Tōkijin



T&#333;kijin (「闘鬼神」), in the anime and manga InuYasha, is a possessed sword forged from the fangs of Goshinki, Naraku's detachment, at the request of Sesshomaru.

Forging of the sword
When Goshinki attacks a village at the orders of Naraku, he encounters InuYasha and the group. While dueling with InuYasha, Goshinki is able to predict all of InuYasha's moves due to his telepathic powers. Finally, Goshinki seizes the Tetsusaiga using his fangs and the two are locked in a power struggle to free the sword. For the tremendous amount of stress applied to the sword, it cracks and snaps in half with many smaller fragments. InuYasha is knocked unconscious for a brief while, but he storms back in his transformed demon form and slices Goshinki into pieces.

Nevertheless, the feat of grasping the Tetsusaiga with his fangs and able to apply enough pressure to break it is mighty indeed for a demon. Sesshomaru arrives on the scene and he senses the events that took place. He brings the intact head of Goshinki to the evil sword smith Kaijinbo, who was an apprentice of Totosai. Sesshomaru tells Kaijinbo of how the fangs of this demon had enough power to break the Tetsusaiga, the prized masterpiece of his former teacher whom he now despises, and requests him to craft a sword out of the fangs of this demon. Kaijinbo reasons that he cannot do so because the bones are dead and will not forge a great weapon. Sesshomaru, upon hearing this, draws the Tenseiga and revived the demon's head, its eyes gleam with evil.

When Jaken visits Kaijinbo's hut afterwards, seeking to know if the sword has been completed, he stumbles upon a possessed Kaijinbo who is completely under the sword's evil aura. Kaijinbo kills Jaken with the sword and sets out to take revenge on InuYasha. (Later on, Sesshomaru revives Jaken with the Tenseiga.)

Demonic aura defeated
The sword bore the hatred of Goshinki, who is determined to kill InuYasha for killing him. Upon meeting InuYasha, he declares that this sword is the Tokijin, made from the fangs of the demon Goshinki. However, Kaijinbo is a sword smith, not a warrior, and the powers of Goshinki overwhelmed him. Kaijinbo's body could not hold up against such strong forces of the Tokijin, and his body is obliterated. The sword is left standing in the ground, radiating demonic aura.

After reviving Jaken and learning what happened in the hut, Sesshomaru traced Kaijinbo to where he died and finds that InuYasha's group as well as Totosai are attempting to destroy the sword unsuccessfully. He sees the Tokijin, but Totosai warns him not to touch the sword for even he would be possessed by its power. Sesshomaru does not heed his warnings and pulls the sword from the ground, instantly subduing the demonic aura with his own power.

Then, he asks InuYasha to draw the Tessaiga and fight with him. Using the Tokijin, he is able to knock the Tetsusaiga out of InuYasha's grasp and he witnessed his transformation into a full demon. Before he could fully transform, Totosai and the group intervened, ending the battle before it got ugly.

Powers
The Tokijin, when compared to the Tenseiga and the Tessaiga, is weaker because Goshinki was a normal demon, not an entity like InuYasha and Sesshomaru's father, who was the lord of Demons in the West. Like the Tessaiga, it can release energy waves that appears to be equally destructive. Most agree that the reason Tokijin can stand up to Tessaiga is because of Sesshomaru's own demonic power which is channeled through the blade. Evidence to prove this is the energy that Tokijin unleashes before and after Sesshomaru wields it. Before, in the hands of Kaijinbo, it was covered in a pinkish aura, capable of firing a rain of needle-like sword pressure. After Sesshomaru takes control of Tokijin; it first left a green trail wherever it was swung, then it was used to fire an attack of pinkish purple and green energy which shot golden needle like attacks, and finally through Sesshomaru’s total mastery of the sword was able to release blue energy waves that was clearly of stronger power than anything Kaijinbo released through the blade. Even though Naraku had gained a nearly impenetrable barrier Sesshomaru was able to use the Tokijin to penetrate Naraku's barrier through a second swipe and cut him in half in Episode 124.

It is interesting to note that Tokijin could potentially be the most powerful weapon in the Inuyasha series. It fires hate energy at the opponent. Therefore it can be assumed that its power can be heightened by the users' own hatred. The more hatred the user has, the stronger its power will be. In Sesshomaru's battle with Moryomaru, when Moryomaru insulted Kagura, Sesshomaru grew angry and attacked Moryomaru with the Tokijin. A huge, massive blast, larger than the previous blasts, was formed, causing far more damage than a regular attack. This is reflected in Moryomaru's half oblitered face. This can also explain why Sesshomaru's Soryuha (Dragon Strike) was able to overcome Inuyasha's Backlash wave (Bakuryuha). In the third movie, right after Sesshomaru first unleashed Soryuha, Inuyasha counterattacked him with his Bakuryuha. One can say that the Bakuryuha might have eventually prevailed as it is basically a combination of Sesshomaru’s own energy with that of Inuyasha. Also not a single enemy in the entire series has yet defeated this technique of Inuyasha, not even Ryūkotsusei. However, when Sesshomaru thought about how Inuyasha and his mother were the cause of his father's so called "miserable death" since he died while protecting them rather than healing his wounds from his battle with Ryūkotsusei, his attack overthrew and dissolved the Backlash Wave, defeating Inuyasha. In this situation, his hatred which amplified his sword's power was what gave him the edge he needed to emerge the victor in this contest. Since his father was the person who Sesshomaru respected the most, one can only speculate how powerful the Soryuha might have been at the moment when Sesshomaru hatred for his brother was at its peak.

Upgrades
The Tokijin's remarkable abilities have left many fans wondering if in fact Sesshomaru ever gave his sword upgrades the way Inuyasha constantly upgrades his Tessaiga. While watching the fourth Inuyasha movie (Where his Souryuuha attack took the shape of a dragon), some fans have come to believe that Sesshomaru had perhaps infused Tokijin with the power of Ryukotsusei (the demon who fatally injured his father). Sesshomaru holds his father in extremely high regard and it can be said that his father was the only one he truly respected. Thus, he compares himself and uses Inu no Taisho as a standard. Sesshomaru commissioned Tokijin to be forged from Goshinki's fangs because the demon was able to break the Tessaiga; something which even Kikyo and Kagome's holy arrows were unable to do. As Tessaiga was his father's personal weapon, it would make sense that Sesshomaru would want his own sword to have power that would rival that of his father, and what better source than the great dragon demon who ultimately killed his father. This would explain why his Souryuha attack is in a dragon form (as well as the lightning looking dragon strike attack used in the third movie by Sesshomaru which is extremely similar to Ryuukotsusei's lightening energy attack). How such an upgrade came to be is very debatable as no trace or remains of the dragon were left after the climatic battle between him and Inuyasha. In the anime though, the attack looked like it grinded Ryuukotsusei. It is possible he found something after the battle. In the second ending song, it is revealed that Sesshomaru visited Ryūkotsusei while he was still imprisoned. It is possible that he took a fang or scale from him during this time and reforged his Tokijin with it.

Limitations and Destruction
In the third movie of the InuYasha franchise, when Inu-Yasha was possessed by So'unga, Sesshomaru drops Tokijin because it was nowhere near a match for the sword of world conquest (or the sword of hell). Towards the end of the movie, Tokijin was heavily damaged by So'unga after being used several times. The edges were no longer sharp and there were also several large scratches on it. Not surprising, the Tenseiga and the Tessaiga received no damage since they were both forged by the fangs of the Inu no Taishou (Sesshomaru and Inu-Yasha's father). Comparing the power and nature of the swords Tokijin and So'unga, it can be seen that both were not unlike the other. Both were swords of immense evil, had powers of possession and a mind of its own with the difference of So'unga's far stronger power. In the movie, it was seen that So'unga is capable of holding back Tokijin's ultimate attack Soryuha.

Soryuha isn’t all that great of an attack as other attacks such as Inuyasha’s Bakuryuha (see second paragraph of “Powers”), So'unga’s Goukuryuuha, and Sesshomaru’s own Meidou Zangetsuha which learns to use with his Tenseiga, are stronger and can overwhelm it.

It is broken later (in the manga) when it was used against Moryomaru, who had absorbed Meioujuu's armor-shell. Angered by Moryomaru's insult to the demise of Kagura, Sesshomaru ignored the signs of the impending breaking of the sword and forced it to crack open the amour-shell. Due to the incredible stress applied to Tokijin, the sword cracked and broke. It is ironic when one considers the circumstances behind the birth and death of Tokijin. When the fangs of Goshinki broke the Tessaiga, it lead to Goshinki's death and the birth of Tokijin. Unlike Tessaiga, it was not broken because the adversary applied too much force on it; it was broken because its user exerted too much energy on it. So again, Tokijin is an inferior sword compared to Tessaiga and Tenseiga.

Special Attacks

 * Demon Aura: The sword has the ability to possess anyone not strong enough to control the aura. However, once the sword is controlled by a strong user, like Sesshomaru, the aura dissipates.


 * Kenatsu: Translated as Sword Pressure, it is Tokijin's ability to cut and harm enemies without physical contact. In the beginning, it takes the form of a rain of needle-like energy which deals moderate damage to foes. Later, as Sesshomaru fully masters the sword it is released as a blue wave of energy that completely disintegrates the adversary. The strength of this attack depends on how it is unleashed by Sesshomaru. Usually it shoots beams of blue light, and when Sesshomaru utilizes its full potential it comes out in the form of parallel blue trails of energy similar to how Inuyasha’s Kaze no Kizu is released. Amazingly one Kenatsu is seen as being able to cut Inuyasha’s Kaze no Kizu attack, unleashed by his Tessaiga, in half mainly because of the yoki levels of the users’ of the respective swords.




 * Sōryūha (Dragon Strike): It seems that this technique is unique to Sesshōmaru when he uses the Tokijin since he executed it twice in the third movie, and twice again in the fourth movie. In the third movie when Sōryūha is unleashed, thick arcs of blue lightning stab the earth and carry their destructive force to Sesshōmaru's opponent. In the fourth movie it is interesting to note that the energy released by Sōryūha resolves into the shape of a dragon right before destroying the enemy (in keeping with the attack's name). This attack never appeared in the manga and thus isn’t considered canon by some.



Tōkijin