Chapter 16: Mount Me Not, You Perverted Gum-Gum Wannabe
—In which secrets are shared, faces are smashed, and farewells fly faster than fists
"Beat me again and I'll tell you the secret!"
Kaito grinned like a maniac.
Then his entire body suddenly expanded.
Shoulders widened.
Arms thickened.
Muscles bulged until he looked like somebody had taken Ren Kisaragi and adjusted the size setting far past reasonable.
A fist the size of my head came flying toward me.
I didn't hesitate.
I jumped onto his arm.
Obviously.
Look, when somebody turns their arm into a bridge, you either run away like a sensible person or sprint directly up it while preparing to punch them in the face.
I think we all know which category I belong to.
I raced toward his shoulder.
Plan A:
Run up the arm.
Punch Kaito in the jaw.
Say something cool.
Flip backward.
Land dramatically.
Perfect plan.
Then Kaito cheated.
POOF!
One second: giant muscle monster.
Next second: regular-sized punch gremlin.
The bridge vanished beneath my feet.
"Oh, you—"
His fist buried itself in my stomach.
THUD!
My entire world performed a lovely little spinny-spin.
"GUH!"
But I caught his wrist before I fell, twisted with the momentum, and slammed my elbow directly into his nose.
CRACK!
"OW!"
Kaito hit the ground.
I followed him down, wrapped an arm around his neck, and squeezed.
"Well," I said, breathing hard, "I got you down again. Where's my prize, oh mighty loot box?"
He slapped my arm.
"Okay! Okay! Jeez!"
I loosened the hold.
Kaito sucked in a breath.
"It's the Shifting Form Art."
...
I stared at him.
He stared back.
"That's it?"
"Yep!"
"The basic transformation technique?"
"Yep!"
"The one children in the Veiled Moon Sect learn so they can disguise themselves during infiltration exercises?"
"YES!"
I released him purely so I could stare properly.
"Kaito."
"Ren."
"You made yourself into a giant rubber man using a beginner disguise Art."
His eyes lit up.
"EXACTLY!"
He jumped to his feet.
"Bro, you people have criminally underestimated this technique!"
"We use it all the time."
"No, you use it for disguises!"
"That's what it's for."
"That's what you think it's for!"
Oh no.
He had the look.
The same look Yun Che probably had right before introducing some bizarre Earth idea and causing every formation master within a hundred kilometers to develop headaches.
Kaito grabbed my shoulders.
"Think about it! Why only change your face? Why only change your whole body? Why not change specific parts?"
"Because—"
"Make your arm longer!"
He stretched one arm.
"Make your fist bigger!"
His hand ballooned.
"Change your reach! Change your proportions! Make temporary weapons! Add mass where you need it! Reduce it where you don't!"
I blinked.
Okay.
That was...
Actually clever.
Kaito saw my expression and pointed triumphantly.
"SEE?!"
"Don't look so proud."
"You're impressed."
"I am reconsidering several years of training."
"Same thing."
I scratched my cheek.
The Shifting Form Art wasn't true physical transformation. It used Ki to temporarily alter the shape and properties of the body within certain limits.
Mostly, Ninjas used it for infiltration.
Different height.
Different face.
Different voice.
Maybe appear heavier or thinner.
Nobody had ever told me to use it like an idiot who'd watched too much anime.
Which was apparently the problem.
"Huh."
Kaito folded his arms smugly.
"I've been practicing it with Shadow Clones."
"Of course you have."
"Hundreds of attempts."
"That explains why you suddenly got decent."
"Decent?"
"You're still terrible."
"You hugged a fake tree earlier."
"We agreed never to mention that."
Kaito's smile became dangerous.
"Oh, and speaking of things you people don't appreciate enough..."
He vanished.
I blinked.
"Kaito?"
Something wrapped around my neck.
"Hello."
"What the—?!"
Suddenly I was in the headlock.
Kaito was behind me, laughing like an idiot.
I looked toward where he'd been standing.
A broken branch lay there.
My eye twitched.
"Veiled Step?"
"VEILED STEP, BABY!"
The Veiled Moon Sect's basic substitution technique.
A short-range escape Art designed to create an opening by exchanging your position with a prepared object at exactly the right moment.
Useful.
Simple.
Extremely dependent on timing.
And apparently another technique Kaito had decided everybody else was using incorrectly.
"You people call this basic?" he demanded. "This thing is amazing! Timing, concentration, positioning, deception—I've been combining it with Shifting Form!"
"Kaito."
"Yes?"
"Why are you sitting on me?"
He paused.
Then his grin widened.
"Oh?"
No.
"Ren..."
Don't.
"How does it feel..."
I swear—
"...to be mounted?"
"GET OFF ME!"
He smashed my face into the dirt.
WHAM!
"KAAAAITOOOO!"
I planted both hands against the ground and pushed.
Hard.
We launched upward.
Kaito's arms tightened around me.
"WAIT WAIT WAIT—"
I twisted in midair.
My heel came around in a brutal crescent.
"GET. OFF. ME!"
THWACK!
My foot connected with his ribs.
Kaito went flying through the branches like a bag of extremely perverted regrets.
"AAAAAAAGH!"
He disappeared into the leaves.
CRASH!
Silence.
I landed.
Straightened my clothes.
"Worth it."
"YOU PSYCHOPATH!"
Kaito dropped from above.
And from there?
Chaos.
Punches.
Kicks.
Throws.
Shadow hands.
Shifting Form tricks.
Veiled Step substitutions.
At one point I punched Kaito directly in the face only for him to turn into a log.
"HA!"
I spun.
"Where are—"
A tree beside me grew eyes.
"Kaito?"
The tree grinned.
"Surprise."
I hugged it.
Instinctively.
There was a pause.
Kaito slowly transformed back while still in my arms.
We stared at each other.
"..."
"..."
"We never speak of this."
"Tree Hugging Incident Number Twelve."
"KAITO!"
He ran.
I chased him.
Eventually, after enough violence to make our instructors either proud or deeply concerned, we collapsed beneath the giant tree.
The dream realm repaired us quickly.
Broken bones straightened.
Bruises vanished.
Blood disappeared.
Unfortunately, dignity remained unrecoverable.
Kaito lay flat on his back.
I lay beside him.
For several seconds, neither of us said anything.
Then Kaito snorted.
I started laughing.
He joined in.
Soon we were both laughing like complete idiots.
Kaito stared up at the strange sky.
"You know..." he said.
"What?"
"When this whole soul-swap thing finally ends, this is gonna be weird."
I looked upward too.
"Yeah."
He'd go back to Earth.
I'd go home to the Veiled Moon Sect.
No more waking up in each other's lives.
No more comparing notes every night.
No more discovering what terrible thing Kaito had done with my techniques while I slept.
Eventually.
Assuming Master Jin found a solution.
Assuming Yunhai Tianren could be trusted.
Assuming whoever had actually done this wasn't planning something worse.
There were a lot of assumptions.
Kaito raised one fist.
"But when we switch back, we'll both be stronger."
I bumped mine against it.
"Definitely."
"Thanks, bro."
I looked at him.
"For what?"
"For letting me borrow this."
He gestured toward his body.
Well.
My body.
"You didn't exactly ask."
"Still."
His grin softened.
"I was nobody back home. Then suddenly I wake up in this insane body, with actual power and people teaching me things I thought only existed in stories."
He stared at his hand.
"I know it's yours. I'm giving it back. Obviously."
"Good."
"But... thanks for the chance."
I smiled.
"Just make sure it's still attached when I get back."
"No promises."
"Kaito."
"Mostly attached."
I punched his shoulder.
He laughed.
"And thanks for not actually killing me tonight."
"That kick was barely fifty percent."
"YOU BROKE THREE RIBS!"
"They grew back."
"That does not make it okay!"
"It makes it educational."
We laughed again.
Then Kaito turned his head toward me.
"So... the bet still stands, right?"
I grinned.
"Oh, absolutely."
Somewhere during one of our increasingly stupid conversations, we'd made a bet.
I would build my own group on Earth.
Kaito would accomplish something ridiculous in my world.
First one to become either a proper Boss or an Emperor won.
The loser had to serve the winner for a month.
No backing out.
No technicalities.
And according to Kaito, no using attractive women as distractions.
That last rule had been his idea, which made me extremely suspicious.
"I'm becoming Emperor of the continent," Kaito declared.
"There are Sages on that continent."
"I'll work around them."
"There are Spirit Transformation Sect Leaders."
"I'll recruit them."
"There are Ancient Sects."
He hesitated.
"Diplomacy."
I laughed.
"Good luck."
"What about you?"
"I'll become the king of the local delinquents."
"That's significantly less ambitious."
"I'm working with a normal human body!"
"Skill issue."
I kicked him again.
"OW!"
The edges of the dream began turning white.
Morning.
Kaito noticed too.
He stood and stretched.
"Guess that's it for tonight."
"Yeah."
He started fading.
Then looked back with the most obnoxious grin imaginable.
"Next time we meet, I'll be one step closer to becoming Emperor of the continent!"
"Yeah, yeah!" I shouted. "And I'll have an army of delinquents!"
"GET JACKETS!"
"NO JACKETS!"
"MATCHING JACKETS!"
"Kaito!"
He vanished laughing.
There's something about waking up in someone else's body that screams:
You have made several questionable life decisions.
My eyes opened.
For half a second, I expected the giant dream-tree above me.
Instead?
Ceiling.
Kaito's room.
Earth.
Right.
The dream injuries were gone.
Unfortunately, yesterday's real injuries weren't.
My back immediately reminded me about the Shadow Gang.
"Ugh..."
I rolled carefully onto my side.
Bad idea.
"UGH."
My muscles were sore from dojo training.
My scratches still stung.
My bruises from Hermes's rubber bullets had apparently spent the night evolving into new and exciting colors.
Kaito's body felt like somebody had boiled it, fried it, and then dropped it down a staircase.
I missed my body.
I missed Ki.
I missed being able to fall off buildings without conducting a medical assessment afterward.
I even missed Ballom.
...
Okay.
Maybe not that much.
Just before the dream had completely disappeared, Kaito had said something that was still bothering me.
He'd been sitting there with the expression of a philosopher who had finally understood the universe.
"Ren," he'd said solemnly, "I asked the Heavens for a bicycle."
I'd stared at him.
"And?"
"But I know the Heavens don't work that way."
"Obviously."
"So I stole a bicycle and asked the Heavens for forgiveness."
Then he'd grinned.
And vanished.
I lay there staring at Kaito's ceiling.
"...That might be the stupidest thing I've ever heard."
Pause.
"Or genius."
No.
Definitely stupid.
Probably.
The annoying thing was that some piece of it actually stuck with me.
Not the stealing part.
Obviously.
The idea underneath it.
Sometimes waiting for permission meant never doing anything.
I'd spent years following orders.
Sect rules.
Mission structures.
Instructor expectations.
Even my obsession with bringing Kyo home had been defined by what everyone around me believed I could or couldn't do.
Maybe Earth was my chance to make decisions for myself.
Dangerous decisions?
Probably.
Stupid decisions?
Almost certainly.
But mine.
And I had a bet to win.
Whoever became a proper Boss or Emperor first won.
Loser served the other for one month.
Kaito had already started talking about conquering continents.
I had a slightly more realistic objective.
Become a local gang boss.
Build a group.
Protect my people.
And maybe acquire one of those cool coats bosses always seemed to wear in anime.
Not matching jackets, though.
Kaito was never winning that argument.
I sat up.
My back protested.
"I'll do my best today," I muttered.
I sounded less like an inspiring warrior and more like a motivational rock.
Good enough.
Then reality hit me again.
Still Kaito.
Still Earth.
Still injured.
And after yesterday's fight, dojo training, and several days of treating this ordinary body like it had personally offended me...
I needed a recovery day.
So I rolled out of bed.
Technically, I fell.
THUMP.
"...Ow."
I pulled on some clothes.
Looked at the clock.
6:00 a.m.
Too early for another fight.
Too early for gang recruitment.
Definitely too early for attempting the splits again.
I stretched carefully.
"Just a jog."
No death matches.
No fighting ten people.
No mysterious Magical Girls.
No gang leaders.
No trying to discover whether Kaito's Soul Armament could shoot lasers.
Just running.
Breathing.
Recovering.
I slipped outside.
The city was barely awake.
Streetlights were still glowing.
Shops were closed.
The air carried that strange early-morning quiet where a city felt like it belonged entirely to you.
And there I was.
Ren Kisaragi.
Ninja of the Veiled Moon Sect.
Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Vessel of Ballom, Master of Death.
Currently trapped inside Kaito Hoshino's very normal, very bruised body...
jogging through another universe at six in the morning because I'd made a bet with a pervert about becoming a gang boss.
I smiled.
Do your best, huh?
Yeah.
I could do that.
----------------------------
While Ren was tying the laces of his running shoes and planning what he considered a wonderfully peaceful recovery day—light stretches, an easy jog, some reading, and possibly toast with an irresponsible amount of jam—someone else was having a significantly less peaceful morning.
That someone was Hermes.
Self-declared genius.
Leader of the Shadow Gang.
Professional schemer.
And, at the moment, an extremely sore loser.
Hermes was not pleased.
Not even a little.
Ren—or, as far as Hermes knew, Kaito Hoshino—had humiliated his people twice now.
The first time had been irritating.
The second?
Personal.
Hermes paced in front of a small collection of increasingly nervous underlings, his blue hair looking somehow even more ridiculous when combined with the murderous expression on his face.
"He got lucky," Hermes muttered.
Nobody answered.
"He caught us off guard."
Still nobody answered.
Hermes stopped.
"Why is nobody agreeing with me?"
"He beat like ten of us," one guy offered carefully.
Hermes stared at him.
"…Get out."
"What?"
"Go stand over there."
The guy obediently moved several meters away.
Hermes returned his attention to the others.
"But this time…" A grin slowly spread across his face. "This time, we're not leaving anything to chance."
He had a plan.
A brilliant plan.
A tactical masterpiece worthy of the name Hermes itself.
More people.
Better positioning.
Multiple escape routes blocked.
And most importantly—
a net.
Yes.
An actual net.
Not metaphorically.
A real, weighted rope net that looked like something fishermen used when they had completely given up on fish and decided to start hunting teenagers instead.
One of his underlings stared at it.
"Boss."
"What?"
"Why do we have a net?"
Hermes pointed dramatically toward the street.
"He runs."
"…Yeah?"
"So we stop him from running."
"With a net."
"With a net."
Another member scratched his head.
"Couldn't we just surround him?"
Hermes slowly turned.
"That worked wonderfully yesterday, didn't it?"
Nobody spoke again.
Hermes smiled.
Exactly.
"He always uses speed when things turn bad," Hermes continued. "So this time we catch him before he gets moving."
One of the gang members looked down at the net.
Then back at Hermes.
"Where did you even get this?"
"Money."
That somehow answered everything.
Meanwhile, the terrifying criminal mastermind's target was standing beneath the cool morning sky and trying to touch his toes.
"Ow."
Ren straightened.
Then bent again.
"Ow."
Apparently, getting sliced across the back by spiked brass knuckles did not improve flexibility.
Who knew?
His body was sore, but manageable.
More importantly, something felt...
wrong.
Ren stopped stretching.
The road was quiet.
A bicycle rolled past in the distance.
Someone was opening a convenience store.
A delivery truck rumbled through an intersection.
Nothing unusual.
Still...
His instincts wouldn't settle.
Ren had spent most of his life training as a Ninja.
The Veiled Moon Sect didn't survive by teaching its disciples to ignore the feeling that somebody might be watching them.
You didn't always know why something felt wrong.
Sometimes you noticed a reflection changing.
Sometimes footsteps disappeared too quickly.
Sometimes birds weren't behaving normally.
And sometimes every conscious part of your brain said everything was fine while the part trained through years of missions quietly whispered:
No.
Ren looked down the street.
Nothing.
"Huh."
He couldn't sense Ki here.
He couldn't spread his awareness through the environment.
He didn't have Shadow Clones scouting ahead.
He didn't have Ballom's presence lurking behind his thoughts.
He had Kaito's ordinary senses.
Which meant he had to do this the old-fashioned way.
Observation.
Habit.
Paranoia.
Ren smiled slightly.
Good enough.
He turned away from his usual route.
If somebody was waiting for him, there was no reason to make their morning easy.
So instead of heading straight toward the park, Ren took a completely different route.
Left at the first intersection.
Across a narrow side street.
Through a small shopping area.
He stopped outside a vending machine for thirty seconds without buying anything.
Then doubled back.
Nobody obvious followed.
He crossed another road.
Walked through an alley that smelled like somebody had declared war on seafood three days ago and lost.
Climbed over a low wall.
"Okay, Kaito's body," he muttered while carefully lowering himself on the other side. "We're not jumping from rooftops today."
His bruised ribs agreed enthusiastically.
He circled around another block, entered a noodle shop through the front—
"Morning!"
The owner looked up.
"Morning."
Ren walked straight through, bought a small bun because walking through someone's restaurant without buying anything felt rude, and exited through the rear alley.
Then he doubled back again.
If Master Jin could see him now, he'd probably approve.
Or ask why it had taken getting trapped in another universe for Ren to start taking counter-surveillance this seriously.
Probably both.
Several streets away, Hermes and the Shadow Gang waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Their ambush site was perfect.
At least according to Hermes.
Two guys were behind a wall.
Three were hidden near a narrow side alley.
One stood beside a bicycle pretending to fix the chain.
Another had somehow acquired a newspaper and was standing near a shop entrance while wearing a hat that made him look approximately ninety years old from behind and seventeen from every other angle.
And stretched between two concealed positions was the glorious centerpiece of Operation Definitely-Going-To-Work:
The net.
Hermes crouched behind a signboard.
"Any second now."
A minute passed.
Then two.
Then five.
Hermes checked his phone.
"He's late."
"He doesn't know we scheduled an ambush," someone whispered.
Hermes glared.
"I know that."
Ten minutes.
A woman walked past carrying groceries.
Everyone froze.
Not Ren.
A schoolboy rode past on a bicycle.
Not Ren.
A dog stopped beside their hiding place.
Hermes stared at it.
The dog stared back.
Then peed on the signboard.
Hermes closed his eyes.
"I'm going to kill something."
Fifteen minutes.
Nothing.
Finally, one of his underlings peeked down the road.
"Boss?"
"What?"
"I don't think he's coming."
Hermes's eye twitched.
The net shifted gently in the morning breeze.
Somehow, even the net looked disappointed.
Hermes slowly stood.
"He changed routes."
"Looks like it."
"He knew."
"Maybe."
Hermes's expression darkened.
Ren had humiliated him in a fight.
That was one thing.
But avoiding an ambush he wasn't even supposed to know existed?
That was insulting on an entirely different level.
Hermes clenched his fist.
"This is war."
One of his men blinked.
"I thought it was already war."
Hermes pointed at him.
"Don't ruin the moment."
"Sorry."
Hermes looked down at the net.
Then back toward the empty street.
His eyes narrowed.
"Plan B."
The gang collectively looked worried.
"What's Plan B?"
Hermes smiled.
"Two nets."
Silence.
"Boss…"
"Two. Nets."