Invasion of the Ninja
Book One of the Adventure Chronicles
by
Jeffrey Allen Davis
Copyrighted Material
Copyright 2012 Jeffrey Allen Davis
This book is a work of fiction. Places, events and situations in this story are purely fictional. Any similarities to actual persons, living or dead, are purely coincidental.
All rights reserved.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to barnesandnoble.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
This book is available in print at most online retailers.
Edited by Karen Griffiths
Cover Art by Jason Richardson
Cover Layout by Timothy Johnson
Additional Proofreading by Rob Gevjan
Christian Fiction
https://www.jeffreyallendavis.angelfire.com
https://www.gcdpublishing.co.nf
Unless otherwise noted, all Bible verses are quoted from the King James Version (KJV) of the Bible.
To my mom, Patricia Ann Davis, who taught me that a hug is the best medicine for whatever afflicts me.
“Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21)
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Jesus, my Blessed Savior.
Thanks to Karen Griffiths, my editor.
Thanks to Rob Gevjan for being an awesome proofreader.
Thanks to Darryl Sloan for all of his advice.
Thanks to Uncle Donald and my buddy, Michael Burlison, for putting up with my incessant questions about guns.
Thanks to my mother, whose heart knows no bounds.
Thanks to my hard-working father, who has already gone Home.
Thanks to my beautiful wife, Vickie, for her support during the long hours of writing. Thanks to my daughter, KK, for the calming effects of her hugs. Thanks to my stepson, Jay, for reading–and enjoying—the original version of this book. Thanks to my stepdaughter, Bree, for reminding me that I have to laugh every once in a while.
Thanks to D. Issac, B. Goodman, E. Griffiths, T. Thompson, D. Middleton, S. Black, J. Don Davis, L. Isaac, K. Corbett, E. Hall, J. Hall, L. Ringstaff, J. King, J. Decker, D. Goodman. You’ve all been lifelong influences.
About the Author
In 1989, when Jeffrey Allen Davis was fourteen, he started a recording on his parents’ VCR to get a horror movie about a Ouija board. It captured the movie that came on Showtime after it, as well. That accidental recording, a ninja movie that starred Michael Dudikoff, grabbed his imagination and the shadow warriors have been hiding there ever since. Over twenty years later, he still enjoys watching a good ninja movie.
Davis lives in St. Charles, MO, with his wife, Vickie, his daughter, Kaitlyn, and two stepchildren, Jayson and Breeanna.
Visit him online at www.jeffreyallendavis.tk and his blog, jeffreyallendavis.wordpress.com.
Invasion of the Ninja
THE WAR
In the year 1530, AD, a conflict rose between the peaceful Funakoshi ninja clan and the war-like Waruiyatusu clan. A wedding . . . or, rather, the lack of one . . . caused the war. The jonin, or leader, of the Waruiyatsu, a cold-hearted man named Kondo, asked for the hand of the loveliest of the Funakoshi kunoichi, or female ninja, in marriage. Mitsu, Kondo’s intended bride, was the daughter of the Funakoshi jonin, Koji, who reasoned that the marriage would form an alliance between the two clans. His intention was to give his blessing.
Until the two jonin discovered her in the arms of another man.
Enraged, Kondo accused Koji of attempting to disgrace him. The Warui leader issued a challenge to the Funakoshi leader and the two warriors met on the battlefield, violently wounding each other. They both died, no clear winner settling the question of honor. At this, Kondo’s eldest son ordered an attack and the resulting battle saturated the ground with blood as ninja after ninja fell, defending what he believed to be the honor of his clan. Both sides retreated from the field that day.
The members of the elder council of the Funakoshi clan felt that blood was more important than gender and declared that Mitsu would take her father’s place as the new jonin. Some of the individual families in the clan were angered to have a woman as their leader, but she proved herself time and time again as the war continued for the next thirty years. When she was killed in battle, she was celebrated as one of the greatest of the Funakoshi leaders.
Over the centuries, the Warui ninja have retained their traditional ways, living within their own village in the mountains of Japan, from which they would send assassins to kill the Funakoshi, who have tried their best to advance with the times. The latter clan, whose members still remain close in their loyalties to one another, has moved into society, trying to cope with an ancient and relentless enemy.
Now, in the late 1900s, two young members of the Funakoshi and their friends are going to be forced to take up arms once again to continue an ancient war . . ..
Prologue
November 16, 1991
Friday, 6:30 AM
The bridge bustled with activity this morning. Its old, steel supports were rusted and weary, and it was time to remove and replace them. The crew worked well together and the foreman figured that this should be an easy job.
Sera was a small town. Everybody knew everybody else. The town consisted of about eight hundred people, with the graduating high school class averaging forty students. The geography of the town was what made it unique. The Current River ran across the western city limit, while an unnamed creek ran across the eastern. The bridges that crossed these two moving bodies of water were the only ways into or out of town. The bridges spanned the river and the large creek, which made its bustling tourist trade possible. While Will, the crew’s foreman, considered this job no different than any other, the mayor had considered it a top priority.
Will, watching the crane from the safety of the bank of the creek, chuckled at the memory of the stern speech given at the town council meeting last week. “You know how important it is for you guys to have this job done before the parks open this summer, right?” he had demanded.
Duh.
Will had stopped him cold by bragging that his crew could finish it in less than a month, rather than the four months that they had been allotted. It was still nice to think about how he had stolen the words of the old pencil-pusher.
A large splash in the water caught his attention and he glanced in the direction of the flowing creek. “What happened?” he called out to Paul, the driver of the crane.
The latter had been climbing into his seat and had been facing the water. “Looks like Mike fell off the bridge!” Paul yelled back.
Will exhaled, blowing mist into the air. The water was probably freezing. He swore. “Is he okay? I don’t need any of you catching pneumonia!”
Another crewman yelled from farther up the bank of the creek, “He’s not moving!” Will pulled his safety hat off and threw it to the ground, breaking into a run toward the water. He dove in. The icy liquid hit him like a fist, knocking the wind from him as he swam for his fallen worker.
Finally, he reached Mike, who floated, face-down, twenty feet off shore. “Mike?” asked Will from between breaths. “Are you okay?” He spun him over.
A four-pronged, metal star protruded from his friend’s eye. Horrified, Will pushed the body away from him with a screech.
Screams and shou
ts erupted from the worksite. Will looked toward the shore to see the crane swing wildly. Paul sat in the driver’s seat, his blood-soaked jacket plastered to his chest. He saw a figure, clad head-to-toe in black, leap from the vehicle. The crimson-covered blade of his short sword glistened in his hand.
Arrows rained down from other figures, who had perched in the supports under the bridge. Each one was dressed identically and each arrow hit true. Will watched, his heart pounding in his chest, as his men were slaughtered.
Panic filled the man as he swam for the other side of the creek, not caring that he had just released the contents of his bowels in the creek. He had to get away. He had to get out of sight of the grotesque scene.
He climbed out onto the bank closest to the town. He only had thirty feet to run to reach the safety of the trees.
Fear allowed him to forget the cold numbness that washed over his body from the frigid water. Fear allowed him to forget the dragging weight of his soaked and soiled clothing. He rushed for the trees.
Twenty feet.
Fifteen feet.
Ten feet.
I’m gonna make it!
Then a black-clad figure dropped from the front tree. Hanging upside down, its blade glinted in the sunlight as it slashed across Will’s neck. Will felt a sharp, agonizing pain shoot across his throat. Then a warm sensation washed down the front of his body. For an instant, his befogged mind welcomed the warmth as it fought off the cold of the air against his wet chest.
Then he realized that the warmth was from his own blood. Gasping for air, his bulging eyes focusing on the person who had just killed him, he dropped to the ground as the darkness claimed him.
* * *
As the last of the bodies were piled under a huge tarp, one of the black-clothed figures walked up to another. “He lives on the rural side of this bridge, Master?”
The other figure looked out over the creek, seeming to see something that the other could not. “He does.” He clasped his hands together, finger through finger, with the two index fingers flat against each other and pointing straight up. “But that is not all.” He looked at the younger man, one of his clan’s chunin, or lieutenants, and continued. “She and her uncle, the jonin, live in that direction, as well. If we play this correctly, we may be able to wipe out the Funakoshi’s leadership in one, great sweep.”
The chunin bowed respectfully to his master and walked away. The ninja leader continued to stare out toward the rural area to the east of the small Missouri town. “Tonight we will have our vengeance, Funakoshi.”
Chapter One
November 16, 1991
Friday, 3:00 PM
The adolescent fixed his blue eyes upon the clock that hung above the chalkboard. Five minutes. He sighed and looked around the room, taking in everything from behind his glasses. Tim Brown, the teacher, sat at his desk, grading the tests that the students had just turned in. Amy Weston, the raven-haired beauty who could have any boy she wanted, sat near the windows, surrounded by adoring boys. In the back of the room, John Bowers, the captain of the basketball team, kept the rest of the class entertained by pointing their attention to Freddy Jenks, his lackey. Freddy tilted his head back and emptied an entire can of squirt-cheese into his mouth. The guys who watched cheered.
Jamie sighed and looked back at the clock. Two minutes had passed.
“Lookin’ forward to this weekend?” asked George Tanner, Jamie’s friend, from his place in the next seat.
Jamie nodded. “I haven’t seen my friends from Jameston in nearly a year.”
“Any chance of getting an invite out there?”
Jamie nodded. “I think that can be arranged.” He looked back up at the clock, frustrated by the agonizing slowness of time. “I thought you were going to the dance tonight.”
“I am,” replied George. “Since my mom’s helping Mr. and Mrs. Brown chaperone, she wouldn’t let me stay home.”
Jamie chuckled. “Sorry.”
George grabbed his backpack from the floor and stuffed his textbook inside. “Not half as sorry as I am. I don’t like a lot of people. But I could come out tomorrow.”
A crumpled piece of paper sailed through the air and struck George in the back of his curly, blonde-covered head. The two teens turned to see John and Freddy looking at them with a smirk. Freddy, cheese running disgustingly down his chin, held both hands up, an obscene gesture on each.
Then his face lost its smirk when Mr. Brown called out from his desk, “Freddy, go to the bathroom and wash that stuff off! Act your age for once!”
Freddy climbed from his seat and walked to the door of the room, passing between Jamie and George as he did so. He smelled of cigarette smoke mixed with the odor of the cheese.
As Freddy reached the door, Mr. Brown asked, “Did your parents do a lot of drugs in the Sixties?”
George and Jamie burst out laughing, followed by Amy and the boys who sat around her.
Freddy glared at Jamie as he walked out the door. But he said nothing under the stern gaze of the teacher. While Mr. Brown was respected, having been declared Favorite Teacher in the yearbook all four years that he had been in this school, the students knew better than to push their luck with him.
The bell signaled the end of classes for the week. Jamie leaped to his feet.
“Why are you in such a hurry?” demanded George. “You can’t move any faster than the bus you’ll be on.”
Jamie sighed. George was right. Jamie should have gotten his license last year, but the town had been using the country road that led to his house to store a mound of gravel for fixing other roads in the area. Since there was only one open lane, Jamie had felt uncomfortable practicing over the summer. Of course, he realized that this was a rather pathetic excuse. Perhaps he was just too scared to take the test.
As they headed out of the room, Jamie said, “I hope you can make it tomorrow. My dad’s going to try to barbecue.”
“Won’t the smoke bother his emphysema?”
“That’s why I said try. If he doesn’t finish, Mom’ll probably do it . . . that is, if she can pry the barbecue fork from Buster’s hands.”
Jamie’s Sera friends had actually met Jamie’s Jameston friend, Buster, as well as Jamie’s cousin Zack. Buster was going to college next year to prepare for the ministry. Zack, on the other hand, was constantly hitting on girls, with varying degrees of success.
“Buster’s going to be there?” asked George as they walked by the science room. The pungent smell of formaldehyde filled their nostrils.
“Yep.” Jamie waved at Mr. Freedman, the short, balding science teacher, who was in the room cleaning up a spill. “Zack, too.”
“Zack?” George groaned. “Maybe I’ll pass on comin’ out after all.”
“Don’t worry,” chuckled Jamie. “My friend, Yoshi, is going to be there. She can usually keep him in line.”
“Are they dating?”
Jamie looked at his friend and cocked one eyebrow. “No, and, if you value your life, I wouldn’t ever ask her that.”
“Oh, tough girl, huh?”
“You could say that.”
The two stopped in front of their lockers and began putting their books away. Suddenly, George glanced behind Jamie and his eyes widened. This and the putrid smell of cheese breath mixed with cigarette smoke gave Jamie just enough warning to yank his hand out of his locker before the door slammed shut. The resounding metal BANG echoed through the hallway. Few of the other students paid attention, as such acts of bravado were common from Freddy Jenks.
“Thought that was funny, didya?” demanded Freddy, standing in front of John Bowers, who watched the confrontation with a smirk.
“What Mr. Brown said?” asked Jamie. “Hilarious.”
“I’M GONNA BEAT THE DOG-MEAT OUTTA YOU!” growled Freddy as he reared back and swung his left fist, in a wide arc, straight toward Jamie’s head.
Without thinking, the young man
pulled his head back and out of the way, while grabbing the bully’s moving wrist and using its own momentum to carry his fist painfully into the locker next to Jamie’s.
Freddy grasped his hand and groaned in pain.
Uh oh, thought Jamie, I’d better do something before I blow my cover. Jamie quickly looked at the locker that Freddy had inadvertently punched, mustering as much of a look of surprise as he could. “Wow,” he muttered, trying to sound shocked. He glanced at George, whose shock was genuine.
“Where’d you learn how to do that?” demanded John.
From a ninja master in Jameston, popped into Jamie’s head. Two years of practice kept it from coming out of his mouth. Instead, he asked, “Do what?
“What you just did to Freddy!”
Jamie shrugged. “It was just dumb luck, I guess.”
John took a menacing step toward Jamie. “Then you won’t mind me trying what he did.”
“Is there a problem here, gentlemen?” asked a deep voice from behind John. Deck Pendragon, a curly-haired, red-bearded behemoth of a man, regarded the situation coldy.
Jamie sighed in relief. Deck, who was the substitute art teacher this week, was also a skilled weapons-maker. Since he had been the one commissioned to make Jamie’s sword, he was the only person in Sera, outside of Jamie’s family, who knew the teen’s secret.
“Uh, no,” responded John good-naturedly. “Nothing at all.”
Deck folded his massive arms across his equally massive chest. “Let’s keep it that way.”
Suddenly, a girl’s voice called out affectionately, “John!” Jamie looked past his antagonist to see Laura Blanton, Shawna Weston and her cousin, Amy Weston (the dark-haired girl in Jamie’s last class), walking toward them. Laura was the one who had called out. It seemed like a yearly tradition that the head cheerleader and the head of the basketball team should date, and these two were no exception. However, the whole school knew of John’s violent temper and the fact that he focused it on his lovely, blonde girlfriend. The only person with the guts to speak out against John was Laura’s best friend, Shawna.