Chapter 2: Mongoose to Hetare

“Urm...” A girl with long black hair looked at a map.

As she was in the middle of putting the map away, a glow of blue appeared near where she was standing.  Quickly stuffing the map away, she took her dagger and tried to look threatening to whatever came out.

She closed her eyes tightly at that moment where the light was the brightest. An’nin, Nobunaga, Miyu, Bunker, Shokaku, Sudachi, Messi, Yagi, and Jovijovich suddenly appeared on the spot. Opening her eyes again, due to the shock she jumped back and fell.

The girl had an interest in things that were from the so called ‘barbarian’ countries, but she was kind of intimidated by Team Mongoose and Nobunaga as well. Somehow getting up, she held out the dagger.

“If you’re trying to look intimidating, you’re failing. The dagger is sheathed.” Jovijovich muttered under her breath.

Nobunaga looked like she was going to laugh. An’nin gave Nobunaga an interesting look. The twintailed Sudachi was about to talk, but her ‘smarter’ other half Shokaku cut her off like always. Miyu sighed. Bunker didn’t really respond. Messi smiled and pet Yagi’s head.

Looking at the dagger, the girl finally realized that it was unsheathed. “Eh…”And then she fell in an overly exaggerated pose.

The partially Russian girl with the purple in her hair walked over to the girl who fell over. Jovijovich poked the girl’s head a few times. As one of the less likely to snap girls, she spent a while doing that. Eventually it got a bit aggravating and she flicked the girl’s head a couple of times.

“Ow!” Finally giving a reaction, the girl yelled out.

“Idiot.” She was about to kick the girl, but seeing the how lame the girl was, Jovijovich stopped.

Letting the girl get up, she glared at the others who were sheepishly looking away. Compared to the prison uniform, the girl’s clothing was completely different. It was like a kimono or yutaka of some sort with western modifications of a sort.

The girl knew that the dagger was useless, so she stashed it away into the backpack like bag. Sighing and sitting back down in seiza, she looked at the group of obviously suspicious people that unknown to her would be suspicious looking in any era.

“Um… Who are you guys?”

“That’s what we should be asking you. Plus your clothes are weird.”

Due to the fact that most people in Japan can’t understand Russian, it was all in Japanese.

Stuttering at first, the girl answered. “Um… My name is Sashihara Rino…”

Bunker was, probably unintentionally, giving her a sharp glare. Miyu smacked the golf girl, it’s a tsukkomi. Being Sudachi, she didn’t realize anything that was going on and urged Sashihara to continue.

“I’m just a merchant’s daughter that ran off trying to go to Owari because I’m interested in the so called ‘barbarian’ things…”

As she talked, her voice gradually got softer and softer, showing the lack of confidence she had. It seemed that Nobunaga had found it somewhat funny how it turned into a self-introduction moment and started to laugh to herself at the corner of everyone’s view. An’nin went along to make sure Nobunaga didn’t choke.

“Ah! That’s really nice!”

Shokaku smacked Sudachi for stupidly saying that with a smile. It’s unlikely that the girl knew what was going on.

“Is that so? You’ll probably have to take us with you, so nice to meet you Sasshi.”

Messi held out her hand to the girl after adjusting her glasses a bit. Sashihara was obviously lost and possibly crying in her mind due to the fact that she got a kind of simplistic nickname, but she took the hand anyways. Yagi growled at her in a friendly manner and smiled. She awkwardly smiled back.

For no particular reason, Miyu who was actually probably one of the most normal looking people out of the group of weird people in Sasshi’s eyes, decided to tell the heads of Mongoose and Habu what was going on. An’nin’s reaction was kind of dead. Nobunaga smiled like a puppy though. Her dark eyes were shining.

“Um… So you guys are going to go to Owari with me as well?”

“I think everyone has forgotten what our original question was…” The young girl grumbled to herself.

“Yeah why not?”

Nobunaga nonlachantly replied to her question. It could be said that she’s serious and carefree in excessive ways sometimes.

“Introductions?”

Sudachi asks if they should introduce themselves to Sasshi. Shokaku smacks her with a smile, but An’nin agreed. Well, that might just kind of be how life works with the duo.

“Why not? Why not? I’m Nobunaga.”

Nobunaga introduces herself with a smile. The others follow suit though not all smiling.

“An’nin.”

“I’m Miyu.”

“Sudachi!”

“Shokaku.”

“I’m Bunker.”

“My name is Messi.”

“Yagi.”

“Jovijovich.”

The part Russian girl had a pout on her face. Sasshi was obviously worried, worried in this case meant a bit scared. Anyone would be somewhat scared if someone that was about to kick you was pouting unhappily. Even though it was kind of noticeable that Sasshi was older than Jovijovich.

Jovijovich’s eyebrows were twitching. The glasses girl noticed but didn’t say anything. She whispered into Yagi’s ear about what was going on. The girl with the crooked teeth smiled, but kept silent. Despite her ‘I’m gonna eat ya’ personality, she was actually quite trustworthy.

“So what’s the year?” Messi smiles.

“I would expect you to know that at least… Eh! Don’t hit me! It’s 1559.”

Am I going to be stuck with these people until I get to Owari? I’m crying on the inside right now. What did I do to deserve this…? Could it be that the god of clothes is cursing me for modifying my clothes with ‘barbarian’ styles? I’m not even religious…

“Ah… Is that so…”

And as Sasshi wallowed in despair and the others had a slight look of surprise, Jovijovich thought to herself.

Oh… So we’re in the Sengoku Period or something? I’m going to be stuck with these guys and this weirdo for some time aren’t I? Somehow, I just get the idea that this doesn’t mean anything at all to them though.

Sashihara was a resident of the time period, so of course she didn’t really think that it was strange. The others were not. Jovijovich observed them and sighed. At the same time, Sasshi was sobbing in her mind. In a way she got ignored, attacked, interrogated, and forced to lead some random people to her destination.