The Ninja Apprentice: The Lost Scrolls of Fudo Shin

by Jon F. Merz

  At the terminal entrance, Vanessa opened the door to a taxi and Jimmy noticed that as she held the door for him, she made a cursory glance around to check for any interest. Seeing none, she slid inside and nodded at Jimmy. “Tell him where to go.”

  “Uh…”

  Vanessa looked at him. “Well, he won’t go anywhere if you don’t tell him.”

  “I don’t speak Japanese.”

  Vanessa’s eyes opened wider. “Are you sure about that?”

  “Of course I’m sure. Why would you think that I did? I’ve never been here before in my life.”

  “You just asked me a moment ago where we were headed and I told you.”

  “You said Jimbocho.”

  From the front seat, the driver grunted suddenly. “Jimbocho, hai.”

  Jimmy looked at him and without thinking said, “Domo.” The driver inclined his head slightly and then tiny taxi shot away from the terminal entrance and into the traffic slipstream.

  Jimmy frowned. “How did I know how to say that?”

  Vanessa looked amused. “You tell me, Mr. Linguist.”

  Jimmy shook his head. “Something tells me that I’m the only one not being let in on the joke here.”

  “You will be soon enough, Jimmy. Just stay patient a little while longer and I promise you’ll have most of your questions answered.”

  “Most of them? What happened to all of them?”

  Vanessa shrugged. “Some of your questions don’t have answers. Well, at least not yet they don’t.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “It’s possible because you haven’t created the answers yet. The future isn’t written. Once it is, you’ll know the answers.”

  Jimmy shook his head and tried to focus on the mass of cars and trucks whizzing past them on the highway. “Sometimes talking with you is more confusing than just staying quiet.”

  “Yes, but it’s nowhere near as fun,” said Vanessa. She nudged him. “You are having fun, aren’t you, Jimmy?”

  He frowned. “I don’t think that answer’s been created yet.”

  She laughed. “Excellent. Good to see you haven’t lost your sense of humor. Sometimes, that’s all any of us have.”

  Once your work is done in Tokyo, you must tell Vanessa to take you to Mount Matsuda.

  The voice startled him. “Mount Matsuda?”

  “What did you say?” Vanessa eyed him.

  “Uh, nothing, never mind.” Jimmy sighed. Why Mount Matsuda?

  Because that where the Matsuda-ryu ninja call home.

  Home. Jimmy stared out of the taxi window. He wondered what it would be like to truly have a home after all this time.

  He thought about Kotogawa then and wondered if he'd ever get a chance to see it after all.

  Chapter Nineteen

  A weird assortment of cars and trucks zipped past Jimmy’s window as he stared out at the Tokyo metropolis. He’d never seen the majority of the models of cars flying along the roads and said as much to Vanessa.

  “They don’t sell the same cars in the United States. Some of them aren’t approved for sale there.”

  “Yeah, that and the fact that they drive on the wrong side of the road.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” said Vanessa with a smile. “Seems to me they’ve got it the right way around.”

  Jimmy grinned. “You would say that being from England and all.”

  “Great Britain,” said Vanessa. “I prefer that.”

  The taxi driver wheeled around a van so fast that Jimmy nearly smashed his face against the window. He slid back against the seat and checked to make sure his seat belt was secure. Vanessa smiled again.

  “Better sit back until we get there.”

  Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, that might be good plan.” He glanced at her. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  “Jimbocho. It’s in the Kanda district.”

  “Okay, so what are we there for?”

  She eyed him seriously. “Sort of slipped your mind, has it?”

  “What has?”

  “What we spoke about a few weeks back when I first brought you to the house. You don’t remember it, do you?”

  Jimmy frowned. The house. It all seemed so long ago now. Especially given everything else they’d been through since then. He remembered arriving there at night. The attack. The workout. Vanessa talking to someone-

  “Scrolls.”

  Vanessa nodded. “So, it was still in there.”

  “Are the scrolls one of the relics you told me about?"

  "The first relic we must recover, yes. We’re going to Jimbocho to see if we can find a lead on the scrolls.”

  “You mean they’re not in the place we’re going?”

  “That would be a bit too obvious. And given the people who are after them, it would make their jobs far too easy. No, the scrolls are elsewhere. We’ll be doing a lot more traveling before this is all over with.”

  Jimmy nodded and then slumped back. All of a sudden the taxi lurched and then came to a screeching halt. Jimmy would have planted his face against the Plexiglas separator, but Vanessa held him back.

  From the front seat, the driver grunted again. “Jimbocho.”

  Vanessa withdrew a wad of yen notes from her bag and handed them over to the driver. “Arigato.”

  He bowed once and then Vanessa dragged Jimmy out of the taxi. “Never linger in the taxi because they’re always rushing off to someplace else. Plus, they’ll charge you if you take too long getting out.”

  “Good to know.” Jimmy stood on the sidewalk and looked around. Jimbocho sprawled around him. Modern skyscrapers of steel and glass towered over smaller brick and wooden storefronts emblazoned with old wood-burned kanji character signs. Flashing neon electronics stores promised crazy deals on the latest technology that Jimmy couldn’t even imagine possible in the States.

  Vanessa nudged him. “Always keep moving. If you don’t look like you have some place to be, you start attracting attention. And that’s the last thing we want, especially when we’re in our enemy’s home territory.”

  “He lives here?”

  Vanessa nodded. “In Tokyo, yes. But he has eyes and ears everywhere. The sudden appearance of a bewildered-looking half-Asian boy on a corner in Jimbocho won’t take long to get back to him.”

  Jimmy followed Vanessa down a side street lined with bookstores. Some of the stores featured modern paperbacks and magazines while others looked like antique book dealers. Jimmy saw elaborate woodblock prints hanging in windows, the paper fraying at edges marking the age that had passed since they were created.

  “This section of town is renown for its antiques, especially in the books and scrolls department. Time was, everything in Japan was written on scrolls that were sometimes called makimono.”

  “Makimono. Okay.” Jimmy passed another shop and saw an old samurai sword hanging in the window. “Wow, look at that!”

  Vanessa paused long enough to appraise it with a quick sniff. “Nothing special about that. Looks like the kind they used to make on assembly lines during World War II. Nothing like the actual pieces of art that the swordsmiths of Japan created. Hand folded steel, the level of artistry is amazing. But you’ll see all that eventually.”

  “I will?”

  “Of course.”

  Jimmy smiled. That would be insanely cool. Vanessa paused for a moment as if checking some internal compass, before setting off once more at a feverish pace. It was a good thing Jimmy had spent so much time running laps on the freighter on the way over or else she would have left him behind already.

  “Where exactly are we going?”

  Vanessa pointed. “Another block or so ahead. Keep up, all right?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  They headed down an even smaller alley now. More shops lined the alley, packed tightly together, their wooden frames sloped and sagging, but still intact. It was almost as if they had just stepped into Japan's past. Jimmy could imagine samurai warriors strolling down the streets. He sm
iled.

  “There.”

  He blinked and saw where Vanessa was pointing. The storefront she aimed them at looked more in need of repair than any other one. The paint had flecked off from the front sign placard. Jimmy saw faded kanji characters but didn’t think they looked like anything he knew how to translate.

  The window of the store was caked with dust and it was almost impossible to see inside. Jimmy rubbed his hand on the glass and tried peering through. He saw nothing but more boxes and shelves – all of them covered in dust.

  “This is the place?”

  “Yes.”

  Jimmy glanced at her. “But it looks like no one’s been in there for years. A lot of years.”

  Vanessa shrugged. “So?”

  “Well, how do you know that we’ll find what we’re looking for here?”

  “This is the place that our intelligence has told us will hold the clues we need to progress to the next stage of our hunt.”

  “And how did you get this intelligence?”

  Vanessa’s face grew dark. “We paid a very high price for it, Jimmy. That’s all you need to know right now.”

  “Does the other side know about this?”

  Vanessa shook her head. “Doubt it. Very few people would even pay attention to a place like this.”

  “That’s for sure. It looks like they’re closed down.”

  “They’re open, Jimmy. Trust me.” She opened the door and walked inside. Jimmy watched for a moment and then followed her.

  He started sneezing almost immediately. The air was thick with dust and the entire place smelled like moth balls.

  “Would it kill them to keep the place cleaner?”

  Vanessa ignored him and called out. “Mr. Hanzo?”

  “Who’s that?”

  “He runs this store, Jimmy.”

  “Maybe you could get him to invest in some paper towels and a mop or something. You know, get the joint looking a bit better.”

  “I’ll be sure to tell him that,” said Vanessa. She tried calling his name again but got no answer.

  “Interesting.”

  Jimmy looked up from the book he was reading that had pictures of samurai on horses. “What?”

  “I know he was expecting us.”

  “Well, the door was open.”

  Vanessa nodded. “Exactly. He wouldn’t have left without locking the place up.”

  Jimmy sneezed again and then took a deep breath. He frowned. “Hey.”

  Vanessa looked at him with an expression of growing impatience. “What is it, Jimmy?”

  “You smell that?”

  Vanessa sniffed and then she started running toward the back of the store. “Bollocks!”

  Jimmy put the book down and raced after her.

  The back of the store was already engulfed in flames by the time they reached it. The piles of old scrolls and books, their paper brittle and dry, went up in the blink of an eye. The heat was a solid wall that kept them from going any further.

  Jimmy coughed and put his hand over his mouth to shield himself from the thick cloying smoke filling the store. “We’ve got to get out here!”

  Vanessa tried moving forward and then stopped and pointed. Jimmy looked and saw a pair of shoes sticking out from under a tall bookcase that had apparently fallen on him.

  “Mr. Hanzo!”

  Vanessa started forward but Jimmy grabbed her. “You can’t get to him the flames are too thick!”

  “We’ve got to try,” said Vanessa. She got on the floor and started crawling forward. Jimmy stayed close to her aware that the smoke was eating up all the oxygen in the place. He couldn’t see and the heat was making him sweat buckets.

  Vanessa reached Hanzo first and tried pulling him out from under the bookcase. She was coughing now, but Hanzo seemed stuck.

  “The book case – we’ve got to move it!”

  Jimmy got to his feet, putting himself right into the thickest clouds of smoke. He was aware how close the flames were. He could feel their intense heat. Overhead, the paint peeled from the ceiling.

  “Do it quick, Jimmy! This whole place could come down on us!”

  Jimmy put his back against the book case and then shoved backward, lifting it off of Hanzo’s body just enough for Vanessa to slide him out. “I’ve got him, let it go!”

  Jimmy dropped the case and then he felt Vanessa pulling on him to get lower. “Stay under the smoke!”

  Jimmy was coughing and his lungs felt like they were on fire. “We’ve got to get out of her!”

  “Help me with Hanzo.”

  Together they backtracked out of the back room toward the front of the store. All around them, the roar of fire filled their ears. Smoke filled their lungs and eyes. Tears ran down Jimmy’s face as he tried to blink and see.

  They moved slowly, unable to see, but gradually Jimmy saw some light ahead of them. The front of the store! They had to reach it.

  Vanessa finally heaved Hanzo on to her shoulders and nudged Jimmy. “The door!”

  Jimmy fell against the plate glass and ripped at the door knob, jerking it open.

  Fresh air flooded in and Jimmy took a deep breath that set him hacking and coughing. He fell into the street and Vanessa collapsed in a heap next to him with Hanzo still over her shoulders.

  Jimmy rolled up and helped her set him down. Vanessa checked his pulse. “It’s thready. We don’t have much time.”

  “He’s dying?”

  Vanessa’s face was grim. “The bookcase. It must have hit him on the head.” She shook Hanzo. “Mr. Hanzo! Can you hear me.”

  Jimmy thought she was wasting her time, but then he saw Hanzo’s eyes flutter slightly, like the wings on a butterfly. His pupils seemed very black.

  “Vanessa-san?”

  Vanessa nodded. “Yes, it’s me. Hang on, we’ll get you a doctor.”

  Hanzo’s face grew serious. “It’s...too late for that...now. They know...what you are after.”

  “How?”

  Hanzo seemed to grow frailer then as Jimmy watched. “I am an old man. My constitution is not what it used to be. It was only a matter of time before they got to me.” He turned and looked at Jimmy for the first time and gasped.

  “Is this-?”

  Vanessa nodded. “Yes.”

  Hanzo tried to smile, but it came out looking weak. “I was able to keep them from learning its location. But they are too smart and will be able to figure it out soon enough.”

  He reached for Vanessa’s hand and Jimmy saw him put a slip of paper into it. “You must hurry…for all of our sakes.”

  “We will.”

  Hanzo turned back to Jimmy. “Forgive me for failing you…I would have liked to see…how this all turns out.”

  “Uh, yeah, no problem. I mean..sure.” But even as he said it, Jimmy saw Hanzo’s eyes roll up white.

  Vanessa leaned over him and gently brought his eyelids down. “He’s gone.”

  Sirens in the distance jerked them back to the present. Vanessa stood up. “We can’t stay here.”

  Jimmy frowned. “This man just died. We’ve got to make sure-“

  Vanessa leaned down. “Jimmy, I know what you want to do and it’s very honorable. And Mr. Hanzo would no doubt be deeply humbled by your respect for him, but we can’t afford to be delayed by the authorities right now. Time is already running out much faster than I would have thought. We need to go." She shook him by the shoulder. "Now!”

  Jimmy stood and looked down at Hanzo’s body laying on the pavement. There was something so sad about the moment and yet he couldn’t even afford to spend time with a man he’d known for less than ten minutes.

  He frowned. This warrior thing was going to take a lot of getting used. Then he turned and raced off after Vanessa.

  Chapter Twenty

  “I can’t believe he’s dead.”

  They were in a Kentucky Fried Chicken a few streets over from Hanzo’s shop. Vanessa kept an eye peeled to the television screens overhead that showed news coverage of the
event.

  “The entire place is gone,” said Vanessa. “That much paper and wood? It’s a wonder it didn’t happen before this.”

  Jimmy bit into his chicken sandwich and blanched. “What the heck is this?” He spat the mouthful out on to his tray. “I ordered the one with lettuce, didn’t I?”

  Vanessa peered over and shook her head. “Looks like cabbage.”

  “No, wait.” Jimmy scowled at the illustrated signs showing menu items. “I chose that one. That’s lettuce.”

  “Nope. Cabbage,” said Vanessa. “Might be a good idea to brush up on your Japanese at some point. Chances are you’ll be spending a fair amount of time here.”

  “I hate cabbage,” said Jimmy. “How can you put stuff like this on a sandwich anyway?”

  “You should see what they like to eat on pizza.”

  Jimmy eyed her. “What?”

  “Corn.”

  “On pizza? You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

  “Nope.” Vanessa took a bite of her meal and then pointed a fork in Jimmy’s direction. “Eat up, we’ve got things to do. If you don’t like the cabbage, either take it off the sandwich or get a new one.”

  Jimmy shoveled it off and then resumed eating. After a moment, Vanessa looked at him again. “It was nice what you did back there.”

  “What did I do?”

  “The sentiment you showed Hanzo. He would have appreciated it greatly.” Vanessa sighed. “He was one of those humble people who works his whole life believing in the greater good.”

  “Yeah, but he’s dead now.”

  Vanessa shushed him and pointed. “News is back on. Let’s see if they say anything about us.”

  Jimmy listened but to him, it sounded like a mishmash. But here and there, he thought he caught a few words that seemed to register with him. How was that possible? He didn’t speak Japanese, at least not that he knew of. But then there had been the incident in the taxi as well.

  Weird.

  Vanessa took a breath. “All right, we’re in the clear. That’s good news. Now we can concentrate on figuring out where we’re heading to next.”