Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [33]
‘Go home, gaijin! Go home, gaijin! Go home, gaijin!’
Jack sat immobilized by fear in his father’s high-backed armchair as he watched Dragon Eye slash with his sword, scoring the phrase over and over again on to every wall of his parents’ cottage. Like open wounds, the red letters seeped in crimson streaks, and Jack realized Dragon Eye was using his father’s blood as ink.
Hearing a scuttling sound approach, Jack clasped the rutter closer to his chest. Glancing down, he was confronted by four black scorpions, each the size of a fist, crawling their way over the floorboards and up his bare legs, their poisoned barbs crackling in the darkness…
‘Are you coming?’
Jack was jolted awake by Akiko’s voice.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes against the bright morning light that poured in through the tiny window of his room.
‘I’m not… quite ready… you go ahead,’ replied Jack, his voice shaky as he pulled back the covers of his futon.
‘Are you all right?’ she asked from the other side of his shoji door.
‘I’m fine… just sleepy.’
But Jack was far from fine. Akiko had woken him from another nightmare.
‘I’ll meet you in the Chō-no-ma for breakfast,’ he added hurriedly.
‘Try not to be late this time,’ Akiko cautioned, and Jack heard her soft footsteps pad along the passageway.
He got up, groggy from his dream of Dragon Eye and the four scorpions. He wondered whether it could be a premonition like the butterfly and demon vision. But that vision had been induced by meditation. This was a nightmare, something darker, more primitive. If it happened again, he promised himself he would consult Sensei Yamada.
Jack packed away his futon, tucking the rutter carefully inside the folds of the mattress. It was too obvious a hiding place. He urgently needed to speak with Emi to arrange a return visit to the castle. The problem was that he could never get her alone. Her two friends, Cho and Kai, followed her around like handmaidens. Besides, Jack hadn’t yet thought of how to broach the subject with her without revealing his true purpose.
Hurriedly he put on his training gi, wrapping the upper section round his body, ensuring the lapel went left over right. He didn’t want to dress like a corpse by having them the other way. He then tied the jacket off with a white obi round his waist.
Before leaving for breakfast and his first lesson of the day, Jack tended to his bonsai perched on the narrow window sill. He treasured the tiny cherry-blossom tree, a parting gift from Uekiya, the gardener in Toba. It was a constant reminder of the kindness the old man had shown him that first summer. He watered it religiously, pruned its branches and removed any dead leaves. The ritual always calmed him, and soon the cruel taunts of his nightmare faded until they were little more than a whisper in his head.
That morning, several of the bonsai’s miniature green leaves showed tints of golden brown and fiery red, announcing the arrival of autumn. With only a season left to go before snow heralded the selection trials for the Circle of Three, the sensei had intensified their training, increasing the complexity of the techniques and pushing the students to their limits. Jack was really starting to struggle with the regime.
Securing his bokken in his obi, he summoned up the energy he would need to get through the day.
‘Again, kata four!’ ordered Sensei Hosokawa.
The students sliced the air with their bokken, repeating the prescribed series of moves. They had performed hundreds of cuts already that morning, but Sensei Hosokawa’s lesson was relentless.
Jack’s arms were burning with the exertion, sweat poured down him and his bokken felt as heavy as lead.
‘No, Jack-kun!’ corrected Sensei Hosokawa. ‘The kissaki stops at chudan. You are slicing through the belly of your enemy – not trying to chop off their feet.’
Jack, who usually excelled during the sword class, was having great difficulty keeping up. His aching limbs just wouldn’t respond and the bokken kept dropping way past its target.
‘Concentrate!’ commanded Sensei Hosokawa, rounding on Jack. ‘Don