The Way Of The Sword by Chris Bradford

particularly looking forward to it. Miso soup, cold fish and rice were hard to stomach early in the morning. How he longed for a normal English breakfast of crusty buttered bread, fried eggs and ham.
    Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of a movement on the opposite side of the courtyard. At first he thought his eyes were deceiving him, for who else would be up at this time?
    He looked harder.
    A shadow flitted along the edge of the Hall of Lions.
    Whoever it was, they didn’t want to be seen. Dressed all in black, the figure kept close to the wall and barely made a sound as it crept towards the entrance of the Hall of Lions, where the students slept.
    Jack’s senses went on alert. The intruder looked like a ninja.
    Retreating behind the
Butokuden’
s doorway, Jack watched the ninja’s progress.
    So Dragon Eye had finally returned.
    ‘Another time,
gaijin
! The
rutter
is not forgotten
.’ The ninja’s words resounded in Jack’s head. He cursed himself for not having spoken with Emi yet to arrange going back to Nijo Castle to hide the logbook. But Jack had foolishly begun to think that Yamato had been right and that Dragon Eye had died from his wounds, for there had been no sight or sound of his sworn enemy for months.
    But it appeared that Dragon Eye
wasn’t
dead.
    Akiko had suggested that the ninja, as an assassin for hire, had simply been employed by someone else on another mission. Clearly that assignment was over and he’d returned to finish his original job.
    The figure in black reached the doorway and, as it turned to enter the
Shishi-no-ma
, the moonlight caught the intruder’s face.
    Jack drew back in surprise. It was a fleeting glimpse, but he could have sworn it was Akiko.

15
SENSEI KANO

    Jack sprinted across the courtyard.
    Reaching the doorway, he slid back the
shoji
and peered in. All of the lamps had burnt out so it was hard to see anything, but the corridor seemed empty.
    He silently made his way down the girls’ corridor towards Akiko’s room. When he got there, he found that her door was slightly ajar. He peeked in through the gap.
    Akiko was fast asleep under the covers of her
futon
– and looked like she had been there for some time.
    Seeing her asleep, Jack became aware of just how exhausted he was. Suffering from hunger and lack of sleep, could he have imagined the intruder?
    He decided he would speak with Akiko in the morning, but now the pull of his own bed was too much to resist and he stumbled back to his room. Collapsing on to his
futon
, Jack’s mind whirled. He stared at his Daruma Doll, willing himself to sleep, and after a while he felt his eyelids grow heavy.
    He could have sworn he’d closed his eyes for only a moment before Yamato was at his door, the bright morning sunshine flooding his room.
    ‘Come on, Jack!’ said Yamato, rousing him out of bed. ‘You’ve missed breakfast and Sensei Kano’s said we’re to meet at the
Butokuden
right now. We’ve got our first lesson in the Art of the
Bō
.’

    Leaving the bustle of Kyoto city behind, the students crossed the wide wooden bridge that spanned the Kamogawa River and headed north-east in the direction of Mount Hiei. Despite being the tail end of summer, the weather was warm and dry, the sky cloudless, and in the sharp light of morning the burnt-out temples, that could be seen scattered over the mountain’s forested slopes, glinted like broken teeth.
    The enormous bulk of Sensei Kano, a mountain in himself, strode out in front, his great white
bō
staff striking the ground with each step. Like sheep following their shepherd, his students trailed behind in two regimented rows, their pace dictated by the rhythmic
thunk-thunk
of the sensei’s staff.
    As instructed, the class had gathered outside the
Butokuden
to await their new teacher. Jack and the others had been watching the early morning workers digging the foundations for the new Hall of the Hawk when Sensei Kano appeared. He acknowledged his students with a