Disclaimer: I don’t own any of the Inuyasha characters.
Pack link: italics
Normal speaking: ””
The raven ducks just in time for the curved scythe blade to miss slicing the air above her. Blazing blue eyes lock with frustrated, murky brown as she once again dodges a clumsy attempt to attack. Kagome chuckles.
“Have you never fought anyone in your life?” a small smirk plays on her lips as she stares at the sweating girl in front of her. She had jumped out of the bushes while Kagome was bathing and challenged her for her title. The Shikon Miko, a title given to the most powerful spiritual being in the land. Kagome had earned it after she challenged and killed the last one. That was nearly a century ago, a long time for normal humans but… for miko it passes in the blink of an eye.
“I have to fought before!” the girls high pitch voice rings out hurting Kagome’s ears.
“Hey! Could you not talk? Your voice grates on my nerves.” She replies, her body language showing that she is about done with the situation. Right leg is in a bent resting position, left hand perched lazily on her hip as her right is held up for her sapphire eyes to inspect under her nails for invisible grains of dirt. An enraged scream splits the pleasant silence as the girl charges scythe held up over her head, thoughtlessly exposing the weak spots of her body in her rage. Blood sprays the ground and the scythe fell from shaking hands. Confused murky brown once again locks with blue as she tries to understand that she is dying.
Then the murky brown eyes roll back behind heavy lids and the young miko slowly falls to her knees and then flopping forward on to the ground where she lay as her blood spreads out around her in a puddle.
Kagome stands still, waiting for her to stop breathing. Then she gently moves aside the blood clumped hair and touch the area a pulse is supposed to reside. Nothing. “Good. You should have known better than to challenge me when you didn’t have enough power or skill to defeat even a weak demon.” She wipes off the blood from her hand onto the back of her challengers haori, before getting up and dressing to head back to her village. With one last look at the blank, empty eyes of what could have been a strong miko, had she not been so stupid, Kagome makes her way toward the village.
*Sesshomaru*
I follow silently behind my pack members. My littermates walk beside me on both two legs and four. My alphas, sire and dame, walk in the front. Guiding us the where we need to go.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” a female voice rang out. I stop and sent the air. My ears twitch as I listen for more. I look around and see that the rest of my pack is doing the same. Finally, my father’s deep baritone rumbles out like a growl.
“This way… and be quite we wouldn’t want to interrupt in their fun.” He smiles, and I wonder what he means by that. Whose fun? I look at my brother Inuyasha who just shrugs his shoulders and proceeds to follow father.
What I see when I reach my pack mates throws me for a loop. In front of us are two human females. They are fighting which isn’t a surprise, humans are known to be stupid creatures that will kill each other for no reason. What IS shocking is that one of them is naked. It doesn’t seem to bother her though as she easily dodges the scythe that the other was holding. The older female even goes as far as to taunt the obviously younger female with a remark about how her voice was annoying.
I look to my father and ask through our pack link “Why is it they are fighting?” My father looks away from them and stares into my eyes as he responds.
“They are miko, spiritual humans who have lifespans nearly as long as ours. Their job is to take care of the villages that are in their territory. They often have one main village that they reside in, but it is not uncommon to see them walking about in the woods or fighting. Most often these are territorial fights between a new miko and one with a large established territory. Often the stronger the miko is spiritually, the larger the territory she occupies.” He paused to look at the two miko fighting. I turn my head to watch the raven haired miko kill the other in a swift move. As I watched her reaction, I asked father, “ Is it because she is able to defeat others for more territory father?”.
He chuckles deep in his chest and replies, “No son, it is because their power often drives weaker miko away.” The reaction of this Human shocks me as what I’ve learned from my observations of other humans is that they do not take death well. I expect her to break down crying, but she does nothing of the sort, instead she crouches beside the head of the dying female and snarls into her ear, “That is what you get for challenging someone so high above your level.”
I am shocked at her remark and ask my father “What does she mean ‘challenge’ father? I thought this was about territory?” I tilt my head at my father to accentuate my confusion.
He responds “In the miko world there are ranks. They are ranked based on how much reiki they have. Reiki is equivalent to our youki. It seems that the raven female was challenged by the other for her position as a high ranked miko. These rank fights are almost always to the death, as they need to show their full power which can often only be used in situations where their life is at stake. It would seem that the younger miko was being stupid and challenged a miko much stronger and older than her… she never had a chance.” He gave an irritated snort. I had to agree. It was easy to see the power difference between the two miko as soon as I we came them. The winning miko had so much power that she practically glowed with it, it showed through her blazing eyes, sparkling hair and bright skin. The other looked small and dull in comparison.
I turned away from the clearing and began to walk off in the direction we had previously been heading. Our new home… the western territory. My father had recently gained enough power to get us a small bit of land where we could live.
*To be continued*