Narrow Escape

By Johan Zulkefli

In the world where the warriors exist, there will be a strong power to come to claim as a ruler. A leader of a ninja clan appears with a biological knowledge and uses his cognitive content to develop a new type of virus to create a bedlam toward other ninja clans.

Izuna, in his late teenage years, has been dispatched on a mission to retrieve a lady from another clan who possesses an antibody against that virus. In a journey full of jeopardy in every corner, a man emerges as a threat in silence. At the same time, who is that mysterious woman in the cloak? Why is she so keen to hunt him down?

Justice, mankind, confusion, hatred, vengeance, and loveall of that are mixed together. In order to bring back serenity in their entire country, he needs to accomplish his mission, one way or another. Thats it. Run, run, and keep running even if it is so hard to face it. Live. You need to live and struggle to survive, to find peace, and bring it to brighten up the world.

Is that horrifying virus outbreak really their main trouble?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jul 18, 2017
• ISBN: 9781543742343

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Johan Zulkefli.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5437-4235-0

                eBook         978-1-5437-4234-3

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Toll Free 800 101 2657 (Singapore)

Toll Free 1 800 81 7340 (Malaysia)

www.partridgepublishing.com/singapore

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

Characters

References

Chapter 1 Trail Of The Darkness

Chapter 2 The Path Has Been Chosen

Chapter 3 Will-O’-The-Wisp

Chapter 4 Wake Up From The Dreams

Chapter 5 The Rough Past

Chapter 6 History Behind The Lightning Style

Chapter 7 Trustworthy Friends

Chapter 8 Does Who Play With Fire

Chapter 9 Look On The Bright Side

Chapter 10 Under The Rainy Night

Chapter 11 The Power

Chapter 12 Bad Blood

Chapter 13 Camouflage

Chapter 14 The Betrayer Among Us

Chapter 15 Fallen Lotus

Chapter 16 Our New Member

Biography

Endnotes

DEDICATION

Mrs. Nur Husna binti Mohammad

• My English Teacher in SMK Nenasi

Mrs. Rosnaza binti Abdul Razak

• Senior Assistant of Student Affair, SMK Nenasi 2016

INTRODUCTION

N arrow Escape is a fictitious story that takes place in a fictional universe known as a shinobi-no-sekai ¹. The characters, places, weapons, and a few other things that named in this novel are based on Japanese elements. There are no any specifying events, era, and location in a real world.

The entire story line base on this novel may be not happened in a real world. This novel is just a tale of a fictitious character that is live in foreign world without a specific time period that included a few modern elements, and actually doesn’t exist in this true world.

The main protagonist in Narrow Escape named Izuna Haruka who strive the challenges to live a life in a ninja world. Thriving, and not just surviving.

The story, all names, characters and incidents portrayed in this novel are fictitious. No identification with actual persons, places, buildings and the story line is intended or should be inferred.

CHARACTERS

NE-170312;List%20of%20CharactersV06.jpg

REFERENCES

Chapter 1

TRAIL OF THE DARKNESS

Huh, huh I breathe slowly as to round up the rest of my energy, and slowly I open my eyes. In the dead of the night, there is the sound of the banging door. It is a rainy night with the shrieking wind, and there is a flash of lightning followed by a rumble of thunder. What am I doing here? Where have the others gone? Where’s my clan? There is a ton of questions in my mind, and even I don’t know how I can flop down here just now.

The mission is still not over! Suddenly, I remember some of the important things, and I quickly gather my weapons that have fallen on the ground.

It is a dark forest. I walk slowly due to my injured left hand. In this state, I need to be extremely careful with any threat either from the wild beasts or the not peaceful soul. I try to walk towards the sound of the banging door. Suddenly, I’m at an old mansion. My instinct tells me this is Professor Misaki Hirayashi’s fortress. I make my way through the gate that surrounds the mansion, and I stand in front of the big door with some sort of clan insignia on it.

Huh? What a horrifying nightmare. I sigh slowly. That emblem is quite familiar to me. It denotes Shirai clan, the traditional rival of my clan. It drives me up the wall when I see that insignia. Without thinking any further, I kick that big door and infiltrate the mansion.

What the hell? I am attacked by the worst creature as soon as I get through. It looks like a horrible man with a large amount of blood flowing from his mouth. With the rest of my energy, I grip my fist and hook his head, causing him to stumble onto the ground. Not wasting my time, I grab my katana² on my back and stab his head.

Iz… Izu… Izuna! My name is called. I search for that stuttered voice. When I find the source of the voice, I immediately make my way to the man, who is leaning on the wall with a huge amount of blood coming from his body.

Kagama? Is that you? Where’s Master Hazashi? Where are the others? And what the hell is going on here?

Without answering any of my questions, he replies in an exhausted voice, Izuna, Master Hazashi has dispatched you on a rescue mission. He counted on me to deliver this message to you. Our country has been infected with the C-Veronica virus, spread by water. It was developed by that bastard Shirai clan, our nemesis!³

My soul feels like it has been torn apart when I hear what has happened to our country. Then, Kagama continues the story. You need to track down and rescue a lady named Namiko Takeda, the daughter of the late Master Takeda of the Yuri clan. Her blood and genome have an antibody for that virus, which can be used for making the vaccine. My time has run out. I need to go with you, but now I have failed. I am sorry, Izuna. Now go! You are our only hope. The world depends on you. You are the most talented fighter among us. Go! For the sake of long-live-humanity and for the honour of our Izanagi clan! Bring the spirit of the vow that you made on your own katana!

After he tells me everything, he hands me a scroll I need to give to Master Hazashi as soon as I succeed in this new mission. After a few seconds, Kagama drew his last breath. It is sad to see my comrade pass away in such a pathetic way.

I will not fail you, Kagama.

After that moment, I have no desire to look into this mansion. I have no time because I need to look after Namiko Takeda immediately. When I walk out of the mansion, I see a group of people outside the mansion’s gate. They look like… indescribable.

This is insane. I sigh. Actually, they are the zombies infected by the C-Veronica virus. I didn’t expect this would happen so soon. In addition, I injured my left hand. A peal of thunder booms in the distance and it starts raining cats and dogs. I have a bad feeling about this, I say to myself. In this situation, there is no other way except to carry on with whatever comes up - no matter how hard the situation is. I grab my katana firmly. Here I come! I crash into the group of zombies with the full power of a sword-bearer. The number of those zombies right now is not a big problem for me.

After an intense hack and slash action, I feel more confident about completing my mission as soon as possible. From now on, I need to deal with the Shirai clan and those zombies. On my way to Yuri resident, I face too many threats. Fortunately, I managed to face them. Huff, finally! I say to myself with the spirit of a warrior to face another challenge as soon as I reached Yuri resident. But it is too late. The village has been ruined, and many Yuri warriors have been torn apart. The dark night slowly crawls by, and the dawn approaches.

Chapter 2

THE PATH HAS BEEN CHOSEN

T he sun radiates in the early morning. Even the darkness starts to embrace the day. I walk through the chaos. Yuri resident has changed into the village of the dead. I try to investigate if there are any survivors. Fingers crossed, I head to the Ashikaga town hall.

A loud sound echoes. I know there is a group of warriors around. Suddenly, three Shirai warriors charge towards me. Maybe they already noticed that I arrived. Without trying to draw my weapon, I face them with my bare hands. One of them rushes towards me with the straight katana and tries to stab my face. I perform a backflip to dodge his attack. Suddenly, another one comes with his fist up, forcing me to parry it and kick his head.

Then they separate into three directions, and I am completely surrounded by their triangle siege formation. Retreat or we’ll slay you! They try to threaten me.

"This is just a cliché⁴ formation for the three-man cell⁵ ninjas like you. Come on! Do as you wish!" I reply with calm and confidence. After that, they charge towards me simultaneously. I have no time to playing around cause I need to rush to the remaining Yuri brethren as soon as possible. But, I am amazed by these three ninjas. Their teamwork in three-man cell is impressive and makes their level and mine on par. At this rate, it takes much effort to win this fight. If they work together, they can achieve my level. It means if one’s down, then I can easily bring down the other two.

I am still fighting while my mind tries to find the best strategy to win. Then one of them connects his fist to my cheek, causing me to leap backwards. Huh, not bad. I think.

Ha! What happened to you? Done already? They try to taunt me, but it doesn’t make sense. In this situation, the one who is faster will win this fight. We rush towards each other. What? The two of them are shocked as I manage to avoid their sharp katanas by simply rolling. I land my arm to the third person’s throat and perform the neck breaker.⁶ Now it looks like the winning chance in this fight is on my side. One of them is down with only a single blow. The expressions on the others’ faces show me they are starting to frighten.

You need to confess your sins to all souls you have taken. In other words, you need to be killed. I will show you no mercy! I say as I slowly approach them.

Suddenly, one of them charges towards me and performs cross slash, slash, upper slash. But it is useless as I manage to dodge all his attacks. When he attempts to stab me, I grip his hand successfully and choke his throat, causing him to drop his katana to the ground. I throw him to the ground and stomp him. Using his own katana, I stab him to death.

Meanwhile, the last one shudders at witnessing the deaths of his comrades. In fear, the last person kneels and puts down his katana. He orders me to kill him with his katana. It is my first time to see such a pathetic spirit of a ninja like him. I approach and kick his weapon back to him. I want to fight you as a ninja. I will not kill the one who has lost his pride as a ninja. Now go! I let you go this time to forge your spirit as a ninja, and do not come to fight with me again until you are ready to face the pain, I say to him as I teach the fellow ninja.

It makes me remember the time when I am 15 years old. It was a time when I am already ranked as jounin⁷, and I got two fellow ninja under my leadership. The peace is still remained on that day. Even it will cost my life I did the best in order to protect them. I trained the day by day to become even stronger than others. But, when I am 17 years old, I was failed. If I be in time, maybe I will not force to witnessing the two of them get killed by that merciless Shirai clan. It was a pathetic moment, and I will never forget it.

The last man of those three ninjas takes back his katana and run away. Then I make my way to the Ashikaga town hall. There are three Yuri brethren against seven Shirai ninjas. I throw a few kunai⁸ from inside my pouch, and it is successfully penetrated the enemy’s head. Did I am in time?! I shouted to the Yuri survivors with a smile, and make a battle stop for a while.

Finally, I come to them and fight on their side. All of a sudden, someone come and orders all of us to stop fighting. Enough! Stop all of this nonsense! That voice, I know that voice, it is familiar for me. Yes, he is… He is Takashi of Izanagi. He appears with two Shirai ninjas beside him. It looks like the two of them are accompany him. I have a bad feeling about this.

Takashi! What are you doing here? Say, are you come here to lend me a hand? I ask Takashi with full of hope. But, there is something not going well. He gives me a sarcastic sight. I think the bad situation has come to worst. Then, he slowly shows off his big sickle as I speechless. At this rate, I need to face this situation vigilantly.

Chapter%202v06.jpg

There’s no hope left. He speaks calmly and charges towards me unexpectedly. It is too dangerous for Yuri brethren to stand beside me.

Retreat! I order my new comrades to fall back. I parry his attacks with my legs step backwards as he moving forwards. His attacks are advance by the time. In this terrible situation, there is no point for me to keep avoid and parry his attacks. I must perform counter-attack and fight him even come rain or shine. Protecting the remaining Yuri survivors is the top priority. Because they have witnessing this chaotic situation in their own resident until it totally ruin. There are so many information I need to gather from them.

It is afternoon and seems the sky is overcast. Huff… What happen to you, Izuna? Is that all what you’ve got, son of the Izanagi-Shadow-Lightning, hero of the past? I expect you are the most completed fighter to challenge me. But, you’re still too naïve, Izuna. He tries to taunt me, it makes me confuse. I don’t want to fight with him, but the reality is not on my side.

Meanwhile, my comrades have been caught into an intense battle, with those Shirai ninjas. Come on, Izuna, I will give you a chance to choose your path, let’s join us, we will serve Shirai clan and rule the world! He offers me to betray my clan, just like what he did. His eyes are able to see the darkness clearly. There is no hope to lighten him back. In order to stop him and stop much destructions on this world, he must been slain. Otherwise, the situation will come very difficult.

We continue fight with each other. Maybe it will be an epic fight between the light and the darkness. Taka… Takashi! Huff… Please stop this at once, please back to your sense. You should be able to understand how wrong you are! This fight has wasted too much time.

Suddenly, there are Shirai knights rush towards us. Takashi and I use rolling acrobatic movements to avoid those knights. I see a woman with those knights. Maybe they just want to take her as a hostage. At the same time, the remaining Shirai ninjas accompany Takashi and get into the separate way. Wait… That’s lady! It must be Yuri Princess, Namiko Takeda. I utter softly to myself.

Takashi is the one who know what the motive on this virus outbreak. But in other way, I need to identify who is that lady. I have been caught into the ultimate decision. I need to track down and rescue Namiko. But I really want to know who are behind all of this. And I guess Takashi is the worthy one who needs to explain it to me.

No!! It is Takeda’s daughter! Sir! Please go and rescue Yuri Princess. Let three of us hunt down Takashi. You can count on us. So now, I know that lady is Namiko. But Shirai clan kidnap her and run away using a ride, it is impossible for me, to catch their speed at this rate.

Forget about Takashi for a while. Let us rescue Yuri Princess together. She is the key for the peace of this world and mankind. I have been dispatched by my master to rescue Namiko. I need your help in order to track her down immediately. I say to