Young Samurai_ The Way of the Sword - Chris Bradford [56]
As more assailants stepped from the ranks, Jack continued to fight his way down the centre of the Gauntlet, fending off attack after attack. All his extra training was now paying off. Each sword movement flowed into the next, the bokken gliding through the air in a series of controlled arcs and executing strikes with devastating accuracy.
But with each new wave of attack, Jack became a little slower, a touch weaker. A sense of dread consumed him as he realized that he wasn’t meant to complete the Gauntlet unscathed. The Gauntlet wasn’t about testing his skill with a sword. It was about his courage and spirit to survive against all the odds.
Jack was now three-quarters of the way down the hall and had levelled with Kazuki, who bore a nasty gash on his left cheek. His rival watched Jack’s progress through hooded eyes, one of which was swollen half-shut. The only other entrant who had got as far as him was Yamato, but it seemed no one had reached Sensei Hosokawa.
With the end in sight, Jack rushed forwards, but was confronted by a girl wielding a bō. The girl twirled her staff like a whirling dervish and prevented him from passing. By the way she moved, Jack could tell she was as quick as a cobra, and the reach of her weapon gave her a distinct advantage over Jack’s bokken. Jack couldn’t even get close. He dodged and weaved, but was unable to land a single strike.
She thrust her bō at Jack with lightning speed, catching him directly in the stomach. Jack felt his insides turn over. She whipped her staff up, knocking him under the chin. He saw stars and almost blacked out. But Jack instinctively swung his bokken up, somehow managing to deflect what would have been her finishing blow to his neck.
He staggered backwards, continuing to fend off her attacks, but then her staff hit his sword hand, breaking his grip, and the bokken went skittering across the dojo floor.
Defenceless, Jack could only jump from side to side as she drove her staff at him. He went to slip past her, but was pinioned from behind by another student in line.
The bō girl grinned and drove forward to deliver her conquering strike.
At the last second, Jack stamped on the foot of his captor, twisting sideways so that the bō connected with the boy’s stomach instead. The boy yelled in surprise, relinquishing Jack from his grip.
In one fluid movement, Jack seized the boy’s bokken and brought it down hard on to the girl’s lead hand. Her bō clattered to the ground.
Jack shoulder-barged her out of the way and charged for the end of the Gauntlet.
He had made it!
He had run the Gauntlet.
He had managed to complete a trial.
Bruised and battered as he was, he proudly faced Sensei Hosokawa, who returned his gaze with a satisfied nod of the head. Jack could only hope that he had done enough to be selected for the Circle of Three. He bowed his respects to Sensei Hosokawa.
Strangely, there was no applause from the students. The anti-gaijin sentiment surely hadn’t gone so far in the school that they wouldn’t recognize his achievement. Jack was about to look up, when out of the corner of his eye, he glimpsed the sensei shift his body weight. Something whistled through the air.
The next thing Jack heard was, ‘How many times have I told you…’
27
THE SELECTION
‘…never let your guard down!’
The words rang in Jack’s head as painfully as the bokken that struck him across the back of his neck, knocking him senseless to the floor.
The Gauntlet didn’t finish at Sensei Hosokawa.
Sensei Hosokawa was the final trial.
Nursing a stiff neck, Jack now stood with the Circle of Three entrants in three lines at the centre of the Butokuden. They all looked like they’d been through a war, not one of them having escaped without injury.
While the rest of the school waited patiently in seiza around the edges of the dojo, Masamoto and Sensei Hosokawa, Yosa, Kyuzo and Yamada sat in a circle within the ceremonial alcove, quietly discussing the fate of the students.
Sensei Kano knelt to one side, his white bō leaning against a nearby pillar. As a visiting