There Was No Secret Evil-Fighting Organization (srsly?!), So I Made One MYSELF!
世界の闇と戦う秘密結社が無いから作った（半ギレ）

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Chapter 5: It’s a Raid!!

Volume 3: Tsukuyomi, the Dark Secret Organization

The honest truth was that if our fight against Tanioka-gumi was to become further complicated with World Shadows and whatnot, my brain would become fried trying to fully process all the developments.

I supposedly had the mysterious power to wake up the Seed within people by shaking it, but that process would take 5 to 10 days. Yep, this was exactly the same time frame that was needed for a transplanted telekimuscle fragment to take hold and mutate. There was simply no way of hurrying this process. So we decided to use this time to hash out the details regarding Tsukuyomi.

First off, Tsukuyomi would have to be a secret organization. As much as possible, it should be kept from the other Tsukimori-gumi members too.

Why?

To prevent a revenge loop from starting.

The yakuza were a species that cared a lot about their face. When punched, they have to punch back. When belittled, they have to bite back.

Once Tsukuyomi began retaliating against Tanioka-gumi, Tanioka-gumi would undoubtedly retaliate back. If that happened, Tsukuyomi couldn’t just turn over and accept the attack, which meant retaliation for retaliation for retaliation. There would be no escaping the cycle of retaliation.

However, if we kept our faces, names, and affiliation to Tsukimori-gumi a secret, then Tanioka-gumi’s target of retaliation would become limited to “the group of superpowered individuals of unknown identities,” which would exclude Tsukuyomi members in their daylight personas and the other members of Tsukimori-gumi. Tsukuyomi had to become a mysterious anti-Tanioka-gumi force with absolutely no connections whatsoever to Tsukimori-gumi.

…Or at least, so went the excuse that I had randomly made up because I myself wanted Tsukuyomi to be a “secret” organization. When I voiced it, however, Oyabun and Miyama were really touched by how “caring I was for my comrades” and expressed their agreement without a second thought, which caused me to feel rather guilty. However, even I had been kind of convinced by my own argument when I thought it up, and it did make logical sense, so I decided to just move on. Sorry that I’m so good at coming up with logical-sounding bullshit reasons to pull the wool over people’s eyes.

That aside, I also thought up the general roadmap for the Tsukuyomi vs. Tanioka-gumi fight, as well as the final conclusion.

To put it simply,

1) Steal money from Tanioka-gumi

2) Chuck their dangerous members into prison

3) Absorb Tanioka-gumi

It was with these three steps that Tsukuyomi was going to resolve the fight with Tanioka-gumi.

By stealing money from Tanioka-gumi and using that money for ourselves or for those who would support our cause, we would effectively be weakening Tanioka-gumi while strengthening ourselves at the same time.

We would secure damning evidence for the crimes being performed by the worst members of Tanioka-gumi, and then set things up so that they get arrested by the police.

After absorbing Tanioka-gumi, we would then slowly dissolve it. Reprehensible venues of income like kidnapping, drug pushing, and organ selling would be shuttered immediately, and we would rehabilitate sleazebag yakuza members into chivalrous yakuza.

Furthermore, just because I called it absorbing, it didn’t necessarily mean seizing the Oyabun seat of Tanioka-gumi. It was enough that we could puppet their Oyabun. Those who once ruled with power would be ruled with power in turn. Wasn’t that poetic justice?

Next, Miyama then came up with the Four Precepts that the dark secret organization Tsukuyomi was to abide by while following said roadmap.

1. Laugh!
   Regardless of what it is that’s being done, it is laughter that gives meaning to life.
2. Never forget that we, too, are evil!
   At the end of the day, Strangers are still illegal overstayers and illegal employees, and as such, evil. Just because we fight against other evil, it doesn’t put us on the side of justice, and pretending it does would be hypocritical.
3. Do not kill!
   When wielding a strength as powerful as superpowers, borders need to be drawn. As long as no one gets killed, most things can be smoothed over somehow.
4. Light to light, darkness to darkness!
   We must not cause trouble to everyone else who’s living an upright life. If we did not clearly separate our lives between the light and the dark sides of society, we would one day fall off the path as Tanioka-gumi did.

As long as the above-mentioned Four Precepts were abided by, anything went, be it surprise night attacks, scamming, breaking the law, or what have you. As somebody said somewhere, when peeking into the abyss, the abyss becomes a peeker back or something.¹ When fighting against Tanioka-gumi, we could not afford to limit ourselves to purely legal or well-mannered means. Adhering to such limits was what had gotten us into this predicament in the first place.

So, I suggested the roadmap, Miyama suggested the Four Precepts, and Oyabun suggested… that we all get tattoos.

With how vehemently he always denied being a yakuza in spite of how yakuza-ish everything about him was, I was confused as to why he would propose something that would only further exacerbate the misunderstanding.² His answer was, “To put it badly, to dissuade betrayal. To put it in a better way, to strengthen our bonds with each other.”

It came across to me as a rather dark reason for someone as saintly as Oyabun, considering how much money and effort he poured into helping other people. When he elaborated, however, it turned out that what he meant was to prevent himself from betraying us.

When I swore that I would believe in Oyabun even without getting a tattoo — and I meant every word of it — he shook his head before telling me of his past.

Previously, apparently he had been an actual saint. He got caught up in a new religion, which eventually granted him actual sainthood. Oyabun, who was a multimillionaire, was drawn to this religion that extolled the virtues of saving the common man. He did everything he could to help proselytize, and prayed very diligently. But one day, a great earthquake occurred where the main headquarters was located, causing it to collapse. In his shock and confusion, Oyabun ran away by himself, abandoning the voices crushed under debris that were crying for help.

Even the founder had abandoned his disciples, making a run for it with his money clutched to his chest, and everyone else had also been scrambling about, busy protecting themselves. Upon hearing his account, it was my opinion that Oyabun had done nothing wrong. He himself, however, thought differently. As someone who had always gone on and on about helping others, the fact that he had run away in self-preservation when he was really needed cast a dark shadow over his heart.

Shortly after that, Oyabun snapped when he learned that the founder and upper clergy were actually pocketing a large portion of the funds that they were gathering from the believers as capital for rebuilding. Before the eyes of all the believers, he destroyed the religion’s holy artifact and set it on fire, then proceeded to pull down the founder’s pants and give him a spanking so furious that he started crying for his mama. With the founder’s dignity completely lost, the religious organization fell apart, and Oyabun got arrested and sentenced to three years and eight months in jail for charges of inflicting bodily damage and property destruction.

The day he finally stepped back out into society just happened to be the day of the Super Water Sphere Incident. This time, he resolved to rely not on a god and to help not just a vague, faceless concept of “the common man,” but to use his own two hands and feet to help the people before his own eyes.

“And that’s why I know I might run away when it truly counts. But tattoos don’t fade, so I cannot run from them. I cannot run away from myself. Please, help me to anchor my resolve.”

So saying, Oyabun lowered his head. There was no refusing after hearing such a story, so all three of us ended up having the design that Miyama came up with — a yakuza crest that artistically portrayed a sacred lotus with a moon — inked onto our arms.

Thinking about it afterwards, getting this tattoo actually was a great milestone for me. It etched into my mind, more effectively than any other means, that I was now no longer an Amaterasu member, but a Tsukuyomi member. Abandoning Tsukimori-gumi and Tsukuyomi was no longer possible. If I did, I would die of regret every time my tattoo came into my sight.

As an aside, the one who inked our tattoos was Tsukimori-gumi’s in-house back-alley doctor, the one who supposedly found meaning in life from playing with human lives. True to the rumors, he turned out to be a true degenerate indeed.

◇ ◇ ◇

Well then.

One week after the founding of Tsukuyomi, Oyabun and Miyama awakened to their superpowers under the light of a full moon.

Thanks to both of their superpowers being the easy-to-understand kind, we managed to notice their effects pretty quickly.

Tsukimori Tsuyoshi had a self-strengthening superpower, so I named his mutated telekimuscle ‘mukimukin³.’ When he activated it, he would feel power surging within, and it made him a bit stronger. His grip strength went up from 91kg to 92kg. It remained to be seen to what extent he could strengthen himself with subsequent training.

Miyama Kyousuke had a sound-emitting superpower, so I named his mutated telekimuscle ‘soundpamin.’ Even without opening his mouth, he could emit a sound with the loudness of a mosquito’s wings. Loudness of the sound was one thing, but apparently he could also intuitively change what sound he made, just as if he was whistling. Depending on how it was used, this was a superpower that seemed very suitable for getting up to no good.

However, the two of them had only just discovered their powers, and their respective growth rate was as yet undetermined. They were going to have to only focus on fundamental training for a while. The ETA to Tsukimori-gumi’s collapse was 2 months and 3 weeks. A lot of factors remained uncertain, but it seemed like we might be able to get those powers of theirs to a usable level barely in time.

I had already earmarked the perfect target for our first raid and scouted it out with telekinesis. The head of this specific Tanioka-gumi office was the kind of person who would feel uneasy without tons of cold, hard cash in easy reach, such that he always had at least ¥20 million stored in the office safe. Of the ten people who frequented the office, there were only three or four of them inside at any given time. They possessed knives and stun guns, but no actual handguns. To make things even better, this office was located in a quiet residential area, which meant there was very little foot traffic around at night. The clincher was that the head had apparently performed a faux pas that left him at odds with the main faction inside the gang. As such, even if we were to burgle the place, there was probably a fifty-fifty chance that the main Tanioka-gumi would just pretend like nothing had happened.

Twenty million would be enough to tide us over for a while. Although this plan made for a rather modest starting shot of our retaliation, it was the perfect target for our first battle.

And yet.

“Thank you! Thank you! You are our savior!”

Before my eyes, a blond lady was crying while clutching Oyabun’s hands in her own and bowing profusely.

A mere minute ago, she had rushed into the Tsukimori residence, wailing about how Tanioka-gumi had kidnapped her daughter. Supposedly, the little girl was being held in a Tanioka-gumi office, and if the mother did not prepare a ¥5 million ransom, the girl would be sold off to another country. Upon hearing this, Oyabun promised to go save her immediately. Miyama affected a dashingly gallant nod in spite of his jiggling double chin in response to the look that Oyabun shot his way, whereas I simply clutched my head in consternation. The location that the woman mentioned was the office of none other than the top brass who headed Tanioka-gumi’s militant arm.

Fuck! Fuck you and your “You are our savior!” shit! Our plans are completely shot to shit! Don’t bring us a mid-boss quest before we’ve even gotten started! I mean, none of this is your fault, it’s all Tanioka-gumi’s fault, but still!

I gestured Oyabun over.

“Oi, why did you accept on the spot?! We can’t afford a ¥5 million ransom! And you know as well as I do that even if we manage to scrape together ¥5 million and pay the ransom, they still wouldn’t give the girl back! It’s way too early for us to go on a raid! Superpowers that haven’t been trained are as useful as shit! We can’t help her!”

“Of the 300k that Aileen earns every month working at the maid cafe that I had introduced her to, she gives 100k back to us. A third! And the kidnapped little girl, Carol-chan? She’s drawn a portrait for me before. That’s a favor that I still haven’t paid back yet. Tsukimori-gumi is a benefit society, which means we help each other. We have been helped, so we must help back in turn. Objections?”

“Ugh…”

Seeing me at a loss for words, Oyabun doubled down on me.

“What are we?”

“The anti-Tanioka-gumi secret organization Tsukuyomi…”

“Then it should be clear what it is that we must do.”

“…To save Carol-chan from Tanioka-gumi.”

“That’s right. Go get ready, Yaku. We’ll be moving out soon. MIYAMA! Bring the car around!”

Oyabun dashed into the main residence while shouting out orders. Having completely lost the argument, there was nothing I could do but to just watch him go.

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

FUCK! All the preparations I’d made for a proper training arc has gone down the drain! And even if I set that aside, raiding the main office of the militant arm in our current state is pure madness.

Am I just imagining it, or have all the events that I’ve encountered after entering Tokyo’s underbelly society been bad events?

Everything could end nicely if I simply went ham with my telekinesis, but that was something that I must not do. Of course, the whole “why did you hide it even though you have so much power” questioning would occur, but more than that, providing a deus ex machina resolution here would be a terrible idea in the long scheme of things. Tsukimori-gumi and Tsukuyomi had to learn how to forge ahead on their own strength.

At the current rate, however, both of them were on course to crash and burn before they got the chance to attain the strength that they would need.

…Wait, hold on. I still have one last ace up my sleeve.

Baba’s always had a way to get me out of everything so far.

I telekinetically scoured the Tsukimori residence, found her patching clothes under the overhang of the main residence, and ran crying to her.

“BABA!! I’m sure you were listening. What should I do?!”

“It’s true that I was listening, but in this case, there isn’t really anything that can be done. With you suppressing your strength as Yaku, the chances of successfully bringing the girl back is one in ten thousand. You should probably start thinking out how to salvage the situation after the raid goes south. I’ll also start thinking.”

“Babaaaaa!”

So we have no plan. All we have are our superpowers.

Oh, screw this. What will happen, will happen.

Even though Oyabun and Miyama’s superpowers are weak as shit, if we take advantage of those superpowers smartly, we just might have a chance… yea, right, who am I kidding.

Guess I really should start thinking about the fallout.

The three of us hurriedly made our preparations, then hurried to the office in question, with Miyama driving. After parking the car in the closest coin parking lot and running for one minute, we had arrived. Sandwiched between a tombstone store and a funeral parlor was a three-story building that emanated a very fishy aura. Of those three floors, the first floor was an izakaya pub, and the second and third floors appeared to be office spaces.

In order to hide our identities, Oyabun was wearing a paper bag with eye holes cut out, and Miyama was wearing a traffic cone with eye holes similarly cut out. The two of them looked extremely suspicious, but the current state of Tokyo was such that a completely unrelated group wearing pumpkin masks just nonchalantly walked past us, even though the date was nowhere near Halloween. These days, looking suspicious was no longer abnormal. Oh, and by the way, I was wearing the lion dance mask that I’d bought from Bali all those years ago.

“This just came to mind, but if we raid this office with this timing with the express aim of rescuing Carol-chan, our individual identities aside, wouldn’t our affiliation be blatantly obvious?”

After all, Tsukimori-gumi was the only entity with a motive for making such an attack. Staggering from the exertion of the previous one minute of running, Miyama took deep breaths to calm his breathing first before answering me.

“We just have to make it so that they can’t name us even if they know it’s us.”

“What do you mean?”

While making final adjustments to the positioning of his paper bag mask, Oyabun prompted Miyama to elaborate on his suggestive-sounding statement.

“We’ll socially murder the head of this office. For example, after beating him silly, we’ll dump him somewhere conspicuous in a dress and tied up tortoise shell bondage style. We could even add a few empty alcohol bottles nearby to complete the picture. With how much the yakuza care about their face, do you think they’ll take revenge for a member who has been slapped with the label of being an absolute pervert? Of course they won’t. Rather, they’d immediately cut all ties and disown him. The disowned member himself, as well as his subordinates, would all be too ashamed to name any names.”

Oyabun was left completely speechless, whereas I burst into laughter.

It was a brilliant idea that smartly took advantage of how much the yakuza cared about keeping up appearances. If Tanioka-gumi rose up to take revenge, it would only lead to the rumor that Tanioka-gumi “harbored absolute perverts as top brass.” That in itself would undermine their dignity and cause them to lose influence.

The plan was perfect.

If only the chances of us losing the fight weren’t so damn high, that was.

For what it was worth, I questioned the two of them one last time.

“Final confirmation. I still think this is beyond us, but we’re still gonna do it, right?”

“I’m not stupid. But we have no choice but to do this, right?”

“After coming this far, you think we can just do an about turn and go home?”

“Okay, I won’t stop you guys anymore. So let me give a bit of advice then. Both of you have used your respective superpowers already today, so your mukimukin and soundpamin are both tired out. You will be able to use your powers only once or twice, so use them wisely.”

“Got it. But you can still use your superpower, right?”

“Well, yea.”

“Then you’ll be in charge of lookout and aiding our escape. It’d probably be impossible for us to knock out every single Tanioka-gumi member inside. Rather, we’ll probably be trying to exploit an opening to dash in, grab Carol-chan, and dash back out. So you keep an eye out against reinforcements, and help defend us from pursuers. Can you do it?”

“Roger, Oyabun.”

The setting that I was going with was that my telekinesis was only strong enough to lift a single person, and that my range was roughly as far as I could see (although my strength would weaken the farther away the target was). In contrast, Oyabun could walk while lifting up three people at the same time and throw things 50m away. Even I couldn’t tell whether it was strategically sound or not to assign me to the rear guard.

I kept a clairvoyant telekinetic eye on the two of them as they wordlessly entered the building,

The two of them passed right through the izakaya and headed straight for the stairs. A flashy-looking guy with brown dyed hair tried to stand in their way, but Oyabun merely pushed him aside. Straight up to the second floor they went.

On the second floor was three rooms. Miyama gestured towards the one with the sturdiest-looking door.

Let me see…

Before Oyabun reached the door, I telekinetically slipped in to scout it out first. True enough, there was a blond girl trussed up lying on the floor. There were tear stains on her face. Miyama’s guess had been right.

When Oyabun’s hand landed on the door knob, he found it locked. To move things along, I telekinetically destroyed the interior mechanism of the lock. Oyabun looked slightly suspicious at the knob suddenly going all loose, but there was no time to dwell on it, and so he threw the door open wide.

With a gallant entrance appeared Paper Bag Hero and Traffic Cone Hero.

Carol-chan’s eyes widened in fright. The next instant, she started trying to get away, squirming as best she could despite being tied up.

A cry of warning went out from the ground floor, causing the scary-looking faces of Tanioka-gumi’s militant arm to pop out of the woodwork.

The two intruders turned around.

Tanioka-gumi and Tsukimori-gumi stood silently for a brief moment, facing off against each other.

Battle, start!

Living up to their name as the ‘militant’ faction, the yakuza moved fast.

“nDAORA—!”

While shouting some random abuse that I couldn’t properly make out due to the guy not rolling his tongue properly, the first yakuza rushed towards Oyabun and threw a punch. Oyabun intercepted it head on and threw his own punch in a cross-counter. The yakuza reeled from the exchange, but Oyabun also stumbled a bit. Judging by his movements, it looked like the yakuza knew a bit of martial arts. Oyabun was way more buff than him, but apparently the yakuza had at least enough technique to make it a fair match.

Oyabun tried to take a smoke bomb out of his pocket, but then he took a sharp jab that caused him to drop it. The smoke bomb rolled out of the door and exploded on the staircase, causing cries of consternation from the floor below. He had successfully delayed the reinforcements coming from downstairs without intending to, but unfortunately, it did nothing to help his current circumstances.

After one look at Oyabun’s movements and his muscles, the yakuza all pulled knives out.

In response, Oyabun decided to use his trump card.

He closed his eyes and focused internally, activating his mukimukin to strengthen himself!

“HaaaAAAAHHHH!”

“Shove your ‘HAAH’ up your ass and die, you piece of shit!”

“Guah?!”

Oyabun, who had left his guard completely open while attempting to focus, ended up taking a kick from a yakuza straight in the gut.

Oh my god… that’s what happens when you try to use your superpower despite not being used to it! What’d I just say about using it wisely?!

Upon seeing Oyabun get done in, it suddenly struck me how I hadn’t seen Miyama do anything this whole time. When I looked over, I saw him with his eyes wide open from behind the eyeholes of the traffic cone, seemingly really focused on something.

Is… he trying to do something with his sound manipulation ability? I focused really hard on my telekinetic sense of hearing… and finally heard the sound of nails scratching a blackboard. However, it was so soft that it could be drowned out with normal footsteps. And true enough, it appeared that none of the yakuza were hearing it. Dude, it’d be louder if you just shouted normally instead of using your superpower.

“Die, fatass!”

“Boeh?!”

Having been pretty much just standing stock still, Miyama got stabbed with a knife in the stomach.

“I, I GOT STAAAAABED!”

“Shut the fuck up, you pig!”

As follow up, the screaming Miyama received a kick from a yakuza, causing him to slam against a wall.

Although he had indeed been stabbed, the magazines that Miyama had stuffed under his shirt and all his belly fat had actually prevented him from receiving a deep wound.

Even while screaming and flailing about from the shock of having been stabbed, Miyama still managed to crush one of the yakuza under his heavy body in a body press. However, the others immediately surrounded him and stopped him from rolling around anymore while raining down a hail of kicks on him.

While that was going on, Oyabun was also rendered immobile through joint locks.

There we go, total wipeout!

See, look at this!

I called it, didn’t I?

I CALLED IT, DIDN’T I?!

Just because you got superpowers the other day, it doesn’t automatically make you OP!

You’ve got to train those powers up first!

It doesn’t suddenly make you go, “Kuh, my powers are so strong that I can’t control them”!

Superpowers are fucking weak!

This world’s not so easy that you can immediately become an OP character right after awakening to a superpower!

Due to unnecessarily trying to use their newfound superpowers, Oyabun and Miyama had become even weaker than they would have been without said powers.

Everything’s over. Now that the situation has developed this way, it’s going to be nigh impossible to expect the two of them to make a comeback all by themselves. And even if I’m to rush in, me in my weakened state wouldn’t be able to handle all the enemies inside.

Should I just use telekinesis to just casually intervene somehow?

Just as I was about to casually cause a magnitude 6 earthquake⁴ as a diversion, a slim figure wearing a black mask shot past where I was observing the building from.

That figure leaped off of the nearby postbox to gain altitude, kicked off of the wall, shinnied up the rain gutter, and leaped into the second floor room through the window, all within a split second.

Everything had happened so fast that I could only stare in dumb astonishment.

Wh-What was that just now?

It’s a ninja! It’s a youkai!⁵ It’s Chris!!

The instant she leaped into the room, Chris had already drawn her kodachi⁶. She immediately rushed at the nearest yakuza in what was the perfect surprise attack. However, the extra momentum from jumping in caused her to miss her target, such that her sword ended up hitting the frame of the half-open door at a weird angle. With a snap!, the top half of her kodachi’s blade broke right off.

“…Ah, I, I’ve come to help! Fuhahaha! And with that, poof!”

Under the concentrated gazes of everyone present, Chris sheathed her broken kodachi, pressed her throat with one hand, and declared her intentions in a male-sounding voice. Then right afterwards, she slammed a smoke bomb against the ground.

I see, so this is what Baba meant when she said she would also think about how to salvage the situation! Thanks for the reinforcement, Baba! Even though the reinforcement seems to have messed up a bit!

The first one to react was Oyabun. The yakuza who was holding him had softened his grip due to being distracted, which made it easy for Oyabun to throw him off. He then immediately dashed over to scoop up Carol-chan, who was still on the floor in the middle of the room, and, without any hesitation whatsoever, leaped out of the nearest window.

I used telekinesis to soften the blow of his landing, before also lowering Chris and Miyama down gently. Seeing the yakuza thunder down the first floor in pursuit, Oyabun picked up a few of the tombstones lined up in front of the neighboring store and threw them at the izakaya’s door to slow their approach.

As all of us ran away under the eyes of the crowd that had gathered due to all the ruckus, Chris berated us in a huffy voice.

“How can you guys not include me in something so fun?! Everyone knows that a party without a ninja is doomed, right?!”

“Uh, never heard of—”

“Everyone knows it! And I proved it just now, didn’t I?!”

“U-Uh, kinda…”

“So with that, I’m a part of this from now on! And that’s final!”

Swept up in Chris’s momentum, the rest of us inadvertently ended up nodding our heads.

And in this way, the secret organization Tsukuyomi gained another member.

How reassuring, I thought to myself.

Next Chapter >>

Footnotes

1 Quote from Nietzsche: “He who fights with monsters should be careful lest he thereby become a monster. And if thou gaze long into an abyss, the abyss will also gaze into thee.” Very commonly referenced in anime, often with an incorrect interpretation (same as here). Though here, at least, the character using it clearly indicates his lack of interest in using the quote properly lol.

2 In Japan, the general image is that only the yakuza get tattoos. That’s why you have so many hot springs that ban people with tattoos from coming in, much to the chagrin of so many foreign tourists.

3 In Japanese, ‘muki muki’ means ‘muscular/brawny.’

4 For reference, the 2018 Osaka earthquake was magnitude 5.6, and Wikipedia has this to say about it: “Shaking from the earthquake was felt strongly in the prefecture and the nearby metropolitan areas of Osaka and Kyoto, temporarily disrupting electrical and gas service to 170,000 homes and buildings. The earthquake struck during rush hour, disrupting train services for several hours, and also damaged water pipes and hundreds of homes. Four people were killed, 15 serious injuries were reported and 419 people had minor injuries.”

5 Japanese catch-all name for all manners of ghosts and monsters and demons and phantoms.

6 A kodachi is a sword shorter than the usual katana. Although it was mainly used by samurai, animanga frequently mistakes it for a weapon used by ninja, likely due to both kodachi and ninjatou (what ninja supposedly actually used) being similarly “shorter than a usual katana.”