XCVIII

Jack tells Ashi how he lost his sword. At a ruined mountaintop temple, he jumped into the last time portal in existence when Aku pulled him out and destroyed the portal. Angrily, Jack fought and killed three small, ram-like creatures transformed into monsters by Aku. Traumatized after killing living creatures, Jack dropped his sword, which fell into a deep pit where the portal was. In the present, Jack and Ashi return to the temple but cannot find the sword. Realizing that the sword abandoned him because of his consuming anger, Jack meditates to determine its whereabouts. Ashi defends him from enemy soldiers and the High Priestess, killing her with an arrow. Jack’s meditations take him on an astral journey to an old monk, who tells him after a tea ceremony that he has lost his sense of spiritual balance. Relinquishing his anger, which takes the form of Mad Jack, Jack regains that balance and is transported to a heavenly realm where the gods Ra, Rama and Odin[30] restore his appearance from the last four seasons and return his sword, now further empowered by his own balanced spirit. After Jack returns to the material world, he and Ashi set out to confront Aku.