Chapter 52 : Sasori

'Akiko! I can't see!'

She dived across to protect him, and Jack heard the swish of the

hairpin and the dull thud of arms colliding as Akiko blocked another of the

kunoichi's attacks. Jack thought he recognized the noise of Akiko

retaliating with a front kick, for he heard the woman stumble away,

groaning as if winded.

His eyes watered like acrid geysers and he had to screw them up

against the pain. Without his sight, he could only follow the sounds of

Akiko battling the kunoichi in the far corner of the room.

'Watch out!' cried Akiko.

Jack threw up his guard, blindly trying to make contact and use his chi

sao skills, but the kunoichi evaded him. Focusing on the sound of her

ragged breathing, Jack pinpointed where she'd moved to, but Akiko jumped

between them to intercept an unseen strike from the ninja. Now Jack

couldn't attack in case he hit Akiko instead.

Behind him, he thought he caught the sound of a soft rustle from the

silk wall hanging and the soft pad of a foot. Then Jack sensed the cedar dais

upon which he stood give ever so slightly under someone else's weight.

Jack spun round, keeping his guard up to protect his face.

His arms collided with a fist that had been aimed directly at the back

of his head. Allowing his chi sao training to take over, Jack followed the

curvature of his attacker's arm and speared his fingers at the throat. His

thrust was brushed aside with a countering block and strike.

Instantaneously, Jack felt the trajectory of the counter and deflected it with

an inner block, rolling his arm over his attacker's and back-fisting his

opponent in the face.

He caught his assailant hard on the jaw.

The contact was solid and jarring, but his opponent only laughed, a

cold jagged cackle like a rusty broken saw catching in wood.

Jack lost contact, his attacker retreating out of reach.

'Impressive, gaijin,' hissed Dokugan Ryu, 'but even more impressive

that you're still alive. You should be a ninja, not a samurai!'

Jack's heart gave an aching throb. The proximity of Dragon Eye made

his whole body contract, his lungs tighten.

'I'm not scared of you,' said Jack, with as much bravado as he could

muster.

'Of course you are,' countered Dragon Eye, circling him slowly. 'I'm

the pain that seeps into your bones at night. The scalding fire that burns in

your blood. Your worst nightmare. Your father's murderer!'

Dragon Eye struck with such swiftness that Jack was caught off-guard.

The ninja hit a point at the base of his shoulder and a sickening flare of pain

rocketed down his right arm. Jack reeled backwards, gasping for breath,

feeling as if his arm had been thrust into a white-hot fire.

'But I'm wasting my time here,' spat the ninja, as if bored with

torturing his victim. 'I have what I came for.'

Through the agony, Jack was vaguely aware he could see shapes, dark

shadows against a grey mist. The pain focused his mind and his vision was

clearing.

'Sasori, stop teasing the girl!' ordered Dragon Eye. 'Kill her, then kill

the gaijin.'

Jack blinked away his tears, catching the vague outline to his left of

the hooded ninja against a misty-looking wall.

'Don't disappoint me again, gaijin. Stay dead this time.'

Hearing exactly where the ninja was, Jack launched a hook kick at his

enemy's head.

His foot passed clean through thin air.

Dragon Eye had disappeared.

A soft exhalation escaped from someone's lips and the next thing Jack

heard was a body crumple to the floor.

'Akiko!' exclaimed Jack.

No answer.

'Akiko?' repeated Jack, now afraid for her.

'Your pretty little girlfriend's dead, gaijin,' smirked the kunoichi. 'I

sank my poisoned pin into her pretty little neck.'

A coldness crept into Jack's heart, more agonizing than any torture

Dragon Eye could inflict upon him.

Jack flew at Akiko's murderer. He didn't care any more; he no longer

thought about what he was doing. He just struck.

The kunoichi struggled against his impassioned onslaught.

Blow after blow rained down upon the ninja.

Jack's forearm slammed into her guard and the kunoichi lost her grip

on the deadly hairpin, sending it flying across the room.

He drove in harder. The ninja began to buckle under the pressure. Jack

then sidekicked her with all his might, catching the kunoichi full force in

the chest. The ninja fell backwards, landing hard on the dais, and screamed.

'Come on!' Jack roared, his eyes wet with stinging tears, no longer

caused by the blinding powder, but by the grief in his heart.

But there was no response.

Jack wiped at his eyes. His vision was blurry, but he could just about

see again.

The kunoichi lay unmoving in a heap on the dais.

He couldn't have kicked her that hard, thought Jack, not enough to kill

her.

He took a cautious step closer and tapped her leg with his foot. There

was no reaction. The woman's black eyes were dull and lifeless, their pearllike shine gone.

Jack rolled her over.

The ninja's ornate steel hairpin protruded out of her back like the barb

of a scorpion. Killed by her own poison.

Sasori, thought Jack numbly, Dragon Eye had called her Sasori.

Scorpion.

As much as he tried to deny it, his dream had come to be.

Four scorpions.

Kazuki's gang. The Spirit challenge. The warrior. The kunoichi.

Four meant death. But it had not been his own that the dream had

foretold. It had been Akiko's.

Jack sank to his knees, barely taking in the devastation of the reception

room. Yamato was slowly coming to among the broken shards of teacups.

Emi still hadn't moved, her neck bruised and swollen, though Jack could

see that she was breathing.

The hanging of the white crane had been ripped from the wall and the

bolt-hole gaped open, black and empty like the socket of a skull.

Dragon Eye had the rutter.

Jack crawled over to Akiko.

She lay utterly still upon the tatami, a small prick of blood on her neck

where the hairpin had entered. Jack, sobbing in great breaths of anguish,

cradled her lifeless body in his arms.