by Jon F. Merz
Hideaki had walked away laughing. “First lesson: keep your hands up, little tiger.”
Jimmy watched him go, rubbing the side of his neck and willing his head to clear before someone saw him. The chop to his neck hadn’t hurt so much physically as it bruised his already fragile pride.
Of course he knew there were people who were better fighters than he was. He’d only been studying for a little over a week. How was he supposed to become a master so quickly? To him, it didn’t even seem possible. And yet Vanessa seemed determined to make him one.
He sighed and stalked off to his room. He fished out his sketchpad and finished shading a part of the lower castle wall that he’d been seeing in his dreams since the last night at the orphanage. He still had no clue what it meant. But as the details had increased in his drawing, Jimmy couldn’t help but feel some sort of attachment to the place. And he felt certain he’d never even seen it before.
Hideaki made himself more of a problem the closer the ship drew to Japan. His surprise attacks increased in frequency until Jimmy was pretty much scared to go anywhere by himself. It also didn’t help that Vanessa caught the haunted look in his eyes.
“You don’t look so good.”
“I’m fine.”
Vanessa eyed him. “Famous last words, hon. What’s bothering you?”
“Nothing. Just tired is all.”
Vanessa shook her head. “No, you’re not tired. Sure, I’m running you through your paces hard, but it’s hardly phasing you anymore. You’ve done an excellent job at adapting to the stresses that I’ve placed on your body.” Her eyes narrowed. “No, there’s something else.”
Jimmy sighed. “There’s nothing else.”
Vanessa waved him over to the side of the deck and they sat looking out at the ocean. “You’ll have to tell me sooner or later.”
“I’d rather not,” said Jimmy. The last thing he needed was Vanessa finding out about Hideaki. Knowing her, she’d go over and find him and then tear him apart. Hideaki might have been scary to Jimmy, but he doubted Vanessa would even blink once before snapping him in two.
“If you’re not able to deal with this…thing, then it will start occupying more of your mind. And I can’t have that. I need you totally focused on the task at hand.”
“Which is what?”
“Preparing you for…things.”
“I love how none of my questions ever seem to get answered.”
Vanessa winked at him. “And now I know how you feel since you won’t answer my question right now.”
Jimmy felt a set of eye son him. He glanced up at the bridge and could just make out Hideaki sneering at him.
Vanessa caught the movement and before Jimmy could hide his disgust, she sniffed as if satisfied with herself that she’d found the answer to her question. “Having some trouble with the locals are you?”
“No.”
She smiled. “Is that so? So that guy sneering down at you from the bridge – he’s a friend of yours?”
“He’s not my friend.”
“Indeed.” Vanessa examined the line of her hands. “He’s been giving you a hard time, has he?”
“I’ve done my best to avoid him-“ Jimmy chopped off the end of his sentence realizing he’d already said too much. Here it comes, he thought, she’ll go off to take care of Hideaki and then I’ll have a real problem on my hands.
“And yet he still finds you.” She nodded. “I thought I’d seen you skulking about the corridors and cabins lately. You’ve been keeping tabs on him, haven’t you?”
“Trying to.”
“I see.” She hummed to herself. “Well, I suppose there’s only one thing to do then.”
Jimmy held up his hands. “Please don’t do anything to him. He’s said some bad stuff, but it’s nothing. I can handle it. Don’t go after him, okay?”
Vanessa looked surprised. “Go after him? Is that how you would have me solve this problem?”
Jimmy stared to say something and then closed his mouth. Was that what he wanted? To have Vanessa fight his battles for him? That wouldn’t be solving anything if she did.
He sighed. “I guess not.”
“Exactly. You already know the solution to this problem, don’t you?”
Jimmy’s stomach ached suddenly. “Unfortunately.”
Vanessa laid a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve taught you plenty of things already, but one of the most important that you have yet to learn is that you must try to control the situation as much as possible even before a fight takes place. So a wise warrior looks to command the environment – use it to his advantage. He tries to control the timing of the fight. Miyamoto Musashi, perhaps the greatest swordsman ever to live, used to show up late to matches, knowing that his opponents would grow impatient and impulsive.”
“What does that have to do with Hideaki?”
“Is that his name?”
“Yeah.”
“You two have some history, I see.”
Jimmy shrugged. “He’s been stalking me as much as I’ve been trying to avoid him.”
Vanessa nodded. “And therein lies the solution to your problem.”
“I don’t see it.”
“If this boy – Hideaki – is stalking you at times when you least expect it, then you must turn the tables on him. Find him when he least expects it. Turn your fear of him into strength.”
Jimmy shook his head. “I don’t think I can find any strength to deal with him.”
“He’s just one person. And as such, he is not invulnerable. The key to defeating any enemy is to know where their weakness lies.”
“Hideaki doesn’t seem to have any weaknesses to me,” said Jimmy.
“Clearly he does,” said Vanessa. “After all, he’s taunting someone younger than him rather than attempting to pick an issue with me or any of the other crew members. So he’s insecure about himself.”
“I’m feeling pretty insecure right now,” said Jimmy.
“That’s only natural,” said Vanessa. “Given that you’ll have to fight him soon enough.”
Jimmy jerked his head up. “What did you say?”
Vanessa shrugged. “Well, it’s either that or I have a preoccupied pupil for the remainder of our trip. Besides, this will be a good opportunity for you to see what skills you’ve learned.”
“That guy will kill me.”
“I doubt that very much,” said Vanessa. “And you know, judging from what I see here, he looks to be about your size almost. It’s actually a good fit for you.”
“Easy for you to say.”
Vanessa chuckled. “Everyone has their first fight at some point. At least those of us who are on the path of the warrior.”
“I’ve been giving serious consideration to giving that whole warrior thing up and concentrating on my drawing.”
Vanessa’s eyes grew sad. “Even if that were possible, there would still be people looking to kill you. And they would succeed very quickly if you didn’t take steps to learn how to protect yourself.” She clapped him on the back and stood up. “Besides, I’ve made a vow that I won’t let that happen.”
Jimmy felt a wave of anger building in him. “So you fight Hideaki.”
“I could do that very easily. But that’s not going to solve anything, nor is it going to be helpful to you.”
Jimmy watched the blue waves far below him. His heart thundered and he took a few deep breaths, willing himself to calm down. “I could jump overboard and let the sharks eat me.”
“A far worse fate than simply facing this man Hideaki in unarmed combat.”
“Right now I’m not so sure.”
Vanessa stood there with her hands on her hips. "Jimmy, have you thought about how strange it is for you to be afraid of this Hideaki boy?"
"What do you mean?"
"I mean, you were nearly killed several times by adult assassins on your way to reaching this ship. And yet, you managed to handle them well enough."
Jimmy frowned. "I guess."
/> "So, what is it about this kid that's got you so rattled? You ought to be able to sort him out with no problems. Just like you did those assassins."
"I don't know," said Jimmy. "I don't know what the problem is."
"Well, it's good we discovered there is one."
"It is?"
"Sure. We need to uncover all of your vulnerabilities, Jimmy. That's the only way we'll be able to teach you how to protect yourself. We find the weak points in your suit of armor and mend them. If Hideaki represents a weak point for some reason, then all the more reason you need to face him in combat."
"Great."
"I mean, imagine if Kotogawa learned that you feared children more than adults? He'd simply send child assassins after you and kill you off in no time at all." Vanessa started walking away. “Come with me.”
“Where are we going?”
“We still have training to do.” She saw the look in his eyes and smiled. “Don’t worry, I have no intention of saying anything to Hideaki. This is a problem that you’ll have to solve for yourself in the way that you think best suits you.”
“So begging him to leave me alone is probably not what you have in mind, huh?”
Vanessa shrugged. “That depends on whether you would use that begging as a cover for a sneak attack. In which case, I could very easily see the merit of such an approach.”
“That wasn't what I was thinking.”
“I thought perhaps maybe it wasn’t.”
Jimmy sighed and rose to follow her across the deck. He glanced up above at the bridge but Hideaki no longer stared down at them. Seemingly he had moved on to doing something else.
Great.
Vanessa waved Jimmy over to the side of the deck. “Now, try to put the thought of Hideaki out of your mind and let’s try to get back to what we’re here to do: get you ready for-“
“-things,” said Jimmy.
Vanessa smiled. “Indeed. Are you ready?”
Jimmy steeled himself and gulped down a bit of oxygen. The thought of Hideaki stomping his face in wouldn’t be easy to put away in his mind. But the Vanessa was already attacking him.
And Jimmy had no choice but to forget about the coming battle with Hideaki.
At least for a few minutes.
Chapter Fifteen
As the freighter steamed west toward Japan, Vanessa kept piling on the training time with Jimmy. It was as if she was working to some schedule only she knew about, but one that meant Jimmy had very little time to worry about Hideaki. For that he was grateful; every night after they had finished, he would fall into bed and immediately drop into a deep sleep.
But part of him also worried that if he was forever tired, how would he fare when the fight with Hideaki actually came? He’d be too tired to hold his hands up to guard against attacks.
He voiced this concern to Vanessa while she had him striking in the air with his hanbo, emphasizing the need to be able to hit from any angle, or the “nine directions” as she called it.
Vanessa looked at him. “Are you really concerned about that? That you’ll be too tired to defend yourself?”
Jimmy shrugged. “I’m not the expert fighter here. It just occurred to me that I might have a problem.”
“So you’d prefer I slack off on you? Give you some time off so you can rest up for your fight?”
Jimmy grinned. “Well, a break would be nice, but that’s not-“
Vanessa drew close to him. “Jimmy, if there’s one thing that I need to impress on you perhaps more than everything else I’ve been trying to teach you is that you can’t pick the time and place of when danger will find you. You can’t pick the state you’ll be in when it happens, either. Because of this, you need to be able to fight from any condition, at any time. It’s harsh, but it’s also reality. The people chasing you – us – they won’t wait until you’ve had a nice luxurious massage and nap before they attack. In fact, they would love to find you exhausted and unable to defend yourself. It makes their job easier.”
Jimmy paused. “Their job being to kill me.”
“Yes.” Vanessa’s voice was without emotion. Just matter-of-fact and devoid of anything resembling her kind manner.
“I understand,” said Jimmy after a moment. “I’m not exactly crazy about it, but I get it. I’ll train harder.”
Vanessa sighed and then put an arm around him. “My father and the men he worked with had to be able to walk or run for miles carrying heavy loads on their backs – between sixty and one hundred and twenty pounds depending on the mission – and once they’d got to their objective, still be able to fight, despite not having rested or even slept for days. Their ability to do that is one of the things that gave them such an advantage over their enemies. No one expects anyone to be able to fight after such a grueling slog. And yet they could. And so will you.” She looked into his eyes. “Do the unexpected, Jimmy. Your enemies will never be able to defeat you if you do.”
“Okay.”
Vanessa smiled and leaned back. “Right, so we’re back to training then?”
“Yeah.”
“Good, go for a few laps and then come back here.”
Jimmy turned and started to run off when Vanessa called him back.
“Yeah?”
Vanessa handed him his hanbo. “While you run, practice hitting with your hanbo. Make sure you don’t grip it too tightly.”
“You want me to hit with it while I’m running?”
“Why not?”
Jimmy frowned but took the hanbo and started off again. The sun, already high overhead, blazed down on the steel deck, making the temperature outside in the high-80s. Sweat poured off of him as he ran, but Jimmy had already acclimated well to the heat.
The hanbo felt slippery in his grip. Jimmy stabbed out to the sides, visualizing the short staff making impact with both sides of the rib cage of an enemy. He lifted the hanbo overhead and came down like he was splitting a piece of wood. Over and over again, as he ran, the hanbo was a blur of movement.
Jimmy felt his lungs expanding and contracting as he breathed. Air rushed in an out of him like a hot wind, pumped by the bellows in his chest. His blood surged and he felt powerful.
He smiled. The world he’d known only a week or so ago seemed like a lifetime away from where he was now.
Ninja.
He smirked. Imagine that, he thought. Me being the last in a line of ninja warriors. Incredible.
But what about Kotogawa and the things that lay ahead?
Jimmy swung the hanbo down again, this time imagining he was splitting a coconut with the staff. In his mind, he saw the two pieces fall apart evenly, spilling fresh milk everywhere.
He’d worry about the future when it got here, he decided. For right now, the most important thing was to learn as much as he could from Vanessa-
-the impact came from his right side and as the wind rushed out of his lungs, the hanbo went clattering across the deck. Jimmy went flying, crashing into the hard steel deck plates, feeling the hot metal burn his skin.
He got to his feet slowly-
-too late, another impact sent him sprawling again. Jimmy tasted blood and realized he’d been kicked in the side of his head. He wiped his mouth and saw the streak of red.
His eyes blinked furiously, trying to clear the tears that sprang to them from the jarring impact.
Hideaki.
The sinister smile blossomed on his face. He held his hands up and moved like a viper, darting in and out at Jimmy as he feinted kicks and punches.
Jimmy frowned. It wasn’t supposed to happen like this, he thought.
“Miss your babysitter already?”
Hideaki laughed now and shot a low kick at Jimmy’s left leg. It slammed into his thigh and Jimmy felt the leg buckle beneath the onslaught.
“Lesson number two: if you can’t stand, you can’t fight,” laughed Hideaki. “Come on and get up little baby. I want to see what you’ve learned from that silly woman who is with you.”
“She’s
not silly,” said Jimmy through gritted teeth. He put a hand on to the deck to steady himself and slowly rose.
“She’s silly to think she can turn you into a fighter,” said Hideaki. He feinted with another kick and caught Jimmy trying to block it. Hideaki retracted the leg and came over the top with a solid straight jab that bounced off of Jimmy’s chin. "You are part Westerner and can never be as good of a fighter as I am."
Jimmy grunted. Cripes, that hurt, he thought, blinking away the stars that filled his vision.
Hideaki came in again and lashed out with a high kick aimed at the other side of Jimmy’s head. This time, Jimmy managed to duck under the kick and as he did so, he punched up into the underside of Hideaki’s thigh.
Hideaki grunted and yanked his leg back out of the way. Jimmy saw the grimace on his face and allowed himself a small grin.
“Looks like maybe she taught me a little something, after all.”
Hideaki shrugged. “Even a beginner can get lucky every once in a while. That won’t happen again.”
Hideaki came in faster than Jimmy could breathe and this time, the barrage of punches and kicks sent Jimmy stumbling backward. Each blow thudded into his body and made Jimmy taste blood, bile, and gulp for air that never seemed to be enough for his lungs.
He crumpled to the deck and fought to get his breathing under control. His lungs heaved worse than any of the exercises that Vanessa had him go through so far on the journey.
Hideaki’s laughter filled his ears. Jimmy glanced up and saw Hideaki regarding him like a wounded puppy. “Do you need me to go call your babysitter and tell her that you’ve unfortunately been thoroughly humiliated?”
Jimmy grit his teeth and pushed himself back up. “Not just yet.”
Hideaki smirked. “Looking for more punishment, are you? Well, I am very happy to oblige.”
Jimmy steeled himself for the attack, but this time, Hideaki drove in low, under Jimmy’s guard. Too late Jimmy saw his mistake and then felt his legs swept out from under him as Hideaki had gone to one knee and then spun himself around.
The deck came up fast and Jimmy landed on the flat of his back. The wind jumped from his lungs again and he heaved once before he saw blackness looming at the fringes of his consciousness.
