Strike from the Shadows

Three black wooden ninja cutouts stood staggered across the cedar training deck, painted masks grinning like an ambush waiting in silence. The scarlet tails of my red bandana snapped across my neck as I leaped from the overhead brick ledge. Diving in a fluid mid-air spin, I drove a lightning crescent kick into the flank of the first cutout, pivoting instantly to hook my left sai into the carved timber blade of the second. In the same breath, my right sai thrust forward, driving its steel prong dead center into the chest plate of the third. I touched down in a low, unyielding crouch, holding all three locked in defeat.