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Jack flew at Akiko’s murderer. He didn’t care any more; he no longer thought about what he was doing. He just struck.

The kunoichi struggled against his impassioned onslaught.

Blow after blow rained down upon the ninja.

Jack’s forearm slammed into her guard and the kunoichi lost her grip on the deadly hairpin, sending it flying across the room.

He drove in harder. The ninja began to buckle under the pressure. Jack then sidekicked her with all his might, catching the kunoichi full force in the chest. The ninja fell backwards, landing hard on the dais, and screamed.

‘Come on!’ Jack roared, his eyes wet with stinging tears, no longer caused by the blinding powder, but by the grief in his heart.

But there was no response.

Jack wiped at his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he could just about see again.

The kunoichi lay unmoving in a heap on the dais.

He couldn’t have kicked her that hard, thought Jack, not enough to kill her.

He took a cautious step closer and tapped her leg with his foot. There was no reaction. The woman’s black eyes were dull and lifeless, their pearl-like shine gone.

Jack rolled her over.

The ninja’s ornate steel hairpin protruded out of her back like the barb of a scorpion. Killed by her own poison.

Sasori, thought Jack numbly, Dragon Eye had called her Sasori.

Scorpion.

As much as he tried to deny it, his dream had come to be.

Four scorpions.

Kazuki’s gang. The Spirit challenge. The warrior. The kunoichi.

Four meant death. But it had not been his own that the dream had foretold. It had been Akiko’s.

Jack sank to his knees, barely taking in the devastation of the reception room. Yamato was slowly coming to among the broken shards of teacups. Emi still hadn’t moved, her neck bruised and swollen, though Jack could see that she was breathing.

The hanging of the white crane had been ripped from the wall and the bolt-hole gaped open, black and empty like the socket of a skull.

Dragon Eye had the rutter.

Jack crawled over to Akiko.

She lay utterly still upon the tatami, a small prick of blood on her neck where the hairpin had entered. Jack, sobbing in great breaths of anguish, cradled her lifeless body in his arms.

53

THE WAY OF THE DRAGON

‘CALL YOURSELF A SAMURAI!’

Masamoto could no longer contain his wrath.

He had kept a cool head when they discovered Jack and the others in the reception room. He had calmly organized a search party for Dokugan Ryu as well as extra protection for the daimyo. He had held back while arranging the students’ safe return to the Niten Ichi Ryū. He had even maintained his composure while Jack had explained the reason for hiding the rutter in the daimyo’s castle.

But now he bellowed at Jack, who lay prostrate on the floor of the Hall of the Phoenix. Jack quivered with every forceful word Masamoto uttered, each one cutting as sharp as a katana blade.

‘You sacrificed your friends, violated my trust and above all endangered the daimyo’s life, all for the sake of your father’s rutter!’

Masamoto glared at Jack, fuming with pent-up anger, seemingly unable to express the fury he felt. With each passing moment of raging silence, the scars on Masamoto’s face grew redder and redder.

‘I could forgive you for the lie, but how can I overlook this? You made the daimyo’s castle a target for ninja!’ he said, almost in a whisper, as if he was scared the violence in his voice would lead to violence in his hands. ‘I thought you understood what it meant to be samurai. Your duty is to me and your daimyo. You’ve broken the code of bushido! Where was your loyalty? Where was your respect? Had I not proven by my guardianship that you could trust me?’

Masamoto had tears in his eyes. The idea that Jack couldn’t trust him, and might not respect him, seemed to disappoint the great samurai the most.

‘OUT OF MY SIGHT!’

Jack sat upon the bough of the old pine tree in the corner of the Nanzen-niwa. Hidden in darkness, he kicked despondently at the tree’s wooden crutch, lashing out