Spring, 3rd March 1714.

Kyoto, Japan.

It’s 4.30 in the morning. The sun's rays radiate in the breezy cold air. A lone teenager lay awake on the mattress in his room, and by the crack of dawn light making its way through the window, he realised it was time to get up. Kento, being an early bird, sprang to his feet and went to the adjourning room to wake his brother, Kyuzo. Most of the people in Iga were sleeping soundly in their homes during this time of the day, but sweet slumber was never the first option for youths aspiring to be warriors leading the frontline of defence of their clan.

The ninjas of Iga are a discreet sector of warriors, who base discipline, patience, and courtesy as the pillars of their technique of fighting with perseverance. Normally ninjas are recruited when they turn 18, and for a clan like Iga which is tightly bonded by Japanese culture and traditions, becoming a ninja and learning the art of ninjutsu is the highest form of validation and respect a teenager and his family name can achieve. Two years back, the Council, which was operated by the Iga people that also worked as a subsection of the Tokugawa Shogunate established in Edo, and was in charge of interviewing and assessing the candidates, decided to hold a competition among the children below the age of eighteen. They were tested on various skills with different levels of difficulty. Kento and Kyuzo along with another five applicants headlined the scoreboard with impressive figures. Alongside them were Kumiko, Yamazaki, Hinako, Nakamura and Isoko, thus giving birth to a side project of the weapons and military division of The Tokugawa Shogunate which was monitored by the shogun Tokugawa Ietsugu; The Teen Ninjas. The squadron of seven was training under the supervision of sensei Hattori Akio. Kento, Kyuzo and Hinako were descendants of the Hattori family, the legendary family of Hattori Hanzo, the man who led the Igas towards the battle against anarchy, revolutionizing the history of Japan forever.

After a few excruciating minutes of trying to wake his brother and get him ready for training, Kento and Kyuzo were ready to leave for the dojo where the rest would be waiting for the full-day training session. Strangely his parents were not up today. It had been a long day for them yesterday, he thought. They ought to get some proper sleep.

So without hassling their parents, Kento and Kyuzo made their way to the dojo.

The street lamps near the palace showed up as dozens of fireflies lit up the town. The brothers walked up the small hill to the palace as the streetlights materialized in front of them.

They took a hard right near the weapons inventory section. The palace was up and running even at this time. People were hustling, carrying various documents and some were taking heaps of packages in and out of the castle. A couple of men greeted Kento good morning as they passed by. It was noticeable to Kento that he and his siblings seemed to be regarded as local celebrities after the competition. However, all the pleasantness that met them at the beginning, vanished once they entered their training area. “You’re late… again.” his friend Yamazaki said with sweat beading his forehead.

“Well, you don’t have a lazy load like this to deal with in the morning,” Kento said, shifting his eyes directly at Kyuzo. Yamazaki gave a friendly smirk and returned to knocking the daylights out of a wooden dummy. Sensei Akio made his way through the dojo and assigned them some additional exercises as punishment.

“At least Hinako made it into the session before you lazy creeps. She is way ahead of you when it comes to punctuality. Well, next time you two, it’s either you run from your home to come to the dojo on time or you run ten times around the palace. Now carry on! Those feet aren’t going to run on their own!”

Kento gave a resentful groan realising that he could have been training with the cool swords instead of running around in circles. After they completed running around the castle, Kento and Kyuzo returned to the dojo where Yamazaki, Hinako and some other rookies were training with various weapons.

Moments later, Kyuzo left his brother to splash some water onto his face. Kento was now all alone. Sensei Akio came in and started to train Kento. Kento’s go-to weapon that he loved training with was his Katana. But during most hours of training, he worked with a much lighter wooden sword.

A couple of men came in lifting a dummy. Kento questioned why he was not given an ordinary dummy like the one Yamazaki was training with. Akio decided to ignore his question and motioned with his hand towards the dummy.

“Try and break this dummy.”

In this dojo, no rookie nor any other person was a stranger to breaking wooden dummies. Kento remembered back in the days when the competition was held, the general in charge of logistics had to order a hundred new dummies to replace all the broken ones and had to hire another group of men to clean up all the mess the competitors had made.

Being reminded of that scenario, Kento lifted his eyebrow and asked the sensei, “Really?”

“Knock yourself out, grandchild,” Akio said. He sat on a stool and watched as Kento grabbed his sword to demolish the dummy.

Kento took his sword and slashed it through the body of the figure. He had expected to see the dummy fall apart to pieces. But, it didn't even budge. Kento, surprised, looked at the sensei. Akio nodded encouragingly in the most ironic way possible. Kento spent the next fifteen minutes trying to take down the dummy. By then, Sensei Akio had a pot of green tea by his side. By no means did Sensei Akio try to be sadistic towards his students. It was his nature, his teaching method, which made him very popular among fighting and weaponry aficionados.

Finally, Sensei Akio looked pitifully at the tired rookie.

“Kento, the art of ninjutsu is not directly proportional to the strength of your attack, but to the way you attack. This dummy is not designed to crumble when it gets attacked with direct force. Each of the dummies I designed has a potential weak spot.”

he said, motioning to the dummy which was unscathed, apart from a few scratches and dents from Kento’s onslaught.

With this profound piece of advice, Kento took a step back and studied the figure and contemplated briefly on its strangely perfectly symmetrical non-human physique. The body seemed to be taller and the torso seemed to end abruptly, differing from an actual human being. If the weight of the body is centralized on the centre of gravity, considering its shape, it should be positioned higher than that of an ordinary human being. Kento carefully readied his sword and Akio took a step back from the dummy. Kento tightened the grip on his wooden katana and struck a clean shot a bit higher than the navel of the dummy. Within a split second, the dummy crumbled to pieces and Kento looked triumphantly at his teacher who nodded in assent.

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Then one of the men who had brought in the dummy came back, but this time he came with a piece of paper wrinkled by his clenched fists. He gave the paper containing a message scrawled in untidy characters. The man looked at the old man with a look of concern as if he was trying to decipher the expression on the sensei’s face. Sensei Akio looked up at the man and folded the paper neatly. Then without a word or a look at Kento, he walked away, with hurried steps, followed by the man.

Kento went back to join his crew who looked dead on their feet. Kento who was also feeling very fatigued joined his friends and engaged in senseless gossip as the time slowly passed by.

All the commotion around the dojo had made Kento forget that Kumiko hadn’t shown up for practice all day long. “I haven’t seen Kumiko all day long. Where is she?”

“I heard that she was in some assembly and trying to figure out some legal issues, on trade or something like that,” Hinako said, leaning against the wall.

Soon Kyuzo came into the dojo looking like a horse who had failed to make it through a pool of oats and hay in spectacular fashion. “You’ve smelled worse.” Kento joked.

“You’ve looked better.” Kyuzo snapped back.

Moments later, the young ninjas witnessed their comrade making her entrance into the dojo. Without wasting any time whatsoever, Kento proceeded to ask Kumiko.

“What have you been up to all day?”

“A congress with some law enforcers of the council. ” Kumiko gently replied while wiping her face.

“So, I guess only the smart ones get to slip out from practice to sit on fancy chairs and talk to posh people,” Yamazaki said.

“Might as well remind you who beat you in the triathlon last week,” Kumiko giggled. “And besides, I usually keep up with my training even though I don’t gloat about it whenever I see a girl.”

“Oh come on! Just give me a break, that was just one time!”

“The triathlon or the talking to the girls? The second I agree with. but the first, that's a no. You can call that one time, for each time you lost to me during the last three games.”

“Ooooh!” Kyuzo fanned the flames. “Guess the clown is only missing a goofy haircut now. Oh wait, you already have one.”

Yamazaki was a strong and well-built young man, just like his brother Nakamura. His strength and unrelenting flow of energy was the reason why he was recruited to the program. But despite Yamazaki’s strength, Kumiko had the brains to fight the brawn of Yamazaki. And Kumiko had indeed defeated Yamazaki in the triathlon.

But in all good spirits, all the rookies were on excellent terms with each other. The chemistry between every member of the Teen Ninjas had a class of its own.

“Hey, Why isn’t Sensei Akio here yet? What happened? Did something go wrong by any chance?” Kyuzo asked.

“I guess the old man’s busy once again. Let’s continue training. Yamazaki! Bring the Sai! I need to practise dodging them!”

“Okay! Okay! Give us a break Kento, we've been training since four in the morning.”

“I’ve honestly come to a position where I am capable of ignoring everything you say…”

Just as Kento said that his attention was drawn to the sound of footsteps that was getting louder and louder. But none of his friends were aware of it. His ears were trained to work like rabbit ears, as sharp hearing was necessary for a well-trained ninja. It was something that had been passed on to him through the family. The Hattoris had an exceptional intuition in sensing their surroundings. Almost as if there was a sixth sense which sniffed out danger. Strangely, for the first time, he had a tingle of that sixth sense, posing some potential threat. He was reminded instantly about the rumours going around the castle about some Kōga spies. That was not helping him to ease off.

The sound of steps grew louder by the fraction. Sounds of breathing and pacing rapidly resonated in Kento’s ears.

Instinctively Kento bolted through the door, to find the same man who had brought the letter for Akio, startled and confused. Kento realised he was just being quite obnoxious in front of that poor man. But something prompted Kento that he was not being paranoid; everything that had happened today was quite suspicious. His parents usually got up at three in the morning and had never been an hour and a half late to wake up. His duty-conscious and very strict sensei who was very keen on their training had left the dojo early with a concerned and worried face after reading the letter from the man now in front of him.

The man looked up, having now recovered from the temporary jump scare from Kento, and said, “The Emperor and Sensei Akio both summoned you and your brother to disclose some confidential and sensitive information to the two of you”

Kento, who was puzzled by this, with a quizzical and confused expression said. “What's it about?”

“I’m afraid I’m not allowed to give out any more information in public, especially in the presence of witnesses who are not involved in the issue,” he said, looking at Kumiko, Yamazaki and Hinako who had joined Kento with Kyuzo.

“It’s alright. Whatever you have to say, you can say in front of all of us.” Kento said while the rest nodded in agreement.

“It’s your parents. Both are in a coma, dealing with something fatal and detrimental. The health officials still have not identified the cause… come with them or alone, your call. I’m under special orders from the higher-ups.”

The man looked at the team, gave them a nod, turned around and walked quickly out of the dojo.

Kento nonplussed and amazed looked at his brother who was shaken severely by the news. He held his brother tight by the shoulder, trying to act strong for his brother. His heart throbbed and he felt his nerves rattling. Kumiko came in and grasped Kento by the hand.

“We will come with you if you want,” Kumiko said, looking at the others who looked at Kento, all shocked by this new revelation.

Kento nodded and they left the dojo quickly and headed to the special care unit in the health wing of the Kyoto Palace.