Some Other Beginning's End
"Hold tight!" Inuyasha shouted at Kagome before ducking and jumping 20 feet sideways.
"Hold still!" Kagome answered sharply, losing an arrow in the maneuver. "How am I supposed to hit him?"
"You'd rather he get the chance to hit us instead?" he snapped.
"Er…"
With a whistling thrum, Hiraikotsu blasted past them severing the tentacles headed in their direction. "Kagome!" they heard Sango shout over the noise of the battle. "Are you alright?"
"Yeah!" she called back just before Inuyasha dodged again, nearly knocking the wind out of her.
"What're you waiting for? Shoot!" he demanded.
Dark thoughts about a certain impatient half-demon were pushed aside as she readied another arrow. Too few remained in her quiver and Kagome shivered in the chill that clutched at her heart. I will do this, she vowed silently. I must do this. Failure is not an option; I deny it even as a possibility! Nocking the arrow, she closed her eyes, her recently returned mystic sense searching Naraku's massive new form for the Jewel. Ha! Inuyasha's continuing efforts to keep them alive jostled her aim again but she was too deep in her new powers to let that bother her now. Putting every shred of power into the arrow that she could, she drew and fired, willing the arrow to hit the target and only the target.
Smirking, Naraku dodged the mystic arrow. His smirk faded into something else as the arrow jinked, keeping up with him. He threw a mass of tentacles into the arrow's path but the arrow merely phased through them. The time he'd tired to manipulate Kagome into tainting herself by killing the priestess Hitomiko – and the spectacularly appalling results – flashed through his mind as the arrow hit. It punched through his body, purifying as it went and forcing the Jewel of Four Souls out.
Inuyasha was too busy dodging an attack from Byakuya to see the arrow hit or what happened after but there was no way he could fail to notice Kagome's desperate lunge from his back. What the hell is she doing?! he swore, spinning around. Eyes widening as he followed the glittering arc of the Jewel, he launched himself after her.
Naraku turned and reached for the Jewel.
Kagome reached for the Jewel.
Inuyasha reached for the Jewel.
The explosion left a crater five meters deep and twice that wide.