The Sword of Kuromori. Jason Rohan

      Kenny kept his arms around the leather-clad rider, with the furry animal pressed warm against his belly. He was tired, but his mind was abuzz with too many questions – and there was something weird about the motorbike, but he was too sleepy to pinpoint what it was. Still, he was fairly sure that neither the odd creature nor the rider meant him any harm, not yet at least, so that was something.

      From time to time, he opened his heavy eyes to see road signs flash overhead in Japanese and English, plus bright, shining skyscrapers in the near distance; once, he even thought he glimpsed an orange and white painted Eiffel Tower lit up against the darkening sky. The only thing he was sure about was that the bike was keeping to the back roads.

      At one point, the rider stopped and pulled over at the sound of approaching sirens, but when it became clear that the police cars weren’t stopping, they resumed their journey.

      After what seemed to Kenny like more than an hour, the motorcycle slowed and circled a large plot of land protected by a high stone wall. Satisfied that the way was clear, the bike approached the iron gates, which were ornamented with two fighting dragons, claws raking at one another. A man in a dark suit watched the bike draw closer and signalled to another to open the gates. Sliding silently on well-oiled runners, the dragons withdrew from their brawl.

      The bike glided in and eased up the long driveway towards the magnificent house at the centre of the plot. Kenny stirred himself enough to see gracefully curved gable roofs, black wooden beams, slate-coloured tiles and soft light filtering out through the windows.

      Parking the bike to one side, the rider dismounted and strode towards the main doors.

      ‘Hey! Wait up,’ Kenny called. ‘Where am I? Who are you?’

      The rider disappeared into the house.

      ‘Great. My turn to be invisible,’ Kenny muttered.

      The furry creature slithered from the bike and waddled after the rider. Kenny climbed off the seat, winced, and squatted to loosen the stiffness in his legs and the numbness in his backside. With both hands on his lower back, he flexed his hips. Feeling something tugging at his leg, he looked down to see the small animal impatiently pointing towards the house.

      ‘OK, I get the idea. Let’s go see what this is all about,’ Kenny said, and he followed the creature through the open front door.

      The hallway inside was softly lit by recessed lighting. The walls were papered in sage green and on one hung a scroll with large Chinese characters written upon it. There was no sign of the biker, but a huge Japanese man stood in the entrance, holding out a pair of white slippers in his plate-sized hands.

      Looking down, Kenny saw that he was standing in a kind of shallow pit. The biker had left his boots there, neatly placed side by side, the toes pointing to the door. Small feet, Kenny thought, before he shrugged, kicked off his trainers and took the slippers from the giant of a man.

      ‘Thank you,’ Kenny said. ‘I don’t suppose you’re going to tell me what –’

      The big man turned and gestured for Kenny to follow.

      ‘I guess not,’ Kenny finished. He pulled on the slippers, stepped up on to the wooden floor and followed the huge servant into the house.

      His guide led him to a screen door and slid it open. Beyond was a spacious room furnished only with a low table and a cushion on the floor in front of it. The man ushered Kenny inside and then left him.

      The first thing Kenny did was take out his phone. He was about to call his father when he noticed that the signal reading was again at zero. How can there be no signal in the middle of Tokyo? he thought, scowling at the screen. For a smartphone, this thing’s pretty stupid.

      He plonked himself down on the edge of the table and rubbed his burning eyes. This was not exactly the welcome to Japan he’d been expecting. After a long flight, all he wanted was a hot shower, a proper meal and maybe even a chat with his dad. Instead, he’d been arrested, interrogated, confronted by a horned monster, caught up in a high-speed car chase, almost killed and now kidnapped by a maniac ninja. And that was just in the past two hours.

      His fingers idly danced over the touchscreen, calling up images of home – his new home in Oregon and his real home, back in London. It was funny; even after seven years in America, he still thought of England as home. His room-mate Chad would tease him about this, both for his accent and his manners. ‘Stop living in the past, Kenneth old bean,’ he would say. ‘Let it go, dude. Today is a gift, that’s why it’s called the present.’

      Kenny stopped when an old photo filled the screen. He hadn’t been thinking about it; it was just that he always seemed to find this picture when he was feeling low, which was every other day lately.

      A five-year-old Kenny grinned back at him, a squidge of pink tongue poking out through the gap in his bottom teeth. Kneeling beside him, with a protective arm around his waist, was his mother, Sarah. She was still beautiful, despite the hollowed-out cheeks and missing eyebrows brought on by all the radiotherapy she’d been having at the time. His father, standing behind, was cropped from the photo, left only as a pair of trouser legs.

      The door slid open again and the big man came in, holding a lacquered tray. With surprising grace, he set the tray on the table and withdrew once more.

      Kenny hadn’t realised how hungry he was until the tempting smell of fried food drifted towards him. He jumped on the cushion and knelt to inspect the meal. On the tray, carefully arranged, was a bewildering variety of small plates, bowls and dishes. Some were round, some oval, some hexagonal; some were plain, others floral; a few were striped. Inside each was a tiny portion – no more than a single bite – of a different food. Kenny recognised something fried in batter, but that was all he could make out. In one bowl was a clear soup with some leaves swimming in it and a thick layer of sediment on the bottom. Another held what looked like an omelette squashed into a cube. On a plate was something resembling a pink and white eraser. A leaf folded into a samosa-like triangle sat beside a bowl of sticky, slimy blobs.

      Kenny’s appetite wavered, but he finally settled on a deep-fried battered prawn. It was delicious – firm, sweet and crispy – and he could easily have devoured a dozen more, but there was only the one. He sipped a steaming, bitter-tasting, dirt-coloured drink in a cup and sat back to wonder where he was and what was happening to him.

      His thoughts were interrupted by a scratching sound at the door. Cautiously, Kenny opened it a crack to peep out. A furry paw inserted itself into the gap and slid the door open wide enough for a fat little body to squeeze through. The now familiar creature waddled over to the tray, picked up a pair of chopsticks and began to tuck in.

      ‘You have got to be kidding,’ Kenny said to the animal. ‘Of all the weird stuff I’ve seen today . . . Did