The Way of the Warrior

by Chris Bradford

  ‘I don’t know,’ he replied, although he was certain he could guess.

  ‘Yori? Who was responsible?’

  The little boy bowed and nervously whispered Kazuki’s name.

  ‘What was that, Yori-kun?’ asked Sensei Yosa, not hearing his first attempt.

  ‘Kazuki, Sensei…’ And Yori’s voice trailed off.

  Kazuki’s eyes flared with anger at this open betrayal and he made to move on Yori, but shrank back as Sensei Yosa thundered, ‘KAZUKI-KUN! You will see me after class when we will discuss your punishment. Now fetch my arrows from the target!’

  Kazuki swiftly bowed and dashed to the target. He was so terrified of her wrath that he struggled to pull the arrows out. He had just managed to retrieve the first one, when an arrow shot by his ear and impaled the sleeve of his kimono to the target. He spun round, eyes bulging, mouth open in silent horror.

  ‘Arouse a bee, Kazuki-kun, and it will come at you with the force of a dragon!’ she called down the garden as she nocked another arrow. ‘Kyujutsu is highly dangerous for a student. Do not fool around. Do you understand, Kazuki-kun?’

  She let fly the second arrow. Kazuki didn’t even have time to blink. The arrow clipped him just above the head, parting his hair before striking the target. Kazuki, writhing to escape like a worm impaled on a hook, was desperate to end his humiliation.

  ‘Hai, Sensei Yosa! Moushiwake arimasen deshita!’ he blurted, expressing the highest form of apology possible.

  Jack relished his enemy’s comeuppance. Perhaps, next time, Kazuki would not be so eager to harass him.

  Jack turned to Yori to bow his appreciation, but the little boy didn’t acknowledge him. He merely knelt there, with blank eyes, biting his lower lip anxiously.

  31

  KAZUKI’S WAR

  Kazuki was not present at dinner that evening.

  Jack, for the first time since his arrival in Kyoto, relaxed. Clearly Kazuki was still carrying out Sensei Yosa’s punishment. Jack’s only concern was that Yori had not turned up for dinner either. Akiko said she had seen him heading over to the Buddha Hall and thought he may have gone there to see Sensei Yamada. However, when dinner started, Sensei Yamada shuffled in alone.

  There was still no sign of Yori when the meal drew to a close and Jack was certain something had happened to him. He grew even more anxious when he saw Nobu waddle out of the door in a hurry.

  ‘Akiko, I’m worried about Yori. He’s not turned up for dinner.’

  ‘I’m sure he’s fine, Jack. He’s probably meditating somewhere. I’ve often seen him in his room meditating morning, noon and night. He has some lovely sandalwood incense. He even let me try some –’

  ‘I’m serious, Akiko. After kyujutsu today, surely he has made an enemy of Kazuki.’

  ‘Jack. Kazuki lost face, but he wouldn’t dare do anything to Yori. It would be against his honour.’

  ‘Honour? What honour? He attacks me without any problem.’

  ‘That is true, but you’re…’ Akiko appeared suddenly uncomfortable. ‘… gaijin… a foreigner. He does not see you as an equal. Yori, however, is Japanese, from a samurai family with a long and honourable history.’

  ‘But Masamoto has adopted me, surely I deserve the same respect…’ said Jack, but he trailed off.

  Jack could see it in her eyes. He was not equal. He never would be. Not in hers or Kazuki’s eyes. He looked round the table. Saburo and Kiku politely avoided his gaze. Yamato stared coolly back. It was apparent to Jack that Yamato still only tolerated him because his father had commanded him to, despite Jack having saved his life.

  ‘So honour is only reserved for the Japanese, is it?’ Jack said, challenging them. Akiko’s face crumpled like a snowdrift and she bowed to avoid his furious glare. ‘Fine. Well, at least maintain your honour for Yori and help me find him.’

  ‘Yes, good idea,’ said Saburo, attempting to diffuse the situation. ‘Perhaps Yamato and I can go and look for him in the Niwa? Akiko and Kiku can try and find him in the Shishi-no-ma. Jack, you can check out the Butsuden. Akiko’s right, he’s probably just meditating somewhere.’

  Saburo quickly got to his feet, urging everyone to begin searching, and they all hurried out of the Chō-no-ma.

  It was another cold starry night and a half-moon hung in the heavens, illuminating the courtyard in a ghostly pale light as the lone figure of Jack climbed the stone steps to the Butsuden’s entrance.

  Jack wanted to scream at the moon. His frustration at being in Japan simmered like hot oil beneath his skin. He could handle most of it, even Kazuki, but the thing that had hurt him most was Akiko’s reaction, and the realization that she also saw him as different, beneath her. Jack thought they had become friends. But friends don’t divide by difference. They unite because of it.

  Jack gave a humourless smile. Now he was starting to sound like Sensei Yamada spouting some Zen proverb. He swallowed down his bitterness. At least Yori had stood up for him. Jack just hoped the boy was not in trouble.

  Reaching the top step, he peered into the Butsuden’s gloomy darkness. Shafts of moonlight cut across the hall like the bars on a cell. He was about to call out Yori’s name, when he heard subdued voices, tense and angry.

  ‘I had to spread the night soil from the toilets on to the garden,’ said the voice. ‘I’ve missed my dinner and I stink!’

  ‘So sorry, Kazuki. But it was wrong to…’

  Jack peered round the door and saw Kazuki standing over the trembling form of Yori. Nobu was looming behind him, his shadow spread fat and bulbous across the floor. Jack pressed himself flat against the wall and, hidden by the darkness, edged closer.

  ‘Wrong? What do you care? He is gaijin! He is not worthy to be one of us,’ spat Kazuki. ‘I dare not believe that you, Yori, first son of the Takedas whose ancestors fought and defeated the Mongols, stood up for a mere gaijin!’

  ‘But he is really no different from us, Kazuki…’ pleaded Yori.

  ‘What? You have much to learn. We are the descendants of Amaterasu, the sun goddess. The samurai are the chosen ones, the warriors of the gods. Gaijin are nothing. Gaijin are to be ruled over.’

  Jack was astounded at Kazuki’s self-importance. His blood boiled at the boy’s ignorance. No one person was better than another. Only different. Kazuki, however, clearly saw difference as a weakness, a flaw, a mistake. Jack steeled himself to intervene. Just as he was about to make his move, Kazuki changed tack.

  ‘But I can be reasonable, Yori,’ continued Kazuki in an almost appeasing tone. ‘In recognition of your family’s ancestors, I will give you a chance to escape your punishment.’

  Jack checked himself. Maybe Akiko is right, thought Jack, perhaps he will honour Yori as a samurai. Yori blinked up at Kazuki in the darkness, confused and anxious.

  ‘You appear to know a lot about Zen. I want you to answer this koan. It’s a riddle I’m sure you can easily solve. But if you don’t, then you will accept your punishment gratefully, although you may find eating a little hard tomorrow.’

  Nobu chuckled at the threat, cracking his knuckles, the sound reverberating throughout the hall. Yori whimpered.

  ‘Here is your koan. Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping?’

  Yori said nothing for a moment, nervously wringing his hands on his kimono, his forehead creased in panicked concentration.

  ‘What is the sound of one hand, Yori?’ demanded Kazuki.

  ‘Please. Please. I need silence to think.’

  ‘Sorry, but I’m hungry and have little patience. Answer me!’

  ‘It refers to… the koan itself. When the two hands clapping are… seen as the seeking of the answer… so that the hands themselves become the koan… it then follows that you… as the meditator… become the koan that you are trying to understand… That is the sound of one hand clapping.’

  ‘Excellent. Sensei Yamada would approve of such a philosophical muddle of an answer. But wrong! This is the sound of one han
d clapping,’ said Kazuki, and he raised his own hand and slapped Yori hard across the face. Yori fell to the floor, whimpering in distress.

  ‘No!’ shouted Jack who, without a second’s thought, flew from the shadows and slammed into Kazuki.

  He drove his shoulder into Kazuki’s gut and they both rolled into the middle of the hall. Kazuki was severely winded and couldn’t move. Jack punched him in the mouth.

  ‘That one’s for Yori,’ said Jack. ‘And this is for me!’

  Akiko and Kiku came flying into the Butsuden just as Jack raised his fist for the second time.

  ‘Jack!’ cried Akiko.

  Jack glanced up. It was the split second Kazuki needed. He drove his own fist up into Jack’s chin, sending Jack backwards. Kazuki scrambled to his feet as Jack lay sprawled across the stone floor. Kazuki stood over him, his burst lip trickling blood.

  ‘Bad move, gaijin,’ he spat, lifting his leg to strike.

  ‘No!’ warned Akiko, launching herself at Kazuki in an attempt to stop him. But Nobu grabbed her by the hair and sharply pulled her back.

  Jack, fired up by Nobu’s assault on Akiko, rolled into Kazuki and drove hard into his standing leg.

  Pushed off-balance, Kazuki crashed to the floor.

  The two boys wrestled, each trying to get the upper hand.

  Kazuki managed to roll on top and trap Jack’s left arm. Jack felt pressure being applied and was immediately paralysed with pain. He tried to move, but each time he did, Kazuki pressed down harder.

  Yamato ran in with Saburo.

  ‘Yamato, help Jack!’ cried Akiko, who struggled against Nobu’s grip.

  Nobu, scared that Yamato might attack him, immediately released Akiko. Kiku ran to her aid, but Akiko didn’t need any help. She elbowed Nobu hard in the stomach, causing him to double over in agony.

  ‘Why would you want to help a gaijin, Yamato?’ shouted Kazuki, breathless from the fight. ‘Especially one who has usurped your brother’s place. I am right, he is Masamoto’s adopted son, isn’t he?’

  Yamato faltered, stalling his approach, and stared at Jack who lay pinned down under Kazuki.

  ‘How could you let that happen, Yamato? A gaijin, part of your family. The disgrace!’

  Kazuki’s words rebounded off the walls of the Butsuden, echoing ‘Disgrace! Disgrace! Disgrace!’ in Yamato’s ears.

  ‘I can end this dishonour. I can break his arm such that even Masamoto could never fix it. I don’t know many one-armed samurai, do you, Yamato?’

  Jack could see Yamato weighing up his options. On the one hand, how much better it would be for Yamato if he was gone, and on the other, there was the debt of honour he owed Jack for saving his life. But that was not the real issue here; the wrath of his father would be the deciding factor.

  ‘Masamoto will not punish us,’ egged on Kazuki, as if reading Yamato’s thoughts. ‘Nobu is my witness. He saw the gaijin strike me first. I have every right to defend myself.’

  Yamato stepped back a pace.

  ‘That’s right, Yamato, let me rid you of this gaijin. You and I both know he has been a thorn in your side.’

  Kazuki twisted Jack’s wrist a notch further to emphasize the point. Jack cried out, the pain searing through his arm like a hot iron rod. Then suddenly the pressure disappeared.

  Akiko had slammed her foot into Kazuki’s back, using a mae-geri, the simple but effective front kick they had been taught that day in taijutsu. Kazuki was sent sprawling across the floor.

  He flipped over and started towards Akiko.

  Instinctively she threw up her guard to counter his attack, but Kazuki checked his strike at the last moment.

  ‘This is foolish,’ he said, stepping away and raising his hands in a sign of peace. ‘We’re fighting over a gaijin. Masamoto decreed that we should be loyal to the samurai of this school. I will not fight you.’

  ‘Yet you will fight Jack and he is samurai too,’ retorted Akiko.

  ‘No, he isn’t. He never will be and he knows it. Just look at him.’

  Jack lay on the floor, cradling his arm, his face bruised and swelling where Kazuki had struck him. Akiko looked down at Jack, her eyes filled with pity.

  Jack didn’t want pity. He was hurt and ashamed, but not beaten. What he wanted was acceptance, but perhaps that was too much to ask. He turned away from her.

  Kazuki bowed and calmly walked over to the door, Nobu faithfully following him, still clutching his stomach. Kazuki wiped the blood from his lip with the back of his hand, then turned and faced them all.

  ‘I don’t want any of you telling the sensei about tonight.’

  ‘I’ll tell Masamoto, if you ever touch Jack again,’ threatened Akiko.

  ‘No, you won’t. If you do, we’ll all be thrown out of the school. Fighting is forbidden within the Buddha Hall.’

  ‘Jack is my friend and I’ll defend him, whatever the cost.’

  Jack couldn’t believe his ears. Akiko had declared her loyalty publicly. The significance of her pronouncement was not lost on any of the others present either.

  She helped Jack to his feet.

  ‘Don’t be a gaijin lover, Akiko! I cannot promise to hold back next time you stand in my way,’ warned Kazuki.

  ‘Harm him and I will tell – the choice is yours.’ Kazuki faltered.

  Jack guessed that he couldn’t afford to gamble on Akiko’s threat. Being thrown out of the Niten Ichi Ryū would be a permanent loss of face, a highly inappropriate circumstance for a boy of imperial blood.

  ‘I do not wish to see you disgraced, Akiko, so I will make you a promise in return for forgetting this night. I’ll not fight the gaijin again within the walls of the Niten Ichi Ryū. Agreed?’

  Akiko looked at Jack before nodding her acceptance.

  ‘Gaijin!’ snarled Kazuki. ‘You and I are not finished. Our war has barely begun.’

  32

  HANAMI PARTY

  A glorious butterfly with iridescent blue wings rested on the pink blossom of a cherry tree. It sipped on the sweet nectar of the flower, gaining nourishment and growing strong. Its antennae twitched as the breeze shifted.

  Out of nowhere a heavy iron bar came crashing into the blossom. The butterfly flitted away, escaping death only by a fraction of a second. A giant red demon came thundering out of the undergrowth, maniacally swinging the bar, intent on catching the butterfly as it settled upon each blossom.

  The butterfly effortlessly avoided the blows time and time again. Sweat rolled down the face of the red demon, frustration etched on its brow. The demon, boiling with rage, thrashed again and again at the butterfly, until it collapsed on the barren earth, defeated by its own efforts. The butterfly, with its iridescent blue wings still intact, fluttered away…

  Jack’s eyes fluttered open.

  A languid trail of incense smoke curled its way to the ceiling of his tiny bedroom. The red Daruma Doll sat perched upon the narrow window sill next to the bonsai tree. The doll’s solitary eye fixed Jack with an innocuous stare.

  Jack breathed heavily, reeling from the clarity of the vision.

  Jack could regularly attain the third ‘View’, a pure mind, during his morning meditations. It allowed him to think clearly for the rest of the day, but he had never experienced a vision like this before. What had made him see a demon and a butterfly? What did it mean, if anything at all? This was far beyond anything he had been taught. He would have to speak to Sensei Yamada.

  Jack got to his feet and stretched. Taking a small jug from beneath the window, he poured a little water on to his bonsai tree. He had done this every morning as Uekiya had instructed. The old gardener would be pleased, he thought. He hadn’t managed to kill it yet.

  As Jack tended to the bonsai, he spotted tiny pink flower buds emerging. The same as those in his vision. Sakura blossom.

  The blossom meant it was already spring.

  Jack couldn’t believe it. He had been training at the Niten Ichi Ryū for over three months. He had been in Japan almost nin
e months. He had not set foot on English soil in nearly three years! His life was so different from what it once had been. He was no longer a child dreaming of being a pilot like his father. He was a boy training to be a samurai warrior!

  Every morning he rose before dawn to meditate for half a stick of time. Then he joined the others for the same bland breakfast of rice and a few pickled vegetables. What he would give for some English bacon and fried eggs!

  Then they embarked upon their lessons for the day. Two long sessions, one in the morning, and one in the afternoon. Some days it was kenjutsu and Zen; others it was kyujutsu and taijutsu. Following training, he would gather with the students in the Chō-no-ma for dinner, the sensei all seated at the head table, like a row of esoteric warrior gods looking over their charges.

  After dinner, they would be expected to practise by themselves, perfecting the skills they had learnt. Learn today so that you may live tomorrow was the mantra that was constantly drilled into them.

  Yet, despite the regimented routine and rigorous discipline of this life, Jack had to admit that he was more at peace with himself than he had been for a long while. The routine was a comfort in itself. He was not a free wheel spinning without purpose or direction. He was learning how to defend himself, to live by the code of bushido, and to become a true samurai.

  He could now wield a bokken with power and accuracy and had mastered the first three attacks – the only ones you will ever need, Sensei Hosokawa had said.

  He could shoot an arrow, although he had only hit the target a couple of times, unlike Akiko who had taken to kyujutsu like she had been born with a bow in her hand.

  He could now kick, punch, block and throw. Admittedly, he only knew the very basic techniques, but he was no longer powerless. The next time he met with Dragon Eye, he would not be the helpless little boy who failed to save his father. He would be a samurai warrior!

  Since the fight with Kazuki in the Buddha Hall, many things had changed. Akiko, having declared her friendship, was Jack’s closest ally. Yori had become a constant companion, but he was so reserved that Jack still didn’t really know him. Kiku was pleasant enough towards him, though Jack thought that was more for Akiko’s benefit than out of any real friendship. Saburo sat on the fence. He was everyone’s friend. He would talk to anyone who listened.