka and Hibari, love-stricken underclassmen they were, and she wasn't any better.
In response, she yelps as an eraser lands in between her eyes with enough force to jerk her head back.
Caleb just smiled fondly as he left before he sighed in relief once he was far enough. "Finally, I was getting tired."
Not to mention the overwhelming guilt that simply won't leave no matter how hard he tries every time he interacts with the girls.
Sometimes, he wishes he could listen to that guilt in his heart and come clean to the girls, but he has to, no, he wants to get the Umbral Awn, if he has to stomp on the hearts of a few people, it'll be fine. Still, won't make it any easier.
"So, nothing to do but get some sleep, and maybe reinforce my home, wouldn't want any other pesky Shinobis to invade my privacy again." He speaks out loud as he wanders back to his home under the darkening sky.
Still, his acting should be flawless, it's an act while also having enough genuineness to pass through most, so why were Hibari, Asuka, and Yagyu glaring at him when they heard he spanked Katsuragi? It just makes no sense unless they either figured it out or have suspicions of it.
Should he try to keep some space? No, he's already too involved to plead ignorance in anyway that truly matters.
Even if he did, the Evil Shinobi, the idea that what amounts to an assassin can be labeled between 'good' and 'evil' still as laughable as always, know where he lives and those girls care for him somewhat, and he's a pretty good hostage if he says so himself. Hell, he'd kidnap himself if he could, might make it easier to reach the Umbral Awn or get one of the girls to do it.
He spots his apartment get closer as he sighs in preparation for another sleepless night either full of nightmares or blissful nothingness.
As he unlocks the door, he slips in, locking it behind him as he rests the Bag of Holding beside his bed in his room as he lets himself drop onto his bed. This day has been a tiring one, and he needs his beauty sleep.
With that, he closes his eyes and tries to fall asleep, unable to and aware of the eyes on him only for the eyes to leave before midnight as he finally manages to catch a few hours of shut-eye.
A/N: Day eighten in the basement: no one's heard for my cries of help, it seems like no one's coming...
Still, in reality, I hope all of you have enjoyed this as much as I enjoy writing it. The views of my stories have finally started working so now my motivation has somewhat returned.