It was a sorry desolate site. What was once a prosperous village for the Shaman Tournament had become a place where you were lucky to see anything that wasn't in ruins. One could almost see the looks on our faces.

In this setting there was barely a sign of life. The only sign of life was a figure lying face-down, half-covered by the ruins. Looking closer, I gasped, because it was Silva, the official that helped teach me the ropes when I was going through the Shaman Fight.

I rushed over to him and asked, "Silva, what happened?"

Weakly, he responded, "Yoh? Is that you?"

"Yes."

"Beware the power of that Steel Akuma. In his immense anger towards us, he more or less destroyed our home, and took the others with him. Yoh you must stop him, because if you don't it will be worse than when Hao tried to win the Shaman Tournament."

I nodded in agreement, then asked him, "Do you know where he went to?"

"Unfortunately, I do not know where he went to, but I'm sure it's someplace that you'd expect him to be found in. Good luck."

I told the rest of our group what Silva had told me, for the man was too weak to speak in much louder than a whisper, preventing eavesdropping from nearly anyone. All except Hao lowered their eyebrows in anger, Steel had to be stopped. We all were ready to destroy him.

The question became where to find Steel. His location was no longer Patch Village or the area surrounding it, so where could it be? Was he in Japan? No, we'd have known if there was a shaman that powerful around. Only a few of our group had any idea where to find Steel: Tamao and Lyserg.

While neither of the two of them knew where Steel was, they could see if their spirits could help them to find him, considering the situation at hand. When Tamao attempted to see what the future said regarding Steel, she was told that he would be the ultimate foe yet and the most dangerous one, but nothing more. Lyserg's results showed that there was a considerable amount of shaman energy located in the general direction of the west, yet not in Japan.

Ren's expression quickly changed from its usual confident demeanor to an expression of fear, considering the only place that he knew to the west, beyond Japan, was his home China. If this Steel was there in China, his family was in immediate danger. It was not so much for most of his family that he cared; it was for Jun, his sister.

Quickly, the group returned to China, to the Tao's region. The area still looked somewhat the same, but it wasn't quite what it used to be; it was less inviting than before. A different feel in general pervaded the scene, with Ren quickly realizing it and rushing off towards the complex his family lived in, without letting the rest of us catch up to him.

In the house, he saw a figure he did not recognize, an intimidating man with a steel mask. The strange man rudely sneered at Ren, saying, "You Taos bore me. Your strength is nothing to me. Now get out of my way!"

With that the man threw an unseen object at the ground, and disappeared in an instant. Ren was just left there stunned, as we found him there a few minutes later. His confident, bordering on cocky and arrogant, attitude was replaced with a shocked expression.

Before we could ask him exactly what happened, we saw a few unfamiliar people, with a familiar person as their hostage, Jun Tao. These new people were not too intimidating at first look, but it quickly seemed that they would not be that simple to deal with, as these three guys turned out to be shaman, each with a unique style and spirit. The first was a swarthy bearded man with a pirate spirit hovering over him. The second was a Russian man with a Cossack spirit floating behind him, staring evilly at us. The third of them, a toga-clad man, had a Roman warrior spirit behind him.

There was no question that these were legitimate shaman, for off the bat, they cast their spirits into their mediums: a rusty sword, a polished sword, and a bloody sword. Quickly in form to face them was Ryu, most likely motivated by an infatuation for Jun. There was no doubt that he was ready to take on three shamans at once.

Before the rest of us could attempt to join in the fight, Ryu solemnly said, "No. Let me handle this one Master Yoh. Anyone who dares do this to Miss Jun deserves what I will give them, just wait and see."

While the four prepared for battle, Ren snuck around the fighting and untied his sister from the ropes that bound her and quickly took her outside of the building. I decided to follow Ren outside to see exactly what had happened.

Once out of the sight of the three henchmen, Jun quickly hugged her brother with such an embrace that barely allowed the poor boy the ability to breathe. Quickly, she said to him, "Thank you. I don't know what he would have done to me if you and your friends hadn't come.

Ren, a bit confused, asked Jun, "Who's he?"

Jun, jarred by that question said to Ren, "Oh, he's horrible, just horrible. That man told me that the only reason he had come to someone like me was to use me as bait to bring you here, to bring the Asakuras here."

"I think I know who he is. Did this man have a steel mask on his face?"

"I don't know, he came in the middle of the night and caught me by surprise. I never saw his face; I only heard his voice. It was the voice of a man looking to destroy everything that stood in his path, a man bent on destruction. He seems one strong enough to succeed at it too."

After checking around to see if Steel had any more of his minions around, I told the two of them to come back inside. However, before they would come with me, the rest of the group came out and told me of the news.

Through Ryu's explanation, I learned that the three shamans he was fighting simultaneously retreated, saying that 'Master Steel' ordered them to, simply because they no longer had the hostage they acquired at the Tao stronghold.

From there, we again tried to find out where Steel could be. Unfortunately, significant energy readings came from all four directions: north, south, east, and west. Despite the fact that it would weaken our overall strength, I decided to split us up into four groups to cover each direction: Ryu with Jun and Ren, Hao with Lyserg, Horohoro with Tamao, and Anna with me.