White Ninja (12 page)

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 chest 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?

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.

Hero steps out and spins twice, then hook kicks, his leg stretching out to the nearest yellow cloud. I pause, mesmerised by the beauty of his technique, then ram his
supporting leg like I'm a rugby player. He crumples to the ground, but only for a second before jumping up without using his hands and assuming a crane position. His left eye has swollen, but I see no shiver of pain or weakness.

I leap across the platform and hook punch his cheek. He stands motionless, as though he doesn't feel it, then leans forwards and slaps me across my cheek. My skin burns hot and for a second I am disoriented. The thick buttery clouds blind my sight and I am back in the boys' toilets at school. I remember how strong I felt then, determined to save Rescue; nothing could stand in my way. Those feelings rise within me again and, for the first time, my chest swells with pride.

‘You're a bully!' I yell across the circle at Hero.

‘I'm samurai!' he yells back.

My vision clears and I kneel into a bow position to centre my mind.

‘You'll always be a loser,' he says. ‘That's why your father left you.'

Usually his words would stab my heart like serrated knives, but in this moment, as I kneel, aware of my breath entering my body, my chest rising and lowering, my hands relaxed and open on my thighs, the words skim off my shoulders like
shuriken
. I slowly open my eyes. For once, I have control over my feelings. I am able to think positively.

The wind blows the hair not contained by my ninja hood across my eyes. The tower rises higher. Now the clouds are below us. The air thins again, making it even harder to breathe. The ancient warriors are proving their strength. If they can move mountains, I can stay here and fight.

Hero picks up a skull unearthed by the sudden movement of the circle and throws it in the air. He punches it to smithereens, then sinks into a low horse-riding stance.

‘Skulls don't hit back,' I say, then pounce on him with triple front kicks between his parted legs. He doubles over, screaming with agony and rage.

I can no longer see the tombstone where the ancient ninja's Tiger Scrolls sit. There is blackness below us and blackness above us. If I can't fight my way out of this, it will be blackness forever.

All I can see is the red of Hero's kimono and the whites of his eyes hungering for my blood. He chases me with kicks. I move backwards, feeling every inch of the platform disappear as I am pushed closer and closer to the edge. I shuffle away from Hero's kicks, but at the cost of losing more ground. The edge looms closer. I dig my feet into the earth with all my strength, but his kicks are too powerful and push me back. He leaps into a double front kick and I know this is it.

I watch his foot fly into my face. His kick flips me backwards and, as I spin, I see the blue disc disappear beneath me. I fall screaming, thrashing my arms and legs in the hope of gripping onto something. I catch the side of the mountain by my fingertips and I hang there for what seems an eternity, gripping the soft earth with my nails and steadying my breathing. Any wrong move and this will be it — I'll never see my family again, never walk through Gate One, never experience my first kiss …

The fog encases me; I can't see above or below. I clutch the earth blindly. I can't hear Hero. There are tears spilling down my face; I hadn't realised I was crying. My body is numb with pain. All my energy is focused on saving my life.

‘You can do this,' I say.

‘It's over,' old Roxy says. ‘He's whipping you. He's got the scrolls. The White Warrior will appear to him.'

I lean my face into the mud and feel it fill my nostrils. My eyes sting. My forearms are weak. Every part of me is screaming. Maybe old Roxy is right.

‘You've always been weak,' she says.

Weak
. I lift my face out of the mud. ‘I'm not weak,' I say.

Others may think I'm weak, but this is my chance to banish weakness. I hook my feet into a rock below and
use the power in my legs to hurl myself up to the next hold, like scaling the climbing wall in Sergeant Major's class. I pause just below the ledge and listen. If I reach my fingers up, Hero will slice them off with his sword. If I lift my head over the ledge to see — there goes my head.

My heart beats against the wall of rock. I decide my head is more precious. I slowly hook my index finger up onto the ledge and I cringe. Nothing. My middle finger joins it. I wince again. Still nothing. I reach my whole hand up, brace … and nothing. I wait, listening. The fog is a thick disguise. Perhaps Hero thinks I plummeted to my death.

When I finally peer over the edge, Hero is nowhere to be seen. I climb onto the disc and dust myself off.

Without warning Hero is flying towards me. I balance on the balls of my feet, then jump in the air, fanning my left arm around in an outside knife-hand block and punching Hero in his chest with my right hand. I land again on the balls of my feet on the outer edge of the platform, and thank my lucky ninja stars for those bamboo-balance lessons. Still balancing on the edge, I punch Hero in his chest as he flies towards me midair, but he punches me at the same time, crunching his knuckles against mine. The impact is enough to send us both out into nothingness, but I manage to propel myself forwards and land on my wrists.

I creep to the centre of the circle, armed with my ninja stars. A great beam reaches up to the clouds, and as it descends I realise it's Hero's leg slicing through the smoke, on its way down to cut me in half. I move out of the way just in time and shin block his axe kick. The power of his kick churns through me, locking my muscles and stiffening my vertebrae.

We break apart and stalk the edge of the platform, the world dropping away beneath us. Hero cracks his neck, opens and closes his hands, rolls his ankles and swipes at the blood dripping from his nose and chin.

I summon all the power and strength within me and recent images speed through my mind: training with Jackson, flying across the rooftops with Cinnamon, the feeling of freedom when I leaped over the toilet wall to save Rescue, learning to be invisible, the first time I held the ninja star, the fear in my mother's eyes before I saved her from the Apache Warrior. The memories combust and my muscles contract, flying me upwards and into a backflip towards Hero so fast he has no time to move. I spring onto his shoulders and assume the cat stance; he doesn't dare move, knowing my ankles are close to his jugular. I could end the fight right now.

There is a moment of threat, neither of us knowing the other's next move. I balance on his shoulders and move into the crane position, my arms above my head,
lifting my right knee to my chest. As I look out into bruised clouds and a limitless sky, my fear vanishes. My ninja training has taught me that I can create whatever I wish to see, whatever I wish to be. It is thoughts that hold you back, that create limits. If you want to make a change, you have to start with yourself. Thoughts are what fuel the change from normal to ninja.

Before I can leap off Hero's shoulders, his foot reaches up and smashes into my nose. The bones crunch and I fall backwards, rolling out to the edge of the platform.

‘Had enough?' he calls from the centre of the circle.

I stand slowly and walk towards him. We face each other, bloodied and bruised.

‘It doesn't have to be like this,' I say.

Hero shakes his head. ‘The power of the scrolls belongs to the samurai.'

‘They belong to the White Warrior,' I say.

‘Show me the White Warrior!' he yells, opening his arms.

He flies at me with staccato strikes — knife hands, hammer fists, body punches, double upper blocks. I block them, catch his right hand among the flurry, lift it into a submission hold, applying pressure to his wrist and immobilising him. I wait for his face to contort with pain, then push-kick into his ribs with the ball of my right foot. I feel my birthmark growl and my toes
hook like tiger claws. My powers are astonishing; my speed and accuracy improve each minute. At first, my abilities freaked me out, but now I understand.

‘She's right here!' I say.

 

In the distance below, I see the glowing tombstone again, a mere pearl in the ocean of darkness. We are in a different realm here, but out there, somewhere, are the people I love. I am fighting for them.