Kuroba Asashin's Arc

Chapter 18 of 44

At sunrise Kuroba called Jackie and Ona to the packed earth square. He held out his right hand, palm up, and set a small gray pebble in the center. He closed his fingers loose around it. "Take it," he said. "Together. No blades. You do not eat, you do not sit, until it is in one of your hands." Ona looked at the fist. Jackie looked at her. Kenji watched from the porch rail with tea. Tish stood in the doorway with a bowl she did not set down. Jackie went first because he always did. He faked left and cut in from the right, and Kuroba's wrist was already gone. The fist reappeared at Jackie's hip and tapped him once. Ona came in low from the other side and Kuroba stepped through her line without turning his shoulders. Her heel caught. She went down on one knee. They tried it ten more times before noon. Jackie read the shoulder. Ona read the ground. Kuroba moved on neither. He moved on the space between them. Every time one committed, the other was a half step late, and the fist was somewhere else. By afternoon Jackie was breathing through his teeth. Ona said, "Stop chasing his hand." Jackie said, "Then what." She said, "Chase his feet." He nodded. They failed again. The sun went down. Tish brought water and Kuroba let them drink. He did not open the fist. They tried in the dark by lamp light. Jackie stopped talking. Ona stopped resetting between attempts. She began to watch where Kuroba's back foot settled before each of Jackie's rushes. She saw it lift a beat early when Jackie faked. She waited. Near midnight she caught Jackie's eye and touched her own heel with two fingers. He understood. He came in slow, no fake, straight at the chest, and made Kuroba plant. The back foot set. Ona was already moving to the side Kuroba would step to. He stepped. She was there. Her hand closed on his wrist from behind and Jackie's fingers pried the fist open at the same instant. The pebble dropped into Jackie's palm. Kuroba let his hand fall. "Good," he said. Ona sat down on the earth where she stood. Jackie held the pebble up between two fingers and looked at it like it was money. Kenji drank the last of a cup that had gone cold hours ago and stood. "They have one mind now," the old man said. "Use it before he comes back." Kuroba nodded. He looked at the two of them, filthy, shaking, awake. He had two students who could move as one. It was not enough for a third attack, but it was what he had, and it was more than yesterday. He told them to eat and sleep. Tomorrow he would teach them to hunt.