Deep within the forest near Kaede Village in the Musashi Province.
"Looks like I've caught myself quite a prize."
"Are you Inuyasha?"
A young woman standing atop a strand of hair smiled faintly.
"So you're Yura of the Demon Hair." Inuyasha's dog-ears twitched as he tried to wrench free of the hair binding his wrist. "How do you know my name?"
"Among us yōkai, tales about you circulate all the time."
Yura flicked her fingers, manipulating every strand of hair within range and casually decapitating anyone who strayed in, all while speaking unhurriedly: "Half-demon Inuyasha, pressed into service by a shrine maiden to gather the Shikon Jewel… Huh?"
Surprise flashed across her face—one bundle of hair had slipped out of her control. That was—
—north-west!
"I might be that—" Inuyasha, already growling in anger, sensed something amiss: a vast demonic aura was approaching fast.
"Hey, stupid girl, get out of here!" he shouted.
He wasn't joking. It was the first time he'd felt such an overwhelming aura—even Sesshōmaru didn't…
Whoosh! The rushing aura drew nearer.
Snap! Snap! Snap!
Thick hair-nets strung through the woods snapped one after another. Neither the half-demon nor the "ghost woman" even saw the attack; they only realized that most of Yura's nets had been destroyed as hair drifted down like snow.
"Eh…?" Kagome Higurashi—the "stupid girl"—stared blankly at a nearby tree. She was the first to spot the newcomer.
A boy, no taller than a three-year-old, perched there, a shard of the Shikon Jewel embedded in his brow.
"Damn!"
Yura turned to the child who had appeared so abruptly. The potent aura and jewel shard made her skin crawl—definitely hostile. She floated backward, hair tugging her along, and swept a thick curtain of strands toward the boy.
Whoosh!
The child formed a hand seal, exhaled flame, and the hair ignited instantly, fire racing along it.
Face darkening, Yura tore her own hair free with a comb, hovering beneath the massive nest she had woven, cold eyes flicking between Inuyasha, Kagome, and the new arrival.
Three sides, all hostile, and one aura clearly stronger than the other two—best not strike first.
Sniff—
Inuyasha's nose twitched. His keen senses told him the newcomer was another "half-demon."
A half-demon that breathes fire?
He flexed his claws, baring fangs. Oddly, the flames vanished the moment the burning hair snapped free, leaving only crackling embers and smoke.
Illusion?
He couldn't be sure. Even weak fox-yōkai fox-fire doesn't disappear like that. Maybe the aura itself was false—and that jewel shard in the kid's forehead was definitely his for the taking.
Yura wasn't backing down either. A shard of the Shikon Jewel was worth any yōkai's life.
"Interesting."
The boy eyed the two demons with curiosity, three tomoe spinning into view in his pupils.
"What—?!"
Yura's expression glazed over; she stumbled and tumbled from her threads.
"Genjutsu!" Inuyasha felt drowsy too, his demonic energy disturbed. He slashed his own chest, blood splattering as he snapped awake. Seeing the boy dart toward the helpless Yura, he yelled, "Back off!"
An instant later he launched Blades of Blood, trying to drive the child away from Yura's jewel shard.
Being half-human himself, he felt an instinctive fondness for children—especially another half-demon—even if they were after the same shard.
Whish! The crimson blades ripped through the air, but the boy ignored them, reaching for the seemingly unconscious Yura.
Fwoosh!
Yura's eyes flew open. With a flick of her comb, scattered strands flared into blue spirit fire, converging with Inuyasha's attack to pinch the child.
Inuyasha's face fell—maybe that body wasn't Yura's true form, which explained why the boy's genjutsu failed on her. Trouble.
He kicked off a tree, leaping to rescue the half-demon boy.
Clang! A translucent blue arm materialized before the child; both the Blades of Blood and spirit-fire slammed into it and stopped cold.
Shluk!
The boy's hand pierced Yura's torso. He plucked out the jewel shard, flicked her beautiful body aside like trash, then dropped the fragment into a small vial already holding seven or eight similar pieces.
Inuyasha skidded to a halt, watching the boy turn to leave. He lunged again. "Don't run!"
But the child didn't even glance back, vanishing in a blur of after-images.
"Damn it!" Inuyasha chased for several hundred meters, couldn't even catch the dust, punched a tree in frustration, then belatedly remembered that Yura might still be alive and Kagome was back there alone. He sprinted back, panicked.
…
Late that night, deep in the forest.
They have no chakra—ordinary genjutsu is a pain. If I want to disrupt demonic aura, I'll need to tweak the formula…
Leaning against a trunk with eyes closed, Uchiha Madara pondered the day's gains.
After being reincarnated, his soul had been dragged by some jutsu into a body birthed from a mass of yōkai murdering each other. A human soul fused with a demon body—thus a "half-demon."
Whether it was Link's doing or something else, the body that should have been adult was only the size of a three-year-old once he entered it.
His appearance was forcibly fixed as human; as for where the demonic half resided, he still wasn't sure. He'd inherited fragments of demonic memories, and now and then savage instincts welled up—but such negativity couldn't shake him in the least.
After months living rough, he'd recovered enough strength to barely open the Mangekyō Sharingan. Then he began exploring this unknown world. Seizing his first shard of the Shikon Jewel from a man-faced tree, he discovered it could make him stronger while maintaining his robust demon body, so he roamed about collecting shards.
With his mobility, ninjutsu, and half-demon physique, he'd quickly gathered every shard nearby.
That girl from today…
"Come out," Madara said, eyes snapping open at the memory of the strange shrine maiden.
Bzzz— Surrounded by eerie insects, a mysterious figure draped in silver-white baboon pelt stepped from the shadows into the firelight.