Through the haze, she could see Rin running toward her with something in her arms. Dimly, she recognized the shape of her bow.

“Here, Miko-sama!” Rin called out as she skidded to a halt before her.

“Thanks, Rin-chan,” Kagome said weakly, blinking to clear her eyes as her reiki finally extinguished the demonic poison that had been setting her nerves aflame. “Now, go and hide—and don’t come out until I say it’s safe.”

As Rin scampered away, Kagome took up her bow and turned toward Hakudoushi.

“Bold words,” he said as he approached her at a canter, “for someone who is about to die.”

Glaring, she attempted to raise and arm her bow, but her wounded left arm just couldn’t sustain the effort.  The weapon fell next to her with a clatter, and she clapped a hand over her torn and bleeding flesh, breathing hard through the throbs of pain.

Drawing up beside her, Hakudoushi leveled the point of his naginata at her with a self-satisfied smile. “It’s been fun, miko, but I think it’s about time to put you down. Guess you’re no different from Kikyou, in the end.”

“Well, you’re right about one thing,” Kagome ground out, feeling a bit unhinged.

Impending death could have that effect on a girl, she supposed.

A silver brow arched. “Oh? What’s that?”

Later on she would wonder how she had ever summoned the courage—or the insanity—to do what she did, as she reached out with her blood-slicked right hand and seized hold of Hakudoushi’s vile spear.

“It’s over,” she said, reiki coursing down her arm and up through the weapon that connected them.

Indigo eyes widened in almost childlike surprise as her power flooded him, his right arm and part of his chest dissolving in a torrent of blinding pink light.  He reeled away from her, black blood spilling from his mutilated side. With a whinnying scream, his demon horse threw him from its back and bolted into the air.

“Entei!” Hakudoushi called after it as he smacked the ground, his features crumpled in pain.

Dropping the cursed naginata, Kagome crawled over to him with arrow in hand. He stared at her as she hovered above him, a bloody smile curving his lips.

“No, miko,” he rasped, the discarded naginata flying into his open palm, “now it’s over.”

Kagome pitched back as Hakudoushi slammed his weapon down into the earth between them, the cliffside splitting and crumbling beneath the force of his final blow. As the ground beneath her gave way, she lunged for the embedded naginata, her right elbow hooking around the shaft.

Her legs dangled in the frigid air, her breath coming out in desperate gusts as she struggled to maintain her grip on the spear. Shakily, she clasped her right hand with her left, blood still weeping from the gash below her shoulder. Her feet kicked out behind her, searching for any sort of leverage in the wall of rock at her back.

As the naginata began to slant beneath her weight, she gazed down to the distant plateau where Sesshoumaru was transformed and fighting still. Judging by the patches of red splotching his white fur, it didn’t seem to be going particularly well.

With renewed determination, she dug her heels into a rough patch of earth and pushed against it with all her strength. As her shoulder blades slid up over the edge of the cliff, a sudden wave of dark heat drew her attention.

Slowly, she turned her head to the side, meeting the simmering crimson gaze of Hakudoushi’s equine ex-companion.

Oh boy, she thought in dread.

Inuyasha © Rumiko Takahashi