Kikyou lowered her bow and shivered, a strange liquid lightning coursing through her body and tingling in her palms. How many had it been now? She began to count before realizing the numbers stretched into a dark and bloody infinity. The sheer quantity of slayings she had committed over the years left her breathless.
Ah, but they were just youkai, she reminded herself. Youkai that terrorized the people and had no idea of morals or compassion.
Still, her heart felt unusually heavy, filled with the isolation of being a miko. It was what she had trained for her entire life. To distract herself from these troubling thoughts, Kikyou picked up her gear and wandered further into the woods. The trees and chirping of the birds cheered her slightly, and she inhaled the scent of blooming flowers.
Upon finding a clearing, she knelt and spread a picnic in the grass of dried fish, pickled vegetables, and the rice she had prepared that morning and began to eat. Yet her mind would not be calmed.
Had she always been alone and never known it? Her entire life had been spent at the shrine in training for her future task of sacred huntress. Certainly there had been other apprentices at the shrine, as well as her teachers, and those in need of guidance and healing had visited, but of those, how many could she call family? Or even friend?
None, she realized. Not a one. Even Midoriko cared about me for what I could do, not who I was.
Loneliness seized her heart and strangled it until her heart yielded to the pain. She had repressed it for years, but her defenses had grown weak. They broke before the storm of images pounding through her brain: friends, families, lovers she had witnessed from afar, all happy, all with no idea she existed. She was forever on the outside, forever hastening from one place to the next. Her stomach churned violently, threatening to reject its contents.
Kikyou breathed deeply before forcing herself to finish her meal, but the food no longer pleased her. Like everything else in her life, there was no one to share it with; thus, the scant physical comfort it offered was fleeting. The only companions she knew were the youkai she eliminated as she wandered the land and the jewel she was sworn to protect. She pulled forth the latter from its resting place at her breast.
It was so beautiful—and so cold. The color of a seashell's inner chambers, it gleamed with more luster than any diamond in the world and was far more flawless. Yet for all its material and spiritual wonder, what could it offer a lonely soul? Kikyou stared at its round form and ran her fingertips over the smooth surface she had come to know better than any human's touch. For this Tsubaki had hated her all those years they were apprentices together? Kikyou almost wished she had given Tsubaki the Shikon no Tama when Tsubaki had demanded it. Perhaps she would not be wandering the land, unable to trust anyone or to rest.
Yet she knew that all was as it should be; had Tsubaki obtained the jewel, her dark nature would have corrupted it. Kikyou was an excellent priestess and guardian for the jewel. She had to set aside these ridiculous, selfish thoughts and concentrate on the task before her. A priestess lived in seclusion, for she could afford no attachments. The notions of passion and home were irrelevant.
Kikyou stood, brushed off her kimono, and composed her face before setting off toward the west. She sensed youkai in that direction, a situation she was eager to remedy.
The priestess was approaching the Western Lands, where she could feel the dark, writhing energies of a group of youkai. To her inner senses, it was like a pit full of tangled vipers, their tongues licking the air as they sniffed for prey. She could almost feel their smooth scales and see the fury in their yellow eyes. The miko shuddered. Would she ever get used to the ugly energy youkai radiated?
Her intuition led her to a cave in cliff, a cave that could barely been seen for the sharp brush that covered its entrance. Even the leaves appeared menacing. Kikyou nocked an arrow and tiptoed inside. The youkai were nowhere to be seen, but someone had lit torches and arranged them in sconces on the walls. Kikyou wondered what youkai would bother to light the way in, unless it somehow anticipated visitors?
A few minutes later, she heard a splash as her sandaled feet stepped into wetness. There was a familiar coppery odor in the air. Kikyou sniffed, and her stomach recoiled.
Something inside Kikyou burst, and she crumpled to the ground like a discarded silk robe. She felt her cheeks collapse into wrinkles of grief as tears she had not imagined she could still cry poured down.
(To be continued. . .)