THE LAND OF THE RISING SUN II

DOJI

Hana slices off one of the animal's leg but it quickly regenerates, it regenerates quicker than when its leg is cut off. Finn jumps to the back of the monster, he tries to stab through its heart but he cannot locate it. It starts to thrash around and eventually Finn had to get off.

"Are you okay? Hana asked him, "Yeah" He replied.

Half of the citizens in the village has been massacred before their arrival by the animal, the villagers run away to the forest just, to run away from this place. The 2 tries their best to not add anymore damages to the village.

The fighting went long and hard and they noticed the animal starts to slow down. "Its grows weak" Hana said. It sees a father and son outside and it pounces in front of them, Finn desperately defends them, using his whole body to push the animal away. They corner the animal in between the river. It starts to growl louder, it feint to the parent and child but attacked Finn who was charging towards him. Hana fires an arrow and it hit its eye, the arrow went through and breaks into several shards and hitting the creature.

"ITS RETREATING INTO THE FOREST!"

"The people"

Hana pursues the dog but it is faster than she is, its paws digs into the ground and throws mud or rocks on her but she manages to dodge or break it. Finn ensures that the villagers are okay by calling the police, he puts his fingers on his lips and hushed. Signaling them to be quiet. He shook his head and the 2 repeated his motion. Despite being scared to death, they kept their word. He turns around but he has no idea where they went, but being a hunter he easily picks up the trail and follows it.

"There you are" He sees the deep footsteps in the dirt and the scent of the animal made a path for him.

Hana manages to stay on the dogs trail and it remained in her sight. The dog trips over a small ditch and it slows down, licking its wounds. She swings her sword and releases a gale from her katana and it severed a part of the dog's leg. She releases more and with every hit it cuts through its leg, until the last one just falls off. The dog falls down and it growls in anger. Finn catches up to her.

"Y-"

"Shh" Hana said, the dog's growl starts to go weaker.

The dog starts to emit low growls and it seems to move its' head around as if it is searching for something. Its eyes darted upwards and around. Hana steps away and also looks around while Finn keeps his eye on the dog.

"What is it doing?" Finn asked.

The growling goes on for sometime and the 2 starts to feel warry, not knowing what the creature will do and maybe what another creature will do to them. They then hear flapping in the air the dog looks up and so did they, a massive vulture floats above them and is communicating with the dog with its chirps. Behind them they suddenly feel a gust of wind sucking them in. Finn turns around and by instinct he raises his sword and a sickle gets stuck on it.

"GET DOWN!" He screamed.

The 2 creatures that appeared before them attacks them, the massive vulture sweeps down and grabs the mountain dog. Finn draws his bow and arrow and fires a straight shot. It went through the dog hitting the bird's coverts. It struggles to fly with one wing but it still flies away. He manifested scratches on his right arm, it breaks through his outfit.

"HANA GO AFTER THOSE 2!"

"Got it"

"A weasel?"

Finn attacks the weasel, a kamaitachi, it has long sickles on its four paws and it rides powerful dust devils. The small whirlwind throws rocks and dust on his eyes. It becomes harder as he cannot hear where the creature is. He jumps up and peeled his eye open and sees how bloody he is, there is no pain but he is bleeding.

The weasel threw itself into the air and almost slices him but his sword manages to stop it, and the 2 falls down. The dust settles and Finn stomped down on the weasels small and fragile head, he received many slits from the creature but the stinging pain did not bother him. He wraps strips of his torn outfit on his arm in order to clot the wound at least.

"Hana, Hana, Hana, I need-"

Finn follows the sounds that Hana's katana makes as it make contacts with something. He arrives at an opening, trees torn from its roots. Hana stands firmly with her outfit torn to pieces, her wounds starts to heal. She stares down the animal as it slowly grows in size as it heals its legs back.

As soon as its hind legs heal back it jumps towards Hana. Finn jumps in and saves her by blocking the attack coming towards her with his sword The dog's strength and weight goes down to the paw and Finn's sword starts to crack. Finn lifts his sword up and it breaks into pieces, he quickly grabs one of the big pieces of the shattered blade and threw it to the dogs eye.

"Good thinking" Hana gave her complements.

He imbues his broken sword with imperium and manages to stab the dog in its chest, with no proper control over imperium the sword explodes wounding his palm and dealing a huge portion of damage to the dog. He uses his bare hands and held down the dog by its jaws with nothing but his strength.

"YOU ARE A VILE CREATURE!"

Hana supports him by throwing gales at the dog and small rocks directly to its nose, eyes, and wounds. She slices the lower thigh and the dog's equilibrium fell, another slash cuts it's jaws open. Finn grabs its upper jaw and threw it over his head and down to the ground, he grabs its tail and the heavily wounded leg and pulls.

"HANA! BOW AND ARROW"

She grabs the bow and arrows behind him and she runs around the area as Finn tries his best to give her a clear shot, she fires arrows on the dog's eyes, thighs, and throat, she imbued it with imperium to burn it and keep it from healing. She charges an arrow and it grows in length, she sees the dog being swung her way and she lands on it.

"DO NOT MISS!" Finn screamed.

She lets go of the charged arrow and it goes through the dog through its spine. With the continuous spinning, the small hole turned into a tear and eventually cleaved into 2. The stench of the dog was horrible and unexplainable. Hana comes down and handed his weapons. Finn grabbed her shoulder and rubbed her hair. She has no reaction whatsoever.

"Good job"

"What for?"

"Well.... I think we killed it"

"We have killed it, it is not what we are supposed to do"

"Yeah, oh no of course"

The dog starts to decay into the ground and it starts to stink up the area, the ground on where the entrails of the dog lands starts to grow saplings immediately. The dog fully decays into the ground and a tree replaces it.

"That vulture"

"Right, Mammon... That form he took, a tengu... how dare he"

"Well now we cannot find the origin"

"No need, I can use the tree, its life born out of dark imperium, we can find a trail"

Using her tanto she stabs it into the tree and puts her head to it. With her punishment she sees imperium or anything created from it much better; and it speaks to her almost. She sees the tree and everything around it much better now with a medium. She sees the origin of the dark imperium and lucky for them they already have allies near there.

"So, how do we close the hell hole?"

"We will the aid of an Angel, but for now all we can do is stop anything that comes through, we need to defeat the Harbinger that Mammon has in this country"

"Okay, so where is it?"

"We're going to Yu and Beowulf, we're going after Shuten-Doji, we're also chasing after Mammon, try to force him to expend more imperium so that we can have an Angel help us"

"That vulture was really him, was it?"

"I fear so, we need to provoke to use his power"

"So that will call an Angel to help us, why not right now?"

"That is our role, and it is under our control, the Angels are the final defense"

"A Harbinger correct? Just Like Dracula"

"We're Angels of Death, you should not worry as much, and Beowulf is a powerful warrior just like you are, he did defeat a Dragon?"

"I trust in you" Finn said. He did not argue with her furthermore.

"How do we get there?"

"Allow me"

She pulls the sword off and sheathes it. She pulls out of her kimono a bag of rice and puts it carefully down on the ground, she creates a plate made out of the soil and puts the rice on top of it and fried tofu as well.

"When did yo-" He refrained from speaking. Finn looks up and there is a full moon, it bathes the surrounding forest in its light and he can see something in it. He can see someone move around them, and Finn starts to feel warry, Hana asked him to relax.

"She is here"

From the forest a creature moves among it, its movement, graceful as if it does not want to disrupt the harmony and peace that was just brought upon after the fight earlier. He can see the silhouette appear directly in front of them, it moves one step but it stopped on its place. Hana bows down and Finn kept standing, him and the creature just look at each other.

"He- Hello"

He can feel calmness in this creature that stands before him, he bows down and he can feel the creature walk up to them. He looks up and sees a beautiful woman with white hair that flowed in the air, she wears a floral kimono, it has a beautiful array of colors.

"What are you doing?"

"Its fine little one" The woman speaks in Japanese, and Finn cannot understand every word she speaks.

"What is she saying?"

"I'm sorry about this foreigner, he means no disrespect, he is ignorant about our culture but please do not be so harsh on him"

"I will not, he means well, I can tell, introduce him me to him"

The Warrior stood there as he has no idea what to do other than listen to a conversation that he does not understand.

"Yes My lady.... this Sir Finn is... Inari, she was one of our Kami's messengers, she means no harm to us but wisdom, she possesses 9 tails, a testament to her age and wisdom, the whiteness of her whole body symbolizes purity and no evil nor harm shall come to us when we are around her"

"Thank you" Finn said and it accompanied a bow. The tree behind them fell down and starts to rot, as mentioned before these trees were created with dark imperium, and due to the presence of Inari the trees died down into the earth.

"Incredible"

"She is well aware"

Finn examined her and he noticed that with her she carries a sword, the handle Inari catches his sight and she grabs it and shows it to him. She notices his broken sword.

"Pass me the Sword Young one"

"His sword? Finn-dono, she asks for your sword"

"My sword?"

The Katana and its scabbard has gold for its primary color and white as a secondary, she unsheathes the sword and the light that reflects off of it is immaculate. The moon's light is reflected through the blade. Finn offered his swords and the traces of his imperium starts to be absorb.

"This is an incredibly sharp blade" she says "I now offer you this sword and may you use it for the good, and you shall destroy evil with it"

"Thank you, I will use it with honor" Even though he does not understand her, he gave a stern and confident reply.

"Now, where will you 2 head?" Inari asked.

"To the grave of the first emperor"

"I shall take you there"

Finn takes the sword and puts it around his hip, Inari corrected it as he puts it upside down. She opens her arm and they feel a great wave of imperium circling around them, her hair starts to grow longer as it wraps the 3 of them in a circle. Her hair glows brightly and it starts to increase in length. Finn's vision starts to blur as the light grew stronger. The light starts to fade down and Her hair starts to retract back to its normal size and the outside starts to appear. They now stand in front of the mausoleum of the first Emperor, the 2 bowed down and Finn followed.

"Come"

"Follow us"

The wooden doors opened by itself.

"FINN!" They hear a call from behind.

"Beowulf, hello there"

"Who is this?"

"A powerful being, she is of aid to us, lower your weapon"

"Yeah hopefully"

"What happened to the both of you?"

"We were attacked on our way here, we stumbled upon the lair but it was empty"

"Empty?"

"Yes, and the crow was shot down and we lost our way, but we have this the Dojigiri, and what do you have there?"

"Its called the Kogitsunemaru" Finn shows and brandishes his newly obtained weapon.

"Right we need that sword, and somehow we need to awaken the first emperor"

"Go inside, we'll buy you sometime take her with you" Finn commanded Beowulf.

"What is her name?"

"Inari"

"Nice to meet you"

"I better go with them instead of Yu" Hana insisted.

"Oh right, Yu, you help me here"

"You 3 go we'll hold off whatever is coming here, are we in the Aether, Yu?" The Reaper nodded.

"There he is, monster"

Ibaraki-Doji appears in front of them and his presence is strong, but it was not strong enough to intimidate the 2. They held firm on their katanas waiting for the demon to make a move, and so he did. He uses a flail weapon called manriki-kusari, he throws it around trying to knock one of them down. The chain suddenly grew in length and it wraps around Finn, he was easily pulled. Yu grabs his sword and easily breaks the chains, Ibaraki and Yu exchange punches. Finn unwraps the chains around him and uses it against the demon but it also drains him of his strength, and by the time he realizes his body is already heavy.

Beowulf and the 2 girls hurry along and finally finds the grave of the first emperor. He then asks how to revive the legendary leader. They can feel small portions of imperium coming through the grave. They put the Dojigiri down and they attempt to recall his soul.

"How do I do that?" Beowulf asked.

"With huge amounts of imperium, do you know what an awakening is?"

"Waking up?"

"No.. hard to explain because we don't have a lot of time"

"Try to summarize it"

"We will put you in a state of weakness, you're body will have a sudden burst of imperium trying to fix itself, you need to stay conscious the whole time. You will be a bridge for the imperium to pass through"

Beowulf took several breaths in order to prepare himself. "This will hurt a lot" Hana warned him. Inari and Hana's palms starts to accumulate imperium, a magenta for Hana and white for Inari. They put their hands closer and the imperium starts to converge into one, it starts to draw power around it and even Death can feel it.

"So, he is here"

They put their hands directly into Beowulf's back and his body starts to get heavy. His emotions starts to go out of control as his body starts to hurt and his mind along with it eating itself. He starts to feel negativity as he is being faced with the worst of his past life, he puts raises his clenched right arm and opens it. Imperium goes through him and his body starts to become the bridge.

"Father"

"You hear their call, now go and defeat all of them"

"Yes Father"

Ibaraki-doji suddenly gets stronger, and in a blink of an eye he kicks down Finn and Yu. He took off his tengu mask and reveals a terrifying face, he screams loud as he is calling for his master.

"This is his grave... Ekiko, Karuashi, and Tsuchiguma, awaken and protect this grave"

3 ogres with red skin awaken from the ground, their weapons manifest from the rock a spear, mace, and a club. They stepped out onto the forest and watched over as Mammon awakens another herald. With is own imperium he awakens the demon and it was quicker with his new found power. 3 of his fingers elongated and went through the ogre's heart.

"Now, serve me and take over the east"

Ibaraki stops fighting, his skin starts to burn. He opens his arm as if he is being embraced, and from the sky a giant demon appears, with 3 pairs of fangs from the cheek, and on both if its rows of teeth, the face has 2 short horns on the top of its head and its eyes are black, yellow, and green. The head starts to drip down and possess Ibaraki's body, it all happened in a second and by the time Finn and Yu got their senses back and the demon has finished converging.