They bowed to Masamoto and left the dojo through a door in the rear of the Butokuden. Sensei Hosokawa led them across an open courtyard to the Shishi-no-ma, the Hall of Lions, a long building housing a series of small rooms. They entered through a side shoji and, leaving their sandals at the door, walked down a narrow corridor.

‘These are your sleeping quarters,’ said Sensei Hosokawa, indicating a number of small unadorned rooms barely big enough for three tatami mats. ‘The bathhouses are at the rear. I will collect you for dinner once you have washed and changed.’

Jack stepped inside his room and closed the inner shoji behind him.

He put down his shoulder bag and placed the bonsai tree on a narrow shelf beneath a tiny lattice window. Looking around, he searched for a safe place to hide his father’s rutter, but with no furnishings to speak of, his only option was to slip it beneath the futon spread out on the floor. Patting back the mattress, he then collapsed on top of it.

As he lay there, exhausted from three days of hard travel, a sense of dread shuddered through his body and he couldn’t stop his hands from shaking. What was he doing here?

He was no samurai.

He was Jack Fletcher, an English boy who had dreamed of being a pilot like his father, exploring the wonders of the New World. Not a trainee samurai warrior stranded in an alien world, the prey of a one-eyed ninja.

Jack felt like a lamb going to the slaughter. Every single one of those students had looked like they wanted to tear him limb from limb.

24: SENSEI

24

SENSEI

‘YOUNG SAMURAI!’ boomed Masamoto down the Chō-no-ma, the Hall of Butterflies, a long chamber resplendent with panels of exquisitely painted butterflies and sakura trees.

Masamoto sat cross-legged at the head table, a black lacquered slab of cedar which dominated the end of the room. Raised upon a dais, he was flanked on either side by four samurai in ceremonial kimonos.

‘Bushido is not a journey to be taken lightly!’

Jack, Yamato and Akiko listened along with a hundred other trainee warriors, all of whom had requested to study under Masamoto Takeshi.

‘To train to be a samurai warrior, one must conquer the self, endure the pain of gruelling practice, and cultivate a level mind in the face of danger,’ declared Masamoto. ‘The way of the warrior is lifelong. Yet mastery is often simply staying the path.1 You will need commitment, discipline and a fearless mind.’

He took a measured sip from a cup of sencha, letting his words settle in the minds of the students who knelt in neat, disciplined rows along the length of the chamber.

‘You will also need guidance. For without it, you will perish! You are all blinded by ignorance! Deafened by inexperience! Voiceless with incompetence!’