Chapter 2.9

Katashi briefly considered contacting the Master personally since he was going to stay in the city, but what better way to make his pursuers think he had left than not to surface for several hours?  Besides I have already sent word and I was assigned this mission based on the trust of the Master. He expects me to handle this or he would have done it himself.

 

Katashi found the darkest portion of the alley he could and pulling a pile of refuse on to himself he sat unmoving in the Reposed Dragon stance for meditation.  There would be time to think through the intricacies of this plot later.  Now he must empty his mind and prepare his body and mind for the coming night.

 

Likely even the Master would have been impressed with his young disciple.  In the cold, wet, putrid alley, the young man reached such a state of detachment his breathing almost completely stopped and his mind lay receptive as field of freshly fallen snow.  He remained this way for several hours

 

As the darkness outside blended into the darkness of the alley, Katashi rose, pushing the rubbish off.  He took the most circuitous, hidden route he could think of to reach the Jade Monkey.  Slipping in the back door he came in through the kitchen and standing to the side of the order window, hissed for the barkeep, “Idasho.”

 

Katashi had to call him again and Idasho came through the doors back into the kitchen.

 

“Ah, Katashi.  Good to see you.  What can I—by the Great Sun God, what is that smell?”

~ by beinnsgriob on February 24, 2008.