Kaya's Story (An InuYasha Fanfic)

Chapter 1: The Shikon Jewel

When I was very young, I lived in a bustling village in the Eastern Lands. Father, Mother and I lived at the top of a hill, at the back of the village, in a palace of sorts. Father was gone most of the time patrolling his lands and helping to defend the lands of his comrades. Mother, on the other hand, was the village priestess and defended the village from demons while Father was away. I, being a half-demon, was not very well liked by the village people so I spent most of my time in the courtyard of the palace. When I was able to walk on my own some, Mother would take me with her when she travelled to other shrines, temples, and villages purifying demons and spreading peace in times of peril. One of the villages we visited the most, was the Village of the Demon Slayers.

One day, when we arrived at the Demon Slayers' village it was buzzing more than normal. We visited the chieftain's hut like usual and discovered the Shikon Jewel or Jewel of Four Souls was found in a demon they had slain, that morning. The Sacred Jewel was said to have been formed by a priestess. She absorbed the souls of the demons she was fighting, forcing out her own soul along with the demons' souls in the process. The chieftain had explained to us that the Jewel could make demons more powerful or make a human's petty dreams and desires a reality. The chieftain, Shako, entrusted the Sacred Jewel to my mother to purify it and protect it. Granted, no one at the Village of Demon Slayers knew what I truly was or who my Father was. Mother accepted the task without hesitation and that's when our lives changed forever.

Roughly two years after Mother started protecting the Shikon Jewel, an evil demon know as Mai attacked our village in an attempt to get the Jewel. Mai was known by her enemies as the "Dragon Priestess" because she used similar methods to those of dark priestesses; death and poison curses where her favorites. Mother fought Mai for several days before Mother was able to kill her and seal her power, but not before Mai cursed Mother with a death curse. None of us who witnessed this battle realized how soon the curse would come true.