InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Other Lives ❯ Chapter I: One-Eyed Priestess ( Chapter 1 )

I: One-eyed Priestess

 

Over the next six years, Kaede learned to be a village priestess. While the other girls her age gathered flowers, she picked the medicinal herbs Kikyo had showed her. At first, the villagers did not take her seriously. They made endless comments about what Kikyo would have done. It hurt her when she was young, but she learned to conceal her tears until she was finished binding up the wound or applying the poultice, or completed whatever task was at hand. As the years passed, she came to realize that Kikyo had meant as much to the village as to her. Kikyo had been a true priestess, caring for each and every member of the village equally. A priestess could not have personal relationships. Kaede understood that it would have to be the same way for her.

She taught herself to use a bow, slowly and painfully. It was so much more difficult than the first time she had learned. Because she had only one eye, she had no depth perception. At first her arrows went everywhere except her target. She practiced until her arms ached and her fingers were raw and blistered. If she had known any curses, she would have used them liberally. Instead, when she was too exhausted to continue, she would fling the bow on the ground, and stamp on it. After she broke several bows this way, she found safer outlets for her temper. Eventually, she learned to compensate for the lack of an eye, and could hit a standing target regularly. Moving targets presented more of a challenge.

Luckily, now that the Jewel was gone, no truly dangerous demons threatened the village. Kikyo could have obliterated the few insect demons that troubled them in an instant; each cost Kaede extreme fear and effort.

The hardest thing of all was learning to be alone. She had to be strong for the village; never could she reveal her own fears or longings. She never considered the possibility of a man's company. Kikyo had died because of such desires. Of course, the fact that Kaede was an ugly, one-eyed girl.

All she had left in the way of family was Inuyasha, wherever he might be. She often wondered when he would return. He had been gone for six years now, in pursuit of Naraku and the Jewel. For all she knew, he was long dead, dead in some far away place. He might as well be dead, now, a distant figure from the past, the brother-figure and guardian.

 

 

And so here she was, in the spring of her sixteenth year, walking the forest with a bow in one hand and a basket to collect medicines in the other. It was quiet here, with only the whistling of the wind through the leaves and the muffled calls of birds high up in the trees. She loved the spring more than any other season. Everything was beginning to bloom.

“Lady Kaede!” a man called from behind, gasping for breath. It was one of the older village men, and it seemed that he had run all the way from the village to find her.

“Is everything all right?” Kaede asked.

“A demon! Attacking the village!” he babbled, taking her by the shoulders and shaking her.

Fighting the urge to panic, Kaede tore herself free and sprinted towards the village. As she ran, she prayed that the demon would prove easy to subdue.

Shouts and screams met her ears as she approached the village. A stream of women clutching the hands of sobbing children straggled towards her.

“Lady Kaede!” they wailed as she reached them. “You must stop the demon. It's destroying everything.”

“What type of demon is it?” Kaede demanded, putting an arrow to her bow.

“It's enormous,” moaned one woman. “A huge, hairy…” Nobody seemed able to describe it.

Well, at least it did not have a human appearance. Kikyo had taught her that the more resemblance it had to a human, the more dangerous the demon.

She found the demon in the middle of the village, where it was devouring someone's stringy old mule. It was about fifteen feet tall, shaggy, with glowing yellow eyes and foot long claws. Some kind of bear, perhaps.

Kaede took a deep breath, trying to calm her pounding heart. This demon was larger than any she had faced before. She told herself that this was just like the other times she had fought demons. It was bigger, more frightening, but exactly the same. She would destroy it.

She had to, or it might tear the village apart and devour the rest of the precious livestock, and maybe even the villagers themselves. Maybe even her.

She pulled the bowstring back to her ear, aimed for where she thought the demon's heart would be, and released. The arrow went wide.

Busy with its meal, the demon did not notice her until the arrow struck it in the leg. It roared with pain and dropped the mule carcass, focusing its baleful yellow eyes on her trembling body.

Even with the arrow in its leg, it was fast for such a large brute. Kaede barely had time to get another arrow to her bow before it was upon her and stretching out a steel claw.

She ducked and scrambled backwards, accidentally releasing the arrow. The bear's claw barely scraped the side of her neck, leaving a shallow cut. Startled by the pain, she dropped her bow. The bear swatted it away, out of reach.

It loomed over her. She could smell its hot, bloody breath. Was this how she was going to die? She closed her eye.

The sound of tearing flesh, and a roar from the bear. Then, a thud, and silence. She opened her eye again to gaze into the face of her rescuer.

She saw golden eyes, long silver hair, and a red robe. A cocky, fanged smile. Also, pointed fuzzy dog ears that stuck up on top of his head. Why did he look so familiar?

It was a moment before she realized, and let out a glad cry. She leaped up and seized him in a brief embrace, before being overcome with awkwardness and backing away. It seemed as if a legendary hero had suddenly materialized to save her life.

Inuyasha was back.