I refuse!

Beside the campfire.

Li Xia, who had laid out his sleeping bag against a tree trunk and gone to sleep, quickly woke up. Watching the two bicker, he sighed softly.

Truly, only a pair of destined rivals would keep crossing paths like this!

These two, born to clash, seemed destined to end up together!

They seemed at odds, but it was precisely through these everyday interactions that they built a bond neither could let go of.

Inuyasha was a half-demon.

He had been born over two hundred years ago.

By human reckoning, he was already over two hundred years old. Even excluding the fifty years he had spent sealed by Kikyo, he had been active on this land for around a hundred and fifty years.

Comparing his lifespan to a human's, that made him only fifteen.

A fifteen-year-old boy.

So, as a human, what torment would await Kagome in the future if she stayed with him?

Kagome was fifteen now. Ten years later, she would be the understanding older woman beside an Inuyasha who was equivalent to a sixteen-year-old human boy. Twenty years later, she would be old enough to be his mother! Because by then, Inuyasha would only be the equivalent of a seventeen-year-old human youth!

Yet Kagome would already be on the downward slope toward age and faded beauty!

Her youth would soon be gone!

Her life would swiftly enter a countdown that no longer seemed so distant!

And every day after that, she would look at Inuyasha, forever young, forever like the boy next door, and remember the adventures they had shared, the sunrises and sunsets they had watched together, and so much more!

By then, all those beautiful moments would become arrows and blades piercing Kagome's heart! Every cherished memory would bring another measure of torment!

This was no alarmist talk.

Because time never stood on humanity's side.

Something as simple as sores or illness could very well take a person's life, or even the lives of an entire group. Yet for demons and half-demons, with their long lifespans and unusual constitutions, such things were no trouble at all.

Silently watching this perfect couple personally chosen by Takahashi deepen their bond, silently thinking of their eventual separation through death, Li Xia felt an unwillingness rise within him. He, too, was human, and he, too, might well become a handful of dust in a few decades!

I don't want to come all the way to this world only to become dust in history so easily...

I want to learn the ways of immortality, to climb higher, step by step, step by step, and finally transform this mortal body into that of an immortal...

I want eternal life!

Li Xia murmured inwardly.

The Shikon Shards he carried had neither blackened nor been corrupted. Yet at that moment, as though they had gained awareness, they all pulsed together. At the same time, a faint violet glow flashed and vanished.

The Shikon Jewel was remarkably like a superpowered solar battery.

Aside from a certain strange energy that filled heaven and earth serving as the "sunlight" this solar battery required, the power of the human heart could also act as "sunlight" to charge it. Positive energy, however, would bring about the birth of naohi, while negative energy would nurture kagari.

Naohi and kagari were like a person's good and evil thoughts.

When good thoughts prevailed, a person treated others kindly.

When evil thoughts prevailed, they would stop at nothing to achieve their goals, like someone whose urge to kill arose the moment they held a blade.

At present, what the Shikon Shards strengthened was the naohi within the jewel!

Of course, if Li Xia's heart ever changed and he became radical and extreme, the shards in his possession might turn black! They would then strengthen the kagari within them!

Just then.

The night wind rustled the leaves in the woods.

Kagome and Inuyasha sensed something at the same time. They stopped bickering and instinctively looked toward one side of the sky together.

There, a slender crescent moon hung high above the branches.

The day before had been a new moon night, when the moon lay between the sun and the earth. Their group had only just gone through the incident involving the Spiderhead leader, so the moon on this second day of the lunar month naturally could not offer the beautiful sight of a full moon overhead. (Unlike the full moon shown in the television series, this detail has been adjusted slightly here.)

(New moon: the first day of each month in the traditional lunar calendar. When the moon follows its orbit between the sun and the earth, its dark hemisphere faces the earth. This phase is called the new moon and falls on the first day of each lunar month. At this time, we cannot see the moon, hence the name. This differs from the phenomenon of a solar eclipse, in which the moon completely obscures the sun.)

"What was that?"

Inuyasha, whose eyesight was keen, rose with a look of surprise and suspicion.

Kagome had only human eyesight, so naturally she could not see the figure that flashed past beneath the moonlight:

"What is it? A demon?"

Inuyasha did not answer directly. Instead, he furrowed his brow and warily fixed his gaze on Demoness Urasue as she flew rapidly away:

Besides the strong scent of tomb soil, that demon hag also smells of fresh blood...

And that scent of blood is so familiar...

Wait, could it be...?

A particular person suddenly came to mind, and his expression changed.

With the aid of the Great Katsura Tree Mask, Li Xia caught sight of Urasue's figure and immediately formed a guess.

He also realized that Kagome's opportunity to undo the Shikon Jewel's first seal was close at hand.

Kikyo...!

Kikyo the priestess had been the unattainable childhood love of countless fellow fans in his previous life!

Although some of the anime's changes had stripped that cherished figure of the manga version's sacred perfection and given her a few flaws, those very changes had made Kikyo more flesh and blood, more within reach!

And the course of the coming events would reveal whether this was the Demon World of the Inuyasha anime or the Demon World of the Inuyasha manga!

Or perhaps it was an even more complex Demon World, combining the original manga with anime-original material!

Early the next morning, Inuyasha called everyone together and set off on a hurried journey back to Kaede's Village.

"What's wrong, Inuyasha? Why are we suddenly rushing back to the village?"

Kagome asked in confusion as she rode her bicycle.

Her bicycle and Li Xia's had previously been locked up at a village house not too far from Kaede's Village. Since the people of this era did not understand how these things worked, and the locals were fairly honest, a family had agreed to watch over them in exchange for a little food.

That was how the group had come to rent a small wooden boat, travel downstream, meet Ogi, and then slay the Spiderhead leader and his band of minions.

Faced with the girl's question, the troubled Inuyasha merely sped forward through the branches of the roadside trees.

Li Xia, who was also riding a bicycle, looked thoughtful and weighed down by concerns as well.

He was planning the rest of his life, making preparations to one degree or another for a future that might be near or far.

As for Shippo, sitting in the bicycle's front basket? He was still half asleep.

A little over an hour later.

Kaede's Village came into view in the distance.

When everyone returned to the village, they were all astonished to see Kaede's bandaged arm.

"Grandma Kaede, what happened to you?"

Kagome asked with concern as she rode closer.

Only Inuyasha, despite feeling relieved inwardly, turned his head aside and curled his lip:

"Huh, so you're still alive! You're one tough old hag!"

Then, after Two-Dog explained what had happened, Kagome and Shippo finally understood why Inuyasha had been so desperate to hurry back.

They immediately took a long, serious look at their companion.

"You smelled my blood on that demon last night?"

"So that's why..."

A village woman supported Kaede. Though her injured right arm hurt terribly, her heart felt warm.

Inuyasha was still the same "big brother" Inuyasha she remembered.

At that, Inuyasha tucked his hands into his sleeves and offered some ill-tempered advice:

"Hmph, you're getting on in years. Try to stay out of trouble!"

Watching the indescribable familiarity between Kaede and Two-Dog, Kagome saw her companion in a new light: Inuyasha could be quite endearing and dependable at times.

Before long, Kaede led them to a large, ravaged pit.

"What is this place?"

Inuyasha asked.

As he looked at the shrine behind the pit, where the Shikon Jewel had once been kept, complicated, unreadable emotions stirred in his eyes.

"Demoness Urasue made this pit. My sister's grave used to stand here! Back then, my sister asked the villagers and me to burn her body together with the Shikon Jewel..."

To be precise, Kikyo had paid with her life and all her spiritual power as a priestess to carry the Shikon Jewel into another world!

Perhaps she had intended to travel to the underworld and seal the jewel forever in the burial grounds of the dead!

Unfortunately, she had underestimated the jewel's power!

She had underestimated its obsessive refusal to disappear!

And so she had happened to cross into the modern world on the other side of the well.

Meanwhile, Kaede continued her account:

"Before she died, my sister Kikyo asked me to destroy her ashes as well. But I didn't listen. I kept some of them and built this grave so the villagers could pay their respects!"

"Alas, I have only my own lack of strength to blame. I couldn't stop that old demon hag Urasue!"

"And my sister's spiritual power was among the greatest of any priestess! If her remains fall into a demon's hands and it puts them to good use, there's no telling what horrors might follow! Inuyasha..."

But before Kaede could make her request, Inuyasha turned his head and snorted:

"I refuse!"