A/N Inuyasha and all other properties belong to Takahashi Rumiko.
Chapter 1
Tomoe
200 years. It had been 200 years since one of the greatest evils and yet one of the greatest goods in the world - The Shikon no Tama - had been destroyed.
That much was fact.
The rest was less than so.
The stories surrounding the sacred jewel and it's destruction had fascinated her as a young child. And even still, there was a certain mystique that surrounded at the very least the memories of when she and her siblings would gather around their father, sitting near the warming fire with cups of tea in cold hands, listening with wide, bright eyes that saw magic fly and entwine with the smoke as the stories were woven from his words.
"Two hundred years ago," her father would always begin, "On a day darkened by the great black spider of evil, the Shikon no Tama - the greatest power of the world - was destroyed."
"How did it get destroyed, papa?" would ask Ayumi, the youngest of the lot, her eyes shining in the firelight. Their father would chuckle and smile at her, the dark eyes crinkling.
"There was a brave miko, the strongest miko ever, and a youkai of great power," he would then tell them. "Together, using the miko's spiritual powers and the demon's youki, they destroyed the jewel."
"Why did the jewel have to be destroyed?" Tomoe would ask, looking up in confusion. "I thought it wasn't all evil, was it?"
"No it wasn't, Tomoe, you're right," her father would agree with her. "The Shikon no Tama was originally neither good, nor evil when it was first thrust from the heart of the priestess Midoriko. But by this point, the jewel had been used for evil, and was thus an evil thing that needed to be destroyed so it would never hurt anyone ever again."
"Tell us about the demon and the miko," begged Masuto, the son.
"Ah, of course," would laugh their father. "Well, with the demon and the miko traveled a Slayer, a monk, and a fox. The Slayer was said to wield a great bone as a weapon, and was one of the last Slayers of her time before the clan we now know of ever was. The monk was once cursed by the great evil spider, and was forced to carry a hole in his right hand, which sucked anything and everything into infinite nothingness. And the fox was a great and wiley demon, with many tails, and was very brave and wise.
"They all went on many quests, most of them to retrieve the jewel though they never could. They faced youkai possessed by the Shikon no Tama, humans who hated youkai, and the worst enemy of all, the great evil spider Naraku."
"What about the demon and the priestess?" Tomoe questioned, curiosity piqued when her father failed to describe the two.
"The great miko was, again, one of the most powerful priestesses ever to walk the earth, and was one of the kindest, most beautiful women in the world. Her protector was the great demon, who was the son of one of the great Lords of the Western Lands, and the two loved each other immensely."
"Mama said they were tied with the red string of fate," piped up Ayumi.
"Indeed they were," nodded their father.
"And after all that happened the demon and the miko got married and they had kids, right papa?" Masuto was practically shaking with anticipation as he asked.
"It's a wonder you even ask me to tell this story!" exclaimed their father, slapping a hand to his forehead. "You know it by heart, after all."
"But you tell it better, papa," said Ayumi, looking positively scandalized by the thought that their father would stop telling them stories.
"Well, why don't you tell me about the demon and the miko anyway?" said their father, gazing fondly at his three grinning children.
"They got married and had babies," recited Ayumi with hardly a pause. "And then their kids had babies, and then they had babies, and-"
"And that's why Tomoe's got doggy ears!" exploded Masuto, indignant that his sister had beat him to such an important detail to their young minds.
"Yes," nodded father solemnly. "The great miko and the demon are your ancestors."
And so went the stories and the legends, for much of Tomoe's life. She knew that the Shikon no Tama was created from the souls of many demons and the priestess Midoriko, and she knew that it was destroyed by her ancestors. She knew that the great demon her father spoke of was a dog demon, and one of the sons of the Lord of the Western Lands. She even knew that the great miko was the reincarnation of another miko, who had died nearly 50 years before her.
But as she grew older, something happened to the innocence in Tomoe's soul. Something happened to the wonder of knowing her ancestor's legends.
When she was still young, Tomoe didn't mind the ears. She didn't mind the heightened sense of smell, or her strong skin. Her mother shared her condition, after all; there was at least someone she could cling to on those nights and days when the full moon shone, when her hair went white and she lost all power she held. She wasn't alone.
But as she grew older, she began to notice that none of the other children of the village had ears like hers. Sure, there were two or three that were second or third generation hanyous, but at least they had demonic powers.
She didn't.
Not like them.
She couldn't cut through rocks like them, or race up and down the hills without losing breath like they could. She didn't have normal ears that sat on the sides of her face. No, she had furry black dog ears that sat atop her head, pricked and alert for any wind of the malicious gossiping that only grew along with her age.
And so, the forest was about as far from people as she could get, in her mind. It was her quiet, holy place where she could be away from those malicious whisperings, left only to her thoughts.
Then again, those thoughts themselves weren't always the kindest either. Tomoe wasn't one to exactly forgive and forget like her mother. There had been more than one instance as a young child where she had been scolded for hurting one of the other village children with the claim of "practicing her fighting", and found herself fleeing to the woods, muttering those profanities that could only have been thought up by a child.
Still, it wasn't the forest's fault. The trees were quiet, the trees were strong. They grew silently through the ages. Sometimes a bough would fall, sometimes even the entire tree would, and every year the leaves would fall, leaving only the musty smell of damp decay and brittle wooden fingers.
There was a fine day, late in the spring of her thirteenth year, that she was sitting, fuming, in a tree in the forest. The air at this time was thick with the scent of the delicate pink sakura of the cherry trees and the buds of new leaves. Small birds flitted from branch to branch, chirping their cheerful tunes. But the air around the girl was thick with simmering, stewing fury.
Her black ears were pressed flat against her skull, hiding them effectively from any who didn't look too closely. Her foot was tapping impatiently against the low branch she had perched on. Was it her fault if some little kid had gone and fallen into the well again? Of course not! But evidently, the news had not reached the villagers, who blamed her after they had fished the boy out once again for not stopping him from falling in in the first place. Did they expect her to have stopped him from falling with some demonic powers that they thought she possessed?
Perhaps they did. But it wasn't like she had any to offer. The generations between her and her demonic ancestor had robbed her of any power she may have had. So she was a freak, both among humans and youkai. She couldn't even be considered hanyou, with only the trivial powers and her lineage connecting her to demons. An outcast, a freak among all. Her place in the world was a lonely one.
Hot, angry tears prickled their way into Tomoe's eyes, and she rested her head in her folded arms. There had been only a few she could call her friends, outside her family, who didn't make mean comments about her ears or her lack of demonic powers, and included her in their mundane, but friendly activities. But by now, those few girls had been married off by their fathers, leaving her alone.
And in that moment, Tomoe hated that miko and that demon who had destroyed the greatest power in the world, the Shikon no Tama. Their union in her mind was anything but blessed as she cursed them for giving her such a useless fate as this.
It had been three summers since that time. Today found her wandering around on the forest floor rather than on a branch, her hands in her pockets, once again quietly fuming. A person watching from behind a tree would have thought her to be some sort of forest youkai, with her long black hair flowing in a shining sheets behind her, and her kosode swishing freely around her ankles. But the aura of anger was almost visible, dark and heavy, making the birds nervously stop their chirping as she passed.
It wasn't the first time.
Today's issue seemed to be, once again, surrounding her lack of youkai powers, at least in her young mind. In her mind, her difference made her an odd one out, and a target for dislike in many in the small, close-minded community.
The only people she could talk to freely were the village priestess - an old miko by the name of Yuri - and her family. The reason she could talk to them was because they at least didn't hold grudges against her for the village misfortunes. Her temperament didn't exactly help her plight either, but it still wasn't exactly her fault. Tomoe scowled as she thought of the old woman. Their last conversation had not gone well in the least.
"Yuri-baba," Tomoe asked earlier that day, helping the old miko with her herbs, "Why do you think everyone in the village hates me?"
"The village hates you?" Yuri asked mildly, sorting her dried herbs without looking up.
"Don't pretend," Tomoe scowled at the old woman, glancing from her withered old hands to her wrinkled face. The woman truly was ancient. "You know that they all blame me for when a kid dies, or when the crops fail, or some other bull crap reason like that."
"To weak minds, blaming others comes easier than finding the solution to the problem," she rasped, delicately skirting around the question.
"But why me? Don't lie. Why do they hate me."
The old woman looked up at last. Her eyes were like blue flint as she opened her mouth. "The truth is you're impatient, Tomoe," she said at last, her tone clipped and cool. "You let your emotions run your actions. You don't hesitate to fight, and you're prideful and antagonistic."
"H-Hey-"
"And then," the miko continued, her voice becoming more gentle, "There's your heritage. You're well aware that you are descended from a great and powerful miko and youkai. People expect for you and your family to show similar power."
"But I don't have any power!"
"I know you don't, child, but the village expected you to," interjected the miko. "And when people are disappointed, they become angry."
"They're disappointed?" Tomoe scoffed after a moment. "And what about me! How should I feel!"
The miko said nothing, watching the girl instead. Her silence was one of the most infuriating things of all as she continued.
"I spend my whole life hearing these stories about my ancestors, how they were powerful warriors and they saved hundreds of lives and destroyed the most evil thing in the world. And then you hear those stories of how they went on and still helped hundreds of people throughout their lives before they disappeared, and how their friends were some of the most powerful people of the age and kept fighting until they died! And here I am, expected to have all these powers and I don't! So what am I supposed to do?"
The miko gazed at the fuming youth for a long moment, only looking.
She had watched this girl grow up, dark haired and bright eyed, and yet seen only as an oddity among the people because of her lineage and her appearance. It had been heartbreaking to see her change because of the constant enmity from the townsfolk. What would it have been like had she not been affected by the anger of weak men?
Finally fed up, Tomoe stood, brushing her hands off and storming outside the hut.
She knew she was wrong to have shouted at the woman, she thought dejectedly as she kicked a few rocks much later that day, once again in the forest. But apologies never came quickly.
The sky was turning soft and orange with the sunset. The branches were looking suddenly black against the sky, like evil fingers. Her breath came out in quiet puffs. Perhaps perhaps didn't come quickly, but night did. She at least had to return home for the night. Night is the time for the demons, not for weirdos like me, came the bitter thought.
The village was still quiet when she crept in; it usually was, as this was the point where the tired land workers trooped back into their homes, waiting patiently for their wives to serve them dinner, too tired to speak.
The silence became unnerving when she entered her own home.
Normally, a small fire would have been kindled inside by now, with her younger siblings sitting side by side playing some game, or drawing some imaginary creature, and with her mother tending a pot of stew beside the flames. Instead, there was a cold pit, and an empty pot.
"Mom? Dad?" she called, looking around. An cold unease had settled firmly in the pit of her stomach, like she had swallowed winter ice. "Hello?"
There was no answer. She ran outside. Nobody was there, save for a couple human children tussling outside their hut and giggling madly. Heartbeat rising, Tomoe walked swiftly past them before breaking out into a run, right into Yuri.
"Tomoe!" cried the old woman in surprise. Tomoe began to step back from the miko out of respect, but she stopped the moment she felt strong old hands latch onto her arms like vices. She looked back up at the woman, foreboding only growing. There was something like panic in the old woman's eyes. Actually, something exactly like panic. "Oh Tomoe, I'm so sorry! I tried but I couldn't stop them! They just up and left, wouldn't hear a word I said, and…"
"Yuri-baba, what are you talking about?" Tomoe asked. Something about the old woman's voice frightened her.
"Oh, Tomoe… They've left… And I've no idea where they've gone…"
She kew. She knew and she didn't need to ask. But the idea was so frightening, she had to. She had to ask. "Yuri-baba…" she said in a strangled voice, her own hands coming up to clasp the miko's arms. "Where is my family?"
"They're gone, Tomoe… They're gone."
A/N Hey, guys.. I dunno, this little idea kept on running through my head, and it wouldn't leave me alone. So I kinda wrote it? But ti doesn't make much sense, I guess. It's a little hard for ME to read, so I hope it's not too hard for you? Give me a chance, I promise it'll make more sense. The biggest reason why I'm writing this is as like a little "loosening up" exercise for me that I'm gonna do before I get to writing my book (yeah, it's a process). I dunno, I hope you like it?
Also, yeah.. Yeah it's gonna make more sense later. I haven't been writing as much as I should have lately, and I didn't edit this too well. I'll probably update it soon, so it reads better, and stuff is more... Linear.
A/N 2 I had evidently made some plot notes for myself on my computer and not looked at them while I was writing, so I fixed the last bit of dialogue (I like it better) and stuff. Still not too easy to read, I know, I'm sorry.
Bye love yourselves have fun don't die