CHAPTER 15: THE BLADEMASTER

The old Japanese kendo master was quoting prices for man-skirts when the front door opened and her blanket-wearing freak stepped into the room. The first thing the freak did was yank his sneakers off and leave them at the pile beside the front door. Then, grunting, he walked up and looked the kendo master up and down like he was inspecting a horse. “Your obi is tied incorrectly.”

The ancient, five-foot Japanese dude looked down at his man-skirt, then blinked up at Masaaki. His body was awash in an earthy brown glow, with a deeper brown lacing his muscles in, Shannon had reluctantly decided, delicate veins and capillaries. Nothing at all like Masaaki’s overwhelming, heart-pounding gold, but appealing and eye-catching nonetheless.

“And your pleats are loose and lifeless.”

“I told you,” Shannon said between gritted teeth, “to stay in the car.”

“I didn’t want to stay in the car.”

“You are humiliating me again,” Shannon growled.

“No,” the kendo master said, cocking his head at Masaaki, “he’s right. It’s the second day I’ve worn it without folding it properly. I’ve been too busy at the hospital. The grandson has had pneumonia.”

“No excuse,” Masaaki said.

“Masaaki!”

The kendo master’s eyes fell to the three swords on Masaaki’s nylon-rope belt. “Matched daishō… Katana, wakizashi, and tantō. Are they yours?”

Masaaki grunted.

“May I see them?”

“From a distance,” Masaaki said. “Show me what you do here. Prove your worth, then I may unsheathe them for you.”

Shannon groaned and dropped her face into her hands. “Look, I’m really sorry about my simple exchange student friend. Let me just go take him back to the car…”

But the kendo master was giving Masaaki a strange look. “This way.” He turned and padded his bare feet out deeper into the studio, leaving Shannon standing beside the clothing rack, looking at shrink-wrapped man-skirts.

“Oh goddamn it,” she muttered, following.

Before she was halfway across the threshold, Masaaki spun on her and said, “Shoes, daimyō.”

Shannon froze, then looked down at her dirty hiking boots. “Uh,” she said, “Okay.” She pulled them off and gingerly put them in the pile. The kendo master was giving her a very strange look when she came jogging up.

“So,” he said, “this is our dōjō.” He gestured at the room and his eyes again fell on Masaaki’s swords before returning to the samurai’s face. “Are you looking to train in the art of kendo?”

“Art.” Masaaki snorted. “I was schooled in kenjutsu. I don’t need wooden play-swords to pretend to be samurai.”

“Damn it, Masaaki!” Shannon cried.

But the old Japanese man merely gave Masaaki a long look. “Perhaps you’d like to show me?”

Masaaki grunted. “It has been awhile.” Now it was his turn to look a bit shamefaced.

“I take it you studied in the homeland?”

Masaaki grunted again.

The old Japanese dude burst into a huge grin and bowed. “Shinzato Yuusuke.”

Masaaki returned the bow, but less deeply. “Yatagarasu Masaaki.”

The ancient Japanese master hesitated in his bow. “Yatagarasu?”

Masaaki grunted.

“That’s an…uncommon name.”

Oh shit, Shannon thought. Here we go…

But Masaaki just ignored him. “I take it you have more than one fake nihontō?”

The ancient man, who seemingly had been somewhat lost in thought, jerked. “Of course we have spare shinai.” He turned to retrieve two leather-wrapped wooden swords from where they were leaning in a stack against the wall. “We are between classes. Would you like armor?”

Masaaki snorted his disdain, which made the old man grin. He gestured at the huge wooden floor. “Wherever you feel comfortable.”

Masaaki grunted and strode purposefully out to the center of the practice area, then took up a stance that made the old man hesitate. “That is an old style,” the master noted.

“Whenever you are ready, grandfather.”

“Oh for Chrissakes,” Shannon muttered under her breath, but the wizened old Japanese man didn’t seem to notice. He circled Masaaki thoughtfully, then said, “Would you like me to go easy on you?”

“I will piss on your ancestors’ graves if you try to coddle me, grandfather.”

Shinzato Yuusuke smiled. “Ah.” Then he lunged, and in an instant, the dojo was filled with the ringing snap of bamboo swords slapping together, as well as the loud shouts of the two men as they made their attacks. Shannon actually felt her jaw start to drop at how fast the two men were, as they spun and twisted and backed and leapt. As far as she could tell, neither of them were gaining any ground, nor gaining much in the way of hits.

They whirled and danced, much like ballerinas in baggy clothing. Shannon felt herself mesmerized by the beauty and form, the way their bodies seemed to mesh with the weapons they carried, the sword becoming a part of themselves.

Then the old man scored a sudden, resounding hit on Masaaki’s right arm, making the tip of his sword droop as Masaaki hissed.

Apparently, that was enough of a demonstration for both of them, because they both lowered their swords and bowed. When they returned, Masaaki looked thoroughly sheepish—and the old man looked like a kid in a candy store.

“It’s been a long time,” Masaaki muttered, handing the old man back his sword.

“You are very good! Where did you learn?” Shinzato Yuusuke asked, as he returned the bamboo swords to the pile.

“Many places,” Masaaki grumbled, rubbing his arm. “Japan.”

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Shinzato Yuusuke bowed, then glanced again at the swords on his hip. “May I see them now? Or did that not suffice?”

And then, Shannon realized, stunned, that the old man had just spent twenty minutes slapping sticks together with Masaaki simply to earn the right to see his swords.

Nodding, Masaaki dropped into a kneeling position in front of the master. The old man followed, kneeling in front of him.

With obvious reverence, Masaaki took the three swords from their sheaths and laid them carefully upon the floor in front of him, biggest to smallest. As soon as the first blade came from its sheath, its blade and handle embroidered with golden birds, the old man sucked in a sudden breath of air through his teeth. When the second and third followed, he went into a strange, still silence. He made no move to touch the swords.

Eventually, the old man said, “Those almost look like Masamune.”

“They should,” Masaaki growled. “I paid him well enough.” After another couple minutes of silence, he reached out and retrieved the swords, sliding them one after another into their wooden sheaths.

For a moment, the old man’s eyes widened slightly. His eyes reluctantly returned to Masaaki’s face. “Are you looking for a new place to learn, Yatagarasu?”

Masaaki sighed and got to his feet. “I’m looking for a man-skirt. I can’t stand the clothing they have nowadays. Too restrictive.”

“Man-skirt.” Shinzato Yuusuke glanced at Shannon, who blushed so hard she felt it in her ears.

“Uh…” she said, “he was being difficult.”

“Your hakama,” the old man said, giving Shannon a pointed look, “is out in the entry. Take your pick. And take a kendogi, as well. It’s been some time since I’ve had such an enjoyable bout. Please return if you find your path crossing the step of my humble dōjō.”

Masaaki grunted and bowed, deeper this time. “I would enjoy the practice. It has been a long time.”

The kendo master returned the bow so deeply he was almost parallel to the floor.

Then Masaaki straightened, grunted again and walked toward the door. “Come, daimyō.”

“Um,” Shannon said, as the kendo master gave her that funky look again. She made an awkward bow. “Thank you for your time.”

Masaaki took a couple shrink-wrapped packages from the front room, then stepped back into his sneakers and confidently strode back to the car, Shannon quickly on his heels.

“Um, Masaaki?” she asked, as she got back behind the steering-wheel of the Mercedes. The old man was watching them through one of the huge dōjō windows. “What does daimyō mean, exactly? Every time you said it, he gave me a funny look.”

“Warlord,” Masaaki said distractedly, settling into the seat beside her. “How do I get these open?”

She turned to glare at him. “You called me ‘warlord’ in front of a withered old Japanese dude?” That was it—she officially felt like strangling him.

Masaaki made that little grunt of dismissal and went back to scraping his fingernails against the shrink-wrap. Deciding to let him screw with the packaging on his own, Shannon reached for her drink in the cup-holder, then stopped when she saw the hole in her dash, with nice little sword-marks in the deluxe vinyl.

“Masaaki,” she said slowly, “what is that?”

“I removed the temptation to eject me,” Masaaki said. “No more seatbelt necessary.” He gave her a smug look.

“That,” Shannon said, “was the air-conditioning, you jackass.”

He looked at the hole in her dash, then looked at her, then shrugged. “You told me it was the ejection button.”

“Put your seatbelt on.”

“No.”

She was so angry she could only sit and stare at the hood of the car and fume for several minutes as he struggled with the packaging on his new clothes. “You don’t want to wear a seatbelt?” Shannon demanded. “Fine.” She put the car into reverse, spun it around in a circle, then slammed on the breaks, making the tires squeal and the ill-begotten kendogi go flying across the car to the backseat. Then she stomped on the gas, making the tires squeal, and raced the few hundred feet to the stop-sign, at which point she stomped on the brake again, driving the samurai’s face into the dash.

Twenty minutes later, he was wearing his seatbelt and scowling at her, hunched against the door, as she drove them to Wal-Mart.

“I don’t like them.” It was the first thing Masaaki had said to her since she’d flung him bodily up onto the dash with yet another abrupt stop. “They look like what your father wore.”

“They’re called jeans, and of course they look like what my father wore. My father wanted to blend in. This is what everybody wears around here.”

“Too restrictive,” Masaaki said again. He had tried on over a dozen different pairs of pants and found all of them lacking.

Shannon sighed. “Okay,” she said, “what would Chuck Norris do?”

Masaaki stopped peering at the miniskirt-clad black woman pushing her basket and child through the men’s aisle and turned to frown at her. He pointed behind him and said, “Is that woman a slave? She is wearing no clothes.”

Shannon waved off his question. “Chuck Norris,” Shannon said. “You know. Like the greatest martial-artist ever?”

Masaaki gave her a blank look.

“Oh my God!” Shannon squealed. “We have got to get you educated. He is so my hero. You know, when Chuck Norris does pushups, he doesn’t push himself up. He pushes the ground down.” She made a pushing motion at the floor.

The samurai continued to peer at her.

“Oh, oh,” Shannon squealed, “How about this one… Chuck Norris has never laughed in the face of death—he finds nothing amusing about his own reflection.”

Slowly, Masaaki said, “So…this man is dangerous.”

“Oh yeah,” Shannon said, “Totally. Chuck Norris once stabbed a knife with a human being.”

For a long moment, Masaaki only stared at her. Then, slowly, his face eased into a tentative smile. “I see.”

“Or how about this one… Chuck Norris does not fart. Nothing escapes Chuck Norris.”

Masaaki laughed, grinning, now. “I need to meet this man.”

“You wish,” Shannon said. Then she glanced back at the jeans racks. “But if Chuck Norris could do all those kicks in jeans and cowboy boots without splitting seams, I’m sure we can find you something.” Then she frowned. “Then again, maybe it’s just because he’s Chuck Norris.”

They did find something, it turned out, called Action Jeans, which had an extra diamond of cloth sewn into the crotch to give it more movement, plus was looser in key areas, allowing a full range of movement. This time, when Masaaki made a tentative kick, his leg didn’t stop halfway. Shannon’s eyebrows went up at the way his foot went well over her head and then stayed there. “Uh…you sure kept your flexibility.”

Masaaki snorted. “Imagine the most painful positions you can be strapped into and left for a few days, and you’ll begin to understand. It only made it worse that they knew I was former samurai.”

“Oh.”

“So,” Masaaki said, dropping his leg. “A shirt.”

They ended up getting him several sets of Action Jeans and a wide range of T-shirts, button-ups, sweaters, jackets…and a pair of sandals.

“Those aren’t going to last through the winter,” Shannon said, giving the sandals a dubious look.

“They’ll be fine,” Masaaki said. “I will just wear thicker tabi.”

“No, you don’t understand,” Shannon said. “This is Alaska. We hit negative thirty-five here in town, at least a couple times a year.”

Masaaki shrugged, but showed no interest in the boots. “Too restrictive,” he insisted. It seemed to be his excuse for everything he didn’t want to do, but after seeing him put his foot about ten inches above her head and hold it there while twisting under himself to look at the seam of his leg, she wasn’t going to complain.

“Okay,” Shannon said, piling it all into the cart. “Checkout time. Get behind me. Puppydog-style. And say nothing, got it? That’s your Golden Rule from now on. Keep your mouth shut.”

Masaaki grunted, but fell into place behind her.

Checkout proceeded rather smoothly, until Masaaki forgot the Golden Rule when the African lady in the mini-skirt pulled into line behind them and, because she was talking on a cell phone and reaching for a pack of gum, accidentally bumped him with her cart. Masaaki violently shoved the cart backwards—thankfully sans kid—and said, “In my country, slave, people would be beheaded for not respecting the body of a samurai.”

“Masaaki!” Shannon cried.

“I don’t care if you say there are no slaves in this country,” Masaaki retorted. “She dresses like a cheap Chinese harlot and she hit me with her cart.”

Feeling the stares of almost a dozen people, Shannon felt herself go crimson. She grabbed Masaaki, steered him further down the checkout line, and put herself between him and the woman with her cart, who had stopped talking on the phone and was staring at them, jaw agape.

“Um,” Shannon said, blushing furiously. “I’m really sorry. It’s my retarded great-uncle from Japan and he’s got a lot to learn…”

“You can basically see her womanhood,” Masaaki called, over her shoulder. “What kind of society is this, anyway? Women walk around asking men to look at their private parts? No wonder she carts around a small mongrel child. Her parents probably couldn’t even arrange a proper marriage with her own species.”

The black woman’s eyes widened and she yanked her cart out of the line and quickly found a different checkout line, tugging her toddler along by an arm beside her.

“Uh,” a young woman wearing a manager’s nametag said, coming up to their line, “I’m going to have to ask the two of you to leave.”

“We will,” Shannon said, feeling the stares hitting her from all sides. She slapped several hundred-dollar bills on the counter for the cashier, well over what she owed, and then collected up the bags, shoved half at the samurai, and started walking towards the front door, so angry and humiliated she wanted to just drop everything, bolt back to the car, and drive off without him.