"Leave people a little room, and you can meet again on good terms. We'll see each other again soon, Kagome Higurashi."
A fragment lay silently at the foot of the bed.
It wasn't that he thought little of this fragment. Rather, throughout the entire plot of Inuyasha, only its original male lead, Inuyasha, could ignore the restrictions of the Bone-Eater's Well and travel freely between the two worlds.
Even the female lead, Kagome Higurashi, needed the Shikon Jewel's power to pass through the well at this stage. Every time she traveled between the two worlds, she carried a Shikon Shard with her.
The later incident involving the wolf demon demonstrated this perfectly.
At the time, Kagome had lost her Shikon Shards. When she tried to return to the Warring States era through the Bone-Eater's Well at her home, she failed. Only after the little demon Shippo brought a Shikon Shard into the well on the Warring States side could Kagome return to that parallel world five hundred years in the past. (Presumably, a Shikon Shard had to be near the Bone-Eater's Well for Kagome to use this miraculous well to travel between two parallel worlds with entirely different timelines.)
Now that I have some Shikon Shards, can I also use their power to pass through that miraculous old well and reach the Warring States era in the parallel world?
Li Xia pondered the question.
Should he head over right now? He was still hesitating.
As for taking those Shikon Shards?
"I'll find some other way to make it up to Kagome later."
In the original story, the Flesh-Bodied Human Face had been stimulated by the Shikon Shards and awakened from its seal. He had not only nearly killed Higurashi Grandpa, but also devoured a firefighter and several carloads of police officers, causing considerable casualties.
Taking these fragments today could also serve as a little lesson for Kagome.
She must never let the Shikon Shards leave her side!
After taking the few Shikon Shards he needed, he slipped quietly out the back door at a brisk pace.
His work done, he departed without leaving his name or revealing his identity.
For now, things like Sōunga could remain in the Higurashi family's keeping.
That thing was beyond his ability to handle.
After one last glance back at the little wooden building housing the Bone-Eater's Well, Li Xia left without lingering.
Behind the Sunset Shrine stood a patch of woodland, and across from the woods was a six- or seven-story Western-style building. A paved road ran up the hill beside that building, connecting it to the foot of the hill. In other words, he could leave this way too.
Come to think of it, Kagome's family was quite wealthy-secretly filthy rich, even. They owned a shrine covering over a thousand square meters in Tokyo, where every inch of land supposedly cost a fortune. In fact, half the hill could be said to belong to the Higurashi family. If that wasn't wealth, what was?
Of course, when it came to wealth, the Peninsula Li Family had them beaten.
After leaving the Sunset Shrine, Li Xia took a taxi straight to a small courtyard residence in the city.
This residence, covering several hundred square meters, was one of the Li family's properties in Tokyo.
Inside were pavilions and towers, rock gardens and flowing water, bamboo groves and flower beds, and a lotus pond bathed in moonlight.
Several ordinary members of the Li family maintained it, with butlers and maids all provided.
Beyond this residence, the surrounding area contained two shopping streets and a food street, whose storefronts were also part of the Li family's worldly holdings. These properties were precisely why the Li family, once royalty on the peninsula, stood far above its openly recognized financial conglomerates despite not being counted among them. They also ensured that family members never lacked food or clothing, while those with talent could devote themselves entirely to cultivating Daoist arts.
"Xia, why are you back so early today?"
As soon as he got out of the car, a middle-aged man came over to greet him.
Li Xia smiled and replied:
"I helped a classmate deal with a few things this morning. I felt a little tired afterward, so I came straight back. Oh, Fourth Uncle, sorry for the trouble, but could you have a few alloy safes made for me? I have an important use for them."
The middle-aged man was his father's younger brother.
He was one of the unlucky members of his father's generation who had no talent for cultivation.
As a result, he had become one of the principal people responsible for managing their branch's worldly businesses in the Tokyo area. Essentially, he was a steward of their mundane affairs.
It would have been impossible to claim that Fourth Uncle felt no envy toward Li Xia's household. Family members who could cultivate started far above ordinary people like him, who could not. Even without doing anything, they could enjoy wealth and status for their entire lives.
But the family's hierarchy was firmly in place. However dissatisfied Fourth Uncle might be, his resentment could amount to little more than a harmless grumble. He could only serve as a leaf, feeding the main trunk with the nutrients produced by photosynthesis. He neither dared nor would be foolish enough to do anything out of line. Otherwise, the main branch's boundless fury would await him.
Those people in the main branch would never tolerate a challenge to their authority. Under the family system, no ordinary member could defy the wishes of the core members capable of cultivation.
Ordinary family members enjoyed prestige in the mundane world, yet were fit only to serve as stewards.
The core members, hidden behind the scenes, were the family's true masters.
This was the ironclad rule that sustained a cultivation family through the ages, its very foundation.
Naturally, Li Xia was perfectly happy with it.
Why would he rebel against himself?
"How big do you need these safes to be?"
Fourth Uncle asked.
After a little thought, Li Xia specified three sizes. "...Two each of large, medium, and small. Have them delivered to my private warehouse."
He returned to his room.
From inside his shirt, he took out the little glass bottle containing seven Shikon Shards.
He had found all seven in Kagome's bedroom.
Come to think of it, the Flesh-Bodied Human Face had escaped the seal placed on him by Kagome's ancestor largely thanks to these Shikon Shards exerting their power from a distance. The Shikon Shard on his forehead had resonated with these seven, awakening the dormant mask demon.
Thinking of the fragment on the Flesh-Bodied Human Face's forehead, Li Xia sank into another long stretch of contemplation.
Without question, the fragment held by the mask demon could not have come from the Shikon Jewel that Kagome shattered with her Sacred Arrow in the Warring States era.
The Flesh-Bodied Human Face's Shikon Shard had existed hundreds of years before the modern era. Kagome's ancestor had sealed it away along with the mask, and it had been stored in the warehouse at the Sunset Shrine that caught fire.
Yet only recently, Kagome had been attacked by the Centipede Hag, who had revived inside the Bone-Eater's Well and discovered the complete Shikon Jewel within the girl's body.
How could a jewel fragment and a complete Shikon Jewel exist simultaneously on the same timeline?
If two identical Shikon Shards existed at the same time—or, rather, if there were separate Shikon Shards representing the past and the present—then the Shikon Shard taken from Hōsenki in the original story would not have been described as "the last jewel fragment."
And Naraku would certainly have turned his attention to the modern world, gathering as many additional jewel fragments from different timelines as possible!
Never underestimate the power of the complete Shikon Jewel!
It could have helped Naraku do just that!
An identical wolf slipping into a wolf pack was an entirely different matter from a husky slipping into it.
The complete Shikon Jewel would not care about something like a husky joining the pack. It had done plenty of that over the preceding six hundred years. After death, the souls of those who had made wishes all entered the jewel, just as Naraku's soul did after he died. Imitation Shikon Jewels could also be fused into the genuine jewel.
But if an identical wolf joined the pack...
Even a fool would know that another identical jewel existed somewhere in the world-and that it was in the modern world.
Thus, the instant the final villain, Naraku, finished collecting the Shikon Jewel, the jewel, which had developed an independent will, would never simply wait to be destroyed. It would act to preserve its existence. If it went to the modern world to cause trouble, the Protagonist Group would have no way to stop it.
Because Sesshomaru could not go there.
Miroku could not go there.
Sango could not go there.
None of the other powerful beings in the demon world seemed able to go there either.
Could Kagome and Inuyasha alone threaten the Shikon Jewel?
Get real.
Therefore, the Shikon Shard held by the Flesh-Bodied Human Face definitely could not have come from the jewel Kagome shattered.
This also confirmed that another shattered Shikon Jewel existed in the modern world.
(The Shikon Jewel's existence was somewhat similar to how Iron Man and the others traveled to a parallel world in The Avengers and obtained that world's six Infinity Stones.
In The Avengers, both parallel worlds had their own six Infinity Stones.)
Applied to the world of Inuyasha, this meant that the demon world of the Warring States era and Kagome's modern world each had a Shikon Jewel. They were two entirely unrelated jewels. The one associated with the Flesh-Bodied Human Face could be regarded as an imitation Shikon Jewel.
This was a bold hypothesis.
Yet it best explained why the Shikon Shard held by the Flesh-Bodied Human Face could resonate with the other Shikon Shards Kagome kept in her room.
They appeared unrelated, but in fact shared a close connection.
It also explained why the Shikon Shard held by the Flesh-Bodied Human Face could fuse perfectly with the other Shikon Shards.
It even explained why, in the original ending, the sentient Shikon Jewel born from their fusion could interfere with the Bone-Eater's Well, make the well disappear, reach the level of kagari and naohi-which had left the jewel and developed independent wills-and directly influence Kagome's modern world!
Everything had been caused by the jewel fragment held by the Flesh-Bodied Human Face!
That fragment was an undeniable wild card!
It was like taking the six cosmic stones-the Time Stone, Space Stone, Soul Stone, Power Stone, Reality Stone, and Mind Stone-and turning them into a combination of two Time Stones and the other five Infinity Stones.
Originally, combining the powers of the six stones could create an Infinity Gauntlet capable of wiping out half the life in the universe with a single snap.
What kind of qualitative change would occur if another stone were suddenly added to the mix?
"All right, all that is far beyond me. It's not something I should be worrying about right now..."
As he pondered, he set each of the seven Shikon Shards into a brush used for drawing talismans.
The Shikon Jewel possessed many incredible abilities.
Even a tiny fragment among dozens or hundreds had extraordinarily powerful effects.
Embedding a fragment in the body could cause desires to surge, distort a person's nature, and rewrite their will. Even a great demon like Hōsenki could be affected. For that reason, Li Xia valued its amplifying power and its ability to give things tangible form more highly.
Through the brushes, he could amplify the spiritual power he used to draw talismans, compensating for his insufficient magical power and greatly improving the quality of the talismans he produced.
He might now even be able to attempt intermediate talismans that had previously been beyond him.
And talismans were currently Li Xia's most important means of survival.
"At my current level, using the power of the Shikon Shard to boost my magical power through sheer brute force isn't suitable. But I can improve the materials I use to draw talismans and increase the power of the finished product that way."
He put the idea into action at once.
P.S. (See the image for the Shikon Jewel's effects. I won't go into them here.)
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Before you continue