by Unknown
Jack waited for the others to be served before drinking.
The Nightingale Floor sang again and everyone froze.
The woman slipped a fan from her obi, flicking open its black metal spine to reveal an exquisite handpainted design of a green dragon entwined in misty mountains.
‘It is rather warm,’ she commented, fluttering the fan in front of her face. ‘You must be thirsty.’
Jack, his mouth dry with dread at the approach of a second visitor, raised the cup to his lips.
The shoji slid open a second time and Emi entered.
‘My father was wondering where you all were,’ she said, her expression rather indignant at not having been invited to their private gathering. ‘He wants to… Who are you?’
Emi stared at the serving woman. ‘You don’t work here.’
Before anyone could react, the woman flung her tray at Emi, spilling the tea across the floor. The tray went spinning through the air like a large square shuriken and struck Emi in the neck. She collapsed to the ground, knocked unconscious.
‘Kunoichi!’ screamed Akiko, rolling away from the imposter.
‘Don’t drink it, Jack!’ Yamato cried as he slapped the cup from his hands. ‘Poison!’
Momentarily stunned, Jack could only stare at the tatami, which gave off tiny wafts of acrid smoke where the tea had been spilt.
‘Ninja?’ said Jack in disbelief, looking up at the beautiful woman before him. He’d thought only men were ninja.
The female ninja snapped her dragon fan shut and brought its hardened metal spine down on to Jack’s head like a hammer. Yamato threw himself in front of Jack, shoving his friend out of harm’s way, but the iron tip of the fan caught Yamato on the temple. He went down and stayed down.
Flipping to her feet, the kunoichi leapt over the prone body of Yamato and advanced on Jack. As she raised her hand to strike a second time, Akiko crescent-kicked the iron fan from the woman’s grasp.
The ninja immediately retaliated with a devastating sidekick to Akiko’s stomach, sending her flying across the room.
In that brief moment of distraction, Jack managed to scramble to his feet. Seeing his friends lying injured around him, his fury fuelled his strength as he went on the attack.
The female ninja retreated before Jack’s spinning-hook kick. She ducked while putting a hand to her head. Her hair cascaded down her back in a billowing black cloud and a bolt of lightning flashed out, straight towards Jack’s right eye.
Jack staggered backwards to avoid the sharpened hairpin, its glinting point flying past his eyeball.
She stabbed at his face a second time, but was way off target.
Jack watched as the steel pin passed to his left and suddenly Sensei Kano’s lesson ‘learn to fight without eyes’ came to mind. His eyes had instinctively followed the gleaming weapon, but the wild slash of the ninja had been a distraction tactic.
When he turned back to face her, she held an open palm to her mouth and blew a cloud of glittering black dust into his eyes.
Stung with a combination of sand, sawdust and pepper, tears streamed down Jack’s face.
His whole world went dark.
Jack had been blinded.
52
SASORI
‘Akiko! I can’t see!’
She dived across to protect him, and Jack heard the swish of the hairpin and the dull thud of arms colliding as Akiko blocked another of the kunoichi’s attacks. Jack thought he recognized the noise of Akiko retaliating with a front kick, for he heard the woman stumble away, groaning as if winded.
His eyes watered like acrid geysers and he had to screw them up against the pain. Without his sight, he could only follow the sounds of Akiko battling the kunoichi in the far corner of the room.
‘Watch out!’ cried Akiko.
Jack threw up his guard, blindly trying to make contact and use his chi sao skills, but the kunoichi evaded him. Focusing on the sound of her ragged breathing, Jack pinpointed where she’d moved to, but Akiko jumped between them to intercept an unseen strike from the ninja. Now Jack couldn’t attack in case he hit Akiko instead.
Behind him, he thought he caught the sound of a soft rustle from the silk wall hanging and the soft pad of a foot. Then Jack sensed the cedar dais upon which he stood give ever so slightly under someone else’s weight.
Jack spun round, keeping his guard up to protect his face.
His arms collided with a fist that had been aimed directly at the back of his head. Allowing his chi sao training to take over, Jack followed the curvature of his attacker’s arm and speared his fingers at the throat. His thrust was brushed aside with a countering block and strike. Instantaneously, Jack felt the trajectory of the counter and deflected it with an inner block, rolling his arm over his attacker’s and back-fisting his opponent in the face.
He caught his assailant hard on the jaw.
The contact was solid and jarring, but his opponent only laughed, a cold jagged cackle like a rusty broken saw catching in wood.
Jack lost contact, his attacker retreating out of reach.
‘Impressive, gaijin,’ hissed Dokugan Ryu, ‘but even more impressive that you’re still alive. You should be a ninja, not a samurai!’
Jack’s heart gave an aching throb. The proximity of Dragon Eye made his whole body contract, his lungs tighten.
‘I’m not scared of you,’ said Jack, with as much bravado as he could muster.
‘Of course you are,’ countered Dragon Eye, circling him slowly. ‘I’m the pain that seeps into your bones at night. The scalding fire that burns in your blood. Your worst nightmare. Your father’s murderer!’
Dragon Eye struck with such swiftness that Jack was caught off-guard. The ninja hit a point at the base of his shoulder and a sickening flare of pain rocketed down his right arm. Jack reeled backwards, gasping for breath, feeling as if his arm had been thrust into a white-hot fire.
‘But I’m wasting my time here,’ spat the ninja, as if bored with torturing his victim. ‘I have what I came for.’
Through the agony, Jack was vaguely aware he could see shapes, dark shadows against a grey mist. The pain focused his mind and his vision was clearing.
‘Sasori, stop teasing the girl!’ ordered Dragon Eye. ‘Kill her, then kill the gaijin.’
Jack blinked away his tears, catching the vague outline to his left of the hooded ninja against a misty-looking wall.
‘Don’t disappoint me again, gaijin. Stay dead this time.’
Hearing exactly where the ninja was, Jack launched a hook kick at his enemy’s head.
His foot passed clean through thin air.
Dragon Eye had disappeared.
A soft exhalation escaped from someone’s lips and the next thing Jack heard was a body crumple to the floor.
‘Akiko!’ exclaimed Jack.
No answer.
‘Akiko?’ repeated Jack, now afraid for her.
‘Your pretty little girlfriend’s dead, gaijin,’ smirked the kunoichi. ‘I sank my poisoned pin into her pretty little neck.’
A coldness crept into Jack’s heart, more agonizing than any torture Dragon Eye could inflict upon him.
Jack flew at Akiko’s murderer. He didn’t care any more; he no longer thought about what he was doing. He just struck.
The kunoichi struggled against his impassioned onslaught.
Blow after blow rained down upon the ninja.
Jack’s forearm slammed into her guard and the kunoichi lost her grip on the deadly hairpin, sending it flying across the room.
He drove in harder. The ninja began to buckle under the pressure. Jack then sidekicked her with all his might, catching the kunoichi full force in the chest. The ninja fell backwards, landing hard on the dais, and screamed.
‘Come on!’ Jack roared, his eyes wet with stinging tears, no longer caused by the blinding powder, but by the grief in his heart.
But there was no response.
Jack wiped at his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he
could just about see again.
The kunoichi lay unmoving in a heap on the dais.
He couldn’t have kicked her that hard, thought Jack, not enough to kill her.
He took a cautious step closer and tapped her leg with his foot. There was no reaction. The woman’s black eyes were dull and lifeless, their pearl-like shine gone.
Jack rolled her over.
The ninja’s ornate steel hairpin protruded out of her back like the barb of a scorpion. Killed by her own poison.
Sasori, thought Jack numbly, Dragon Eye had called her Sasori.
Scorpion.
As much as he tried to deny it, his dream had come to be.
Four scorpions.
Kazuki’s gang. The Spirit challenge. The warrior. The kunoichi.
Four meant death. But it had not been his own that the dream had foretold. It had been Akiko’s.
Jack sank to his knees, barely taking in the devastation of the reception room. Yamato was slowly coming to among the broken shards of teacups. Emi still hadn’t moved, her neck bruised and swollen, though Jack could see that she was breathing.
The hanging of the white crane had been ripped from the wall and the bolt-hole gaped open, black and empty like the socket of a skull.
Dragon Eye had the rutter.
Jack crawled over to Akiko.
She lay utterly still upon the tatami, a small prick of blood on her neck where the hairpin had entered. Jack, sobbing in great breaths of anguish, cradled her lifeless body in his arms.
53
THE WAY OF THE DRAGON
‘CALL YOURSELF A SAMURAI!’
Masamoto could no longer contain his wrath.
He had kept a cool head when they discovered Jack and the others in the reception room. He had calmly organized a search party for Dokugan Ryu as well as extra protection for the daimyo. He had held back while arranging the students’ safe return to the Niten Ichi Ryū. He had even maintained his composure while Jack had explained the reason for hiding the rutter in the daimyo’s castle.
But now he bellowed at Jack, who lay prostrate on the floor of the Hall of the Phoenix. Jack quivered with every forceful word Masamoto uttered, each one cutting as sharp as a katana blade.
‘You sacrificed your friends, violated my trust and above all endangered the daimyo’s life, all for the sake of your father’s rutter!’
Masamoto glared at Jack, fuming with pent-up anger, seemingly unable to express the fury he felt. With each passing moment of raging silence, the scars on Masamoto’s face grew redder and redder.
‘I could forgive you for the lie, but how can I overlook this? You made the daimyo’s castle a target for ninja!’ he said, almost in a whisper, as if he was scared the violence in his voice would lead to violence in his hands. ‘I thought you understood what it meant to be samurai. Your duty is to me and your daimyo. You’ve broken the code of bushido! Where was your loyalty? Where was your respect? Had I not proven by my guardianship that you could trust me?’
Masamoto had tears in his eyes. The idea that Jack couldn’t trust him, and might not respect him, seemed to disappoint the great samurai the most.
‘OUT OF MY SIGHT!’
Jack sat upon the bough of the old pine tree in the corner of the Nanzen-niwa. Hidden in darkness, he kicked despondently at the tree’s wooden crutch, lashing out harder and harder until the branches shook.
He looked up at the night sky, wishing it would swallow him up, but the stars gave him no comfort either. They just reminded him of how lonely and lost he was. The tide was turning in Japan and foreigners like him were no longer welcome. Not only was he being alienated by the country he lived in, but he had estranged himself from his only protector. He had turned Masamoto against him.
He had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide.
Dragon Eye had finally got his hands on his father’s rutter.
Jack cursed his stupidity. His failure.
He had failed his father’s memory, for the rutter was no longer his.
He had failed his little Jess, for he had lost their only heirloom, the one thing that could help him return home and secure their future.
He had failed his friends, for he’d proved incapable of protecting them.
Jack had lost everything most precious to him.
With his head in his hands, sobs wracking his whole body, Jack wondered whether he should leave the school now, or wait until the morning.
‘All is not lost, young samurai. Don’t despair.’
Jack glanced up, still weeping. He hadn’t even heard the old man approach.
Sensei Yamada leant upon his walking stick, gazing at Jack with concerned affection while pensively twirling the tip of his long wispy beard around one bony finger.
‘A storm in the night, that’s all,’ he said, the gentle kindness in his voice seeking to allay some of Jack’s grief. ‘In time, his anger will pass and he will see you for the samurai you are. All will be forgiven.’
‘How can that be? I’ve betrayed him,’ lamented Jack, the words cutting so deep into his heart he swore they drew blood. ‘I’ve disrespected him. Broken his trust. Gone against the very bushido spirit he lives by.’
‘Jack-kun, you breathe bushido.’
The old Zen master laid a hand upon Jack’s arm and patted it lightly. ‘Come with me,’ he said, guiding Jack out from the darkness of the pine tree and into the pale light of the waxing moon. ‘A walk will clear your mind.’
Jack followed blindly by his side as if he were a ghost, not really there, but listening nonetheless to the counsel of his sensei.
‘I cannot condone your lying to Masamoto-sama about the rutter, but you’ve proved your honesty by confessing of your own free will,’ began the Zen master, flicking a stone from the path with his stick. ‘It was unfortunate that you chose the castle in which to hide your precious logbook. You hadn’t thought through the consequences of that decision properly.’
Jack solemnly shook his head.
‘However, I’m perfectly aware that your decision to put it in the castle was not done out of malice or with the intention of harming the daimyo. Your loyalty to your guardian and your respect for his life led you to believe that the lie was safer than the truth, and the castle more secure than the school. However misguided your intentions, you were trying to protect him, to do your duty. This is what Masamoto-sama will undoubtedly come to realize.’
As they reached one of the larger standing stones in the garden, Sensei Yamada rubbed its smooth surface.
‘You are headstrong like this rock, Jack-kun. Your boldness in your plans and belief in your ability to deal with problems by yourself is reminiscent of Masamoto-sama’s own youth. He too was a fiercely independent spirit.’
Sensei Yamada gave Jack a hard look, which Jack found difficult to meet.
‘This is why his emotions are so strong. Masamoto-sama sees himself in you. He’s not angry. He’s afraid. Afraid that he will lose another son to that demon Dokugan Ryu.’
Sensei Yamada led Jack out of the garden and across the deserted courtyard of the Niten Ichi Ryū. Each pebble reflected the moonlight, transforming the square into a great ocean that appeared to ripple as they drifted across its surface towards the Buddha Hall.
‘You believe you broke the code of bushido?’
Jack nodded his head, too upset to speak.
‘Well, you are wrong. What you accomplished tonight, and in every previous encounter with that ninja, proves you are a samurai beyond all doubt. Your courage in the face of such danger can only be applauded. The benevolence you show to others, alongside the compassion you have for your friends, is what binds you together, protects you. It is what keeps you fighting against all the odds. This is a truly honourable principle. The very essence of bushido.’
They began to ascend the stone steps of the Buddha Hall, and Jack felt heartened by his sensei’s wisdom, each step he took seeming to atone for another of his failings.
‘You have always done what you thoug
ht was right. This is the first virtue of bushido, rectitude. The goodness in your heart is the one thing Dokugan Ryu can never take from you. As long as you possess this, he can never win.’
‘But I’ve made an unforgivable mistake,’ protested Jack, ‘and I can’t take it back.’
‘There’s no such thing as a mistake, young samurai.’
Sensei Yamada ushered Jack inside the Butsuden. The great bronze Buddha sat silent in prayer, surrounded by a ring of flickering candles and the tiny red glowing tips of burning incense sticks. The temple bell hung motionless above the Buddha’s head like an ethereal crown, and Jack wondered whether one hundred and eight chimes would ever be enough to absolve him of his sins in the Buddha’s eyes. First, though, he had to answer to his own God.
‘Mistakes are our teachers,’ explained Sensei Yamada, bowing before the Buddha. ‘As long as you recognize them for what they are, they can help you learn about life. Each mistake teaches you something new about yourself. There is no failure, remember, except in no longer trying. It is the courage to continue that counts.’
Jack bowed and, in his despair, prayed for both Buddha’s and God’s blessing.
Sensei Yamada motioned for Jack to enter a side room of the Butsuden.
‘You may see her now.’
The small room was aglow with candles. Jack bowed his head and entered alone, the richly aromatic smell of white sage and frankincense wafting in the air around him.
Akiko lay upon a thick futon, dressed in a fine silk kimono of cream and gold, delicately embroidered with pale-green bamboo shoots.
Jack approached quietly and knelt by her side.
She looked to be asleep. He took her hand gently in his. It felt cool to the touch.
‘So your first dream did foretell our fortunes,’ she whispered, her voice hoarse but resilient.
‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ Jack replied, squeezing her hand affectionately.
‘Mount Fuji, a hawk and the leaf of a nasu,’ she laughed weakly. ‘Sensei Yamada was right, they brought us all the luck in the world. What more could we have asked for?’