Full Metal Panic! Short Stories

Sagara Sousuke isn't your typical high school student. He reads military enthusiast magazines; he responds to questions with "affirmative;" he brings grenades to school in his bag. Though everyone at school takes him for a hopeless military geek, Chidori Kaname thinks there might be something more to him. When their plane is hijacked in the middle of a field trip, Kaname's instincts will prove correct: Sousuke is an elite, mech-piloting mercenary... and he's here to protect her!

Lifelong mercenary Sagara Sousuke’s struggles to fit in at a regular Japanese high school continue. He turns a turf war with delinquents into a hostage situation, investigates a local shrine for nuclear weapons, and sends a struggling rugby team through boot camp! He’s getting closer with his friend Chidori Kaname, too... but between almost losing an important assignment of hers—forcing them into a race against time to get home and back—and running recon on her first date with an old crush, he might be a little behind in the count! But however the game turns out, this is one batter that always swings for the fences!

Mercenary-turned-student Sagara Sousuke is here to solve any problems that might befall his new home front of Jindai High. He’ll investigate a threat to a schoolwide sports tournament, play unwitting cupid for two lonely teachers, and engage in a cat-and-mouse rivalry against a lunchtime saboteur! With his potential love interest (and eternal wrangler) Chidori Kaname by his side, he’ll also seek out the truth behind a haunted hospital and lay a trap for a fiendish after-school attacker—who forces women’s hair into ponytails! Life in Tokyo might seem like a circus sometimes, but ringmaster Sousuke is here to take control!

Having left his mercenary life behind for the peace and quiet of Tokyo, Sagara Sousuke is ready for the next chapter in his career... as a private investigator?! With his loyal(ish?) assistant Chidori Kaname at his side, he’ll apply his eagle’s eye to the murder of endangered snails at Jindai High, the potentially shady past of his overachieving student council president, and a new business that's moved in near the school—one that proports to indulge men’s greatest fantasies! Even when clues seem scattered to the four winds, Detective Sousuke is always on the case!

Sagara Sousuke might no longer be a mercenary, but there are still times when he’s called in to solve problems. With the endless support (and occasional fury) of Chidori Kaname spurring him on, he’ll negotiate peace between playground warring factions, fight a martial arts duel for control of a dojo, and lead a yakuza turf war—with mascot suits! But whether he has to track down a missing handbag (possibly full of biological weapons) or compete for the approval of a convalescing custodian, there’s no blaze that firefighter Sousuke can’t extinguish!

He may have survived the world’s most dangerous battlefields, but Sagara Sousuke is finding his tenure in high school to be no less intense. In addition to having to master new skills—navigating a romance for a karate-obsessed rival, subbing in as an actor for a tyrannical movie director, drafting a prospective student pamphlet for a special reward—his relationship with Chidori Kaname is becoming more complicated. After he participates in a girl hunt (to help out a friend, of course) and unleashes a biohazard in his homeroom class... if enemy snipers don’t put him in an early grave, Kaname just might!

Former mercenary Sagara Sousuke might just be getting comfortable with his life in Tokyo. After all, most students his age would love to go on a triple date with college girls, attend a drinking party in a house of welcoming foreigners, or take a day off while the school hosts a VIP... but then, things for Sousuke are never quite that easy. Not only does none of that quite go as planned, he also has to save a delinquent double agent from exposure and interrupt a late-night hot pot party to foil robbers at the school! No matter how the days might feel like heaven, Sousuke never fails to find a little slice of hell!

Sagara Sousuke has the skill and stamina to survive on the world’s most dangerous battlefields, but nothing he’s faced has tested his mind as much as life at a normal school in Tokyo. His latest challenges include diving head-first into a fantasy MMORPG, impersonating a celebrity (for whom he happens to be a dead ringer), and attempting to lead his class to victory against a wily culture festival rival. With Chidori Kaname involved every step of the way, it’s a job that would intimidate anyone... but even when he has to judge her in a school pageant competition, Sousuke always knows the angle to play!

As a former mercenary, Sagara Sousuke’s ordinary student existence in Tokyo sometimes feels unreal. One day, he’s mastering airsoft guns to battle the school’s survival game club. The next, he’s defending a convention of adorable mascots from a horde of angry metal-head hooligans. He’d like to help his friend, Chidori Kaname, escape her days of loneliness... but he might have to make do with helping her cleaning lady escape accusations of burglary! Will Sousuke’s “normal life” add up to nothing more than a flash in the pan? Stay tuned for the final volume of Full Metal Panic short stories!