Chapter 25
He gets through the first part of the kata fairly well, but just as he did the last three times he's tried it, he falls upon attempting a spinning kick balanced on his hand – the very same kick he was performing just fine last week. I curse inwardly at myself – you'd think knowing to get your students to keep practicing acquired skills even as you move on to the next one would be part of one's general knowledge and that, therefore, I wouldn't have forgotten it.
I help him up and force a smile in answer to his scowl.
"Try again," I instruct. "Just the kick. You and I both know you can do it."
He bows, takes a few steps back, and tries the spinning kick. He doesn't get his weight balanced quite right and so, falls again. He gets up and avoids my eyes.
"I'm sorry," he says. "I don't understand. I could do it last week!"
"There is no need to apologize; I should have kept you practicing it at least a bit every day. Try again, but this time, concentrate on your balance rather than on your kick."
"Yes Sensei."
He tries again, and although the kick itself is off target and weak, he doesn't fall.
"Good. Do it a few more times, always concentrating on your balance, until you're a bit more comfortable."
"I'm not a very good student, am I? We just went back one week."
"You're a perfectly fine student, and we did not go back a week: we're merely reviewing. You ARE a bit slow to follow instructions, however."
He takes the hint and repeats the move. After two more times, he starts getting impatient and tries for a better kick. He falls again.
"You need to be more patient. You weren't comfortable with your balance yet."
"I've been here for three weeks, and now I can't do what I was doing last week!" he cries out. "You can't tell me YOU don't mind!"
"Just the same, he's gone. We need to choose a new teacher for Tommy," the Hard Master says.
I try my best to keep my heart from hammering in fear the Hard Master will hear it and find me eavesdropping, but it's becoming harder. I've just found out that they all think the Seeing Master merely faked his death and now, I'm about to find out who my next sensei is going to be and I'll even get to hear why. My bet is on the Hard Master, since he's the best after the Seeing Master at sensory techniques and since he can also use the Ear That Sees.
"I was assuming you were going to take him, Brother," my father says. "Why wouldn't you?"
"For the sake of my other students," the Hard Master replies. "It's happened over and over again in this clan's history, and the Seeing Master is but the latest example: students like Tommy ruin their teachers."
Students like me? What's THAT supposed to mean? And I still need SOMEONE to teach me, don't I?
"So you're going to rotate Tomisaburo?" my father says. "Not assign him an actual sensei, just toss him around between everybody?"
"Yes," The Hard Master says, ignoring the obvious objection. "It has the added advantage that his training will be very well rounded."
I groan and grip my head in my hands, shaking it, before I can help myself. Another one, and AGAIN, I can't even figure out why the Order sent it. I never remember the implants once Mindbender removes them, but I do remember that I'm glad when he does because beyond being the way the Order is trying to brainwash me, the fake memories are usually disturbing. Yet, the four - five now - I've gotten since breaking Billy out are not remotely painful. If not for the fact I know where they come from and what the Order ultimately wants to do, they wouldn't bother me at all.
"Another vision?" Billy asks.
"Yes," I sigh. "Just as harmless as the other ones. And no, I don't mind doing again what we did last week. Minor setbacks are normal: you just need a lot of practice for the moves to become natural to you, and I didn't give you enough. That was my mistake, and no failing of your own. Try again, go back to concentrating on your balance; once you perfect that, the rest will be much easier."
He nods and tries again, going back to not falling but missing his kicks. I leave him to it and to clear my mind, get to work on my own katas. I try to incorporate some of the moves Snake Eyes has used against me, but out of all the ones he's pulled that I don't already know, I only manage to reproduce one.
I'm just about to drift off that night when Billy calls out from the other end of the room.
"Sensei? Can we talk?"
I sit up on my futon and turn my flashlight on, setting it on the floor next to me, pointing at the ceiling. His voice is shaky and something is obviously bothering him.
"Of course. What's bothering you?"
He sighs. "Look, I wouldn't even say this if not for the fact that I really do trust you. I don't think you're going to like this one bit."
I look at him questioningly. "You don't want to leave, do you? That really wouldn't be wise."
"No, it's not that. It's… it's about the Order, and Cobra, and those memory flashes you're getting."
I blink at him. I really can't imagine what there is to discuss.
"I think you've got things backwards," he continues. "I think Cobra erased your memories, and they already implanted false ones, and those flashes you're getting are real memories."
I'd laugh if he didn't sound so serious. I'm thrilled he finally trusts me enough to speak his mind even though he knows I'll disagree with him, but above that, I can't believe he's managed to get such a crazy theory into his head.
"Why would Cobra do that? I was already their natural ally against the Order, they would have had no need to go to such lengths to get me to help them."
He shakes his head.
"You don't understand. It's all false. Everything you think you remember is wrong. There's no such thing as the Order. GI Joe DOES work for the American government, and their primary function is to counter major terrorist organizations like Cobra. If anybody killed everyone in your family, it's Cobra."
I frown at him.
"When I first mentioned the Order to you, you knew what I was talking about. Are you now telling me you were only humouring me? That you always thought the Order was an urban legend?"
He swallows, but his eyes never leave mine.
"Yes," he says. "I was. I was scared, and I was just trying not to give you a reason to kill me. There are conspiracy theories about things like a secret World Order that actually runs things, but it's no more real than the aliens held up in Area 51."
I sigh and shake my head. I really thought he was aware of the Order… this is a huge disappointment. As long as he doesn't figure out the truth, he'll never agree to help Cobra and do what is needed to gain his father's forgiveness.
"I'm glad you now realize you don't need to hide this from me, but I believe you're the one who has been misled. Can we agree to disagree for now and go to sleep? Tomorrow, I can explain in more details why I know the Order is real."
"Are you going to let me argue back?"
"Absolutely; I wouldn't be able to refute your arguments if you didn't present them."
"Thank you, Sensei. Good night."
"Good night, Billy."
I lay awake for a while, long after he drifts to sleep. I don't think he's been brainwashed, unlike my brother, but the parallel between them is still disheartening. Despite my brave words, I'm far from certain that I'll be able to convince him he's been fooled all his life.
As worried as he was in his third week about being a poor student, Billy's turned out to be the opposite. Three more weeks have made a huge difference, to the point that I'm now training him to deflect and catch relatively slow and big projectiles (in other words, thrown weapons as opposed to bullets or arrows) with his movements and sense of direction slightly impaired (I suspended him upside down) and while blindfolded.
That being said, as good as his speed and reflexes have gotten, his technique is still basic. We're still looking at months before he can actually hope to win a fight where his opponent doesn't give up after throwing his weapon at him. Just the same, I'm delighted with his progress.
I'm far less happy with my progress in setting him straight about Cobra and the Order. Our training sessions are usually filled with arguments and counter arguments on whether the Order even exists, whether Cobra really does any good, and numbers of other questions that we both think have obvious, opposite from each other, answers.
Today's session is no different. I don't mind the running conversation, quite the opposite: it provides a distraction and a sound interference, both of which make it harder to catch the swords.
"Look, if it existed, more people would know about the Order," he states.
"Just because something is not widely known doesn't make it false," I point out as I throw a first wooden sword at him, aiming for his navel. "For instance, most people would tell you what you just did is impossible," I add as he catches the sword.
He smirks.
"You've had me sweating all night about catching swords blindfolded, and you throw me a piece of wood?"
I snort.
"I was trying to make you a bit nervous," I say, throwing another sword at him, aiming for his chest this time, "but I didn't think you'd fall for it completely. You really need to get it into your head that I am not in fact insane."
He catches the sword again and gets back on subject.
"Not insane; brainwashed. Big difference. Think about everyone you know who works for Cobra. Is there a single one that you think is a hero? Someone trying to do good?"
"The Commander," I answer. I throw another sword at him, with much less strength than the previous ones, aiming for his head. Not only will the weaker throw not injure him if he misses, it also tests his ability to adjust to different throwing speed.
"Oh puh-lease!" he cries out. He completely misses the sword, which hits him square on target. "OWW!"
He puts his hands to his forehead, cursing. I throw another sword, aiming for his left thigh. He misses that one too and curses louder.
"Stop!" he begs. "Time out!"
I roll my eyes and the next sword hits his right shoulder. He almost catches this one.
"No enemy is going to stop attacking just because they got a hit in, unless that hit killed you," I lecture, throwing my last sword, aiming at his navel again. He catches this one.
"Yes, Sensei," he sighs. "But honestly, the Commander? Of course you'd believe that if HE brainwashed you! That doesn't count! Name someone else."
"That's not a fair question; you know I hardly know most of them."
"Because everybody was been instructed to minimize contact with you to reduce the risk they'll screw up and forget to play along with that Order nonsense."
"I think you're starting to be affected by the blood rushing to your head. You can get down."
He lets himself down, takes the blindfold off and gives me The Look. I hate that look: it's a cross between the puppy dog eyes and a little boy watching a puppy dog getting hit by a car. It's like he's begging me to stop being hurt, and it's only made worse by the fact his teenage pride forces him to frown through it, too, in an attempt to look more manly.
"Training scenes, day-to-day life, harmless stuff… the Order wouldn't send memories like that. You're getting them because training me is reminding you of your own training, and Snake Eyes's training. I mean, if he's under the control of the Order, why hasn't he ever hurt you?"
"The Order wants me alive if at all possible. Besides, he once wrecked both my arms: I couldn't use them properly for weeks. As for the harmless memories, the Order is sending them because they want me to conclude what you have: that they must be real because there's no rhyme or reason to them."
"Okay, look. Let's try this: let's assume, just pretend, that the Order doesn't exist and run through what we know, see if it makes sense."
"We've been through this, Billy. It doesn't. Katas."
He scowls at me but starts his first daily kata.
"First thing we know:" I start, "the world is a horrible place for a lot of people. Sticking to the most obvious example: anyone living in a Third World Country. Richer countries are constantly donating millions and millions, yet people still starve or, if they're lucky, survive long enough to die of some disease that no longer exists in the rest of the world. This kind of misery enduring in spite of the rest of the planet trying to help can only be explained by…"
"… the donations not being enough, or local bad guys stealing them," he interrupts me – without slowing down or missing a beat, I'm pleased to see.
"And all the more privileged countries are just completely incapable of stopping those small time crooks?"
"I'm pretty sure it's more complicated than that - I think I read somewhere that some of the local governments steal donations. People wouldn't stand for it if it were just small time crooks."
"You're being naive. People 'stand' for it because they block it from their mind. Nobody can spend their days crying over the daily deaths of hundreds of people they've never met. They cope with the knowledge by narrowing their focus and throwing pocket money at the problem."
"Or in some cases, by inventing a single evil entity to blame for it all and 'fighting' it by trying to spread awareness," he says, referring to the few people in the world who do know about the Order, and who he thinks are nothing but delusional conspiracy theorists.
He finishes his first kata flawlessly and launches into his second one. I suppose it's not surprising he turned out to not believe the Order exists: teaching him would be too perfect, otherwise. I can't even fret over not fighting the Joes or talking to my brother because as near as I can tell, Cobra hasn't faced the Order's troops since I've left.
"While others simply claim things are complicated and wash their hands of it entirely," I counter.
I could continue to list the global horrors that make it obvious to me that whoever is running the place delights in misery, but we've been down that road several times and it has never lead anywhere. I decide to change strategy.
"Admitting that you can't help everyone and choosing to concentrate on what you CAN do is not washing your hands of the problem," he argues, still without slowing down. If nothing else, our talks have thought him to multitask.
"Granted. Let's narrow our focus, then. How do you explain what happened to me? If GI Joe were heroes, they would not have murdered my family and helped capture me."
"I don't think they did."
"I remember it happening."
He finishes his second kata and launches into the third one.
"That memory was implanted by Cobra; THEY captured you."
I laugh at that.
"Do you really think Cobra would have successfully taken out my entire family? A clan of over 200 ninjas? Billy, I assure you, the Cobra troops are quite incapable of doing anything close to that. Despite your father's best efforts, he hasn't had much success recruiting quality personnel."
As usual, the mention of his father breaks his concentration. He slows down for a moment before recovering.
"Start over," I instruct. "First kata."
"Yes Sensei," he shifts position and starts back his first kata. "Maybe they didn't. Maybe your family is still alive."
I frown.
"Now you're just getting desperate for arguments. If my family were still alive, they would be looking for me and by now, they would have found me. If your theory on GI Joe being heroes were correct, Snake Eyes would still be himself and he wouldn't have failed to tell the rest of my family where I was when it became obvious I believed him to be brainwashed and that I would not listen to him. He would have gotten them to help convince me."
He shakes his head and continues with his katas. I leave him to it, content to have given him something to think about. It's no good pushing further today anyway; it would only make him angry and he'd react by closing himself up to any logic. It's better for me to be patient and let him work it out by himself; he's intelligent, so he's bound to realize sooner than later that every absurd theory he comes up with crumbles when analyzed.
By the following morning, I deeply regret not having pushed the issue as much as I could every day since he's first brought it up: the Order has implanted a new memory in me while I was asleep. I thought it was a nightmare at first, but it didn't dissipate upon my waking up and once I was awake, there was no mistaking what it was.
In addition to having come to me in my sleep, this one differs from the others by the fact that where they were all so harmless lately as to make me wonder why the Order would bother making them up, this one still makes me shiver just thinking about it.
In it, I witness the murder of my uncle without being able to stop it, and end up running away following my other uncle sentencing me to death for the murder.
Even though I know it never happened, the memory is downright painful, because the Order has supplied me with the memory of what I would have been feeling if it had happened, and they haven't gone easy on those feelings. I'm fighting off a mishmash of guilt, horror, grieving, heartbreak, fear and uncertainty on what to do next.
If I'd been more insistent with Billy, less patient about his figuring out the truth on the Order and Cobra, he might be ready to go back to Cobra by now. As it is, even if the perfect redemption opportunity presented itself, I wouldn't be able to seize it.
His voice breaks me out of my thoughts.
"Tommy? Did you hear my move?"
I blink. We were playing blind chess on the way to the supermarket as a way to train his mind since physical training on the street is out of the question. I was so immersed in my own thoughts that I didn't, in fact, register whatever move he just made.
"I'm sorry," I say. "I was… distracted. How did you move?"
"Queen to G5. What distracted you? Another memory?" he asks in a whisper.
I frown at him. I know he thinks these lies are actual memories, but I'm in no mood to humour this terminology right now.
"No," I growl, keeping my voice low as well. "Another FAKE memory."
"I take it this one's not very nice?"
I take a deep breath to prevent myself from starting to shout – he's not responsible for what the Order is doing to me.
"No, it wasn't," I admit, still whispering. "I was accused of a murder I already felt bad for not preventing, and sentenced to death on the spot by someone I loved and trusted. I think the Order may have been sending the other ones just so this one would be more of a shock."
Billy's eyes widen and his pulse accelerates.
"You… you're kidding. Right?" he asks, still whispering so that the other passers-by can't hear. "You were accused of murder and sentenced to death on the spot? By your family?"
"Ninjas wouldn't go through the justice system if they determined someone was guilty of killing one of their own. Bishop to F4."
"Don't you see?" he protests. "Cobra didn't need to attack your family, you ran away because they thought you killed someone! Cobra only had to capture YOU, by yourself, and that's also why your family is not looking for you!"
I roll my eyes at him.
"If that were the case, they would be looking for me even more intently. They'd be hunting me down."
"But… but… I don't think… I… okay, maybe. Knight to B3. Checkmate."
I curse under my breath. I should never have thought him blind chess; he wins more often than not. He smirks at me.
"You know, I can't actually remember the board nearly as well as you can, so each time I win, it's with a handicap," he teases, adopting a normal tone again.
"That handicap is more than compensated by mine."
"What handicap?" he asks.
"Well obviously, I'm a terrible chess player."
He snickers and once again, our arguments on the Order are put on hold, this time by the fact we're now at the supermarket, surrounded by too many people to have a conversation about Cobra and the Order, even in whispers.
I bring the topic up again as soon as we get back to the Tower, and don't relent all evening, through dinner and his training. My efforts are wasted: he counters everything I say. This is becoming frustrating to say the least – I can deal with the one bothersome false memory I have now, but between that one and all the benign ones, I'm getting worried the Order will just wear me down and completely confuse me. And Mindbender's help is not an option as long as Billy is not back in the Commander's good graces, which he'll never be unless I finally convince him of the truth about Cobra because he'll never agree to do something good enough to win him forgiveness. I'm starting to get worried about the time frame, too: Mindbender has always made it clear that memories were more difficult to remove the longer I waited.
I go to bed with a headache and I'm so put out with Billy that I find myself thinking of pain tolerance training. I quickly brush the thoughts off as nothing more than a virtual lashing out in frustration on my part – he's nowhere near ready for that yet, he barely makes it through the day when we do endurance training.
Author's Notes:
There is a scene in the comic book where Storm Shadow places Billy upside down, blindfolded, and throws an actual sword at him. That's all well and good if he's done it plenty of time before, but it's my feeling that with only one apprentice, you would start with wooden swords if only to make sure you don't quickly end up with no apprentice and a body to dispose of. Good thing, too, considering the one Billy got in the noggin'.
With his flawless memory that should allow him to know 10 different winning games for any given position, you might be thinking Storm Shadow should be good at Chess. If he had ever made the effort to study it, he probably would be. He never has.
The bonus for this chapter is part two of the clan war story: it's violent, just to warn you.
Question: who would be interested in seeing some events from Snake Eyes' point of view? I'm thinking it may be interesting to do as a sort of companion story. It wouldn't be the whole story again, just a few select tidbits. I'm wondering because there are a bunch of such scenes that I could include as bonuses, but I'm going to run out of chapters to attach bonuses to fairly soon (I'm guessing there are only 7 or 8 left), and I'm thinking that particular series is the one that would stand on its own (as a posted story) the best. No guarantees I'd go through with it: I'm too slow a writer to ever make promises.