White Ninja

by Tiffiny Hall

  The orange blades fall suddenly flat. The eruption of silence bursts my eardrums. I double over and scream as the pain knifes into my brain. Then the ringing stops and I’m able to stumble to my feet.

  The Shaolin Monk cranes up from his robes into a fighting stance. His eyes are milky blue with cataracts. He is thousands of years dead, the original master of Kung Fu. When he lowers his chin, his bald skull snarls open into a deep mouth with fanged teeth.

  I feel the teeth of the tiger on my sole growl. I snap out of my scared state and feel a wave of adrenalin punch through me. I summon my physical combat skills, building the blocks of kicks, strikes, holds, flips, pressure points into a fortress of defence. This will be a brutal fight.

  ‘I’m not sure you’re up for it,’ old Roxy says.

  I ignore her and wait, listening to the sound of my own breathing, the sound of my own mortality.

  I hear a distant chiming of cymbals and the Shaolin Monk begins scorpion boxing, snaking across the floor, stinging me with his feet. His technique is beautiful and I can’t help but admire the speed of his strikes.

  The Monk’s percussive hand strikes fly at me and I meet them with my horn rings, nunchucks and tiger heel. Somehow, I know to match his scorpion boxing with leopard boxing. I can’t help feeling proud that I’ve remembered my training and that it works, even in another realm!

  The Monk crouches with his arms spread above him like a crane. I pause in tiger stance, waiting. Perhaps to him I look like a well-trained ninja, but beneath my uniform I feel like a terrified young girl. I’m on the verge of tears and grateful that my shinobi shozoku covers my mouth so he can’t see my lips trembling. I cross my arms across my chest in an effort to stop my hands shaking.

  In the distance a drum begins to beat. The circle clears of smoke. The Monk’s head snarls. The skin across my chest stretches as tight as that drum and, with every beat, I feel more and more fear.

  The Monk charges at me. He backflips, tucks his knees under his chin, touches the ground once and spins twice to land into a forward roll so fast that he sparks fire. When he stands, he has a staff in his hand.

  I gulp and instinctively raise my arms above my head and tense my stomach. The Monk swings the staff back behind his neck, then gallops forwards and smashes it across my stomach. The blow thunders through me, rattling my bones, but I won’t allow it to shatter my spirit. All my training culminates in this moment, when I’m standing against a master of technique.

  ‘My movements are magical,’ I say aloud. I will not be defeated by him. I take a deep breath, centre my spirit and brace for the fight.

  We engage in hand-to-hand combat, percussive strikes met by inner and outside blocks. I leap and land my elbow in the centre of the Monk’s back. He pushes me away with both hands, followed by a flying side kick that sends me to the ground so hard my body grooves out a channel of earth. I stand instantly, sweep kick his ankles, but he jumps over my feet and retaliates with a spinning crescent kick into my ear.

  The blue smoke rises around us like waves, the circle awash with turbulence that reflects the feelings inside me. I don’t know if I have the strength to continue. My skin is bruised and swollen, my bones ache. But then I think of my mother, her ninja stars slicing the air, the strike of her dagger, and no matter the pain, nothing will be more painful than failing her, failing to reach for the stars. I remember my hard-boiled egg and my mother’s word: fortitude. Now I understand.

  The Monk charges at me again and I wait, heart in mouth, then smash a double back fist into his torso. His hands fall on my shoulders in blades. I catch one of them, twist it behind his back and punch him forwards with my leg. He lands on his face, but jumps up a second later without using his hands. It didn’t work. Again, tears threaten.

  The Monk hits me with a triple roundhouse kick, one in my shins, one in my stomach and, finally, a snipe to the face. I feel my jaw dislocate, but have no time for pain. I turn into his kicks, bend down to grab him at the knees and use his force against him to flip his body over my head. I stare in disbelief. My training works. I can tell by her silence that even old Roxy is impressed.

  ‘That’s what you get for being so ancient,’ I say to the Monk.

  He lies motionless. Blue smoke smears across his body and I see the shadow of orange radiating behind it. In a blink, he evaporates into pink steam.

  Instead of celebrating, I bow into my starting position again and concentrate on my breathing. I think of training with Jackson, and the memory of his moss-green eyes cools my burning skin and aching bones. I turn my neck to the side, grab my chin and forehead between my hands to crack my jaw back into place, but realise it has already healed. I’d forgotten that in the Cemetery of Warriors wounds heal magically. I thank my inner warrior for the strength to go on.

  TWENTY

  Gusts of wind serrate the surfaces of the graves around me. The blue air glitters as if a giant hand was scattering gold ashes. Fresh air streams into the circle, and when I look up I see an ash-grey silhouette on the other side of the vast blue expanse. It gives off a vanilla scent, like orchids — the smell of the living. When a mass of blonde hair explodes out of the hood and spirals in the wind, I know I am no longer alone in the world of the dead.

  ‘Mum!’

  I want to run to her, but she yells, ‘Stay!’

  I stop, and hear more footsteps, earth-clashing and speeding towards the circle. It sounds like they’re coming from every direction; an army of warriors racing towards us.

  Mum and I look upwards as a great battle cry splits the sky, causing it to bleed again. When I look back down, I see the Apache Warrior powering towards me, his tomahawk in the air. His hair is alive, thick black eels lashing against his back; his eyes are hollow and his face is threaded with dark wide scars. He is bare-chested and barefooted. Every step he takes sparks fireballs in the blue mist, which spew forth showers of burning stars. He is running so fast I am stripped of my fear and of my reflexes; his battle cry swamps my thinking. His tomahawk isn’t pointed at me, but at Mum.

  ‘No!’ I yell.

  ‘Water!’ Mum screams.

  I remember the orchid sign on my mother’s ninja star, and the meaning of my name. Then it comes. ‘I am the invisible warrior,’ I say. I close my eyes, using darkness to extinguish the flames of fear. I force myself to breathe in the heat of the warrior, to consume his power. I summon the tiger’s power from within. When my spirit is centred, I open my eyes, just in time to see the Apache’s tomahawk fly from his hand towards my mother’s throat. I flash invisible and catch the tomahawk a hair’s width from her neck. Mum’s eyes are fastened shut. I spear the tomahawk towards the sky and into the wound caused by the warrior’s battle cry.

  The Apache Warrior stops in his tracks and bows towards me. When he lifts his head, I see a knowing glimmer in his eyes, a hint of a smirk, a shadow of evil before he vanishes. And then I hear it. The grating of knives.

  I turn to Mum and reach out to hug her. ‘Whatever you do, don’t —’ Her eyes flinch pain and, just as I grasp her shoulders, she fades away, her sentence unfinished.

  I am left alone to face the final warrior.

  My heart ticks like a bomb; my attempts to make sense of what I’m hearing are too slow, knuckle-dragging. ‘Whatever you do’ repeats over and over in my head. Don’t do what? How did Mum even know I was here? I begin to tremble. The sound of grating knives calls back every one of Hero’s taunts — they fly at me like daggers.

  ‘Hero’s right,’ old Roxy says. ‘You’re pathetic.’

  I shake the old Roxy off, then feel a hot breath on my neck. I turn and standing behind me is a mountainous Gladiator. His face is shrouded by a silver mask and his helmet is adorned with cascading ropes of blazing red feathers. The helmet extends into a single sleeve of armour down his left arm, but where his hand should be there is a ball and chain. He is wearing a leather vest over chainmail, and shields over his shins that extend to mid-thigh. Racks of knives are draped across his c
hest and he is scraping them with his axe. His eyes are white bone, shining through the mask. What little I can see of his face is a mess of pus and decay. He’s hideous.

  In his right hand he carries a bow and arrows. I think of my poor bow and arrow skills.

  ‘You’re finished,’ old Roxy says.

  The Gladiator’s weapons are stained with old blood. He is over two metres tall, with muscles that writhe like wild beasts trapped in a net of skin. He sucks the wind into his mouth, then bellows at me with the power of all the elements. I block the blast with my hands; my skin feels as if it’s stripping from my bones. My cheeks blow back to my ears, my hood blasts off my head, my hair tugs at its roots. My teeth chatter, but I hold myself strong. This is my final test. I’ve come too far to give in now. I take a slow step forwards into the monster’s filthy breath.

  The Gladiator winds up his ball and chain and smashes it to the ground. The earth shudders. A canyon opens up, forcing me to leap across the circle. He slams his ball and chain into the earth again and the Circle of Self-defence splits in half. If his ball can split the circle, imagine what it will do to my arms and legs!

  He strikes his ball and chain into the ground again and again, transforming the cemetery into a cratered battlefield. He ploughs the graves with his fierce weapon and moves towards me. All around us, skulls and bones are unearthed, but there is not a soul to be seen.

  I move into a long stance with my hands above my head in a knife-hand upper block, trying to disguise my trembling fingers. I run through my weapons in my head and suddenly remember my ninja star with the orchid sign. It is small enough to grasp without the Gladiator noticing, and its blades will enmesh in that chain if I can spin it accurately.

  ‘Come back to me,’ I whisper to my boomerang star.

  I wait for the Gladiator to whip the ball into the air again, then, as if in slow motion, the blue haze slows the weapon midair. I have just enough time to flick the star out of my wrist and send it flying towards the chain. The star veers to the left, past the Gladiator, slicing into his armoured sleeve but barely denting it. It boomerangs back to my hand and I catch it with a thud of horror.

  The Gladiator raises his bow and aims it at me. He pulls back his powerful elbow, then releases the arrows. I watch them spinning towards me and my heart stops. I’m paralysed with fear. And then I hear my soul whispering to me: ‘My body is a weapon.’

  I leap as high as I can, backflip above the Gladiator’s head and land on his shoulders. He thrashes to throw me off. The arrows spear off into the distance. I grab the feathers on his helmet and, as his ball and chain lashes into the air, I jump onto the ball and kick it into his helmet. It catches there, and as the ball plummets to the ground the Gladiator’s head is yanked down with it … and rolls off into the distance. And still he comes.

  When his head smashes against the ground, I pull out my nunchucks and begin working them over my shoulder in a figure-eight motion. When the Gladiator’s arm reaches towards me, I slice off his hand with a single whip of my chains. But even with no head and only one hand, he continues towards me.

  I draw my sword. I spin three times, lunge into a back stance, then plough forwards into cat stance, sitting deep and low, aiming my sword at his heart. I think of my mother. She fought with me strapped to her back; now I must fight with her strapped to my heart. I know that if I spear the Gladiator and he falls, I will be crushed. I plant the handle of the sword in the earth so its blade points upwards, then, just before the Gladiator reaches me, I catapult into the air into a double side splits.

  The Gladiator lands on my sword. I see the tip of my blade appear through the leather of his back armour. Blue smoke clouds over the Gladiator and he disappears. My feet are once again stable on the ground.

  I look around, expecting to see the White Warrior revealed. Nothing. Maybe I have to fight more monsters. The thought is terrifying and I feel tears prickling my eyes. Despite beating all four warriors, I feel defeated.

  I stab the tears away with my thumbs. ‘Be strong, Roxy,’ I tell myself. I dart my eyes left and right, but there is no sign of the White Warrior with the mark on his soul. No sign of the Tiger Scrolls. How do I get home?

  TWENTY-ONE

  When the smoke clears, a figure emerges, only a little taller than me. When it steps into the green light of the moon, my heart stops.

  ‘Hero?’ I whisper to myself.

  The sight of him sends needles down my spine. Fear clutches my heart with burning talons. I clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. It is easier to fight the unknown than the known.

  Hero is dressed in his traditional red samurai kimono with katana swords strapped to his back. In his hands he holds the ancient ninja’s Tiger Scrolls.

  ‘You’re not the only one training to find the White Warrior,’ he reminds me.

  He walks to the edge of the Circle of Self-defence and places the Tiger Scrolls at the base of an alabaster tombstone. The leather book looks more worn and delicate. This is what the White Warrior wants. Now he might appear.

  Hero wastes no time. He steps into the circle, and light wisps from him and blurs into the smoke. Before I can move, his heel hits me in the stomach. I double over. All I can see is a mash of green and purple spots. The first blow always stings.

  He pulls me upright and twists my arm behind my back. ‘Transport home. You’re done,’ he croons in my ear.

  For a nanosecond, the tears bubble. I don’t know how to get home. What if I’m stuck here among the dead forever?

  He wrings my arm like a towel and I clench my teeth against the pain. I am limp in his grip for a moment, thinking. I’ve spent my life allowing people like Hero to put me down, to rule me. It’s time to stand up for myself. No more feeling invisible for the wrong reasons.

  ‘No,’ I say and kick my foot straight up past my shoulder, into his face behind me. ‘Meet my pet tiger!’ I yell.

  Hero falls backwards, cupping his nose. ‘That mark on your sole,’ he says, stumbling.

  I say nothing, watching his fingertips, his hips, his ankles for any sign of his next move.

  He walks up to me. I brace for another attack. His eyes simmer with hatred. Blue smoke swirls around us and the smell of the dead reminds me of what lies ahead if we are too slow or too weak. Despite the stench, I take a deep breath, knowing it could be my last chance to take in the oxygen needed to fight.

  ‘It’s always been you,’ he says.

  I don’t understand. But before I can think further, Hero launches his attack. Body punches and upper cuts stab me in the chest and the ribs. I duck and weave, punching him away. I’m not used to feeling human bone crunch under my knuckles and am not sure I like it.

  When I tear my fist from his shoulder, the cloth of his kimono tears away with it. He looks down at the rip, registering my strength, then looks back up at me with his eyes smiling evil.

  He punches me again and I catch his arm, snap his outer elbow with a knife-hand strike. His arm bends backwards and dangles helplessly. He winces, then cracks it back into position and assumes a long stance upper block, swivelling his back foot around to follow me as I move in and out of range, trying to anticipate his next move. His eyes shadow my injuries; I can taste blood running from my nose and feel swelling in my eyes. I’ve banished old Roxy; she sits on a nearby tomb, watching silently as ninja Roxy takes the stage.

  I move in to strike, but I’m too slow and my cheek meets Hero’s spinning hook kick. I feel my jaw jar again and my teeth realign, but the fire within forces me upright and into a spinning double back kick. The kick ploughs into Hero’s chest, crashing him to the outer edge of the circle. He lands on his feet and draws his sword from his back, then charges at me.

  Before I can blink, the blade is at my throat. I have just enough time to push his wrist away with one arm and gouge his eyes with my other hand.

  ‘Tell me why you hate me so much,’ I say.

  Before he can answer, the earth shatters between us and breaks us
apart. I knew the ancient warriors would still be testing me!

  The ground rises into a skyscraper of dirt that soars towards the green heavens, and we are stranded on a small circular platform with a sheer drop in every direction. Up here, the air is thin and I have trouble breathing. The sky is a burnished copper flecked with jaundiced clouds that are beaten by wind and thunder. Our fighting arena looks like a hovering blue disc of smoke, its haze streaming over the edges and pooling down below. If we don’t stay within its perimeter, we will fall to our deaths.

  Far below, the tombstone where Hero placed the Tiger Scrolls glows alabaster in the shadows, a beacon. I have to get those scrolls!

  I turn around, but Hero is closer than I’d anticipated and I spin straight into his grip. He strangles my throat. I try to beat him away, but he doesn’t flinch. My tongue swells and I feel the veins choke in my forehead.

  ‘Go!’ I say to myself, then jump knee him in the groin and scurry backwards as far as the platform will allow, heaving in air. Tears come again and I can’t help it. It feels as though he has already hurt me more than the ancient warriors did and he’s only a kid, like me. I try desperately to form a plan, but I feel too broken to think straight. I have hardly caught my breath when Hero charges at me with a flying hammer fist that strikes me on the side of my neck, choking the air out of me once again.

  A second flying hammer fist comes, but this time I block it, roundhouse kick his ear off the front foot, following with a double roundhouse kick to his body, sending him to the centre of the circle. He absorbs the strikes and chases me back towards the edge of the platform. I block him with my legs, my feet fighting to keep him at a distance, biting him with their blades and heels. But Hero moves in close so I can’t kick. His knife-hand strikes and chops push me dangerously close to the drop. I stop blocking them to concentrate on not falling off the side, and take the blows to the face. I feel capillaries burst and scabs peel.