Chapter 18 - Sage

Kermit could only blink his eyes as he was both frightened and marveled by the creature in front of him. Three times the size of the wolf his size with dirty white fur and blue fur across its face. A thick black spiked collar around its neck. Four steel bracers attached to its feet with the chains broken.

"W-what is that?" Izumi asked in a shaky voice.

"I guess the wolf lord or something." Kermit replied back.

The giant wolf's blue eyes stared at Kermit and Izumi, both of which felt that they were being looked into not at.

"Your scent... smells familiar." The giant wolf spoke in a voice that made it sound elderly.

Kermit raised his arm as he smelt himself trying to see if his odor was foul. It wasn't, which made him question what they wolf was smelling. Maybe he was talking about Izumi.

"Not your bodily scent. The smell that's coming from your chakra just reminds me of someone is all." After he said those words, the giant wolf turned towards the scarred wolf. "Where is Ibuki?"

"Ibuki is not here. He's always been a little bit weird though." The wolf with the scar over its eye replied.

"Excuse me..." Izumi spoke up. "Who are you?"

The giant wolf's blue eyes gazed at her. "I am Asmeir, the Wolf Sage."

Hearing the word sage caused Kermits eyes to glisten. This was new, he only knew of two sages. The snake and the toad.

"Can you tell us how to leave? My dad must be worried." Izuni asked.

"You can leave, but you cannot find your way out." Asmeir told her.

"Then how do we find our way?" Kermit asked.

"You just know when you know. Until then, you are free to stay here." Asmeir told him.

"Can I ask what a sage is?" Kermit asked another question.

Asmeir looked up towards the horizon. "When you live long enough to see the birth of a new era, you'll understand." Asmeir said but did not directly answer Kermits question.

"Go, take the two of them back to the forest." Asmeir ordered the scarred wolf.

"But. Ibuki brought them here. Weird as he is, he brought them for a reason."

"Do you think they are the ones that old fart of a toad talked about? Their charka levels are too low, they do not have what it takes." Asmeir said.

"We haven't even tried. Thirty years, it's been thirty years since someone last came here and you want to get rid of them?"

"It's been two hundred for that toad, what's a mere thirty?"

"You don't believe?"

"Do what you want, but their bodies are too weak. You do not want another Jinbe." Asmeir reminded the wolf.

The wolf with the scar was silent. It looked at the two children for a moment. "Follow me."

He would not have another Jinbe. Asmeir was right, the two of them were not ready.