Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [108]
When he turned back to face her, she held an open palm to her mouth and blew a cloud of glittering black dust into his eyes.
Stung with a combination of sand, sawdust and pepper, tears streamed down Jack’s face.
His whole world went dark.
Jack had been blinded.
52
SASORI
‘Akiko! I can’t see!’
She dived across to protect him, and Jack heard the swish of the hairpin and the dull thud of arms colliding as Akiko blocked another of the kunoichi’s attacks. Jack thought he recognized the noise of Akiko retaliating with a front kick, for he heard the woman stumble away, groaning as if winded.
His eyes watered like acrid geysers and he had to screw them up against the pain. Without his sight, he could only follow the sounds of Akiko battling the kunoichi in the far corner of the room.
‘Watch out!’ cried Akiko.
Jack threw up his guard, blindly trying to make contact and use his chi sao skills, but the kunoichi evaded him. Focusing on the sound of her ragged breathing, Jack pinpointed where she’d moved to, but Akiko jumped between them to intercept an unseen strike from the ninja. Now Jack couldn’t attack in case he hit Akiko instead.
Behind him, he thought he caught the sound of a soft rustle from the silk wall hanging and the soft pad of a foot. Then Jack sensed the cedar dais upon which he stood give ever so slightly under someone else’s weight.
Jack spun round, keeping his guard up to protect his face.
His arms collided with a fist that had been aimed directly at the back of his head. Allowing his chi sao training to take over, Jack followed the curvature of his attacker’s arm and speared his fingers at the throat. His thrust was brushed aside with a countering block and strike. Instantaneously, Jack felt the trajectory of the counter and deflected it with an inner block, rolling his arm over his attacker’s and back-fisting his opponent in the face.
He caught his assailant hard on the jaw.
The contact was solid and jarring, but his opponent only laughed, a cold jagged cackle like a rusty broken saw catching in wood.
Jack lost contact, his attacker retreating out of reach.
‘Impressive, gaijin,’ hissed Dokugan Ryu, ‘but even more impressive that you’re still alive. You should be a ninja, not a samurai!’
Jack’s heart gave an aching throb. The proximity of Dragon Eye made his whole body contract, his lungs tighten.
‘I’m not scared of you,’ said Jack, with as much bravado as he could muster.
‘Of course you are,’ countered Dragon Eye, circling him slowly. ‘I’m the pain that seeps into your bones at night. The scalding fire that burns in your blood. Your worst nightmare. Your father’s murderer!’
Dragon Eye struck with such swiftness that Jack was caught off-guard. The ninja hit a point at the base of his shoulder and a sickening flare of pain rocketed down his right arm. Jack reeled backwards, gasping for breath, feeling as if his arm had been thrust into a white-hot fire.
‘But I’m wasting my time here,’ spat the ninja, as if bored with torturing his victim. ‘I have what I came for.’
Through the agony, Jack was vaguely aware he could see shapes, dark shadows against a grey mist. The pain focused his mind and his vision was clearing.
‘Sasori, stop teasing the girl!’ ordered Dragon Eye. ‘Kill her, then kill the gaijin.’
Jack blinked away his tears, catching the vague outline to his left of the hooded ninja against a misty-looking wall.
‘Don’t disappoint me again, gaijin. Stay dead this time.’
Hearing exactly where the ninja was, Jack launched a hook kick at his enemy’s head.
His foot passed clean through thin air.
Dragon Eye had disappeared.
A soft exhalation escaped from someone’s lips and the next thing Jack heard was a body crumple to the floor.
‘Akiko!’ exclaimed Jack.
No answer.
‘Akiko?’ repeated Jack, now afraid for her.
‘Your pretty little girlfriend’s dead, gaijin,’ smirked the kunoichi. ‘I sank my poisoned pin into her pretty little neck.’
A coldness