White Ninja (11 page)

I wake squinting into the fluorescent light, blinking myself into the foreign surroundings. I'm in a hospital bed. The room smells of bleach. Art is asleep next to me in an armchair, quietly snoring. I look down at my arm in a plaster cast and taste metal in my mouth. ‘Art,' I call.

Art jerks awake and lunges to my side. ‘How you feeling?' he asks, pressing his hand to my forehead. ‘You broke your arm in that climbing class and passed out from the pain.' He rearranges the blankets around me.

‘I'm such a wimp,' I say and Art laughs. But the smile dies quickly from my lips as I remember the Tiger Scrolls. ‘My school bag!' I yelp, trying to push myself up.

Art stops me and lifts the school bag off the ground. I grab the bottom with my good arm and turn it upside down, shaking out its contents; books, pens, lunchbox and a few adzuki beans rattle onto the bed, but no Tiger Scrolls. I burst into tears.

‘It's okay,' Art soothes. ‘I'm sure you don't need to worry about your homework for a while.'

‘I'm not worried about my homework,' I sob. Hero must have had Krew steal the scrolls out of my bag while I was climbing. I can't believe I didn't see that coming. The tears rain down my cheeks, then splash onto my cast. A nurse comes in, but Art waves ‘it's okay'. He moves my arm away from the fountain of tears.

‘Look, Cat, I know it's hard with Mum being away. I know you wish she was here now, instead of me.' He wraps an arm around me. ‘But I'll look after you. We'll cook marshmallows in the living-room fire?' he offers.

I smile at him thinly and blow my nose on the tissue he offers me. I can't tell him about the Tiger Scrolls. ‘Sounds great,' I say bleakly.

 

Falling off the climbing wall in front of the class is hitting social rock bottom, because when I go back to school, everyone is acting totally weird. No one is looking at me and no one is talking to me. When I was in hospital, Cinnamon and Jackson didn't even call to see if I was okay.

I have to find Jackson to talk about training. There's no way I can go through with this White Warrior hunt. Hero can keep the scrolls. I'll go back to being a lame Year Seven, Gate Twoer, and Elecktra can defend herself
against Hero if he ever visits again. She can bore him to death with her acting.

‘Cinnamon,' I call, running up to her.

She turns her head away. ‘I can't speak to you,' she whispers.

‘Why not?'

‘I can't say.'

‘My arm's okay, by the way,' I say, lifting my sling towards her.

Jackson approaches. ‘My god, Roxy, I didn't know the fall was so serious,' he blurts, pointing to my cast.

Jackson envelops me in a bear hug. His washing powder mixed with home-made pasta sauce scent juices into the space between us. When he releases me, I realise his school blazer has a hole cut out of it in the shape of a heart. His light-blue school shirt beams through. I point to it with my good hand.

‘Elecktra,' he sighs. ‘She didn't take it well.'

My eyes widen.

‘I told her I don't think we're soul mates,' he finishes.

My heart flutters, eclipsing the pain in my arm. He smiles at me and I feel all shiny new again.

He spots Elecktra down the hall, fanning herself with
Vogue
magazine beside her locker. Her school tie is wrapped around her head like a headband, her golden locks cascading down her shoulders like silk. Kids stare
at her as they traipse down the hall; just the sight of her makes you feel inadequate.

Jackson storms towards her. The crowd parts, then closes in around them.

Elecktra flicks me off, then spears her dark river eyes towards Jackson.

‘You're mad!' he says.

‘I'd rather be mad than,' Elecktra pauses for dramatic effect, ‘heartless,' she says, pointing to his heart cut-out and laughing. ‘You're lucky I didn't do more damage!'

They've only been dating in her mind and she's already broken up with him.

Jackson clenches his fists in frustration. I'm used to her not making sense, but it infuriates other people when they don't speak ‘Elecktrafied'.

I'm about to ask Cinnamon what's going on when a hand the size of a baseball mitt lands on my backpack. I wince as my injured arm gets knocked.

‘Looking for you,' Sergeant Major says.

He leads me down the corridor in front of all the kids. I don't know what hurts more, my arm or the humiliation. He dumps me in the staff room, which stinks. All the teachers look furious when they see me. Many of them are holding handkerchiefs to their faces. Our science teacher, Dr Klemky, is wearing a snorkelling mask that he uses to protect his nose
during extreme experiments, and the school nurse has a surgical mask over her nose and mouth. The room smells of burning and something disgusting, like old compost. I notice a gaping black hole in the carpet and my stomach cramps.

Principal Cheatley steps forwards, his hand over his nose. ‘Roxy Ran, you're suspended,' he says.

I look at the teachers, bewildered. They glare back at me.

‘Why?' I say.

‘Why?' Sergeant Major yells. ‘We thought the school was burning down! There were seven or so fires in here. I extinguished them by stomping on them in my new boots,' he booms.

‘We all came running and started stomping,' Principal Cheatley cuts in. ‘Dr Klemky, Ms Broadfoot, myself — all of us stomping out these fires.'

‘And that's when we found your presents!' Sergeant Major yells.

The sun is streaming through the window and heating up the burned patches of carpet. The smell is unbearable, rancid, like off meat.

‘What presents?' I blurt, not having a clue.

‘The brown paper bags of fertiliser you set on fire!' Sergeant Major yells.

‘I didn't,' I stutter.

‘Don't try to get out of it — we found this on the floor.' He holds out my notebook with the list of things that make me feel good. ‘And there was a witness. The groundskeeper said he saw you.'

‘I didn't do it! It's a set-up! I've been in hospital!' I say frantically, holding up my sling as proof. ‘Someone must have stolen —'

Sergeant Major puts his hand up in my face. ‘Silence,' he commands.

‘You're suspended for four days,' Principal Cheatley says. ‘We've phoned your mother's partner, he's on his way.'

I cast my eyes down at Sergeant Major's boots: they are singed black. He's never going to forgive me. Ms Broadfoot's runners are black too — there goes my A plus in PE.

‘But I didn't do it,' I say again.

Principal Cheatley glares at me. ‘The school could have burned down, staff and pupils could have been injured, and it's going to cost a fortune to replace the carpet. And where are the teachers meant to eat lunch? The playground?' His face swells with rage.

There is no point trying to speak. The old Roxy is in the room and, as good as I've got at fighting, I can never fight her.

 

‘Hey.' Jackson taps me on the shoulder as I gather my things from my locker.

I turn to him, my good arm full of books. His eyes are green jungles of light and shade.

‘Got suspended, thanks to Hero's fertiliser bombs. He must have told Krew to steal my notebook out of my school bag when he stole the Tiger Scrolls,' I say.

‘Hero's got the scrolls!' Jackson's eyes explode. He grips his head.

I shrug. ‘Jackson, I give up. I'm retiring.'

‘Hero's furious over the video,' Jackson says, scratching his chest through the heart. He then pushes his hand through his hair to the back of his neck, leaning his head against his arm. No doubt out of all his moves, this is his best.

‘I could do with a holiday from school anyway,' I say.

Suddenly, Jackson's face drains of colour.

I drop my books in fright. ‘What's wrong?'

‘I don't want to freak you out,' he says.

‘What? What is it?' I say.

‘It's happening. They're calling you.'

‘Who?'

‘The ancient warriors. The mark of the warrior is on your forehead.' He points.

I turn to the mirror on my locker door. There are three black stripes appearing across my forehead like
fresh scars. I can't breathe. I feel like Jackson's got my neck in a pressure hold. I'm not ready. I don't even know that I want to do this.

I manage to croak, ‘What does this mean? How long have I got?'

‘A couple of hours,' he says and takes my hand. I can't tell if I'm shaking because of that or because I'm terrified.

‘Hey, a life without a bit of adventure is boring,' he says, then adds, ‘I only wish that I could be there, fighting with you.'

I look away, watching the corridor fill with kids, all oblivious that we live in a world of ninja magic and samurai threat. If I don't find the White Warrior, all this will change forever. The world will be divided into those who protect and those who kill.

‘I believe in you.' Jackson squeezes my hand. ‘Do you believe in you?'

‘How am I meant to fight with a broken arm? I'll be toast in a second,' I say, trying not to tremble.

Jackson smiles mysteriously. ‘Your arm will be okay,' he says. ‘Trust me.'

I do trust Jackson, but time is running out.

‘I have to get my ninja on,' I say.

Wearing my ninja uniform is like a superhero moment that helps me transform into character. In your uniform, it doesn't matter who you've been in the past; your
shinobi shozoku
reminds you that you can be anything you want. Dressing in my uniform is the most important part of preparing for the fight. As soon as the material touches my body, I feel like I become someone else, a performer taking the stage or a sprinter on their marks.

I carefully thread my broken arm through my ninja jacket. My ninja jacket has no ties or tails and makes me feel slick and fast. I fold the hood over my hair. The hood covers my mouth so I can hear my breath at all times; a link to my heart. A fierce wind blasts through the window and blows my black hair out of the hood and across my forehead, flapping against the black warrior stripes. My eyes glimmer with ferocious energy, tigerish brown beneath the black scars.

In my black uniform, against the stark light of my bedroom lamp, I no longer look lame or feel invisible. I look like me, Roxy Ran, thirteen years old and lethal. All those times I allowed Elecktra to dress me up in silly outfits, I never had the guts to say I felt uncomfortable. But now, looking at myself in my ninja suit, I realise that I don't need Elecktra to accept me; all this time I needed to accept myself.

‘I am ninja,' I say to the mirror.

I no longer see the awkward kid who gets spat on at school or ditched by her own sister. I see someone fierce, feminine — a fighter. I jump into a strong horse-riding stance, with my hands in fists on my hips, surprised that my broken arm doesn't hurt as much. I see someone with legs that could break rocks. I perform ten whipping punches to the mirror, then bend my knees lower and jump to clap my heels together in the air. I land in the same strong stance.

‘As a ninja, my body is a weapon, my movements are magical, my focus is lethal. I am the invisible warrior,' I recite.

The words from the ancient ninja's Tiger Scrolls charge my cells with power. Nerve by nerve I feel the force surge through me and soon I'm bolstered with confidence.

‘Those warriors better watch out,' I say to the mirror.

I pack my weapons. I fit the horn rings on my fingers, tuck the nunchucks in my belt, and sling the bow and arrows over my shoulder with the
katana
sword. In my ninja utility belt I organise my ninja stars, firebombs, birds' eggs, chain and sickle, blowpipe and poisonous paper darts. I pause to think of Jackson: teaching me how to make a bamboo bow, climb the dojang walls, make firebombs. I wish he was with me, but this is something I have to do alone.

I start tying my two-toed
tabi
. If I think too much, I could chicken out. I recall Jackson's words:
You don't have to learn; you only have to remember. It's in your blood. Instinct.
The tiger roars within me and I feel the clawing of excitement in my heart. Fire simmers in my bones, a burning power and strength that will explode unless unleashed.

I stand at the window and close my eyes. I am ready. The fire burns stronger. I realise now that it comes from my birthmark, which beats and roars with the heart of a tiger. A source of power I am only just learning to harness, and that will transport me to the Cemetery of Warriors.

I allow the fire I've been struggling to contain all these weeks to spread, from my heart out to the tips of my fingers. When every cell is alight and I am completely consumed, I flicker three times, then disappear.

 

I have never experienced complete darkness before. It feels as if all air and brightness have been crushed.

Then the darkness parts and green moonlight diffuses through a black leathery mist. Fog wreaths around my ankles, and in the distance I can just make out a hill. Uncertain at first, then drawing confidence from my inner tiger, I run towards it. As I climb, there is a deathly silence. All I can hear is my own panting. As I'm running, I feel my cast loosen. A flood of relief rushes into my bones. I hear a crack and look down — my cast has broken off. And Jackson knew all along my arm would heal here. The smell of rancid meat wafts from below and in the green moonlight I see a vast graveyard on the other side of the hill, with derelict tombs, vaults, gravestones and crypts. In their centre is a cleared circle filled with shimmering blue smoke.

‘The Circle of Self-defence,' I whisper.

Jackson told me about this circle, where dark and light meet to create a blue disc that illuminates all combat within its merciless surrounds. Once I enter the circle, I must fight.

I have the feeling of being watched. I look around to see thousands of ancient warriors standing next to their
tombs, waiting for the entertainment: another intruder attempting to find the White Warrior. I suppress a gasp of horror as I realise they are each armed and ready to attack me.

I approach the circle. A brutal wind blasts across the graveyard and scatters the fog. My panting is louder and faster in the silence. I think of my mother, remember being strapped to her back as she battled the samurai. Now it is my turn to fight. I step into the circle.

Suddenly, the sky scours red; not a warm red like a crackling log fire, but the blistering red of an infected cut. Smoke swirls around me. I bow my head as Jackson taught me and wait.

I hear footsteps and my heart seizes. They are thunderous, cracking the earth's crust and tearing the air apart. My mouth turns dirt dry, my hands sweat, but I do not flinch. Then a putrid smell hits me, snapping my attention upwards. There is a hand in the darkness, and it holds a sword.

Hanzo glares down at me. He is four metres tall. His
shinobi shozoku
fits him like a black snakeskin so you can't distinguish between it and his own flesh. A metal muzzle covers his nose and mouth, and his eyes are two glowing white-bone sockets. Jackson was right. He is the grossest thing I've ever seen. My heart beats as my knees turn to water.

He holds the sword out at shoulder height above me. It is made of gold with a gleaming black bone handle. As the smoke waves past it, the blade sparks, a deadly razor. If it sliced you, you wouldn't even know you'd been cut. Your limb would fall off so cleanly, you'd be watching it roll away before the pain came crashing in. I swallow hard.

Hanzo points the sword to the sky and its tip disappears into the gaping wound. There is a clap of thunder and the sword explodes into a pillar of flames. Hanzo's white, soulless eyes glow brighter and the muzzle lifts as his mouth twists into a crooked smile. He levels the sword at shoulder height again, but now there is a gleaming apple stuck on its burning tip. The world blacks out. All that exists is the flaming sword. I jump as a length of material sweeps across my eyes. A blindfold. Now I am left with only four senses.

I hear the old Roxy in my head. ‘You can't do it, you'll fail.' Her voice is a grater against my heart. I try to take the blindfold off, but it is fastened to my temples. I stand motionless. I'm blind, so I can't run. I don't know how to transport back home. There's nowhere to hide and no one to save me.

No one except myself.

I raise my hands into a fighting guard, crunch my fingers into fists and spike out my horn rings. I stand
strong, and slowly the panic washes away. I can smell Hanzo. In the blackness, his putrefying vapour, a blend of rotting cheese and the fetid odour of burning flesh, forms a map of movement. I search the labyrinth of my memory and have a flash of an apple splitting open like a firework, bitten by the teeth of a tiger. I take a step backwards, lick my lips and focus my body.

‘Don't miss,' the old Roxy warns me.

‘Be quiet!' I yell.

I feel my heart ripping open like the sky, the nerves in my body tense, the oxygen in my blood thrusting.

‘My focus is lethal,' I whisper to myself.

I feel blazing sparks from the sword above me showering onto my ninja hood. I push the old Roxy away and call on my inner warrior. I bend my knees, load my ankles with weight, then shoot my body into the air. I catapult upwards, feeling the air split across my blindfold. When my inner warrior yells, ‘Three!', I spin three times, extending my leg out behind me and hooking my toes into the apple like teeth, chopping it into several pieces. My blindfold dissolves as I fall back to earth and land, crouching, where I started. To my disbelief, the apple falls around me like glittering emerald rain.

When I look up, Hanzo has disappeared.

I did it!

The fog folds around me and interrupts my sense of victory. I am alone, yet the intense feeling of being watched continues. I shudder, remembering all those dead warriors in the graveyard. Then I think of saving Rescue in the boys' toilets and the exhilaration of my first fight. My tiger roars again. I'm here, at what could be my last fight, and I am no longer fighting bullies, but monsters.

There is no time to rest. There is a rush of wind, like a tornado, and a sound like helicopter blades overhead. When I look up, I am blinded by blue smoke. Bright swathes of orange fabric appear out of the haze, in their centre a spinning body. The fabric blades are vast enough to be two burnished skies; they sizzle against the red backdrop of the night. Old Roxy's voice slithers in my ear. ‘Second time not so lucky.' I suddenly want Jackson, Mum, Elecktra, all of them here to hold my hand, to cheer me on. I am completely alone.

The orange blades fall suddenly flat. The eruption of silence bursts my eardrums. I double over and scream as the pain knifes into my brain. Then the ringing stops and I'm able to stumble to my feet.

The Shaolin Monk cranes up from his robes into a fighting stance. His eyes are milky blue with cataracts. He is thousands of years dead, the original master of
Kung Fu. When he lowers his chin, his bald skull snarls open into a deep mouth with fanged teeth.

I feel the teeth of the tiger on my sole growl. I snap out of my scared state and feel a wave of adrenalin punch through me. I summon my physical combat skills, building the blocks of kicks, strikes, holds, flips, pressure points into a fortress of defence. This will be a brutal fight.

‘I'm not sure you're up for it,' old Roxy says.

I ignore her and wait, listening to the sound of my own breathing, the sound of my own mortality.

I hear a distant chiming of cymbals and the Shaolin Monk begins scorpion boxing, snaking across the floor, stinging me with his feet. His technique is beautiful and I can't help but admire the speed of his strikes.

The Monk's percussive hand strikes fly at me and I meet them with my horn rings, nunchucks and tiger heel. Somehow, I know to match his scorpion boxing with leopard boxing. I can't help feeling proud that I've remembered my training and that it works, even in another realm!

The Monk crouches with his arms spread above him like a crane. I pause in tiger stance, waiting. Perhaps to him I look like a well-trained ninja, but beneath my uniform I feel like a terrified young girl. I'm on the verge of tears and grateful that my
shinobi shozoku
covers my
mouth so he can't see my lips trembling. I cross my arms across my chest in an effort to stop my hands shaking.

In the distance a drum begins to beat. The circle clears of smoke. The Monk's head snarls. The skin across my chest stretches as tight as that drum and, with every beat, I feel more and more fear.

The Monk charges at me. He backflips, tucks his knees under his chin, touches the ground once and spins twice to land into a forward roll so fast that he sparks fire. When he stands, he has a staff in his hand.

I gulp and instinctively raise my arms above my head and tense my stomach. The Monk swings the staff back behind his neck, then gallops forwards and smashes it across my stomach. The blow thunders through me, rattling my bones, but I won't allow it to shatter my spirit. All my training culminates in this moment, when I'm standing against a master of technique.

‘My movements are magical,' I say aloud. I will not be defeated by him. I take a deep breath, centre my spirit and brace for the fight.

We engage in hand-to-hand combat, percussive strikes met by inner and outside blocks. I leap and land my elbow in the centre of the Monk's back. He pushes me away with both hands, followed by a flying side kick
that sends me to the ground so hard my body grooves out a channel of earth. I stand instantly, sweep kick his ankles, but he jumps over my feet and retaliates with a spinning crescent kick into my ear.

The blue smoke rises around us like waves, the circle awash with turbulence that reflects the feelings inside me. I don't know if I have the strength to continue. My skin is bruised and swollen, my bones ache. But then I think of my mother, her ninja stars slicing the air, the strike of her dagger, and no matter the pain, nothing will be more painful than failing her, failing to reach for the stars. I remember my hard-boiled egg and my mother's word: fortitude. Now I understand.

The Monk charges at me again and I wait, heart in mouth, then smash a double back fist into his torso. His hands fall on my shoulders in blades. I catch one of them, twist it behind his back and punch him forwards with my leg. He lands on his face, but jumps up a second later without using his hands. It didn't work. Again, tears threaten.

The Monk hits me with a triple roundhouse kick, one in my shins, one in my stomach and, finally, a snipe to the face. I feel my jaw dislocate, but have no time for pain. I turn into his kicks, bend down to grab him at the knees and use his force against him to flip his body over my head. I stare in disbelief. My training works.
I can tell by her silence that even old Roxy is impressed.

‘That's what you get for being so ancient,' I say to the Monk.

He lies motionless. Blue smoke smears across his body and I see the shadow of orange radiating behind it. In a blink, he evaporates into pink steam.

Instead of celebrating, I bow into my starting position again and concentrate on my breathing. I think of training with Jackson, and the memory of his moss-green eyes cools my burning skin and aching bones. I turn my neck to the side, grab my chin and forehead between my hands to crack my jaw back into place, but realise it has already healed. I'd forgotten that in the Cemetery of Warriors wounds heal magically. I thank my inner warrior for the strength to go on.