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demanded Jack, impatient for the answer.
    She beckoned Jack closer, then croaked, ‘Behind you!’
    All three of them spun round to be confronted by a huge green eye.
    The old woman cackled at their gasps of shock. But the eye only belonged to a large dragon carving hanging over the doorway, its head turned to one side, its forked tongue flicking out of its red-painted mouth.
    ‘Very funny,’ snarled Yamato, lowering his guard. ‘There’s no one there.’
    ‘Oh… but there is,’ corrected the woman. ‘Dokugan Ryu will always be behind you, sneaking up on you like a poisonous shadow.’
    ‘Let’s go,’ Yamato insisted. ‘This witch is mad.’
    Jack had to agree and turned to leave.
    ‘But it would help if you knew who Dokugan Ryu really is, wouldn’t it?’ whispered the old hag.
    Jack stopped in his tracks.
    ‘Don’t you want to know?’ she taunted, her palm already outstretched, fingers beckoning like an upturned crab.
    Jack looked to Akiko. Yamato shook his head in dismay as Akiko begrudgingly handed over another coin.
    ‘You’re very eager for knowledge, young ones. And I won’t disappoint,’ the hag cackled, slipping the coin into her filthy robes. ‘Dokugan Ryu is the exiled samurai lord, Hattori Tatsuo.’
    ‘That’s ridiculous!’ scoffed Yamato. ‘That warlord was killed in the Great Battle of Nakasendo.’
    ‘Listen, you little rat!’ she hissed, cutting him off. ‘You paid for a story and I
will
tell it. Hattori Tatsuo was born in Yamagata Castle in the summer of the Year of the Snake. As a child his eye became infected with the smallpox. He pulled the diseased organ out of his skull himself!’
    Akiko recoiled at the thought.
    ‘Because of his missing eye, his own mother considered him unfit to be the future head of the Hattori family, so began favouring his younger brother as heir. She even poisoned Tatsuo during dinner once, but miraculously he survived, though somewhat maddened and his eye now green as jade.’
    Yamato was shaking his head in disbelief and signing to Jack that the woman was crazy.
    ‘Tatsuo then killed his own brother in order to ensure his rise to power. When he was barely sixteen, he went on his first raid with his father. His father was killed during a skirmish, some say by Tatsuo himself. Tatsuo was now head of the family. But not satisfied with this, he set his eye upon becoming the
daimyo
of northern Japan. First, though, he sought revenge for his mother’s betrayal.’
    ‘How?’ breathed Akiko, but not really wanting to know the answer.
    ‘How else? By gouging out
both
her eyes!’ screeched the hag.
    ‘That’s enough!’ ordered Yamato, seeing Akiko wince at the horrific image the woman had conjured. ‘None of this nonsense explains how Tatsuo supposedly ended up a ninja.’
    The old hag, tutting, wagged a bony finger at Yamato.
    ‘Such impatience! There is more. Much more. On the battlefield, Tatsuo gained a fearsome reputation as a ruthless warrior. Soon he became
daimyo
of all northern Honshu. During his campaigns, he’d borne a son. So he now desired all of Japan for his heir. Tatsuo’s army crushed all those before him -‘
    ‘Until they were defeated at Nakasendo,’ interjected Yamato.
    ‘Yes, you’re quite right. The battle raged many days and nights. But only the combined forces of the southern and central lords,
daimyo
Hasegawa, Takatomi and Kamakura, defeated the great Tatsuo.’ She spat on the floor. ‘Kamakura, that traitorous samurai, had switched sides and sealed Tatsuo’s fate. His army was slaughtered, his son cut down defending him before his very eye, by one of
daimyo
Takatomi’s bodyguards. Yet, despite all this, Tatsuo fought to the bitter end.’
    ‘But I’ve already told you, Hattori Tatsuo was killed in battle,’ Yamato stated. ‘It’s impossible for him to be Dragon Eye.’
    ‘No, Tatsuo survived. He escaped into the Iga mountains. Hunted down, he was forced into hiding. But fortune was on his side at last. A