My Ninja Girl 4 by Gideon Caldwell (latest novels to read .TXT) 📕

Can he control minds as well? Micah thought as he tried to make sense of what he was seeing. It was as if the rabbiteers had completely forgotten why they were in the hotel, and each one that Youseg healed simply thanked him and gathered with the others near the door, preparing to depart.

Once they were all gone, the monk motioned for Micah and the ladies to follow him. He stopped at the door and looked over to the hotel clerk, who was just starting to stand behind his duty station, sobbing from the light wound on his shoulder.

The clerk nodded, his expression suddenly blank. “As you wish, Youseg.”

Chapter Four

Youseg was indeed a local legend, the man practically floating through the streets as people stopped to greet him, only a few catching that he was walking with a kitsune. The general public seem to be in awe of the man.

All because of the My Ninja Girl comic series, Micah thought. He couldn’t get over the fact that just an hour or so ago, he thought the comic book was a historical drama, but to find out that the series later came to the future…

I guess stranger things have happened.

Youseg led them under another red gate that opened onto a wide boulevard seemingly out of place in the dense urban environment, the sides of the road lined with flowering shrubs which pressed up against the sides of rowhouses, a fresh scent in the air. He could see the monastery up ahead, one with pagodas shaped like rabbit ears, massive trees out front as well, with dozens of red and green flags hanging from the branches.

Men and women in robes and veils over the lower halves of their faces came forward at the gate to greet them, several launching into action as they prepared a space for Youseg to greet his guests. A tent was hastily erected in the courtyard and suddenly filled with cushions for Micah and his team to sit on, the monks and nuns disappearing as quickly as they appeared, promising to return with tea and other snacks.

Youseg took his place at the front, motioning for Micah and the girls to sit in front of him. It was a nice day out, the sky a vibrant blue, the air freshly scented by the flowering bushes around the monastery. Micah noticed that the buildings were constructed in a way that made it appear as if they were floating, each structure clad in a polished finish he’d grown so accustomed to seeing at the religious institutes in Neo-Hokkaido.

“You have finally come,” Youseg said once they were all seated. “I do apologize for how things turned out at the hotel. As I said, I was on my morning stroll and I heard a struggle. I’m from this part of Muryane, and for what it’s worth, I have been known to stick my head where it doesn’t belong. For once, this perhaps turned out to be in my favor. Unless…” Youseg looked at Micah just as he finished removing his helmet, Liza doing the same. “Unless you were looking for me.”

“No offense, but we’ve never heard of you,” Soraya told the monk matter-of-factly.

“Two of them have familiarized themselves with your early volumes, but she’s right, we were unaware of who you were until this morning, nor did we know how long the series went or that it changed time periods,” Micah explained. “Only the first five to seven volumes are available in Neo-Hokkaido.”

“Yes…” Youseg said, a hint of annoyance in his voice. “Predictably, the publisher was censored by the Society of Monks once the storyline changed, and the Royal Star Ninjas came to our time. I believe I struck a nerve. That was always my intention, you know. From the start of the story, I wanted to see my vision to its natural completion. The earlier volumes were rooted in history, with violence and sex added…” He smiled humbly at them. “I was a younger man then, you see? I thought that it was the only way to reach my audience. I see now that it is the only way to reach my audience, which is why I’ve stopped writing graphic novels altogether. Plus, the visions came to their natural conclusion.”

“Could you have at least called it something else?” Soraya asked, still a bit skeptical. “My Ninja Girl? You do realize that the Royal Star Ninjas were, and are, trained killers who spent years of their lives dedicated to our unique craft. The title you’ve given your series trivializes us; belittles us. We aren’t girls, and some of us never got the opportunity to even feel young.”

“Ah, yes. The original title was The Royal Star Ninjas and the Quest to Save Neo-Hokkaido: A Secret Unabridged History and a Prophecy. As you can well imagine if you have any knowledge of the publishing world, the publisher rejected the title, and one drunken night, I scrawled out the three words that would later become the title, almost as a joke. I didn’t think they would possibly consider it. I wouldn’t have shown the title to the publisher, but my agent stopped by the next day and saw the words and acted as if he’d had an epiphany. And that is how it became My Ninja Girl. Odd as it is.”

“There is no way you would have fit your original title on the front of the comic book,” Soraya told him.

“You’d be surprised what a good font center can do, especially the ones in Heian. But you are right, that would have been tricky.”

Youseg’s monks and nuns returned with tea and snacks. Once they were gone, he turned his questioning to Micah, asking in great detail what happened, and how they’d ended up in his country.

Micah started from the beginning, with the mantra he had whispered at the shrine in Thunderhama, which