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Kikyo, shown with her bow Kikyo (桔梗 Kikyō) is a character in the anime and manga series InuYasha.
She was the miko assigned by Sango's village to guard and purify the fabled Jewel of Four Souls (Shikon no Tama) or Shikon Jewel, which was created by a battle between another miko, Midoriko, and hundreds of yōkai. Although she slew many yōkai that tried to take the Jewel from her, Kikyō could never force herself to kill InuYasha whom, unlike the other yōkai, was half human. Kikyo and InuYasha began to have feelings of love and compassion for each other. Kikyo told InuYasha that the sacred Jewel that she was protecting could be used to make him a human, which was the opposite of his original intention of becoming a full yōkai. He agreed, believing this would allow them to be together.
The day following this decision, while heading towards the area where they had agreed to meet, she was attacked by what appeared to be InuYasha. An ultimately fatal wound on her shoulder, she collapsed as Naraku (In the form of InuYasha) left with the jewel proclaiming that he would kill everyone in her village. Kikyo eventually made her way to the village to find the real InuYasha fleeing with the Shikon Jewel, after also having been tricked by Naraku into thinking that Kikyo had betrayed him and intended to slay him.
Holding on to her last bit of strength she released an arrow of binding, sealing InuYasha in what was supposed to be an eternal slumber. After telling her younger sister Kaede to burn the Shikon Jewel with her body to assure that something like this would never happen again, she passed away. It is hinted at in the anime (but not in the manga) that this fate was in part due to a curse laid by Tsubaki, when she told Kikyo that "a miko must abandon her heart to achieve power ... this includes love as well" and "You must extinguish love. You must never hold a man dear," else she would "suffer an untimely death."
In present day Tokyo, a young girl named Kagome Higurashi turns 15 and on her way to school heads to the well on the family property. She was going to retrieve her cat Buyo from the area, since it was forbidden. When she approached the well the centipede yōkai Mistress Centipede (Mukade Jōrō) emerged from the well, taking a very confused Kagome back to the Sengoku period (Feudal Era of Japan). Kagome was proven to be Kikyo's reincarnation in that the Shikon Jewel was within her body; she awoke InuYasha and the adventure for her began.
Kikyo, however, had been dead for fifty years already until the yōkai Kijo Urasue attacked her village and stole Kikyo's ashes along with some burial soil from her grave. Using her powerful magic, she re-created Kikyo's body in the hopes that Kikyo would find and retrieve the shards of the Jewel of Four Souls (which was incidentally shattered by Kagome) but, to the old yōkai's dismay, Kikyo's soul had not returned to her body.
Angered for a while, until Kagome and InuYasha, along with Shippo (Shippō) and Kaede (Kikyo's sister), were attacked by Urasue's guards. With a quick attack, the yōkai had Kikyo's reincarnated soul and eventually (With InuYasha's unknowing help) totally revived Kikyo, who immediately killed Urasue and went on to attack InuYasha. Kagome however somehow managed to get most of her soul back after Kikyo's assault. With only one part of soul within her Kikyo fled, fueled by the bitter hatred she felt for InuYasha at the moment of her death.
However, despite this hatred that she bears for him, she cannot deny her feelings of love and well being for him as well, for it is her wish to die with him and descend into hell, where they can be together forever.
Being as how Kikyo is not made of flesh and blood she only has a bit of soul and strong willful determination, she must find ways to sustain her "unlife" on this mortal coil until she can kill Naraku or die with InuYasha by using Shinidamachu (Shinidamachū, dead soul insects) to collect the souls of deceased women, allowing her to move and continue her journey.
After Mt. Hakurei collapses, Naraku (nearly) slays Kikyo again, but she later appears as Hijiri-sama (聖様, 'Her Holyness') with her two assistant shikigami, Kocho (胡蝶 Kochō) and Asuka (飛鳥). Her shikigami soon ask Kagome to help save Kikyo;. Kagome did not hesitate for even a moment to help Kikyo, and she is able to survive Naraku's shōki and continue on.
She gives InuYasha an arrow that has dirt from the cave of Onigumo for Kagome to use in the boundary between this world and the next against Naraku that almost destroys him, after which Hakudoshi is charged with her destruction until Hakudoshi's betrayal.
Nevertheless, Naraku's shōki still remains and gets worse even though Kagome had purified it. Kikyo uses her Shinidamachu to recover the rest of Midoriko's soul to help her overcome the poison.
Special attacks
- Hama no Ya (破魔の矢) - The magic arrow of a miko (priestess). As a priestess, she can slay arrows, and occasionally does so to help InuYasha.
- Fūin no Ya (封印の矢) - Arrow of seals. She used this arrow to seal InuYasha to Goshinboku after Naraku tricks her into believing that InuYasha attacked her.
Name
Voice actors
| InuYasha characters
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Listed in approximate order of appearance.
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