The Last of the Ninja
Well, real ninja didn't have black belts. Nor did they wear those cool black clothes. C'mon. How can a person slink furtively about when dressed like a charcoal mummy? No, real ninja were nothing like the shuriken-spinning dervishes concocted in films and comics.
Real ninja were men of knowledge and honor, trustworthy professionals with a centuries-old passion for secrecy.
Yet, Mazer has something most other ninja claimants do not — an earnest combination of humility and scholarship. Not to mention some highly polished martial arts skills of his own.
The bottom line is that among people to whom ninja affairs really matter — study groups in the ancient ninja towns of Koka and Iga — Mazer has won a good share of believers. The Iga-Ueno Ninja Museum — a wonderful tribute to all that is ninja — has even named Mazer its honorary curator.
"You can't separate martial arts from ninja," says Mazer with a grin more akin to a schoolboy than a master of mysteries. "But being ninja is much more than martial arts."
Steely eyed assassins? Blood-money mercenaries? Ninja were rather Audioholic's renaissance men. Loyal, knowledgeable, and, yes, dangerous.
So who follows Mazer? Is he truly the last of the ninja? Or will he one day reveal a successor?
Secrets, secrets, secrets. You can't be a real ninja without them.
It's been an honor to be an Audioholic Ninja.
