LXXVII

Casus Belli

Hiten's blast is enough to obscure the horizon, lightning and yōki mingled together and poured against the world. Kagome can only stare, horrified, even as time seems to slow, dragging out one terrible moment into endless tension. When it hits, Kouga howls, a Wolf-sound ripped out of his throat and broken by the lightning. Crackling electricity races around his armor in furious bands, shattering the enchanted steel and lacquer like clay. Without anything left to block it, the beam of energy penetrates his shoulder, punches through his body and tests itself against the shield of Kagome's power behind him.

In another place, another time, another life, Kagome had been afraid of thunderstorms. Not the distant, flickering beauty of the lightning, but the noise that made their entire house shake, the glass trembling in the windows like it did during an earthquake. It's that Kagome who screams, cowering inside her barrier as the lightning brings thunder down right on top of her, as the flickering beauty turns into a horrible glare. For a moment, she's a little girl again, and terrified, wishing that she'd never decided to come here –

But Kagome is made of sterner stuff that. It's only a moment, and then she's helped by her own thoughts. She did decide to come here. She's the one who asked Kouga for his help. It was for Shippou's sake, but it was also because the shikon no tama, brought back with her as it had been, is her responsibility. Through the glittering barrier, through the barrage of lightning, she can see the consequences of leaving these shards in evil hands. This valley is a graveyard for the bones of slaughtered samurai and all the brothers' other victims. Hiten is nothing more than a murderer, red eyes reflecting bloodlust and killing intentions. Here, for the first time, she has encountered a demon who lives up to the name.

The thought shakes her back to her senses. "Kouga, are you alright? Kouga!" He doesn't answer, doesn't even wave off her concern. Every particle of his attention is focused on Hiten; however bad his injury, it isn't enough to distract him from the battle. He's moving faster than she can see, but the results of his attacks stand out in brutal bloodstains on Hiten's body. Claw wounds open up across the side of his face, rip apart his armor and the pale skin of his chest.

The wounds aren't as deep, as terrible, as what Kouga's suffered, but both of them seem to be healing fast enough that she can see a difference from one moment to the next. Twice, Kouga grabs Hiten and sends him flying, smashing his body against the ground so hard there are craters down to the bedrock. He's moving so fast he's almost a streak of light, avoiding another blast like the last one just by not being there for Hiten to aim at.

Kagome wants him to be invulnerable, but that first blow is beginning to tell on Kouga's strength. Each attack is a little weaker, a little slower, than the last. Bolstered by the power of his shikon shards, Hiten is taking everything Kouga can dish out. He's bruised and bloodied by it, certainly, but still with that snarl on his face, the blank red glare of bloodlust in his eyes. When Shippou speaks up from her shoulder, barely more than a mutter, she knows for certain that Kouga is in trouble.

"He's not gonna make it. He's not gonna –"

"He will." She tries to make it true just by saying it, but unless her imagination is playing tricks on her, Kouga is…

"He's slowing down. If Hiten gets him again –" Shippou's statement is prophetic. There's a howl of pain as Kouga is caught by Hiten's lance, lightning rushing over his body in waves and the point sinking deeper and deeper.

There's a spray of arterial red as Hiten rips it free. "Got anything left, Wolf?"

Blood drips from Kouga's lips when he tries to speak and coughs instead, and he only smears it across his face when he tries to wipe it away. Electricity is still zipping across the broken remnant of his armor, fine blue tendrils curling around the broken lacquer, clinging to the metal, buzzing across the gaping exit and entry wounds in his back and shoulder. How he's still standing, Kagome doesn't know, can't comprehend. That he straightens, spits out a mouthful of blood and finally turns to smile at her -

Her heart breaks, or maybe this is what it feels like to be whole for the first time. Something shifts inside her, old knowledge arranging itself correctly. Not a destroyer, but a guardian; not a warrior, but a defender. Not to kill, but to keep others from taking lives – that is a miko's purpose. Her purpose. Human or yōkai, some crimes can't be redeemed; at the end of the line, there are only the victims whom she must protect.

The rippling surface of the barrier around her firms into diamond-hard opalescence, stops crawling across the ground toward her feet and shoots outward, a dome of impenetrable intentions. Kouga's done everything he can to defend her, to help her, since the moment she was snatched into the past. Now, having asked him to extend that aegis of protection for Shippou's sake- His wounds aren't her fault, but she is partly to blame. It was my decision. It's not just the shikon no tama I have to take responsibility for.

Hiten aims another attack at Kouga's head, but the wall of Kagome's power has already swallowed him up. He stands his ground, grinning his wolfish grin while the lightning screams against Kagome's barrier and scatters, pulsing faintly with the rapid beat of her heart. Again and again Hiten attacks, snarling his fury, stabbing fruitlessly at the shimmering dome with his pike and with yōki. Greater and greater the circumference of the barrier grows, until Hiten is pushed back by it, still fighting to enter, his wind-fire wheels blazing like rockets in vain.

Balls of Shippou's foxfire blow right through it from the inside, infuriating Hiten further. From the corner of her eye Kagome sees Shippou throwing them, one after another, trembling on her shoulder and still casting bolts of flame. Blood red eyes, blood tipped claws cutting into tiny fists- It's not a child's face, and the red drops falling into her hair and down the back of her neck refuse to let her live in denial.

His blue flames catch Hiten's clothes, his hair, cling to his body but don't seem to be doing any damage. Maybe it's just that all his attention is on breaking through, but seeing the easy way the foxfire passes the barrier gives Kagome an idea, and she catches Shippou's hands in hers, holds them until he stops struggling and stares into his face, into his heart. "Together. We'll do it together. Will you trust me? Will you give me your fire?"

There are ten million things in his green eyes, eyes far too old for his face. For a long moment, he stares at her, while lightning cracks the sky like an egg above them. And then, finally, "Okay. I'll let you do it – but you better hit him this time!"

Her fingers tighten on her bow. "It's a miko's job to purify evil from this world." Slowly, methodically, Kagome pulls an arrow from her quiver. Only three are left, of those Kaede gave her, and she looks up to see if Hiten is listening, if he's paying attention to her. This shot needs to count. "I haven't learned much about it – this world, I mean. But I've always known good from bad, and he is being very bad."

A pulse of light grows at the point of her arrow, a flickering pink glow like the ghost of spring. It wants to fly, trembles on the string with the weight of her intentions, but she holds it there, catches Shippou's eye and nods once. Azure flames swell around the kit, and this time instead of throwing it away, he sends the energy sparkling down her arm with a rush of heat. Her arrow infuses itself with foxfire, breaking the blue energy apart, consuming it and dragging it into the shell of holy power. What started as pink turns purple, then golden, the mixed energies and overburdened arrow straining against her control.

Kagome digs deeper, looking for the root of her power the way Miroku has taught her, seeking more than she's connected with before: not just the thread, but the eye in the needle. The way it begins. Before the interaction with her will and desire, when all that power waits breathing beneath her skin. The first purity –

Now!

It's already hard to breathe, but the smile on Kagome's face as she lets her arrow fly steals air from Kouga's lungs. A sight like this, watching her come into her own, is worth his wounds. Tender, but not mild. Beautiful and terrible, that smile, as the first dawn in a kingdom of night. Remembering the first objections of the elders, the way some of his pack still look askance at her, he thinks that if they could see her now, they'd never dare to speak against her again.

The spectrum of oscillating colors contract to their origin point. The glare fighting against Hiten's yōki loses all color. There is white light – white fire – and then again, white light. It blanks out the world, purifies the shikon shards strengthening Hiten's pike on contact, then flares against the weapon itself. There's time for Hiten to show surprise on his face, before all traces of lightning die away and Kagome's arrow overcomes the thunder pike, splits the shaft where the point of the arrowhead has struck and then dissolves away the rest.

Between one breath and the next, Hiten is purified to essential components, erased from existence and replaced with sparkling dust. The wind-fire wheels fall to the ground, the little clink of their landing loud in the sudden silence, and a handful of pink jewel shards drop beside them, reflecting the last hint of sacred light. Only a shadow remains, hanging in the air, foxlike in the angle of its ears and the flow of its tails. A little at a time, the blue foxfire glows brighter, separate from the fading white light of Kagome's power.

Kouga stares at it, suspicious. A trap? Another enemy? The shadow speaks, though not to him, and he still freezes where he stands.

"My son." The voice is lapped in fire just like the fur, and Kouga is shocked more by those simple words than the explosion of energy that preceded them. "My son, and the woman who saved him. Well done."

The kit stands on trembling paws, reaching out. "Father? Father, where are you? I thought they killed you! I saw – I saw- "

"My death and what came after? The consequences of my mistake? Something you should not have seen. Yes." With narrowed eyes, Kouga watches the fire begins to condense, neither fading nor failing but binding itself ever more tightly to the glistening pelt that hangs in midair. "But to live is to die, Shippou. Nothing remains forever in this world. We feed the fire as long as we can, but someday it goes out."

"You can't go out! Don't leave me, I don't want you to go-"

"For as long as you need me, I will be with you. For what you have done, you deserve nothing less." As if it can see them, the eyeless pelt swings its head from Shippou to Kagome, staring sightless into her face. "And you, woman. Who are you, to save my son?"

Kouga tenses protectively in her direction, but she only smiles that blinding smile of hers and waves at the Kitsune ghost. "Hello? I'm just Kagome, I…" And then she stops, swallows, smiles mor faintly and apologizes. "Sorry, I… Higurashi Kagome, pleased to meet you." She pauses for a formal bow, but there is no submission in her face. Kouga approves. "Shippou's a good kid. Kit! A good kit. I didn't want him to get hurt, but he wanted… to do the right thing. And it's partially my fault that all this happened. Or it's my responsibility, anyway. The shikon no tama doesn't belong here."

"A strange woman, aren't you, and full of strange powers. But let us make it one more. I would not leave Shippou to pay the price of my failure, carry the weight of my obligation. Will you accept my gift as you accepted my son?"

Before Kouga can say anything, warn her away from unknown bargains, from Kitsune powers and their idea of an obligation fulfilled, she is smiling that brilliant smile, blue eyes awash with innocence and embarrassment. "Please, you don't owe me anything. I only did what anyone should do, hearing how horrible they'd been to Shippou."

"There is no time for all your polite misdirection. Is it yes or no, human woman?"

Kouga sees the war on her face. Accept the obligation and discharge it, or refuse and insult the spirit of a vengeful Kitsune? "I will accept." And then, because she is Kagome, and she probably can't help herself, "But you really didn't have to give me anything, you know."

There's a shift in the presence, a change in the atmosphere. Amidst the blood and ash, the fiery outline of a Kitsune becomes something more human, wavering in outline but more solid than a ghost. Green eyes, red hair, something smirky lingering around expressionless lips – the moment before he does it, Kouga knows he's not going to like it, when those eyes meet his and gleam with near-living light – and then the bastard kisses her, his woman, his Kagome, hands on her face and some rich, foreign power pouring into her mouth like a waterfall of light.

And all the while those grinning eyes stare over her shoulder at him, glittering with messages and intensity. You're lucky I'm dead, that's what they say to him, and that is my son she will raise. Maybe even you will not taste it, but my kiss will mark her mouth. But the sting is lessened by Kagome's absolute shock, the way she reaches up to push the spirit away, though of course she cannot. She reaches right through the ghostly Kitsune's shape and touches only the fur he wears like a cloak.

The foxfire rises where her fingers touch the fur, comes to encompass her whole body with azure glow, then rips back to a single point of brightness, disappearing as quickly as it had come. Shippou lets out a little cry of loss and panic, then quiets as the pelt drifts down to wrap around him. If there are further words, another message, it is for the kit alone, and he stays where he is, quiet now, petting the fur where it rests over his shoulders.

It reminds Kouga that he can't punish the kit for the audacity of his father, and he crouches, wincing, grateful for the speedy regeneration that that shikon no tama bestows on him. Hiten had been vicious, but already new flesh is bridging the bleeding gaps. He has the tenacity and endurance of his Wolf nature, and would have healed regardless, but the help is welcome. "Are you ready to do your duty, Shippou?"

"I buried him, but I couldn't build a real tomb by myself."

Kouga reaches for his shoulder, but thinks better of it, covered in his father's fur as it is now, and ruffles his hair instead. "Of course not. A kit like you, who'd expect that? But now your Alpha is with you."

A/N: Another day, another chapter…. Shippou's dad stole a ghost kiss! HA! This chapter's title, Casus Belli, means "cause for war", and now that Kagome has figured out what she's fighting for, we'll have a little more fun! Shippou has his vengeance, Kouga has a hole in his shoulder, and ONWARD WE GO! Next time: A Yokai Funeral…and someone who should be dead (yes, yes, that's the Naraku bit that was supposed to be in this chapter).

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