"Who are you?" Gripping his katana and settling into a high jōdan stance, the old man spoke in a low voice to the boy walking slowly toward him with the machete.
"Who I am doesn't matter." The boy smiled. "What matters is that you saw what I did. By the rules of our trade, that means you have to be silenced."
As he spoke the boy gave the machete in his hand a little wave. "Heh. Speaking of which, I've been playing with a bunch of little kids so much lately that my brain's gone a bit soft. I could've just quietly finished you off from the shadows, and instead I end up facing you head-on. That's really... mm. Mainly I wanted to say one thing: that hit just now? Hurt like hell."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"Don't mention it."
The moment the words left his mouth, the old man's body leapt, and the katana came straight down in a chop. Facing that thunderbolt of a strike, Jiaming turned the machete in his hand and swung up with his right arm alone. "Clang—" The two blades threw off a startling spray of sparks in the air, but what the old man felt was this: his mighty chop had been diverted cleanly to one side by a child. That reversed-grip steel blade had simply ridden his momentum and pushed—pushed so hard that his body was already tipping sideways!
Most people believe Japanese sword technique is all about killing in a single blow—one cut, all attack and no defense, pure brute strength, and the moment it misses you're finished. In fact, that's a misconception the movies hand you. All martial arts share common ground, and Japanese swordsmanship sets great store by the use of the waist and of footwork.
His first strike having failed, the old man immediately cut horizontally with the katana; to keep his opponent from following up, he let his body drop toward the ground, braced one hand on the floor, and spun his legs out in a kick.
Yet when he came back to a stand, he found the boy standing in the exact spot he had just vacated, legs bouncing away like a boxer between rounds, grinning from ear to ear.
"So flashy, so flashy! To pull off a move that hard at your age—Grandpa, doesn't your back hurt?"
"Cut the crap! If you want to fight, come at me!"
The old man frowned and pointed the katana gravely at Jiaming, the tip angled slightly down, tilted a little to the right. Jiaming narrowed his eyes. "Hira-seigan... you think you're Okita Sōji (Note 1)?" The words had barely landed when he charged.
"That Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions you wanted—I'll show it to you!"
Sparks flared again. The old man pressed his katana down and caught Jiaming's attack, then swept the blade up and cut down at lightning speed. This hira-seigan stance is brutally difficult; mastered to perfection, it makes a man feel he's being drawn under the blade to be cut. But before the cut could fall, Jiaming seemed to vanish—then appeared at his side, a blade sweeping in.
It was the same Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions, but Jiaming's was plainly more practiced than Tsukiike Kaoru's by an uncountable margin. The old man hurriedly pulled his katana back and rolled clumsily to one side; an instant later Jiaming's figure had rushed to his flank again at full speed, slashing.
For a while, "clang, clang, clang, clang—" rang out in a chain from that corner of the square, like crisp music dancing through the night sky. In pure strength, trained or not, a child's body could never beat this old man; in sheer agility, though, the old man could never hope to catch Jiaming as he was now.
He wielded Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions almost ostentatiously, his body dancing madly in that place where light and shadow met. In truth, ninjutsu is not illusion arts at all; it merely exploits the environment to manufacture a few false appearances. Here the lamplight was blocked by the buildings, cutting a clean line between light and dark; with the two forever interleaving, plus some intricate footwork, you got that phantom-like shifting of position. Of course, even without the light and dark to work with, a brightly lit space alone would do—complex movement can still produce the same illusion. It's simply easier here.
Now at the old man's side, now behind him—the bewildering variety of attacks had him lurching from one desperate defense to the next, and Tsukiike Kaoru, still lying naked on the ground, felt her heart pound as she watched. Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions taken to this level—who in the family could manage that?
Having spent every trick he had, the old man at last opened up the distance between them, gripped the hilt with both hands and drew back, then aimed at the charging Jiaming and thrust out like lightning.
Again it was Okita Sōji's secret art: the Mumyō-ken Three-Stage Thrust. He had judged that Jiaming, eager to close the gap, was moving too fast to use Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions to dodge. Sure enough, it struck.
Only it wasn't that Jiaming couldn't dodge—he simply didn't want to anymore.
The first thrust was savagely batted aside by Jiaming, and the second and third were meant to follow in a blistering chain—but as the blade drew back a fraction, the old man discovered to his horror that his opponent's speed outran his own recovery. The boy had nearly his whole body's weight bearing down on that sword. The follow-up attacks were dead on arrival.
Their figures crossed, and blood flashed!
A long gash opened across the old man's belly, cut precisely where a Japanese man's seppuku would go, as though chosen on purpose. He staggered a few steps. "Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions—how can you..."
Because I stole the manual, obviously. Dumbass... Jiaming thought. Aloud he said, "The Tsukiike family's old house is quiet and serene, planted all over with lovely cherry trees. When the blossoms fall, the petals drop into the pond, and the ripples they raise are what inspired the Tsukiike ancestor to create Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions.
That old house still looks the way it did then—plain, clean, spotless. The secret of Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions lies exactly there: it calls for a heart completely calm and at ease, one that mirrors even the faintest ripple stirred in the world outside. Your heart holds nothing but strife.
You can't even get the swordsmanship of the Tennen Rishin-ryū (Note 2) right—how could you ever master Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions?"
Having finished that speech, he felt like a holy monk. The first half was nonsense, but the latter part really did lay out the frame of mind Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions demanded.
The old man did look enlightened. Blood kept welling from his belly, yet he stood there without moving a muscle. Then a figure rushed in from the side and opened a far more lethal wound across his throat—it was Tsukiike Kaoru, still naked from head to toe.
"Cough... I... I'm... right... the Tsukiike family... cough, cough..."
With that, the old man knelt down heavily against his katana, and at last he died.
Not a bad training session, all things considered... Jiaming thought, and when he looked at Tsukiike Kaoru, she was staring straight back at him, utterly unconcerned about her bare body. Though in fairness, with a body so covered in wounds, he truly couldn't have summoned a single thought about it.
Then Jiaming laid the edge of his blade directly against her neck.
"Cough—you're putting me in a real bind. I can't let anyone know about today's business, so the only thing for it is to kill... hey, hey, hey... wait till I've finished before you keel over..."
Catching the girl as she finally passed out and slumped into his arms, Jiaming honestly felt she was pulling a fast one on him. He really hadn't planned on killing her, but the least she could do was hear out his side of it, work out some way for them both to keep quiet, and then faint.
"Honestly... you're hurt this badly. Whether there's any medicine upstairs is going to come down to your character..."
Over an hour later, a large contingent of police arrived at the timber processing plant, and what met them was a scene of exceptional horror.
Two beheaded bodies in the gatehouse at the entrance. A fire that had already burned through half the factory. And out in the square, decapitated corpses in numbers shocking to the eye. At first glance, officer after officer already had the feeling that this would be the biggest underworld criminal case since the gang shootout at the abandoned Second Cement Plant half a year before.
The girl who had led the police here, Liu Huaisha, filthy from head to toe, was struck dumb at the sight, then went running every which way, sobbing and shouting for Jiaming. Jiaming was not found—but on a bed on the second floor they found the Japanese girl, abused until she was barely alive. Her wounds appeared to have been given some rough first aid, but she was still unconscious.
According to Shasha's information, there was no way the timber processing plant had held only that one gang member. The group charged into the woods behind with wolfhounds, and before long came upon Cao Dongfeng stumbling around lost, holding a little torch. Shasha at once threw herself at him in tears, pounding on him.
"What did you do to Jiaming? What did you all do to Jiaming..."
But Cao Dongfeng was nearly frightened out of what wits he had left and could only gasp in terror, "People are dead... dead... help..." Shasha took that to mean Jiaming was dead; while the police weren't looking, she ran up and beat him again, then dropped where she stood and howled.
Not long after, the police found a lead up ahead. Shasha went over in tears, and nearly everyone went green at the sight of those headless bodies—a good many officers threw up on the spot. Shasha searched for Jiaming without aim, until at last the hounds found a small boy trembling inside a hidden clump of low bushes. Seeing that Jiaming wasn't dead, Shasha flung herself at him in delight—which made him scream with pain.
"Ah—doctor, doctor, over here, quick! Jiaming's hurt too, that Cao Dongfeng beat him for ages..."
Shasha yelled, then burst into frightened tears again. The doctor traveling with them hurried over and stripped off Jiaming's clothes, revealing a body covered in injuries as shocking as the abused Japanese girl's. They rushed a stretcher over, and Shasha trotted along beside it. A policewoman walked alongside asking Jiaming what had happened.
Naturally, Jiaming's story was that he'd bolted into the woods and hidden in a panic, heard screams and hadn't dared come out, and so on—he provided no useful information whatsoever. Seeing how young the child was and how badly he'd been beaten, no one doubted a word.
"Oh, right, Shasha—they said they were going to grab Lingjing. They didn't get her, did they?"
"Nope. Don't worry." Shasha held his hand. "The moment we went missing, they called the police. Lingjing nearly got caught once, but Papa Ye happened to be there to pick her up, and he chased all those guys off. After that she had police protection... Papa Ye is so amazing. And of course, Jiaming, you're amazing too."
"Uh, heh... heh heh..." Jiaming gave her a goofy grin.
The team doctor, having seen two shockingly abused children in a single day, grumbled the whole way back. When they reached the processing plant and Cao Dongfeng came into view, Shasha angrily tattled, "He's the one who hit him! He's the one who hit him!"—and then tried to charge over and hit him herself, and was promptly hauled back.
In the confusion, Cao Dongfeng saw Jiaming on the stretcher pull a horrifying face at him, and the next moment he was foaming at the mouth, convulsing all over, and collapsing to the ground in an epileptic fit. Presumably, from that day on, he understood what despair really meant.
They loaded up the ambulance. Shasha kept watch by Jiaming's stretcher and held his hand, and when she saw that this thick-skinned boy had actually fallen asleep in the vehicle and was snoring softly, she felt put out. There's still so much I haven't said to you. Still thinking, she clumsily pulled the sheet up straight over him.
The vehicle cut across the long night, heading for the glittering city in the distance.
Note 1: Okita Sōji—anyone who's read Rurouni Kenshin knows. That is, Okita Sōjirō, said to be the finest swordsman of Japan's Shinsengumi, a student of the Tennen Rishin-ryū; his secret arts are the hira-seigan and the Mumyō-ken Three-Stage Thrust, though the Three-Stage Thrust does begin from the hira-seigan stance. This is all written at random, and I don't know the man well.
The one I know better is the little shota Okita Sōjirō in Feng Zi Wu Yu. The fujoshi reading this book should like that little shota, I'd think.
Note 2: Tennen Rishin-ryū—a Japanese swordsmanship school. No academic rigor here: it stresses harmony with the natural order of things, adapting on the fly and responding spontaneously to an opponent's movements, much like the Pond-Sakura Thousand Illusions described above.
Also: votes, please. Thank you.