A Ninja Story
Chapter l
Journey
Hey, my name is Jotoro. I am from a small village in northern Japan called Yuki
Nomura meaning Village of Bravery. I have just been accepted into a ninja gakko which means ninja school. It first began when my parents woke up and gave me a breakfast of leftovers from yesterday's breakfast. As you can see, my parents weren’t particularly rich so we almost always had leftovers. After breakfast I said goodbye to my mama and otosan, meaning dad. I took our only basket which would definitely fit all my clothes, for I didn’t own much of anything. I set out along the farm that we owned on the edge of the town and kept going for almost twenty miles. After a while my back became sore from riding and I set camp for the night.
Now, back then the trees were much bigger and there were more of them
because not many people cut down trees in Japan at that time. Anyway, while I was
setting camp I started hearing cricket chirps that pierced the darkness like needles. I
was going to sleep when I heard wolves howling at the moon like dogs howl to get in.
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In the morning I packed up the horse and set off again. It was perfect weather for traveling, a light breeze and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. At about noon I got hungry so I dismounted to get some food from my pack and let the horse eat. After I was full I climbed up a hill to see if I could spot the school, for I was very eager to arrive and meet the teachers and get to use the bokken, or training sword, but, unfortunately I could not see it. When I started to ride I looked out to see if I could get some water because I was running low. At about seven forty five I saw the gakko and by eight I was there. I was so excited to get started I almost forgot to get off my horse!
I went to the front part of the school which overlooked a river running through the canyon. Once I got there I met the head sensei of the ninja clan which was called the Mausu clan, meaning mouse clan, because it’s not that big and is known for being very quiet. One thing I don’t know is if we will send messages from lord to lord or if we will be spies. Anyway, I met with the sensei and he said that his name is Kuma, meaning bear. Kuma told me that I would sleep in a hut near the woods. We walked out and I couldn’t see it, but then he lifted some vines and I found a mini house with everything I would need to live. “Am I the only one sleeping here?” I asked.
“No you will have a roommate named Gon,” he replied.
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“When will he be here?” I asked.
”Oh, any minute now.” All of a sudden I heard hoofbeats outside. I looked, and
sure enough there was a boy riding up the path on a very well groomed black and gold horse. I could tell almost immediately that he was much richer then my family ever was.
Chapter II
Friends
When I went up to meet Gon I noticed that he had a servant with him. The first
thing that the sensei said to Gon was, “Tell your servant to go.” After the servant left, Kuma showed Gon our hut and the sensei told us to go to the armoury to learn more about the weapons. The first weapons Gon and I looked at were the shuriken. They were so cool! We saw ninja using shuriken that had probably been in the school a lot longer than us. ”I wonder if we'll ever be able to use the shuriken.” Gon said. I didn’t know.
After we learned about the shuriken we learned about the katana, which is the long sword, and some stick thing that had blades on the end of it and which I had no
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idea what it was called. After all that Kuma said, “I hope you boys learned a lot about our weapons because tomorrow you are going to try some of these weapons out!”
“NO WAY!” me and Gon said at almost the same time!
In our cabin we started to get ready for sleep. While we were trying to get to
sleep I started to wonder about Ma and Otosan. I guessed that they were just getting dinner because they were out on the fields so late. I was also wondering about Gon and where he came from. He probably came from a rich village and probably had a lot of servants.
The next morning started out slow but got faster as we realized it was the day that we got to test out the weapons! As soon as we got dressed in our new black outfits we ran to the armoury and met Kuma. “Are you boys ready?” asked Kuma. We didn’t even need to say yes. The first weapon we tried was the bokken because we weren’t ready for the katana. We both grabbed a bokken and Kuma gave us a training dummy that was made out of solid wax and had lots of marks on it from previous uses.
By the end we had made many new gouges into the dummy.
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Chapter III Training
For lunch Gon and I had smoked meat and bread with all the other students. After lunch we were finally able to train with the other first years. Kuma showed us our first lesson which was parkour. The sensei who taught parkour was named Nomikomu, meaning swallow, because he is fast and fluid. He showed us how to roll on impact and how to jump and climb without making noise. After he thought we were ready he jumped up on to one of the huts without making any noise.
After that, Gon and I went to the clothing designer to get our ninja outfit. The designer gave us some black clothes to try on, and the special footwear that the ninja wore that looked like shoes except they had more cushioning and the toes came out a little bit. Next, Gon and I put on the shirt which was special because it had little holes in the back of it so you could put different weapons down in it. The pants weren’t all that different except that they were all black. Finally, there were the balaclavas that we used for disguising our identity. Gon and I got to dinner a bit late but once we were there we stuffed ourselves with various foods such as pork, fish, apples, and pie.
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Even though it seemed like we learned a lot, I knew we still had a lot more training before we could go on our first mission, but for now I was to tired to think about it.
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