CHAPTER 16

孤児 Koji

Orphans

Jet gripped Hiro’s hand as he held Aska’s leash. The rhythms of Tokyo pulsed in her veins—crows cawing in the eaves, trains rattling overhead on their tracks, cars honking, bicycle brakes screeching, waves of people coming and going, coming and going endlessly.

“What huge buildings!” Hiro looked up at the skyscrapers, his mouth open.

“Yes, it’s so different from Kanabe, isn’t it? Not at all like New Mexico either.”

“There’s not a tree anywhere,” Hiro said, dejected and out of place.

All around, neon lights blinked their strange morse code. Jet, Hiro, and Aska made their way to Harajuku, where groups of kids with dyed hair, vintage clothes, tattoos, and piercings hung out on the streets. Hiro and Jet’s mountain clothing was filthy and torn, so they used some of the money Ojiisan had given them to buy cheap vintage clothes at Hanjiro, a second-hand shop.

It was three stories tall and filled to the brim with used clothes of every stripe. Jet bought a miniskirt, velvet shirt, boots, and leggings. Hiro bought some black jeans, a turtleneck, hoodie, and some Converse hightops. Together it cost them less than 10,000 yen, about 100 dollars, Jet figured.

Hiro asked the platinum-coifed male cashier directions to a sento bathhouse, trying not to gape at his green eyeshadow and mascara.

Once at the baths, they tied Aska up outside and went in to clean off.

Jet peeled off her dirty clothes and stuffed them in a locker. She grabbed a bucket and found an empty stool in front of a faucet, pouring buckets of hot water over her body as she scrubbed her skin raw. Steam swirled in the air. Jet inhaled it, cleansing her lungs. She must have dumped ten buckets over herself, but still didn’t feel purified of what she’d seen and done. She wondered if she ever would. Ojiisan said you never get rid of a battle. You lived with its scars, searing into your skin.

Exhausted, Jet dropped deep into the baths, letting the hot water ease the weight from her shoulders and cleanse her mind. Her body ached and her legs and arms were covered with scrapes and bruises, which she tried to hide with the small thin towel. The steaming hot water opened her pores and melted her tense muscles. The icy cold plunge bath reinvigorated her.

She looked around at the other women—bathing, chatting, and laughing as they scrubbed each other’s backs, soap suds flying. How wonderful that they could do this for each other. She missed her mother, missed the warmth of her body, the beauty of her tired smile.

Finally, Jet toweled off and donned her new clothes, wadding up the old ones in the garbage. When she was dressed and done, Jet looked in the mirror, satisfied; she was finally like all the other teenagers on the street. No one would be able to see the pain she carried inside.

In the lobby, she was happy to see Hiro transformed as well. She wanted to avoid standing out at all costs. He appeared calmer, more composed, even though there were dark circles under his eyes.

They went back into the shopping district and bought a map, then began searching the narrow streets for their uncle’s address. From time to time, they stopped and watched people pass on the sidewalk, making sure that they weren’t being followed, that they didn’t see the same people more than once.

Finally, they came to a tiny dead-end street lined with square houses that looked like oversized building blocks. At the end was an old-fashioned wooden temple with a garden.

Hiro was bewildered. “Why would Soji-san live at a temple?”

“Looks like we’ll find out,” she said, double-checking the address. It was right.

Hiro rolled open the temple gate. The grounds were perfectly manicured, with Japanese maples standing above moss-covered paths and carefully raked rock gardens. The great sweep of the temple’s roof opened to the sky like the wings of a crane. They made their way toward the main building, walking softly.

An old lady in a white apron approached, carrying a thatch broom.

“Excuse me. Is Kuroi-Sensei here?” Jet asked politely.

“Oh? Sensei, did you say?” She eyed them suspiciously.

“Yes,” Jet replied. “He’s our uncle, and we came to visit him.”

“The master went on a trip,” the old lady told them in lilting Japanese.

Aska made her way to the old woman’s side, sniffing her leg. She jumped back.

“I’m sorry! Don’t worry. She’s friendly,” Hiro said, pulling Aska’s leash.

“Where did the master go?” Jet asked, disappointed.

“Sensei goes on a lot of archaeological digs. This time, he went to Kyushu. He’ll be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Thank you very much,” she said. “We’ll come back then.”

The woman turned her back to them as she swept the broom over the ground.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” Hiro called. “I have one more question. Does Soji-Sensei have blue eyes?”

The old lady turned, bemused. “Why as a matter of fact, yes. Like a European.”

Hiro and Jet exchanged glances. “Thank you very much!” they said and left.

“Ojiisan never mentioned that Soji lived in a Dogenji, a Soto Zen temple,” Hiro said. “Maybe because he knew I hate to meditate.”

“Me too.” She smiled. Her mother had often made her sit facing a blank wall. If Jet didn’t focus on her breath and stay there, she wouldn’t get dinner.

Not long afterward, as they wandered through the city again, Hiro pointed to a building.

“That sign says youth hostel. Let’s get a room. And then let’s eat. I’m starving!”

As Jet paid at the front desk, Hiro went around to the service entrance, sneaking Aska through the back.

In the tiny room, they turned on the small TV, but the news didn’t mention anything unusual at Mount Hakkoda or about the fire in Kanabe.

They locked up and went downstairs to the cafeteria, where Jet ate onigiri rice balls with umeboshi pickled plum filling. Hiro’s had tuna and mayonnaise inside. He ordered two salmon rice balls for Aska and put them in his pockets.

She ate her onigiri quietly, looking out the picture window at the crowded sidewalk. How did so many people avoid crashing into each other on such narrow paths? Her thoughts went back to what had happened on the mountain.

“Why didn’t Ojiisan tell me how dangerous everything really was? We could have prepared.”

Hiro stopped eating. “He hoped to have more time. He never thought we’d be attacked so soon.”

“So he really did know we would be attacked?” Jet asked, incredulous.

“He always told me that I would have to be ready, because when you came back, you would need our help,” Hiro considered.

“But why me? Why do they care about me?”

“I don’t know.” He looked out the window, then down. “You were supposed to be special.”

Jet swallowed, ashamed. “My mom trained me, but it wasn’t like this. This was life or… or…” She couldn’t bring herself to say it. Ojiisan was dead.

“Ojiisan used to tell me how harshly his grandfather Jinzaemon trained him. Now I understand why. Battle isn’t a game,” Hiro replied.

“I’m sorry, Hiro. I can never apologize enough. I’ve ruined everything. I was supposed to learn more about the elements from Ojiisan. Now it’s too late” Jet said. Regret coursed through her.

Hiro frowned. “Great-great grandpa Jinzaemon taught Ojiisan about the wind, taught him never to go straight against the wind, but to find a path in its folds. Ojiisan used to say, ‘Even if I teach you where the path is, you won’t be able to see it because the wind is always changing. If I show you the path one second, the wind will shift and the path will disappear.’ Jinzaemon told him that every second he had to find a new path, and that the only way to do that was to become the wind itself. I finally understand what he meant.”

Jet nodded, sensing it was better just to let Hiro talk than to try to say something pointless. But she resolved stronger than ever now to slip out as soon as night fell, make herself one with the darkness, disappear from his life and into the maze of the city.

“Battle is like wind,” he told her. “I understand that now. You can’t just use what you’ve practiced. It’s always different. You have to find a new path every second. You have to become the battle.”

Jet bit her lip. Satoko had said things like this before. They’d made sense in her mind, but now she knew that her body couldn’t master the techniques. She wasn’t who her mother had thought she was.

“I’m worried that Ojiisan didn’t prepare me enough,” Hiro said pointedly. “Great-great grandpa Jinzaemon was harsh, but Ojiisan was sentimental. That was his nature, and he used to tell me that the main ninja rule is not to go against nature—especially your own.”

Jet stared at her cousin. Again, his words seemed to have been meant especially for her. She thought of how kind her grandfather had been, though he barely knew her. His nature must have made him a gentle teacher. What was her nature, and what had it made her? Her mother had thought she was some kind of ninja, but what kind of ninja is afraid of dark places? Her mother had been wrong. Obviously, tragically wrong.

“There was one lesson that he always repeated from his years of training with Jinzaemon,” Hiro said. “‘Be impassive. Swayed by passion, your judgment falters. When that happens, you’ll end up in the enemy’s trap.’”

Jet listened guiltily. Had Ojiisan been swayed by passion? Had he been so moved by his granddaughter’s return and the desire to place his daughter’s ashes in the lake that he’d imperiled them all? Or had he sacrificed the village and given his own life so that they might live and discover the treasure? Had he led them to this point on purpose?

Jet understood that he had done as his own grandfather would have. He had sacrificed everything.

“Ojiisan always said that the Kuroi family women were the true masters,” Hiro said. He sat and stared out the window, his expression determined, eyes focused. Jet sensed he was seeing his duty, becoming more and more determined to be the ninja that his grandfather had taught him to be.

She, on the other hand, was shrinking farther and farther away from it.

So I have special powers, she reflected. Don’t we all? Doesn’t everyone have a hidden reserve of power waiting to be tapped into when needed? She thought about the stories she’d heard, mothers lifting cars off children, soldiers jumping impossible distances to catch wounded comrades, incredible feats of strength and endurance beyond what we thought humanly possible.

What’s so special about my special power? Jet thought, and why I am the last one to know about it?