There was a place he wanted to visit before he made his return to the Lightning Empire. After all, it was the first time the young boy was left to his own accord from the continental mainland.
He was strangely drawn to the rolling hills speckled with rocky granite piercing through the ground like the silhouettes of wanderers frozen in time.
The boy knew where he was going. Once he had made it out of the surrounding forests to Sabe Village, there was a fork in the road. One path would have brought him back on the main route to his original destination, but the other climbed the highlands pressing into the mountain terrain where his ultimate goal lay.
It was the head priest back at the Akino Peak temple who had first set him on this course. Back then, while learning to see, to hear, to touch otherworldly spirits, and to pull back the veil between the planes to lay open what was beyond, the old master had shared with him a folk tale. It spoke of a priesthood maintained for centuries in the highlands of Soul Country—the Oirase Monastery that stood on the very first hill, the gateway to the north, and the keepers of the lush forests he emerged from. Men who dedicated their lives to their souls, men with eyes and minds as clear as the spring water that flowed from the mountain tops they dwelt beneath.
What his Tenkujutsu sensei had shared with him in secret was a story about a particular group among these priests—a group of Spirit Sorcerers, devoid of chakra per se, but able to draw upon its effects nonetheless.
The child was naïve to believe such folklore yet determined enough to make the journey and be proven wrong. He had wrapped up his matters rapidly and was sure that under the pretext of handling this C-Rank mission, being away for a few more days or even a week or two wouldn't raise any eyebrows back at headquarters.
A few hours into his journey, he realized he had misjudged the effort needed to climb even this first hill. Damon had forgone any sort of mask, instead simply donning his headband. He wiped sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his thick jacket. His rucksack slowed him down, but years of living in the northern regions, spending weeks and sometimes months on the road, had taught him it was better to be over than under-prepared. Mother Nature was not to be trifled with.
In an effort to conserve his energy, he set his big backpack down near a particularly large rock and sat down on the ground next to it, leaning against the cold granite and hiding in its shadow. He nibbled on some crackers and took a big gulp of the fresh water he had filled that morning before leaving.
As he sat and rested, watching the meadow before him in peace and silence, he noticed a strange movement on the ground a few meters away. The grass seemed to part and ruffle about only to return to its original state a few moments later. At first, Damon believed it to be the wind playing tricks on him, but the more he stared, the more he imagined an invisible force at work.
Damon got up—no, this was legitimate. Something was trying to sneak up on him. Scanning the pasture, he realized it wasn't just one spot on the ground before him; the whole field seemed alive, shuffling about.
His survival instincts took over as fear flooded his thoughts.
I am under attack.
Damon leaped into the air and onto the top of a rock wall protruding a good eight meters form the ground. Baffled, he balanced at its peak, staring at the field below. Like a wave of wind, he could see the grass lean away from him, as if trying to flee the scene.
And moments later, there was silence. He sensed it—whatever had approached him was gone now.
The Ishiguro stood perplexed upon the tower of stone, wondering what it was he had just encountered.
Either way, it became clear to him he needed to move. The faster he made it to the safety of the monastery, the better.
With adrenaline still fresh and surging through his veins, he grabbed his gear and stampeded up the hillside. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was being watched, his paranoia getting the best of him as he quickly paced toward his destination. It was coming into view now, just beyond the steep rise—a settlement on a single hill, a gathering of white houses built like a small fortress tightly on top of each other.
As the midday sun slowly peaked high above, the traveling shinobi reached the height of the hillside and the entrance gate to the outpost that was his destination.
As he approached, his focus shifted from the paranoia that had driven him up the mountain to the dead silence that unexpectedly awaited him before the large wooden gates.
He could make the jump and leap over the wall but understood this could just as well backfire and alarm or otherwise cause distrust among the mountain hermits dwelling in the monastery village.
With a loud thud, he smacked the gate three times and proceeded to shout in as calm a voice as he could muster, "Good afternoon, I am Ishiguro Damon! I seek refuge!"
No response.
He waited and counted down from fifty, meaning to give his counterparts time to hurry over from wherever they might currently be occupied.
Then he knocked again, even louder this time. "I am Ishiguro, Damon! I mean no harm, I only seek answers!"
Still nothing.
He set down his luggage and took a big gulp from his water satchel. He opted to wait. At least by nightfall, if there was a light in the village, he would know there were people in it. Until then, he had enough reserves to sustain himself and his against back a wall.
Damon sat down, crossed-legged, and leaned against the cold white wall right next to the blue wooden gate, peering over the hillside he had just climbed. The winds were not strong per se, but strong enough to blow currents over the pristine meadows and rattle the evergreen treetops. It really was a beautiful scene up here.
He made sure to keep his eyes peeled for any of the strange movement he noticed last time he opted to rest, but for now, he seemed safe.
As he delved into the silence of the serene scenery, he picked up a sound—a rhythmic rumbling that he had somehow missed before. But as he trained his ears on the noise, he noticed it must have been going on ever since he reached the gate.
At first, it seemed like moaning, but the longer he stood in silence, the clearer it became. A choir of humming, a melodic buzz in the air.
Damon recalled a similar sound from his own days aiding the priests of the northern mountain tops, where he had learned his iconic three-section staff fighting style.
This was a prayer chant.
Of course... a midday ceremony...
Logically, no one would heed his calls. Worse, he might have disrupted their worship.
He would apologize later if given the chance. For now, he just sat there, watching the tranquil landscape, listening more and more profoundly to their songs.
As the seconds turned to minutes, and the minutes stretched on, the boy sitting before the gate was pulled into a trance-like state kindled by the millennia-old chants.
Without realizing his own delusions, Damon's eyes sprang open, and he found himself standing upright on a hill much like the one he had been climbing all day.
All around him, the landscape rolled up and down with grasslands stretching to the horizon. Not one tree in sight. Not one cloud in the perfectly blue sky.
"What answers do you seek, Ishiguro, Damon?" a mighty voice hissed directly into his thoughts.
A cold shower ran down the shinobi's spine. The question had come from somewhere right behind him. There was something terribly wrong here.
Slowly and with fear rising from his stomach up the inside of his neck, Damon turned around and peered into the massive yellow eyes of a beast.
A feline-like head with long white fur, whiskers, and pearl-white razor-sharp fangs stared back at him. That wasn't the most alarming thing yet. The trunk of its body was paradoxical to its head—it was scaled and curvy like a snake, a gigantic serpent with the skull of a kitsune.
Damon's whole body shivered in shock as he stood before the easily 80-meter or more monstrosity.
"Speak, shinobi," it hissed and purred strangely at the same time, "before I lose my temper with your kind."
The boy fell to his knees. "I... I... I..." he stammered, still grappling with the sight of the mysterious entity before him.
"Find your tongue before I find mine!" it roared this time. A quick growl lifted one of its lips higher, revealing its snake tongue hissing inside its mouth.
Damon stared down at the ground in silence.
I am not dying here... not yet!
Then he threw his head back and stared down the beast angrily.
"I want to be set free from my fears!!" he almost yelled at the creature before him.
An ear-rattling laughter erupted all around him and everywhere inside him as the creature before him snickered at his declaration.
"Come see me when you have freed yourself of fear, little Damon."
A rough tug on Damon's shirt rattled him awake. His entire body seemed to cramp up in an electrified jump from a sitting position in which he must have fallen asleep to standing back against the white wall of the monastery.
Before him stood two bald men, one shorter than the other, both with beards and tattoos on their hands, arms, and necks.
"What... what..." Damon stuttered.
"Calm down, child, you have nothing to fear. The Mink-goddess is a benevolent deity."
"Mink?... Goddess?" the Ishiguro was shaken to his core.
The smaller of the two robed men put a hand on his shoulder. "Come inside, have some soup, you will be fine."
Without another word, Damon reached for his leather rucksack and threw it over his shoulders, silently following the two men. They escorted him through the previously closed gates into a large courtyard with a well at its center. Looking around, he could see multiple individual houses stacked next to and on top of each other; it didn't look like a monastery.
The two walked him into a large hall on the far side of where the gate was placed. Inside awaited a whole group of chatting robed monks. The group of at least three dozen men were spread throughout the hall, eating and drinking. Some had books in hand, others prayer beads, and others again were knitting cloth.
"We just came from a long prayer; it must have guided you into her domain." Without explaining his comment any further, the bearded man pointed to a seat right at the front of the unimaginably long wooden table, where Damon hastily took a seat, placing his belongings at the corner.
"Brothers, a child has lost his way into our midst. Let us welcome him and provide his soul the nourishment he seeks."
All but a single yell-like chant returned from the various men inside the barrack. The Lightning Empire ninja barely had time to look around and take in his environment before a bowl with vegetable stew and some cutlery were passed his way.
"Eat up, child."
And so he did, and what a treat it was. He hadn’t realized how hungry the ordeal had made him. Whatever ingredients the soup was made of, it tasted fresh and aromatic. As he ate, the room began to empty out more and more. Most of the bowls were already finished, and it seemed each of the monks had a task in mind that they slowly found their way to.
Once the silver-haired shinobi had finished his meal and drank his drink, the smaller of the two monks from earlier took a seat next to him.
"Thank you," Damon said, bowing his head in gratitude.
"You are very welcome. It's not often we get visitors up here. Ever since the annexation, far fewer make the journey. What is your name, child, and why have you sought us out?"
Damon knew his heritage as a colonizer would likely not be well-received here. Yet, he did not have the nerve to lie to a man of God.
"My name is Ishiguro Damon of the Lightning Empire. I am a Shinobi of the Chunin class..." His words caught the attention of some of the remaining men, who stared blankly at him, but he continued steadfastly, "... I was trained in the arts of Tenkujutsu. My master bid me to seek out this monastery so that I may learn about..." He paused for a moment, unsure if what he would say next was an insult or a compliment, "... Spirit Sorcerers."
The room fell into silence. The man before him crossed his arms and shook his head. "A child of your age... this is what it's come to, huh?"
The man looked over and nodded at one of his fellow brothers. "Call Master Kafke, let him determine the situation."
The bearded monk faced Damon once again. "Let me tell you a little bit about what you have heard." He cleared his throat with a light cough before explaining. "Damon, what we call the world, many of us believe to be a realm, a star-encompassing sphere, separated by other spheres through space and time. There was a time long in the past where creatures that were able to shift spheres freely roamed theses realms, truly conquered it. They were gods, deities of all things natural—sand, leaves, a drop in a rain cloud. And it was their duty to maintain a balance between these realms. Wherever there is light, there is shadow; wherever there is death, there is life. It is the flow of energies that connects all realms across all spheres. What we mankind have done, what your people of the Empire have done, when we freed ourselves from these gods, when we shackled them into human forms, is upset that very balance. We were never meant to be gods, but we took what was necessary to forge ourselves into their image. We command and feed on the very life energy of the universe—chakra. It was never ours to take. Soul Country, for almost a millennium, has been a place to open one's soul to this truth, to reject the law of men, and attempt to once again become a part of the natural flow of chakra throughout the planes. There are those among us, led by the Grand Master Kafke, who have been touched by these outer gods, and together we live in union. No contracts are forced upon us, no spiritual techniques are needed, no summoning is done. Instead, a creature from another realm, of their own accord, will seek us out to travel into their world and be of aid at their side, the same way at times we may rely on them to seek out our world and be at our side. It is the natural order. These Spirit Sorcerers are men who have devoted their lives to rejecting the command over chakra and are instead at its mercy. It is a heavnly pact not to be taken lightly. Do you understand?"
He did not, at least not at that moment, but he nodded, trying to make sense of all the information he was being given at once.
"Ahh, an Ishiguro. Do you know they were some of the first in these lands to take up arms against the deities of old? They devised a way to void chakra entirely, which is how they pushed the spirits out of our realm."
Damon stared at the entrance from which the new found voice was coming from, his head spinning around to meet the newcomer's eyes, but instead, he was shocked a third time in a single day.
The man was no man at all. Instead, an old hunched-over humanoid with a walking stick approached their side of the table. White, frizzled hair ran down both sides of his skull-like head, a head made of some sort of bony material, with large red eyes beaming at Damon. Numerous twisting and turning horns sprang from his dome, and strange black rune-like markings decorated every visible inch of exposed skin the boy could see.
The bearded monk explained, "Damon, meet Grand Master Kafke, the elder of the so-called Spirit Sorcerers."
Damon could do nothing but bow deeply, deeper than he had ever bowed in his lifetime.
"The Itachigami told me about you..." The grotesque old monk studied the boy as he approached, step by step, accompanied by the clacking of his wooden cane on the ancient stone floor.
"We've never attempted the ritual with a child before. I must say, the ability to suppress your own chakra flow is an incredibly useful talent... hmm." The creature rubbed its chin, small fizzles of grey hair sprouting out.
"I've lived well over a decade on this island, child, but my curiosity has never relented. If you truly want to glimpse into the abyss, and are ready to understand that it will gaze back, I am willing to give you a peek. Can you already see and hear into the other realms?"
Damon rose from his seat.
This was the moment he had been seeking, the power he craved. This was why he had originally left the North, to achieve something unmatched in potential. And here, on this lifeless rock, these monks were offering it to him.
His only fear now was that it wouldn't be enough.
"My master taught me to see and hear the spirits beyond the veil, yes," he nodded vehemently. "I am not strong enough on my own. I plead for the help of the spirits to vanquish my fear." Damon chose his words carefully, trying to be honest. He wasn't confident in his ability to hide anything from the strange red glowing eyes of the humanoid before him.
Grand Master Kafke chuckled, "Well, at least you understand that the power you are attempting to grapple with far outweighs anything a human could ever achieve. This ritual won't grant you the strength you seek, but it will allow you to grasp it going forward. If you strengthen your grip over the realms, they will stand beside you."
Damon nodded vehemently once more.
"Good, good. But rest tonight. We will attempt this in the morning. I am being called into another plane. I will see you tomorrow, little Ishiguro."
Before the Kumogakure ninja could muster another word, the man before him vanished into thin air—not like a summoning into white smoke, but more as if his very form dissipated into the room.
"Come, Damon. Let me show you a space where you can rest," the human voice of the bearded monk who had been accompanying him since his arrival suddenly woke him from the trance-like state that Kafke had put him in. The first thing he noticed was the absence of sunlight, indicating it was night. When had the sun set? It was like he hadn't noticed his surroundings or even his body while they were in conversation. Now that he thought about it, he wasn't even sure if their conversation took place in this very hall or somewhere else entirely. The boy stared down, puzzled, at his own hand and the wooden table they had shared a meal on.
"Don't worry, he has that effect on people. Grand Master Kafke supposedly exists in multiple places at the same time."
Damon still couldn't believe the events that had unfolded.
"Follow me, boy."
Damon obediently grabbed his belongings and walked side by side with the small robed man.
"Not all the men in this monastery devote themselves to the realms and the universal flow. What you must know is that Soul Country, as a location, is simply blessed to have an incredibly thin... what did you call it? Veil? And because of this, even those without chakra can learn to interact with spirits and other planes through different mediums and years of training." The man sighed. "I still can't believe such a young boy is sent down this path. Alright, it's been enough for one day, Damon. Go ahead and rest tonight."
In that moment, they had reached the end of a hallway and stood before one of multiple wooden doors. It was swung open for him, and Damon stepped into a simple room, it was outfitted with a bed with white sheets, a wooden desk, a small window, a bucket with water, and a candle that kept the room from darkness.
"It's not much, but it will do. By the way, Damon, I am Michael. I'll come around and pick you up in the morning for breakfast. We rise early here in the monastery, so try and get some sleep."
Damon simply nodded and bowed.
He barely managed to undress and wash his face before hiding beneath the covers. It was cold up here; the temperatures dropped harshly at night. But even that sensation took time to set in after his conversation with grand master.
Under the blankets, Damon let the events of the day replay in his mind. Fate was a fickle thing, wasn't it?
What was it that truly drove him to abandon his duties to seek out a forgotten convent in the mountains of this lone island?
How desperate was he to rid himself of his weakness?
More importantly, how far was he willing to go?
Before he could linger on these thoughts, he drifted into a deep slumber. But even in his dreams, he wouldn't find solace and rest. Instead, he felt haunted, creatures poking at the surface of his thoughts, little weasel-onis with button-like black eyes staring at him, crawling over and into his body, tasting his fears, desires, and aspirations. It wasn't a nightmare as such, for some inexplicable reason, he didn't fear these creatures. He sensed their curiosity, even if it was a morbid one.
"You're the Itachigami, aren't you? It was you that followed me up the hillside, wasn't it?"
His lips didn't part as he spoke the words into a plane of dreams and void.
He was awoken drenched in sweat, the hand of Michael settled on his shoulder as he gained full consciousness.
"Damon, get dressed," he whispered. The Ishiguro smelled the cold morning air, the dew on the grass, and the scent of flowers waking along with the rising sun that hadn't yet painted the world in its light.
"Yeah, yeah," he answered, muffled by the blankets he was attempting to pull back over his head.
The memories of his dreams slowly faded.
A few minutes later, he and Michael were back in the mess hall of the day before. It was packed and busy, men dressed in black and white robes of various sizes and figures all crowding around, similar to how it had appeared when the boy first stepped into these halls.
Breakfast passed without further incident. Damon was stuck in his thoughts, munching down fresh eggs with rice and dried meat.
He couldn't focus; his mind was racing. He still hadn't wrapped his head around everything that happened the day prior, and now he couldn't quite imagine how this new day would unfold.
After their shared meal, Michael once again escorted him through the monastery complex. This time they descended. It seemed the residents of the hill hadn't just occupied the surface but had also hollowed out the inside. After climbing down a final set of spiral stone staircases, Damon and Michael found themselves in a room lit only by candlelight. A thick smoke hung in the air, and a shrine of sorts was erected at the end of the rectangular space.
This reminded him of the ritual his sensei back on Akino Peak had used to brush past what he understood back then as the "veil" of the worlds and invite spirits into the temple.
As they both stood in the otherwise empty room, the hair on the back of Damon’s neck started to rise. His survival instincts kicked in; he was getting the feeling this was much more dangerous than he had first anticipated.
"Don't worry. We fear what we don't know," the strange crackly voice of Grand Master Kafke echoed through the hazy chambers as he apparently formed out of thin air somewhere in the staircase they had just emerged from.
"Michael, pray with me. Damon, sit down there in the middle of that runic circle. Don't lose consciousness and try to use that clan technique of yours to conceal as much chakra as you can."
The morphed halfling cracked his neck and knuckles, suddenly appearing much younger and more youthful than before. "How curiosity gets the best of me. If this works, it will be a first for, using anti-chakra ninjutsu to teleport knowledge into chakra wielding humans." A crackled smile tore the lips of the Spirit Sorcerer.
Damon was obedient. He positioned himself where he was instructed and began channeling Denjiton. The self-canceling technique was surprisingly simple. Placing his hand on his forehead, a surge ran through his body, like a light electrical charge. He could feel it coursing through his innards, limbs, and the surface of his skin, a sensation as if his entire body had gone numb. He tried to concentrate, unable to channel more than he had; he was under the effect of the cancel. His tenketsu was muted.
At the same time, both Michael and Kafke were on their knees at the other end of the room. This was much like the last time he partook in a Tenkujutsu ritual. The smoke in the air began to dance as the chanting drowned out every other sound. Figures and faces appeared in the air, the fog on the ground swirling about.
The sensation grew feverish within the room. While Damon focused solely on keeping his eyes open and mind awake. There was a major difference this time: he wasn't being sucked into the vortex of energies. He wasn't becoming part of the effects; it was more like they were happening around him. He witnessed the room slowly transform into something else entirely.
The chanting reached its epitome as colour itself was lost, and the stone ceiling turned into a shower of light, like the Milky Way on a clear night. The ground was nothing but fog, walls no longer existed, and only the glow of runes seemed far, far away on all sides. Suddenly, water—a wave—rose from the ground, red water, and then fell back into itself. He could see the horizon over a sky that was not their own, three moons setting like a sunset into the waves in the distance. In the next moment, those very same waves were replaced by peaks, grey round stones placed on top of each other in perfect balance, everywhere around him. He looked up, and it seemed as if they were stacked into the heavens. The chanting continued as the black and white rocks turned to smoke. Damon couldn't even see his hands before his face. As he lifted his palms, he felt them brush against a strange crawling leaf belonging to an even stranger colourerd plant that had suddenly appeared. In fact, the whole room was covered in lush, dense greenery, until it wasn’t. Fading just as fast as it had appeared. In its stead, darkness took hold of the space yet again, and as if they were traveling at the very speed of light, the stars seemed to race past them, lights drawn out into infinitely long lines. Wherever he looked, he could see them, spheres of sorts, some closer, some distant, but all giving him only a fraction of a moment to stare onto the surface of a world that must be just like their own—deserts of bones, landscapes of giant gaping craters, trees like cotton candy; there was no end to it. Damon's eyes glowed in awe of an uncountable number of worlds and an uncountable number of creatures residing within.
He was alone. Not even the chanting could be heard as he raced even faster and faster through space and time, surrounded only by light. A falling sensation took hold of him, but he wasn't scared; instead, he was amazed, dazzled even, at its beauty.
The light took shape before him, and he found himself standing on a cliff. The ground was marble. He looked into a valley of white rock, stretching to the horizon and probably beyond. In the valley sat a humanoid titan with its back turned to him, a creature resembling something human but clearly something much, much greater.
Damon couldn't form a thought. He could barely take it in, and he couldn't even begin to understand what he was seeing... Was this god? A god? The God?
The colossal titan slowly turned its head—no eyes, no mouth, and no nose, instead a gaping black hole.
ARGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
Damon threw his head forward onto the cold stone floor, vomiting his previously digested breakfast onto the ground. And then again, and a last time.
He realized he was on all fours, but then he wasn’t. He hit the stone slabs and passed out.
“Hey, you really freaked us out, kid. You’ve been out for two whole days now,” a soft voice rang out to him. As he came to his senses, he could feel the warmth of a soft blanket covering him, his head resting against a pillow. It was the bed he had slept in before, the room starting to make sense to him.
“What happened?” was all he had the strength to muster.
“Well, if I’d like to know… Master Kafke has been non-stop noisy about it. He thinks you might be the first person to form a connection between realms without much prior training. He’s going on and on about changing the world, one person at a time like this. I haven’t seen him this energized since the last time he summoned a deity on accident.”
“I... I... saw something, I just... I can’t remember.”
“Rest for now, child. You saw things that have no mortal explanation, and they don’t need one nor will they give one to you. Just know you, for a fraction of a moment, you were part of the natural cycle of the universe.”
Damon nestled his head and drifted off into sleep again.
As the days passed, the young Ishiguro was able to get back on his feet. He didn’t catch a glimpse of Grand Master Kafke after the incident, but Michael told him that he would no doubt meet the man or creature again someday, that much was certain.
Instead, Michael quickly went on to demonstrate to Damon how to call upon a spirit from the other world—to truly call, not summon, to reach out into the voids unseen and ask for aid. Damon picked up on it fast; it was very similar to tapping into a chakra pool, but infinitely more vast. He could sense it drained something of him, it wasn’t something he could repeat infinitely. A week or so in, Damon knew he had to leave the monastery before running into trouble with the Shinobi headquarters. If he were gone any longer, someone would flag his mission and his file, and it could quickly become a problem.
As he waved goodbye to the men in black robes, his luggage in tow, climbing down the hillside, he imagined it—possibly but for a moment—the strange, misshapen face of Kafke floating above the rest.
By the time he had made it back into the meadows, the sun was just about to show its face rising up from the northern stone peaks. With a walking stick in hand and a swift pace in his steps, he noticed the white and black mink-like creatures sitting in the grass at the bottom of the hill. It was the Itachigami.
With a cheerful ring to his voice, he called out into their minds, “You don’t seem scared of me today.”
And with a hundred cheeky little voices, they replied, “Neither do you.”
Damon conversed with them for a while after that as they followed him down the main road towards the port town. He knew they would accompany him long after he had reached the ocean. A pact had been formed between two scared creatures that wished to free themselves from their fears and saw the prospect of doing so together.
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