Free Blood Ninja by Nick Lake

the ninjas argued among themselves, brandishingtheir weapons at nothingness, backing up until they were facing outward in a tight-knit group, like a deadly hedgehog.
    Suddenly one of the men dropped to the ground, with slack finality.
    Again the ninjas panicked, jostling against one another, shouting.
    “What in the gods’ name?” exclaimed Taro.
    “It was him again,” said Hiro. “He smashed that one’s head in with a rock. Is something wrong with your eyes?”
    “I can’t see him,” said Taro, wonderingly. “Where is he?”
    “Walking around them. He’s naked . But his body is covered in something … tattoos, I think.”
    Taro searched the scene ahead of him. He could see nothing but scared ninjas.
    One of the men stepped forward from the group, and all of a sudden his sword hand jerked up. The sword sprang from his grip but didn’t fall to the ground—instead it hung in the air, pointing toward him. Then it slashed out violently as if of its own accord, and gutted the man.
    Taro gasped. What was happening?
    Smoothly, in a continuation of its previous motion, the sword spun in the air and took off another man’s arm and shoulder. Then the sword dropped to the ground. The men backed away from it, as if it were infused with dark magic.
    One of the ninjas ran then, but he had not gone far when one of his fellows was divested of his spear, and that same spear moved bobbing along the sand, hovering at waist level, and plunged into his chest. The ninja ran on for several steps, then went down face-first.
    That was it for the other ninjas. In chaotic concert they dropped their weapons and ran, dispersing in all directions.
    Most of them escaped.
    The spear rose magically from the back of the man it had killed, before arcing through the air as if thrown with some power, and hitting one of the fleeing men in the back of the neck.
    Moments later, he and the other dead were the only figures visible. Taro felt sick. He didn’t understand how those men had died, but he understood one thing: It was a slaughter of those unable to defend themselves.
    “This isn’t possible …,” said Taro. “Who threw that spear?”
    “What are you talking about?” asked Hiro. “It was Shusaku. He killed all of them. But it was like … like they couldn’t see him.”
    Taro turned to his friend. “Hiro,” he said. “I can’t see him either.”

 

    CHAPTER 10
     
    Oda no Hana cursed her calligraphy master .
    Not out loud, of course. That would have been unladylike .
    Sunlight shone through the open window, accompanied by a light breeze. The day was warm, so they were in an upper room of the castle where the windows were not covered with shoji paper. This was the calligraphy master’s one concession to Hana’s preference for outside pursuits. The windows of this upper room were narrow, so that an archer could fire from behind them without being hit. A shaft of light illuminated Hana’s desk .
    She knew that the master meant well, but this was pure torture! The sunlight, unfiltered by paper blinds, only made her long more keenly for that which she couldn’t have .
    Lady Hana would have liked to be outside, honing her skill with the sword. She trained with a bokken, but her skill was already a matter of public knowledge, and it had been whispered—sometimes in her presence—that she would one day be a sword saint just like her father, a kensei.
    But Lord Oda did not want a sword saint. He wanted a gift, a bargaining piece, a pliant bride he could offer to whichever nobleman he most needed to forge an alliance with—whichever of his vassals or enemies he could bind closer to his person by marrying them to his beautiful daughter .
    The times when Hana was able to escape the castle and practice her sword moves were very few indeed, and since she had given her father the message from the dead pigeon, they had stopped almost entirely. Her father, on the few occasions she had seen him, had appeared distracted, angry,