The big Cajun moved forward in his attack, feet sliding through the brown grass with a lightness that belied his mountainous size. Shouting a chilling war cry that was combination Marine Corps charge and martial arts ki-ai, Thibodaux brought the wooden sword crashing down toward the tip of Emiko Miyagi’s head.
Most anyone else would have wilted at such a ferocious attack, but Miyagi turned deftly to the side. Barely five feet tall, she was a mouse to the six-foot-four Cajun. In that same instant, she raised her own wooden sword so both hands were high above her head, letting the tip fall so her blade ran diagonally down her arm and shoulder, deflecting Thibodaux’s sword along its length toward the ground. Her movements were small, no greater than they needed to be, but were filled with such surety and force that her thick ponytail swung back and forth, brushing either side of her face as she moved.
Thibodaux leaned forward a hair farther than he should have as his sword hissed downward. Quinn grimaced, feeling pity for the big Cajun. He saw what was about to happen.
Keeping a high grip, Miyagi wheeled her sword in a great arc, bringing it up, then down, directly into Thibodaux’s centerline, before he could raise his again. She stopped an inch above his forehead.
“Shit!” Jacques said, freezing in place, his sword still pointed at the ground.
“Do not fret,” Miyagi said. “You would have felt little pain had it been a live blade instead of a bokken.”
“Yeah,” Thibodaux said. “That’s just what I wanted to hear. I know it’s supposed to help our footwork, but this Louisiana boy just don’t do swords.”
“You fight mixed martial arts.” Miyagi stepped back, sword held high and back at her shoulder like a baseball player in the batting box. “Add blade work to the mix.”
Thibodaux was in fact an MMA champion, fighting under the name Daux Boy.
He bowed, conceding defeat. “Thank you for the lesson.”
Miyagi’s agate-brown eyes shifted toward Quinn. It was the only cue that it was his turn to receive more instruction. They might rest. She never did.
“Do me a favor and kick her ass,” Thibodaux said under his breath as the two men passed. The Cajun slouched beside the stone lantern, nursing his wounded pride.
“Yes, Quinn-san,” Miyagi said. “Please. Show Mr. Muscleman how it is done.” The mysterious Japanese woman had taken to Quinn right off, but for some unknown reason, she had no love lost for Jacques.
Wooden bokken in hand, Quinn circled slowly, eyes intent on Emiko Miyagi.
“The objective,” Miyagi said, always teaching, “is to feel exactly where your blade is in relation to your body at all times.”
She strode forward, cutting down at Quinn. He used the same hands-high, tip-down technique she’d employed on Jacques to deflect the blade, first from an attack to his right, then immediate follow-up cuts to his left and then his right again. Wood cracked against wood, echoing off naked trees that surrounded the training area in Miyagi’s five-acre backyard, just a stone’s throw from Mount Vernon.
Apparently satisfied that he understood that particular block and the footwork that went with it, she retreated a few steps.
“When you scratch an itch,” she continued, her breath calm though she’d just tried to beat him to death with a stick, “you do not pause to think where your hand is located. You simply know. This is what you want with the blade. Notice I do not say the handle of your sword. I speak specifically of the blade. When you know where it is at all times, you may use it more effectively.”
She held her bokken low now in one hand and to her side so it trailed behind as if she was dragging it. She stood straight, hips loose and ready to move.
Quinn held his blade upward, a mirror image of hers. It was a technique she’d taught them called tsuki no kage or moon shadow, where the opponents mimic each other’s movements, looking for an opening.
Eyes fixed on each other, the two circled slowly, feet shuffling in the dead grass of winter in Miyagi’s walled retreat. She’d been training both men for a year and a half now, knocking off rough edges and filling in blanks left by traditional instructors.
The life of a hunter-killer had taught Quinn to be a natural skeptic, but he’d learned enough from this five-foot-tall, 115-pound enigma that if she said she could teach him how to fly, he would put his faith in her and jump off the roof. He had, of course, been beaten over the course of his fighting career, but not nearly so often and with as much consistency as Miyagi had been able to do it.
Thibodaux pointed out after one of their sessions that a hundred pounds of the woman was badass muscle — and fifteen was fighting heart.
Miyagi advanced without warning, bringing her sword around to thrust at his belly.
Quinn stepped to the side, seizing the opportunity to bring his blade down in an attack of his own now that she had committed herself.
Instead of countering, Miyagi continued her forward attack, striding past so she was directly behind Quinn. His sword hissed by her, missing by a fraction of an inch. He raised his arms to attack again as he turned, but he felt her spin behind him, grabbing his shoulders with both hands to swing her feet and legs upward and under his raised armpit. Her thighs clamped around his neck, muscular buttocks in the air. Her body hung straight down in front of him. He tried to raise his blade, but she swatted it away. With Miyagi inside his guard, there was little he could do with the cumbersome long sword. She bore down with her thighs, squeezing as he spun to throw her before she cut off all the blood to his brain. A half breath later, her wooden dagger touched the ribs under his heart.
He tapped her back to let her know he realized she had won. Her rump would have been more convenient, but he thought she might have used the dagger to greater effect had he tapped her there. She relaxed her legs and dropped to the grass, rolling to her feet with her wooden sword still in one hand, a wooden dagger in the other.
“Please remember,” she said as she stood, “just because you hold a sword, does not mean it is the only weapon you can use to win the battle.” Her voice was calm, absent the breathlessness even Quinn felt after such a bout.
Quinn bowed and walked over to Thibodaux to grab a drink from his water bottle.
“I told you to kick her ass”—the Cajun frowned—“not let her strangle you with it.”
The morning held on to its chill but Miyagi and both men were bathed in sweat.
She kept them going from the moment they arrived back at her house. Most of the training occurred on the five acres of traditional Japanese garden that was tucked in the hardwood forests behind the house, all of it surrounded by high walls of imposing gray stone.
After sparring and prior to yoga, Miyagi had changed into black tights and long-sleeve leotard of the same color. The men wore loose T-shirts and running shorts.
Inverted now in a yoga headstand, Miyagi craned her neck to look up at her two charges, brown eyes glinting in approval when they landed on Quinn but going dark when they fell on Thibodaux. Neither man was sure how old she was. She had the force of will common to mature women, a teacher who’d learned much in all her years, but her smooth complexion and physical vigor suggested she was much younger. When they sparred, Quinn guessed she was in her mid-thirties. When she spoke of strategy and combat philosophy, he thought she might very well have been a contemporary of Miyamoto Musashi, the sixteenth-century Japanese swordsman.