"The Girl Who Came in from the Cold" Ninja High School#5 (June 1988) with credits to James Hanrahan (script), Ben Dunn (pencils), Ben Dunn (letters), and Ben Dunn (editor)
We open at the airport. From the previous issue, Jeremy and Ricky are going to Japan for a bit.
Arriving in Japan, they quickly met their grandfather and his massive manservant Kuma; and whenever Jeremy brings up how familiar he looks Grandfather changes the subject.
The boys are settling in rather well, Ricky's screaming assault on the vegetables notwithstanding. Grandfather even takes Jeremy to see the snow cranes that visit his estate. It is there they notice one of the poor creatures has a broken wing.
Taking pity on the bird, they take it inside and set the wing. After a few days of TLC, they release it back to the wild. Jeremy seems wistful though.
Sometime later, as Jeremy and his grandfather spare, a knocking at the dojo door disturbs them. Jeremy opens it, and finds a nude woman, half dead from exposure. She begs for help before passing out.
When she recovers, she thanks them for the help. She gives her name, Kyoko Tadasuke, and says she's a computer programmer from Tokyo. Seems she was driving to Sapporo when some robbers attacked her. Grandfather's housekeeper finds her odd, while grandfather finds her familiar.
The next day, Jeremy is in a panic. Kyoko isn't in her room! Grandfather is nonplussed. Kyoko asked for privacy to work. She simply wanted to replay him for their kindness, so she whipped up a computer game. She enters the room and gives the finished floppy to the old man. Jeremy offers her a tour of the grounds.
As Grandfather plays the game, he muses how Jeremy and Kyoko would make a wonderful couple, wouldn't they? When Kuma reminds him of Ichi, Grandfather only responds with "so?"
His housekeeper, more on the ball than him, drops the mail by the old man. Seeing the letter Ichi sent snaps the old man out of his spell. Donning his proper ninja garb, he sneaks into Kyoko's room. Pity she was waiting for him, and she is more than a programmer. We don't get a good look, but her real form is enough to knock the old man back, plus make him unable to speak the truth.
He can still act, though, and gives Ichi's letter to Jeremy. Snapped free, he too barges into Kyoko's room and finds out the truth...
Rather moving. Based on the Japanese Tsuru no Ongaeshi myth, it rather plugs the NHS character in the story pretty well.
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