VOLUME 6

Chapter 4: Part 5

It was cold. It was d.a.m.n near freezing. I really wished I had a scarf or something around my waist right now instead of a ribbon…

The clock had just struck midnight. The three of us were bounding through the dark night sky, watching as our breaths turned into white mist in front of us as if we had been smoking cigarettes. Being in this getup wouldn’t have been bad if it was summer, but it was just downright brutal in the winter. Well, I guess we wouldn’t want to go against Yuu’s sense of aesthetics, so whatever…

However…

“Hey, Sera.”

“What is it?”

“I can see why your leotard is blue and Yuu’s is purple… but why is mine orange? It’ll be really hard to blend in with the night in this color.”

“It can’t be helped. That color just fits your character.”

“What the h.e.l.l is that supposed to mean?!”

Aesthetic. = “Eheheh. I guess I just wanted to, oniichan!”

“Do you intend to explain every little thing with aesthetics?”

“We’ve arrived.”

Tomonori’s place was pretty far from mine. Ugh, making me come all this way in this leotard…

In any case, we were now in front of Tomonori’s apartment building.

It was a fancy-looking brick apartment building. To think she would be living in a nice place like this… oh wait, Sera mentioned that only vampire ninjas lived here, right? That’s some pretty impressive company housing.

But seriously, I was freezing out here, so I quickly made my way through the outer door of the building.

There were a few mailboxes lined up around me, and I saw mailboxes for “Yos.h.i.+da” as well as “Hos.h.i.+kawa” there.

Hos.h.i.+kawa was Saras’s fake name, right? So she was living in this building too?

There was a gla.s.s door across from us, and I could see around five meters of distance past that before another gla.s.s door showed up. Exactly what did they need that extra five meters for…?

“Ayumu. Wear this.”

Sera pa.s.sed me a strange pair of goggles. I put them on and… ahh, these were one of those infrared sensor goggles.

I could see a giant tangle of infrared lines running past that five-meter long, two-meter wide s.p.a.ce past the gla.s.s door.

“Well, that’s pretty impressive.”

“There are plenty of gaps though. However, if you touch one of those beams…”

Sera had said I would die, right? Did that mean that an alarm would go off and then swarms of vampire ninjas would come streaming in?

“Well then… Let us proceed.”

Sera headed for the door, her leotard accenting her remarkably well-proportioned body.

She put one of her long fingers on a panel right next to the door, and the gla.s.s door opened. It really didn’t look like she had entered in any kind of pa.s.sword or anything…

“Wait, that door opened really normally.”

I quickly went through the gla.s.s door to the other side, still wearing my goggles.

“If you can pa.s.s through this area, then the rest of the building is no different from a normal building.”

“I see. Okay, let me try.”

It looked like I might be able to squeak by if I just crawled along. Okay…

I plastered myself as low to the ground as possible and began to crawl.

“Ahh, I forgot to tell you something.”

I slowly continued to move forwards. That one was close… if I was just a bit more careless I would’ve tripped a sensor. Ah, that was seriously clo- kch.

“Hyaaaaaaahhh!!”

I was a zombie who felt no pain, but I still let out a strange scream.

But I mean, if you felt a bamboo spear skewering you in the a.s.s, then you’d scream too, right?

“Ueeeehhhhhhh!!!”

My hips went too high in the air and tripped a sensor. And then, another bamboo spear flew right into my a.s.s.

“Tuwaaahhhh!!”

My hips shook a bit and one of the bamboo spears tripped another sensor.

“Zyaaaaaghghhh!!”

More bamboo spears went right into my behind like it was the most natural thing in the world. Why my a.s.s?! Why only my a.s.s?!

“I forgot to tell you that there are other sensors in the ground as well, so crawling would not be the optimal strategy.”

Why are you telling me that now?! Tell me that during the strategy meeting, dammit! Agh! G.o.d dammit!

Almost like the Top Gun opening. = “Your screams sound like the chorus to Danger Zone!”

Why did Yuu have a kind of satisfied look in her eyes?

“Yes, I’m completely in a danger zone right now. Could you please help me out?”

If I moved, the bamboo spears would definitely knock into another sensor. But my a.s.s was starting to shake… what exactly should I do here?

“There is a release b.u.t.ton on the other side here. Please stay there and do not move. h.e.l.lsycthe-dono… if you would.”

Yuu was readying something that looked like a crossbow.

She shot that crossbow, sending a suction cup arrow out, attached to a rope.

I heard a small pop, before seeing that the arrow had stuck itself to the gla.s.s door on the opposite side.

It had also brilliantly flown exactly between all the infrared beams. Ah, I see. They could follow that rope now to get past the beams.

Yuu held one end of the rope, while Sera latched onto it with her supple body.

Slide… slide… slide… Sera slowly advanced. Her ponytail had been bundled up so that her hair didn’t trigger any of the sensors.

She pa.s.sed right above my head as I still lay on the ground. She seemed a bit tense, but was still moving forwards smoothly.

Good, good. At this rate, we’ll make it-

“Gorbchvu.”

At that moment… I heard a weird sounding coming from Yuu’s direction.

Making as few movements as possible, I took a look in her direction, and saw that she was holding a gauntleted hand up to her mouth.

Ahh, she sneezed. She’s been in a leotard all this time, so it’s not a big surprise.

Because of that, Yuu loosened her grip on the rope a bit. I looked up, a bit worried about Sera, and was treated to the sight of a beautiful b.u.t.t above me. A beautiful, feminine b.u.t.t that was clean from bamboo spear puncture wounds.

I gave a gasp, and then felt the heel of a foot come down on the back of my head. It seems Sera had lost her balance when the rope went momentarily slack. That and, she probably also just wanted to hit me.

Also, what’s with that sigh of relief?! I’m suffering down here, dammit!

It seemed that Sera had been able to keep herself up by putting a foot on my head and a hand on the wall.

Like that, Sera managed to safely find her way to the other side, and then opened the gla.s.s door there.

“Ah.”

“Oh.”

My voice and Sera’s voice rang out at the same time.

The rope with the suction cup was still attached to the door. So, opening that door meant…

The rope swept across the hallway, sweeping through countless infrared sensors.

“Haaaaaaghaewhggfuuueeeeeeeeeuizzzzzaaaaaaaaa!!”

One after another, the bamboo spears vindictively pierced into my behind, as if I was their mortal enemy.

No matter how much I twisted my body and rolled around, those bamboo spears seemed to always find their way to my a.s.s. So, I tried lying on my back instead.

And then, I saw the spears headed right towards my precious area…

“NUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!!!”

In the end, I decided to face downwards. As I felt spear after spear make its way into my a.s.s, I took a look up.

I saw Sera there, her finger on a panel that looked like the one from before, giving me a mocking smile.

Wasn’t that the b.u.t.ton that would deactivate this trap?!

“Hey! Hurry up and push the d.a.m.n b.u.t.ton!”

“Well, Ayumu. You see, Dragon Magazine is celebrating its 300th issue now.” (1)

“Huh?”

“So, in celebration, I will wait here until you are struck by 300 spears.”

“I see… well, I guess in that case… no, shut up! What the h.e.l.l are you saying, you idiot?!”

Only 280 more. = “Oniichan! It’ll just be a bit more! Hang in there!”

“I think getting hit by 20 of those things is more than enough, dammit!”

TRANSLATOR’S NOTES

(1) Originally, all the short stories that comprise Volume 6 were printed in Dragon Magazine. So this is a very big break-the-fourth-wall moment.