Young Samurai: The Ring of Sky (35 page)

Kazuki laughed. ‘What I want is for
you to
watch
,
gaijin.
’

Raiden raised his
nodachi
over his
head to sever Akiko’s hand. Akiko screwed her eyes shut, bracing herself for the
agonizing cut … There was a flash of steel and a sickening howl of pain.
Raiden’s
nodachi
clattered to the ground as he clasped his bleeding face
in both hands. Between his fingers, the sharpened point of a
shuriken
gleamed.

Snatching up his
katana
, Jack
charged along the walkway to rescue Akiko. His surrender had been nothing but a ruse to
allow him to grab the
shuriken
he’d taken from the archer’s body.
In one fluid movement, he’d slipped the star from his
obi
and flicked it
with deadly accuracy at Raiden’s right eye. As he now dashed across the garden
past the cypress tree, Akiko held up her hand, signing for him to stop. But it was too
late. A blade scythed out of nowhere. On instinct alone Jack ducked, the sword slicing
so close it shaved off a lock of his hair.

‘Not so fast,
gaijin
,’
Goro snarled, his blade coming round for a second attack.

Jack blocked it with his
katana
and
the two blades sparked off one another. He kicked Goro in the chest. Goro stumbled
backwards but kept his feet. He slashed low with his sword. Jack jumped the blade and
brought his
katana
down on to Goro’s head. Goro’s sword met the
katana
halfway. The two weapons jammed, and Jack and Goro became locked in
a power struggle through the garden.

As Jack fought for his life, Akiko drove
herself upwards and
threw her head back. There was a dull crunch as
Hiroto’s recently healed nose imploded once again. He collapsed to the floor,
sobbing with pain. Akiko seized his knife with her free hand and drove the blade through
his shoulder, pinning him to the floorboards. Hiroto writhed like a harpooned fish.

Half-blinded and maddened with pain, Raiden
now tried to stamp-kick Akiko where she lay. Still bound by the ropes, Akiko was in no
position to fight off the monstrous young samurai. She frantically rolled across the inn
floor, trying to free herself before Raiden could land one of his skull-crushing
kicks.

‘Leave the
gaijin
to me,
Goro,’ Kazuki ordered, leaping from the tea house. ‘Go and help Raiden
kill
Akiko.’

Goro immediately disengaged and headed for
the open
shoji
. Jack chased after him, but Kazuki blocked his path.

‘Revenge is long overdue,
gaijin
,’ he declared, pointing his black-handled
katana
at
Jack. ‘But it’ll be all the sweeter for it.’

57
 
 

As his rival advanced on him, Jack drew his
wakizashi
and took up a Two Heavens stance. He realized this would be a
fight to the death. No more running. No lucky escapes. Their feud was destined for a
bloody end, one way or the other.

‘Can you still do the Two Heavens with
a fingertip missing?’ Kazuki smirked.

‘Why don’t you find out for
yourself?’ challenged Jack, impatient to reach Akiko before it was too late.

Kazuki’s cut was so fast that Jack
barely had time to deflect it with his
katana
. The razor-sharp steel whistled
past his ear like a lightning bolt. As Kazuki pulled back, Jack felt a bee-like sting
across his cheek.

‘Clearly not,’ gloated Kazuki,
flicking Jack’s blood from his blade.

A thin red line ran along Jack’s face
where Kazuki’s blade had caught him. The cut wasn’t deep, the pain yet to
fully register, but first blood had been drawn – and laying claim to the opening victory
meant
everything
in the battle to come.

‘I’m going to bleed you like a
stuck pig,’ Kazuki declared. ‘Cut by cut.’

Then he attacked with a vengeance, his blade
slicing in a series of deadly arcs. Jack had to apply all his skill just to defend
against them. Although he had the advantage of two weapons, Kazuki was a supreme
swordsman. Even with his injured right hand, Kazuki had adapted and become more lethal.
Moreover, he knew how to evade and counter every Two Heavens technique. Whatever Jack
tried – Running Water strike, Lacquer-and-Glue, Monkey’s Body – Kazuki foresaw and
retaliated with devastating consequences. He cut Jack across the forearm with a
switchback slice. Then he avoided Jack’s attempt at an Autumn Leaf strike,
feigning a thrust and turning it into a diagonal cut to his shoulder. Jack drove
forwards to deliver a Flint-and-Spark strike, their blades scraping fiercely against one
another. But Kazuki masterfully deflected the thrust and sliced through Jack’s
kimono, leaving a nasty gash across his chest.

Wincing in pain, Jack was forced to retreat.
He was exhausted from the previous battles, worn out from their frantic escape, and his
strength was further sapped with every cut Kazuki inflicted.

This
wasn’t
how he’d
envisaged their final duel.

Kazuki prowled towards him, his sword
dripping with Jack’s blood. ‘You seem distracted,
gaijin
.
Didn’t Sensei Hosokawa teach you
fudoshin
?’

A samurai must remain calm at all times
– even in the face of danger.

But how could Jack remain calm and focused
when Akiko was in such peril? He glanced anxiously in her direction. She’d managed
to shed her bonds, but was now cornered by Goro and Raiden. Weakened from her arrow
wound and without a weapon, she was doomed to die.

Kazuki smiled. His ploy had worked. With
Jack’s attention briefly on Akiko, he clenched his gloved hand into a fist. The
secret blade inside his kimono sleeve shot out. Rushing forward, he drove the deadly
weapon at Jack’s heart.

Realizing his potentially fatal error, Jack
leapt away. The steel tip ripped through his jacket, just missing his skin by a whisker.
He smashed the blade aside with his
wakizashi
and retreated once more.

‘You don’t catch me twice with
that trick,’ Jack panted, recalling the first time Kazuki had revealed his secret
weapon.

‘How about a third time?’
replied Kazuki, cocking his head to one side.

A pair of meaty arms clamped down on Jack
from behind and held him like a vice. Jack struggled, but Nobu’s grip was
crushingly strong. Kazuki held up his secret blade and gave a triumphant grin.

‘Time to gut you,
gaijin
!’

He drew back his arm to thrust the
razor-sharp steel into Jack’s defenceless stomach. At the same time Goro and
Raiden closed in for the kill on Akiko. Jack fought wildly to free himself, but deep
down he knew all was lost.

The end had come.

Then there was a
crash
of doors as
a dripping wet Saburo burst through the inn’s main entrance. His arrival was
followed by a yell from above that made Jack, Kazuki and Nobu all look up.

Plummeting down like a multicoloured angel
of death, Benkei dropped from the tree. Stood directly beneath, Nobu panicked and let go
of Jack, who dived aside as Benkei crashed on top of Nobu, flattening him like a
pancake. Nobu groaned
weakly, then lay still. Benkei rolled off and
got unsteadily to his feet, one ankle still tethered to the snare where he’d cut
it with his knife.

‘Thank goodness for a soft
landing!’ said Benkei, patting himself down for injuries.

While Benkei dropped from the tree to save
Jack, Saburo had rushed to Akiko’s aid. He’d charged at Goro, their swords
clashing, and driven him backwards into the half-blind Raiden. His surprise attack had
given Akiko the opportunity to steal Hiroto’s
katana
and she was now
battling Raiden and his
nodachi
.

Sensing his long-awaited revenge slipping
from his grasp, Kazuki roared in rage. ‘You will
die
,
gaijin
!’

It was now Kazuki who’d forgotten the
principle of
fudoshin
. ‘It’s your fault! All your fault my mother
died,’ he spat. ‘
Gaijin
are a disease. A plague that must be wiped
from the face of this earth. And
I
will destroy you!’

His anger consumed him, his hunger for
revenge overwhelming all rational thought. His
katana
and hand blade became a
whirl of steel as he attacked Jack with the brutal fury of a man possessed.

Jack fought back with equal passion.
Encouraged by Saburo’s miraculous survival and Akiko’s fighting spirit,
he’d regained his warrior’s sense of control. The two of them battled
through the garden, their blades ringing like deathly tolls as the steel struck,
blocking and countering one another. Neither could break through the other’s
defence.

Panting from exhaustion, Jack and Kazuki
circled one another, their eyes locked in a battle of wills. Jack had drawn upon all his
reserves to fend off his rival, but he knew Kazuki was the stronger in this duel – and
so did Kazuki.

From within the inn, Raiden cried out as his
nodachi
rolled across the floor and he clasped what remained of his severed
hand. With one eye gone and an arm disabled, Raiden had had enough and fled from the
inn. His desertion didn’t go unnoticed by Kazuki. Although he didn’t break
his stare, Jack spotted the tip of Kazuki’s sword tremble ever so slightly.

‘
Suki
–
a break in
composure and concentration.
That
is your opportunity to
attack
,’ the
Shodo
master had said.

Realizing his opportunity, Jack flipped his
wakizashi
in his hand, deftly swapping to the reverse grip he’d
mastered with Shiryu. Spinning on the spot, he knocked Kazuki’s sword aside with
his
katana
, then drove the tip of the
wakizashi
backwards. Caught
totally off-guard by the unconventional technique, Kazuki was skewered through the side.
The blade penetrated all the way through, pinning him to the trunk of the cypress tree
behind.

Kazuki gasped in agony, his eyes widening in
shock. ‘
That
wasn’t the Two Heavens!’

Disbelief registered on his face as he
looked down at the shaft of steel piercing his right-hand side, just below the ribs.

But Jack wasn’t finished with him.
Letting go of the
wakizashi
’s handle, he followed through on his spin,
whipping his
katana
round, ready to decapitate his rival and end their blood
feud for good.

58
 
 

‘NO, JACK!’

The blade stopped a hair’s breadth
from Kazuki’s neck, Jack’s killing stroke stayed by a voice from the
grave.

‘
Revenge has no more quenching effect on the emotions than
salt water on thirst
,’ said Yori, entering the garden.

Jack couldn’t believe his eyes.
Yori’s robes were singed at the hem, the tip of his
shakujō
charred
black, and he walked with a slight limp. But his friend was
alive
.
‘Yori … you survived the fire!
But how?
’

Yori smiled serenely up at him. ‘The
same way we survived the Way of Fire at the
gasshuku
– the Heart Sutra
meditation. Part of the barn wall burned down and I walked out through the
flames.’ He lifted a foot, the skin of his sole blistered red raw. ‘But I
admit I’ve yet to perfect the technique.’

Kazuki groaned in pain, a bloodstain
blossoming where the
wakizashi
impaled him to the tree.

Jack still held the
katana
to his
throat, the urge to follow through almost overpowering. After the years of torment and
suffering Kazuki had inflicted upon him and his friends, he surely deserved to die.

‘Let him live,’ said Yori.
‘There’s no place for anger or rage in
bushido
.’

‘But Kazuki’s responsible for
Miyuki’s death!’ argued Jack, his sword hand trembling in its desire for
justice.