A/N: Closing in on the end, we are? Maybe. I'll never tell, of course.

In The Desert

Chapter 5: Fire Storm

Tsubaki quietly went into her room, watching the darkening sky carefully, counting under her breath until Kikyou should be home. The door swung open just as the 'one' escaped her throat.

"I'm home," she called quietly.

Tsubaki stepped out of her room to greet her.

"I'm going out for dinner tonight, there's stuff for dinner in the kitchen," Kikyou informed her as she walked across the room into her bathroom.

Tsubaki nodded and sat down in one of the large living room chairs, watching as Kikyou prepared to leave.

Once she had finally left, Tsubaki ventured back into her room, changed into a slim pair of black pants, a long-sleeved black shirt, and tied her hair back.

After fixing a quick dinner, she tucked the legs of her pants into black boots, and pulled on leather gloves. She walked out to her car and started out for the museum.

Parking in a parking lot about three blocks down the road, she took the back way to the museum, so she wouldn't be seen.

The back door was ajar, confirming her suspicions that one or both of the men she expected would be inside. She slipped inside, noticing that the security was disabled.

"Renkotsu…he's here…he's too good with computers, that one…"

She heard footsteps, flattening herself against an unlit wall and watching as a darkened figure walked by, then stopped to look.

"Hello Tsubaki. I'm so glad to see you came," Naraku said pleasantly.

"Shouldn't you be focusing less on me and more on getting the diamond?" she snapped quietly.

"The same could be said for you."

Then, in a quick motion, Tsubaki was on the floor, glass shattering under her. Blood ran down her face in a jagged line where the glass had cut just above her right eye. She got back up.

"You bastard!" she snapped, but he had already gone.

She stalked away in the opposite direction Naraku went, and finally made it to the large dome-shaped room where someone else was already standing. And she saw another person come in through the opposite door.

All three of them met at the middle.

Naraku laughed. "I have the Diamond, if you're curious as to where it is. But you remember our discussion. One of us has got to go. Now, who dies?"

There was a gun in his hand. He took turns pointing it at both of them, and then smirked.

Renkotsu hadn't spoken since he had seen the others arrive.

"Who cares who you kill? You'll get arrested anyway," he said calmly.

Naraku finally held the gun out with a finality that said he had made his choice. It rested gently between Renkotsu's eyes.

"Made your choice, then Naraku?" Tsubaki asked, stepping back a few steps to disappear into shadow.

There was a dead standstill. Neither Naraku nor Renkotsu seemed to be moving, or even breathing. The spotlight that was on over the pedestal of the Shikon Diamond lit them; they looked like an exhibit in themselves.

Tsubaki slowly and quietly drew her gun. It was fully loaded and she was ready to shoot at the first sign of movement.

Naraku's finger tightened on the trigger and Tsubaki glared.

'Don't shoot…' she thought. But he was going to. So she aimed, and pulled the trigger.

An ear-splitting scream shattered the darkness; the gun went off with a crack as it hit the floor and Naraku held his bloodstained hand, looking at it with wide eyes. A good portion of his index finger had been shot off.

Tsubaki walked back into the circle of light and smirked.

"You didn't actually think I'd stand by and let you kill him, did you?" she asked arrogantly.

He shook in a mixture of shock and fury.

"He's mine for the taking, Naraku…"

She fired another shot, hoping it was a clean one, and judging by the cry of anger that was cut short and the heavy thud, it was.

Renkotsu stared at the woman. "Are you going to shoot me, Tsubaki?" he asked calmly.

She looked at the dead body of Naraku; the bullet had gone straight through his heart. His long dark hair was splayed out under him and his face was stark white, his red eyes staring up with an expression of shock on his face.

Tsubaki smirked. "Am I going to shoot you?" she repeated slowly.

"That's what I said, wasn't it?" he asked.

Sirens blared in the distance; the police were coming to the scene. Someone must have heard them. Tsubaki looked around; the Shikon Diamond had rolled out of Naraku's hand and was laying a couple of feet away.

"No. I'm not going to shoot you," she said, dropping her gun carelessly. "And I'm not going to get out of your life, either."

He glared. Then he went to pick up the diamond. She held him back. "Leave it; it'll look like Naraku was the only one involved. I'll tell the cops I killed him in self-defense."

"How will we explain why we're here?" he asked, looking a bit miffed at being bossed around.

"We won't lie. But Naraku got there first, then tried to attack us. And we killed him. Simple as that, isn't it?"

He nodded and they walked away from the scene, the blood on the bottom of their shoes leaving tracks that appeared black in the dim light that the room provided.

The police greeted them. They gave Tsubaki a blanket to wrap around her shoulders and she told them the whole story. They went inside, and returned a few minutes later carrying a black body bag between the both of them.

The rain was falling heavily, and Kikyou was there, staring up at the museum.

The paramedics were the last on the scene; they cleaned up Tsubaki's eye and wrapped it in gauze.

A policeman walked over to Kikyou, who looked shaken and disturbed, and dropped something in her hand. "We recovered this from Naraku's body," he told her.

She nodded wordlessly and then walked over to Tsubaki. "You shot Naraku…" she said coldly.

"He tried to kill me, and Renkotsu."

Kikyou nodded. "Thank you," she said finally, after a moment of silent debate.

"What?"

"For not taking it when you had the chance. It was big of you," she explained in a distant voice.

Tsubaki nodded. "You're welcome."

After a week, Tsubaki's eye had nearly healed. Kikyou sent the Shikon Diamond to another museum in the next town over and sold her own museum to someone else. She eventually moved in with Suikotsu and they started an orphanage.

Tsubaki and Renkotsu decided to stay in the town, because they really had nowhere else to go. They ended up sharing an apartment, and (despite both viciously denying it) liked each other well enough.

The Shikon Diamond, however, was not as fortunate.

A white-haired boy named Inuyasha attempted to steal it, only to be found by the curator of the museum. She didn't call the police on him, but he was forever at her mercy.

They began dating shortly afterward..

Naraku's family was overjoyed to hear of his demise, particularly Kagura.

And, well, I suppose you could say that everyone was happy. Even if Renkotsu was convinced he was going to be shot at any moment, and Tsubaki spent hours on her makeup to 'hide this awful scar'.

She was generally told to deal with it, she could have been blinded, but it didn't go down that far.

Fin

I wanted to end on a…happy note. So I did.