A truly unpredictable setback.
The attack on Kikyo should have been a certainty. This body was special, layered with abilities no ordinary fighter could overcome. And after scouting her Servant, the Shikon no Tama had been even less concerned.
A half-demon barely a decade old? In the Jewel's estimation, that qualified as an infant.
So what if the child possessed peculiar Noble Phantasms and abilities? Could she actually threaten something that defied death itself?
*HISS...*
That had been the assumption. And yet, just like Naraku, the Shikon no Tama had stumbled in the one place it never expected.
It had mocked Naraku earlier. "Inuyasha wasn't even home, and you still got beaten into retreating?"
Now the irony was suffocating. The Jewel had gone after Kikyo in person and had actually been killed. Not by Kikyo. Not by that legendary bow and Sacred Arrow.
By the forgettable half-demon Servant the Jewel had dismissed as background noise.
Even the Shikon no Tama's composure was fraying.
Its revivals were limited. Every death cost one. Permanently.
Restraining Kirinmaru had already consumed two lives. But that was Kirinmaru. One of the supreme rulers of the yokai world. Those losses were acceptable.
But this? A teenage half-demon, nothing more than Inuyasha's daughter, claiming its third life?
The humiliation was unbearable.
"Today, I will kill every last one of you!"
Rage boiled over. Tentacles exploded outward in a shrieking mass.
"Hmph! You've just got a few extra arms. Watch me cut you down again!!"
The colossal yokai phantom blazed to life behind Moroha. She had no intention of retreating. Her blade swept horizontally in a devastating arc.
*BOOM!!*
Every tentacle in the strike's path was annihilated. A mountain peak in the distance lost its upper half, sheared clean away by the residual force. The spectacle was staggering.
"Heh. You're nothing special after all."
Moroha surveyed the reshaped terrain with open contempt.
"That level of yokai energy, wielded with that kind of precision..."
Kohaku still didn't know who Moroha truly was, but her extraordinary potential was unmistakable.
*WHOOSH!*
An arrow sliced past Moroha's cheek, close enough to ruffle her hair, and struck a black shape lunging from her blind spot.
*SZZZT!!*
Pink spiritual energy flared and purified the mass on contact.
"Wha..."
Moroha stared, uncomprehending.
It was still alive?!
"Useless. You cannot kill me again!"
A wall of flesh and tentacles coalesced with terrifying speed, blocking the path ahead.
"How?! That slash obliterated you completely!"
Moroha fell back a step, genuinely rattled for the first time. She was certain the previous strike had left nothing behind. Not a scrap. Not a cell.
'The first time, Moroha truly killed it.'
'But this second strike only dealt severe damage. It couldn't achieve total annihilation.'
'That yokai aura is even more massive now. And the regeneration is faster.'
Kikyo nocked an arrow, staying vigilant while analyzing the pattern.
"Damn it!!"
*CLANG!*
"?!"
Kohaku swung his sickle at an incoming tentacle and felt the blade chip against the surface. The impact jarred his arm to the shoulder.
'This hardness?!'
Before he could recover, tentacles coiled around his limbs and pinned him. A separate tendril reached for the Sacred Jewel shard embedded in the back of his neck.
"Kohaku!"
Kikyo's arrow struck the tentacle, but it barely penetrated the surface. The purification energy behind it did the real damage, burning deeper.
"No!"
Moroha whipped around and saw the shard being extracted. She understood instantly.
The yokai phantom swung its blade and severed the restraining tentacles. Moroha sprinted toward Kohaku.
But the Shikon no Tama didn't panic. New tendrils sprouted from every severed stump, snatching the shard from the air before anyone could reach it. The fragment disappeared into the Jewel's mass.
"Your judgment was sound, Kikyo."
"That sliver of light could never have destroyed both me and Naraku."
"But it was more than enough to keep this boy breathing."
The Shikon no Tama sensed that the light stored within the fragment had been drained. Kikyo had acted in the same instant the shard was pulled free, redirecting every particle of its stored energy into preserving Kohaku's life force rather than letting it remain as a weapon.
"Bastard!"
Moroha pulled Kohaku free of the remaining coils and glared with murderous fury.
The yokai phantom swelled behind her, preparing another strike.
"Go ahead. Slash all you want."
"No matter how many times you try, it's wasted effort."
The fear was gone from the Shikon no Tama's voice. With the newly absorbed fragment humming inside it, composure had returned.
*BOOM!!*
A mountain-piercing slash descended. The hardened body split open down the center.
And sealed itself shut in the same breath.
'As I feared. Its physical durability has increased again. It evolved reinforced defenses and faster regeneration specifically to counter Moroha's attacks.'
'The Berserker's body this Jewel possesses has a unique adaptation mechanism.'
Kikyo's suspicion crystallized into certainty. Her Sacred Arrows had been strangely ineffective from the start. Now, watching Kohaku's blade bounce off and Moroha's world-splitting strikes heal over in seconds, the answer was clear.
Each time the body died, it came back immune to whatever killed it. Each time it survived an attack, it evolved to resist it.
There was no other explanation for the escalating yokai power and increasingly impervious flesh.
The situation was dire. Even if the Shikon no Tama simply stood in place and did nothing, it could outlast them through pure attrition.
"Mom!!"
Moroha dragged Kohaku back to Kikyo's side, eyes darting between the tentacles closing in from every direction.
"Calm down, Moroha."
Kikyo raised a barrier. Pure spiritual energy bloomed outward in a dome of light.
*SZZZT!!*
The tentacles slammed against the surface and recoiled, unable to penetrate.
But the Shikon no Tama showed no urgency.
Maintaining a barrier against something this powerful was an enormous drain. Even with Kikyo's exceptional spiritual reserves, she couldn't hold out indefinitely.
'I hope they arrive in time.'
She glanced at Kohaku, unconscious but stable, and let the thought pass through her like a prayer.
She'd anticipated this possibility. She'd made preparations.
'No matter where you are, I will come for you!'
Kikyo looked at Moroha and made a choice she would never have made before.
She chose to let Inuyasha save her.
The Shikon no Tama before her was genuinely beyond what she and Moroha could defeat alone.
"Hmph. How far you've fallen, Kikyo."
"Even you can only resort to begging Inuyasha for rescue?"
"But it won't matter. Your shikigami will never reach him."
"Naraku's incarnations are still watching the perimeter for me. Your little tricks can't get past them."
The Shikon no Tama read her intentions and sneered.
***
*SNIP!*
"Yare yare. That should do it."
Byakuya stood on his paper crane, examining the severed shikigami drifting apart in the breeze.
"Naraku, the Shikon no Tama... their guard against Kikyo is absurdly high. Honestly, how terrified of this woman are those two?"
He glanced at the pulsating mountain of tentacles in the distance and shook his head.
"Well, Kikyo's finished. When Inuyasha finds out, he'll lose his mind. I should exit the stage before that hap..."
A voice from behind.
Quiet. Measured. Gentle, even. And it froze every cell in Byakuya's body.
"Pardon me."
"Could you perhaps tell me..."
"That miko named Kikyo..."
"What relationship does she have with my son?"
Byakuya turned.
Armored coat over a white-based kimono. Three swords mounted at his back. A handsome, chiseled face atop a frame that radiated physical supremacy.
The dominating aura alone was suffocating.
Byakuya's mouth twitched.
He seemed to have talked too much. And ruined everything.
How, in this vast country, had he run into this particular deity?
[Translated and Rewritten by Shika_Kagura]