Crystalline Sanguine Saga
Prologue
Twenty-six years or so had gone by since the hanyo Inuyasha defeated the bat yokai Taigokumaru, subsequently splitting the Blood Coral Crystal of the bat yokai clan in half with which he strengthened his Tessaiga. With the Blood Coral Crystal in two pieces and the corrupt Taigokumaru defeated, Inuyasha and his companions could leave the site of the battle knowing that the hanyo Shiori and her human mother, Shizu, would be safe from the bat yokai. Afterall, the cruel leader of the clan had been defeated, and many of his followers were slain, as well. Only a few bat yokai remained, leaving the primary danger to Shiori and Shizu to be the humans of their village.
The human villagers had never been all that accepting of Shizu or Shiori once the latter was born, given that Shizu's lover and Shiori's father was a bat daiyokai by the name of Tsukuyomaru, who tried to keep peace between the village and bat yokai clan before his untimely demise at the hands of his own father, Taigokumaru. But with his father defeated, the tension between the clan and the village decreased somewhat, which lead to the agreement that the two communities would each harbor a piece of the Blood Coral Crystal for safe keeping.
The bat yokai clan, which was now under the rule of a female bat daiyokai, took the left half of the power-depleted Blood Coral Crystal. The right half went to Shizu, who lived on the outskirts of her human village. Much time had gone by, and neither half of the Blood Coral Crystal regained any of its former power. Perhaps this was because the two halves were kept separate from one another.
The hanyo Shiori, the previous guardian of the whole Blood Coral Crystal, grew up into a beautiful young woman that eventually fell in love. She did not, however, fall in love with one of the human villagers, as they had all ostracized her from the time she was young. Instead, she fell in love with a bat daiyokai around her age, one who was born from one of the few clan members that had survived Inuyasha's attack. This male bat daiyokai with whom Shiori fell in love with was called Eiji.
Shizu would tell her daughter that Eiji shared many traits with Shiori's father. Perhaps that was why the hanyo was drawn to him.
Shiori and Eiji bore a daughter together, one that had too much yokai blood to be considered a hanyo, and too much human blood to be considered a yokai. The infant had ¾ yokai blood and ¼ human blood. The term that was coined to refer to her with was "hanpa".
The birth of the hanpa, Emiko, was not considered great news by the human villagers nor the bat yokai clan, though the latter were more accepting of the girl. Whether this was because she was more yokai than human or due to the fact that the remaining clan members were more docile than the members of Taigokumaru's clan was unknown.
Either way, as Emiko was growing up, she was primarily living with her mother and grandmother on the outskirts of the human village where they were less likely to be excluded from either community. Emiko's father would visit often, giving his daughter words of encouragement while running his fingers through her lilac hair that was just like his. Emiko often felt like a part of herself was being stolen away whenever her father left to return to the clan's bat cave, but that was before the hanpa learned how to sprout wings from her back.
Shiori was nervous when her daughter learned how to fly and began to visit the bat cave more and more frequently. She was worried that some of the bat yokai might be a bad influence on her, or that they would ostracize her like Shiori herself had been by the previous members of the clan. However, with Eiji around and a new, trustworthy leader of the bat yokai clan, Shiori's fears were unfounded. There was also a part of her that, deep down, knew that the bat yokai would teach Emiko how to defend herself in their cruel world better than the hanyo ever could. Shiori was obviously older than the hanpa, but Emiko had more yokai blood, and was bound to grow up to be the stronger of the two.
So, Shiori decided. For her daughter's coming of age ceremony, she would have for Emiko a weapon forged from the two halves of the Blood Coral Crystal. It was Shiori's belief that maybe, just maybe, if the two halves were reunited, some of its power would return that could be used to forge the weapon that Emiko could protect herself and others with in their inhumane world.