Part 1 (1/2)

Roxy Ran.

Red Samurai.

Tiffiny Hall.

DEDICATION.

Dedicated to my sister, Bridget.

EPIGRAPH.

AS A NINJA,.

MY BODY IS A WEAPON,.

MY MOVEMENTS ARE MAGICAL,.

MY FOCUS IS LETHAL.

I AM THE INVISIBLE WARRIOR.

From the ancient ninja's Tiger Scrolls.

ONE.

Mum stares at me with the kill in her eyes. She folds the black hood of her ninja suit over her blonde hair and draws her sword. It punctures the blue smoke that haloes the graves. 'Are you ready?'

I stand in the Cemetery of Warriors no longer just Roxy Ran but the White Warrior. I can still taste the Tiger Scrolls in my mouth. I've defeated four ancient warriors and my nemesis Hero ... but they were only the warm-up.

I gulp. 'Not really.' I was picking spit darts out of my hair a few weeks ago and now I'm armed with weapons and about to confront an army. Can Poxy Roxy so quickly be replaced by a ninja?

I fall to my knees within the Circle of Self-defence and pull off my ninja hood so I can breathe. It is an endless night here at the Cemetery of Warriors, but it feels like I've been fighting for days. My knees sink into the soft dusty earth, the earth that has consumed bones and flesh and now could devour me if I don't fight. I wipe my hair out of my face with my sleeve and blink twice.

'Hey, my uniform has changed colour,' I say.

'You're the White Warrior now,' Mum says. 'It will always become white when you fight.' She lowers her sword, but keeps her eyes trained on the horizon. She scoops my hair into her hands and begins to tie it off my face like she did when I was a little girl.

'Muuum, don't,' I whine.

'You're going to need to see, to focus,' she says.

'But it's no use. I've started the Endless Fight. I should never have eaten those scrolls. I really didn't think this through,' I say.

'Course not,' Mum says, pulling me gently to my feet by my shoulders. 'You can't fight instinct and yours was to reclaim your powers.' She shakes her head. 'I should never have had them extracted in the first place.'

I turn to face her and take her hand. Her eyes slide down to meet mine. I watch a tear skim her cheek, then glisten in the green moon. I've always felt the snarl of the tiger birthmark on my foot roaring towards something more than life as a Gate Two, but now that I have the chance to be awesome, I'm filled with fear. A monster has crawled into my stomach and is thras.h.i.+ng. What if I defeated the four ancient warriors only by fluke? I've been the White Warrior for just a few minutes. This is impossible. It won't be the Endless Fight, it will be the Endless Death, for both of us.

But this is my chance to unleash my inner ninja. Somewhere deep in the caves of my heart I always knew I was different. I have to be strong. I feel the light of self-belief beam through me and enliven my body, all the way down to my toes. My muscles tense. My senses activate. I know that this fight is the Endless Fight because it foreshadows what is to come. Being the White Warrior is a life sentence.

The tear evaporates on Mum's cheek as her eyes widen. In their ebony reflections, I see the army of warriors I woke when I swallowed the Tiger Scrolls. I whip around and gasp. Hundreds sway silently at the edge of the Circle of Self-defence. Their mouths drip blood, eyes skeleton-white, hands decayed around their weapons. I feel like crawling under the back of my sister's jumper like I used to on scary rides or running into Mum's bed and pulling the covers over my head. But I have to face this. If I don't succeed, we'll be stuck here forever. And Elecktra will move into my room and spill nail polish on my desk - over my dead body!

I think back to the training lessons with Jackson, dressing in my s.h.i.+n.o.bi shozoku - my ninja uniform - for the first time, learning to fly, kick, flash invisible, find stillness and peace of mind, and the journey that has led me to stand in this circle with nothing but my ninja stars and skills to protect me ... along with the power of the Tiger Scrolls. Already I can feel their energy strumming through every vein and muscle.

'As a ninja, my body is ...' Mum prompts me.

I recite the ancient ninja's Tiger Scrolls. 'As a ninja, my body is a weapon, my movements are magical, my focus is lethal. I am the invisible warrior.' Now that I've swallowed the scrolls, the words live in me, absorbed into my spirit, soaked into my bones. I have to believe in myself.

I sink my bare feet into the earth and feel my tiger grip and growl. I close my eyes and the world slices into sharp darkness. All I can hear is the sound of my heart beating. The rhythm swells the atmosphere so I can breathe easily. I only have to live from one beat to the next.

I open my eyes. Before me is a pack of dead masters. Beyond them is my future as the White Warrior - strong, invincible and maybe even a little popular at school. The White Warrior would have to be more A list than Roxy Ran. I blush - now is not the time to be thinking of my popularity!

The warriors blend into a ma.s.s of brutality, a cl.u.s.ter of deadly lit eyes and rancid breath. They sway with evil antic.i.p.ation.

'Roxy, stay focused. Keep your back to me. Your body knows what to do - you just have to trust it,' Mum instructs, but before I can respond, the warriors descend on us in a crash of arms and legs. Instinctively I summon the wind. Mum and I leap above the army and hover for a second, supported by a wind tunnel. In that brief levitation, I map out my combat. My eyes connect the warriors like laser beams and I know what I must do.

We land in the centre of the heaving violence. My ninja stars swipe away fingers and noses. Mum's nunchucks flash light into the warriors' dead eyes, spurts of silver in the green night. I summon the wind and it speeds up my movements as I slice, thrash and punch my way through the warriors. A cl.u.s.ter of them approaches, led by a four-armed beast with a shark-like mouth. I leap onto his head and use his grotesque horns as a steering wheel to smash him into the others. They are replaced by another group of warriors, their many years of battle etched into their deformed faces. I drop to the ground and scuttle between the legs of the leader. He has bloodied bare arms and a mohawk, and yellow-headed pustules spread from his scalp across his cheeks like a putrid beard. He draws back his leg to kick me, but I am too fast. I hook his ankles with my feet and throw his body into the others. He hits them stiff like a beam and they fall backwards into the forest of warriors.

I look up and more warriors tower above me. I kneel and push my palms out to the sides like blades. Smiles wisp across the warriors' faces and I smile back. My powers may be brand-new, but I haven't been dead for decades. I can outsmart these guys.

I hear Mum's sword cras.h.i.+ng behind me as I calm my mind so I can think more clearly. I imagine myself at a beach, frothy waves polis.h.i.+ng pearly sand, not a cloud smearing the sky. I try to make my heart a kite to sail above the fear. The warriors are in no hurry to capture me. Like the kids at school when they know you are cornered in a game of Tiggy and don't bother running any more.

A warrior with long white hair turbaned up to the starless sky and eyes the texture of snakeskin s.n.a.t.c.hes at me. I swoop backwards out of his grasp, then propel forwards with a powerful spear-hand strike to his knee. He folds, paper-weak, as I kneel back into my starting position.

Another warrior attacks and forces me up onto one knee. I punch his kneecap. As he hunches over, I jump onto his back and, with a triple spinning kick, wipe out the others. I land on my knees as more feet stampede towards me, weapons ready to do damage. I summon the wind to fly me above this latest pack of warriors, then direct it to lower me behind them. Surprise is on my side and I quickly knock them off their feet.

My next target appears, tall and copper-skinned. He has the head of a fanged sheep and across his face are whiskers made of claw. His muscles writhe like mice trapped inside a cobra and he holds an axe, human teeth forming the blade. I gulp. I try to think of something nice, like the music of an ice-cream truck or the froth on a hot chocolate, but staring at this warrior's disgusting face drains all happiness from me, water through a sieve.

'Keep your centre of gravity low and remember the weakness target line,' Mum orders with a glance back.

As he approaches, I trace the targets of weakness, from his eyes, nose, throat, stomach, groin, knees, down to his ankles. I see the line of attack and that's where I'll strike. He tilts his face to the green moon, then bleats. Tribes of warriors howl in reply. I am more nervous now than the first time Jackson spoke to me.

'Remember who you are,' Mum calls as she blocks another blow. 'Instinct.'

The Ram raises his axe. I stare deep into his hollow eyes. The axe plummets between Mum and me, splitting us apart. I leap onto the blade of the axe and spear my foot into his stomach. He doubles over and I poke my fingers into his eyes. There is nothing but air. The warrior grabs me by the neck and lifts me high, my feet dangling. He begins to squeeze tight. The air hisses out of me like a balloon. My nose grows large and the taste of dirt invades my mouth. I see psychedelic stars flash. I'm losing consciousness.

I listen to my instinct and thoughts of boulders, quicksand and stone plough into my mind. I feel my tiger reach through soil and connect with roots. The warrior's grip tightens around my neck. The air grows spikes. The world flattens. I'm pa.s.sing out. I sink my claws deeper into the earth, and summon the power of cliffs and mountains, marble and wood. My eyes slowly close. The warrior's grip has sucked out all the air. Then thunder erupts. Behind the Ram, heavy slabs of stone and marble rip themselves from the earth and levitate with their jagged edges pointed towards the army. I blink hard, summoning all the headstones in the cemetery to soar through the air like missiles at the warriors' heads. I blink again and the headstones slice the warriors' heads off, clean as saws.

I crash to the ground, my lungs inflate, but there is no time to recover fully - more warriors encroach on us in thick lines, hundreds deep. This looks like a dead end. Many of them. I don't know what to do.