After a month away, Li Xia returned to the village.
At the time, Inuyasha and his companions were still out working hard.
During that time, the group had been lucky enough to collect two Shikon Shards.
One came from a demon. There was little to say about that.
The other shard came from an [old bandit].
As it happened, that old bandit was an old acquaintance of Inuyasha's.
Fifty years ago, while Kikyo was still alive, the old bandit had been manipulated and goaded by [Bandit Onigumo] into ambushing [Kikyo], only to lose an eye to [Inuyasha]'s counterattack.
Come to think of it, if Inuyasha had not intervened then, that bandit would have already claimed Kikyo's first blood.
Yes, it was that ridiculous.
A top-class priestess whom demons struggled to approach had let a bandit chief skilled in archery creep within a hundred meters of her and shoot an arrow straight at her back. At the time, the arrowhead had been only a meter from Kikyo's back.
There was no dodging it.
And Kikyo had been completely unaware of that arrow!
Fortunately, Inuyasha appeared, intercepted the sneak attack, and drove the bandit chief away.
After being let loose like a tiger returning to the mountains, the fellow went into town and blew up a brothel, causing heavy casualties!
Bandit Onigumo, who had been celebrating in the brothel, suffered unexpected retaliation. He was left paralyzed and badly burned by the fire, with scarcely an inch of unscathed skin. Afterward, the bandit chief abandoned him in a valley outside Kaede's Village.
Then, by chance, Kikyo rescued and treated him.
He promptly began coveting Kikyo's heart.
So he simply threw caution to the wind and merged with countless monsters and evil spirits, selling his soul to the demons. What no one expected was