"Anyone who'd lie about women and children screaming would just as easily lie about their food! Earthquakes don't throw giant boulders of stone and dirt through the air for miles! If there were an earthquake, houses would have been knocked down! And people certainly wouldn't be so calm two minutes after one ends! Tell us the truth!" Inuyasha bellowed.

Miroku and Shippou had just entered to hear the explanation and the rebuttal, guided to the temple by the fearful villagers.

The priest sighed again. "I had hoped…that you wouldn't see through the story. Yes, it is fiction. Every bit of it. You see…"

"There's another demon here, isn't there?" Miroku asked.

Inuyasha nodded fiercely. "I can smell it…"

The priest nodded. "There is. But not as you would expect. Come with me." He stood and opened the sliding door.

The group walked over. There, before them, was a whole other room! There was a group of men and women, looking very sick. A troupe of temple women were nursing them to health.

"Which of these maidens would you suspect as a demon?"

The priest's question came as a total surprise.

Kagome was the first to answer. "You mean…one of these girls is a demon?"

He nodded. "You see the girl in the corner there? The one in the blue kimono decorated with cranes and her somewhat short brown hair? That is she. That is it."

All they could see was her back and hair. She seemed to be polishing a statue.

They were dumbfounded.

Kagome rubber her eyes. "Is it just me, or does she have on a very strange necklace?"

The priest closed the door and went back to the table. "That jewel you saw her wearing is call the Jewel of the Mortals. Many years ago, a fierce demon rampaged our village. She would constantly return, searching for something.

"One day, when a high priest and priestess guarded this temple, she came too close. The priest muttered some words and the priestess threw a necklace into the air. The clear, prism cube pendant on the necklace shone like water in the moonlight and the chain fastened itself around the flying demon's neck. She clawed at it for a few seconds, the fainted and fell to earth.

"Soon after, a new maiden had appeared in the temple. She was dressed in a blue kimono with white cranes on it, and was told to clean the many things in the shrine. She was never to come near the villagers. Only the priest and priestess were to speak to her.

"We soon realized that the magic of the Jewel of the Mortals was used to subdue the mighty demon. With it around her neck, she had the body, if not the soul, of a human. She had none of her powers, and she was blind.

"Children these days are more prone to noticing how otherworldly she is. Some sob when she passes. She is a prisoner of our village, and heaven help the day she is free to take her revenge."

Kagome gasped. "But…but she can't get her powers back, can she?"

The priest lowered his head and let out a breath of air. "No, unless she finds her necklace's counterpart, the Jewel of the Demons. Even if she manages to remove the chain she wears now, only her sight will return. She would need to touch the fabled Jewel of the Demons to regain all her powers and more."

Inuyasha was still angry about the lies. "Feh. Didn't need to tell me."

Miroku was almost flabbergasted. "You mean…the Jewel of the Demons exists?"

The priest nodded. "It does, but it has never been seen. We can only hope it had been done away with, but even that is too much to hope for. So long as the Jewel of the Mortals exists, so does its counterpart."

They all turned as a noise behind them. The girl! She had somehow groped her way through the shrine, opened the door, and crawled near the priest. She was a sad sight. Even if her hair was done up as a priestess', her eyes were sealed and the lids were tinted a rosy pink. Her mouth was twisted into a scowl and she grabbed the priest's robes and pulled herself up.

"D-d-damn you…" she managed to utter. The years of silence had weakened her voice.

"Back! Back into the shrine, demon!" the priest yelled, standing up and casting her off. She fell to the floor with a sickening thud, but she hadn't passed out. Kagome winced.

"Did you…did you have to throw her like that? After all, she is still in a girl's body. She can still feel things, can't she?"

The priest had finished dragging her into the other room and shutting the door.
Yes, but now as you and I feel. Hers is only a weak pressure, since the body is not hers. It is merely a shell around her real body."

All were silent for a moment, until Kagome broke the silence.

"But how does that explain the huge boulder flying through the air?"

"When her rage becomes to great for her to bear, a great amount of it is let loose. Sometimes, it causes an earthquake. Other times, it displaces earth and may send it flying out as if from a blast."

"So that was her anger…"

"Yes."

Inuyasha finally spoke. "So who is this demon you've been holding captive?"

The priest could hardy contain his fear at the sound of her name.

"Tetsusaia."