Guardian: Saviors of Kamigawa

Guardian: Saviors of Kamigawa is the final novel in the Kamigawa Cycle, which started in Outlaw: Champions of Kamigawa and Heretic: Betrayers of Kamigawa. It was written by Scott McGough and published in May 2005.
==Blurb==
The victory of the spirit world is at hand.
The ronin Toshi has sought to avoid the great conflict between the spirit and human realms. But despite his best efforts, he's not only involved in it, he's at the center of it. Together with Princess Michiko, daughter of Daimyo Konda, he must find a way to stave off the impending victory of the kami, while preserving his own life into the bargain.
Amid the complicated maneuvers of the fox people, the moonfolk, and the Daimyo himself, Toshi can rely on only one person.
Himself.
==Overview==
Title 	Author 	Publishing date	Set 	Setting (plane)	Featuring
Guardian: Saviors of Kamigawa	Scott McGough	May 2005 	Saviors of Kamigawa	Kamigawa 	Michiko Konda, Riko, Toshiro Umezawa, Hidetsugu, Uramon (mentioned), One-Eye, Kyodai, All-Consuming Oni of Chaos, Nagao, Silver-Foot, Kiku, Isamaru, Aoyama, Yosei, Okazawa (mentioned), Marrow-Gnawer, Myojin of Night's Reach, Takeshi Konda, O-Kagachi, Mochi, Uyo, Chiyo, Sosuke, Sachi, Myojin of Life's Web, Jugan, Godo, Yuki-Onna, Pearl-Ear, Sharp-Ear, Silk-Eyes
==Featured characters==
Vessel of the All-Consuming.jpg|All-Consuming Oni of Chaos
Godo.JPG|Godo
Hidetsugu.jpg|Hidetsugu
Isamaru.jpg|Isamaru
Jugan, the Rising Star.jpg|Jugan
Kiku.JPG|Kiku
Twwt.jpg|Kyodai
Marrow-gnawer.JPG|Marrow-Gnawer
Michiko.jpg|Michiko Konda
Mochi.jpg|Mochi
lifesweb.jpg|Myojin of Life's Web
Nightsreach.jpg|Myojin of Night's Reach
Nagao.jpg|Nagao
O-kagachi Vengeful Kami.jpg|O-Kagachi
Pearl-Ear, Imperial Advisor.jpg|Pearl-Ear
Sachi.jpg|Sachi
Sosuke.jpg|Sosuke
Konda.jpg|Takeshi Konda
Toshi.jpg|Toshiro Umezawa
Uyo.jpg|Uyo
Yosei, the Morning Star.jpg|Yosei
Yukionna.jpg|Yuki-Onna
==Story==
Michiko Konda, still living with the kitsune in Jukai, sends a kanji message to Toshiro Umezawa. He sends a reply saying he's quite busy but will come to her eventually. Eiganjo has fallen, Takeshi Konda is missing, and the soratami are conquering in the Takenuma and Jukai.
Toshi is back at Minamo, seeing aspects of the All-Consuming Oni of Chaos eating the library. He's already regretting leaving That Which Was Taken there, but can't teleport it out as the Myojin of Night's Reach has forbidden him from bringing it through her realm. He also finds Captain Nagao and his surviving men trapped in the room with the thing, as it seems to repel the Oni somehow. Toshi meets with Hidetsugu, who shows him how lesser Oni are razing the palace of Oboro above. Hidetsugu wants Toshi to commit to the Hyozan Reckoners fully, but Toshi wants to keep playing all his allegiances against one another to stay independent. He manages to get away, but the two allies look at each other as Toshi teleports away, knowing they are becoming enemies.
Toshi goes to Numai. He finds Kiku as the sole survivor of her wizarding clan. The soratami came to kill them so the wizards infused Kiku with tremendous shadow powers to stop them, but those are now driving her insane. Toshi helps her get those powers under control and the two have sex. Later they get Marrow-Gnawer to go with them, as the rat is only too happy to be away from his clan who are all clinging to him for help. Toshi then goes to Eiganjo to steal a giant moth to carry the Taken One and his allies. While there he is attacked by Isamaru, who he teleports to Jukai so he can be with Michiko.
Toshi, Kiku, and Marrow arrive at Minamo and teleport Nagao and the other survivors to Jukai as well. Then the All-Consuming Oni of Chaos attacks. Toshi uses the powers granted to him by Night's Reach to chase this manifestation off, but this brings the ire of Hidetsugu down on him. Luckily at that moment Konda and his ghost army attack Minamo, so Hidetsugu has to send his oni army to fight them, going after Toshi with just two yamabushi as a backup. Hidetsugu reveals he knows Toshi is no longer hyozan, which causes Kiku to side with the ogre. Hidetsugu next reveals he snuck a way to kill fellow hyozan into the oath from the get-go: kill without drawing blood. He starts to choke out Kiku as an example and grabs Toshi as well. Suddenly Marrow-Gnawer appears, having been drawn down by the burning of his hyozan mark. Seeing Hidetsugu killing the others and thinking the oath has been broken already, he saves Toshi and Kiku by stabbing Hidetsugu in the eyes, thus bringing down the wrath of the oath upon himself.
O-Kagachi then appears very suddenly over the school. Toshi tries to save Marrow from the oath by cutting off his tattooed arm, but the nezumi is still burning up. Kiku gives herself over to her shadow powers and attacks Hidetsugu, but Toshi prevents her from killing him so the oath doesn't claim her as well, which angers her. Eventually, the battle leaves Toshi almost dead. He prays to Night's Reach to save him, but she says he already has the answer. Through a crack in the walls, he sees the Oni of All-Consuming Chaos fleeing from O-Kagachi. Toshi shares this information with Hidetsugu which breaks the ogre's spirit. He makes a deal to let the rest of them go in exchange for Toshi teleporting him to the Honden of Chaos so he can let his god know what he thinks of his cowardice. Kiku teleports away into the shadows and Toshi mercy kills Marrow-Gnawer. He then takes That Which Wat Taken away with his moth to Jukai, using his shadow powers to hide from Konda and O-Kagachi.
The Jukai meanwhile is being attacked by the soratami, who are using the chaos of the Kami War to conquer the world and remake it in Mochi's image. Their forays into the Takenuma swamp we've seen since the start of Outlaw were all preparation to conquer there as well. Toshi briefly gets captured by orochi led by Sosuke, who shows him their summoning of the dragon spirit Jugan to fight the soratami. When he escapes he discovers that the Taken One has turned the orochi who were guarding it to salt. The disc also starts talking to him, demanding that he release it. And as if that wasn't enough, he starts being plagued by dreams sent by Uyo and Chiyo that confront him with all the bad things he's done. Initially, Toshi seems remorseless, but eventually, they wear him down by showing him accusing visions of Marrow-Gnawer, Kobo and Hidetsugu, and calling him an oath-breaker. They also have Godo show up, telling him he can make amends by dealing with the Yuki-Onna, who is still ravaging the Sokenzan mountain borderlands. Toshi teleports there, leaving the Taken One in Jukai. Mochi plans to herd the orochi to it to get O-Kagachi to eat them.
In the mountains, the Myojin of Night's Reach appears before Toshi and reveals he is being manipulated. She isn't willing to reveal herself to Mochi and the soratami yet though. Angered, Toshi reclaims the power of the Yuki-Onna and uses it to reach out through his dreams and freeze Uyo solid, killing her. He then sets the spirit free again.
Meanwhile, Konda arrives at Jukai. He's tempted to save the orochi from the soratami, but then the Taken One gets rattled and sends out a beam of light, which summons O-Kagachi over the forest. Having spotted his prize, Konda sends his spirit army after the soratami and takes a small force with him to claim the Taken One. Toshi teleports in, but with both Konda's spirits and O-Kagachi's heads barreling down on him, he only has one way out: he teleports the Taken One through Night's Reach's realm, something he was explicitly bidden not to do.
The myojin is furious over this, saying O-Kagachi will follow it to her now. She casts Toshi out, but the Taken One saves him by zapping the Myojin with a beam of power. Toshi lands in the Jukai, not far from where Michiko is staying with the kitsune. The kitsune elders try to talk to the Taken One, while other kitsune work on freeing it. Toshi feels this isn't going to work and convinces Michiko, who is tied to the thing after all, to free it. Before she tries he manages to surreptitiously draw the kanji for "sister" and "union" on her hands, and the spirit inside is freed, manifesting as a multi-colored and scaled human. She doesn't like being called "The Taken One", so Toshi suggests "Kyodai", meaning "sibling". Then O-Kagachi shows up again, fully manifesting all eight of his heads for the first time. In response, Kyodai and Michiko teleport away for a little heart-to-heart.
Kyodai shows Michiko's life as a spirit. She hates Konda for capturing her but is also afraid O-Kagachi will devour her, ending her existence as an individual. Michiko then tells her that they can rewrite the boundaries of Kamigawa by defeating their fathers. The two sisters merge and return armed to face the still slowly descending O-Kagachi. There is then a big fight scene, which ends with the sisters shrinking O-Kagachi and biting off his remaining two heads. Konda then shows up but is quickly turned to stone and shattered, remaining alive in this hellish state of stone fragments. Michiko makes Kyodai promise to return in 20 years to see if the scales have been balanced, but Kyodai thinks they never will be.
The sisters then take O-Kagachi's place in Kamigawa's cosmology. They say the Kami War will continue for a while until they have shown all spirits there is no more reason to fight. They are interested in a "blending" of the two worlds, making spirit magic more accessible to mortals. Mochi shows up to mooch, but Kyodai summons Hidestugu, who has beaten up his god and now is the new chaos oni. Toshi and Hidetsugu recite the hyozan oath for Kobo, and then Hidetsugu eats Mochi, who was ultimately responsible for Kobo's death.
With everything wrapped up, Toshi marches off, straight into a trap. He is mortally wounded by Chiyo, who now wears a mask after being mauled by the demon dog last novel. Night's Reach saves Toshi but also teleports him away, accessing a newly opened line to the plane of Dominaria. She reveals that the Kami War did not only weaken the barrier between the Kakuriyo and Utsushiyo but also the barriers between Kamigawa and other planes, which allowed her to travel there, gaining new knowledge and finding new worshipers. She is angered about Toshi's role in ending the war, which prevents her from accessing other places on other planes. She drops off Toshi on Madara and blinds him. Left alone in a new world, Toshi smells a swamp nearby that promises new magics, and takes the first step towards a new life.
==References==