I've been psyching myself up to write this battle. I'm not all that great at writing combat. It's why I stick to more domestic-friendly plots in general. Funny, considering most of my stories are based in a shonen anime, really. But I suppose we all have our own strengths as writers, even if we love things that we're not strong at ourselves.

Nevertheless I gave it a good go and that's what counts, right? We'll be back to our regularly scheduled domestic heaven shortly, just without the regular schedule. I've had a rough few months and I'm just trying to get myself settled again now. I want to keep writing, but I don't want to commit to a schedule I'm not sure I can keep.

That being said, I've been reading the most amazing InuYasha/OC fic in the past couple of days, called Mayumi, and the Koga moments in that fic have really lit a fire under my ass for this story. I'm so ready to write more now!

And I hope you're all ready to carry on this journey with me

In The Jaws Of The Wolf

Chapter Fifteen

I sighed, flexing my grip on my bow, eyes on the demons flying in the distance

Beside me, Akarilet out a similar noise. He was clearly just as uncomfortable as I was about this battle. We'd seen too much of what these creatures could do to our own.

"Do you think we'll manage it?" he whispered to me.

My eyes flickered to him. His were wary as they looked back down at me. His expression was tense, nervous. The next same expression I was sure was on my own face.

"We'll be fine," I insisted in an equally quiet murmur. I had no idea. It was just this morning that the entire guard besides two had ended up dead at their talons. We had numbers and the element of surprise on our side this time around. We were the ones in control of this fight, but I had no idea if that was enough. The only way we'd know for sure is fighting and seeing who came out the victor.

I just hoped we wouldn't lose too many of our men in the process.

I let out a shaky breath and fingered the worn bowstring in my grip.

We had to win this.

We had no other choice.

"Dan," Koga called over his shoulder, dragging me out of my own head. His eyes on the flying creatures before us. "Get up here."

I reached out to give Akari's arm a squeeze then stepped forwards. His arm lifted as I stepped away, keeping my fingers in his grasp until I was too far away.

I picked through the warriors until I came up between Koga and Kagome, eyes on the tall peak above us. I couldn't believe we were doing this. Overcome with a sense of panic, I reached out to Koga for comfort, gripping a muscular forearm. His arm twitched and he looked down at me for a moment before his gaze returned to the peak as well.

"This mountain is the nesting place for the Birds?" Kagome asked.

"Yeah, and one of them at the top possesses a sacred jewel shard," Koga replied.

My lip twitched. "I can feel it." I could feel it. It was a ways away, but it was definitely up on that mountain. There's no way I could mistake that feeling. I'd become accustomed to it now, with Koga's constant presence. It had to be a jewel shard.

"Then your job will be to find out which one has it."

My first instinct was to shake my head. "I'm better use down here on the ground, Koga. No offense, Kagome, but you don't look like a fighter. These birds are nasty."

Kagome looked more relieved than angry at the potentially perceived slight. No harm done there. Koga's piercing eyes were narrowed on me, his jaw flexing slowly. He was clearly itching to argue with me. Of course he was.

"Take Kagome with you," I ordered him, ignoring the twitch of his lips that showed off teeth. "She can find the Bird and you can keep her safe while we-" I gestured to the army behind me. "Keep the rest distracted."

It was the best plan I could think of. If he was carrying Kagome around the battlefield to find the shards, then he wasn't going to be able to defend himself, her and me if I was in his other arm. Taking me along with him was going to get someone killed. I wasn't letting that happen, so he was going to have to suck it up and let me stay down here and fight. Kagome could handle searching out the jewel shards for him.

His eyebrows furrowed deeper and he let out a quiet tch through his teeth.

"Got it," he responded, with a surprising lack of fight.

Why was it always a shock when he agreed with a smart move?

Kagome agreed, as well, with a quiet "all right."

Before I could give a final assent to the plan being made myself, a shadow passed over.

"Shit," I hissed under my breath when a bird swooped a little low and caught us out of the corner of its eye.

Koga jumped back, skidding down the rock the three of us had been perched on so he could address the pack. "They're onto us. Okay men, you take on the grunts yourselves. You better stay safe out there, Dan." He thumped my shoulder then snatched up Kagome. "Come on, Kagome."

I let loose an arrow at the Bird that had caught us, and gave a feral grin when the arrow struck true, piercing one of the large eyes on its body. The Bird going down was enough of a distraction for Koga to get through the masses and start scaling the mountainside with Kagome pressed to his side.

"Nice shot," Ken'ichi crowed as he, and the rest of the short and mid-ranged fighters sprinted past me. That left the bowmen with me, perched in the perfect place to pick off as many Birds as we could while they were out of range of the ground fighters.

Akari reached out, stroking my arm again as he passed, a worried look in his eyes as he clutched at his spear.

Be safe, I mouthed to him.

He nodded, and then he was lost in the chaos of the battle.

I'd barely got stuck into the battle myself when pebbles rained down from the peak. From their source, a great Bird was clawing its way out of the mountain. "What the-" What the fuck? The Bird was in the mountain?

It was huge. How the fuck were we going to beat that?

I let out a shaky breath, then shook myself off.

I couldn't get distracted by that right now. Koga and the closest to him could work together to take that beast down. I needed to keep myself in the fight right in front of me and keep the men closest to me safe. Worrying about things I couldn't help right now was going to get someone injured or worse. My head needed to be here in front of me, not across the way.

I loosed another arrow, bringing down another Bird right beside Ginta, who was fighting for his life alongside Hakkaku.

"Shit," I growled when Koga came into view alongside his two friends. He thrust Kagome at Ginta then went off again himself armed with nothing but a damned spear. What was his plan? Leaving Kagome in the thick of the battle was a fucking stupid idea. She was important and weak compared to the rest of us. She was safest here with the long-range fighters.

After giving the other archers a cursory glance, I hoisted myself over the rock I was leaning on and sprinted through the mess of bodies and corpses until I reached the three of them.

Hakkaku was speaking when I got there. "-Koga's woman so we treat you like one of us now."

"Takes a while to get used to, being one of the Wolves," I chimed in, reaching out to grab Kagome's arm. Her weird clothing was so thin and light. It was like underwear. She just wore that? "But we can discuss it later. I'll get her back to the others, boys. You look out for yourselves."

I was barely through speaking when shouts were warning us. I flinched under the force of the heavy beat of wings, then froze when a familiar voice screamed.

"No! Ginta!" I yelled, reaching out for the man being swept away. My fingertips touched his toes, but they slipped away from me.

"We've gotta save him," Kagome yelled.

Hakkaku wasn't of the same opinion. He was despondent, already acting like Ginta was dead. "It's too late. He'll be taken up to their nest and devoured."

No. "Fuck that and fuck you, Hakkaku." I nocked an arrow and steadied my shaking hands, trying hard to focus through the building tears. I was not losing one of my closest friends in this war. I would not lose Ginta. He'd slipped through my fingers, but that wasn't the end of it. I would not let it be the end of it. Ginta was my friend and he wasn't dying on my watch.

This damned fucking Bird was not going to get its claws any deeper into Ginta than it already had.

The arrow that loosed from my bow glowed a brilliant pink as it arched through the air towards the Bird.

But what shocked me was the second glowing arrow soaring in the shadow of mine, its glow smaller than mine but just as beautiful. I swept around to see Kagome holding a bow shakily. Her sharp expression lit up as she watched her arrow fly.

Both of our arrows hit, and the bird fell, big burnt holes in its body, billowing a sick smoke and an equally sickening smell of cooked meat.

"Bullseye!" She dropped the bow she'd snatched up from the ground and pushed forwards, right past me.

She was like me.

"Wow," Akari, who'd rushed towards us amongst a crowd.

Kenichi was just as impressed. "They're amazing shots."

"Don't underestimate us humans, Kenichi," I called to him with a breathless grin as I turned and sprinted the short distance between the two groups.

As soon as I reached Ginta, I dragged him up and into a hug. He was alive. We'd saved him. His lean arms wrapped around me just as tightly, and we held each other as our hearts thumped and sweat prickled at our skins. He could have died, and I was sure we were both reeling from the realisation. My knees were going weak, and his grip on me was a shade of bruising as he clutched at my body.

The moment was short-lived, though. "Look out! There's more!" he screamed in my ear, pushing me away and wheeling me around so I could see the birds swooping down on us.

I reached back for another arrow, then cursed. My quiver was dry.

What do I do?

What do I do?

What do I do?

"Kagome!"

Behind the birds, a figure appeared, swinging a beast of a sword that cut through the bodies of the Birds as easily as my arrows burned through them.

He landed lightly amidst the corpses of the Bird's he'd slaughtered.

I recognised him from Kagome's description, from our time chatting in the cave. This was InuYasha, the half-demon she travelled with. The half-demon that had killed our wolves. My jaw set. I didn't know what to do. Just let him be? Try to fight him? He'd just saved us, but he had killed my wolves.

It took just a few breaths to decide that there were bigger issues to deal with right now. If I had a chance to get a hit in when the war was over, I would take that chance. Until then, war was still happening around me and I couldn't get distracted.

Shaking off any thought of the half-demon, I turned tail and began scrounging through the battlefield, looking for arrows. I was dry and I needed to restock. The only way to restock right now was to reuse.

I grimaced as I yanked a bloodied arrow out of a burnt bird corpse. The smell rolled my stomach as I slipped the arrow back into my quiver.

"If you value your lives, stand back!" a voice yelled behind me.

Info Time!

Underwear - Hadajuban's are what Dan is on about there. They're very thin, light layers. Honestly quite comfortable to wear. It's the thicker layers that make some kimonos pretty uncomfortable to wear, trust me. I always imagine that people from the Warring States would be amazed that someone would just wear such thin, light clothing without anything on top of it. Kagome's uniform is definitely not silk, which is just about the only thing that I could think of that would be that light that someone of this time period would wear by itself like that.

Reviews!

TheVulcanNara - Welcome to the ITJOTW family! I'm glad you approve of Dan! I always strive to make pretty realistic OCs wherever I can. Dan's been a challenge, but I'm keeping up with her as best as I can. Writing contemporary characters is fun. I do enjoy the whole character-from-the-future thing in InuYasha (my Naraku fic follows that storyline) but sometimes that idea can be a bit overdone and bland, so shaking it up every now and then isn't a bad thing. It's going to be heartbreaking when we get to Kagura killing the Wolves. It's going to hit this fic hard, so I hope you're ready with tissues for that chapter. You'll need them if I do my job as a writer well. This is going to be an epic enemies to friends to family to lovers slowburn. The tension is going to be thick and it's going to be an age before the real romance happens, but all the fun is in the back and forth here. It's going to be great.

Blu3b3rryt3a - I'm so happy you approve of Dan! She's such a fun character for me. Someone I really enjoy. Dan is by no means perfect with dealing with hard-headed men, but Kagome could probably learn a few things, yeah! You'll probably get an InuYasha face-off eventually. I'm sure she'll have some things to say around the Band of Seven arc.

orangeporqupine - I'm so glad you like this fic and how it's written! I totally agree that Koga has some really amazing traits. I wouldn't be writing a fic of him if I didn't think so, but I think in the end we saw a lot more of InuYasha's good and bad points than Koga's (not surprising of the titular character compared to a side character) so I saw more that I liked in InuYasha than Koga.

Guest - I'm so glad you've enjoyed this story so far! I've found that very few stories have contemporary OCs with Inuyasha. Everyone jumps into the girl out of time phenomenon, which I don't mind so much, as I have a girl out of time fic going for InuYasha, too, but it's interesting delving into the history too.

SlaveBane781 - Thank you so much! Having Dan in anyone's pic of top OCs is insane to me, and such an honour! I'm glad you like her that much!

KirikaAndo - Thank you! There's still a bit of a wait on some real Dan and Koga action, but they're coming together slowly.

Is that a bit of a cliffhanger?

Woops.

See you next chapter!