The Inu no Taishō, Tōga. Lord of the Western Lands.
If one were to summarize his life, three words would suffice: Never once defeated.
Centuries ago, in the Western Lands, demons warred among themselves. Factions crisscrossed like the fangs of beasts.
The dog-demon clan possessed the bloodline of a daiyōkai. Its origins were exceedingly ancient, suspected to be connected to the legend of the Heavenly Dog Devouring the Moon, passed down from the Heavenly Continent. Yet it was not the natural hegemon of this land. And it had been in decline since the Heian era.
It was Tōga who had risen in the late Heian period. He had fought through the Kamakura shogunate era. And finally, through his own strength, he had conquered all four directions, step by step crushing every faction in the Western Lands that refused to submit.
The native Bakeneko clan was suppressed by him. The daiyōkai known as Ryūkotsusei, born from the remains of a dragon, was defeated by him. The demon moth Gaki no Maru, who had also crossed the sea from the continent with the intent to devour the Western Lands, was slain by him upon the western sea. The aftershocks of that battle had not yet fully faded even now, centuries later.
The reason Menōmaru had been sealed in the bitter cold north, was precisely because of his father.
He had obtained the ancient demon sword Sō'unga. And using Sō'unga as a template, using his own fangs as material, pouring his own will into them, he had forged Tessaiga and Tenseiga.
One to kill.
One to give life.
Two fang-blades, respectively imbued with the will of destruction and the will of salvation.
He had established the demonic order of the provinces of the Kansai region. At the height of his power, the lands directly under his rule encompassed provinces such as Izumo in the modern Kansai. He was a true representative of an existence that ruled over human provinces in the form of a demon.
Daiyōkai submitted to him. Lesser demons received protection within his domain. Human villages thrived in peace beneath the tacit approval of the dog-demon clan.
Even the forces of Kyōto were deeply wary of him.
But such an existence, standing at the very pinnacle of the demon world, had fallen in love with a human woman.
An ordinary noblewoman without even a trace of spiritual power.
For her, Tōga had fought Ryūkotsusei to the death, yet refused to rest, rushing directly to the castle where she was trapped.
For her newborn child, he had stood before flame and blade.
And then.... he died.
The Inu no Taishō, Tōga, with a body that had never known defeat, died in a battle that should never have killed him.
Died… at the hands of a human.
"So you just abandoned all of it?"
Shinji sat cross-legged beside the bone platform, Tessaiga laid across his knees. He had just told Tōga everything he knew.
Inuyasha, resurrected as a human, entering human society.
His mother, long since aged and vanished into the dust of history on the scale of human time.
Tōga's remnant soul had listened to it all in silence. Silver-white motes of light continued to scatter from the edges of his shoulder armor, making this former hegemon of the Western Lands look like a statue slowly being eroded by the wind.
"I abandoned it."
He answered easily. His molten-gold eyes gazed at the rib-arch ceiling of the abdominal cavity.
"That Sesshōmaru has never gotten along with me since he was little. By the time Inuyasha was born, I already knew I didn't have long to live. Last words, arrangements, everything that needed to be done, I did. Everything I could leave behind, I left.
"As for his mother—"
His voice paused. Exceedingly brief.
Then he resumed that carefree tone.
"A human's life is far too short. Compared to a demon's, it's like a dream. But precisely because it's short, it becomes precious. Isn't that right?"
The words sounded carefree.
But Shinji noticed, as Tōga spoke, his semi-transparent hand clenched once at empty air. It grasped nothing.
This former daiyōkai had probably performed this same gesture countless times within this cleft of the underworld after death.
"But I also understand very well. I failed everyone."
Tōga's tone was still as casual as ever. As though he were commenting on the weather.
"Izayoi. Inuyasha. Even that boy Sesshōmaru. While I was alive, I failed to give them what they deserved. After I died, I was even more useless.
"Tessaiga and Tenseiga were my final attempt at compensation. What a pity, those two blades each have their own temperaments. They don't necessarily obey."
He spread his hands.
His remnant soul's fingers passed through his own palm. He could not even maintain a physical form.
After all, this was only a Human Soul.
For a pure demon, possessing a Human Soul was already something inconceivable.
How resilient could such an incomplete soul possibly be?
Shinji watched this remnant soul of a daiyōkai and did not respond.
He truly had no position from which to respond.
A transmigrated soul from another world, discussing family ethics with a daiyōkai who had been dead for centuries, the scene itself was absurd enough.
But he had not come here solely for Tessaiga. Nor solely to awaken Tōga's remnant soul and listen to a piece of family history.
He had a question he truly wished to ask.
"Tōga."
"Mn?"
"I have something I'd like to ask your guidance on."
Tōga's molten-gold eyes shifted over, examining the gray-robed young man before him.
He was silent for two seconds.
Then he laughed.
"Guidance? Since when do demons speak of 'guidance'?"
He folded his arms, though he was, again, hugging nothing, his tone quite cheerful.
"Humans are the ones who speak of apprenticeship and learning and following rules. Demons who want to grow stronger go fight. Go battle. Go conquer. Win, and you grow stronger. Lose, and you die. Where do all these roundabout complications come from?"
Shinji did not move.
Thus Tōga's smile faded.
His molten-gold eyes swept over the existence before him once more, from the faint traces of horns at his temples, to the steadily beating heart in his chest, from the four blades of different forms at his waist, to the lingering traces of the Five Elements domain beneath his feet.
He looked for a very long time.
So long that Shinji thought he wasn't going to answer.
"But I must say.... you truly are unique."
Tōga finally spoke.
His tone had changed. No longer that carefree, slovenly ease. Now it carried a certain measure, not much, of gravity.
"I watched your battle with Sesshōmaru very carefully. Using the Five Elements demonic energy to condense Five Viscera. Three Souls. A demon's body with a human heart.
"And that technique, where purity and impurity coexist, where spiritual power and demonic energy collide.
"You are both demon and human. You have the shell and strength of a demon, yet you retain the core of a human soul. Your Five Elements cycle relies on external artifacts rather than self-generation. Your domain requires blades to carry your power outward.
"A complete mess.
"And yet, somehow, it all works."
"Well. But we demons have always been like this."
When things defy the ordinary, there is a demon at work.
When behavior seems absurd, there is a monster behind it.
Things called demons were always meant to be strange. Bizarre. Twisted.
That was what transformation was.
Mutation.
But as those words fell, Tōga suddenly wore a thoughtful expression, as though he had recalled something.
After a moment of deliberation, he spoke again.
"Of course, to say there is no concrete path at all, that may not be entirely true."
He extended a semi-transparent finger and pointed toward Shinji's chest. His fingertip passed through the air, touching nothing.
"Do you know of the 'Demon King'?"
Shinji's crimson demon eyes stirred.
Demon King.
In the system he himself had classified, daiyōkai were already the pinnacle in the conventional sense. Existences who had achieved Phenomenon, who carried their own Truth, who altered heaven and earth with themselves at the center.
But above, and between, daiyōkai, there clearly existed disparities.
After all, Sesshōmaru was also a daiyōkai. Yet judging from the scale of the corpse and the density of the residual demonic energy, Tōga was far beyond him.
The Tsuchigumo, though in poor condition, was likewise stronger than Sesshōmaru.
And Hagoromo Gitsune of Kyōto, the legendary Nine-Tails, though she might or might not currently possess all nine tails was likely on a similar level.
There were clearly gaps between these existences.
Thus, Demon King, also existed within Shinji's own definitions.
Yet it was merely a definition.
The details remained vague, only speculable as an existence surpassing a daiyōkai.
A king among demons.
But now, Tōga had directly clarified the meaning of those two words.
It was, indeed, profound!
Though this was only natural.
After all, the word king itself signified a sovereign, the highest symbol.
Shinji's speculations, combined with reality, if demons were truly to be ranked, it would be hard to escape practical considerations. Especially since these definitions, in themselves, were constructed from the human perspective.
"A demon's existence, to the world, is anomalous. Chaotic. Bizarre. Without a coherent system.
"The human world loosely classifies us as lesser demons, demons, high-ranking demons, daiyōkai. But this is judged according to the threat we pose to them. It is judged according to our existence and our demonic energy itself.
"However, in truth, these classifications… have no essential difference."
"Even daiyōkai like myself, able to blanket an entire province with our demonic energy, to alter the heavens, to devour a patch of heaven and earth with our own power, to forge domains belonging solely to ourselves, still what exists, exists.
"There is a 'spirit' with an origin."
"But the 'Demon King'… is different."
Tōga's voice echoed through the gray-violet space, carrying the slow, deliberate cadence of one tracing back ancient memories.
"I once heard a human scholar in the Western Lands say, the character for 'king' is composed of three horizontal strokes and one vertical stroke.
"The three horizontals represent Heaven, Earth, and Man.
"The one vertical represents piercing through."
"A king is an existence that connects the three realms of Heaven, Earth, and Man.
"Though I do not know the specifics, from ancient times to the present, upon this land, there has only ever been one who could truly be called a Demon King."
"You should have heard of him in the human world."
Tōga's molten-gold eyes lifted toward the canine skull of his own colossal corpse overhead, as though gazing through the bone toward a sky far beyond.
".....Abe no Seimei.
"Or perhaps one should call him.... Nue.
"The existence who once ruled both day and night during the Heian era.
"The Lord of all Chimimōryō."
Nue.
That shadow which had manipulated everything behind the scenes of Mount Hakurei.
That existence which had possessed the descendants of Abe no Seimei through their bloodline.
That name which had simultaneously stirred storms across both the Kantō and the Kansai.
It was also the child gestating within the womb of Hagoromo Gitsune.
And even more, it was the existence which, centuries ago in the Heian era, had manipulated the sun, moon, and stars, the "celestial bodies", while simultaneously commanding both the mortal world and the demon world of the entire realm.
It was the ultimate arch-villain of Nurarihyon no Mago.
In Shinji's impression, its power absolutely far surpassed any daiyōkai.
It even possessed the majestic might to manipulate the stars of heaven from the surface of the earth, to draw upon the power of celestial bodies and, within the span of mere moments, crush everything upon the land.
That such an existence was a Demon King, Shinji was not surprised.
But this was clearly not what Tōga intended to say.
This former greatest daiyōkai of the Western Lands, since he possessed a Human Soul, no matter how faint, no matter how weak, must certainly hold an understanding of these matters that ordinary daiyōkai could never have.
He could not merely be trying to explain to Shinji the strength and terror of Nue.
Given the era in which Tōga had existed and been active, it was far more likely that he had personally witnessed the existence of Nue.
Even if, at the time, he might not yet have been powerful.
"Why was he able to become a Demon King?"
Shinji could not help but ask.
"By my speculation, it was because he simultaneously possessed three attributes, standing between the three realms."
Tōga raised three fingers.
"Just as the human scholars described, the three horizontals and one vertical of the character for 'king' represent Heaven, Earth, and Man."
"Demons belong to the Earth attribute.
"Humans belong to the Man attribute."
"Nue was a natural-born half-human, half-demon. His father was a descendant of the highest ruler among humans. Though the bloodline was thin, it held an extraordinarily high tier of status.
"His mother was Hagoromo Gitsune of the Nine-Tailed Fox clan, possessing both immense spiritual power and demonic power.
"On the surface, he seemed to be a half-demon whose bloodline powers should have repelled one another.
"Yet in truth, whether demon or human, his power was inconceivably vast.
"My conjecture is that his strength was connected to this. From birth, he stood simultaneously upon the two realms of Earth and Man."
"What a pity. Though I walked to the very pinnacle of demonkind, enough to stand alongside those born in ancient times, those who have lived for over a thousand years.
"Compared to that one, I was unable to take the final step.
"I merely touched it for a single, fleeting instant.
"It was the instant I fell in love with Inuyasha's mother.
"The instant I fell in love with a human."
The silver-white light-dust of the remnant soul scattered even faster at this moment, as though the very act of speaking these words was accelerating his dissipation.
"That final step, the human world has a saying for it. What was it again?"
He tilted his head, as though recalling.
"Ah, right, crossing the tribulation!"
Tōga let out a laugh.
Within that laugh was self-deprecation and release.
"My tribulation.... was love.
"I fell in love with a human woman. I fathered a half-demon son. And I died in the flames protecting them.
"It sounds heroic, doesn't it?"
"But for a demon.... that was failure.
"Even though I found the ancient demon sword Sō'unga for this. Even though I used Sō'unga as a template, borrowed the protective will I had comprehended from Izayoi, and forged the Three Blades of Heaven, Earth, and Man, hoping thereby to touch the three realms, I was still struck down by the backlash."
What the backlash was, Tōga did not specify.
But Shinji could not possibly fail to know.
Tessaiga and Tenseiga could never have backfired upon him.
What remained, was only that ancient demon sword.
Sō'unga.
"So... I died. Killed by an ordinary human."
The gray-violet space fell silent.
Only the silver-white light-dust upon the surface of Tōga's remnant soul continued to drift away.
Shinji looked at the shadow of this former greatest daiyōkai of the Western Lands.
Many thoughts spun through his mind.
Heaven.
Earth.
Man.
Tōga himself did not fully understand what that meant.
But he had said that Nue had gathered all three attributes, becoming the only Demon King this land had ever known, from ancient times to the present.
And Tōga himself had faintly touched upon it.
And failed.
And finally died.
It clearly was not death in the manner of ordinary daiyōkai, where the body rotted, yet the Phenomenon remained, and the soul still had something to cling to, simply unable to manifest in the mortal world.
It was true, absolute death.
Yet though his words were vague and ambiguous, Shinji knew that the information Tōga had revealed contained one absolutely critical link.
The human heart.
For a demon, it could serve as a staircase leading to even greater heights.
Or it could be the hand that shoves one into the abyss.
Shinji lowered his head and looked at his own palm.
A pulse was beating.
Blood was flowing.
Five Viscera operated.
Three Souls rested in their respective positions.
Wholly demon.
And wholly human.
Using Tōga's own personal experience, he truly was walking a path never before trodden.
"So you think—"
"I think you have a chance."
Tōga interrupted him.
His molten-gold eyes stared directly into the crimson demon gaze.
"To become the second Demon King in a thousand years.
"I can see it.
"You possess a human heart of inconceivable strength from the very beginning. You do not need to cross a tribulation, because the tribulation is innate to you.
"At the same time, you are no weak demon."
"One could say, in this state, you are very close to Nue's original form.
"The question is… what, exactly, is that so-called 'Heaven'?
"How did Abe no Seimei complete that step?
"And what.... is your Heaven?"
The question hung in the gray-violet space.
Shinji did not answer.
Because he did not yet know.
But he faintly sensed, this was also the key to becoming a daiyōkai.
It was the Truth, the principle, the very embodiment of his own existence.
"However—"
It was at this moment.
Tōga's voice suddenly changed.
The slow, deliberate reminiscence from before vanished.
In its place, was something Shinji was exceedingly familiar with.
Battle-lust.
"After all that nonsense, I almost forgot the most important thing."
Tōga's remnant soul straightened slightly.
The silver-white light-dust no longer scattered outward instead, it began to converge toward the center of his form.
That faint Human Soul, which had barely been able to maintain its shape, at this moment, began to burn.
"The path of a demon, in the end...."
The warmth within his molten-gold eyes faded.
What remained was the true nature of the Inu no Taishō.
"Must still be walked through battle."
Before his words had even finished, Tōga's remnant soul suddenly opened his mouth wide.
A soundless howl erupted from those suddenly-materialized, semi-transparent canine jaws.
The Human Soul resonated with the residual demonic energy scattered throughout the entire cleft of the underworld.
Gray-violet mist surged from all directions toward the center of the abdominal cavity, several times faster than when Tessaiga had absorbed it before.
But this time, the demonic energy did not rush toward Tessaiga.
It rushed toward Tōga's remnant soul itself.
The silver-white light-dust expanded.
The Human Soul, under the infusion of demonic energy, violently swelled.
From the earlier semi-transparent phantom that had barely maintained a humanoid shape, it surged to 9 meters.
15 meters.
24 meters.
Tōga's figure rose within the abdominal space.
His features became distinct.
The outline of his armor sharpened from blurred ambiguity into crisp definition.
His silver-white hair billowed within the surging demonic energy.
The violet-red demon markings upon his cheeks pulsed as though alive.
That semi-transparent body was still illusory, but the pressure it radiated was now nearly indistinguishable from a physical entity.
The remnant soul briefly revived through borrowed demonic energy.
This was Tōga, using his Human Soul as the catalyst, burning the final remnants of his existence, in exchange for a single instant of return.
One could not call it his full strength.
At best… one-tenth.
But one-tenth of the Inu no Taishō was already terrifying enough.
After all—
BOOM!
The entire corpse of Tōga stirred with it.
As though the whole world was rejecting and suppressing him.
This scene also closely resembled the technique Shinji had just used against Sesshōmaru.
Closely resembled… this "old man's" personal revenge.
"Come—fight me—"
"And feel, in every fiber of your being, what a true daiyōkai of the Western Lands truly is!"
'You asked me to teach your son a lesson! It was YOUR request! Must you be so vengeful?!'
Though Shinji could not refuse.
After all, in a situation without danger, a sparring match against one of the most top-tier daiyōkai in existence…
This was an opportunity that would never come again in a thousand years!