The crowd was cheering as the match began, while the opponents waited, studying one another before starting the fight. Suddenly the girl speaks up, "Why are you fighting?" "I have to, it was fight here or fight while trying to protect my family and friends. I preferred my chances here."Seeing an opening he struck at her making the first move of the match. She blocked his attack with practiced ease. He returned with questions of his own. "Why do you fight? What do you want? What are you anyway?" She gave him a startled look and jumped away. "You don't know?" "Why would I? Hiei and Kurama, my teammates, said you were legends and are really powerful with the power to turn demons to dust. But no, I don't know, should I?" "Yeah, yeah you should." She gave him a sympathetic look while the match came to a standstill. She began her tale.
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have to be the one to tell you this. I'll start at the beginning. You know about the three worlds right?" She waited for him to nod. "Good, around five-hundred years ago the worlds were not as divided as they are now, well at least Makai and the Ningenkai weren't. Demons were free to choose to live in either world. Most lived in the Makai but some chose to live in the human world. During this time there were special, spiritual humans, the monks and mikos. They had spiritual energy that could purify demons relatively easily. The monks and mikos kept the demons in line and protected the humans from demon attacks. It was a dangerous time, but it was balanced.
"Around five hundred years ago that changed. Reikei had changed leadership and the new ruler wanted to split the two worlds permanently. I believe that he was afraid that we would learn to work together and would attack the Reikei, which is dumb really because those from Reikei can't be killed by humans, spiritual humans, or demons so it wouldn't really matter if we teamed up or not. That or he was a huge human lover." She shrugged. "Ahhh, that's beside the point back to the point.
" Anyway, the new ruler forced all demons to move to the Makai and a strong barrier was put up, one of the most powerful that I had ever seen. My best friend Inuyasha had a sword that could cut thought any barrier. The Reikei had heard about this sword of legends and had him killed and stole the sword from him to protect their precious barrier." Upset she shook her head to try to calm down before continuing her story further.
"The many half demons were also thrown into Makai, despite their human half. They didn't last long. Many of them lived with their human family hand were unaccustomed to such fighting. They were targeted due to their human blood. The issue could have ended there. Should have ended there! The demons were gone from the human world and the threat to the human population was ended. But no, Reikei wasn't finished yet. Apparently Mikos and Monks, the spiritual humans, didn't fit in this new ruler's image of the perfect human world. He didn't believe that we were really human. And so we were next.
"He stripped us of our humanity. We gained a demon's life span and were thrown into the Makai along with the demons. You have to realize this though, spiritual humans and demons are natural enemies. When we were forced to the Makai we were slaughtered, hunted. That became our name, the hunted. Maybe five percent of us survived for the first ten years in the Makai. Those who didn't know about their powers beforehand normally died unless they found a mentor their first day or so there. Most of us who arrived past the first wave didn't know about their powers, that it was even possible. After living for one hundred years though we became known as the ancients. And like your friend said, legendary. For a hunted to live to a hundred years in the Makai is exceptionally rare. We are hunted mercilessly our entire lives there. To live to a hundred the person would need to be extremely strong, smart, and have some powerful allies. Their reputation by that point is so large that demons will avoid any and all contact with them. There are only four ancients at this time. The most recent ancient arrived two hundred years ago. Two of us are from the original wave taking us to the Makai five hundred years ago.
"The biggest problem with this situation however occurs after we die. We're not humans, so we cannot be judged as humans, but we are also not demons. There's don way of judging the souls who die, so they don't. There are hundreds, thousands, of spiritual human souls waiting to be judged in limbo, unable to continue on. That's why we are fighting, for the souls of our dead."
She ended her tale with a truly apologetic look. Kuwabara stood there dumbfounded, memories running through his mind that he had viewed as suspicious previously. It all clicked: all the mysterious deaths and strange situations suddenly made sense. Kuwabara, contrary to popular belief is not stupid, brash and bad at schoolwork, yes, but stupid, no. He began to notice small inconsistencies in logic since Hiei and Kurama stole the three items from the Reikei, months ago. He had been suspicious but he didn't have enough information to make any real decisions on what to do about it. His biggest suspicion had been about his family though.
For around a century every person born into the Kuwabara family was killed before their thirty fifth birthday. Sometimes it was a disease, sometimes an accident of some sort, even murder in a few cases. There were a few though, those with the most powerful sixth sense as the Kuwabara family had taken to calling it that had simply disappeared. He had always thought that his family had been cursed but he had never known exactly why or by whom they had been cursed. This girl's story explained that, especially about those who had gone missing. He had to be sure though.
"A hundred years ago, did something change? Killing them rather than sending them to Makai? Those with some sense but not enough to let them form a power?" "I don't know. I've been in the Makai for the past five hundred years."
She seemed contrite before suddenly getting an idea. "Hey, could you do me a favor actually? Find my family and tell them what happened to me? Please, my mom will be really worried about me when I don't come back. Can you tell them?" "Hua? Family, mom?" Kuwabara was confused. She had been in the Makai for the past five hundred years; her family should be dead and gone by now. She seemed to realize her mistake. "Oh, sorry I guess I should explain. My name is Kagome Higurashi; I was born in this era, in Tokyo, and was pulled into the past by a magic well and a demon seeking a powerful item that was hidden inside me when I was born. I don't want my mom to worry anymore than she has to. We live at-""KUWABARA!"
"What are you doing up there? Fight!" Koenma had made his way down to the contestant's field, the girls in tow. It did not escape his observation that Koenma was keeping close to Shizuru and Yukina primarily. All the information he had just received along with his suspicion about the situation he was involved in, especially his suspicions concerning Yukina ran through his mind and he froze when he realized the veiled threat. Why else would you bring human girls to a demon fighting contest they'd be slaughtered! Realizing the threat he got to the ready again.
Kagome seemed to realize his situation as well as she prepared for his attack. He rushed her and as she blocked he let out a whispered "sorry, go easy on my companions please." He leapt back and made a quick sweep with his sword in an attempt to do some damage at least. She seemed to not be expecting it as he managed to cut her along the side as he drew away. It wasn't enough to disable her or to win the fight, but it was serious damage all the same. What Kuwabara didn't notice was the shocked silence of the crowd that his successful attack created.
The match continued for another five minutes. Kagome focused on healing her side and fighting Kuwabara back while Kuwabara continued to fight and gave her a few more superficial cuts but nothing that had the damage of the earlier cut that was quickly healing.
Off to the side Hiei and Kurama were discussing the fight, impressed with how long he has lasted but disagreeing on his chance of victory. Hiei had no delusions about Kuwabara's chance of victory against an ancient and was surprised on the damage that he had already done to her, especially considering his lack of familiarity with his weapon. An energy sword and a real sword are completely different after all. Kurama, while agreeing that it wasn't a large chance, believed that Kuwabara could conceivably win.
Their disagreement was disrupted by their teammate being thrown into the wall beside them. He was a mess. There was a major sword wound across his mid-section and he appeared to have had hit the wall with his head as there was a serious wound there and he was knocked unconscious which likely wouldn't have happened with the sword wound alone. The rest of the fight would be up to Hiei and Kurama.