The Ninth CH01

Confused images and faint sounds...

The clash of metal, roars and screams of panic...

Then a deafening explosion and such an intense heat that burned all his senses away, casting him into the sweet oblivion of unconsciousness.

When he woke up with barely an idea of what had just happened, Randy could only lay where he was and take gasping breaths, eyes closed against the painful glare of the daylight. Every part of his body hurt horribly and the cold mud he had landed into was not helping at all.

It took several minutes before the pain subsided, letting him think clearly and try to process what had happened before he was knocked out. The explosion that had invested him must have hurled him pretty far into the wood surrounding Norrisville because he could not hear anything beside chirping birds and rustling leaves.

Finally finding enough strength to open his eyes, Randy looked up at the lush canopy of the trees surrounding him, wincing until his eyes adjusted to the new level of light. He still felt horrible and an awful migraine was slowly creeping to the front of his head, but he still managed to haul himself up to sit against a nearby tree.

Everything was wet and the sky was covered in dark clouds, hinting that it had been raining recently. It was strange, though, because Norrisville was currently going through a series of clear summer days and his clothes were still dry save for where they had been in contact with the mud. If it had rained during the time he was unconscious, then how was it possible that only half of him was wet?

Randy shivered and suddenly realized that he was wearing his normal clothes. Standing on wobbly legs, he started to search for the mask in every pocket of his hoodie and cursed when he could not find it. Even the Nomicon had disappeared.

Panic flooded his already aching mind and he felt like a part of him had been torn away in the worst possible manner. Suddenly, the wood became eerie and unwelcoming with its twisted branches, tangled undergrowth and wild animal calls. The next few minutes were the worst for him as he tried to make sense of what was happening while trying to contain his increasing anxiety over the loss of two important items.

“Alright, alright,” he leaned against a nearby tree and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. He had to keep his cool if he wanted to solve his current crisis. “Only the Ninja himself can take off his mask, so no one stole it because I was wearing it before ending up here.”

Which meant that either the mask had been destroyed along with the Nomicon or he had left them somewhere, then passed out and lost his memory of doing such thing. Between the two, Randy fervently hoped that it would be the second because if it was the first, then he would never be able to forgive himself.

With no other leads, the weary boy trudged through the trees as silently as he could. He didn't want to disturb the fauna. Who knows what kind of weird animals lived in there, and without the mask he would be like a sitting duck waiting to be eaten.

Step after step, the daylight dimmed and in the first hours of the evening it started to rain heavily, making Randy's journey through the trees even more difficult than it already was. He wandered for hours through the growing darkness, his instinct his only lead and forcing himself to cast away the oppressing sense of loneliness.

Finally, after walking for miles, he was met with the rapidly receding line of the wood until he was standing at the edge of small fields with a village in the distance. Everything was dark and lugubrious and he would have missed the houses altogether if it wasn't for the small specks of lights coming from a few windows.

Mustering what little of his strength remained, Randy walked through the muddy fields and reached the few houses made of wood and hay in hopes of finding a temporary shelter. They were built on top of several poles, which kept the floor a foot or so away from the actual ground, and emanated a strong odor of mold and rotten fish.

“Hello? Anybody around?” he paused for a moment, moving his eyes from house to house to see if his call had attracted the attention of someone. “I just need some directions!”

One after another, emaciated faces appeared from behind doors and windows, looking at Randy with such fear and hostility that it made him feel really small. They were silently telling him to leave and not return, that if he decided to jump off a cliff, no one would bother with stopping him. Or rather, they would help by shoving him in the right direction.

“Seriously, I just want to---”

Randy was interrupted by a sudden change in the atmosphere. The night became darker, more ominous, and the villagers retreated back into the safety of their houses, barring windows and doors with wooden planks.

Then a familiar green mist filtered out from the surrounding wood, crawling through the heavy rain in tendrils until it collected itself in the village as a foot high blanket hovering near the ground. The Sorcerer's Stank was so thick that Randy couldn't see his own feet.

There was a loud roar and one of the houses exploded outward, sending pieces of wood and hay everywhere. People ran, screaming in panic as a monster twice their size rampaged its way through the wreckage.

And eventually crossed path with Randy, stopping to growl menacingly at him.

Without the mask however, the boy knew that he could not fight the monster head on, but at the same time he could not leave the unfortunate soul like that. He still considered himself to be the Ninja, with or without his tools, and it was his duty to save people from the Sorcerer's curse.

His instincts spoke before he could formulate a plan of action and Randy took a dive to the side to avoid being crushed by a large paw equipped with sharp claws, then rolled backwards to get out of the way of needle like teeth aiming for his head.

When he was sure that he was well out of the monster's reach, Randy took a better look at it. The most predominant feature was the wide mouth set in the middle of a feminine face, with two large yellow eyes peering down at him while long arms clawed at the ground hidden below the green mist. Strangely enough, the skin was of a pale pink that he had never seen before on a stanked monster.

Quickly moving backwards to stay out of the creature's clawed grasp, Randy scanned the hulking figure for the item he needed to destroy.

The small doll, made of nothing but dirty rags tied by broken ropes, was held high into the air by the monster's long and thin tail. It was emitting the characteristic wispy vapor of a stanked item that needed to be broken in order for the victim to be returned to its human form.

Randy took a really deep breath and slowly let it out, feeling his body automatically assume a ready stance as soon as the idea of an imminent fight crossed his mind. He knew that it would be hard, that he had to be careful or he would really die. Avoiding the first lunge by stepping to the side again, Randy used all of the knowledge he had gained through countless battles to not get hit. His eyes, albeit not focusing on a particular part of the monster, kept track of the sharp claws, the pointy teeth and the unreachable toy.

Whispering voices reached his ears, but he didn't pay any attention to them. All that mattered in that precise moment was to destroy the doll and save the stanked person.

Distancing himself from the monster once again, Randy took another long breath, let it out slowly and repeated the procedure a few more times before charging forward in a quick run. As expected, the monster lunged at him, screeching in rabid anger as its claws sunk into the muddy earth and became stuck.

Randy didn't stop running and used the long arms as a ledge to reach the monster's back from where he jumped, arms outstretched to reach for the doll. Smiling in triumph when his fingers curled around the bundle of old rags, he flipped in midair to avoid another swipe of claws and used all his strength to tear the toy apart.

The effect was immediate.

Green smoke exploded out of the torn rags, dissipating into the air with a screech of disappointment mixed with anger. The monster shrunk in size, losing its horrendous features and leaving in its wake a frightened and confused child.

A moment later, Randy landed on the ground with his back, producing a loud splash and a grunt of pain as mud and floating stank were sent in every direction upon impact. He remained laying there, staring up at the bleak sky as it kept releasing rain on him, then felt the telltale signs of sleep dictated by exhaustion slowly crawl forward to claim his mind.

It was with great effort that he stood up on weakened legs and stumbled towards the destroyed house. For a moment his mind went to the girl, but when he took a glance at her, he was glad that some people were quickly coming out of hiding to aid her. As he climbed through the wreckage to reach the part of the building that was still standing, shouts and calls filled the air. Too tired to make sense of the garbled words, Randy reached a corner that offered shelter from the downpour and huddled into himself, trying to keep warm.

Racked with violent tremors and an annoyingly intensifying cough, sleep hardly came, leaving him to struggle through the whole night with only the aid of his drenched hoodie. By the time morning finally approached, the only thing he was glad for was that there were no more monster attacks and the mist dissipated as soon as the night started to fade away.

It was still raining, though, and even if it was just a light drizzle, it still sent him into a really foul mood.

“You stop a monster from rampaging through the village,” Randy whispered to himself, coughing several times in the process. “And they don't even bother checking out if you need help...”

He would have loved to have a fire to warm and dry himself up with, but as it was, he didn't know how to light one without the use of a lighter. Raising his hood above his head to keep most of the morning light from worsening his already bad headache, Randy cast an idle glance at what of the village he could see through the hole punched by the monster.

Without the immediate threat of the stank claiming the most vulnerable of them, people were walking around. Some were assessing the damage while most grabbed tools and departed, probably in search of materials for the repairs.

Seeing that everyone was too afraid to approach him, Randy stood up and instantly regretted it as a wave of nausea and dizziness made him almost double over. He gritted his teeth and forced his body to move the way he wanted, ignoring the violent shivers and protesting muscles until he was near the huge hole in the wall.

Before leaving the shelter of what remained of the house, however, he quickly glanced around and spotted several rags thrown near the wall. He grabbed a few, shouldering them so that they could provide some repair from the cool air, then grabbed a large straw hat and placed it on top of his head.

A couple of minutes later, he was walking down a path running along a river he had never noticed the night before. The village, with its few houses made of wood and hay, had disappeared behind the trees as soon as the road bent to the left, leaving him alone with his thoughts.

Lost and sick, Randy did the only thing he could do at the moment. He pressed onwards, ignoring the coughs and the burning of his forehead. The shivers had ceased sometime mid-morning, but that left space for an awful soreness in his muscles and bones, making him stumble at each step he took.

By afternoon, he could not proceed any further and found solace under one of the many trees lining the path, partially sheltered from the still falling drizzle. He huddled on himself, body sore, and wished to be back home, inside his house drinking something warm to cast the cold away.

He closed his eyes and left the world outside his thoughts, enjoying fantasies brought on by the fever. He was so entranced by the sweet smells and familiar images crafted by his mind that he noticed too late when someone was onto him. Suddenly thrown to the ground face first, Randy found that his assailant had pinned his arms behind his back and was using a thick rope to tie his wrists together.

Weakened as he was, the boy opposed no resistance when he was hauled up onto his knees, hat lost and a sharp sword pressed against his throat. Instead, he closed his eyes and listened to the insistent demands coming from the person right behind him.

The voice was that of a young man, probably a few years older than he was, but had a harshness to it that did not admit lies or snarky remarks. If Randy could understand what the guy was saying, he had a feeling that he would feel more threatened than what a sword against his neck could do.

It actually took him several repeats of the same words to finally realize that his attacker was not speaking gibberish, but fluent Japanese. Randy remained in silence for a moment, his mind careening every which way until it came to rest on a memory. It was about him consulting the NinjaNomicon for the first time in his life, when it had imparted him basic lessons to survive his first battle. That had been the moment the book had sneaked in his mind the knowledge of the foreign language for later use. Something he did without realizing when he had read the Art of Healing's forbidden scroll.

“I demand an answer!” the voice sounded really angry, and now that he knew he was speaking Japanese, Randy had no troubles understanding what his captor was saying. “What are you walking this path for?!”

He did not reply to the older boy's question. Instead, he threw his head back with a lightning fast movement and collided with his captor's chest, eliciting a grunt of surprise from him. However, knowing that by throwing him off that way would have surely caused the sword to cut his throat, Randy continued his backward motion until he fell flat to the ground and the sharp blade passed harmlessly above his head.

After taking only a short moment to listen to his assailant crash through the undergrowth without control, Randy rolled onto his side and used a technique he had learned through his training. First to sit up, then to regain his footing onto the muddy ground. Not a moment later, he was facing his rather angered captor and wishing that his streak of bad luck that had accompanied him through the past few days would just end.

Standing a few feet from him, sword held in front of him at the ready, the boy was only slightly taller than he was. Yet, despite the fairly innocuous build, his hazel eyes and the black clothes he was dressed in, mask included, screamed of danger.

Randy would have fought for his freedom, but as soon as he assumed a ready stance, everything blurred and he swayed dangerously on the spot. Colors swirled together and darkened until they were nothing more than a confused jumble of barely visible blobs, leaving him to only guess what was what. When his brain could take no more, the boy pitched forward and collapsed onto the muddy ground, dead to the world.