After a century of brutal civil war has torn Japan apart, Lady Mochizuki Chiyome gathers together the most unlikely army imaginable to unite the empire and bring an end to the bloodshed: an army of girls clad in the red and white garb of miko, shrine maidens. An army of kunoichi. Together, these girls work as spies, as bodyguards, as assassins - going where no soldier could go, doing what no soldier could do. Here are six stories of the kunoichi, set before the award-winning Seasons of the Sword novels (Risuko and Bright Eyes):