The Forsaken Arts

Chapter 45: Past Uprooted

Back at Faxon, the others were given a dim flicker of hope by Slarant's proclamation of knowing how to defeat their enemy and restore peace to a devastated kingdom. Would he really be able to fill in the missing pieces and expose vulnerability in Krinx's strength?

"Okay hero, how do we do it? How do we take him down." Thengol inquired.

"Like I said, Curran is the only one that can physically harm him, he has to be the one to do it."

Growing more and more annoyed by his riddles, Dai firmly demanded that he be more specific.

"Well... You certainly take the few little joys out of life don't you? Very well then, to be blunt, no matter how strong you guys think you are or even become, it won't matter. Has anyone heard of the name Koshinto?" he asked while scanning the room.

"Never heard of him." Naitosai replied while the others nodded, acknowledging the same lack of information.

Wow, so these are the people who are trying to save the world? Slarant thought while shaking his head and releasing a sigh. Before he could further explain, Thengol chimed in while taking a few steps back to lean against the wall.

"He's referring to leader of the samurai during the Great Conflict."

"Of course, silly question for me ask with a ninja standing right here." Slarant stated with a gentle face-palm.

"Umm okay, explain..." the spell-fighter insisted, having also become impatient.

"Koshinto lead the samurai in the Great Conflict thousands of years ago, he met his end at the hands of Ishnero, the head of the Donshi ninja clan." said Thengol, picking up where he believed Slarant was heading.

"The Great Conflict... many eastern lives were lost during that time." Chri added, who had relocated himself to a spot next to Curran's bed.

"Yeah, power and greed reigned supreme during those days." Slarant insisted.

"Okay, but what does that have to do with Krinx, he is neither ninja nor samurai?" Evenharth asked.

"Good question." Thengol stated while directing the attention in the room back to Slarant.

"Because we're not trying to defeat Krinx, we're trying to defeat Koshinto."

Understandably, the room filled with doubt. The look of frustration covered their faces while realizing they had wasted time hearing what the man had to say.

Oddly enough, out of everyone in the room, the statement he just made both caught and aroused Thengol's curiousity, "It clearly states in the records that during the Great Conflict, Koshinto died....so that doesn't make any sense."

Hearing Thengol's calm follow-up, they all silently agreed to hear him out and awaited his response. With the attention in the room now undivided, Slarant began to educate them with the lesser known truth about their kingdom's past.

"True, but this entity is calling itself Koshinto." he rebutted. "Besides, for those who studied eastern history or even the arts for that matter, it became extremely difficult to keep with accurate facts. This is from a period in time that had very few methods of long lasting documentation or record keeping. Enter hearsay being passed on as facts."

"Entity?... I'm so confused right now, what in the hell are you talking about?" Llaw shouted while throwing his hands up.

"Alright pipe down, daddy will tell you a bedtime story since you're all clearly in the dark of even how this war got started. The end of the Great Conflict resulted with the ninja victorious. What few people know is that soon after, Ishnero gave the order for the Donshi to hunt down and slaughter any samurai that remained."