Order of the Lost Samurai Ch. 01

"Painful?" Nicky asked, slightly concerned.

"Yes," Mr. Nakamura said. "We have to toughen you up; teach you how to take a hit and ignore the pain. Normally it would take years to teach you this, but since we only have two weeks to train you I hope you are ready to spend the whole of your waking hours here training, learning, and healing."

"Healing?" Nicky asked again with a slightly higher pitch in his voice.

"Don't worry," the old man said with a grin. "We're not gonna damage you up too much. Can't have you injured come time to fight. That wouldn't be honorable."

Nicky looked abashed. He bowed low at the waist as he said, "Forgive me, Naka--, I mean, Sensei."

"All is forgiven, kid," Mr. Nakamura said. "Now, get started." He held his hand out toward the zen garden and Nicky approached a place where he could get a good look at the entire landscape.

He took in the garden; the placements of the boulders and stones, but before he could really begin to get a layout of the garden, Kai came in and punched him in the back of his left leg, right in the meat of the thigh. It wasn't an overly hard punch intended to cause him to collapse, but he collapsed anyway.

"Fuck," Nicky complained as he stood back up and rubbed the spot where Kai struck him. "Wasn't expecting that so soon," he said to Kai but his friend had disappeared already. "Dammit. This is gonna be harder than I thought."

"You thought it would be easy?" Kai said as he strode back outside from the house, a glass of water in his hand. He held it out to Nicky and Nicky took it, drinking eagerly from it.

After he drained the glass, Nicky said, "Well, not easy, per se, but not as difficult as I now know it's going to be."

"You want to live, this is how you do it," Kai said somberly.

"I know," Nicky replied. "Still, though," he whispered. "He's a tough nut, huh?"

Kai smiled knowingly. "The toughest."

"He's like my Mr. Miyagi," Nicky said with a chuckle.

"HA!" the old man yelled from inside the house somewhere. "This ain't no fucking movie, kid!"

"How the fuck?" Nicky asked but Kai just shrugged as he took the glass from Nicky and headed back inside.

So it went for the next couple of days. Nicky would attempt to memorize the garden; Kai would try to distract him; Mr. Nakamura would laugh when Kai succeeded. By the end of the third day, Nicky flopped down on his bed with so many bruises his body looked like a kaleidoscope of black, purple, and yellow. The only instruction the old man had given Kai pertaining to hitting him was no kidney or liver shots, no punches or kicks hard enough to leave prolonged or permanent damage, no strikes of any measurable strength to anywhere on the head, and nothing to the groin. Other than that, his friend had free reign on where and when he could lay a few hits.

"Ordinarily," Nicky heard the old man tell Kai on the second day, "I wouldn't mind a good strike to the Christmas decorations, but more than a few seconds of writhing in agony will take away from his training. So keep away from that area. For now." He said that last bit with a twinkle in his eye. "FOCUS!" he suddenly yelled to Nicky, popping him on his head with the stick he so liked to carry around.

On the morning of the fifth day, the old man met them on his front doorstep. He had what looked like a small bamboo tray in his hands about the size of a TV stand, a small table in front of him, a bag of sand, a small rake, and some rocks.

"As you Americans like to say, pop quiz," Mr. Nakamura said with glee, the morning sunlight gleaming off of his bald head.

Nicky rolled his eyes. "Okay, what's this?"

"What do you think, idiot!?" the old man barked. "You're going to recreate my garden!"

Nicky took the items from the old man and got to work. As he worked, slowly, the old man's grin began to fade. By the time Nicky completed his task a few minutes later, the old man had a scowl on his face that could stop a robbery in progress.

"What the fuck have you been doing all week!?" the old man bellowed. "Jerking off!?"

"What? No!" Nicky protested.

"That was a rhetorical question, stupid!" Mr. Nakamura yelled. "I know you haven't been jerking off in my zen garden because I would have stabbed you in the ass with the point coming out of the head of your dick if you had!"

"So what did I get wrong??" Nicky asked, motioning to the miniature zen garden he created.

"What didn't you get wrong??" the old man cried. "Look. Here." He pointed to the section of three rocks on the right side of the garden. "The triangle is upside down. Here." He pointed to multiple lumps in the lines of sand. "See these? You hesitated. The rake lines must be smooth throughout the strokes. See here?" He pointed to the rake lines around the rocks. "The lines around the rocks on the top are supposed to overlay the lines around the bottom rocks. I had hoped you would at least get that right even though you got the rock placements wrong."

The old man grumbled and gave the whole tray a good shake, shifting the elements inside and handed it back to Nicky.

"Again," he ordered. "Remember! Patience. Focus. And try to at least get the layout right this time!"

Nicky looked at the ruined miniature garden. He took his time this time. The first time he had hurried, trying to impress the old man, and had gotten it all wrong. This time, he closed his eyes and imagined the backyard version of the garden in his mind's eye. After a few moments, satisfied that he was ready, he opened his eyes and got to work. It seemed to Kai and Mr. Nakamura that Nicky wasn't looking at what he was doing. Rather, he seemed to be looking through where his hands were working.

When he was done, a full thirty minutes later, Nicky looked up. He rolled his shoulders to try and work out the kink that had taken root between his shoulder blades. The old man had a small smile on his face, though his eyes spoke volumes. Nicky had gotten it right.

"Near perfect," the old man whispered proudly.

"Near?" Nicky asked and inwardly cursed when the old man scowled at him.

Mr. Nakamura said nothing, just pointed to two spots of rake lines near the bottom and top most edges. There were hesitation marks in the lines of those two spots.

"Fuck," Nicky said, disappointed.

Mr. Nakamura growled and popped Nicky on his head again with his favorite stick.

"You're not perfect, kid!" the old man barked. "No one is, but this is damn close to perfection!" He pointed to the miniature zen garden. "Do you know how long it took me to get that design perfect the way you see it is now in my backyard? Huh? Two years!"

"Years??" Nicky said.

"Yeah, years!" the old man said. "You know how many times I failed? Huh? Every. Damn. Day! Even after I perfected it, I'd have to do it all over again after a rain, or a storm blew through, or even a simple hard wind. Nobody's perfect kid, but relish in your accomplishments because no matter how good you are, there's always someone better."

Kai, who was silent throughout the entire exchange, finally spoke up. "Learn to accept a compliment, Nick. Just because it isn't perfect like you wanted it to be, doesn't mean others don't see and appreciate the work you put in to make it near perfect."

Nicky thought about that for a few minutes before he turned to the old man and bowed. "Thank you for the compliment, Sensei. It means a lot."

The old man merely grunted. "You're welcome. Now get in the backyard. You've been taking punishment for almost a week now. It's time to try and give some back."

Nicky smiled at Kai who was smiling back at him in turn. They had never sparred before since Kai didn't know that Nicky could fight and Nicky didn't know Kai knew martial arts.

~ ~ ~ ~~~ ~~~ ~~~ ~ ~ ~

Two days before the fight, Nicky walked into the old man's backyard and immediately knew something was off. Everything looked appeared to be in its place but something niggled at the back of Nicky's mind. He was staring around the backyard, distracted, when Kai spoke up.

"What is it, Nick?" Kai asked.

"Something's off," Nicky replied.

"Like what?" Kai asked.

"I don't know," Nicky said. "Just... something's not right."

"Very astute of you, kid," Mr. Nakamura said as he joined them outside. "For your final test in training, I want you to figure out what it is. No distractions this time, Kai. Call for me when you figure it out, Nicky," the old man said and walked back inside.

"That's the first time in a while he's used my name," Nicky said, never taking his eyes off of the backyard.

"Yeah, well, don't get used to it," Kai said and slapped his friend on the shoulder. "I'll leave you to it."

"Thanks, Kai," Nicky said, still looking around at the backyard. "For everything. Even if I do end up dying, I'm glad I met you. You're a good friend."

"Ditty," Kai said and Nicky chuckled.

"Ditto," Nicky corrected but Kai was already gone.

Nicky spent the next several hours trying to find out what was different in the backyard. Try as he might, he couldn't figure it out. Everything was in its place. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary. He supposed he'd walked around and through the zen garden dozens of times, looking at it from every conceivable angle, all to no avail. It simply wasn't giving up its secrets so easily.

So concentrated was he on the zen garden from his place in the gazebo that at first he didn't hear the giggles coming from the direction of the house. It wasn't until two girls came bounding out of the house in matching red micro-bikinis that his attention was drawn from his task. The first girl had short hair cut in the style of a nineteen sixties bob reminiscent of Barbara Streisand. Her hair was black and bounced with every step she took. She had a round face with twinkling brown eyes, a slender frame with small breasts, long legs, thick thighs, and an ass that made Nicky drool.

The second girl looked almost identical to Nicky's eyes, the only difference being she was slightly taller than her counterpart, had long, wavy hair that bounced tantalizingly across her pert ass, and larger breasts. Otherwise, they could have been twins.

The fabric of their bikinis was so small it barely covered their nipples, leaving most of their light pink areolae against almost alabaster, though smooth, skin visible for Nicky to be pleasantly distracted by. As they skipped across the stones of the zen garden, Nicky got a look at the small strip of cloth that barely covered the slits between their legs. As they passed by him, paying him no attention, Nicky all but drooled at the round perfection of their asses as they bounced and jiggled when they scampered away like frightened rabbits through the gazebo.

Nicky gazed with longing as the girls unceremoniously jumped in the pond and began laughing and splashing each other. He couldn't tear his eyes from the sight of the two nubile beauties playing in the water. As his excitement grew, so did the pocket rocket in his pants. His concentration faltered. I mean, what red-blooded American teenager's concentration wouldn't falter while within sight of two mostly naked gorgeous women playing in the water nearby?

It was at that moment, staring blindly at the girls, that it hit Nicky what was different about the backyard. It was so simple that if he hadn't been eyeing the gorgeous beauties like they were prey and he was an alpha predator, he would have slapped himself in his face for not having realized it sooner.

It was also at that moment that the two girls noticed him and turned as one in his direction after pausing in their playing. They dipped down in the water so that only their heads were visible above the grass. A moment later, both women giggled to each other and held up their bikinis for him to see, smiling widely all the while.

"Nicky-san!" the bob-haired girl called with pronounced Japanese accented English, waving her bikini in her hand.

"Come and play with us!" the other one finished in the same almost-thick accent, waving her own bikini in her hand.

As one, the girls tossed their bikinis off to the side in the grass and disappeared from sight.

"Sensei!" Nicky called but the old man was already at the back door. He had a twinkle in his eye and a smirk on his face. "It's the paving stones in the zen garden!" he yelled as he headed toward the pond, stripping his clothes off one by one as he ran. "They're upside down!"

The old man didn't say anything. He just nodded with a smile on his face and went back inside.

"Friends of yours, Nakamura-san?" Kai asked.

The old man nodded. "You might say they are granddaughters, of a sort," he replied.

"Your granddaughters?" Kai asked.

"Only in the sense that I consider you a grandson, kid," the weathered old man replied with a toothy smile.

"You know, then, what Nicky will do to them?"

The old man's face lit up with a wry grin. "It is not so much what he's going to do to them that concerns me," he said, "but what they'll do to him!" A short burst of laughter escaped his lips. "Well, at least he'll have a day to recover," he added, his eyes glinting with amusement.