Outfoxed, daimyo Kato fumed, his face contorting in silent rage. His hands gripped his fan so tightly it was on the verge of snapping in half. Then the referee stepped in.

'The gaijin is disqualified,' he announced, 'for being over his start line.'

'I wasn't '

'The referee's decision is final,' cut in the daimyo, with an imperious sneer, as the sumo official turned his back on Jack's protests and left the ring.

Jack realized the samurai lord had been playing a cruel game with him, one that he'd had no intention of letting Jack win. Incensed, Jack glanced at Akiko held prisoner at the feet of the smugly smiling daimyo. Forever bound to one another, he mouthed to her, then leapt from the dohy.

The samurai patrol, clustered round the defeated wrestler and their crushed comrades, were too distracted to notice Jack's bid for freedom. As he touched down on the dojo floor, Jack targeted the neck of the nearest samurai with a knife-hand strike. The man collapsed like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Jack swiftly unsheathed the katana from the samurai's saya as he fell.

The patrol officer, suddenly realizing what was happening, rushed to draw his own sword. Jack floored him with a spinning elbow strike to the jaw. He took out the next samurai using the brass pommel of his katana's handle, embossing the man's forehead with the dragon design that adorned the end. The five other samurai finally pulled themselves together and drew their weapons. In a frenzied attack, Jack charged into them, knocking one samurai over the writhing body of Riku and attacking another with his sword.

At the same time as Jack was decimating the patrol, Akiko dropped forward as if to bow to the daimyo, then mule-kicked the guard behind her. The samurai went flying. He landed unceremoniously on his backside and skidded across the polished woodblock floor. Leaping cat-like to her feet, Akiko raced to help Jack. But the two sumo wrestlers from the earlier bout charged to intercept her. As they converged on either side, determined to crush her between their bloated bodies, Akiko sprang into the air and somersaulted away. The two titans collided head first. There was a sickening crack of skulls and they collapsed in a fleshy useless heap.

Jack fought furiously, but with only a single katana to keep the four samurai at bay he was in mortal danger. As he deflected a blade slicing for his chest, he heard the ominous whoosh of a sword cut from behind. With no hope of avoiding it, Jack anticipated the icy sensation of razor-sharp steel scything through his flesh. But the blade missed and the sword clattered to the floor as his attacker let out a pained grunt and crumpled where he stood.

Akiko had destroyed the samurai with a flying side-kick. Snatching up the dropped katana, she joined Jack at his side and engaged the remaining three samurai. Executing an Autumn Leaf strike, she disarmed one and took another down with a spinning hook kick, the heel catching the man's jaw with a concussion-inducing crunch.

'What's the plan?' she asked as Jack fended off the final samurai.

'Plan?' exclaimed Jack, disabling his attacker. 'I hadn't got that far.'

'Then we'd better get out of here fast.'

Together, they raced for the double doors. Jack glanced over his shoulder to check on any pursuers. Daimyo Kato, rather than looking alarmed by the situation, merely observed their escape with the enthralled amusement of a man watching a sporting match. The daimyo's quiet confidence unsettled Jack, but that was the least of his worries as the armed retainers now rushed from their stations around the hall to head them off.

Jack and Akiko fought their way through, edging closer and closer to the double doors. Attacks came from all directions, but by battling back to back they managed to hold them off.

The double doors were now almost within reach ...

Like a crack of thunder, daimyo Kato clapped his hands together. The noise silenced the hall and all his samurai retainers withdrew. Jack and Akiko were left panting for breath, bewildered by the sudden retreat.

'I stand corrected, gaijin. You certainly don't disappoint,' stated daimyo Kato. 'You remind me of the legend of the Furious Frog. Unfailing courage against impossible odds.'

He looked around at the profusion of groaning and unconscious bodies littering his dojo.

'My men could learn a great deal from your fighting skills,' he admitted with begrudging admiration. 'But, as diverting as your little bid for freedom has been, I must quash your hopes of escape.'

He rapped the iron edge of his fan against a bronze gong, the shimmering ring filling their ears. The doors to the hall burst open and the dojo flooded with troops. Within seconds, Jack and Akiko were encircled by a ring of steel-tipped spears.

Daimyo Kato offered Akiko a pitying look. 'I warned you not to try anything.'

37.

Wraith Three torturous days ... three painfully long nights ... with neither sight nor sound of Akiko.

Jack had barely slept for worry. Had daimyo Kato killed her? Snapped her neck as he'd promised? Or was he torturing her? Making her pay for their defiance. After all, unlike Jack, she was of little value to the daimyo. The best he could hope for was that she was languishing in another foul cell like his, perhaps crouched in a damp filthy corner worrying about his fate. Jack pictured her sitting in the only light that came from a pale crescent moon, barely glimpsed through the bars of a tiny grate high in the wall. There was a chance she might be still alive, looking at that same moon. For three whole days Jack had clung to that dream. But now he felt it slipping from his grasp, a nightmare consuming every flicker of hope.

Daimyo Kato rules with an iron fist ... prides himself on the brutality of his samurai ...

In their situation, a quick death might have been the most merciful option. Jack shifted his position on the dirt floor and groaned, rubbing his bruised and battered ribs. The guards checked on him twice a day: to bring him food a thin rice gruel a jug of slimy water and, at the end of every visit, a fresh beating. Nothing that would permanently damage him for his presentation to the Shogun, but enough to make his stay in the cell as painful and unpleasant as possible.

A rat scuttled in the darkness and Jack batted it away with his foot. The creature had squeezed itself under the door and was looking for anything to eat. Jack shuddered at the thought that he might fall asleep, only to wake and find vermin gnawing on his hands or bare toes. He couldn't afford to lose another finger.

On the first night, Jack had explored every inch of his cell for a way out a loose bar in the grating, a weak panel in the door, a crumbling area of plaster in the wall. But his prison was secure, mostly below ground level at the base of the keep, the tiny grate his only view of the world outside.

Music now drifted down from the upper storeys of the fortress. Jack strained his ears to listen to the insistent twang of a shamisen, accompanied by the percussive beat of tsuzumi drums and the click-clack of wooden clappers. Every so often he'd catch bursts of laughter or applause, the joyous sounds seeming to mock his pitiful state. Judging by the night's frivolity, Jack guessed that the Shogun's samurai must have arrived and were being entertained by daimyo Kato. The samurai lord would be buoyant in the knowledge that he could demonstrate his loyalty to the Shogun in the highest possible manner by successfully capturing and delivering the infamous gaijin samurai.

Jack surrendered himself to despair. He'd been in many difficult and desperate situations before, when escape or salvation had seemed impossible. Yet, with the help of his friends, he had survived and overcome each one of those challenges and obstacles. But this time he realized there would be no one saving him no courageous last stand, no miracle escape. Because there were no friends to rescue him.

All of them were dead, destined to die or long gone.

Jack felt tears run down his cheeks in the darkness. There was no one here to see him cry, so he let them come all his grief, anger, frustration and sorrow in a single flood. The faces of his late friends swam before his eyes and he begged for their forgiveness. Although the Shogun was truly to blame, Jack felt responsible for leading them to their deaths for not insisting that he took his perilous journey alone.

As his sobs subsided, he thought of his little sister. He could see her now, standing on the Limehouse Docks in London to welcome him as his ship sailed in.

'I'm sorry,' he whispered, 'but I won't be coming home.'

Yet the Jess in his mind refused to hear him. She beckoned him on.

Although all logic told him to give up, it seemed as if his heart wouldn't let him. Jack composed himself. In honour of his friends' memories, he had to confront his fate like a true samurai. For the sake of the love he held for his family and needing to return home in his father's honour he had to be strong.

Wiping dry his tear-stained cheeks, his thoughts now turned to Benkei the friend who'd apparently betrayed them. Despite Akiko's conviction, Jack still found this notion hard to believe, especially after all they'd been through together. The conjuror might be a con artist, possess a silver tongue and be as slippery as an eel, but Jack was convinced he wasn't in league with the Shogun and his followers. Yet, even if Benkei was loyal, what could he do to help? Jack wouldn't blame Benkei if he was a hundred miles from Kumamoto and still running. It would be foolhardy for him to attempt any sort of rescue. He was a conjuror, not a trained warrior. He'd have more chance of flying to the moon and back. With its towering walls, complex of winding passages and vast garrison of samurai, Kumamoto Castle was an impregnable fortress. Jack couldn't see how anyone could breach the castle's defences not even a ninja.

With his head in his hands, Jack racked his brains for a way to escape. But he always came back to the same conclusion as before. Confined to his cell, it was only a matter of time before the Shogun's samurai took him away to Edo ... where he was condemned to die.

The door to his cell swung open.

Resigned to his fate, Jack waited for rough hands to grab him and haul him to his feet either to be beaten yet again or dragged off to face the Shogun.

But no guards appeared.

Instead, out of the inky darkness, a white-faced wraith floated into the room lips red as blood, eyes black as midnight, pale sea-green robes shimmering like ghostly waves in the barred moonlight.

Jack's breath caught in his throat. A tremor of shock rippled through him like a chill breeze. But it wasn't fear that seized him. It was recognition. The face of the apparition was one he now saw only in his dreams, its restless spirit forever destined to haunt him.

'I ... I ... tried to save you,' pleaded Jack. 'Save you all ...'

'Save me?' queried the wraith, the corner of its red mouth curling into a smile. 'Jack, I've come to rescue you.'

38.

Kabuki Girl The wraith took a step closer, concern etching its ashen face.

'Are you all right, Jack? The guards didn't seriously hurt you, did they?'

With a methodical yet familiar touch, the wraith carefully checked him over for injuries. Up close, Jack could see the waxy white make-up and thick layer of rouge on its lips.

'You're alive!' he gasped.

'Of course I am,' said the wraith, satisfied Jack was still in one piece, if a little battered. 'Now stop your mad act and let's get out of here.'

'But ... Miyuki ... you drowned,' Jack spluttered, unable to comprehend her miraculous resurrection.

'Do I look drowned?' she said, giving him a tender yet impatient smile.

Shaking his head, Jack stood and embraced her. 'I thought I'd lost you forever.'

'It'll take a lot more than a storm to lose me,' she whispered, hugging him with equal affection. 'Now get dressed.'

She grabbed a pile of clothes from the doorway and laid them at his feet. Still in a daze, Jack picked up the first garment a pretty pink obi with a cherry-blossom pattern. He rummaged through the rest of the items. A rose-coloured underslip, a bold red kimono with yellow and magenta chrysanthemums and long dangling sleeves, a set of white gloves, several ornate hairpins, a large ivory haircomb, two white tabi socks and a pair of wooden geta for his feet.

'But these are girl's clothes!' he exclaimed.

'Exactly,' said Miyuki, producing a black wig and fitting it on to his head. 'The perfect disguise for a ninja. You already know the art of Shichi H De, "the Seven Ways of Going". Well, this is the eighth! A kabuki girl.'

Miyuki held up the rose-coloured underslip for him to wear and averted her eyes. 'Hurry! We don't have long.'

Jack began to dress, then stopped. 'We have to find Akiko first ... if it's not too late.'

He bolted for the door, but Miyuki grabbed him.

'I already did,' she revealed.

'Then why isn't she here?' asked Jack, beginning to expect the worst.

Miyuki looked at him as if the reason was obvious. 'Because she's putting on her make-up.'

For a second Jack thought Miyuki was joking. Then it dawned on him Akiko was safe. Jack's heart almost burst with joy at the news. Only a short while before he'd been drowning in despair. Now he'd discovered both Miyuki and Akiko were alive and well. He grabbed his new clothes, impatient to be reunited.

'I found her in the first cell I looked in,' explained Miyuki as she helped Jack into the rest of his costume. 'She's just finishing off her disguise.'

'The kimono's rather ... tight,' complained Jack, stiffly moving his arms.

'I'm afraid Okuni didn't have anything larger in her wardrobe.'

'Okuni?' gasped Jack, as Miyuki tugged hard on the obi around his waist and tied it off in a willow knot.

Miyuki nodded. 'She and her kabuki troupe are upstairs performing to the daimyo as we speak.'

'They're helping us escape?'

'You've become a folk hero to them after everything you did to save their star performer,' she revealed, inserting the pins and comb into his black beehive of a wig. 'Next, we need to do your make-up.'

Miyuki took out a wooden box from her sleeve pocket and opened it to reveal a number of compartments. Each was filled with a different coloured powder or paste. Beside this, she placed a small jar of milky-coloured wax, several bamboo brushes, a piece of charcoal and a bowl into which she mixed some white powder and the remains of Jack's slimy water.

'Close your eyes,' she instructed, warming a dollop of wax between her hands and rubbing a thin layer over his face and neck. Then she loaded a bamboo brush with the white make-up and painted his exposed skin until it was as featureless as a snowdrift.

'That's the foundation layer done,' Miyuki explained, blotting the excess moisture with a sponge. She picked up the piece of charcoal. 'Don't move or even blink. I can't afford to make a mistake here.'

Jack sat still as a statue as she redrew his eyebrows, high on his forehead, in an expression of permanent astonishment which was exactly how he felt at seeing Miyuki again. He was bursting with questions, desperate to know how she had survived, how she had found him and, most importantly, whether she knew the fate of Yori or Saburo. But he understood there'd be time for answers later, once they had escaped daimyo Kato's clutches.

Jack gasped as he remembered the rutter.

'Stay still,' tutted Miyuki, trying not to smudge the charcoal line.

Although he hadn't seen daimyo Kato presented with his pack, the rutter was undoubtedly in the samurai lord's possession. And, in a castle this size, Jack could have no idea where it was being kept. With a sinking heart, he realized he had no choice but to leave his father's precious rutter behind.

'Keep your head up,' instructed Miyuki, carefully outlining his eyes in black.

Chewing on her lower lip as she worked, Miyuki then selected a thin rabbit-hair brush and highlighted the corners in a garish red hue.

'Purse your lips like this,' she told Jack, forming her mouth into a pout and looking like she might kiss him.

Jack mirrored her pose and she laughed.

'Not so fast, English boy,' she teased, dipping the brush in the same deep red paste and painting his mouth into the shape of bee-stung lips.

Dressed in girl's clothes and plastered in make-up, Jack had to admit he was feeling a little self-conscious. But, as a means of escape, he realized Miyuki's plan was both daring and their only chance. With so many sentries posted on the castle walls, Jack had to be invisible or, at least, unrecognizable.

Miyuki took a step back to admire her handiwork and grimaced at what she saw.

'What's wrong?' said Jack.

'I'm afraid that'll have to do,' she sighed.

A burst of giggles made them both turn round. Akiko stood in the doorway, dressed in a glorious mauve kimono with an ivory-coloured design of herons in flight. Like Jack, her face was painted white, her delicate features highlighted in black and red. But, unlike Jack, she looked divine.

Clapping a hand to her mouth, Akiko tried to suppress her laughter.

'Shh!' warned Miyuki, shooting her an annoyed look as she hurriedly repacked the make-up box.

'Sorry,' Akiko whispered, 'but I've never seen Jack look so ...'

'Pretty?' suggested Jack, tilting his head to one side and batting his eyelids.