It was already night when they left the school fair. Innocia and the rest tried most of the games, watched some of the performances and pig out on the food stalls.
“I am tired. Innocia complained as they were walking home. Though she gave the boys a tour around her school, she was still required to report in the student council and work with the committees. ”My feet will fall.”
“That is to be expected. You have been running around doing errands and troubleshooting problems with Kira." Aliester said as he eyed his cousin. She looked really worn out. “What’s your position in the council anyway?”
“Business manager.” She murmured.
“I can’t believe that you did not become the president. You are a princess. You should have aimed for a higher position.” Conrad commented.
“I like to follow people than to be a leader. Thank you very much!” She murmured. “Kira is the President and I am happy serving under her.”
Turning towards the knight, the girl called for his attention. “Daxton, you want to train, right?”
Daxton nodded. Knowing that he was gaining weight, he needed to workout in order to stay fit.
“Piggyback.” Innocia said as she extended her hands to the knight.
“Piggyback? Aren’t you too old to be carried in piggyback?” her cousin asked.
“But I am tireddd…” she childishly whined.
“Kodomo ga?” Blaze chided. The only time that he could remember that Innocia had acted like a spoiled brat was when she got injured- that was when she was five years old. Although she was pampered during her childhood, Innocia was never spoiled.
“It is all right. I need to workout and shed some pounds.” Daxton crouched and allowed the girl to get on. “She can serve as my weights.”
“Yay! Piggyback!” Innocia gleefully shouted. “Go horsey!”
“I am not your horse.” The knight grumbled. “How much do you weigh?” he struggled to get up from the crouching position.
Innocia hit his head with a chop. “Don’t ask a girl that. It’s rude!”
“You look skinny but you weigh a ton.”
“You’re joking!” she mock-gasped. “I do not weigh that much!”
When they reached the junction between the two streets where the house was located, Innocia made them stop.
“Wait! Something is amiss.” She muttered and ordered the others to stay put. The streetlight had been flickering a few times, making them wary of the place.
While advancing to the gate, Innocia felt several something whizzed past her. But before they could check it out, a shadow leaped out from the bushes and attacked.
Innocia was able to dodge the attack with a couple of handsprings. The girl landed a few meters away to gain distance. However, her opponent did not allow her to breathe. The shadow ran and closed their distance along with a kick aimed towards her core.
But the girl was able to fend the attack with a high knee block.
The men would have joined the fight but they found out that the seams their pants were pinned on the ground.
“What’s with these?” the duke asked as he and his companions tried to remove the daggers that held them on their spots.
Furthermore, Innocia gritted out. ”Stay out of this.”
Then she tried to take her opponent down with a sweep. But the shadow was able to evade her attack and managed to land perfectly a few paces away with a couple of hand springs.
The shadow produced a staff and began attacking Innocia with it. Out of nowhere she pulled out a pair of sticks to counter the staff. The girl was able to block the swings and strikes.
“Where in the world did she hide those weapons?” Perplexed, Daxton asked.
“Maybe in her uniform.” Blaze answered with uncertainty. “It could be the reason why she was heavier than she looks.”
Though she had a pair of weapons, Innocia had a hard time parrying her opponent’s staff, until she was disarmed. Without her pair of sticks Innocia continued to fight throwing stars at her opponent but with just a simple swing, the stars were thrown off course.
“Where did those come from?” Conrad asked while referring to the stars. “I am finding it hard to believe that Innocia was able to hide those weapons in her clothes.”
They watched the fight with interest. Since it was dark and the opponent had a mask on, they could not tell who it was.
They cringed as they saw the girl got hit by the staff.
“That will bruise.”
Gritting her teeth, Innocia did not have the time to evade the staff as her opponent sprinted and swung the weapon, twirling it several times before delivering a powerful strike on the girl.
Innocia was able to grab the staff and lessen the impact but in the process, she got thrown away. Getting up, she tried to launch a counter attack but she found out that she could no longer move. Looking at her feet, she noticed four stars pinning the seams of her track pants to the ground.
“Darn it!” she cursed at her defeat. “I lost again!” she allowed herself to fall down the ground while panting heavily.
Her opponent removed her mask and revealed Kuroe’s face. “You are getting rusty. What had you been doing while I was away? “she asked as she allowed the princess to remove the stars that pinned her down. “You have been slacking off, haven’t you?”
“She was tired with the preparation and conduct of school fair.” Her cousin answered for her.
Creasing her brows, Kuroe admonished. “It is not an excuse for slacking.” Turning her attention to the males, she asked. “Who are you people?”
“Kuroe, they are my cosplaying friends. Remember?”
“Oh, your cosplaying friends.” The woman gave them a once over. “They look normal and different than the last time… what are they doing here?”
“Ah about that… These guys had something that they want to talk about.”
“So, You are telling me that you wanted to be my students.” Kuroe said after she sipped her tea.
They had moved inside the dojo where the males had told her about their made up story.
Prostrating themselves before her, Aliester and the others begged.” Yes please. We would like to learn ninjutsu from you, Kuroe-sensei.”
The woman narrowed her eyes at them in scrutiny until she sighed. “Very well, but just to warn you, I am quite strict.”
And the males learned how strict she is the next few days…
“She said she was strict… I did not know that she is a Spartan!” Conrad muttered as he scrubbed the floor clumsily. “I am a royalty yet I have to do such domestic tasks.”
“Quit complaining your majesty.” Innocia reprimanded as she polished the windows. “I am a princess and yet I’ve been doing these mundane tasks for five years. Aliester is also a duke, but he chops wood.” She pointed out.
From where they were they could see Aliester chopping some wood. Growing up as a noble, he was not used to labour and so the way he split the wood were uneven at first.
“Do this properly.” Kuro had snapped at him after inspecting his work. “You have to chop the wood equally. Split it into equal halves like this.” She demonstrated how to chop wood and let the duke do his tasks.
After chopping the first batch, Aliester needed to put the woods into a fireplace like structure and light it.
“Make the fire bigger.” Kuroe commanded.
The duke blew on the logs to make the flames bigger. But in the process, he inhaled smoke which made him cough.
Little did Aliester know that the fire he was making was used to heat the bath where Kuroe was relaxing. Innocia knew but did not bother to tell the guys.
“At least for today you were not tasked to carry water.” She told the king, who was still upset of the task given to him.
At the mention of the knight, they turned and observed Daxton as he carried two buckets of water which were held together by a bamboo pole. He had to climb a set of stairs while making sure not to spill water.
“I never thought that just simple house chores could be this hard.” Daxton panted as he took shaky steps up the stairs.
“Daxton, I could hear your footsteps even from here.” Kuroe pointed out as she scrubbed her arms. Though she was few meters away, she could still sense what was going on in the place. “the water is spilling.” She voiced out.
“How in the world could she tell it was me?” Grumbling, Daxton tried to do his tasks. He tiptoed to keep his footsteps from being heard. The feat was proven to be very difficult, especially since he needed to keep the water inside the buckets. “This is worse than my training as knight.” He said under his breath. “At least in knight training I only had to learn how to handle weapons not carry water up the stairs.”
Having enough of their complaints, Innocia admonished. “You guys, stop complaining. I had pretty much undergone this type of training five years ago and I am still doing them until now.”
“Though on school days, I only have to do mundane tasks in the morning, the rest of the day is spent in school and in my part time job.” She ranted. “Be thankful that she hadn’t given you the wrist band and ankle band weights yet.”
“Wrist band and ankle band weights?” Conrad asked.
Innocia lifted her wrists and showed the wrist band which looked like 3 inched silver cuffs. She also showed him her ankle band which also a 3 inched silver anklet.
The girl removed her wrist bands and placed them on Conrad’s palm.
“these are heavy!” he exclaimed as he tested the weights. “you train and do tasks with these?”
“Mochiron!”
“by the way, Innocia, what will be the sleeping arrangements.” Blaze asked wearily after the day was done. The boys were exhausted and craved for a good night’s rest. However, their ninjutsu mistress had other plans in mind.
“Where are the beds?” Aliester asked while eyeing the tatami mats.
“I need a soft bed for my aching body.” The king voiced out his sentiment.
“there won’t be a bed for you.” Kuroe dropped the bomb. “you need to sleep on the floor. We have futon but that will be the only thing that can be provided.”
“but-“ Blaze began.
“no buts.” Kuroe cut in. “This is part of your training. We will be honing your senses with this training.”
“these are surprisingly soft and comfortable.” Daxton said as he laid on one of the futon.
“he’s right!” Aliester affirmed as he rolled on the futon he had chosen for himself.
Four guys were sleeping soundly on their futon, oblivious of the shadow that had been creeping towards them. The shadow took out a weapon and began assaulting the sleeping forms who seemed to have not noticed the added presence.
Suddenly, light flooded in the room. Innocia came in and splashed cold water on the four.
“What in the world?”
“Why are we being splashed with water?”
The boys muttered profanities from being woken from their slumber.
“If this was a real mission, you would have been dead.” Innocia began. “you did not even noticed that someone sneaked inside your room and doodled on your faces.”
“If I had been tasked to assassinate you…” Kuroe added. “you should be dead by now. The reason why I had made you sleep on the floor was for you to sharpen your senses.”
“There is a lot of room for development.” Innocia finished.
The guys groaned.
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