The Shadow Warriors: Chapter 2

Chapter 2

I was floating in darkness.  I couldn’t see or hear anything.  Well, this sucks.  Shouldn’t there be a light or something?  At least, Fujiko is okay.

“You’re not dead, idiot.”

What?  Who’s there?  Then, a hand grabbed me and pulled me out of…a river?  “What the hell?!”

“Like I said, you’re not dead.”  He dumped me on the bank of the river.  Then, I noticed that he was dressed in the same black kimono and hakama as I was wearing.  He was a Japanese man, but tall.  Taller than me, at least.  He looked familiar somehow.

Then, it hit me.  “You—you’re Rakurai Kobayashi, aren’t you?!”

“In a way.  I’m what’s left of him.”

“But I thought that all that was left of him was….”

“The sword.”

“Oh!  You’re the spirit of the katana!”

“Yeah, that thing grew into a nodachi or something.”

“It’s called an odachi.”

“Odachi?  I’ve never seen one before.”  I drew the sword to take a better look.  It looked like a long katana.  The blade was at least four-feet long.  Then, I looked around.  The river flowed through a lovely green meadow, but there was nothing else there.  “Where are we?”

“In your subconscious.  This isn’t real.  But since you had finally succumbed to blood loss and passed out, I thought this would be a good chance to tell you what’s really going on.”

“This is a dream?”

“More like a vision, but that doesn’t matter.  The Kobayashi girl can explain more, when you wake up, but I’ll cover the basics.”  I sat down and got ready to listen.

“Several centuries ago, Rakurai Kobayashi battled the Oni Lord.  This, you know.  But I could not destroy him.  Instead, I trapped his soul in a crystal.  But he was too powerful.  Even with his body destroyed, I knew that his soul would break free eventually.  So, I drove my sword into the crystal, shattering it into eight pieces, and scattering them throughout the world.  To do this, however, took more power than I had at that time.  What little power I had left after that battle was keeping me alive.  But I did it anyway.  The cost was sacrificing my life, my body, and my very soul.”

“And that’s why they said that the sword was all that was left of you?”

“Yes.  Even my body disappeared.  But it was worth it to banish the Oni Lord forever.  At least, that’s what I thought.

“The man you met tonight, I believe is trying to free the Oni Lord.”

“But how is that possible?!”

“The crystal the old man had, it is one of the fragments of the very crystal that the Oni Lord’s soul is trapped in.  It was the one piece that remained at the site of the battle.  My clan has guarded it since that day in case someone would try to reassemble the crystal and free the Oni Lord.”

“And now, this guy has it.”

“That’s right.  And that means that you must stop him from getting the rest.  You and the girl.”

“Fujiko?!  I can’t possibly take her with me!  It’s far too dangerous!”

“She is a Kobayashi.  The last of my line.  It is her destiny.  And yours.  It was no mere coincidence that I found you.”

“What do you mean?  If I can use the sword’s power, then anyone could.  I’m not a Kobayashi.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.  I had very little power to give.  But my power, combined with your great need, brought out something that was buried deep inside you.  It’s not my power that flows through you.  It is your power that flows through the sword.  This seiken is yours now.”

“But what about Fujiko?”

“She will explain, but she has her own role to play in this.”  I could hear someone crying in the distance.  “It’s time for you to—”

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“Wake up!  Why won’t you wake up?!  Don’t leave me, too!”

Fujiko was sobbing, crying into my chest.  I slowly reached out and stroked her hair.  “It’s okay.  I’m here.”

She looked up at me like I had come back from the dead.  “Terry!”  She practically jumped on top of me, hugging me tight.  Fujiko on top of me in bed would normally be an enjoyable experience, except—

“Really sore here!”  My back was indeed sore, but didn’t hurt nearly as much as it should considering what happened.

“Oh, sorry.”  She quickly went back to her chair next to the bed.  Then, I took a moment to take in my surroundings.  White walls.  Small bed with ugly, green (and now damp) sheets.  Privacy curtain.  Yep, hospital.  Then, I noticed that I had bandages wrapped around my chest and back.

“I know you don’t like hospitals, but I didn’t know what else to do.”

“It’s okay.  You made the right decision.  Even black folks go to the hospital for serious injuries.  Now…your Grandfather….”  At this, she burst into tears, again.  I sat up and hugged her.  “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all my fault!”

“You can’t blame yourself for this.  You couldn’t have stopped it.”

“No, I could have!  I had the power to stop those guys, but I was scared!”

“Wait, power?”

Fujiko dried her eyes and nodded.  “Terry, I’ve kept a secret from you for a long time.”

“Rakurai told me that you could explain some things to me.”

“Rakurai?”

“Yeah.  While I was knocked out, he came to me in a vision and told me some stuff.  I think that what’s left of his spirit is still inside of my sword.  He said I could have it, by the way.”

“I see.  Well, there’s no point in hiding this from you anymore.  You see, my family is descended from the Kobayashi Clan, which was a long line of warriors skilled in the mystical arts.  They were called Kagemusha.”

“Kagemusha?  That means ‘shadow warrior’, right?”

“Right.  That black kimono you were wearing was what the Kagemusha wore in their Shadow Form.”

“Shadow Form?”

“Yes.  You see, outsiders didn’t understand the true power of the Kobayashi Clan.  They thought the Kobayashi were ninja or something.  They believed that the Kobayashi had the power of the shadows.  But the secret of the Kobayashi’s power was a vast knowledge of the spiritual energy, or Ki, that resides in everyone.  Because of their high use of it, they tended to be born with more Ki than normal.  The Shadow Form was a technique that transformed their regular human bodies into bodies that were infused with Ki.  This made them stronger, faster, and more able to control their Ki.  Also, they created the seiken out of Ki.”

“Wait, so you’re saying that the seiken weren’t real?”

“No, they’re real enough.  A seiken was a physical manifestation of that warrior’s Ki.  A Kobayashi wasn’t considered to be a true Kagemusha until they could summon their seiken by using Hakkei.”  She held up her hand to stop my question.  “Hakkei, which means ‘release of internal power’, was a ritual that usually involved invoking the true name of the seiken.  Once the true name was learned and invoked, the seiken would form itself out of the Kagemusha’s Ki.”

“This is just like Bleach!”

“What are you talking about?”

“In Bleach, Soul Reapers have swords called zanpakto that they transform into something else by invoking the true name of their sword.  And seiken means ‘sacred sword’, right?”

She pinched the bridge of her nose as if she was getting a headache.  “No, no, no.  You’ve got it all wrong.  Yes, seiken means sacred sword, but not all seiken were swords.  Seiken all had different shapes and powers.  Admittedly, a Kagemusha-in-training would use a katana until they could do Hakkei.  But a true seiken could be anything.  Rakurai’s seiken just happened to be a katana.”

“You’re going to hurt me if I call it a zanpakto, aren’t you?”

“Yes, Terry.  Yes, I will.  Anyway, even without the Shadow Form, a Shadow Warrior could use their Ki for what people called magic.  It wasn’t really magic, but a Shadow Warrior could do things that it would take most people a lifetime of training to do.”

“But wait, why did your family have these Shadow Warriors?”

“To fight demons, and other threats to the Clan.  The Oni Lord wasn’t the first, or the last, demon my ancestors fought.  But through the years, the number of members of my family who were born with a large amount of Ki began to dwindle.  The ones that were had less Ki than the previous generation.  Grandfather was the last one to be able to use the Shadow Form, and even he got so he couldn’t handle it after he got older.  And my dad…he barely has a spark of power in him.”

“No wonder he’s in such denial about this stuff.  So, Grandfather Kobayashi was the last of the Shadow Warriors?”

“Well, apparently, you’re one now.  …And so am I.”

“What?!  But I thought you said that the power was gone out of your family.”

“That’s where we come to my secret.  Grandfather said that I was born with a stronger Ki than has been seen in our family in a very long time.  He showed me a few tricks—”  Her hands glowed and she somehow closed the privacy curtain around us without touching it.  “—but he never gave me any real training.  He always said that I had a gift, but had no reason to use it in the old ways.  That I should find my own way.  I think he was scared of me having to use these powers.  But I could have….  I could have….”  Thinking about her grandfather’s death broke her out of her textbook explanation and reduced her to tears, again.

As I hugged her, again, I realized that I was holding her far closer than I should be able to.  “What the hell?!”  I pulled back and felt my stomach.  It was flat!  “I’m…thin!”

This was enough to make her giggle a little.  “I was wondering when you’d notice.  The sword transformed you somehow, and you stayed that way even after your Shadow Form faded away.”

“I’m not just thin!  I’m lean and muscular!”  At this, I jumped out of bed to get a better look…and realized that I was naked.  Fujiko turned beet red, fell out of her chair, and screamed.  After I wrapped myself in the bed sheet and apologized for a few minutes, she finally calmed down.  A little.

“Damn it, Terry!  If you did that on purpose, I’ll kill you!”

“I’m sorry!  I’m sorry!  I’m sorry!”

She sighed.  “Well, I suppose you are the only guy I know that wouldn’t have done that on purpose.  Still, I can’t believe you were…naked the whole time….  You pervert!”

“I really didn’t know!”  I remembered then that she had never let any of her boyfriends really get anywhere, so I was the first guy she had seen naked.  No wonder, she was freaking out.

“I…I guess you didn’t.”  She sat down in her chair again and I sat on the bed.

“What happened to my clothes?”

“After you passed out, the kimono disappeared.  Your regular clothes were all torn up and bloody in the back.  And they didn’t fit anymore.  I guess the doctors threw them away.”

“Makes sense, I guess.  Hey!  Where’s the sword?”

“I don’t know.  It disappeared, too.”

“Strange, it feels like it’s here, somewhere.”  I closed my eyes.  “Like I could reach out and touch it….”  I reached behind my back and gripped the hilt.  Suddenly, I felt a rush of energy and I was in the black kimono and hakama, again!  The sword was in a large sheath on my back.

“You transformed, again!”

“At least, I’m not naked anymore.”

“The sword is on your back?  How is that possible?”
“What do you mean?”

“You…didn’t invoke its name or anything.  It’s already there!”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

“Well, let me see it.”

When I grabbed the hilt of the sword, the sheath vanished.  “Whoa.”  I let go of the hilt and the sheath reappeared around the sword’s blade.  “That’s…really convenient!”  I pulled it out, again, still amazed at how light it was, and handed it to Fujiko.  The tip instantly buried itself in the floor.

“Damn, that’s heavy!  How do you carry this thing?”  After she tugged on it a few more times, she gave up.  “I don’t understand why it’s so big!”

“An odachi is supposed to be really long.”

“Yeah, but it was a katana until a few hours ago!  I still don’t understand what you did to it.  And even an odachi shouldn’t be this heavy!  This is so strange!”

“There’s a lot about this that’s strange.”  I picked the sword back up easily and replaced on my back.  “Like this secret of yours.  I’ve got secrets, but nothing that big.”

She smirked at me.  “Terry, you’ve never been able to keep a secret from me.  Either through confiding or confessing, you tell me everything.”

“Well….”

“I know you kept a copy of that picture Courtney sold you of me changing in the locker room.”

“How the Hell did you know that?!”

“You just told me.”  I slapped my forehead for falling for that.  Again.  “I’ve always suspected that.  After all, as much as you paid for that, you would have been stupid to not keep a copy.  It’s probably hidden on that encrypted, second hard drive of yours.  And I know the password.”

“No you—”

“It’s my measurements.”

“…Oh.”

“Don’t worry; I have no interest in seeing just how much porn you have on there.  You’re such a perv.  But since you’re such a good friend, I can ignore that most of the time.”

“I did tell you about that picture.”

“Yeah, you did.  You came running and confessed everything.  You even let me tear it up.  But even if you felt guilty, I knew you wouldn’t have given up that pic so easily.  Oh well.  I guess we’re even now.”  She blushed a little as she said that.

“Yeah, I guess we are.”

She cleared her throat to avoid the awkward silence.  “Anyway, what else did Rakurai tell you?”  I quickly filled her in.  “Well, that settles it.  I’m going with you.  I’m the only one who can help you.  And I couldn’t let you go off by yourself like that.  You’re…all I have left.”

“Fujiko, I know you haven’t talked to them in years, but you still have your parents.”

“You’re…right.  I need to go see them.  My dad deserves to know.”

“I’m glad you said that.  Let’s go!”

“But you’re hurt!”

“I feel fine.  What did the doctors say?”

“That you mostly had cuts and bruises.  They didn’t understand it at all.  With as much blood as you had on your clothes, you should have been more hurt than that.”

“So, I’m fine then.  Let’s get out of here.”

“You’re walking out dressed like that?”

“It’s either this or nothing.”

She turned a little red, again.  “The kimono it is then.  Let’s go.”