Ninja (Major Editing)

Chapter 5

Daichi returned in a week after his departure. During that time, Arata had mostly recovered from his wounds. The only times that traces of the wounds were seen were when he overextended himself to do something too physical.

“Master.”

Haru looked up from the scroll he was reading at his desk. Daichi was standing at his study door, waiting for him to grant to permission to enter.

“Don’t be so formal, Daichi. Everyone is just sitting back and relaxing today. Just come in,” Haru said.

He bowed and walked over, stopping in front of the desk. Haru sighed. “You can sit.”

“There’s no need,” Daichi said. “It’ll just be a brief report so as not to disturb you from your reading.”

“I guess that’s fine with me. So what did you find?”

“Well, thankfully, the corpses were still there, so I did a thorough check around the place. Whoever the guy is was very skillful at opening doors without any detection. Yuuta was stabbed in the back right to a vital point. He died instantly. It was the same for the trespasser.”

“Did you find any identification of the unknown man?”

“There were several. His choice of clothing indicated that he was a samurai and his marking on his arm was the same as Arata’s. That was of course before he purposely burned it off. The same symbol was on the hilt of a kaiken that he hid, sheathed and tucked in his belt.”

“Was there anything else that was suspicious?”

“The only thing I could think of was how tidy it was around the rest of the house. I mean, Yuuta-san kept his and Yuki’s identities a secret. Unless someone found out and told him, why would he infiltrate a pharmacy without searching?”

“Thank you.”

Daichi bowed again before leaving. Haru picked up his brush and wrote down some notes to remember.

Meanwhile, Arata was showing Yuki how he cooked since he could finally pick up the heavy stir-fry pan. Yuki stood to his side, watching him throw in spices and other ingredients as they were necessary.

Once finished, Arata scooped the food up and offered the plate to Yuki. “Try it,” he urged.

She looked at him uncertainly and picked up the pair of chopsticks she had set aside. She picked the smallest piece she could find and nibbled it. Noticing no weird taste in her mouth, she ate the whole thing. Smiling, she got another piece.

“Good, isn’t it?” Arata prompted.

Yuki nodded and swallowed. “This is the best chicken I’ve ever eaten.”

Nodding in satisfaction, Arata rolled up his sleeves. The kitchen was really stuffy in the summer.

“What’s that on your arm?” Yuki questioned, looking at Arata’s left arm. She noticed a tiny bit of a scar under the sleeve and wondered about it.

Arata glanced at it and pulled the sleeve higher. Yuki was astonished by the ghastly scar that she recognized as a burn. “It’s nothing,” he said, noticing her reaction.

She reached out to touch it, curious, but retracted it in case he didn’t want it touched.

“It’s okay,” Arata assured her.

As she touched the scar, she noticed the abnormal surface of it. “How did you get it?”

“I burned myself.”

“How did you manage that?”

“It was easy. I just pressed the pan to it when it was just off the stove.”