The Way of the Dragon

by Unknown

  ‘We’ll never get past them,’ hissed Jack, leading Akiko on the horse down the main road.

  ‘It worked for Sensei Kyuzo,’ Akiko whispered in reply. ‘Just don’t stop.’

  Jack adjusted his helmet and menpō. ‘It’s too small. It keeps slipping off,’ he complained.

  He was dressed in the blue-and-yellow crested armour of the dead ashigaru. He also had the man’s swords. Akiko had managed to find a bow and a quiver of arrows along with the armour of a high-ranking samurai loyal to daimyo Kamakura. Her helmet, adorned with a half-moon emblem to show her status, fitted perfectly. But the foot soldier Akiko had found him evidently possessed a tiny head.

  Despite his concerns their disguise wouldn’t work, the dozing samurai barely raised their heads as they passed. Since there were other Kamakura troops entering and exiting the castle, the two of them didn’t appear out of place. Besides, who would suspect such a bold and blatant escape as to walk straight out of the main gateway?

  As they got closer, one of the Red Devils observed their approach. Akiko bowed her head in acknowledgement, low enough to show respect but curt enough to indicate her superior authority. The Red Devil dropped his eyes and humbly bowed back. He turned his gaze upon Jack instead. Jack bowed too, lower. The Red Devil returned the bow, his eyes narrowing slightly as he did.

  Beyond the samurai, Jack could glimpse the Tenno-ji Plain. Freedom was but a gate, a portcullis and a drawbridge away. He was almost counting the steps they needed to make it across.

  The Red Devil stared harder at Jack as they passed him.

  ‘Blue eyes?’ muttered the samurai to himself, as if he didn’t quite believe what he’d seen.

  Increasing his pace, Jack felt his helmet slip. A lock of blond hair became exposed. The Red Devil’s eyes widened in disbelief. He seized Jack’s helmet, pulling it off along with the menpō.

  ‘GAIJIN!’ he shouted, stunned at his discovery.

  Without hesitation, Jack front-kicked the Red Devil in the chest.

  Akiko helped Jack on to the back of her horse and spurred their steed on.

  ‘Stop!’ cried the Red Devil, recovering from the blow.

  Samurai groggily got to their feet, bewildered by the sudden appearance of a blond samurai, but Jack and Akiko were already passing through the gateway.

  ‘After them!’ ordered the irate Red Devil.

  Akiko glanced round at Jack. ‘Take the reins!’

  Grabbing her bow, she nocked an arrow, then turned and took aim at the roped locking mechanism of the portcullis. Calling upon all her Yabusame skill, she released the arrow.

  It sliced into the rope. Under such tension, the line snapped and the portcullis came crashing down.

  The pursuing samurai were stopped in their tracks and could only watch through the grille as their quarry galloped over the drawbridge to freedom.

  Jack and Akiko rode out on to the plain, determined to get as much distance between themselves and the enemy. But they were halted by the horrifying sight before them.

  As far as the eye could see lay thousands upon thousands of fallen samurai. Tenno-ji was literally carpeted with corpses. Behind them, the moat was so heaped with dead bodies that it could be crossed without getting wet. Crows picked at their remains and the moans of the few unfortunate souls who had yet to die filled the air.

  Jack thought of poor little Yori, his body resting somewhere in this graveyard of Hell. How could so many lives be wasted for the will of one man, daimyo Kamakura?

  ‘We should head east to my mother’s in Toba,’ Akiko suggested, taking off her helmet and strapping her bow to the saddle pack. ‘Kyoto won’t be safe for us.’

  Jack nodded, choking back the grief that threatened to overwhelm him. At least he and Akiko had escaped the carnage. There was some small joy in that thought. The future wasn’t entirely bleak.

  Akiko pulled on the reins, then jolted in her saddle before collapsing to the ground, an arrow in her side.

  ‘AKIKO!’ cried Jack, jumping down beside her.

  The arrow had gone through her armour and blood was pouring from the wound. Jack ripped a flag from a dead samurai’s sashimono and desperately tried to stem the bleeding. Akiko cried out as he applied the pressure.

  NO! This can’t be happening, he thought. Not now. Not when we’d escaped.

  ‘That arrow was meant for you, gaijin!’

  A chill ran through Jack’s veins at hearing the samurai’s voice.

  Jack turned to see Kazuki striding towards them through the maze of dead samurai.

  His old rival wore the armour of a Red Devil.

  ‘Kyujutsu was never my strongest skill, but it’s poetic justice for killing Moriko,’ he said, discarding the bow in his hand. ‘Now you will suffer, just as I promised you would.’

  ‘It was your fire that killed Moriko!’ shot back Jack.

  ‘No. You are responsible,’ said Kazuki. ‘Japan was a pure land before your kind arrived uninvited. Now gaijin have rightly been banished.’ He grinned sadistically. ‘Or else they face punishment.’

  Kazuki drew both his swords, a fresh smear of blood clearly visible upon the blade of the katana.

  ‘As a loyal subject of daimyo Kamakura and the founder of the Scorpion Gang, it is my duty – and my pleasure – to sentence you to a dishonourable death, gaijin.’

  Jack, leaving Akiko to hold her dressing, rose to unsheathe his swords as Kazuki bore down on him.

  He’d barely got out his wakizashi, when Kazuki’s katana cut across his chest. Jack deflected the blade and brought his own long sword round on Kazuki. But his rival blocked it with his wakizashi and drove Jack backwards. He kicked Jack in the gut, sending him tumbling over a dead body.

  Scrambling to his feet, Jack hurriedly raised his guard as Kazuki charged again. Their swords clashed and Kazuki drove his katana along Jack’s blade, pushing it aside and striking for his heart.

  A perfect Flint-and-Spark strike.

  A samurai not trained in the Two Heavens would have met his end. But Jack recognized the attack as it was happening and slipped to one side. Kazuki’s kissaki glanced off his breastplate.

  Cursing Jack’s skill, Kazuki retaliated with a blistering double sword strike. Jack countered with equal force using both his swords. Their opposing blades locked against one another.

  For a moment they glared into each other’s eyes, the battle now being fought in their minds. Jack saw the pitiless fury that was driving his rival. It reminded him of Dragon Eye’s hateful vengeance. Kazuki would never quit until Jack was dead.

  Then Kazuki surged forward, hitting Jack’s katana and wakizashi simultaneously. Twice upon the back of the blades. Jack was disarmed of both swords in the blink of an eye.

  A double Autumn Leaf strike.

  Jack was left astounded by Kazuki’s masterful sword skill.

  ‘I said I’d always defeat you with the Two Heavens,’ gloated Kazuki.

  He kicked the defenceless Jack to the ground. Then, sheathing his wakizashi, he prepared to finish off Jack where he lay.

  ‘You don’t deserve a samurai’s death,’ said Kazuki. ‘But you don’t deserve to keep your head either.’

  Jack glanced desperately in Akiko’s direction. She was struggling to her feet.

  ‘Wait! Answer me this one question,’ demanded Jack, playing for time. ‘Why do you hate me so much?’

  ‘You’re gaijin,’ he spat. ‘That’s more than enough.’

  ‘What wrong did I ever do to you?’

  ‘My mother died because of a gaijin like you!’ he replied, his sword trembling with rage in his hands.

  ‘But what’s that got to do with me?’ asked Jack.

  Kazuki snarled at Jack. ‘Out of the goodness of her heart, she took in one of your foreign priests. All he gave her in return was his illness. Your kind are a pestilence in Japan. A disease that must be wiped out.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ pleaded Jack. ‘I’ve lost my mother to an illness too. I understand how you feel.
Angry. Betrayed. Hurting.’

  ‘That doesn’t change a thing,’ said Kazuki, his face a mask of hate. ‘Now kneel!’

  In her weakened state, Akiko had only just reached up to the horse and was still struggling to string an arrow. As Jack got to his knees, his hand came across the broken pole of a sashimono flag. Grabbing its shaft, he swung it, moments before Kazuki cut down with his sword. Jack struck his rival hard across the jaw, knocking him to the ground.

  Jumping to his feet, Jack kicked Kazuki’s sword away. Raising the standard above his head, he aimed its pointed steel tip at the dazed Kazuki’s chest.

  ‘Mountain to sea,’ said Jack, recalling the essence of the Two Heavens – to obtain victory by any means and with any weapon.

  Kazuki’s eyes widened in alarm as Jack drove the sashimono down into him. There was an almighty scream as the shaft went through his armour and buried itself deep into the earth below.

  His scream faded into sobbing shock.

  ‘I’ve seen enough death to last a lifetime,’ said Jack, leaving Kazuki pinned to the ground by his armour.

  Jack hurried over to Akiko. As he approached, she shakily raised her bow and released her arrow, before collapsing to the ground with the effort.

  He heard an anguished cry behind. Kazuki, still pinned, dropped the wakizashi he’d been about to throw at Jack. He now stared in horror at the arrow that had gone straight through his sword hand.

  Akiko was still breathing, but looked pale and weak.

  ‘We have to go,’ said Jack, spotting a troop of Red Devils leaving the castle.

  Lifting Akiko up on to the horse, he gave a prayer of thanks to Takuan. He needed to ride fast. Faster than he’d ever done before.

  As Jack galloped away with the wounded Akiko between his arms, he heard Kazuki screaming.

  ‘I will have my revenge, gaijin!’

  61

  SHOGUN

  Jack sat beneath the sakura tree, gazing at the ever changing colours of the sky as the sun set red over Toba. In the background he could hear the soothing trickle of the tiny waterfall feeding the stream that wound itself through the garden and into the lily pond. He was surrounded by glorious flowers and shrubs, all lovingly tended and pruned to perfection. The setting was so beautiful, so peaceful, that it was impossible to believe Japan was anywhere but Heaven.

  For Jack, the garden was the healing his heart needed. He had to believe that there was still good in this world, still hope in his life. As Yori would say, a peace worth fighting for.

  Above his head, buried in the trunk of the tree, was the arrow that had missed Dragon Eye three years before.

  It’s to remind us never to lower our guard.

  Jack took hold of the shaft and pulled the arrow out.

  The shadow that had hunted him was gone.

  The assassin that had haunted Masamoto and his family would never return.

  Jack snapped the arrow in half.

  Such a haven as this was no place for a weapon of war.

  An old man with a wispy grey beard tottered over the little bridge towards Jack, his walking stick tapping upon the wooden boards with each step.

  ‘How is she?’ asked Jack.

  ‘Akiko’s recovering well,’ replied Sensei Yamada as his gaze fell upon the broken arrow in Jack’s hands. ‘It’ll take more than a single arrow to defeat that young samurai.’

  His Zen master looked older and more worn by life than Jack had ever remembered. The fighting had taken its toll on him and the horrors of battle seemed etched into every wrinkle on his face. Sensei Yamada groaned in pain as he eased himself on to the stone bench beside the stream.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Jack asked.

  ‘The only thing that will kill me is time,’ he replied wryly, rubbing his knees with a bony hand. ‘The question is, are you all right?’

  ‘I’ve survived,’ said Jack, without enthusiasm. ‘I know I should be thankful. So many of us didn’t make it. But I feel… empty inside. Guilty too. Guilty that Yamato, my friends and our sensei died for my sake. And for what? Daimyo Kamakura won. What hope is there for a gaijin samurai in Japan now?’

  ‘When it is dark enough, you can see the stars,’ said Sensei Yamada, looking up into the sky.

  Jack shook his head in bewilderment. Here he was admitting his pain, guilt and worry, while Sensei Yamada was stargazing.

  ‘There’s always hope, even in the worst of times,’ said his Zen master, by way of explanation. ‘Yes, we have lost some dear friends. But we must remember that many survived too, because of their sacrifice. Sensei Kano led our young samurai to safety. Sensei Yosa was spared by the enemy, out of respect to Sensei Hosokawa’s loyalty and courage in defending her. I’ve had no word of Sensei Kyuzo’s fate, but he’s a wily old goat. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s still alive.’

  ‘But what about Masamoto-sama?’ asked Jack, hoping against hope.

  Sensei Yamado smiled. ‘I have good news.’

  His smile waned. ‘And some bad.’

  Jack held his breath.

  ‘Daimyo Kamakura didn’t kill Masamoto-sama. But neither did he allow him to commit seppuku and die with honour.’

  ‘So where is he?’

  ‘To subdue such a legendary swordsman was a matter of great pride for daimyo Kamakura. Masamoto-sama has been banished to a Buddhist temple at the peak of Mount Iawo. He’s to remain there for the rest of his life.’

  ‘Can’t we rescue him?’

  Sensei Yamada shook his head. ‘I understand he has gone there of his own choosing. He was offered a post serving daimyo Kamakura himself, but he refused to take it in deference to those who died. Masamoto-sama would never serve such a tyrannical master.’

  Jack was relieved and at the same time saddened by the news. His guardian was alive, but it seemed a shameful end for such a great and noble warrior.

  ‘He’ll be fine, Jack-kun,’ said Sensei Yamada, seeing the disappointment in Jack’s eyes. ‘Masamoto-sama had often said he intended to live out his final years in contemplation. It’s always been his intention to write down the techniques of the Two Heavens for future generations of swordsmen. This may be just the opportunity he was looking for.’

  Jack laughed. It was so like his Zen master to see the silver lining behind every cloud.

  ‘Did you ever find out what happened to daimyo Takatomi and Emi?’ he asked.

  Sensei Yamado nodded. ‘Emi-chan’s safe. Daimyo Takatomi is a man of great wisdom. Ruthless as daimyo Kamakura is, he recognizes the need for such an astute lord as Takatomi in his new vision for Japan.’

  ‘You mean daimyo Takatomi’s serving him? He’s betrayed us!’ exclaimed Jack.

  ‘Our lord is no traitor,’ said Sensei Yamada sternly. ‘We have lost the war. But daimyo Takatomi realizes he could do more good for Japan serving in the new government than he could as an exiled lord, or a dead one.’

  ‘But surely Japan’s heading for disaster? Shouldn’t he be organizing a rebellion?’

  Sensei Yamada thumped the ground with the tip of his staff. ‘After the rain, the earth hardens.’

  Jack stared blankly at his Zen master, wishing he wouldn’t always speak in riddles.

  ‘Japan is now stronger than it was before the war. Though many would prefer someone else, daimyo Kamakura is the one finally to unify our country. Nobunaga piled the rice, Hasegawa kneaded the dough, but daimyo Kamakura gets to eat the cake!’

  Sensei Yamada initially laughed at his clever analogy. Then his expression became grave again.

  ‘He has declared himself Shogun.’

  ‘Shogun?’

  ‘The supreme ruler of Japan. Daimyo Kamakura has seized all power, claiming a Minamoto bloodline. The Emperor becomes but a figurehead for our nation. Japan is now entirely in daimyo Kamakura’s hands. Which brings us to your predicament, Jack-kun. Have you had any thoughts as to your future?’

  ‘A few,’ admitted Jack, ‘but none of them offer me much hope.’

  Sensei Y
amada tutted and wagged his finger at Jack. ‘I believe you were the one to tell Yori, “Where there are friends, there’s hope.” Very wise words.’

  He glanced towards the house as a shoji slid open.

  ‘Speaking of wise words, here comes a little wellspring of them.’

  Yori bounded over the bridge, a tiny plant in his hand.

  Jack was amazed at how resilient his friend had proven to be. The day after he and Akiko had fled the Tenno-ji Plain, they had come across Sensei Yamada and Yori retreating down the same road. It had been just in time too. With Akiko slipping in and out of consciousness, Jack was at a loss what to do. Sensei Yamada soon had the arrowhead out and treated Akiko’s wound with herbs.

  It was during their journey to Toba that Yori told Jack how he’d escaped. Almost trampled underfoot by the Red Devils, he’d thrown himself off the bridge and into the moat. He’d then had to hide beneath the bleeding and maimed corpses of fallen samurai to evade capture. At dusk he’d made his way all alone across the Tenno-ji Plain until Sensei Yamada found him.

  Yori was so delighted to discover his friends alive that his faith in Buddha now burnt brighter than ever. Yet in spite of his outward appearance of joy, Jack knew Yori suffered terrible nightmares of his escape. He heard him crying out in anguish every night.

  Yori, a brave smile on his face, approached Jack and presented him with the sapling.

  ‘Uekiya says we can plant this sakura tree in honour of Yamato,’ he announced. ‘Akiko says you should choose the spot – as his brother.’

  Choking back the tears, Jack took the little tree from him.

  That evening, as the sun dropped below the horizon, Sensei Yamada, Yori, Akiko and Jack solemnly planted the sakura sapling.

  As he tenderly filled in the hole, Jack said a prayer.

  ‘With this tree, we plant not only a memory of our friend, but a hope for our future.’

  62

  THE WAY OF THE WARRIOR

  Jack double-checked his pack.

  The rutter was safely stashed at the bottom, protected within its oilskin. Next to it was his Daruma Doll, its single eye staring out at him in the flickering light of the oil lamp. Also in the bag were a gourd of water, two straw containers of cooked rice, a spare kimono and a string of coins. All these had generously been given to him by Akiko’s mother, Hiroko, in addition to the blue kimono he now wore. Neither of the kimono had markings or kamon. Hiroko had chosen them specifically so that no one could identify him as a member of any family who may have fought against daimyo Kamakura.