Red Samurai

by Tiffiny Hall

  ‘I like Kicking butt,’ I say to Cinnamon.

  ‘Yeah, interesting she didn’t mention Kisses.’ Cinnamon laughs.

  Elecktra and I return in our black ninja uniforms and stand in the doorway with Cinnamon. I love the dojang. I feel like I belong among the wooden rafters, rice-paper walls, blue mats, hanging equipment and pots of bamboo.

  Jackson is helping a young blue belt with her side kick. The girl balances on one leg, an invisible rope pulling her toes to the sky. On Jackson’s command, she fires kicks towards the rafters like a machine gun.

  Jackson turns his attention to me. It’s fight time. The class stops practising and lines up across the back of the mats. Jackson picks up four wooden sticks as tall as me and hands two of them over. We fight in a blur of sticks and sleeves. I feel so proud to finally show Elecktra what I can do; fighting Jackson is more impressive than fighting the samurai on the motorbike. Jackson turbo twirls his sticks in the air. Sabo flicks me a lighter and I set the top of the sticks on fire. I reel my sticks faster and faster. The sticks flare as I spin them to the back of me, in front, out to the sides, in a figure eight, above my head, cloaking myself in a tornado of smoke. I disappear, then reappear out of the smoke with a triple spinning kick that I know no one else can do.

  Jackson kicks the sticks out of my hands. Sabo jumps on them with the fire extinguisher. Jackson snaps my hand in a twisted wrist-lock. I drop to my knees and shoulder-throw him over my head, pulling his arm up and locking my knee against his elbow. He hits his knees to his chest, kicks out towards my face, clamps his ankles around my neck and catapults me towards the students headfirst. I break-fall and land on my feet.

  Jackson approaches me with his thumbs in his black belt. I can see the sweat dripping into his blazing eyes. He stops a fist-distance away, pulls off his hood, then rakes his hand through his swampy blond hair. His knuckles are calloused.

  ‘Oi, you let me have that,’ he whispers.

  ‘Well, I couldn’t let you look bad in front of your students,’ I whisper.

  He smiles and hands me a ninja star. Between my fingers, the star feels so familiar: the weight, the coolness of the blades, the sharpness of the edges. We throw the stars around the room and they laser through the rafters, around the hanging bags, between the students. We chase our stars with kicks and flips. I roundhouse kick, triple front kick, then leap into a jumping crescent kick to catch my star between my toes. I flick the star up into my hands, then kiss it before sliding it into my belt. The students applaud. Jackson bows to them, then dismisses class.

  ‘I wanna go!’ Elecktra bounds towards us. This will be a good test of her ninja powers. All ninjas are naturally good with shuriken, the ninja stars. The first time I held one, the blades felt like an extension of my nails, a part of my body. Elecktra retrieves the star from my belt and holds it awkwardly in her palm.

  ‘Okay, so you throw it like this,’ Jackson says. He throws his blade and it slices over Elecktra’s head and strikes the noticeboard hanging near the entrance of the dojang.

  Elecktra holds the star between her fingers, then tosses it like a Frisbee. The star drops onto the floor by her feet. There is no air skid, no slide, not even a wheeze of flight.

  ‘That’s odd,’ Sabo says.

  ‘Really weird,’ Jackson says.

  ‘Have you ever had a ninja who couldn’t throw a star?’ I ask.

  Sabo’s heavy brows knit together, then spike upwards. ‘Not in all my years.’

  Elecktra tries again, and once more the star flops out of her hand and onto the floor. ‘It’s allergic to me,’ she says.

  ‘Seems that way,’ Sabo agrees. He picks up my star to inspect it, shakes it, then holds it in his palm. ‘Bizarre.’

  ‘Maybe Roxy broke it,’ Elecktra says. She snatches the star out of Sabo’s hand and holds it in her own. She goes cross-eyed at the star and it lifts out of her palm and floats into the air above her head. I try to grab the star, but it is levitating too high. We all hold our breath, our chins tilted up to the ceiling, watching the star hover between the rafters.

  Sabo scratches his head. ‘I haven’t seen anything like this before. A floating star? I mean, never.’

  Lecky smiles, then plucks the star out of the air and slaps it back into my hand.

  Next we move on to kicks. I demonstrate a basic side kick, holding my leg in the air for a minute, before retracting my knee and gracefully returning to fighting form. Elecktra copies me, but her flexibility is terrible and she can only kick her leg to knee height before falling over. When she tries again, she ends up on the floor. Blonde hair spills out of her ninja hood. She wrestles with it, hot and frustrated. She hasn’t yet learned how to control her breathing.

  Most ninjas can at least kick straight off; it’s in their blood. Something is really off here. I can sense how uncomfortable it’s making Sabo.

  ‘No balance,’ he says.

  ‘What? You didn’t like my kick?’ Elecktra says. She’s not used to criticism.

  ‘I liked it as much as waterlogged coleslaw.’ Sabo turns to me. ‘I don’t understand,’ he says, grating the grey stubble on his chin with his thumbnail. ‘I haven’t heard of any legends in which ninjas have telekinesis. There are no symptoms of ninja. I’ve never seen anything like this.’

  ‘What’s telekinesis?’ Cinnamon asks.

  ‘A telehead is someone who can move matter with their mind,’ Sabo explains.

  ‘But I don’t want to be a telechick,’ Elecktra says, ripping off her hood and walking to the end of the dojang. Then she pivots on her heel and turns back to us, cross-eyed again. Suddenly the kick pads fly through the air like missiles and the punching bags whip on their chains like barking bulldogs. My gut wrings out with nerves. We’ve always been different, but the difference in our powers is alienating.

  ‘I’ll talk to her,’ I tell the others. I dodge the flying kick pads and run over to Lecky. When I step into her line of vision, she loses concentration. The bags settle on their chains and the kick pads rain down around us. One hits me in the head.

  ‘I’m feeling weird,’ she says.

  ‘Lecky!’ I squeal. Elecktra looks at me cross-eyed, but this time with confusion. I point silently to her forehead. Cinnamon, Jackson and Sabo rush over. We all stare at her.

  Elecktra reaches a hand up to rub her forehead. When she feels the deep grooves there, she screams. ‘What’s happening?!’

  My heart is a furious hammer. Elecktra isn’t ready for this. She has no weapons!

  ‘Those black stripes on your forehead mean that the Cemetery of Warriors is summoning you. You’re going to have to fight to return home,’ Jackson says, his eyes murky with fear.

  Elecktra rubs her forehead again and tears fill her eyes. I reach out to hug her, but my hands snatch air. She has already disappeared.

  ‘Go after her,’ Sabo says urgently to me. It’s the first time I’ve ever seen a sense of desperation in his grey eyes.

  ‘Me g-go?’ I stutter. ‘Again?’

  ‘Yes, again. This is Elecktra’s test, though she doesn’t know it yet. She could inherit power. Be up against …’ His eyes trail off to look at Jackson.

  ‘Samurai,’ Jackson finishes his sentence.

  Samurai! Elecktra isn’t even a fully fledged ninja yet, she’s completely untrained. There’s no way she’ll know how to survive, let alone return home. ‘Jackson, please get my ninja stars,’ I say.

  Sabo puts a heavy hand on my shoulder and shakes his head. ‘No, Roxy. This isn’t your summons. You can’t fight her fight.’

  ‘So I can only watch her get herself killed?’ I gasp. Cinnamon takes my hand and squeezes it. I’d expect her to be in tears by now, but she is being strong for me.

  Sabo presses his lips into a hard line and grimaces.

  Jackson passes me my ninja stars, his hand seeming to linger with the final one. Even if I can’t use the stars, they’ll give me comfort in the Cemetery of Warriors.

  ‘So how do I get there
when I haven’t been summoned?’ I ask.

  ‘The White Warrior is the only one who can transport to and from the Cemetery of Warriors as they please,’ Sabo says. I don’t know how he knows all this stuff. He isn’t a ninja, but he’s the biggest ninja buff in Lanternwood.

  ‘You sort of have a Cemetery of Warriors passport, Rox,’ Jackson says. ‘Just hold your belt and close your eyes. Remember when I taught you invisibility?’

  I nod fervently.

  ‘Think of water and you’ll transport,’ he says. ‘Good luck.’

  I grip my belt at the tips, then paint my mind blue as I did that day on the school oval in an awesome game of Tiggy. My mind washes turquoise and I feel the calm blue rinse through my muscles. In two deep breaths, I disappear.

  ELEVEN

  Brutal darkness surrounds me. I strike the tip of my belt along my leg and it lights as a torch. I hold up the end to look around. The Circle of Self-defence has been transformed into a massive mud pit. Whispering mountains lean in on me, capped in the algae-green glow of the low moon. A labyrinth of graves, headstones and crypts rings the circle. There is that feeling of being watched, of eyes creeping all over you like spiders, and the choking smell of rotting flesh invades the air.

  ‘Lecky,’ I whisper. I steer the flaming tip of my belt from left to right, but I can’t see her anywhere.

  The Cemetery of Warriors is scarier this time. There is a shimmering violence in the distance and the place is too quiet. Something is very wrong.

  ‘Roxy, is that you?’ Lecky’s voice shivers behind me.

  I spin around. Lecky is trembling in the swirling blue smoke rising from the mud.

  ‘Your uniform is white,’ she says.

  ‘It changes whenever I fight. They don’t call me the White Warrior for nothing,’ I say, extinguishing my torch belt as my eyes have adjusted to the darkness.

  Elecktra walks cautiously through the mud, jumping at every wisp of shadow. Her ninja hood hangs at her back and the tar marks across her forehead are stark. The green moon cloaks her blonde hair in a mossy sheen and she looks six years old again after spending too much time in the swimming pool.

  ‘Where are we?’ she asks as she reaches my side.

  ‘This is the place I was talking about — the Cemetery of Warriors. Summoned fighters come here to claim powers by fighting dead masters of martial arts. You kill, you inherit their power. Remember I told you?’ I say, pointing at her forehead.

  Lecky drags her fingers across her forehead gingerly. Her eyes are wide as they absorb the surrounding nightmare. They remind me of Cinnamon’s kitten when it was about to drown.

  ‘But I’m not a fighter,’ she says.

  ‘I know.’ A hook pierces my heart and tugs.

  ‘So this is the other realm?’ Elecktra asks, gripping the ends of her hair and blinking into the blackness. ‘I thought it would be nicer. Some clouds with smiley faces or a chocolate factory maybe.’

  Despite our predicament, it’s a relief to hear she hasn’t lost her sense of humour, but the quiver of her lower lip gives her away. I’ve never seen her this terrified.

  The air is crisp and freezing, making my fingers and toes numb and slow. I remember standing in this exact spot with Mum: the blood, the tearing of flesh, the clanging of metal. I wish Mum was here. I can feel my heart drumming against my ribcage.

  ‘When I fought here, the circle was dry, not muddy like this. And the warriors were waiting,’ I say, but Elecktra is too engrossed in the green moon to listen. Her eyes are lost as she gazes up at the moon like the children watching their kites drift away after Hero’s attack at the abandoned golf course.

  The circle is deep with mud the colour of arterial blood and moss thick as velvet. Lecky squelches slowly around the perimeter of the circle, splashing mud up onto her ninja socks and tracing her arm over the thickets of algae. She stops when she makes a full circle.

  ‘No one’s here now. Do you think if anything was going to happen, it would have happened by now?’ she asks hopefully. I link my arm around her waist and she leans her head on top of mine. ‘Cat, can you take me home?’ she murmurs.

  ‘I’m working on it,’ I say, pulling away from her to inspect the mud. I pick up a stick and poke at the surface. ‘There’s water underneath.’

  Elecktra crosses her arms. Her gold hair is luminous against her black uniform, the sun the cemetery is missing. Elecktra’s eyes dart as the air fills with creepy noises. Everywhere she looks is reason for a double take. She stands at the foot of the bog while I hunt for more clues.

  A sound rips through the air like an exploding volcano. I swoop into a low stance. Elecktra screams and leaps back. The surface of the mud cracks suddenly, then pulsates as if struggling to contain a beast. I run to Elecktra’s side and assume a long stance double knife-hand block. The mud engorges, throbs, then collapses into the water beneath. There’s a hush of silence, then a fountain of black water spits up from the centre of the writhing pit and three men explode out of the bog and levitate into the air above us. They are chained together and at least eight metres tall, wearing cloaks of mud lathered in algae and weeds. The men levitate above the water long enough for Elecktra and me to drink in just how putrid they are. They look familiar … Snap! I saw them in the distance after the Endless Fight. Why are they still here?

  The hooded man in the middle holds out his samurai sword towards Elecktra. From under his hood, his calloused mouth smiles, almost as if he recognises my sister. He must be choosing her to fight. His sword shimmers with red rivers, like blood flowing from the tip of the blade down into the handle.

  Either side of the hooded man are two armless, faceless men. They have no eyes, but move on their chains under the command of the central samurai; it’s as if he has six legs. Their legs are the size of small boats — I can’t take my eyes off them. They wear belts stacked with samurai swords and carry knives between their toes. The faceless men kick out at Elecktra, dogs on chains. The mud cavern beneath them seals shut. The samurai drop to the ground. The Circle of Self-defence is ready for battle.

  Elecktra turns to me wildly. The whites of her eyes are glowing, her biscuit-coloured hair slashes the blackness. She’s never looked more beautiful. ‘What do we do?’ she shrieks.

  I don’t know why Lecky has been summoned here so early without proper training. Nothing makes sense. Sabo said I can’t fight, but I’m going to try.

  The hooded samurai roars and lifts his sword. He clashes it down at Elecktra, missing her shoulder but slicing off a tuft of her hair. A clump of yellow feathers across the mud. I swipe my ninja stars out of my belt and sprint towards the samurai. My lungs explode with speed as the vile-smelling air whips past my face. Seconds from Lecky my legs give out. It takes me a moment to realise that I haven’t tripped, but something has grabbed hold of my feet. As my knees buckle, I launch a ninja star at the samurai. He deflects my star with his sword and it boomerangs back to my hand as I crumple to my knees. I look down and see thick claws of mud fastened around my ninja socks. I try to lift my feet, but they are totally stuck. The cemetery is stopping me from fighting. Fear spreads across my body in a fever. Elecktra has no chance.

  ‘Lecky, keep low, never turn your back, stay focused and go for the throat,’ I call quickly, recalling our mother’s advice. Elecktra’s hair blows fiercely in the wind. She stares up at the samurai totally confused and looks as paralysed as I feel. The more I struggle in the mud the further I sink. I’m afraid if I use my powers, more warriors will appear, and Lecky and I are in enough trouble as it is.

  The samurai approaches her. He seems soaked with violence, a thick black ooze dripping off his skin, his armless men following him, deformed with evil. His sword is now on fire, sparking death all around us. The circle fills with the sword’s red smoke.

  ‘Lecky, watch out!’ I scream.

  The samurai swings his sword towards her head and Lecky simply leans her head slightly to the left as she would to examine her reflection. The sa
murai spins on his feet, entangling himself in his armless followers. Lecky runs to me. She swoops to her knees and frantically tries to dig my feet out of the mud.

  ‘Lecky, it’s no use. You have to fight,’ I say, crouching down and grabbing her face in my hands. She continues to dig, struggling against me and smearing mud over herself.

  ‘Hey. Look at me,’ I say. She stops digging and peers up at me with unshed tears in her eyes. ‘You’ve got this.’ If anyone can fake it until she makes it, my sister can.

  Elecktra sniffs and I let go of her face and help her to stand up. I’ll deal with the mud boots later. The samurai waits for Lecky with his flaming sword.

  ‘I’ll show these dudes the true meaning of ugly,’ she says with a half-smile, glancing up at the sky. ‘Then I better get us outta here.’

  The six-legged samurai slices his sword through the air and jabs it close to Elecktra’s neck. Elecktra seems to swan out of the way. Maybe she will be able to do this. She is concentrating harder than I’ve ever seen. Even in another realm, Elecktra is supremely confident.

  The samurai holds out his sword, baiting her. She moves towards him — she looks like she has a plan. She quickly takes off her ninja jacket and hood so she can breathe more easily. Now she is only wearing a black singlet top and ninja pants. The samurai is patient with her. His followers yank ferociously on their chains.

  Lecky casts a look back at me and her eyes flash knowingly. With a push down of her palms, she rises into the air. Watching my sister levitate is both cool and spooky. I wrestle with my feet, but the mud holds me captive. Elecktra is face to face with the samurai now and I notice she has something in her hand — a stick. She pulls her elbow back to her ear, then launches the stick at the samurai. The stick spears through the samurai’s hood and pierces his forehead. His head hoses blood.

  One of the faceless men kicks a blade at Lecky. She twirls out of the way and catches the dagger by its handle. I’ve never seen anyone catch a knife between their fingertips before and Lecky did it as easily as catching a ball. I cheer! Lecky has a weapon. Now to see if she can use it.