Japan holds no single account of Sozo (or Sōzō). Across generations his stories are told and retold, each with their own distinctions and embellishments. What survives in every account, however, is that a mighty dragon swam down to the planet during a grueling conflict for territory in the Sekigahara valley some 400 years past. He sought only to sleep in a limestone cave some distance from the battlefield, for the journey down from the cosmos had been a grueling one. However, his descent had not gone unnoticed. A company of forty-two soldiers followed him to the cave and beseeched that he lend his strength to their cause. Each laid down a tribute to appeal to Sozo’s magnificence; some brought precious stones, others weapons and ornaments stripped from the armor of fallen enemies, and others still freely gave their own rations. But the forty-second among them was no soldier of their own at all, but a wounded enemy dragged from the field and thrown down before the dragon as the final offering. For this gesture, the dragon took terrible offense and furiously devoured all the men whole, sparing only the last wounded man who had been offered against his will. In his fury Sozo tore from the cave and descended upon the battlefield, his wrath to unleash. He claimed a great many lives by his powerful jaws and talons like the sharpest spears. When the fighting had ended, Sozo himself had sustained grievous wounds and retreated to the cave to rest, but found that the wounded captive had died of his own injuries. The dragon laid in the man’s blood and went to sleep. What transpired thereafter is still a topic of some debate and there was no one to witness it, but where Sozo gave in to death, the captive man walked freely from the cave.

Curiously, the identity of the captive soldier is still a complete mystery, though most surmise that he must have been one of great strength or virtue if a dragon willingly communed with him. At some point in Sozo’s history on Nava, he also captured the attention of Radiance who elevated him to the Demigod of Creation and Rebirth. His domain is that of reclamation, regrowth, and renewal, and even more specifically in the protection of Japan. Though he is known to disappear for even years at a time, he has never truly abandoned his sacred land.