"Well done, Danny," Katou applauded. "Well done, indeed."
Danny smiled, stepped out of his fighting stance, mopped the sweat from his bow, and gave his tutor a respectful bow. He let out a long breath, pulling at his kendo uniform to cool off. He looked over towards the wall where Sam and Tucker were standing. Both were beaming at him.
It had been a month since the night of the ghostly ball. During that time, Danny had handled his training masterfully. From the one kanji, he and Katou had continued to work one on one, directing Danny's focus and practising concentration and patience. The ghost-boy took little time in learning all of the characters that his mentor assigned him, and calligraphy soon gave way to koryu, though some time had to be spent in rest – Katou's powder had healed Danny's ribs, but the pain and some internal wounds needed to vanish on their own. Learning patience first proved invaluable, as Katou took his sweet time in going over individual aspects of the martial arts one at a time.
First, he had Danny display all of his various ghostly abilities. The boy did so, and earned high praise from the samurai, who said that Danny had come quite far for one who was self-taught. It was decided, then, to focus on honing Danny's powers and merging them with koryu, rather than develop new ghost techniques. Day by day Danny was taught the steps, the attacks, and the parries of ancient Japanese martial arts. The training began slowly, going through practices beat by beat. Gradually, speed was added, and Katou began to conjure faceless ghost-figures for Danny to drill with. Eventually, master and pupil waged bouts with one another, and while Danny never managed to defeat the samurai, he progressed enough to hold his own. Ghostly powers were eased into the training as Katou found which koryu techniques best complimented Danny's spectral skills. The resulting blend was quite comfortable for Danny to perform. He had never had this much control over his powers before, and his new physical skill seemed to allow his supernatural energies to flow throughout his form with more grace than before.
Some time was spent with the katana sword, and Danny was given a kendo uniform to use in practice, but Danny was never taught more than the basic steps, cuts, and blocks. Katou's temper grew shorter during the lessons in the blade, and what sounded like disdain laced his voice as he described the techniques. Danny wondered why a samurai would spend so little time and have such a loathing for swordsmanship, and Sam had asked about it once and never received an answer. A deep personal issue seemed the only explanation, and so Danny never pressed the matter.
Today, Katou had been putting Danny through a review, using ghost-figures and energy targets. Everything was covered, from the most basic of ghost techniques to the most advanced steps of koryu. The ghost-boy had passed with flying colours.
"You've learned your steps well," Katou said as he returned Danny's bow. "Now, I should like to test your skills in a match."
The samurai drew his sword from his robes and set it aside. He stepped to face Danny, moving into a fighting stance. Danny grinned, and adopted a similar pose. He was feeling confident. Maybe today he'd actually trump his trainer.
As he did every time they sparred, Katou stepped back into a defensive position, giving Danny the right to attack. He did so, combining a leaping kick with a sharp wave of ghost-energy. A whirling block from Katou produced an ecto-shield, disintegrating the blast. The samurai flew forward, twin ecto-beams coming from his eyes. Danny opened a hole in his head, letting the blasts fly through. But as he reassembled the top of his body and prepared to strike back, Katou teleported.
"Nice try, Katou," Danny called out. He had been caught by this move several times before, but he knew better by now. He jumped straight up and took flight towards the ceiling. As he looked down, he saw Katou reassemble, throwing a glowing fist at the spot where the back of Danny's head had just been.
Katou looked up at his pupil, beaming. "Very good," he nodded. "You're learning."
Danny smirked and flew down, a green glow surrounding his feet. Katou moved off to the side, and the energy caused Danny to bounce up as his feet made contact with the ground. He flipped over in the air as Katou vanished again, and landed on the far-left side of the room. He watched as Katou materialised, facing the right and glancing around.
Danny's smile grew wider as he silently charged a blast at the tip of his fingers. He whisked around to Katou's left –his blind side. He moved forward, ready to strike.
Katou turned his head just in time to see Danny coming. He threw up a shield, charged a blast far more powerful than anything he had allowed in practice, and sent Danny crashing just left of the door out of the building, falling to the floor in a heap. Danny pulled himself up into a sitting position, shaking his head and leaning against the wall. As he sat, he winced. That had hurt!
He looked up to see Katou float over, standing over Danny with his arms crossed and a dreadful scowl across his face.
"What was that for?" Tucker yelled out, incredulous.
"Yeah! What did I do?" Danny demanded.
"So, you'd attack a blind man in his most vulnerable spot, would you?" Katou hissed out, his breath deadly cold.
"…Well…" Danny started, but he couldn't get any further. That was exactly what he had tried to do. "…We were fighting!" he finally protested. "You really think Plasmius and the Fright Knight aren't gonna try something like that?"
Katou's grimace grew more severe, the lines of his scars twisting into truly horrible expressions. "If your opponent is weak in a certain defence, then to press that is battle strategy," he said, his voice shaking with barely suppressed rage. "If an adversary attempts foul play and you move against it, that is defence and counter-attack. But," he declared his voice now in a full, loud roar, "to take advantage of such handicaps, physical or mental, leaves you no better than Plasmius! He would do that to you? Then that is precisely why you cannot do the same to your opponents! To do what they are willing to do leaves you as dishonourable as they! Surely you would have realised this by now, after all the battles you've faced in your life!"
Katou was shaking with anger, pulling breaths in through clenched teeth. Danny had never seen him so angry before. He tried to think of a defence for himself, but found he could only manage to bow his head in shame. He had realised before, in battles with Plasmius and others, the importance of morals in battle. And Katou may have been strong enough to take that hit, but what if had been some weak ghost like The Box Ghost, that was a mere annoyance and no real threat?
"I…" Danny sighed, unable to finish. He put a hand to his face, hiding his eyes from Katou's. He'd done worse in his time, but that reprimand made him feel lower than he'd ever felt before. Some pick Clockwork had made for the one to stop Tá eagla orm.
So great was his surprise when he heard Katou say…
"No…no, I'm sorry, Danny." The voice was full of regret and shame.
The ghost-boy looked up. Intense anger and then immense shame. Was Katou feeling all right today?
"That's all for today," the samurai sighed, covering his face with his hands. "I'll see you tomorrow." He walked over to his sword, put it back in his sash, and walked down to the basement.
Danny stared after him, baffled.
---
Katou threw himself down into a chair in the basement with a heavy sigh. He listened as he heard the trio filing out of the building, shutting the door behind them. Slowly he leaned back in the chair, his head resting against the top of the back of it.
He sighed again and covered his face in shame.
Why?
Danny may have needed the lesson about taking advantage of such weakness, but there were far better ways to convey it. Striking him in that way was an act of rank hypocrisy. In the past, he never would have acted that way to such behaviour in training.
If only it were not for Vlad.
Katou had grown very fond of Danny in the time they'd spent together. He was a fine young man, with a strong character and lovely friends. He was not without faults, and he still questioned his role in Tá eagla orm. But he was a good boy. He listened, he accepted his training, and yet he was willing to question and disagree. At times he was rude, but in his heart he was kind. In some ways, he reminded Katou of his life as a young pupil before becoming a full-fledged samurai.
And here Katou was, lying to the boy about his past and masking his reasons for his irritation with swordsmanship and breaches of honour.
There was no benefit to hiding the truth at this point. He had Danny's trust – it was best for him to come clean with the truth, than let it be revealed in a less pleasant way that would break their friendship. And Sam was already suspicious of the samurai's past. He'd been over this so many times in his head. It made no sense to continue living a lie.
But the boy's history with Vlad made him hesitate.
Katou reached for a bottle of concentrated blue ectoplasm, materialised a glass, and poured himself a drink. This liquid always calmed his nerves and helped him think.
Unfortunately, this was as much an issue with his heart as with his logic.
---
"I can't believe he blasted you into the wall!" Tucker said, still brooding over Katou's actions.
The trio had assembled at the Nasty Burger for dinner. Danny had changed back into his regular clothes, and they'd not said anything about training on the way here. But once they had sat down and gotten their food, Tucker began to express his irate attitude towards the samurai's actions.
"No," Danny sighed. "He was right. I shouldn't have done that!"
"And he shouldn't blast you into the wall for mistakes!"
Danny sighed again, letting his hair fall over his eyes. "Tuck, it's a big deal for him. He told me this story about how he had two friends, one when he was a samurai and the other when he was a ghost. They both betrayed him. He cares about that kind of stuff," he groaned. "I knew Clockwork picked the wrong kid for this."
"If Katou cares so much, why'd he blast you into the wall?" Tuck shot back.
"What do you think, Sam?" Danny turned towards the goth girl, who gulped down a piece of her veggie burger and thought on what to say.
Sam, too, felt that Katou shouldn't have done that to Danny, although she did see his point about weaknesses. But the blast worried her for other reasons. Katou, despite his nervous attitude, was well in control of his emotions most of the time. The most they'd ever gotten from him was a raised voice for a few words. And yet he still seemed to be hesitant, unsure, and hiding something. The brief glimpses they'd received into his past and his hesitation on names still rankled with Sam. And she still wondered about him and Plasmius both knowing where one of the artefacts was kept.
She still couldn't believe that Katou was against them; Clockwork could never overlook that. But she just didn't know about the samurai anymore.
"Do you guys think Katou's acting a bit…funny?" Sam asked her friends, ignoring Danny's question.
"What do you mean?" Danny asked.
"I dunno. He's just so nervous about all this, and every time we bring up his past, he gets all quiet about it. And – "
She stopped short of bringing up the sceptre. The last thing Danny needed right now was to think that his teacher was involved with Plasmius.
"And…and he just seems sad a lot," she finished, though not as convincingly as she'd hoped to sound. Fortunately, the hesitant tone went over the head of her teenaged boy companions.
"Sam, he's supposed to teach a kid with no idea how to control his powers how to fight to save the world. Of course he's nervous!" Danny said, throwing his hands up.
"And he's old. He's probably got nerves," Tucker shrugged. "Hey…I bet that's why he threw you into the wall!"
Sam sighed. What was the point in trying to get through such thick skulls?
"Forget it," she said. "I just hope we start looking for those artefacts again. If we wait much longer, Plasmius and the others would have picked them all up."
---
The horned yeti fled, abandoning its now useless weapon in the deep snow. While its speed was great, it could hardly stay away from the soaring Knight. The ancient crusader brought the Soul Shredder down in a decisive swipe, striking the beast to the icy ground. Seconds later, it had vanished, condemned to live out its worst fears for time eternal.
The Fright Knight flipped around in the air and landed, making sure to balance his weight in the snow as he surveyed the scene. The hairy beasts were all on the run as Plasmius and several of his hired hands and animal experiments charged forward, firing off the latest in Dalv Corp's spectral weaponry. Up on high, Aragon soared as a dragon, sending down a rain of fire. Phantom remained on the sidelines, occasionally blasting at a pitiful monster that had already thrown down its weapon and begun to retreat. Pariah's servants pressed their attack, destroying weapons and blasting away at the creatures. The rewards were quick in coming. Though the Knight conceded that the yetis were dedicated and capable foes, he and his company had steadily driven the behemoths back, away from the prize that Pariah sought.
When the Knight had first read the map to the balance, he had found himself apprehensive. This frozen region of The Ghost Zone was home to a great civilisation, one of the few that had never fallen to Pariah. But further cryptography did away with his fear. The precise location was uninhabited even by the yetis who ruled this land. It was too cold and harsh even for they – but ideal for placing sacred shrines or hidden treasures.
An ancient temple stood before the conquerors, covered in snow and glaze. With a square base and three great curved towers supported by pillars, the site held all the markings of a once-great shrine: statues and decorations lining the edges of the roof, eroded and faded by exposure to the cold; casings of gold and silver on spires at the tops of the towers, shrouded in ice; and damage to the roof. No doors blocked entry.
Plasmius dismissed his creatures and comrades, and Aragon soared down, returning to his princely state in a spew of fire. The Knight hung his sword on his belt and led the march in. The breaks in the roof allowed faint beams of light to filter down into the temple, but the Knight nevertheless had to use his flaming cloak as a torch.
The interior was a long corridor lined with pillars. At the back, up against the wall and precisely centred, was a beautiful stylised silver statue of Clockwork. He had been imagined with legs, which were here folded as if he were in meditation. Behind him, twelve depictions of his staff pointed to the twelve points of the clock. But this piece, central to the room and grandest site within it, was but one of many fantastic works of art. Every pillar and every wall was covered in paint or tapestry depicting great beasts and histories and legends of times in The Ghost Zone long forgotten. Dragons and lords and ladies and monsters all danced across fine weaving and flew across the painted brick of the building. Clockwork was featured in many of these tales, intervening when the Observants attempted to alter time and awarding opportunities and second chances to great heroes. But one story without the Master of Time on the left wall called to the Knight. In this series of renderings, Pariah rose, was faced by the Ancients, fell, and had his power distributed among the artefacts. In the last brick, the balance was shown being handed by one of the Ancients to a yeti with an icy hand, and being carried into the temple and placed to the left of the silver Time Lord.
The Knight drew his blade and tapped on the bricks above and below that last image with the sword's pommel. Both bricks were solid. He tried the two on the side; both solid. Lastly, he tapped on the one brick itself. The sound clearly echoed down a small chamber and back.
The Knight set his sword on the floor and went to work, carefully feeling the edges of the last brick in the story for a way to remove the front without damage. The temple was still in rather fair condition, but he couldn't be sure if the wrong disturbance couldn't cause a cave-in on the party. But Phantom seemed to have other ideas. No sooner had the Knight found the right corner and begun to tug when the future spectre shoved him aside and thrust his fist forward, shattering the stone into pieces. Behind the façade rested the golden balance of Pariah, with a small flaming crown topping the central beam.
Phantom grabbed the relic from out the hidden chamber and unceremoniously tossed it over his shoulder towards Aragon, who scrambled forward to catch it. The Prince opened his mouth as if to say something, but instead just glared at the devil incredulously.
The Knight shook his head. He neither trusted nor liked the ghost-child's future self, but it was difficult not to pity one who was so clearly digging his own grave.
"Let us return to the Keep," he said. "Plasmius, should we contact Skulker and see how his quest is moving?"
Before an answer could be given, a yeti leapt out from behind Clockwork's depiction, snarling like a beast. It rammed the Knight, taking him off his feet, and grabbed at the Soul Shredder. Raising it high over its head, it lashed out at the Knight, who just rolled to the side. The ancient soldier flipped up on his feet and backed away, dodging every wild swing the crazed creature threw at him as quickly as possible. Still in shock from the attack, he found himself in several close calls, and his flaming cape was once caught in a swipe, leaving its violet glow at the edge of the blade.
The Knight stammered backward, looking for some shield to defend himself. He couldn't get hit with the blade…he couldn't…
Crimson collided with the yeti before it could manage another attack, and the beast smashed up against a pillar, dropping the sword. The Knight retrieved his sword, but noticed the glares being thrown at him from the smoky-handed Plasmius and the snippy Prince.
"What was that?" Plasmius asked drolly, arching an eyebrow.
"Cowardice, you fool," Aragon sneered. "The Fright Knight is weak."
"No!" the Knight protested. "I am the Spirit of Halloween! I am no coward! I am merely as endangered by my blade as any other. And, should it strike me, it would be without a master. Any irresponsible fool could claim it as their own."
"I still call it weakness," Aragon said with a sniff. "You fled without attempting any defence and recovery of your blade. Lord Pariah will hear of this."
"Enough," Plasmius sighed as he rolled his eyes.
"Do not dare to speak to me in – " Aragon began.
" – In such a way. Yes, thank you. But we must be returning to the Keep and checking up on Skulker. Tah."
Plasmius rose into the air and flew out from the front door, not looking back once to see if he were being followed. Throwing the Knight one more glare, Aragon followed suit. The Knight sighed and sheathed his blade. Perhaps he had begun to panic and not thought to mount a defence. But the Soul Shredder was a great burden to carry. He would plead his case to Pariah should he be accused of cowardice. While that tactic often failed, once in a blue moon he managed to win the king's favour. He too flew out of the ancient temple.
He and his comrades all failed to notice the covetous look and hungry mouth that had appeared on Phantom's face from the moment he had heard what could become of the Soul Shredder, should the Knight lose control of it.