By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

We may have finally drained the Avian well dry (or maybe not – I hear there’s another spinoff just started that features them), but that doesn’t mean we’re going back to the main girls for these short stories. In fact, as the cover might suggest, the main girls, with one or two minor exceptions, don’t appear in this story at all. That’s because, despite the formatting, this really isn’t a short story collection at all, it’s a prequel, dealing with Inferno, the spy group Klaus was drafted into years ago, and how they trained him to be what he is today, as well as hinting at their tragic downfall. It honestly may be the best collection to date, and despite the ending being as sad as you’d expect (I am thankful the writer did not go full Se7en on us, but it was close enough that I did not like it), most of this can best be described as heartwarming or funny. Mostly as Inferno have adopted a feral cat. Named Klaus.

In a prologue, we see Guido, who we know well from the start of this series, coming across a terrifying monster who steals food and leaves it with kids. This turns out to be Klaus, who is ten years old and turns out to have been named by Guido. Klaus is feral, and I mean that sincerely. Over the course of the book, we get the other members of Inferno giving their brief opinions of Klaus (they like him, with the exception of the tsundere in the group), we get four stories. 1) Guido takes Klaus on his first mission, taking out a gang, as well as its leader who is busy trying to train his eldest daughter Sybilla to be a murderer; 2) Gerde takes Klaus on a mission to see who is killing a politician’s allies, and Klaus starts to gain empathy; 3) the twins take Klaus to another country to learn how to read people and also the fine art of triple crossing, and 4) Heide and Klaus go to see why their agents keep disappearing, and Klaus learns some unfortunate things. Well, unfortunate for him, Heide seems happy.

Heide was probably my favorite part of this book (and I was highly amused at the author writing it so that it made emotional and storytelling sense that they had sex, while at the same time leaving an out just in case it needs to be taken back later). Heide is an annoying older sister-style brat, but like a lot of those she is annoying out of love. Really, the whole group is great. Unfortunately, as Veronica points out, Klaus has gotten TOO close with them, too involved, and throughout this book we see her and Guido yelling at each other in the background, and we know how that turns out. The final story, written for this book (the other four were in Dragon Magazine) shows us where Klaus was when Inferno were wiped out, and the answer is “in a horror movie” essentially. Still, Klaus ends up taking the right lesson from his time with Inferno, and resolves to build a new family for himself. It’s really sweet, in a tragic spy sort of way.

Also check out the afterword, which has the author’s “stories that will never be written”, some of which are funny, and some of which are kind of creepy. The anime may have tanked this series,l but the books are still great.

By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Thrasher.

After the events of the last volume, which were dark but not as dark as the rest of the series, we’re back into pitch black with this volume, which does just about everything except kill one of the main cast off – and even that’s left up in the air at the end. It turns out, amazingly, that being a spy continues to be very hard! And that one of the few things harder than that is starting a revolution. Honestly, this particular book feels very relevant to our times right now in a way that I will try not to go into great detail about. Things aren’t helped by the fact that we’re down a good two-thirds of our regular cast. The team split up to do their big job at the end of the 9th volume, and it’s now over a year later, and they’re still split. Which is good news if you’re a fan of Sara, of course, as well as Erna and Annette, but fans of other girls will have to be patient.

The book consists of one main plotline interrupted by a subplot that happened before the start of it. The main plotline continues the adventures of Erna and Annette that we saw at the end of Volume 9, as they try to incite a revolution among the people, infiltrating an underground organization, investigating a very suspicious mine explosion, and trying their best to avoid getting noticed by Nike, who is the country’s top spy, and would absolutely destroy them. Oh yes, and Erna also has the added problem of Annette, who has basically resolved that she’s just going to get more and more evil as time goes on, and eventually will not be able to be held back. The subplot involved Sara, who objects to Klaus’ plan – not splitting everyone up, but pairing Erna and Annette, which she regards as a bad balance. Klaus takes the opportunity to show Sara how far ideals go in the spy world.

This is technically Sara’s book, despite the fact that the bulk of it is pretty much Erna’s show. I feel very bad for Erna, who after weaponizing her woobiefication finds that being a woobie is something that can happen whether she wants it to or not. By the end of this book she’s a wreck, but I’m sure she’ll get more opportunities for cool things later. Sara, probably not so much. Now, I am not so naive as to think that the author is going to kill off one of its more popular characters. I do, however, think Sara will probably sit the rest of this arc out. Which is fine, as this was a really killer performance by her. The theme of “you are a very competent spy but still about 5000 times less competent than everyone else” is a hard lesson to take in when you are trying to ensure everyone survives and lives happily every after, and it’s very Sara that she accepts the lesson and then decides to be an idealist to the end anyway. It’s no wonder that “big sis” Sybilla says about Sara, “She’s such a mom.”

By now you know what I’m going to say: next is a short story collection? Yup. Still, good start to this arc, which reminds you how difficult it can be to make folks understand who are the right people to hate.

By Takemachi and Tomari. Released in Japan as “Spy Kyoushitsu” by Fujimi Fantasia Bunko. Released in North America by Yen On. Translated by Nathaniel Hiroshi Thrasher.

I do have to admit, and I apologize for the rude language, that when I saw that the bulk of this short story collection would once again be devoted to the late lamented spy group Avian, my first reaction was to scream “OH, FUCK OFF!” at the book. I appreciate their tragic death, and I get that the author regretted doing it so fast before they got to write all the stories they had inside them for the group, but come on, I feel like we have gone down this well about eight more times than was really necessary. At least, that’s what I thought when I started the book. As it turns out, though, this is probably the strongest short story collection to date. The series itself tends to hide a lot of its most pivotal moments as a writing conceit, and the short stories have been dedicated to filling in what we missed. This includes finally giving everyone catharsis for what happened to Avian. Who are, by the way, still dead.

The wraparound story in this volume concerns Lan, the surviving member of Avian, who has become something of a leech around the halls of Lamplight. As they discuss what to do with her, we get four short stories: 1) Lily and Sara return to Lily’s old spy school, to find that most of those she went to school with are still there… and are ready to bully the shit out of her again; 2) Thea and Grete visit Pharma’s brother Holytree, who is also a spy, and has an enormous sister complex; 3) Erna guards Amelie as Klaus uses her to try to resolve the last plot arc, and Amelia tries to bond with Erna; and 4) There’s a festival in town, and everyone is going… except Monika, who is too busy castigating herself for her traitorous actions. And avoiding Annette still trying to kill her. In the end, Holytree asks for a chance to duel Klaus to the death, and shows both Lan and Lamplight a path forward.

The most satisfying of these stories may be the first. The bullying that Lily went through (and goes through again when she returns) is vicious and attacks her physical appearance, as always, but she’s gotten stronger, as well as craftier – and Sara is now in her corner, and not about to stand by and watch her friend get stomped. It was VERY satisfying to see their revenge. Sybilla also really comes off well in this book, being the “big sister” of the group in more than one story, and reminding folks what it means to really be a big sister, more than anything else. We still don’t see the actual conversation between Monika and Lily, but we do see that Lily is taking it seriously, and agonizing over her response. My favorite story may have been Erna’s, though, as she shows that you can have compassion and empathy and let that lead you to the right decision… much to Amelie’s disappointment.

All this and a battle royale crying/punching match. If you’ve been skipping these side stories, this is definitely one to read anyway. Especially as the next volume’s not till next year.