From Within...

[Dalazar Denkou]

After recovering his ability to wield naten, Dalazar started to feel a faint sense of normalcy again. Though what he held presently was a far cry from what he was accustomed to, it still just felt good to be able to breathe again. Though his voyage to becoming the ideal vessel for the Prime Totem Chiye was still a long one, he at least felt more grounded and prepared to weather whatever storm he needed to achieve this goal. He was still trying to process the task itself. Chiye had long since been known as a Pacifist Deity, forbidding violence from her people unless in defense of the forest itself. Yet she was prepared to give her very essence to Dalazar, knowing that he would be using that force to exact violence on others.

To take lives.

Her sense of duty to Zincara and carrying on the God Serpent's will and purpose to stand against the encroaching darkness that Aphosis posed to the balance of things must far outweigh her personal qualms and ideologies. These same thoughts must have been going through Jiro's head as well. His sister had been rendered inert, and the Great spirit depsite possessing the power to change this, refused to do so, even going so far as to have him exiled for his choice to save her. Yet it appeared that despite Jiro's personal qualms concerning Chiye and his mother, who carries out her will, he recognized the significance of Dalazar's being at Edo at this time. Regardless of the estranged nature of his and Saiyomi's relationship, what he did never fooled him into doubting her prophecies. Her portents came from the eyes of the Great Spirit of wisdom and Truth, a moniker that was not earned from embellishing human tales of Chiye's power. It was the root of what the spirit itself embodied, and through her "Gospel of the Stars," Chiye had foretold the coming of an old star reborn anew to face that darkness it was sired alongside.

That could not be misinterpreted any other way than the Light of the God Serpent within Dalazar returning home here on Edo to face the encroaching darkness and chaos that Aphosis had begun spreading. But not just him; darkness now lurked across the continent in several forms, and the power slumbering within Dalazar was the key. Beneath the gruff and scruff of his scars, Jiro remained a man dedicated to saving his home and his sister. If Dalazar proved to be the real deal, he just might be the only force on Edo that could.

These were the thoughts that ran through Jiro's mind as he and Dalazar arrived at a clearing in the massive brush that was the Nova Forest. To prepare Dalazar for the trails ahead and beyond that his future pact with Chiye, he needed to first learn and master the art of the Kageyama Orun- Seishin. A feat that normally took even the most prodigal of thier numbers centuries to do, one that Dalazar, and by extension Edo, could not afford to wait centuries for him to do. He would have to do so in a matter of months, for if Chiye's prophecy was to be believed as true, within a year the fate of Edo would change forever, and at its center Dalazar was meant to stand as a bulwark against the forces that would see her overtaken, or worse, destroyed.

Knowing this, Dalazar would swallow whatever anxiety nestled in his chest as he and Jiro arrived at a clearing. It seemed barren, at least compared to the rest of the forest.

"We're here"

Jiro said as he stopped just short of the space where the lush brush of the Nova forest stopped, and the land void of its rampant botany began. Dalazar looked puzzled, concerned even.

"Where is...here?"

Dalazar said as he stood a few feet away from Jiro.

"The place where we will begin your training. It is here you will learn Seishin."