It seemed she’d wanted to doll herself up a little for Hajime.
Seeing her made Hajime’s annoyance melt away immediately.
“You prefer Western clothes, don’t you, Shizuku? Did you wear that kimono just for me?”
“W-Well, I hadn’t shown you this one yet, so...”
“I see, thanks. That made all my exhaustion fly away. You look really pretty.”
“Oh...thanks.”
Shizuku smiled and blushed, and the contrast between her usual cool demeanor and her girlier mannerisms was striking. Hajime smiled—and then suddenly reached into his pocket and pulled out a mini-Donner fitted with a silencer and rapidly fired a series of shots off to his left. There was a series of sparks and metallic clangs as the bullets collided with something. Shizuku jumped a little and looked over to see a series of small bamboo cylinders jutting out from the ground. They were barely visible unless you were focusing intently. It seemed there had still been a few assassins lying in wait.
They must have been communicating secretly with each other while hiding and had fired darts from their blowguns in tandem.
“N-Not you guys again! Get out here right now!” Shizuku shouted, her face reddening in anger. They ignored her and scurried away, the ground barely shifting as they used whatever secret passages they’d dug under the courtyard.
Shizuku trembled with rage and Hajime flashed her a sympathetic smile. However, he still needed to confirm something.
“Hey, Shizuku, are you sure your family isn’t descended from ninjas?”
“I don’t think so, but...”
Her family had never acted like this before they’d been summoned to Tortus. It had all started after Hajime had begun visiting the Yaegashi house. Since then, she’d learned far too much about the secret passageways within her own house and the various assassination techniques in the Yaegashi Style that she’d never been privy to before. It was honestly more of a shock to her than it was to Hajime.
“Mind asking them for me? You know, maybe try to see if they secretly trained you to be a kunoichi without you realizing it.”
“I grilled dad and grandpa a few days ago.”
“And what’d they say?”
“That these were all sword techniques, just combined with a bit of acrobatics.”
“So they’re keeping it a secret even from you...”
“I can’t believe my family...” Shizuku muttered with a dead look in her eyes, prompting Hajime to give her another sympathetic look.
Shizuku had thought she’d finally returned to her boring normal life only to discover that everyone in her family except her had been hiding some very abnormal secrets. It seemed no matter what world she was in, Shizuku was destined to suffer.
“Hey, Hajime...please don’t come to hate them because of this,” Shizuku said, hiding her expression with the sleeve of her kimono. The gesture was so cute that Hajime nearly pushed her down right then and there.
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
“But from the looks of it, dad and grandpa are going to keep on attacking you like that no matter how many times I tell them to stop...”
“I get how they feel. They probably don’t want to give you away to a guy like me. If I was in their shoes, I’d be shooting me too.”
“Well, you shouldn’t be doing that either.”
Shizuku was, of course, absolutely correct, but Hajime sympathized with Shuzou and Toramasa. So, while their antics annoyed him, he didn’t really hate them.
“If I think about it as a trial that I have to overcome to make you mine, then it honestly feels kind of exciting. I’ll overcome anything in order to marry you.”
“Oh, Hajime...”
Shizuku blushed and hid her face with her sleeves. Unfortunately, she was blushing to the tips of her ears, so she couldn’t hide everything. Hajime wanted to push her arms away and look at her cute expression directly.
“A-Anyway, why don’t you come in and evacuate to my room? It should be safe there.”
“Evacuate is sadly a very fitting term here...”
“Don’t remind me...” Shizuku said with a groan, and Hajime followed her inside.
It would have been nice if they could have chatted about whatever while walking side by side down the hallway to Shizuku’s room, but unfortunately, the halls of the Yaegashi house were riddled with traps. Spears came out from gaps in the walls, there were pit traps and falling ceilings everywhere, Toramasa came out of trick wall hiding spots and attacked Hajime with wooden swords, and Shuzou also leaped out from behind pillars and attacked Hajime with a chain sickle.
Hajime dealt with them all casually and turned to Shizuku with a pitying look in his eyes.
“I’m sorry, Shizuku...but we have to face reality. Your family is a family of ninjas...and your house is a secret lair.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t know about any of this until last week even though I’ve lived here my whole life... Hey, grandpa! No chain and sickles! You’re ruining the wallpaper with them! Also, that thing’s clearly real, isn’t it?! Where did you get that from?!”
Shizuku may as well have been yelling at empty air, since by the time they rounded the corner the chain sickle attack from Shuzou was nowhere to be seen. She dropped to her knees in despair.
“Hey, Shizuku, how about we go to the living room instead of your room? It looks like they’re getting more and more desperate, since I can block all of their attacks. At this rate, they may accidentally damage your prized stuffed animal collection.”
“Ugh... My room should be safe... If they touch anything in there, I’m leaving this house forever! I’m already mad enough that they keep attacking you!” Shizuku shouted, knowing there were people in the walls, ceiling, and the floor listening in. They could tell she was seriously mad now as they all silently retreated.
“Now let’s go, Hajime! We can finally spend some time alone!” Shizuku said, squeezing Hajime’s arm and leading him to her room.
“Y-Yeah. You must be getting really desperate, huh?”
Hajime had been in Shizuku’s room twice before, and as always it was filled to the brim with cute things. Stuffed animals lined the shelves, there was a calendar with pictures of cute cats hanging on the wall, the curtains and sheets were all pink, and the cushions had cute rabbit ear designs on them. It was the girliest a room could possibly be.
Shizuku put down a cute raccoon cushion for Hajime and it let out a cutesy squeal when he sat down on it. If the people in Tortus saw Hajime sitting down on something like this, they’d probably all burst out laughing, especially the imperial emperor.
“One sec, I’ll get us some tea and snacks.”
“Nah, don’t bother. Also, I don’t really want to be alone in this house...”
“Gah... I-It’ll be fine! I told them I won’t tolerate this anymore and I did thoroughly explore my room to make sure there’s no secret—”
Just then, Hajime heard a clunk from the ceiling, and Shizuku’s reassurances turned to ashes in her mouth.
“Welcome, Hajime-san. Please, enjoy some snacks,” Kirino said, removing one of the ceiling panels and dropping down with a tea tray laden with tea and snacks. The fact that she managed the feat without spilling a drop of tea or a crumb of cake was beyond impressive.
“Mom?! How...? I thought I examined everything...” Shizuku muttered, looking up at the ceiling in despair.
Kirino just smiled and gently set the tray down on the glass table in Shizuku’s room. It was clear from her calm, confident demeanor that she was a very strong woman. While she did look pretty, the overwhelming impression Hajime got from her was that she was more cool than beautiful.
“H-Hey, mom, you’re secretly a kunoichi, aren’t you? Don’t lie to me now.”
Kirino was the one person in Shizuku’s family who hadn’t suddenly transformed after Hajime’s arrival. Or at least, that was what Shizuku had thought, so suddenly seeing her mom drop from the ceiling like a ninja shocked her to her core.
Not you too, mom...
Shizuku stared up at her mother with dead eyes.
“Oh, Shizuku, you really are such a hopeless girl,” Kirino said with a small smile.
“I’m sorry, Hajime-san. She got overly excited when she learned you were coming, so I thought I’d lighten the mood with a joke to make sure she doesn’t trip over herself. But as you can see, she’s serious to a fault, so instead this is the reaction we got. She might be a little boring, but please don’t abandon her, Hajime-san.”
“Don’t worry, her reactions are plenty interesting,” Hajime said with a small smile.
“You’re so mean, Hajime...” Shizuku said, turning to Hajime with tears in her eyes. Hajime patted her on the head, and her frown instantly turned into a smile as she leaned against his chest.
“My, I can’t believe you’re not embarrassed to act like that in front of your mother. All right, all right, I’ll leave,” Kirino said with a gentle smile and jumped back up into the ceiling.
As Shizuku watched her mom replace the ceiling panel, her eyes turned dead again as she realized even her room wasn’t safe.