Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 16 of 44

Kuroba let them sleep. He walked back through the hall of the old temple, past the kanji for peace framed by jasmine that had grown in through the eaves. He set water on the stove and cut bread. When the sun cleared the wall he went to the back room and knocked once. "Jackie. Square. Now." He did not wait for an answer. He went out to the packed earth and stood with his hands loose at his sides. Jackie came out ten minutes later, shirt open over the bolted shoulder, mechanical eye clicking as it found the light. Kuroba pointed to the stone by the well. "Sit." Jackie sat. Kuroba squatted across from him. "You walked slow when the dog stopped. Why." Jackie's mouth opened and closed. "I thought I could take him." "No. Before that. Every fight you've had here, you moved first and looked second. Tell me where that starts." Jackie looked at his hands. "Bro. I don't—" "Say it." Jackie's jaw worked. "On my block you moved first or you got moved. You hesitate, they smell it. So I stopped hesitating. About anything." Kuroba nodded. "That kept you alive there. It almost killed you here. The guard breaks because you're already three steps past it in your head. You fight to prove you're not scared. A man who fights to prove something can't hold ground." Jackie's good eye filled. He did not wipe it. "I know." "Then we start over." Kuroba stood. "You don't swing today. You don't swing tomorrow." He made Jackie sit cross-legged on the stone until noon, hand flat on his own stomach, breathing where Kuroba told him to breathe. When Jackie tried to speak Kuroba tapped his knee and pointed at the ground. In the afternoon Kuroba put a copper cup of water in front of him. "Chi is not a trick. It is attention that does not leak. Move the water without touching the cup." Jackie stared at him. "That's not real." "Breathe." By dusk the water had not moved. Kuroba came back at dark and put his own hand near the cup. The surface pulled toward his palm and held there. He took his hand away. "You have it. Everyone has it. Yours runs out through your mouth and your fists. We're going to close those doors." For six days he woke Jackie before light. Stance until the legs shook. Breath counts until the ribs ached. No sword. On the seventh morning Jackie sat at the cup alone and the water climbed a finger's width toward his hand and stayed. He did not smile. He looked at Kuroba and waited. Kuroba nodded once. "Now you can pick up the blade again. Different hands this time." He walked back to the porch where Tish stood with the tea. The dojo had a second student now. The first one was finally learning.