"Kikyo, have you ever heard of a place called 'Paradise Land'?"
After parting with the warmly insistent villagers, the two of them rode on Blackmaru's back. Kikyo was just about to guide the shikigami back toward the shrine when Uchiha Retsu suddenly spoke up from behind her.
"No."
She thought for a moment, then shook her head lightly and turned to look at him with curiosity.
"Why? Is this Paradise Land something special?"
"Yeah. It's said to be connected to legendary immortals," Retsu replied honestly.
"Immortals?" Kikyo froze slightly, disbelief in her voice. "Do such beings really exist in this world?"
"Probably. They're just not what we imagine them to be," Retsu said, not entirely certain himself.
In the Inuyasha world, stories about immortals were actually quite common.
Besides the Paradise Land they were searching for now—where an immortal master had been turned into a potted plant by his disciple—there was also Nikosen, an immortal who had fallen into demonhood.
And in the movie Crimson Lotus Island, the Naryaku Cauldron also seemed to be linked to immortals in some way.
"Let's not go back to the shrine for now," Retsu said after collecting his thoughts.
"From what I know, Paradise Land should be somewhere nearby. I want to look for it.
I'm curious how their so-called 'immortal cultivation' compares to my Sage Mode."
"Alright. I'll follow your lead," Kikyo nodded gently.
In truth, she was also somewhat curious about these legendary immortals.
Although he didn't know the exact location, Retsu remembered two key clues.
First, on the cliff where Paradise Land was located, there grew a demonic tree that bore human-faced fruit.
Second, the creature called Tōkajin had a Shikon Jewel shard inside its body.
In the original story, Inuyasha's group had discovered many human-faced fruits drifting down a river, which led them to trace the source and find Paradise Land.
Because of this, Retsu paid close attention to the surrounding terrain, especially high cliffs with rivers flowing below them.
"Splash—!"
A figure leaped out from the forest. It was Retsu.
Seeing the winding river ahead, he hurried over.
"Hm?"
As he approached the riverbank, he noticed several red fruits floating on the surface. His heart skipped, and he quickened his pace.
He bent down and picked up one of the drifting fruits. After examining it, his face lit up.
"Human-faced fruit! Found it!"
The fruit looked like a large, plump peach, but it lacked any sweet fragrance. Instead, it carried a faint stench of decay.
Even more bizarre, a clear human face was imprinted on its surface, eerie and unsettling—exactly like the fruit from the demon tree in Paradise Land.
Retsu looked upstream. In the distance, he could see a cliff shrouded in mist, with dense vegetation clinging to its surface.
"That should be Paradise Land. Finally found it."
He casually tossed the fruit aside and muttered softly.
As soon as his words fell—
"Poof!"
His figure burst into white smoke and vanished.
It was clearly just a shadow clone.
At the same time, the real Retsu, who was sitting behind Kikyo on Blackmaru, felt something and smiled.
"Found it."
"Found it? Then let's go."
Hearing this, Kikyo gently patted Blackmaru's neck and guided him toward the indicated direction.
"Your Shadow Clone Technique is really useful. You located it so quickly," Kikyo said as Blackmaru raced through the forest, wind roaring past their ears.
"That's what it was invented for in the first place—gathering information," Retsu replied.
As he spoke, he suddenly remembered Kikyo's shikigami from the story—her butterflies, birds, and the puppet 'Seidai-sama.'
Their ability to act remotely and wield her power was just as mysterious as shadow clones, somewhat similar to Nagato controlling the Six Paths of Pain from afar.
Thinking of this, he asked curiously,
"Kikyo, can you make shikigami that carry your own power?"
"Yes," Kikyo nodded. "Using my hair, I can create shikigami that can wield part of my strength."
"Then what about mine?" Retsu's eyes lit up. "If you use my hair, can they use my abilities?"
He suddenly recalled how Kagome and Inuyasha's hair had once been used to create giant shikigami replicas.
Kagome's could even fire sacred arrows, which was incredibly impressive.
He was curious whether a shikigami made from his hair could use ninjutsu.
Kikyo paused, then glanced at him thoughtfully.
"I'm not sure. Your powers are… quite special. But… we can try sometime."
"Great! Let's try it when we get back to the shrine," Retsu said excitedly.
Blackmaru was extremely fast. While they talked, they soon reached the stretch of river where the clone had found the fruit.
"What is this…?"
Kikyo also noticed the strange fruits. She dismounted, picked one up, and frowned.
"A demonic tree that feeds on humans… producing human-faced fruit."
She looked up. Many such fruits were floating downstream.
Turning her gaze upstream, her expression grew serious.
"So many of these… That means the demon tree upstream must be enormous.
To bear this many fruits, it must have already consumed countless people."
"These fruits are connected to Paradise Land, right?"
Looking down at the fruit in her hand, she quickly grasped the key point.
"The peach demon tree that bears them must be growing in Paradise Land."
"Exactly," Retsu nodded.
"Let's head upstream and find where they're falling from."
They mounted Blackmaru again and followed the river upstream in search of the demon tree.
"Hm? I sense the aura of the Shikon Jewel."
After traveling for a while, light mist began to surround them. Kikyo's expression sharpened as she spoke.
"Really? Then there must be a shard in Paradise Land," Retsu said, eyes gleaming. He knew he was right—Tōkajin did have one in his abdomen.
Sure enough, not long after, Blackmaru carried them to the base of a cliff by the river.
At the foot of the cliff, both in the water and among the grass, countless human-faced fruits lay scattered.
Some were fresh, having fallen recently. Others were rotten and blackened, giving off a foul stench, clearly old.
Fresh or decayed, every single fruit bore a distinct human face on its surface, making the entire scene eerily grotesque.
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