James should have expected it, but he had completely failed to do so. When Suki said that Kaguya was going to arrange a boat, he had been expecting some kind of ferry or a water taxi, like they had on Long Beach. Not… this.

  He’d even seen the sleek and predatory cigarette boat before, on the frame-fighting island. He should have known that the dangerous-looking watercraft belonged to a terrorist organisation. It bobbed up and down next to the pier for the ferry, looking as out of place as a sports car in a wrecking yard.

  It was piloted by a kid who might be even younger than James. Definitely too young to drive.

  “Takeshi-san!” Suki said, waving to the youthful terrorist.

  “Hey!” he said with a friendly wave. “Everybody get on board, the boss is impatient to meet her sister.”

  “Woo! Riding in style!” Harue declared, jumping into the boat without a care. She looked around, admiring its interior. “I think of you guys as hiding out in abandoned factories and sneaking around in the bilges of cargo ships, but this is choice.”

  “It’s not always this nice,” Takeshi admitted, “But you can’t do the job without the right tools.”

  “Do you even have a licence to pilot it?” James asked, climbing down the ladder gingerly. Suki was behind him and accepted his help down the final step with a grateful smile.

  Takeshi laughed. “Don’t worry about it, it’s not like we’re going to get pulled over!”

  “It must be useful for smuggling operations,” Mitsue said, the last person down the ladder.

  “Ah, well, we don’t do commercial smuggling,” Takeshi said. ‘But a lot of our stuff can’t go through customs. Which reminds me, if you go in the hold, don’t open any of the boxes, okay?”

  He looked back up at the pier. “Is that all of you? You might want to strap yourselves in, this goes pretty quick.”

  James took a seat next to Suki. The cockpit was sunken into the boat, still open-air but partially shielded from what James assumed would be the ridiculous amount of sea spray that would be coming their way.

  “Everybody ready?” Takeshi asked. He didn’t wait for an answer, but flicked on the engines with a flourish. The air was filled with a deep rumbling thrum as the engines started to idle. James couldn’t tell if the thrill he suddenly felt was from starting a new adventure or just from the vibration running through him.

  Takeshi said something, but James couldn’t hear what it was, as he revved up the engines at the same time. The boat started to move. Slowly at first, as Takeshi eased it away from the pier. He carefully negotiated the boat around the few small craft that were tied up in the harbour.

  Then there was open water in front of them, and James was pushed back in his seat as the boat leapt forward. Takeshi hadn’t been kidding about the seatbelts.

  “Yeehaw!” Harue screamed with excitement. “Did I say that right, James?” she yelled. “Was that a proper American yodel?”

  James just nodded, not caring if Harue was missing the nuances of his culture. “Shouldn’t we have lifejackets or something?” he yelled, not certain if Takeshi would hear.

  “Under the seats!” Takeshi yelled back. He slowed slightly, or at least stopped accelerating, and James was able to lean forward and pull out a yellow puffy vest. Getting it on while keeping his seatbelt secured was a challenge, but they had a long, terrifying trip ahead of them.

  Somehow, the trip was uneventful. Or rather, it was the same event, the roar of the engines, the buffeting of the waves, repeated again and again until everything blurred together.

  “I’m bored of adrenaline,” James complained. “I don’t even know how that’s possible.”

  “Nah, that’s not possible,” Harue told him. “You were just bored, and your organs are a little bit sore from all the vibrations. Just you wait, someone will try and kill you later, and you’ll remember what adrenaline feels like.”

  “I hope not,” Suki said. They had all changed on the boat, taking turns in the hold. Suki was wearing her idol costume, a fancy yukata and a wig dyed red and black. The oni mask was perched on top of her head for the moment.

  “That would not be optimal,” Mitsue agreed. “The whole point of these disguises is to avoid a murder attempt.”

  He was just wearing his normal ninja outfit, with the addition of a ridiculously large foam katana on his back. James had been sceptical, but had been forced to admit that with his face and body all wrapped up in black, no one could tell who Mitsue was, and with a fake sword that gaudy on his back, no one would imagine the rest of the weapons were real.

  James was dressed as the blond-haired protagonist of a currently-popular shonen anime. His face was covered by a thin plastic character mask, and his hair was spiked up to properly imitate an anime character. He was wearing a yukata as well, split between grey and blue, just like the character.

  “You wanna make a bet then?” Harue asked. “My allowance could always do with a boost.”

  “No,” Mitsue replied. “If only because you would cheat and attack us yourself.”

  Harue giggled. “That’s fair,” she admitted. “But think about how alive you’d feel!”

  “I feel plenty alive,” James countered. “I could go with my life not being in danger for… oh, a week? That would probably be pushing it, though.”

  “Probably,” Harue agreed. “Let’s see if you can go a day.”

  “Shouldn’t you be changing?” James asked, eager to change the subject.

  Harue grinned. She was the only one who hadn’t brought a costume. Now, she jumped up in the air and spun around. When she landed, she was…

  “A guy?” James exclaimed. Standing before him was an older Japanese guy, dressed in a haori and hakama. He had black hair, pulled up in a top-knot, and a short, scraggy beard.

  “Good, isn’t it?” Harue said in a completely different voice. Her manner changed as well, changing to a form of formal speech that James had, frankly, doubted she knew. “They won’t suspect a thing.”

  “Hope you’re ready for all the girls swarming you if you’re playing that character,” Takeshi put in.

  Harue looked to the side and rested her half-closed fist on her chin. “That’s just my burden to bear, I suppose,”

  “You can’t be serious,” James protested. “He’s not even… he’s old!”

  “As long as it keeps them off you,” Suki said. “There’s no accounting for taste.”

  “Ah, but tastes determine where the money flows, and accountants count that,” Harue replied. “They’re the final arbiters. The ones with the most money are the most tasty.”

  “Pretty sure you’re using that word wrong,” James muttered.

  Harue sniffed. “It’s a humanitarian joke, I don’t expect you to get it.”

  “And you’re definitely using that word wrong!”

  “I don’t know why you’d say that; it’s just a different way of loving humanity.”

  They argued about it all the way to the train. At which point Mitsue prevailed on Harue to just let it drop. Takeshi had taken them about halfway to Tokyo. Now, they were leaving him behind and taking the shinkansen the rest of the way.

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  The train ride was uneventful, if you didn’t count half the carriage staring at them unabashedly. Harue, at least, revelled in the attention. Then, they finally reached Tokyu Plaza, Harajuku.

  James had seen the Night Market in all its slithering, crawling, flapping glory. So he wasn’t overwhelmed by the riot of colours, shapes and high-pitched squealing that he was soon surrounded by. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that.

  “Come on,” Suki said, “We’re meeting her on the upper level.”

  They went up an escalator surrounded by mirrors at odd angles, reflecting the crowd around them like some fractured pocket dimension. The upper level was open to the sky, filled with greenery and cosplayers taking pictures of each other.

  Suki looked around eagerly, but she didn’t spot the gothloli girl until she stepped out of the crowd.

  “Suki-san?” the stranger said.

  “Kaguya-san?” Suki exclaimed. “You’re so small!”

  She wasn’t wrong. The figure that stepped out was hidden behind a butterfly mask and buried in an elaborately detailed puffy dress that was at least as wide as she was tall. It was hard to tell anything about the girl behind all that, but judging just from the height, she looked all of twelve years old.

  “Yeah, it’s me. C’mon, I arranged a place where we can talk.”

  They followed the girl through the crowd of spiky-haired teenagers and unrealistically buxom fashion victims. Kaguya led them to a place called the Sugar Spoon.

  “A maid cafe?” Harue exclaimed. “This is my kind of secret meeting!”

  “I booked a private room,” Kaguya explained. “We won’t be overheard.”

  The first thing James noticed when he entered the shop was all the maids. Which, yeah, maid cafe. To be expected. The next thing was that the nearest half-dozen had all oriented on his group and were bowing.

  “Welcome home, masters and princesses!” they chorused.

  After the greeting, the others turned back to their tables, and one of the maids came forward. She had pink hair in a cute bob and green eyes—James thought they might be contact lenses. Like all of them, she was wearing a French maid’s dress, edged with white lace. James was a little surprised to note that it went down to her knees. He’d thought maid cafes were a little more… scandalous.

  “Welcome, welcome, masters and princesses, to Sugar Spoon Café! I’m your maid for today, RinRin Macaron, sweet and fluffy just like a macaron! Please take a seat and let RinRin sprinkle some sugar magic on your day!”

  “We have the private room,” Kaguya said. RinRin bowed and clapped her hands.

  “Of course, Kaguya-hime, I will take you right there!” she said brightly. “If you will all follow me?”

  “James, you should be aware that these ladies are packing,” Mitsue said quietly. Not quietly enough, as RinRin gave him a flat look.

  “I’m afraid, young Master, that this establishment does not offer those sorts of services. As such, the gender of your hostess is not open to speculation.”

  Mitsue blinked. “I was speaking of the weapons they are carrying,” he said.

  “Oh! Apologies for the misunderstanding!” RinRin bowed deeply. “All of our maids are armed, of course, for the protection of our Masters and Princesses.”

  “Is that… normal?” James asked the others.

  “Maybe in America,” Harue said. “But we have gun laws here. Kaguya-chan, are these… ladies… part of your group?”

  “Chan?” Kaguya shot Harue a dangerous look. “And no, they’re what you might call… fellow travellers.”

  “We’ve been trying to recruit Kaguya-hime for ages!” RinRin said chirpily. “She would look absolutely adorable in a maid uniform.” She opened a door and ushered them all inside, handing them a menu as they entered. Once they were all seated, she stood in the doorway and bowed once more.

  “The green button in the middle of the table will summon one of your servants,” she explained. “The blue button will light up when a maid wishes to enter. If you press it, the door will unlock.”

  She made a cute pout. “We’d prefer to be summoned with a bell, but…”

  “Privacy,” Kaguya said.

  “Precisely. Did any of the young Masters and Princesses wish to make an order now?”

  “We never got to eat on the train,” Suki said, looking apologetically at Kaguya.

  “It’s fine, it’s what they’re there for,” Kaguya said with a shrug.

  “In that case, I’ll have the Bunny-bunny Omrice and a Magical Girl Soda,” Suki said.

  “I’ll have the…” Mitsue paused, forcing himself to say the words, “Nyan-nyan curry and a kitty-cat latte.”

  “The same as him,” James said, chickening out.

  “And I’ll have the Magical Sparkle Sundae Explosion!” Harue declared. “With a Unicorn Pretty-Pretty Milkshake.”

  “Excellent choices!” RinRin said. “The blue light will come on when the meals are ready.” She bowed again and then backed out of the room, closing the door behind her.

  “So, Kaguya-san,” Mitsue said carefully. “This maid cafe is a terrorist organisation?”

  Kaguya scowled. “People use that word too freely. Do they attack civilians to provoke fear and elicit political change? No. So they’re not terrorists.”

  “Unlike Scarlet Moon,” James said disapprovingly. He remembered the reports that Elidor-san had given him.

  “Eh, we don’t go out of our way to kill civilians who aren’t Kotodama staff,” Kaguya said, shrugging. “But mass deaths associated with Kotodama facilities do a lot to discourage governments from working with them. So it’s fair.”

  “I don’t love that you’re killing people,” Suki said softly. “But I think I understand it.”

  Kaguya winced, but Mitsue wasn’t done with his question. “What are they then, the maids?”

  “Eehh… I guess you’d call them a revolutionary front?” Kaguya said hesitantly. “They’re biding their time, spreading their influence, and when they think they’ve got a shot—bam! Take over the government.”

  “Is that… do they… why?” Suki asked, trying to fit a dozen questions into one sentence.

  “Ask them if you want to know. I tend to tune them out when they talk about the glorious purpose.”

  The blue light came on, and Kaguya let the maids back in to serve the food. Most of the dishes were standard meals with a little decoration, though Suki’s omrice rated a special performance from RinRin.

  “Sugar, sugar, spoon and moon,

  Make it sweet and ready soon!

  Kyun kyun, hop and pop and swoon!

  Moe moe—love for you!”

  Suki watched the performance with wide eyes, while Kaguya looked on with thinly disguised impatience.

  Then they brought Harue’s sundae in. It needed its own tray, because it was served with two lit sparklers, stuck in at forty-five-degree angles.

  That can’t be food-safe, James thought, watching the sparks fly off in all directions. Or even regular-safe. Isn’t it a huge fire risk?

  Harue didn’t seem to care, clapping and squealing with delight as the extravagantly embellished dish was put in front of her. They did take the sparklers out at that point, extinguishing them in cups of water brought for that specific purpose.

  Everything was meticulously choreographed, complete with cute giggles and artful poses.

  Are these girls really revolutionaries? James wondered. They didn’t look like it, but he supposed that was the whole point.

  Then, with a few more giggles, a swirl of skirts and some more bows, the maids were gone.

  “Do you think it’s magically delicious?” Suki asked, taking an exploratory scoop of rice.

  “I felt a bit go in, yeah,” Harue said. “Probably doesn’t compare to your boyfriend’s love extraction.”

  James flushed at the sly grin that the fox-girl—disguised as a forty-year-old man—gave him. Then she returned her attention to what, if one was devoid of any sense of proportion, could be called an ice cream.

  “Now sugar… that has a magic all of its own,” she said, and took a big scoop.

  Kaguya sighed. “It should be safe to remove your masks for a little while,” she said. Suiting actions to words, she removed her butterfly mask.

  James, about to take her advice and remove his, froze. Suki gasped.

  “What happened to your eye?” she exclaimed.

  It was rude to stare, but James couldn’t help it. Kaguya had the face of an angelic child. Framed by her long, silvery-white hair, she looked innocent and pure, nothing like the terrorist James knew her to be.

  However, that wasn’t what had made Suki gasp. Kaguya’s left eye socket was completely covered over by a sculpted curve of silver. It blended into her pale flesh as if it had been grown over.

  Kaguya grimaced. “Nothing happened to me,” she said. “I was born… built… made like this.”

  “That’s… hard to believe,” Suki said. “Master was always about perfection. I can’t imagine him allowing a doll to go out without a symmetrical face.”

  Kaguya sighed. “I’m only saying this because you’re my sister, all right? The rest of you better keep it quiet. Even my team doesn’t know the story.”

  James nodded in nervous agreement when she glared at him, as did Mitsue. Even Harue looked serious when she agreed.

  “I was never destined for the Garden,” Kaguya said. “I was made to be a weapon. This was back when Haruko was still working with his daughter.”

  “I’m jealous,” Suki said. “It’s so easy for you to say Master’s name.”

  “Yeah, he’s increased the severity of his controls since I went rogue. I still can’t act directly against him, however. If I showed up at his Garden to give him what he deserves, it would only take one word to shut me down.”

  “That’s why you attack Kotodama Heavy Industries?” Mitsue asked. “Because you can’t attack him directly?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, I hate Kotodama Aiko just as much for what she’s done to me,” Kaguya said bitterly. “But the Old Man is untouchable. He stays holed up in his compound and only ever sends out Doll emissaries.”

  “But what does any of this have to do with your eye?” Suki protested.

  “Oh, that. I was a project that they both worked on. This—” she tapped the covered eye socket, “—is where Aiko’s half is kept.”

  “So, you’re half mechanical and half magical?” James asked.

  “Solid state, no moving parts,” Kaguya replied. “And the electronics are enchanted too, I think? It’s not like I got to read my manual.”

  “Do the electronic parts give you different capacities from Suki and the other Dolls?” Mitsue asked.

  “It’s—” Kaguya started, but she broke off when she noticed the blue light come on. “Did everyone get their orders?” she asked.

  “Yes!” Harue answered for them all. She was leaning back on her seat, a beatific smile on her face. She was about halfway through her sundae.

  “I do not believe it,” Mitsue said. “We’ve finally found a way to keep Harue quiet.”

  “Only until I develop a resistance!” Harue declared. “This… is a challenge I will overcome!”

  She took another spoonful of sundae before slumping even further back. Kaguya looked at the disguised fox-girl disdainfully before pushing the blue button.

  RinRin poked her head through the door. “A thousand apologies for the interruption, Kaguya-hime and our other honoured patrons. But the troublesome guests you warned us about have entered the premises.”