Daniel Haley and the Immortal Ninja

by Caleb Karger

  My hand fumbled and grabbed a toaster; I swatted her head with it. She snatched a pot and brought it down on my shoulder. I shuddered and tried to scurry away. She grabbed my shirt and pitched me through the window, sending me soaring through the air outside.

  I was about to go through another building. I summoned what energy I had. I threw myself into an inhuman speed. I turned sideways and ran across the building, moving too fast for gravity to affect me. I leaped towards the safety of a rooftop lower down.

  The moment I hit the roof, I was pulled back into a normal speed and skidded across the surface. The skin on my hands and knees was torn off. My uniform frayed to bits. I wailed as I tried to get up. I felt like there was an elephant on my back. My arms wobbled. Pain swelled from a zillion cuts and sprains. My insides were all mashed. All I could manage was coming to my knees.

  A second later, I heard my enemy land quietly on the roof. She strolled towards me. Fighting me had taken nothing out of her, while I felt like a human punching bag. She knew I was weak and didn’t hesitate to take advantage of it.

  She thrust one of her swords at me. The ice-cold blade dug into my chest. A blinding, stinging pain sunk into the surrounding tissue. It felt like sitting in a bucket of ice for too long. She snapped the hilt off of the blade. Blood spilled free from the wound, soaking the front of my uniform.

  I wavered on my knees. My body shuddered from the shock. I was stunned. I’ve been stabbed…I’m bleeding. I stared at the wound and wondered when I was going to wake up. I toppled over, unable to hold myself up anymore.

  The cold blade sucked away my body heat. No matter how hard I fought against it, the cold was overwhelming me again. The amount of energy it took to try to stay warm drained me. My eyelids grew heavy. I wanted to take a nap, at least a nap. I needed to rest for a few hours…a few centuries…forever.

  I heard heavy footsteps. It sounded like a giant walking up beside me. That hideous, twisted mask peered down at me. I was suddenly angry because that was not the last thing I wanted to see before I took a nap, I’d have nightmares. She didn’t say anything. She just watched me like a kid who had cut a worm in half.

  Then she raised her foot and brought it down against my knee. The bones snapped, lightning shot up my leg. I tried to shout, but screaming made my crushed throat worse. She laughed at my pain and set her foot on my stomach. She slowly, but steadily, applied pressure on my organs. I imagined they looked like balloons someone kept squeezing and twisting until they popped.

  I could almost hear her in my mind whispering, “You’re going to die today, Daniel.” Big, watery tears flooded my eyes. All of my hard work had been for nothing. I still wasn’t good enough. I let my family down; I let my teammates down. Most of all, I let Katherine down. I was going to leave her just like everyone else she’d cared about. I didn’t want to imagine what pain that would cause her.

  Icy, vengeful misery surged through me. I was lying in a pool of cold blood. No matter what strength I summoned, it wouldn’t be enough. This enemy was faster, stronger, and a more experienced fighter than me. I couldn’t beat this girl.

  If my life was a movie, I imagined this was the part where I would have visions in my dying state. I would imagine all of the bullies who ever told me I was worthless. I would remember all of the times someone said I couldn’t do something because I wasn’t good enough. I’d be overwhelmed with a sense of strength and just enough will to go on…but none of that was happening.

  My body was done.

  I closed my eyes, and I felt myself slipping away. I didn’t know where I was going but anywhere else seemed better than being in my body right then. One by one my senses shut down until all I had was my hearing.

  I could hear everything around me; the ringing swords, exploding arrows, people screaming, people crying and drawing their last breath. The city was getting torn apart. Windows fractured and walls crumbled. When morning came, people would scratch their heads in wonder at why downtown looked like a war zone.

  I stretched my ears’ ability. I tried to pick up noises further and further away. I searched for something familiar. At last, I caught a voice that I’d recently heard.

  “Keep pushing; we’ll have them surrounded!” Commander Argo shouted. I heard thunder and buzzing electricity. What could that be? Was it lightning?

  Mere feet from him it sounded like a giant game of whack-a-mole. A boulder was pounding the road and squashing enemies. I heard Katherine exhale tiredly from the effort.

  Someone ran towards them. Whoever it was, sounded like they had a broken ankle, but was moving as fast as they could anyway. “Commander!” Lily said. “Commander! Kaine is in trouble!”

  A boulder dropped with a vehement thud. “What?!” Katherine said. I heard Lily fall to the ground, no longer able to stay on her injured ankle. Katherine must’ve grabbed Lily’s shirt. I could hear the fabric straining under her grip. “Lily, where is he?!”

  “She got him alone.” Lily had to stop to suck in a deep breath. “He’s on a rooftop. It’s bad! You have to go! You have to help him; I don’t know how long he has!”

  “Juniper—” Katherine said.

  “I’m with you,” Juniper said. Wasting no time, I heard them leap from the street to the top of a building. “How’re we supposed to find him in all this?”

  “We’ll just have to move quickly!” Katherine said. Her voice quivered. Her feet thundered across the rooftop, moving at a speed light that would make jealous. “Please, don’t let me be too late,” she whispered to herself.

  She’s coming, I thought with relief. Everything will be okay.

  My relief was short-lived. My limp body started to spasm. My brain wasn’t registering the pain signals; there was no point in bothering to listen anymore. I lost sensation. I didn’t have minutes; I didn’t even have seconds left. My body already turned off. I felt weightless. Whatever tied me to my body was severed. I was free to float away. I drifted out of my body until I was staring down at myself from above.

  No! No! I can’t die! Not now! I can’t leave her!

  I grasped my body and buried myself back inside. I felt like someone trying to get their battery drained cell phone to turn on. I struggled to move my limbs, and nothing happened.

  Get up…GET UP!

  I screamed internally. I demanded that my body move. My spirit felt like it had gotten set on fire. Heat radiated outwards, filling all corners of my physical body. I started to glow. Flames danced across my sword.

  It was only by the sheer will of my mind that I fought to sit up. Using my sword like a cane, I got onto my one good leg. I saw the Betrayal standing on the ledge to watch the rest of the battle still raging. She turned around slowly, mystified that a corpse had just stood up. I’m sure she didn’t attack because she wanted to see what I thought I could do in my damaged state.

  “How…are you still standing?!” she said.

  “You don’t l-leave…the people you love…” My voice strained. I doubted she could hear me, but at that point, I was talking to myself. “I won’t let anything take me away. Not you. Not death. Nothing.”

  “Love?” She laughed. “Love doesn’t exist. There’s only getting what you want out of someone and then leaving when something better comes along.” I shook my head. “Don’t be naïve.”

  I ignored her words. I knew what I felt was real. Without it, there was no way I could’ve gotten off of the ground. It flooded through me, feeding the flames on my sword.

  I willed the flames to spread across the rooftop. The fire surrounded the Betrayal. She didn’t bother to move. Her icy body protected her. Whenever the fire got close to her, it fizzled out. The flames morphed into lava and slapped sloppily onto her body. She tried to take a step back but was unable to. Lava crept up her legs and her arms encasing her in it. I focused on the intensity of the heat until it broke through her coldness.

  She screamed in outrage that my heat was overtaking her. I could see smoke coming away from her body. She was beginn
ing to burn. No matter what she tried she couldn’t get free, and she couldn’t overwhelm the heat.

  I raised my sword into the air and created an immense fiery tornado. I charged it with whatever I had left, all of the feelings I’d kept buried deep. The fire burned so brightly it hurt to look directly at it. Then I sent the inferno shooting towards the Betrayal. She was swept up and thrown far, far away. Her dark shape got lost against the night sky. The fight was over.

  My sword clattered onto the rooftop. I could no longer hold it, and my leg couldn’t bear my weight. I braced myself as I collapsed.

  Someone had caught me before I hit the roof. Their gentle arms guided me down softly and placed my head in their lap. I wanted to smile when I saw Katherine looking down at me. Her fingers stroked my cheek. Yeah…this is worth living for.

  Juniper crouched down beside me. Her fingers poked all of my injuries. The pain had spiked before a tingling sensation replaced it then it ceased. I felt the cuts stitching themselves shut and my bones mending together.

  “There’s a blade buried in here,” Juniper said. Katherine waved her hand, and the broken sword popped out. Juniper touched the wound, and it closed. I gasped when my throat got healed. I couldn’t take in enough air. I no longer felt like I had to sip it through a broken straw. After a minute, I was back to normal, if not a little better.

  “Thanks,” I said. I ran my hands over my chest. I still expected things to be cut up and was baffled to see the wounds were gone.

  “You’re pretty durable. I wasn’t sure what we were going to find. I’m glad we weren’t too late,” Juniper said as she patted my shoulder. She stood up and wiped the blood from her fingers. “I’ve got to go see who else needs help.” We watched her jump away.

  Now that we were alone, I sat up awkwardly and turned to Katherine. For once, the look in her eyes didn’t seem guarded. I could tell there was a lot she wanted to say to me. She didn’t know where to start. So, instead, she pulled me into a tight hug. I felt her slowly crushing my lungs. She was shaking. She hugged me like she wasn’t sure I was there.

  “I told you I wasn’t going anywhere,” I said. She couldn’t resist laughing. She let go and tried to wipe the tears from her eyes sneakily. “It’s okay…”

  “These are tears of anger. Later, I’m going to punish you brutally for getting separated from the team,” she said.

  “Yeah, I figured you would.”

  “I don’t want to break up this happy reunion, but we’ve got a job to finish,” Argo said, suddenly beside us.

  We got to our feet. I stood back, not sure what the commanders were about to do. I saw that the fighting on the rooftops had ceased. Betrayals were jumping across the buildings in retreat now.

  Katherine raised her hand in the direction of their escape. The entire city rattled, and my whole body vibrated. A huge rock wall jutted out of the ground, blocking their path.

  Argo raised his sword. The blade was black like mine, but it started to glow a brilliant teal. Electricity crawled across his hands and onto the sword. A clap of thunder struck my ears, sounding like a bomb going off right beside me. Lightning shot away from the tip of his sword. It streaked in a hundred different directions like the legs of a spider. It zapped Betrayals one by one until they all fell over.

  Katherine took a calming breath. She lowered the colossal wall. I heard what sounded like stone puzzle pieces coming together. I peeked over the ledge to see the broken streets getting repaired with new pavement. Cars flipped upright, their crumpled shells popped out and became smooth. Busted light posts floated through the air and returned to their places. Vines twisted out of the ground, grabbed the bodies that littered across everything, and took them deep into the earth. All of the wreckage disappeared. Everything—except things made of glass, plastic, and such—had been restored. Once Katherine was done, the city fell eerily silent.

  “Thanks for your help,” Katherine said as she turned to Argo. He squeezed her shoulder.

  “Anything for you,” he said. I frowned and gave him the stink eye. He tipped his hat to me. “Take care, fire guy.” I grumbled a response, but he’d already sped off.

  Katherine stood still as she watched a streak of blue appearing on the horizon. Dawn would be here soon. “Hopefully they took a substantial hit tonight. Maybe, if we’re lucky, they’ll leave us alone for a while,” she said, then looked down at the unlit streets. “Preservation should be on their way to get the power back on.”

  “Will Hot Stuff and Castile be alright? Have you seen them? And what happened to Kavi?” I asked.

  “Juniper healed him. The others were taken to the base, I…I don’t know if they’ll recover,” she said and closed her eyes in pain. I rubbed her shoulder.

  “They’re tough. I know they’ll find a way to come out of it.” I yawned and wobbled side to side. I was ready to tuck myself into a corner and fall asleep. “I’d hate to ask this right now, but do you think you could give me a ride home?”

  Epilogue

  I slapped a paint brush against the side of the house, a streak of blue trailed behind the bristles. The sudden growl of a powerful engine interrupted my focus, and I dropped the brush. I glanced back to see a red Saleen pull up to the house. A burst of euphoria shot through my veins. I jumped down from the ladder as Katherine got out of her car.

  “Hey,” I said but halted halfway to her when I saw what she was wearing. It was something anyone could buy at a souvenir shop, a Colorado state flag T-shirt.

  “Yeah…I know, but I had to mark the occasion,” she said.

  “The occasion?”

  She nodded. “It’s official. I am now a Colorado resident. I was just bringing the last box of stuff over when I found something.” She opened the passenger side door and shuffled around a cardboard box. Whatever she grabbed, she held it behind her back and came closer to me. “Close your eyes and hold out your hands.”

  “Really?”

  I shrugged and did as I was told. She put something metal into my hands. When I opened my eyes, the camera that had gone missing from my room rested in my palms. I powered it up to see the video of Katherine sneaking into my room was still on it.

  “I was wondering what happened to this.” I smiled as I remembered how terrified I was and how sure I was that I was going to die that night. It seemed so far away and silly in comparison to what had happened recently.

  My eyed wandered back to her ridiculous shirt. Part of me was excited that she’d meant it when she said she was moving here. But another part of me was hesitant. Was she doing it because we’re friends, or was she trying to keep an eye on me?

  “C’mere.” She took my hand, and we sat down on the house’s front steps. “Is everything okay?” I rubbed the spot on my chest where I’d gotten hit with the Betrayal’s arrow. The skin there seemed to be perpetually cold now. “Are you still shaken up from the fight—which I expect—it’s not every day a horde of people tries to kill you.”

  I watched an ant crawl around the edge of my shoe. “Don’t get me wrong, it’ll probably be awhile before I stop jumping at loud noises, but that’s not the worst part.” I pressed my hands together. “That night we were chased through the parking lot, did you know one of them was my dad?”

  Katherine sighed. “Daniel, you know I had no choice. I was trying to keep you safe. I’m sorry if you’re upset—”

  I shook my head. “I’m not. I just want to know.”

  A smooth stone appeared in her hand; she flipped it over and over again. “Yes, I knew.”

  I flinched and buried my face in my hands. “So what she showed me was true.”

  “What did the hologram tell you?”

  “Doesn’t matter…that’s not what’s been bothering me anyway,” I said. “It’s the other stuff she told me. Like what she said about you pretending to be my friend.” She frowned and her shoulders slowly fell. “To me, that makes more sense because I just don’t see what there is to like about me. And it was so easy for you to lie to me on
ce, how can I ever know if you’re sincere or not?”

  “First of all, I only kept your father a secret because sometimes when people find out that their parents aren’t these great people, they think they’re condemned to the make the same mistakes. I didn’t want you to carry that weight around because it’s not true—you decide your destiny,” she said.

  “You told your superiors that you’d be able to keep me from becoming a threat, so in some way, you knew you’d be able to control me. What better way than to try to be my friend?”

  “If I were trying to manipulate you by pretending to be close to you, that plan would backfire the second you found out. You’d automatically distrust everything about me and the ninja and go to the enemy’s camp. That’s just a horrible plan, to begin with. I hope you know me enough by now to realize I wouldn’t do something so sloppily thought out,” she said.

  A smile tried to wiggle its way onto my face. “Good point. So if that wasn’t your plan, then what was?”

  “The truth was always my plan. I knew at some point you’d see that the ninja aren’t perfect and the Betrayals can sometimes be right—that there are no absolute villains or heroes. We’re a mix, and it’s up to us to decide what side we want to try to be the most. The masters didn’t want to give you the chance to choose. They thought it was too risky,” she said. “But they didn’t watch you like I did. They didn’t know you because if they did, they’d know you’re no risk at all. As I said before, you have a good heart.” She watched a car go past. “And you’re wrong by the way.”

  My brow scrunched up. “About what?”

  She placed a delicate kiss on my cheek and whispered into my ear. “There’re plenty of things to like about you.”

  Before I could respond, police and ambulance sirens blared from down the road. Katherine stood up and stared off in their direction. “They’re going to need help.” She jogged down to the sidewalk but stopped to look back. “I’ll race you there?”