The Way of the Warrior - Chris Bradford [79]
‘Hai, Kamakura-sama, that is correct,’ replied the official, deliberately avoiding Masamoto’s glare.
‘So, unless you wish to forfeit the Taryu-Jiai…’
‘No! We will continue.’ Masamoto sat down, fuming like a boiling pot.
The official held up his hand for silence. The murmurings of the crowd ceased.
‘I am Takeda Masato,’ said the bald-headed man. ‘I am the independent adjudicator for this Taryu-Jiai appointed by the Imperial Court. I will referee all matches. My decision is final and irrefutable. The first round is kyujutsu. Samurai, prepare yourselves!’
The crowd gave a round of applause as the archery targets were set out down the length of the garden.
‘What is Yamato doing on their side?’ demanded Jack as they huddled round their standing stone. ‘How can he fight against us?’
‘You heard Masamoto’s words just as we did,’ said Akiko. ‘Masamoto disowned him after the hanami. He ran away because he’d lost too much face. He couldn’t deal with the shame.’
‘But why join the Yagyu School?’
‘Surely that is obvious, Jack,’ said Akiko. ‘He wants his father to lose face too.’
‘Enough!’ interrupted Sensei Yosa, who had come over to break up their discussion. ‘You must concentrate on the competition at hand. Don’t allow yourselves to be distracted by such underhand tactics. Remember what I taught you – you need absolute focus for kyujutsu. Balance is your foundation stone. The spirit, bow and body are as one.’
Sensei Yosa had drilled those three principles into them every day for the past three months. They had literally spent the first month just learning to stand and hold a bow correctly. Only then had she progressed on to teaching them how to shoot an arrow. Akiko was the first to manage the technique properly, but Saburo and Jack still had difficulty striking the target with any degree of consistency.
In the final weeks, Sensei Yosa had made them shoot until their fingers had bled from the blisters. One time, she had even come up to Akiko and tickled her ear with the feathered flight of an arrow. Akiko had been so shocked that she had missed the target entirely and almost struck a bird nesting in the old pine tree. All Sensei Yosa had said was, ‘You cannot allow yourself to be so easily distracted. Absolute focus, remember?’ The next lesson she had shouted in Saburo’s ear, sending his arrow skyward. ‘Focus!’ Sensei Yosa repeated.
‘Let us begin. First round. Targets set at one hundred shaku,’ called the official.
‘One hundred shaku!’ exclaimed Saburo as he gathered his bow and arrows. ‘I can barely hit one at fifty!’
‘The school to score the most points from six arrows will be deemed the winner of this match,’ continued the official. ‘One point for striking the target. Two points for the centre. Yagyu to go first.’
The girl with the black teeth stepped up to the mark. Silence descended upon the crowd. She nocked her first arrow and in a cool detached manner, she let it fly.
It struck the centre of the target and the Yagyu School cheered. Without a moment’s pause, the girl shot her second arrow and it sank into the inner white ring, missing the centre by a finger’s width. She grimaced in frustration.
‘Three points. Yagyu.’
Saburo went to position himself on the line. Even from where Jack was standing, he could see Saburo’s hands shaking. He could hardly even nock his arrow.
Saburo’s first shot went so wide that it almost hit a student standing in the crowd. A ripple of laughter rolled through the Yagyu School. Saburo’s second shot was no better, landing short.
‘Zero. Niten Ichi Ryū.’
‘Don’t worry, Saburo,’ said Jack, as he saw the mortified look on his friend’s face. ‘I’m sure the ape boy won’t do much better.’
Thankfully, Jack was right. Raiden couldn’t even grip the bow properly. Both shots sailed past without even worrying the target.
‘Zero. Yagyu.’
Jack was up next. He double-checked his posture,