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

on his mind ever since they reached Woodsaka. “I don’t feel like we’ve lost touch or anything, but you being kidnapped, and me being away from you, I just want to, I just need to…” He cleared his throat. “I just want to be closer to you. Maybe I’m saying too much right now…”

“No, it would be nice,” she said, a softness taking shape on her face, her fondness for Micah clear as day. “Help me gather wood. At least we can do that together.”

“It’s a start, right?”

“Look at you two going off into the forest to fuck like a pair of horny little Plains Dwellers,” Micah’s grandmother said once they stepped away from the group. She sat on a stump, her feet on the ground, arms crossed over her chest. Over the last hour, she had mostly bitched about their current location, and didn’t seem too keen on possibly staying in the woods that night, something she continually let them know.

“We are just collecting wood for a fire,” Micah reminded her. “To cook the deer. Remember the deer? The one that Soraya just killed for us?”

Micah’s grandmother grunted. “Can’t you get on the horn or something with that robot friend of yours and find us a place to stay that’s better than this? How about an actual hot meal? Not one served up over a campfire. Look, I’m not asking for a three-star hotel that comes complete with a manservant who has a thing for sexy older women, but there has to be a better place than this uniquely damp and dirty forest floor.”

An ancient mecha nearby, which was collapsed into a pile of corroded metal, came alive, its head swiveling, a single light turning on. “Hello, Micah’s grandmother, I am Bobi,” it said in a voice that oscillated between different pitches. “To answer your question, I brought you to this region because it is secluded. It’s been years since someone has been this close to the woodland border between Heian and Neo-Hokkaido. You are safe here.”

Micah’s grandmother grabbed a stick and pointed it at the ancient mecha. “Don’t scare me like that! You nearly gave me a heart attack, and if I died, all would be lost. What would this group do without their leader? Fearless leader, I may add.”

Bunni laughed. “You really are definitely our fearless leader, Granny. I believe it if you do.”

“You bet your rabbit ears and cute little cottontail tush I am. Now, since we’ve had a vote…”

A vote? Micah thought. Rather than contest what his grandmother was rambling on about, he continued gathering sticks to be used as kindling. As he searched for wood alongside Yuri, his grandmother heatedly explained why they would not be staying in the forest tonight, Bobi listening intently and not interrupting her once.

“I didn’t expect you to stay here,” the AI finally said after she finished her colorful diatribe on her disdain for camping. “I figured you would eat, and then I would show you the back way into Heian. That is a viable option, is it not?”

“So that’s the plan?” Soraya asked as she continued working on the deer carcass. “That’s where we are going? Because I don’t remember us ever deciding on where we would go next. I figured we would camp out here for a few days.”

“You figured wrong, fox,” said Bunni.

“There’s nothing wrong with camping…”

“I don’t see a spa around here for me to soak in, nor do I see a comfortable bed. I’d say that’s two things wrong with it.”

“I’m with her,” Micah’s grandmother chimed in. “We aren’t staying in this forest, that’s for damn sure. I may be poor, but I’m not that poor.”

“Did someone say Heian?” Milsung asked. Yuri’s sister almost smudged a bit of deer blood on her head but stopped herself just in time, wiping her arm against the deer’s carcass instead. “Aren’t we at war with the Plains Dwellers?”

“No, that’s not this time period,” Yuri said.

“Yay, we aren’t at war with me!” said Bunni.

“We’re not really at war with anyone, aside from a continued cold war with Jokamatchi, who happens to be at war with Heian,” Micah told her. “Mostly, it seems that Neo-Hokkaido is at war with itself, the Society of Monks a big part of it, and the other countries are just on the outer rim of our own civil conflict.”

“That sounded smart,” Micah’s grandmother said. “Maybe you should figure your way back to college once this is all over. I’m not saying you got what it takes to be a doctor, but you could go for a liberal arts degree, something to pump up the knowledge you seem to like sharing.”

“Don’t forget the Hermetics, they may be hunting for us as well,” Liza added. The nun stood near Micah’s grandmother with her hands on her hips. She had just finished a patrol around their temporary camp, and had both her swords sheathed on her back. Her helmet was still on her head, which looked odd with her athletic gear, Micah seeing himself in the reflection as she turned to him.

“How far are we?” he asked aloud, figuring Bobi would pick up on his query.

“We are precisely two hours away via an underground passage to Muryane, Heian’s sprawling ground district,” the AI informed them, his voice still oscillating tones. “As you all know, or maybe you don’t, there are three main districts in Heian, one of them on the ground and two in the sky, Lepus and Tapeti. Because Muryane is the size of all of the land area available in Neo-Hokkaido, don’t be fooled by the fact that there are only three districts. It is quite large, and the area that we are going into is near the diplomatic blocks, which makes sense considering its proximity to the border.”

“Anything else you would like to add before you let the adults