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

was a mistake, but I thought we would be able to become closer in this time period. All of that… All of it was so sudden.”

“It was.”

“But I’m starting to feel better, even if I’m not really showing it. I can’t let it be a distraction, not with what we are planning to do. There will be a time to mourn my younger sister. Right now, it’s not proper.”

“It’s fine,” Micah assured her. “You should be mourning her. It is proper.”

“No, right now we need to be focused on doing our best to complete the mission we were tasked with completing, which was to prevent the Society of Monks from becoming what they have already become. In a way, we have to work backward, and if you think about it, the way in which we plan to go about this task is just as devious as things that have been done in the past, including Neojuku’s rise to power.”

“I haven’t really thought of it that way.”

“That’s how things are most of the time; if you don’t meet them with an equal amount of force or greater, they will simply cut you down. Not everything applies to swordsmanship, but that certainly does. Well, that, and grace.”

“So maybe that’s how we look at it, that we’re meeting them with both force and grace. I don’t foresee Ahmey ordering for everyone’s heads. I certainly hope not.”

“She may have to. It really depends on who is in that meeting, and how badly they want to hold onto the power they currently wield. There will be a great number of deaths in the next several days, which is why I have to be particularly focused. None of those deaths can be from our side.”

“Right.”

And if there ever was a moment for Micah to tell her what Youseg had prophesied, it would have been right then. But he couldn’t get the words out. He didn’t want Yuri to worry, and as Youseg had suggested, keeping it a secret would prevent the others from doing something that could push his prediction closer to reality.

“Is everything all right?” Yuri asked after he didn’t say anything else.

“Everything is fine,” Micah lied. “I’m just enjoying the view. I really wish I could have sat on that hill with you in the past.”

“I wish you could have as well.” She tilted her head up to kiss his cheek. “You would have liked it.”

Micah checked in with Choro again the next morning. He could already hear the ninjas in the other room preparing themselves for morning training, a series of grunts, feet on the floor, and weapons striking one another reminding Micah just how little he had in common with the lifestyle of the women he lived with.

But he was fine with that. He had his own role in their little situation. Not quite the diplomat, but certainly the glue that held them all together in his own unique way.

Even though the beds were small, Micah had ended up sharing the bottom bunk with Yuri after they had come in from the rooftop. Now with his back propped up against the wall, he placed his helmet on his head, waited for it to power on, and said the magic words, Choro’s voice appearing on the other end.

“Everything set?” he asked.

“Yep, I just confirmed the meeting with Julia.”

Micah hesitated.

“I wouldn’t be sending you to meet her if I didn’t think this was the best way forward,” Choro assured him.

“We are just too close now for error.”

While Micah wished that everything could have been done over the headset, Julia wanted to meet in person, insisting that personal contact was important to her after what happened last time. So it was set, just a few hours from now at a location on Uyanga provided by the Hermetics. This was one reason the ninjas were warming up at the moment. Just to be on the safe side, Bunni and Soraya planned to head to the location an hour and a half early for reconnaissance reasons, both disguised as nuns.

It was a gamble, but Micah trusted Choro, and if Choro told him that he had assurances that they weren’t going to be taken into the Hermetics’ custody, then he believed him. And Micah had to. The more and more he transitioned into a role as the leader of this group, the more he realized that it was of the utmost importance for him to trust his team, that everyone had the best interest of the group at heart.

Especially now that their numbers had thinned by one.

“Micah, sweetie?” His grandmother’s voice caused his heart to swell. She was a rascal, and her input was often salacious to a degree that it could debase a conversation, but he loved her nonetheless, and he missed her in that moment, Micah once again thinking of Youseg’s prophecy. Would this be the last time he spoke to his grandmother? Would he ever actually see her again?

Don’t give it too much power, he reminded himself as his grandmother started up.

“Choro told me the plan, and I want you to know that I don’t agree with it. Not one bit. The Hermetics can fuck right off; I’m guessing Soraya is saying the same thing.”

“Pretty much.”

“And Yuri?”

“She wants to be diplomatic, but she is definitely suspicious of them.”

“As she should be! Those useless fucktards were going to use me as a hostage. Yes, we know that, Choro,” she said, her voice thinning for a moment as she argued with Micah’s friend. “You were there, you’re the one that came and got me. Ugh, just let me talk to Micah! I swear, sweetie, most of the people in this world are trash, and those that aren’t trash are in dire need of being recycled. Ha! Fuck them all, right? That’s my philosophy.