Prologue
The Senka Maiden
White pain sears into her wrist, blood staining her knees and elbows. The sounds were deafeningly loud by comparison to the whisper of the forest only moments before. It had only been a year's passing, a year when the rift had opened suddenly outside of the family shrine.
A year, since Suzuki Akahana and Suzuki Nyoko disappeared from Tokyo, and despite all attempts to find them, they never were found. At least, not in that current time.
Of course Nyoko could remember that day, all too clearly, as if it had only happened this morning. But she couldn't think of that now, with the rosary scorching into her very flesh, scathing as though furious with her. It had been her family's charm, made by her great grandmother. A way to pray to the familiars of the Suzuki Shrine.
Nyoko assumed that, flung into the past, she nor Akahana would ever have any access to the Bell Tree Shrine ever again. She worked as a Priestess in the closest Village she had woken near, the teachings of her family suddenly becoming more than just a tourist attraction or tradition. The Kagura Dance that tourists so enjoyed seeing suddenly held more weight, though Nyoko had always known that.
It was simply luck that, somehow, the dances and the rituals and all of the incantations actually worked. Well, not all, but, where they worked certainly mattered. A simple barrier, keeping out the demons that were so pesky, so lethal, to the townspeople she had grown close to.
Which landed her to where she was now, gathering herbs to restock her medicine stores before winter would descend upon them. Drying them and storing them in glass jars so they couldn't rot or wither. It wasn't a demon that had attacked, but a wild boar, angrily charging towards her. The basket had been swooped up in her hurry to flee, to run. But it had only acted as extra weight, and when the terrain rapidly changed underfoot, it was only a matter of time until she had fallen.
Tumbling down before a great willow tree, it's weeping leaves gently waving under the crisp winter cold that was slowly settling in. That was when the rosary began to burn her wrist, and, before her very eyes, it seemed to brand into the surface of her flesh.
Like a tattoo or marking. It curled around her wrist with swooping vines, and a single fruit like center over her pulse that she couldn't identify. However, she knew already what it had meant.
The Maiden had Come to Fruition.
Authoress: Based heavily off the BlackBird Manga, I wanted to try my hand at also mixing modern lore and mythology with Inuyasha. Throwing in the Senka Maiden is just to try and have some fun with it! For those who don't know, in the Manga Blackbird, the Senka Maiden is essentially like a power up tool for demons. Consuming the flesh granting power, consuming the blood for immortality, and/or marrying for prosperity to a clan, and extreme power to the offspring.
So let's have some fun!