“Master, you look… suspiciously cheerful. What happened?”
“Fufufufu~ Fana-oneechan can tell huh.”
“You’ve been grinning nonstop. Anyone could tell. Honestly, it’s gross.”
“He must have taken a liking to Nikou’s hot springs. The rumors were true—an exceptional bath indeed.”
“It really was amazing!”
Having basked in the ultimate bliss—plunging into a pair of massive breasts and suckling straight from the source—I am still riding high even after we’d left the springs. It felt as though strength was welling up from deep inside my body.
Lately, I’ve been eating the same meals as adults, but maybe this infant body of mine still needs regular doses of milk.
Yes, that has to be it. No doubt about it!
“I wonder if she’ll let me drink again…”
『Master, you really shouldn’t be thinking about that. More importantly, you agreed to quite a troublesome condition in exchange, didn’t you?』
The truth was, the Shogun had given me a task—one I could hardly refuse after what she’d offered.
(She just want me to lend a hand in the operation to wipe out that ninja clan once their base is discovered, right?)
『Exactly. And since no one even knows where it is, who can say how long that will take…』
Naturally, the shogunate was already scouring every lead, but so far they hadn’t uncovered so much as a clue. The Shogun had promised to contact me the moment something turned up… though who knew when that might be.
『Because Master, you let your momentary lust get the better of you! You accepted it without even a second thought.』
(It’s not a big deal compared to drinking breast milk! (Grin))
Well, that said, I did actually have a lead on the ninja clan’s stronghold.
(During the battle, I noticed a ninja lurking in the forest, secretly observing the fight. I marked him without his noticing, so I’d know exactly where he’d run back to.)
『Ah, so that’s why you didn’t act immediately once the fighting started.』
The target had now stopped in one place. Chances were high that this was their base of operations.
After that, the much-feared second attack during the pilgrimage to Toshogu never happened. What’s more, although we were supposed to stay in Nikou for about a week, plans were suddenly cut short. We only got to stay for three days before returning to Edo. No ambush struck us on the road back to Edo either. Thus, the Shogun’s procession reached Edo Castle safely.
★★★
“This is what happens when a ninja gets turned into a karakuri.”
“Modifying human bodies into karakuri? What the hell happened to their ethics…?”
We had gone to visit Hiraga Genko once again.
Back then, I’d frozen the ninja solid to stop his self-destruction and stored him in a vault. Now we’d brought him here so she could examine him. After all, when it came to karakuri, there was no one more knowledgeable than her.
“Of course, even I’ve thought about human karakuri-ization before. Like, maybe hiding weapons in an arm, or boosting physical strength with artificial muscles—stuff like that. But this… this is on another level. Hardly any trace of the human is left. Even the brain has been tampered with!”
Apparently, the ninja had most of his body converted into karakuri.
“Wouldn’t you need some pretty advanced knowledge and skill to even attempt this?”
“That’s right. Even for me, it’d take years if I tried to pull it off.”
“Then… do you know anyone capable of doing something like this?”
Naturally, the Shogun’s own investigators had already looked into Genko and her laboratory. After all, there was nowhere else in the realm with the expertise to carry out karakuri-conversion on humans.
“…There is someone. I’ve already told the officials about it too. I once had a research assistant here—someone I highly regarded, a person with future as bright as my own. He’s not of the Hiraga bloodline, but his talent was nearly on par with mine.”
Genko admitted.
But that assistant, she explained, had been dangerous.
“He believed karakuri advancement justified anything. That twisted way of thinking led him to dissect and kill countless dogs and cats. When it came to light, he was cast out of the institute.”
(Uh…Kind of rich coming from the same woman who once tried to take me apart…)
“I don’t know what became of him afterwards… but modifying human bodies, even adding a self-destruct function—that’s exactly the kind of madness he’d embrace.”
It was entirely possible that, after his expulsion, he colluded with the ninja organization and secretly continued his research there.
“His name is Kunitomo Ittosai. In my eyes, he’s the greatest madman in the East.”
This is translated by Yume Neiji. Kindly read at yumeineijiworks.wordpress.com.
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