Sokaku Takeda, a youthful fifty-two years old, settled back into the hot, soapy water. Sighing contentedly...he thought about his position. He had been called to this wild border town two weeks previously, but so far nothing at all had happened.
Where were all the brutal criminals who ran the smuggling and the gambling operations? There was lots of evidence of slave labor operations, but all he had seen so far were a pair of skinny tramps who had trailed him from a distance. Where were the gangs of thugs that burned police stations and terrified the constabulary so much that they had called for his sword?
CRASH--and Sokaku straightened up! Six thugs barged through the door to the bath house and into the room. They advanced around the edge of the pool, holding their swords in the ready position.
At the first sound Sokaku had scrambled from the water. He grabbed the first thing that came to hand, which was a towel, and scowled at it. Fortunately, in his hands absolutely anything could be made into a potent weapon!
"We're going to teach you some manners," one fo the thugs snarled as he held his sword ready for the attack. Snarling insults, the rest of the gangsters began to move forward. They knew that if they could encircle the samurai, then they could rush him and kill him.
Interestingly, the old man didn't even have his sword, but his reputation was so fierce that none of them were willing to take a chance. After all, he had killed dozens of able opponents, high skilled samurai, and they were well aware that they were not samurai. It would be far better to surround and rush him.
"Dogs teaching people manners, eh?" Twisting the towel to make it more effective, Sokaku glared at the gangsters. Moving forward, he dropped the tip of the towel into the pool.
One of the gangsters, giving a shrill scream, leaped forward. Sokaku stepped to the side, kept a sure footing on the slippery tiles, and snapped the towel fiercely. Crack--and the thug grabbed his ribs in agony and fell to the floor.
Two more thugs dashed towards the naked samurai. Whack! Crack!
Sokaku sidestepped like a wraith and flicked his towel like lightening. Crack! Crack!
All but one of the criminals lay on the floor now, either unconscious or groaning as they held their cracked ribs. The last gangster, realizing that he was severely outnumbered, threw his sword down and fled the bath house. Sokaku looked at the towel, dropped it, and went to get dressed.
About the Author:
Al Case has studied the martial arts for 40+ years. You can see him disarming weapons at http://www.monstermartialarts.com/index.html. Visit the Uber Article Directory to get a totally unique version of this article for reprint.
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