Lost Canvas Chronicles volume 6 - Doko

The latest instalment of the Lost Canvas Chronicles, in which each volume focusses on a story around the Gold Saints of that series, puts the focus on Doko, the Libra Saint and one of the two survivors of the Holy War of the 18th Century.

Now, this story is different from the others so far.  Where all previous stories where understandably set before the war with Hades, as the Saints had fallen, this one takes place 12 years after those events.

When Doko receives a visit from a friend and his daughter, they are set upon by warriors of the Order of Taonia.  A former member himself, they manifest armours by raising their Cosmos to such levels that the tattoo on their back (like Doko has a Tiger and Shiryu the Dragon) manifest in the form of a Cloth.

The band is defeated by the Gold Saint, and he captures their leader, a boy looking and acting remarkably like Tenma, his former pupil and Pegasus saint.  From him he learns that the mysterious country their order originates from has fallen in despair as the sky dragon has been diminishing.

Doko, though having to be weary not to over exert himself, decides to travel there, but not after faced off by an old friend who wears the cloth of the Fox of Nine Tails.  When he kills the captured warriors by the Libra saint for no apparent reason, Doko awakens, after more then a decade, again his old fighting blood.

In the country he learns that two siblings have gotten to power in order to take their revenge on humanity for disrupting the forces of Nature.  Doko proceeds to defeat Mudan, who just wants to see her brother smile again, and then faces of Feiyan.  This once gentle boy has bound the powers of the Dragon to him, but the Libra saint manages to overcome him at great effort, and to save him for he isn`t a bad person in his heart.

Feiyan promises to remake his homeland that had been destroyed by redirecting the course of a river, and the Sky Dragon gets freed again and to full power.  He tells Doko that Ling Xiu was only an image of his power, and doesn`t understand why he looks like he does.  Doko realises it are his fallen friends that have sent him a message that way, and he returns to watching the High Peaks of Rozan, certain and cemented of his duty to Athena.

I really enjoy these Chronicles (heck, even more then Next Dimension) as they focus on the Gold saints, from days of old the strongest and most noblest of all Athena`s warriors, but in TLC also all loyal (no traitors, no doublecrossers, no power hungerers...).  Perhaps though not the very strongest of the series in mangas, it was once more an enjoyable read I loved goin through!