Kōbe Hikaru had known from the very beginning that this world was no ordinary place.
On the first day after his transmigration, he had already discovered the existence of demons. Those grotesque faces, those contorted bodies, those killing instincts that burned in every gaze — nothing about them matched any film, series, or anime he had ever watched. For a while, he had assumed he had crossed into some wholly original otherworld: a chaotic age ruled entirely by monsters and demons, with no source material to guide him.
By the end of his first week, he had witnessed the spiritual power of a Demon Suppressor firsthand. A purifying arrow had come shrieking out of the distance and nearly skewered him clean through — a very hands-on lesson in the iron law that spiritual power beats demon-qi, every single time.
By the end of his first month, he had pieced together the broad strokes of this era from the idle chatter of demons around him.
Warring States Japan.
A land fractured among warlords, lords locked in endless war with one another, human lives worth less than dirt. Demons rampaged unchecked, the Night Parade of a Hundred Demons rolled out without end, and every village went to bed not knowing if it would still stand come morning. Demon Suppressors, Onmyōji, shrine maidens — humanity's practitioners of the extraordinary — existed in a precarious balance with the demon factions, neither side capable of wiping out the other.
But he had never been able to pin down exactly which world this was.
An original setting built on a Warring States backdrop?
Or something adapted from a work he had actually seen?
Until now.
The Shikon Jewel.
Kikyō.
A demon-slayer clan — the ancestors of Sango and Kohaku.
Put those keywords together, and the answer practically announced itself.
An anime he had watched more times than he could count, before he had ever crossed over.
Its name: Inuyasha.
Kōbe Hikaru stared at the Shikon Jewel resting in his palm.
This little gem was, in every sense, the central MacGuffin of the entire story. According to legend, it had been born from the Battle of the Four Souls — formed in the moment a shrine maiden and hundreds of powerful demons annihilated one another in mutual destruction. Within it were sealed four spirits: the Aramitama, Nigimitama, Kushimitama, and Sakimitama — representing the four human virtues of courage, friendship, wisdom, and love.
But sealed alongside them was also the resentment of those countless slain demons.
Two opposing forces — righteousness and malice — locked in eternal standoff inside the jewel, each vying for dominance. Whoever held the upper hand determined the jewel's nature. Held by someone with a pure heart, it would radiate a purifying light. Seized by a demon with corrupt intent, it would send that demon's power skyrocketing without limit.
That probably explained why those demons had pursued the old man with such fanatical desperation.
Get the Shikon Jewel, and you could leap from the lowest rung of the ladder to the highest in a single bound. A full-fledged greater demon. Maybe even a great demon.
And it wasn't just the rabble from tonight.
In the original story Kōbe Hikaru knew by heart, countless factions had bled and broken themselves chasing after this one jewel. Inuyasha — the half-demon protagonist — had wanted to use it to become a full demon. Naraku — the great villain, a being assembled from the merging of countless demons — had wanted to use it to become the most powerful existence in the world. Even Kōbe Hikaru himself, back when he had been nothing more than a person sitting in front of a screen, had once idly fantasized: Man, if only I could get my hands on the Shikon Jewel.
And now?
It was lying in his palm.
"...Well, damn."
Kōbe Hikaru swore quietly, at a complete loss for what expression to put on his face.
Surprised? Absolutely.
But more than that, what he felt was a profound, bone-deep sense of absurdity.
Still — setting all of that aside — if this truly was the world of Inuyasha, then the point in the timeline he currently occupied should be...
The era when Kikyō was still alive.
Because the old man had said it himself: Kikyō was the only one capable of suppressing the Shikon Jewel. In the original story, Kikyō had been exactly that — the shrine maiden entrusted with guarding it.
And that meant, at minimum, there were still fifty years before the events of the main Inuyasha storyline even began.
Fifty years.
More than enough time to do a great many things.
For instance...
His gaze dropped back to the system panel.
[Shikon Jewel]
[Quality: DIVINE ARTIFACT]
[Current State: DORMANT]
[Affection: LOCKED — prerequisite conditions not met.]
[Unlock Condition: Locate the 'Anchor of Suppression.']
The Anchor of Suppression.
The name the dying old man had given him.
Kikyō.
"So I have to find Kikyō first before I can unlock the Shikon Jewel's Affection?"
Kōbe Hikaru frowned.
Complicated condition.
Kikyō was the shrine maiden who guarded the Shikon Jewel. Her spiritual power was overwhelming, her archery nothing short of divine, and her particular area of expertise was the extermination of demons. In the original story, she had killed countless monsters and fiends with a single arrow apiece, and had been given the title of the strongest shrine maiden of the Warring States era.
And what was he, right now?
A Ghost Warrior.
A demon.
Kikyō's natural prey.
He was, in fact, starting to suspect that the purifying arrow that had nearly blown him apart during his first week in this world had come from Kikyō herself.
"If I just walk up to her front door... am I going to end up as a pincushion again?"
Kōbe Hikaru rubbed his temples.
He could picture the scene with painful clarity. The injustice of it was almost poetic.
But then another possibility occurred to him.
The system had only said he needed to find the Anchor of Suppression. It hadn't specified direct contact.
Maybe, if he just got the Shikon Jewel close enough to Kikyō — close enough to trigger whatever condition was required — it would unlock automatically.
"Worth trying."
Kōbe Hikaru tucked the Shikon Jewel into the fold of his robe, close to his chest.
Either way, the old man had entrusted him with delivering it to Kikyō before he died. The destination was the same regardless of the reason. Whether this was about honoring a dead man's last wish or unlocking the Shikon Jewel's Affection rating — the road led to the same place.
He had considered simply using the jewel directly. But thinking back on how things had gone in the original story, anyone — human or demon — who had used the Shikon Jewel directly had invariably come to a bad end, and had invariably ended up dependent on it afterward. The Affection route was cleaner. Safer. More his style.
He rose to his feet and walked to the mouth of the cave, looking out at the night beyond.
The demon-qi that had saturated the air was already gone. The swarm that had been hunting the old man seemed to have abandoned the chase — either because they had lost track of their target, or because they had sensed the Shikon Jewel shift to a new location. Possibly both.
Either way, he couldn't stay here. They would come looking eventually.
"A village beyond several mountain ranges..."
He recalled the old man's words. That had to be where Kikyō was.
He glanced down at the system panel.
[Cursed Blade Muramasa: Current Affection — 27.]
It had climbed considerably during the running battle. But he was still three points short of the next threshold. Killing a demon didn't always guarantee a point — progress was never that clean.
"No rush."
Kōbe Hikaru slid Muramasa into its sheath with a soft, definitive click.
"There'll be plenty more demons on the road to Kikyō."
After all, he was carrying the Shikon Jewel on his person now. For demons, that made him the equivalent of a walking feast. Every monster within range would come sniffing eventually.
"Perfect. I can grind levels on the way."
He stepped out of the cave and disappeared into the darkness of the night.
But before he fully vanished, he turned back one last time and looked at the old man's body lying still inside.
"Don't worry," he said.
"Your grandchildren. I'll make sure they know what happened to you."
A brief pause.
"If I get the chance."
He turned away and walked.
Moonlight spilled across the cave entrance, stretching his shadow long across the rocky ground.
He took a few steps, then stopped.
He tilted his head back and looked at the moon hanging above him.
"Kikyō, huh..."
He murmured it to no one.
Honestly? He wasn't opposed to this errand. Not even slightly.
If anything — he was looking forward to it.
Kikyō.
Among all the characters in the work he had watched over and over before crossing over, Kikyō had been one of his favorites.
That shrine maiden in white and red. Hair black as a river at midnight. A face that carried a cool, almost untouchable composure — and yet, in certain unguarded moments, let something soft and fragile slip through.
She had been powerful. And she had been utterly toyed with by fate. She had died with resentment still burning in her chest. Even after being resurrected — even as a walking corpse, not so different from what he was now — she had never let go of her dignity. Her pride had remained intact, flawless and unbowed.
Kōbe Hikaru still remembered how he had felt watching the scene where Kikyō finally, completely faded away.
The frustration had been something else. A profound, unsatisfied ache that had refused to leave.
And even setting all of that aside — even if he knew nothing about the source material, even if he judged purely from his own experiences in this world — it would have been difficult not to be interested in Kikyō.
Because she was, by any measure, a remarkably powerful and beautiful young woman.
And though he had become a demon, Kōbe Hikaru was still, in his core, a person. He still had a human self. Human awareness.
Human desire.
"What if I could save her?"
The thought surfaced suddenly.
And then refused to sink.
As for Inuyasha...
Well. That guy could go find somewhere cool to sit down and stay there.
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