As the sun began to set over Hanagawa castle, the servants and guards within began to make preparations for the soon-to-come festivities. Chefs prepared the delicious foods and appetizers, barrels of sake were being rolled around, decorations were being put up, and guards were being put up on alert around the castle. Two guards were standing guard near the gate, their purpose was to not only guard the entrance but greet the invited guests.
“I must have angered Lord Hanzo pretty badly when I stumbled in on his reading time. I don’t wanna’ do this crap.” stewed the tall and burly guard.
“I didn’t really do anything myself, but I still got put out here.” said the smaller and thinner guard next to the big guy.
“Well even if we did screw up or not, the last thing I want to do tonight is have anything to do with that lil’ spoiled brat’s birthday.”
“Yeah, Kazuko is a bit like that, she looks pretty good though.”
“Don’t let looks fool you man. I’ve quickly learned that you just can’t trust any women with pretty faces.”
Suddenly both the guards caught view of an old man and a huge round blue floating orb coming out of the woods in the distance. The old fellow walked with a somewhat limping gait, and was hunched a bit over in his posture, but he looked cheery and upbeat. The large shiny blue orb he held, tethered by a thin rope grasped by his hand made the mouths of the guards drop. It was at least fifteen feet in diameter, and what shocked the guards even more was that it wasn’t making the little frail man float away.
“Good lord old man! That balloon is huge!”
“Indeed it is! This is Hanagawa castle I presume?”
“Yes, and what is your business here?”
“I am Mori. This balloon is for the little girl’s party today, what is her name? I forgot.”
“Lord Hanzo’s daughter, Kazuko.” corrected the tall guard.
“Oh yes. May I please enter and deliver this balloon?”
“Only if you can show us proper documentation.” ordered the smaller guard.
“Oh, oh yes. That’s what the paper in my jacket is.” Mori reached his wrinkled and delicate hand into his robe flap, shifted it around a bit, and then brought it out grabbing a folded-up piece of paper. He then gave it to the small guard who unfolded it, took a look at it, and nodded his head approvingly.
“Okay, you can come in.”
“Thank you.” Mori slightly bowed to the guards with gratitude and then shuffled through the entrance of the gate. The huge balloon’s top brushed against the top of the gate’s arch and a faint dull groan could be heard.
“Hey, what was that?” said the tall guard. The old man stopped and turned his head towards him slightly.
“Oh it’s just the rubber on the balloon. It’s so tight and stretched; the rubber makes those funny sounds all the time.” explained the old man.
“Okay, sorry to stop you. Carry on.”
The old man nodded and continued on his way. He walked towards the large open doors of the main hall of the castle to deposit the balloon inside.
“See what I told you? That girl is spoiled rotten as hell. Look at the gifts Lord Hanzo gives her!” grumbled the tall guard.
“I’ll be she pops the thing too once she gets a hold of it.”
“Heh, I wouldn’t want to be around that thing if it goes off!”
Mori waddled through the doors of the main hall, still towing the immense balloon along. He looked around and observed all the servants setting up the party decorations along the walls. In front there was a stage where a troupe of famed dancers was practicing their routine for when the party starts. Mori wondered where he could stick the balloon out of sight until it was time for it to get presented to Kazuko so he walked up to a servant adjusting a banner on the wall near him.
“Excuse me kind sir. I have a balloon here as a present for Lord Hanzo’s daughter. Where can I put it?”
The servant lifted his arm and pointed his finger to the front of the room where a tall sliding screen was.
“That’s the room where we’re storing all the presents. You should be able to fit that huge thing in there, just let it float up to the ceiling.”
“Thank you, I will.” Mori walked towards the screen and slid it open. He looked up at the dark ceiling to make sure there were no sharp objects pointing out that could rupture the delicate balloon. His eyes didn’t find anything hazardous so he just reached his hand out and let the large balloon float gently up to the ceiling. He then quietly closed the screen door and walked towards the exit.
Inside the immense dark closet the smooth and shiny blue balloon just quietly and serenely floated carelessly along the top of the ceiling. A closer look at the surface of the balloon revealed that there were some small and unobtrusive dimples. There were five of them in total, two on the bottom, and three on the top. From within of the bottom dimples the string dangled out. Everything was quiet, but suddenly the large balloon began to creak and shake. At first it was subtle, but the shaking grew greater and the balloon made louder rubbery sounds. Suddenly from the dimple where the string was; what looked like a puffy little foot with the string tied around it emerged from the little tiny depression. It wiggled and shook around a bit as the other foot shot from the dimple next to it.
Now there were two comical little feet wiggling around on the bottom of the immense rubber gas-filled orb. Then from one of the dimples on the top of the orb emerged a little hand. Almost immediately after the hand came out of the dimple, the other dimple on the other side of the balloon’s top sprung out. Finally at the very top of the vaguely humanoid-looking sphere, a little tuft of healthy and shiny jet-black hair emerged, sprouted a bit, and quickly the head of Kamiko shot out. Her cheeks were all puffed up from the pressure and her brow was literally drenched with sweat from having to bury her head within her warm inflated body. She slowly opened her eyes, blinked a few times, and began to silently gasp for breath.
“Oh God, I’m so glad I don’t have to hide my limbs anymore! I was boiling alive in there.” The exhausted Kamiko thought. For the past week she had learned from Tomoko how to pull her head and limbs into her fully-inflated body and hide them from view. It was probably the hardest thing for her to learn yet as a Fuusenkunoichi, but it was worth it. She had sneaked into the heavily-guarded fortress without anyone noticing.
“I can’t believe I could hold my breath that long.” Kamiko marveled in thought at her astonishing achievement. “Someone might come by soon, so I should deflate and find Kazuko.”
Kamiko closed her eyes, concentrated, and began to let the air out of her. It hissed out with barely a sound at an astonishing rate. Within five seconds all the gas was out of her and she was back to her normal stature. She stretched her arms and legs quickly and then went up to the sliding door. She looked through the small crack between the door and the frame to see if anyone was outside. In the main hall the servants will still preparing the decorations for the big party.
“Damn! I can’t go out there! Yet I can’t stay around here. Maybe there’s another way out. Kamiko looked around the closet, eyeing all the extravagant gifts which were lying around.
“Geez, this girl’s father is filthy rich.”
As she examined the gifts, she looked upwards and immediately spotted what looked like a hatch in the ceiling.
“Aha! I can get out through there! I wish I had my grappling arrow and sword. I couldn’t bring with me because I would have popped if I tried to absorb those things into my body, along with my hands.” Kamiko stewed silently, trying to think of a way to get up to the door in the ceiling. Her eyes lit up as the idea came into her mind.
“Well, looks like I’m going to blow myself up again.”
Kamiko spread her arms and legs out and she began to suck in air slowly. Her body gradually ballooned out, bulging and slightly creaking. Suddenly she began to shift the air from her belly into her buttocks. Both butt cheeks began to expand slowly and surely, looking like two lumps of dough rising at a rapid rate. After a few seconds her butt was approximately the size of a pair of bean bag chairs squished together. She placed her hands upon her gargantuan butt and grinned under her tight rubbery face mask.
“Hee hee, how funny.”
Kamiko’s grin then disappeared as she sprung her attention back to the issue at hand. She tilted her head up again and eyed the door on the ceiling right above her. She then jumped up into the air, lifted her knees up, and landed right on her inflated hindquarters. They squished against the ground and immediately Kamiko was propelled upwards towards the ceiling. She flew at least halfway up until she slowed down again and began to fall back down to the floor. She kept her body steady, still positioning her huge gluteus maximus towards the ground. It impacted the ground again, making a tight hollow bouncing sound, and she flew back up to the ceiling. She reached her arms upwards as the door on top came towards her. As she began to slow to a stop in midair again, her fingers contacted the edges of the frame and immediately she plunged them through the crack between the door and the fame. She grabbed tight and held onto the frames, she was now where she wanted to be.
“Now to get rid of this huge rump.” Kamiko shifted the air inside her buttocks towards her midsection again, bulging it out. Then she let the air from her belly escape out her mouth, giving her body normal human proportions again.
“Okay, now that I’m up here, I’d better see what’s in the room above.
Kamiko pulled herself upwards and let the top of her head touch the door above her. Then she pushed upwards a bit more and looked through the opening that she created. It was dark above her head as well; it looked like another closet similar to the one below her but much smaller. She looked to the front and saw what looked like a screen door. To the left and to the right were cabinets that contained a bunch of clothes, mostly kimonos, all of them very expensive and gaudy.
As her arms began to get strained and tired from supporting her body, Kamiko quickly slid her head backwards and tilted the door to the other side. She turned her head and scanned the back for anything suspicious. All she saw were more cabinets.
“Good, the coast is clear.” Kamiko thought.
Gradually and slowly she lifted herself upwards, pushing the door out of the way. Despite the shaking and protests of her already-taxed arm muscles, she had to keep her ascent steady so that the door on her head wouldn’t fall down and make a noise. For about a few seconds she struggled and pulled until her hips were level with the floor above her. She edged them backwards and sat down, relieved that she was now on stable ground and her arms didn’t have to experience more pain. Kamiko shook her arms a bit to loosen them up, then she pulled her legs up, grabbed the door, and slowly pulled it over the opening and closed it up gently.
“Phew, I’m glad that’s over” Kamiko wiped her sweaty brow as she stood up on her feet and tiptoed over to the screen door in front of her. Carefully and quietly she opened the door a crack and looked into the room outside. On the other edge she caught sight of a young girl about her age, lying down on a colorful tatami mat taking a nap.
“Ah! That must be that rich girl Kazuko!” Kamiko narrowed her eyes in satisfaction. She looked at the girl’s face and saw the makeup on it. She had red blushes painted onto her white snowy face. She had what looked like red eyeliner painted onto her eyelids; it was a dark crimson color. Kazuko’s hair was done up fancily, with long ornate golden pins holding her long and smooth jet-black locks into tight ordered rolls. Kamiko grimaced at what looked more like a geisha with bad fashion sense rather than a nobleman’s daughter. She twisted her face in disgust even more at her green and red kimono with gold trim.
“Ugh, this girl needs some fashion sense smacked into her!”
Kazuko turned a bit on her back and groaned. Suddenly the door to the front of the room began to open. Kamiko quickly closed the closet door and put her ear up against it to hear what was going on inside.
“Kazuko-chan. Wake up my dear.” chided a deep voice within. It was Lord Hanzo.
“Papa, I’m a little tired.” Kazuko yawned as she opened her eyes and stretched her arms out.”
“I know dear, but I think you’ve gotten enough rest for today. The servants have finished the party preparations downstairs and we’re ready to start the party. The guests are beginning to arrive.”
“Oh okay. As long as I get to see my lovely presents.” grinned the spoiled girl.
“And there are plenty of them, just get yourself read so that we can start greeting our guests. Especially Lord Taro, I want to impress him the most, especially since he has made all this possible.”
“Fine, fine daddy. Let me fix my makeup a little.”
“Okay sweetheart, don’t take too long.”
“Hmph.” Kazuko pouted as she got up and stretched out again. Lord Hanzo walked towards the front door and closed it behind him as he left.
Kazuko walked towards her closet to grab something. “I need a little bit more eyeliner so I can wow the boys.” Before she could reach the edge of the door to open it, it quickly slid open and before she could gasp a pair of lips attached themselves to hers. Her eyes bulged out in shock she saw the fierce girl in a blue bodysuit in front of her begin to blow air down her gullet.
Down below in the main hall, Lord Hanzo was conversing with the guests that had arrived to celebrate his daughter’s birthday. As he was chatting with a pair of friends that came from up north, a tall grey-haired man with a long sinewy beard approached him from behind. Lord Hanzo suddenly halted his animated conversation with his friends and turned around to look at the dark presence that had entered his personal space. As he glanced upon the fierce grey eyes of Lord Taro, Lord Hanzo’s brow lifted up in happiness and he immediately kneeled down on the ground and bowed graciously towards him.
“Oh Master Taro, what a pleasure it is to have you here!”
“Hanzo, please. There’s no need to act this submissive in this environment. This is your daughter’s birthday afterall.”
“Whatever you say Master Taro, how was your journey?”
“It was good. Nothing bothered me along the way, except my worries.”
“Oh, I heard about what happened to Lady Komoda a while back. Strange, wasn’t it?”
“It was not strange at all to me. I am very familiar with how she met her fate.”
“Is that so? I heard her fortress was totally obliterated. Granted it was a rickety old place, but still whatever destroyed it used great force.”
“Indeed, but it is a force that I am aware of. And I used to know someone who could exert it upon Lady Komoda’s forces.”
“Who might that be?”
“Someone who I expelled from the kingdom shortly after we took over: One of Hideyoshi’s aides. She was a fierce spirit, and I know she had something to do with it. It was none other than…”
Before Lord Taro could finish his sentence, the large door of the closet at the end of the room began to slide open. Everyone looked towards the entrance that had just opened up.
“Ah, they must be bringing the gifts for your daughter out Hanzo.” Commented …
“But, they’re supposed to bring them out after she has come down. What is going one?’
As Hanzo spoke something appeared at the entrance to the closet. At the edge of the door a little head peeked out of the side to look at the audience. It was Kazuko, but something was wrong. Her cheeks were comically puffed-out to the size of baseballs.
“K…Kazuko!?” Hanzo’s eyes bugged out of his sockets as he caught a glimpse of his hapless daughter’s bloated face.
Kazuko’s eyes had a look of both embarrassment and fear within them. Behind her head was what looked like a gigantic round red and green orb with a v-shaped flesh-colored spot right below her head. It began to roll outside the door. Hanzo and everyone else in the room quickly realized that the orb behind Kazuko’s body was none other than her body! Indeed her once-slim petite figure had been transformed into a huge flesh balloon that was at least twenty feet in diameter. She scrunched her eyes in shame as her huge blimpy body rolled outside. It was amazing that her gaudy kimono could stretch and cover her massive taut sphere of a body. Little tiny hands and feet wiggled goofily and futilely around in their respective places on Kazuko’s balloon body like the now vestigial limbs they were. The bottom of the kimono could only cover down to her bellybutton, leaving her pale round naked underside exposed.
As Kazuko’s mammoth girth cleared the doorway, a normal-sized black ponytail-haired girl wearing what looked like a skin-tight blue bodysuit that covered her body from toe to nose was pushing the helpless girl towards the front of the audience. The guards started to rush towards the intruder but when they saw that she was holding a knife dangerously close to the inflated Kazuko’s underside they quickly stopped and backed off.
As this spectacle occurred, all Hanzo could do was gape in fear at the horrible predicament that his daughter had gotten into. Lord Taro however narrowed his eyes and focused on Kamiko. The audience in the room was completely silent, except for a few muted whispers.
In a few moments, Kamiko had pushed the rounded Kazuko onto the stage in front of the huge audience, right onto her back, with her pointy bellybutton poking towards the ceiling. After she was done pushing, Kamiko jumped into the air and landed right on top of Kazuko’s globe of a body.
“Lord Hanzo, please listen!” Kamiko yelled out. “It has come to attention that your daughter is shall we say, quite privileged. She has not only extravagant gifts but also many key comforts and beautiful clothes. She might enjoy them, but does she or you, Lord Hanzo, realize who does not enjoy these luxuries? While many people in this land starve and toil the soil, you leech off their earnings and take it to feed your own families and friends while leaving the vast majority of the people in poverty! This is a selfish deed that shall not go unpunished and the example that I will soon make of you, Lord Hanzo, and your spoiled daughter here will show that the power you have gotten from Lord Taro can be weakened!”
The audience gasped as the ninja girl on top of the deformed Kazuko bent down, placed her lips onto her exposed navel, and puffed her cheeks out to blow some air into it. Quickly Kamiko got back up, slid down off the side of Kazuko, ran into the closet, and shut the door behind her.
“Guards! Don’t let her get away!” screamed the infuriated Lord Hanzo at the top of his lungs. The guards in the audience began to rush towards the closet but a low grumbling sound from inside the bloated Kazuko quickly distracted them.”
“Wha… What is happening!?” gasped Lord Hanzo as he saw his victim of a daughter start to expand even more.
“Master Taro!” Hanzo turned to the side to try and find Lord Taro, but he was gone. He quickly looked towards the front to see his frightened and flustered daughter scream muffled shrieks from behind her billowed-up cheeks. Her body was ballooning bigger, and bigger, and bigger! It was making suspicious creaking noises as her ultra-tight skin began to reach critical mass.
“She’s going to explode!” Someone in the audience screamed out. Others began to panic as Kazuko’s now-humongous body pressed against the tall ceiling, began to shake and then…
…A loud high-pitched hiss broke out. Her navel had blown out and now was letting all the tightly-compressed air inside her escape. It was at first just a slight gust, but then the air escaping her turned into a hurricane wind force that blasted the ceiling above the heads of the audience into the sky. The pagoda they were in blew its top like a volcano spewing its internal matter into the night sky. Planks of wood and other various debris rocketed into the starry night. The audience within the halls was blown out the main door, shot out like water in a squirt gun.
A minute later after the carnage ended, Lord Hanzo laid face down on the cool dirt in front of his face. He slowly got up and turned his head back to see what happened. The huge castle which had used to belong to him was not nothing more than a few planks of wood sticking out of the ground and random rubble strewn about the area. However this didn’t nearly bother him as much as the thought of what had happened to his dear Kazuko. He quickly got up on his feet and began stumbling towards what used to be the entrance of the main hall. Careful not to step on the other people who had been knocked out by the blast, he ran through the two vertical planks that used to be part of the frame for the hall’s entrance and suddenly he came to a stop with a look of horror on his face.
In front of him he saw Kazuko; her body was no longer an inflated orb, but now a flat sheet-like substance that covered at least area twenty square feet on the ground. Her once-smooth skin was now just a rubbery sheet on the ground with a torn and stretched kimono covering her limp pancake-like body. He ran towards where her head was. Kazuko’s eyes were closed, but she was breathing. She opened her eyes, looked at her father and mumbled out…
“D… Daddy?”
Lord Hanzo’s eyes rolled back into his head and he fell backwards and fainted.
Lord Taro strolled along the outskirts of the castle’s rubble. He observed the guests and guards getting up, rubbing their heads, and recovering after surviving the gigantic blast. His thumb and index finger massaged his chin as he reflected upon the grand spectacle that had taken place. Then he looked towards the woods and spotted a lone blue figure running towards the forest; it was Kamiko. Lord Taro quickly turned around, spotted a group of guards that had just come to their senses.
“Guards! I have spotted the assassin, after her!” barked Taro.
The guards shook their heads, looked towards the direction where Lord Taro was pointing, and they immediately began to pursue Kamiko with their swords drawn. As Kamiko ran towards the forest she looked backwards and saw the guards rapidly gaining on her.
“Shoot, they saw me. I’ll try and lose them in the forest.” Kamiko thought as she ran swiftly into the entrance of the forest.
“Quicker men! Quicker! We’ll lose her in there!” shouted the guard at the front of the pack.
The group of angered men entered the forest, but much to their dismay they could not see Kamiko in front of them.
“Damn! We lost her!” A bearded guard shouted.
“Look around the bushes and trees! Ninjas always like to hide around in them! Start searching! Lord Taro will reward us if we capture her, dead or alive!”
The pack of four men split up and began searching through the bushes and looking up into the trees. A couple of them sliced their katanas through the bushes, trimming them as if they were made of Styrofoam.
A bearded guard wandering near a tree looked upwards to see if anything was up there, but before he could get a good look a pair of blue shiny arms wrapped themselves tightly around his neck. Then they began to expand and bulge up like dry sponges in water, cutting of any chance of air entering the hapless guard’s windpipe or for any sound to escape his mouth. Just a mere few moments later, one of the other guards searching near the bearded guard’s spot heard a dull thump. He ran over to the area where he heard the noise and found the guard on the ground, suffocated.
“Holy shi…” Just before the guard could finish his exclamation, this time a pair of smooth yet toned legs dropped down and its thighs grasped the guard’s neck. They ballooned up like plumping sausages and made the guard join his friend.
Five minutes later the two other guards began to search near the vicinity where the two other guards had been searching for the fugitive ninja girl. While walking by a tree, one of them tripped over something on the ground.
“Hey get up you clutz! We need to find tha… Oh no.”
The guard’s mouth dropped to the ground when he saw that his comrade had fallen right over the lifeless bodies of the two other guards. He looked up into the tree but all he could see were the crescent moon beams seeping through the canopy.
Back at the ruins of the castle, Lord Hanzo squatted on the ground beside the stretched-out flat body of his daughter crying furiously. Lord Taro approached the once-proud weeping man and tapped on his back. The devastated Hanzo turned around, looked up into the eyes of Taro, and knelt down to the ground in front of him.
“Please tell me you found her. Please tell me you found and killed the witch who did this to my daughter!”
“Unfortunately the answer is no. In fact she killed two of your guards while she got away.”
“Oh God I’ll kill her! I’ll kill her and anyone associated with her! How could she or anyone do this horrible thing to my sweet special daughter?”
“I have to admit, I’m impressed that Tomoko has learned so many new tricks.” grinned Taro.
“T… Tomoko!? She, she’s still…”
“She has always been around. She has been around ever since we took over, and now she has sent us a little greeting.” Lord Taro’s grin melted into a grim stare as a looked up into the night sky and pondered the events that had just transpired.
Back at the old temple in the middle of the bamboo forest, Tomoko sat in front of the standing Kamiko, debriefing her on her mission.
“…And you recited the speech as well?” questioned Tomoko.
“Every single word.” replied Kamiko.
“Ahhhh good, good. Now Lord Taro has finally discovered our presence, now all we need to do is get our message out to the people and soon we might be able to move onto bigger things.” Tomoko smiled and closed her eyes for a short bit to reflect. Kamiko pulled her mask down and began to speak.”
“Sensei, I just ruined that girl’s body using my abilities. I know she profited off of her father’s oppression of the people, but why did she have to suffer for it?”
Tomoko opened her eyes and cleared her throat. She looked up at Kamiko and saw eyes of confidence and fierceness, yet also of compassion and hope.
“Her father is already suffering. In fact, he is probably suffering more than she is right now. Plus he lost his castle during the process so I imagine it is a huge shock to him. He treats that spoiled little girl as if she was made of gold. Hmph.”
“She did seem like a brat, but was that really enough of a reason to do such an extreme thing to her?” Kamiko’s brow was furrowed with both anger yet uncertainty. She had never questioned her teacher’s motives so critically before.
“Besides the fact that I saw her palanquin run a little boy off the road, down a hill, and into a rock that broke his leg, and all she did was look backwards, and then shrug off the whole incident as if it were nothing. Yes, I guess she didn’t deserve what she got. In fact, maybe you should have popped her!”
Kamiko just stared at her irate teacher. Sweat began to bead out of the pores on her forehead.
“I know you might have compassion for many human beings, despite their flaws. But sometimes certain people do not deserve any at all, because they show no compassion towards others. Maybe now that girl will understand what its like to be disabled, or wounded.”
Tomoko looked back down and closed her eyes. Kamiko sat down in front of her and stared into her Zen-like state. She was looking at an enigma of a woman, not just because of her abilities and power, but because of her character. Was she insane, or was she a guardian of justice? Kamiko felt inclined to believe the latter. Besides, trying to bring peace into the world was never a clean job.