Kagome was still entirely ignorant of the power she possessed, yet a mysterious sense of peace drove her to speak those words.
"Ignorance truly is bliss. If that time really comes, what could you possibly do?" Think said unhurriedly.
"I… I… I will kill them with my own hands!" Even though she looked hesitant, Kagome eventually gritted her teeth and shouted.
She could show kindness because the yōkai were forced, but she wouldn't be indecisive if the yōkai committed evil—at least, she didn't seem indecisive now.
As her resolve sharpened, the light at her chest grew more brilliant, eventually reaching a point where Kagome noticed it herself.
"Huh? Wh-wh-what is this?!!" Her voice rose in panic as she looked to Sū ěr for help, hoping for an explanation.
Compared to Kagome, who was panicking at the first sight of her own power, Sū ěr and Think—who had long known she harbored an anomaly—remained calm. They could feel that even at this close range, the pure white light had no ill effects on their bodies.
"Don't panic. Feel it carefully, try to control it with your heart… Can you control it?" Sū ěr crouched down, speaking soothingly.
"C-control?" After the initial shock, Kagome calmed down quickly. She took several deep breaths and finally nodded. "Okay, I'll try."
The girl prayed for the light to stop.
However, the effect wasn't great. Whether because the power sensed danger around the girl or was attracted by the sheer volume of yōkai, Kagome watched in shock as the light in her chest, rather than diminishing, grew even more intense.
"Give it to me!! Give it to me now!!!"
The pure white light also seemed to stimulate the surviving yōkai trapped by the spell. They screamed frantically, doing everything in their power to stretch their tentacles toward her.
But no one had time to deal with them. Even Jibril, who had been standing in front of them, leaned in. Kagome stared wide-eyed at her chest. Within that pure, though not blinding, white light, a pink orb slowly penetrated her chest and flew out, as if breaking free from some constraint.
It had the texture of jade but was a soft pink. Inside, it looked as if water was rippling, or perhaps an entire starry sky. it was in a state of constant flux. What floated inside seemed like cloud-like smoke, yet it constantly changed shape—sometimes resembling a person, sometimes an object, scattering and merging.
The pink jade orb drifted slowly down into Kagome's cupped palms. In the next second, the girl, still uneasy, repeatedly felt her chest with one hand—the bone wasn't broken, the flesh wasn't torn, even her uniform was intact.
I'm just an ordinary human; is it really okay for such a big rock to suddenly pop out of my body?
Kagome's thoughts wandered aimlessly.
Despite its warm pink appearance, the jade felt ice-cold in her hands, just as she had imagined. It even seemed to wobble slightly.
"The Shikon Jewel!"
"It's the Shikon Jewel!!"
"Mine! That's mine!!!"
From the moment it appeared, this small stone seemed to grant the yōkai restricted by Think spell infinite strength. They erupted with boundless vitality, lunging forward until the air ripples became even more frequent and dense.
Clearly, everything that had happened already proved that as long as Sū ěr and the others were here, the yōkai had no hope of obtaining the jewel. Yet at this moment, they completely forgot that fact or lost that awareness. These yōkai who had crossed through time only screamed the name of the jewel, desperately trying to get closer.
To prevent other yōkai from touching the jewel first, they unleashed their most vicious and damaging techniques on the demons pressed against the edge of the barrier closest to the jewel.
They had gone mad. Even if they shrieked louder, they had zero chance of obtaining the jewel, but they had lost all reason, escalating their mutual slaughter to a new level of intensity just to fight for the closest position.
"The Shikon Jewel? Have you heard that name before?" Turning his gaze from the frenzied yōkai, Sū ěr asked with a frown. He kept looking from Kagome to the pink jewel still held in her hands.
"No…" Kagome's voice sounded airy. The girl hadn't yet recovered from this succession of shocking events. "It's never been mentioned in the family records, and Grandpa never spoke of it."
"With this level of attraction for yōkai, it shouldn't be something obscure," Think said thoughtfully. "I originally thought it was a crystallization of something nurtured within her, but now it seems it has existed for a long time. At the very least, it appeared in the distant past and, for some reason, was temporarily residing in her body."
"Be careful," Sū ěr nodded, agreeing with Think assessment, and warned Kagome, "Can you feel its power?"
The Shikon Jewel. Memorizing the name the yōkai were still screaming, Sū ěr decided that once things here settled down, he had to ask Nura Nurarihyon about it. This was the benefit of knowing an old yōkai who had lived for centuries.
"Power…?" The look of confusion on Kagome's face deepened. She looked as if she were being pulled by an invisible hand in the air, or perhaps seeing something Sū ěr and the others could not. She was in a daze.
Is she about to be possessed?!
Startled by the thought suddenly popping into his head, Sū ěr signaled Think and Jibril to be cautious. He grew serious, watching every move Kagome made.
However, the situation seemed much better than he imagined. There were no violent movements; Kagome merely stepped forward blankly, one step at a time, approaching the confinement spell Think had established, both hands still cupping the pink jewel.
"Do you hear a voice we can't hear? Or are you seeing images we can't see?"
Sū ěr probed seriously.