InuYasha Fan Fiction ❯ Project IY14 ❯ Prologue - Tenseiga ( Chapter 1 )
[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]
2450 AD
Mt. Fujiama, Japan
Planet Earth
“Hey, Miyako! Take a look at this!” Daisuke called from the recently unearthed temple in the side of Mt. Fuji.
“What is it?” Miyako quickly jogged over to where Daisuke was carefully lifting out a sheathed sword. The rest of the excavators on the project all gathered around to look.
“I found it in the flooring under the statue. It's in marvelous condition.” Daisuke delicately looked over the sheath. “If this site hadn't been buried under fifty feet of tephra and hadn't been carbon dated to more than a thousand years ago, I would have wagered this sword was only fifty at the most.”
“It could have been put there long after the temple was built,” Misaki, one of the other excavators, pointed out.
“Grow a brain, Misaki, the eruption that buried this temple was in 1701, so at the absolute minimum the sword is 743 years old,” Miyako snapped her ears flattening against the sides of her head.
“Well, let's get this sheath off to the lab so we know for certain ……What's this?” Daisuke's eyes widened as he pulled the sword from the sheath. The blade of the sword was covered, or rather splattered with a dark reddish brown substance.
“Rust maybe?”
“No, look it hasn't eaten away at the blade.” Daisuke scraped away a very tiny amount of the substance, and then took a deep breath as a striking thought occurred to him.
Miyako seemed to get the reading from his expression. “You don't think……”
***
“Hey, Daisuke, the linguists have a positive on the inscription on the sword.” Misaki ran into the room where Daisuke was rereading the results on the dating of the sword sheath and the material on the hilt. It turned out the sword was older than the temple by 300 years.
Misaki handed him the printout of the transcription.
“Tenseiga could not save my immortal beloved…”
That was strange. Usually when warriors marked characters into their swords they used some phrase of victory or strength…Daisuke was interrupted from his thoughts when Miyako also came in with a manila envelope. Miyako's ears were standing straight up on her head, a clear signal of her apprehension. Since she didn't really show her emotions on her face, her fuzzy black neko hanyou ears made for a nice barometer for her mood.
“I got the data on the compound that was splattered on the sword. We were right,” Miyako said, handing him the envelope, her hand was trembling.
“I knew it!” A smile spread across Daisuke's face he as he took the envelope. “Blood from our ancestors.”
“Dai…” Miyako said shakily. “It's not just any blood. It's not human; I mean it's completely not human. The youkai this blood came from was a pureblood.”
Daisuke and Misaki looked at her as if she had just sprouted two heads. In this day and age humans and youkai blood had been almost completely integrated. The last pureblood youkai had died out around five hundred years ago and now they had in their possession organic remains of one…
***
As with any great discovery information about it always leaked out. And whenever there was great information to be had, the first people to pick up on it was the government, or more specifically the military. And since there was a military base near by, it should have been no surprise when the archeologists found said military at their door step claiming possession of the sword, all blood products, all data and claims to it, a mere two days after the results were in.
Since the archeological site was on the same side of the mountain as the military base, it was technically the military's property. But until now the military had laid no claims to anything excavated from the site, the temple, the statues, weaponry, nothing. Then with the sudden appearance of this blood, the military was demanding possession of it. Though what really puzzled the archeologists was, what could the use of the blood of an ancient youkai, pureblood or not, be to the military…?