“I’ll have you know that I spent twenty years in this man’s Air force . . .,” argued Dave’s father.
“And things have changed a great deal since then,” interrupted the colonel. “As long as they have prisoners, the governor’s not going to let us go in.” He looked at Tanemura. “When we thought you were one of theirs, we figured we might have a bargaining chip. But now . . ..”
“You fail to understand how the Warui ninja think,” stated the old ninja. “To them, the success of the mission is more important than an individual ninja. Unless you’d captured their leader, they would leave your prisoners to rot, as you Americans say.
“But you do have a bargaining chip with me,” Tanemura continued. “The Warui wanted three enemies. But they did not get us all. If Jamie, Yoshi and their friends didn’t rescue the students, then they are still killing one every hour because we were unable to meet their demands.”
“Are you sayin’ we should give you to’em?” demanded Deck.
Tanemura's face hardened in resolve. “That is exactly what I am saying.”
* * *
Kenji set the heavy glass of the window down next to the doors. He had seen the adolescents run up the stairs. Cowards and fools, he thought. Pointing up the hall toward the other set of stairs, he split the group in half and sent each up one set in order to block any escape. He followed the team up the stairs in front of the entrance.
At the top, he looked down the hall to see the other group coming up. There was no sign of the Funakoshi chunin or their friends.
Along one side of the hallway, four doors led to classrooms. Another door on the other side was alone, however.
“Check every room,” he ordered in his native tongue.
BANG! The door to the speech room was kicked open and the room was found empty.
BANG! The typing room was empty.
BANG! The computer lab was also empty.
BANG! The high school math room was empty.
The twenty-five ninja converged upon the final door. The team leader smiled beneath his mask. Obata would see that Kenji would be the one to bring the heads of the two Funakoshi chunin. He would get his just rewards.
The team leader pushed impatiently to the front and his foot lunged up to meet the door. His ears caught the hsssssssss sound just before he connected. His nose detected the gas an instant before the match that was taped to the bottom of the door scraped along the whetstone, producing fire . . ..
* * *
The eruption of flames shattered the glass in every window of the large room, showering those below with shards. The Warui rounded the corners of the building, ignoring the falling glass as they approached the teens.
A second explosion that thundered through the small town and destroyed the southern wall of the room stopped them in their tracks. Max leaped clear just in time to avoid being crushed by a stove that rode the blast free of the inferno. It struck the ground with a CRASH!
Adventure and the Warui ninja all stared in awe as a screaming ninja stumbled into view, engulfed. He fell from the hole in the wall and hit the ground with a sickening thud.
Jamie looked at Jeremy in horror. “What did you do?” he asked weakly.
“I turned off the pilot-lights on the stoves and filled the room with gas. Then, I taped a match to the bottom of the door.” He grinned. “Don’t know where the last explosion came from. Musta’ hit the main gas line.”
Jamie looked back up at the gaping hole. Where the stove had stood, a column of fire now steadily torched the ceiling.
“They never had a chance!” raged Buster.
“You think they would have given you one?” countered Jeremy.
The Warui ninja who now surrounded Adventure pulled their swords and attacked.
Jamie’s ninja-to and shinobi-to blocked strike after strike. He did his best to disarm his foes, trying to take them down with non-lethal kicks and punches.
Yoshi had quickly earned the respect of the attacking ninja. None of the enemies could touch her through the whirlwind of her twin blades. To her right, George was holding his own. Taking advantage of the longer reach of his weapon, he was able to keep attackers from getting close enough to attack with their swords.
Dave’s large fists and feet had been underestimated at the beginning of the fight. But, by the time he had knocked his third opponent cold, he had earned his enemies’ respect.
Buster’s fast-flying nunchaku formed an impenetrable field around his body. Any of the ninja who got close enough to attack him would invariably move into the path of one of them and get, at the very least, a good-sized headache for his failed attempt.
Pete and Max were taking turns knocking a particular shadow-warrior back and forth in a strange game of “Catch.” They would take turns kicking him to each other and continued the game until he finally lost consciousness.
Jeremy shot down his second ninja. Movement in the direction of the playground drew his attention there and he noticed another ninja charging across the schoolyard toward them. He readied another arrow, noting fearfully his dwindling supply, and fired. To his horror, the warrior caught the arrow in mid-flight. “Great,” he muttered, “another show-off.”
Jamie watched the arrow as it was snatched out of mid-flight, as well. What’s more, the young ninja noticed a familiar pendant hanging from the neck of this approaching enemy.
Jamie looked at Yoshi. Her eyes, wide with the remembered terror of a day long past, had obviously seen the warrior. Her gaze moved to her clan brother and they seemed to calm. She reached up and removed her mask, revealing the rest of her beautiful face, her full lips pressed into a line of firm resolve.
Stepping out of her place in the circle, she walked determinedly past Jamie. “He will see the face of the one who will kill him,” she declared.
He kicked another ninja in the face as the shadow-warrior blocked his view of Yoshi. When the opponent fell, he saw not only the distance between Yoshi and the approaching ninja growing shorter, but he also noted in shock that the Warui jonin was holding Laura next to the door of the helicopter.
As Jamie watched, the leader of the Funakoshi’s rival clan pointed at the cheerleader and then drew his index finger across his throat. The meaning was clear.
After a quick glance to make sure his friends were still doing well, he broke into a run toward the elementary playground.
* * *
As Yoshi approached the evil chunin, his eyes closed and he tossed his head back in hearty laughter. Her eyes narrowed at him. She stood ten feet from him, her twin swords ready, waiting patiently.
He finally stopped laughing, though his voice was still filled with mirth. “Have we not tried this before?”” he cajoled in their native tongue.
“I do not need Jamie to protect me this time,” she responded in the same language.
The two enemies circled one another. Yoshi fought to control her rising rage. It didn’t help that her opponent looked as if he could start laughing again at any time.
He lunged at her with a downward slash, but she dodged to the left, bringing her right foot out to the side and catching him in the face with it.
He staggered back a few steps. The mask that he wore began to darken with wetness, as it soaked up the blood that was running from his broken nose.
He looked at her in awe, as she declared, “Everything that I am is because of you.” She sneered at him. “All of the training, the pain of pushing myself to the limit and beyond . . .,” she pointed her right ninja-to at him, “ . . . it was all to prepare me for this day.”
* * *
Jamie approached the Warui jonin warily. The fighting ability of this man was legendary within the Funakoshi clan. And his brutality was infamous. “Let her go,” called the young chunin, over the noise of the helicopter’s engine. “She has nothing to do with this.” He took a deep breath to steady himself. “Let them all go.”
Jami
e!” yelled Laura. “He’s a monster! He killed them all!”
Jamie’s heart fell into his stomach. “Killed who?” he demanded, preparing to lunge at the other ninja if she were to answer that Shawna and Amy were dead.
“The men who brought us to him,” she cried.
Jamie looked at the other ninja in horror. “You . . . you killed your own men?”
“Of course,” replied the jonin, speaking English with practiced ease. "They allowed themselves to be captured. There is no room for weakness in the future of the Waruiyatsu.”
The man stood, unconcerned when Jamie was standing within striking range. “I was expecting the girl to challenge me. According to the prophecy, she is the one to fear.”
Jamie’s eyes narrowed. “What prophecy?”
The jonin did not answer. He merely shoved Laura through the door to the helicopter and pulled his blade . . ..
* * *
Yoshi’s blades worked furiously against the ninja-to and shinobi-to of her opponent. His attitude of superiority had fled when he realized he could do nothing but block her attacks.
Several times, she got through his defenses to score minor hits . . . a slash to his shoulder . . . a gash in his right leg. The right side of his mask hung in tatters where she had quickly sliced it in an X pattern without breaking his skin. She wanted to prolong his humiliation, not kill him . . . yet.
* * *
Dave lifted the last of the Warui over his head, spun around three times, then dropped him on top of one of the unconscious shadow-warriors. The dizzy ninja tried to rise, but was knocked cold by one of Buster’s well-placed kicks to the face.
The big teen, a look of exaggerated irritation on his face, chided, “I wasn’t done with him, yet!”
Buster placed his hand over a small cut on his left forearm and looked at his friend in disapproval. “You’re enjoying this too much.”
Dave patted him on the back, nearly knocking him from his feet. “Lighten up, dude. Always enjoy every fight like it could be the last one you’ll ever be in.”
“I hope it is,” responded Buster.
Dave looked around at his friends, all bruised and battered, but still alive. “I guess its over,” he sighed in mock depression.
“Yoshi’s still fighting,” Max commented.
When Buster and Dave looked at her opponent, their jaws dropped.
“He’s the guy who led the team that killed her parents!” exclaimed Buster, who broke into a run toward the duel. “We’ve got to stop this!”
“She’s a lot better fighter than before,” said Pete.
“Exactly!” Buster yelled back without slowing. “She’ll butcher him!”
* * *
Jamie was hard-pressed to block his opponent’s attacks. The jonin made the chunin who killed Yoshi’s father seem like a neophyte.
“Are you nervous, gai-jin?” asked his enemy. “Will you tell me how it feels to have your entrails cast upon the ground and fed upon by the vultures?”
The sound of metal striking metal rang out, each strike hurting the young ninja’s teeth. His bones shook with every connection of the blades. How could this small man be so strong?
Shawna’s face appeared in the open door of the helicopter, only to be pulled roughly back by another ninja. At least he knew she was alive.
Unfortunately, he had made the mistake of taking his eyes off his opponent. A quick swipe of the jonin’s sword had Jamie’s own ninja-to laying on the ground several feet away.
The young chunin dodged a swing at his neck, though the blade bit into his left shoulder. He gasped as a bolt of pain shot down his arm. He wasn’t fast enough to avoid having his feet swept from underneath him. Landing painfully on his back, he looked up, panic stricken, at his opponent, who seemed to smile under his mask as he shoved the tip of his sword toward the teen’s face.
Jamie’s hands shot up, clapping together with the blade pressed flat between them, his fingers intertwining to lock it in place. Now, it was a push-of-war. And, as the pointed tip edged closer to his face, he realized he was losing . . ..
* * *
Yoshi spin-kicked her opponent in the face. He stumbled back a few steps, so she pressed her attack by punching him in the face, her blow augmented by the hilt of her sword.
He gasped in pain as this attack struck his broken nose.
As the male warrior struggled to maintain his balance, she kicked his ninja-to from his hand and, in the same spinning motion, swept his legs from under him. As his back slammed into the ground, the shinobi-to was wrenched from his grasp.
The kunoichi crossed her blades over the terrified assassin’s throat. “Is it not amazing,” she began in her native language, visions of this man standing over her father’s fallen body filling her mind, “how villains always seem to create their own worst enemies?” She clamped the blades closer to his throat, taking surprisingly little comfort at the fear in his pleading eyes.
“Yoshi,” came a gentle, familiar voice. “Don’t.” And then Buster was standing next to her, followed by Dave.
“My father was a great warrior,” spoke Yoshi. “They could never have defeated him without me as his weakness.” Tears started building in her eyes. “And the cowards never even let my mother know what hit her.” She squeezed the blades tighter. The cloth around his throat darkened. She was breaking the skin. As the tears overflowed, she was barely able to whisper, “He deserves to die.”
Buster stood behind her and gently placed his hands over hers. “Only God can make that call,” he told her. “This man will be tried by God, just like all of us.” He firmly pulled her arms back. “What do you want Him to see when you stand before Him and He looks back on today?”
She shivered as the tears flowed freely. “I could not help them.” Her swords fell from numb hands and Buster embraced her as she sobbed into his shoulder. “I could not help them . . ..”
The male chunin sighed in relief and started to rise, but was halted when a large, army boot-clad foot came down on his chest, holding him in place. Dave muttered, “Just because she ain’t gonna make hamburger outta ya, don’t mean ya get t’leave, dude.”
* * *
The tip of the blade was barely an inch from his nose. Theoretically, the way he was holding the blade was supposed to keep him from being cut. However, the sharp pain in his left hand, as well as the thin trickle of blood that ran out between his thumb and index finger, made him realize that it wasn’t working. The Warui jonin was leaning into the sword and Jamie barely had the leverage to hold the blade at bay, especially considering his wounded shoulder.
A drip of water fell from the sky and struck his brow. It was beginning to rain.
Who am I kidding? thought the young ninja, as the blade touched his nose. I can’t keep this up.
In desperation, he jerked to the right and released his grip, letting the jonin’s weight drive the sword into the ground next to the prone young man’s head. The enemy gasped in surprise as the young ninja lashed out with his right foot to trip the Warui leader, who was suddenly on the ground next to Jamie, his head beside Jamie's foot.
The young man kicked the older man across the face, then leaped to his feet. As the jonin followed suit, Jamie slammed his right fist into his face. Continuing the momentum, he spun around and brought the heel of his left foot across the shadow-warrior’s head. The man was knocked backward into the side of the helicopter and slid to the ground, unconscious.
The clouds that had been blanketing the sky for days started to open up in full force. In seconds, Jamie and his senseless enemy were drenched.
Then the helicopter started to lift off.
Jamie charged forward and leaped through the open door. He could see another ninja in here. The girls were here, too. They were bound on a bench that was next to the door in which he’d come. Though visibly shaken, they looked unharmed.
Shawna yelled, “Jamie look out!”
>
He ducked in time to avoid being hit by a sword wielded by a warrior who had been hidden next to the door. The young ninja grabbed his attacker in irritation and threw him out of the helicoptor. He fell fifteen feet and hit the ground below.
Another enemy charged him, but flew out of the helicopter when Jamie simply stepped aside.
Looking back out the door, he nearly fainted. They had risen up at least sixty feet in a matter of seconds. His friends below, who were busy binding the jonin and one of the men who had just fallen from the vehicle, looked like ants. He had little hope that the last ninja had survived the fall.
“What?” demanded Shawna.
He gulped. “I’m an acrophobic.”
“What?” asked Amy.
“He’s scared of heights,” explained Shawna.
Amy chuckled, until she realized that they weren’t kidding. “Oh, you’re in the right place.”
He pulled a knife from his boot and cut Shawna loose. Giving the weapon to her, he instructed, “Use this to get them loose. I’m going to see if I can persuade the pilot to turn around.”
Shawna went to work on their ropes while Jamie stepped into the cockpit. A single ninja sat at the controls. Jamie did not have a chance to say a word before the man’s dagger was in hand and he was lunging toward Jamie, who caught his wrist and shoved him back into the control panel. The teen grimaced as his wounded shoulder hit the back of the pilot’s seat in the cramped compartment.
“You idiot!” grunted the young hero. “You’ve got to get back to the controls! You’ll kill us all!”
The man yelled something in Japanese.
“Great,” groaned Jamie, as he slammed the back of the other man’s wrist into his knee, disarming him, “you can't understand a word I'm saying, can you?”
Jamie slammed his elbow into the ninja’s face, watching him slide to the floor, unconscious. He dropped into the pilot’s seat and grabbed the controls.
“What happened?” asked Shawna.
Invasion of the Ninja Page 17