Fuusenkunoichi, Chapter 6

Yamagawa-jo Castle was not exactly an impressive castle, especially in terms of size. It had four towers with a medium-sized pagoda in the middle; it was a pretty average in terms of construction and architecture. However what it lacked in style it made up for with airtight security. Guards guarded practically every square inch of the compound, not even a flea would be able to waltz on by unnoticed. Lady Komoda, the owner of the fortress kept various precious items stored and protected for her lord. He chose her because not only he enjoyed her company and fine looks, but she also was an absolute control freak when it can to planning security measures.

It was a cloudy night, and nothing much was going on. However two guards heard a knock at the front gate. One of them walked up to the door and opened up a little circular viewing port to see who was there. Upon opening it he spotted what looked like a young woman covered in a hooded grey robe.

“Who are you, and why have you stopped here?” ordered the guard.

“I have been sent for the entertainment of the guards of Yamagawa-jo.” She meekly replied.

“Entertainment? I haven’t heard of any entertainment being planned for us.”

“It is per the orders of Lady Komoda, as a reward for the guards and soldiers who valiantly guard the castle.”

“A reward? Well, I’m flattered by this. But do you have official approval? Lady Komoda always requires official paperwork to confirm and approve the passage of any person or item through these gates.”

Upon hearing the guard’s request, the girl reached into the folds of her robe to take out a roll of paper. She handed it to the guard who immediately snatched it from her hands. He opened it up and read it.

“Looks good to me, it even has Lady Komoda’s seal on it. Open the doors boys, we have some entertainment!”

“What kind of entertainment?” asked the guard behind him.

“Female entertainment!” he slyly replied.

The main gates of the castle slowly creaked ajar to allow the robed girl to enter. All fifty of the guards around the compound began to gather towards the main walkway to the premises to catch a glimpse of the girl. Since Lady Komoda kept a tight lid on the fortress, the guards hardly got out often to socialize in the outside world often, so the idea of a courtesan or a geisha entering to entertain the troops would immediately snare their attention.

“Please guide me to a room where I can perform for you lonesome men.” asked the girl.

“Why of course my dear! We have a main hall that can easily double as an auditorium!” The guard led the girl towards the main doors of the central pagoda and all the troops behind the two started squeezing through the entrance. Within a minute the room was totally packed with musky grungy guards, waiting to catch a glimpse of the young girl before their eyes. The girl went to the middle of the room and asked for the men to give her a small space to perform. They were yelling out lewd phrases at her to do something erotic, but most of them asked questions.

“Are you going to do a lovely dance in the nude for us?” asked a particularly ugly fellow in the back.

“Please calm down mister, I’ve got a very special performance that will be sure to knock you all flat on your backs!”

The girl grabbed the back of her robe and pulled her hood off. The girl had a blue shiny mask on that covered the bottom-half of her head.

“Ooo! I told you she’s an erotic dancer!” One of the guards grunted out.

“Ah, how introspective of you!” replied Kamiko. “I do have a special dance planned for all of you deserving young guys on this cold cloudy night!”

All their horny wild eyes lit up in anticipation of what Kamiko was about to do.

“Now, before I dance, I’ll need to test the intelligence of the audience around me. I need one of you to guess what type of animal I shall impersonate!” Kamiko spread her arms out above her head as she asked her audience the question.

“An animal eh?” cried out a guard.

“Ooh, she’s going to be feisty for us!” screamed another.

“The animal that I will so passionately be for you brawny handsome men is one that has one of the most extraordinary traits. This animal can make itself grow to proportions that make it appear much larger and menacing than it usually does! Can anyone tell me what it is?

Within the audience of grungy men, contemplative murmurs and hums began to erupt out. Many scratched their chins while digging back into their cranial depths to grab the word of the animal their temptress was talking about.

“Is it a cat? Cats stand on their feet and make themselves look bigger when they are scared!” yelled one of the men.

“Good choice! But alas, it is not the animal I am talking about!” Kamiko replied.

“How about a dog? Their fur stands on end when they get mad and bark!” another guard guessed.

“Please! Do you think I am lowly enough to be just a dog!? I am not THAT kind of girl, especially not a prostitute!” Kamiko scolded.

“Roosters puff out their feathers when they want to make themselves look big!” yelled another clueless buffoon.

“Oh please, you are nowhere close! Here, let me give you boys a hint: This animal lives in the sea.” Kamiko hoped once of the dense guards would finally solve her riddle.

The room full of soldiers once again quieted down to contemplate Kamiko’s hint. One of them in the middle of the crowd raised his arm up and jumped around, eager to catch the girl’s attention.

“Ah! Ah! I know! A pufferfish!”

“Give the man a hand everyone! He hit the nail on the head!” Kamiko began clapping her hands to applaud the man’s correct answer. Everyone else in the room erupted in laughter and joy, the guards around the lucky guesser started patting him on the back and his head to congratulate him.

“Wait a minute, a pufferfish!?” questioned one of the guards in the front. “Are you telling us that you can blow yourself up like a balloon of some sort?”

“Oh ho ho ho ho! What a wild imagination you have there my friend! Why don’t I help you fuel it some more?” After talking back to the guard, Kamiko grabbed the back of her robe and flung it over her shoulders and off her body, revealing her sporty and voluptuous body clad from head to nose with air-tight shiny blue rubber. The eyes of one of the guards in front began to bug out in surprise as he suddenly realized the truth about Kamiko…

“Hold on a moment g… guys! She’s a n… n… ninja!”

“Correct again monkey man!” Kamiko mocked as she suddenly began to suck in air and expand her body at a frightening pace. All the men in the room could do was stand and stare at the spectacle of the ballooning girl in front of them. Within a couple of seconds her body transformed more and more into a gigantic orb as the top of her head perched upon the top of her round exterior touched the ceiling. As this happened the men near her began to stumble backwards, trying to avoid the approach of the wall of blue rubber-clad flesh distending towards them. Their efforts were in vain as they began to disappear under the blue squeaky mass in groups. Within ten seconds the blimped-up Kamiko had filled the entire room with herself and smothered almost all fifty of the guards in there. She felt one single man trying to struggle past a gap that her huge body had left near the door. This man was still going to make it out the door, but with his colleagues as well.

Suddenly Kamiko let all the air compressed inside her fly out her mouth at sonic speed, causing parts of the walls around her to break outwards, creating large holes. All the half-suffocated men that she had trapped flew out the new openings in the once-pristine white walls and through the now doorless front entrance. Hardly any of them made a single sound; they were too deprived of oxygen to scream as they flew hundreds of meters out of the castle and over the walls of the compound. At least half of them struck the main walls themselves and got knocked out cold.

Just before Kamiko shrunk back to normal size, she allowed herself to propel out one of the exits and just as she ran out of air she backflipped and landed perfectly on her feet just a meter away from the north wall of the fortress. She stood for just a few moments as the entire pagoda began to creak and rumble. The bottom part had been weakened so much by Kamiko controlled air explosion that there was no chance it would be able to support the top part of the building. Finally the top part of the tower came crashing down, splintering the demolished remains of the bottom floor and causing the remaining three stories to telescope into each other.

After waiting a few moments for the dust to clear, Kamiko walked towards the almost-totaled yet intact front floor that remained of the pagoda. The unconscious bodies of the guards scattered the ground like seeds on the ground. Just as she got near the wreckage, she saw a shadow move around from within one of the square windows. Slowly the figure emerged from the crumpled frame; it was a stately woman in her mid-20’s with a colorful light green silk kimono with blue diamonds embossed all over it. She struggled to stand upon her legs, trying to recover from the shock she received when the building collapsed. She coldly looked Kamiko in the eyes.

“Did you destroy my proud and beautiful fortress?” She demanded.

“It wasn’t much of a fortress then, and it still isn’t much now.” Kamiko replied.

“How, how dare you, you destructive bitch!” Yelled the enraged Lady Komoda. “You will pay for ruining my life’s work!”

The enraged villainess quickly bent down and grabbed a long sharp pole from the wreckage. She then pushed it out in front of her and began running towards Kamiko at breakneck speed, screaming like a ghost back from the dead.

Kamiko just stood there, waiting for the furious woman to come nearer. Just as the makeshift spear came near her chest, Kamiko briskly stepped aside to the right, allowing Lady Komoda to run right into her. Quickly, Kamiko grabbed the red-faced wild woman in a tight bear hug, and began to take a deep breath. As Kamiko did this she expanded her belly outwards one foot, pulled the mask on her suit off her mouth, and blew right into the mouth of the flabbergasted Lady Komoda. Immediately, Kamiko’s bulbous stomach disappeared, and reappeared on Komoda’s midsection. All the horrified woman could do was fall onto her backside and stare at her bloated belly. She screamed out in fright.

“Now, listen to me carefully Komoda. I can blow a lot more air into you and make you even bigger. You can be a nice human balloon for the children to play around with. All I need to know is how many men does Lord Taro command? Also, what kind of weapons, armor, and other implements of destruction do they carry?”

“I’ll never tell you, devilgirl!” Fumed the bloated Komoda.

Angered by the woman’s refusal, Kamiko grabbed Komoda by the collar of her kimono, wrapped her lips once again over her mouth, took another deep breath, and blew into the hapless Lady Komoda. Now the woman’s belly stretched out so much that not only the obi wrapped around her kimono snapped off, but her limbs plumped out a bit. Kamiko allowed her to stand, but all the inflated Komoda could do was waddle around comically, hardly able to move her swollen and tight body.

“Now, I’ll ask you one more time before I fill you with enough air to pop you. Tell me what Lord Taro has.”

“Okay, okay! Don’t kill me! I… I… I heard he now has an army that is at least a thousand strong, maybe even two-thousand. He has spears, the best katanas crafted in the land, and last I heard even some guns and cannons. Some are even imported from the Dutch who in return got them from other powerful western nations!”

“Is this true?” Kamiko asked.

“Yes, yes! It’s all true, and if you need even more proof, I have a bunch of scrolls there in my room that record the inventory of all I have given to him! It even has names of, er, I can’t tell!” Lady Komoda bit her tongue to withhold the last bit of info.

“Well, I can probably find it anyways, there’s no need to halt your words. You can go fly away now.” Kamiko went back up to Lady Komoda, grabbed her head, and started puffing more air down her gullet. All the helpless woman could do was grunt and cry muffled screams as Kamiko inflated her bigger and bigger like a child happily blowing into a rubber balloon. Lady Komoda’s cheeks began to bulge out and obscure half of her once slim and pretty blushed face. Her blimped-out midsection began to absorb her rapidly bulging limbs. Her kimono wasn’t able to take this massive stress, so it ripped into little ribbons and gently floated off as she grew bigger and bigger with each puff Kamiko took.

Finally after about twenty seconds of hard puffing, Lady Komoda was about as big as Kamiko herself would normally be when she floated about in the sky. The once-slim and voluptuous beauty now resembled a human blimp with a large round midsection and two round bulges perched upon it with pinkish-red saucer-sized nipples in the middle of them. Her limbs were equally bloated and gorged with air; they stuck out from her body, immobile and useless. Both hands and feet at the tips of each respective cone of inflated taut flesh were also plumped up and unmovable. Kamiko looked up at the naked and ballooned Lady Komoda as she floated upwards. The moonlight shone off her tight pale skin, making her look like a white glowing extraterrestrial object in the sky. Higher and higher the hopeless and once-proud owner of the now decimated fortress floated towards the overcast clouds, emitting muffled screams through her bulging cheeks as she disappeared into the hovering sea of grey.

“Please watch out for sharp objects during your flight Miss Komoda.” Kamiko mockingly yelled towards the helpless balloon-woman.

Tomoko-sensei sat down in the middle of the temple, gleefully letting her eyes spot and absorb every word they discovered on the scrolls Kamiko found at Yamagawa-jo.

“Ah, I knew you would find a treasure-trove of information at that castle. I’m surprised you were able to find so many scrolls Kamiko-chan! Especially considering how that spiteful wench Komoda keeps everything wrapped up tightly.”

Kamiko laid on her back a meter away from Tomoko. She had plumped up her body with air to help her soothe her nerves rest her body.

“She was a bit uncooperative Sensei. But I think I loosened her up a bit.” Kamiko said.

“Ah, she must be enjoying her little trip in the sky, no?”

Both Tomoko and Kamiko giggled a bit at the little wisecrack.

“So Sensei, what are you going to do now that you have this important info about Lord Taro?”

“I have to admit, these scrolls you brought me contain much. But I still need to find out more about who is allied to whom. We need to not only find the strings but also know where they connect.”

“I see sensei. So does this mean that I’ll be spying from now on?”

“Yes Kamiko, you won’t have to risk yourself by stealing things for a while. You are going to be using your skills and your ears for the next few weeks. Plus I will be doing some spy work as well.”

“You too sensei?”

“This project will take a lot of work, so it will be best if two people are working at the same time.”

Kamiko laid further back onto her cushiony backside. She kept reflecting back to the mission she had just accomplished, thinking about how she felt like a different person while tricking both the guards and Lady Komoda into giving her the scrolls.

“Sensei?” Kamiko spoke.

“Yes dear?”

“I’m changing so much as I move on to bigger and bigger things as I take on harder challenges.”

“That trip to the castle did require some brainpower and strength.”

“I know sensei, but I also felt my inner personality changing into something almost foreign, totally unrecognizable to what I was like as not only a student, but when I still worked for Yoshi on the farm.”

“You are in a different world my girl.” Tomoko got up, stretched, and started pacing slowly around Kamiko. “You yourself said you could not believe the stories I told you about how Lord Taro took over my lord’s domain with support from the shogun. There are always people more powerful than both you and me. They are always controlling all those underneath themselves who do not have wealth and power. Those on the bottom are just merely puppets to be controlled to make food and materials that benefit the men on top. To keep themselves in power, rulers have their own group of warriors and lords that submit to their whims so that they may also reap the benefits of their tyranny.”

“But what about Lord Hideyoshi, sensei? What made him different?” Kamiko replied.

Tomoko just stood for a few moments, staring blankly out into space, thinking backwards in time.

“He was a man, whom despite his status as a daimyo, did not want to have things that way. He wanted to put more power in the hands of the people; that is why he had them all have a say in decisions of his government.

“That sounds so different sensei, ordinary people sharing power with the leaders.”

“Yes it does Kamiko. And it’s something I think Taro knew about. Maybe he had a hand in Lord Hideyoshi’s death so that he could keep all the power for himself.”

Kamiko’s eyes began to glitter with light as they moistened up with tears. She wondered what it would be like to have a stronger voice in the world. She was a girl who had already learned how to become strong physically, but how could she become mentally stronger. Then she reflected back upon her mission, how she tricked all those men, inflated herself, and blew them out of the castle like feathers in the wind. They were all helpless before her power, despite their own raw and physical male strength. Kamiko had more power than even the once-mighty Lady Komoda, whom she had blown up into a balloon and allowed to float aimlessly into the skies.

“Sensei…” Kamiko whispered. “It looks like we’re going to change everything.”

“I would not really say that is true Kamiko.” Tomoko said. “Well, not now. We will have to work a lot more in order to make a difference.”

Kamiko looked towards the ceiling a few moments more, thinking about her teacher’s sage words, and then she finally closed her sleepy eyes. She had done a lot of work, and had to rest up for what the future challenges that would come to her.