Chapter 14 – One of the Seven Dogon

Jasmine stands at the top level of the watchtower. She gazes on the battlefield and smiles. So far, they are winning. Gil stopped most of the fire cats from climbing the walls and those who manage to get it are dealt with; Tsunade's men are fighting as hard as they can. Tala and Amihan are in the sky and still busy with another horde of floating heads and umbrella. The huge skeletons start to crumble down; the charm that Kislap put on each of their foreheads started to work wonderfully against the undead giant. Atlas seems to be busy; he will need to deal with more Ikuchi. They manage to ride the river stream upwards toward their location. Kulog and Juan's frog manage to keep the oni and other yokai at bay.

Tsunade shouts at her snail shamans to kill any yokai they find. When a yokai manages to slip past their defenses and enter the village, their traps will slow them down and Tsunade's men will rain arrows on them. The strategy works so far – those yokai are easily defeated.

Jasmine continues to support her guardians as more and more new yokai arrived; the yokai reinforcement has arrived. Jasmine and the other noticed that Orochimaru's singing turned from a solemn tone to a dreadful and ominous one; once he changed his tune, the reinforcement came. Jasmine deduced that Orochimaru is excited and shifted his tune to a more serious one.

But Leshin, hears the singing thru the frog on his shoulder, thinks otherwise. He knows this song and the more Orochimaru sings, the more he becomes disturbed. Leshin and Amihan's crewmen are almost done to repair the ship. With Leshin's wood magic, he can just make the tree around them give themself for the ship. He can form and bend them into the shape that the crewmen need to repair the ship faster. As he was fixing the ship, he felt something is wrong. He felt a disturbance from the earth. He cannot explain why he felt it or what is coming this way but it made his hair on his arms stand up.

Leshin instructs the crewmen to finish the remaining repairs up and leaves them to it. "I will be back later. I just need to check something." He says to the crew as he picked up his spear and walks away. He enters the castle grounds and sees a lot of the villagers there. Women and children mostly while their men stayed behind and helped to fend off the yokai in their village. Women praying, children crying and some of the warriors who stayed behinds are ever vigilant as they patrol the area.

Leshin continues to walk until he finds Kento instructing the men on their patrols. "Kento, a moment please." Kento leaves the group and approached him. Leshin asked Kento to prepare his men as a yokai is coming right towards them. Kento didn't believe him and replied "Guardian Leshin, I understand that you are a powerful being but there is no reason to be irrational. The main fight is still being held there at the village and no yokai are detected by our men." He puts his hand on his chest and he proudly smiles "Leshi, I assure you that we will detect a yokai once it nears the castle grounds."

Leshin shakes his head and rebuts "Kento, are you trained by Juan with his illusion magic and frog shaman ways?" Kento says but he was exclusively trained under the art of frog shaman. He then points to his shoulder and there Leshin sees a red frog resting on his shoulder. Kento informs Leshin that the majority of the warriors the Tsunade left at the castles are trained with snail and frog shaman ways. They are using their shaman magic to see with the frog and snail's eyes located around the trees and forest the surrounds the castle.

"I see, you are looking at the sky and in the forest, that is good but I implore you that I am sensing something is approaching us. I need you and some of your best men to help me; we will meet the incoming threat and take care of it before the civilians are drag into the fray." Leshin asked once again and Kento declines. He cannot just leave the civilians alone with some hunch. Kento asked Leshin to leave them but then Leshin's frog speaks in Juan's voice "Damn it Kento! Listen to Leshin. He is a guardian like me and he is an earth magic-user. I heard that all the way from here and . . ."

The voice was cut off and a large explosion can be heard from the distance. Light blinding lights showered everywhere and the dark sky flashed bright yellow for a second. Leshin and Kento run to the top of the castle walls and there they saw a huge snake purple is standing tall in the middle of the battlefield.

"JUAN?! What is happening there?!" Leshin shouts at the frog on his shoulder. First was silence then a mumbling sound can be heard from the frog and then it spoke again "Orochimaru? . . . no. It can't be. No snake shaman magic cant do this . . ." . Leshin listened thru the frog and he can hear that the loud singing from Orochimaru is gone but his voice can be heard from the large snake that recently appeared.

"My yokai, my friends, this is the day where we win. I will take our vengeance against the humans. I will make Tsunade my queen and then we will rule this island!" from that they can deduce that Orochimaru is the large snake.

"Kento, listen to Leshin. . . we will be dealing with this from our end. Protect the people at all cost . . ." the voice is cutoff again. The huge purple snake roars and two more snakeheads grew. The frog on Leshin's shoulder becomes silent. The huge purple snake starts to attack the village and now the attention of the soldiers and guardian shifted to it.

"Juan's magic was cut." Leshin then looks at Kento. Leshin's eyes are shining with determination. Juan's words ring into Kento's head. His pride as a soldier dissolves when he realized even Juan, his idol, is having a hard time at the battlefield. He drops the prideful act and asked Leshin forgiveness. Leshin was understanding of him and instead ask Kento to gather his best troops. The rest stay near the castle and defend it. Kento asked Leshin what are they expecting to face and Leshin only replied "Something big".

Leshin leads the way and behind him is Kento, four frog shamans, and 5 snail shamans. Leshin informs the group that they will walk towards the presence he felt and intercept the being before it can reach the castle. They walked past the civilians, pass the castle gate, and pass the crewmen who are still repairing the ship.

They reached the road leading to the village and Leshin raises his hand. He asked the group to be silent for a while. The road was silent, the wind is cold and the ground is still but not for Leshin. He stands still but his magic allows him to be one with the earth and sense that there is a movement within the ground. They can't see it but he knows something is coming.

Leshin closes his eyes, slams his spear to the ground, and put his ear to the wooded part of the spear. He listens thru the spear and tries to determine what is he sensing. And there he heard it a rumbling and slithering sound. He then casts his magic and the earth gave way. Mud and vines sprang out from it and Leshin asks the group to prepare as he will pull whatever he sensed.

The vines, roots, mud, and stone pushed upwards to the surface and there he sees a large number of snakes. A lot of variety and shapes of snakes were slithering underground and Leshin tells the group to secure every snake, he is still pulling out the biggest of the bunch. Kento and his men unsheathe their katana and slice the snakes that Leshin pulled from the earth.

There the ground shakes and rumbles. Leshin uses more magic and with a loud crack, a large snake was unearthed. This is the same snake that Orochimaru ride back to the village. Leshin and the others are not aware of this large snake existence but they figure that this is a part of Orochimaru's plan – to attack the castle while Tsunade and the others are distracting fighting the yokai.

Kento looked at the large snake and paused. "Daija? Is that you? Your Orochimaru's snake… How did you grow so large?!" The snake paused for a while then hisses at Kento. "Damn! This is Orochimaru's snake, Daija. From the times that three taught us the way of the snake, frog, and snail shaman, Daija was just an ordinary snake on Orochimaru's back. How did he get this large?!" Kento starts to panic as he realized that Daija might be infused with a new kind of power, just like Orochimaru.

Daija is covered in mud and broken roots, its body large and bulging, and its' eyes shifted to the castle. It starts to burrow back to the ground but Leshin uses his magic and the mud and roots take hold of the large snake. "Yep! The snake's target is the castle and the civilians. Don't let up!"

The snake rolled its huge body towards the warriors. The frog shamans manage to jump and dodge out of the way while the snail shamans sling themselves to the top of the trees with their silky web. Leshin's magic was strong enough to hold the snake for a moment but now the snake manages to wrestle its way out of it. One of the snail shamans shot an arrow from the trees but the scale manages to reflect the arrow. The party knows that no normal weapons can pierce the snake and they need to think of a way to hinder the snake's movement and kill it.

The snail shamans used their magic to web the snake to slow down its movement. The frog shamans used their magic to make more clones of themselves to distract the snake. Kento rushes to the side of the snake and infused his magic on his katana, hoping that this will damage the creature but all it did was a dent on the snake's scale. Leshin throws his spear to the snake's eye but the snake was fast to react and dodge it. Leshin stretches his arms and calls the spear back. The spear swings and flies back to Leshin and on its way, it hit the snake's head and it opened a wound.

"So it's the body is magically resistant to weapons but not weapons from divine origins." Leshin grabs his spear and then cast a group of roots sprang up from the ground to restrain the head movements of the snake.

"So like the weapons of the royal family…" Kento mumbles as he cast his magic and allows his body to act quicker than normal. He starts to climb the snake and tries to stab the open wound. The snake wriggles but the roots and the silk manage to restrict the snake. The snake's body is now being entangled by all of the web and roots that cover him. The other frog shaman follows Kento and they also climb the snake to the back of its head.

As they reached the head, they take turns to stab the open wound. The snake hisses in pain. It wriggles and wails. The group thought they have it all under control and suddenly a large light surround the snake and it explodes. The webbing was scattered. The roots were crushed. Kento and other frog shamans were thrown to the air and landed on the ground. Leshin instinctively cast the earth a tall wall to defend himself from the explosion.

As the smoke clears, they see the body of Daija, lifeless, and scorched in a fire. "YES! WE DID IT!" the snail shaman cheers. The frog shamans and Kento pick their selves up and saw the defeated snake. As the group was cheering, they let their guard down. Two fast long snakes emerge from the smoke and bites off the neck of a two snail shaman on the top of the trees. The two snakes retract back in the smoke and before can anyone react the two snail shamans fall and die from their wound. The two snakes were fast, they are not fast as Kislap but they are quick enough for an average human.

There! Leshin sees another strike. The two snakes emerged from the smoke and slithers toward his direction with its fangs ready to strike. Leshin uses his magic and a wall of mud rises from the ground and captures the two snakes. He rushes towards them and slices their heads off with his spear. The two snakes immediately burned with bright yellow flames. Leshin uses his magic to make roots sprout and capture who or whatever is hiding in the smoking body. As the roots gather a figure leaps out of it and try to attack Kento. Kento parried the attack with his katana and kicks the figure away.

The figure rolls away and stands up. The men see this tall pale man with snake-like figures. He's much taller than them, his gaze is intimidating and he emanates a huge aura of dread. His muscular built and snake-like body contributes to this aspect of fear he gives off. His eyes are of a snake and his hair is pale smooth. He opens his mouth and says "Ah, finally. Orochimaru uses the body. I never thought I would see this body again." He flexes his body and touches his muscles. His demeanor changed from a fearful one to a childlike attitude. He laughs in excitement. He touches his face, his hair, and his legs. He seems to be so happy with his current state. He laughs like a maniac as the moonlight shines over him.

As this man is preoccupied, one of the frog shamans sneaks behind the man. He readies his katana and leaps towards the man. The man then turns around, his hands extend and catch the man in the air. The frog shaman struggles to escape but the man slammed him to the ground at full force. A loud crack can be heard. "Don't you know it's rude to disturb others? I just had this body and I want to appreciate my return" The warriors remain steadfast and determined to defeat this man.

"Return? You are Daija, Orochimaru's snake. What do you mean?" Kento asked.

"Ah, yes. I roam this world as a Daija, a snake for the longest time. But that wasn't the real me. THIS IS THE REAL ME!" the man laughs then his eyes are fixed on Kento. His arm's skin and flesh began to boil and another snake flies from it. Kento was quick to react and manage to slice the snake. The boil on the man's skin began to expand across his body. He smiles then more snakes emerged from his body. The snakes launch themselves and attack everyone. The remaining snail shamans are prepared this time; as Daija was enjoying himself, they prepare traps for another snake attack. The snake is trapped and slowed on the web. The web itself is also sticky and covered in oil. The snail shaman then proceeds to strike their flints; the sparks from it cause small flames to land on the traps and the fire soon spread onto the tap and lit every snake of fire.

The other frog shamans are also prepared. They summoned their frogs to cause illusions of themselves to distract the snakes. While the snakes are distracted by the illusions the real frog shaman cut off the snakes. Kento instead focuses his energy on standing his ground. He channels his magic to increase his speed and precision, he move as swift as he can get. He slashes every snake that came toward his direction and turns them into minced meat.

Leshin cast more mud to erupt everywhere to trap the snakes before they can reach him. He walks toward Daija carefully; every step he made, he hears the ground and senses any borrowing snake that Daija might plant. Daija takes notice of this and looks at Leshin. "And you, I sense a familiar power within you. Do tell me what are you?"

"I am Leshin, a guardian for the Chronicler." He says as he continues to walk towards Daija.

Daija cocks his head. "You are very confident to approach me, Leshin. Your warriors seem to have a difficult time keeping up with me but not you. I wonder why . . . "

The area becomes cold. The shamans and Kento feels the two are going to clash. Daija takes his step and began to walk toward Leshin. His towering figure seems intimidating but not for Leshin. Leshin looks Daija in the eyes and replies. "I can't stop you if I don't get any closer, Daija."

Daija laughs. His sadistic laugh is loud enough to scare the birds across the forest. "Then come close as you like, Leshin."

The two clashed. Leshin thrust the spear into Daija's body but Daija got the flexibility of a snake. He twists his body at the last second and delivers a blow. Leshin was pushed back from the punch. Daija prepares to follow up another attack but he didn't realize that his foot was stuck on the ground. Leshin's magic was at work. Then a root emerged from the ground and delivered a punch into Daija's gut, sending him flying and tumbling down.

Leshin makes small stones levitate; he concentrates his magic into them then turns the stones into sharp polished needles and throws them into the Daija. Daija still recovering from the painful punch, he spits out acid to melt the incoming attack.

As much as the other shamans want to join the fray and help Leshin, the snakes are still perusing them and keeping them busy but not Kento. After keeping his steady pace of slicing the snakes, he started to move slowly and works his way towards the source of the snakes, Daija. If they want to kill off the snakes, cut off the head of the source.

Kento's is nearing Daija. He wants to rush forward but won't. He doesn't know what kind of surprise this monster will give him. And as he walks forward, another batch of snakes emerged from the ground. They attempted to bite him but he was able to slice them just like the rest. He thought to himself that was the reason why Leshin was slowly approaching Daija a while ago.

Kento is a few paces behind Daija at this point. He seems the opportunity to strike; Daija is distracted from their fight with Leshin. Kento concentrates his magic to shroud his blade with magic. At least enough magic to pierce his skin. He crouches and prepares to strike at the opportune moment.

Leshin is doing his best to keep up with Daija. It might not look like it but he is a strong creature that manages to take hits from large rocks and roots from underneath. His physical strength is no joke, he can crush those rose like it was nothing and throw those roots away like it was a piece of toy. Leshin sees Kento from behind; he knows what Kento is doing. Leshin throws his spear to Daija. Daija catches the spear and throws it back at Leshin with tenfold the throwing power. The spear flew back to Leshin pieced him. The force was so powerful that that spear didn't stick back to his body, rather it shattered his body into pieces; leaving his torso a giant hole in the middle of it.

"Well fought but you are no match against me! DAIJA! One of the Seven Dogon." Daija laughs in content that he finally defeated the strongest among them. Kento was shocked to see a guardian to be killed so fast in just one fell swoop. He hesitates and is now even scared more than ever.

The wind grew colder as Daija is lavishing from his victory. Leaves and grasses are blown and swaying with the wind. The other shaman sees the lifeless body of Leshin and they all have the same feeling as Kento. A cold mist starts to envelop the area, the shamans felt more vulnerable. Not only do they need to deal with the constant attacks of the snakes but they must now fight in an area where they can be ambushed by Daija.

"Looks like even Bathala sides with me tonight; he even gave me mist to kill you guys with ease." Daija spreads his arms and prepares to hide into the mist. But before he can enter the mist, his shoulder felt a sharp sheering pain. Leshin's spear flies past Daija and flies on and on into the mist.

Leshin's voice speaks within the mist and says "And who told you that Bathala sided with you? Dogon, my ancestors told me the destructions you made between two continents of Antrian and Ruks-Bel Lands. Your kind was killed long ago . . ."

His voice gave the men the confidence to fight back. Daija turned and around to look around him and sees nothing. His vision and senses are obscured by this mist all except for the voice from the mist. "Such power you have, Leshin. I see. You are also blessed by Bathala."

Leshin didn't reply but he is sure of what he heard, Daija is a Dogon – a race that almost destroyed the world long ago with their 7 kings leading them. One of the Seven Dogon keeps ringing in his ear. "Don't he mean that he is one of the original seven kings of Dogon?! How old is this guy? How did he survive this long?" Leshin keeps thinking about what did Daija just meant by this word.

"You honestly think you can kill me with brute strength alone? If anything. . . I learned a thing or two from Juan. His techniques are simple yet effective." Leshin adds. Then a group of sharp rocks was thrown towards Daija's direction. Roots and mud began to form around his foot. Daija has two choices: block the stones and be trapped OR jump and escape.

Daija jumps into the air to escape the attack from the mist but then a barrage of vines caught him in the air and slams his back to the ground. The grasses, leaves, and rocks that float in the air carry Leshin's essence. Leshin can be one with the forest and earth but only for a matter of time before he can get tired. This magic will greatly decrease his stamina the longer it goes on.

Daija had enough of Leshin's tricks. He starts to rip his way out of the vines and Kento sees this as an opportunity. He gathers all of the magic he has and proceeds to pour on his blade. "It's now or never!" he yells. Kento rushes in and proceeds to stab Daija's open wound made by Leshin. Daija didn't detect Kento and was taken off guard from his attacks. He manages to hit Daija's shoulder wounds some more.

Daija spits his acid to tear the vines away and to drive Kento off. "Good hits Kento," Leshin says as he materialized from the mist, winds, and leaves the swirls beside Kento. Leshin and Kento rush back to Daija to finish him off.

Daija's body summoned snakes from it and launched their attacks. Kento slices them up and Leshin uses his sharp stone to kill the snakes before it reaches them. "The snake attacks are getting old and repetitive." says Kento.

Daija tries to punch Leshin but his sense and vision are impaired once again by the mist. He became sluggish and this allowed Leshin and Kento to hit his legs and arm. Daija spits acid everywhere to prevent Kento and Leshin from attacking.

"Looks like this body perfect. I lack the strength to deal with you two…" Daija says as he tries to think of a way to fight back.

Kento's men just finished killing the snakes and manage to join Kento and Leshin. Leshin instructs the men to stay within the mist.

"So Daija, ready for round two?" Leshin says as the mist moves closer to Daija.

"You underestimate me, Leshin, I am a Dogon. I manage to survive this long . . . multiple men have tried to kill me before and you won't be the last." Daija says as he smirks.

"Those are men, I am a guardian of the Chronicler" Leshin's mist began to close in Daija. Leshin instructs the men to charge forward. He will cover the acid with soil and allow them to traverse safely. But then the mist starts to clear from Daija's area and soon enough the mist was starting to clear.

"How?!" Leshin exclaimed. He was shocked to see his mist spell was being negated without his permission. There they see Daija breathing in all of the mist to his mouth. As the mist disappears, he closes his mouth for a while then he smiles at the group and asked "Ready for round two?"