Kohaku had tried to fight off Naraku's possession, he had tried so hard it felt like his muscles were ripping apart from the strain of keeping them still. The back of his neck seared. This was pure agony. He couldn't hold on for much longer. He reached for his scythe.

No!

You don't have to know this pain, Kohaku. Let your mind go blank. Submit. Submit.

Hotaru refused to leave him.

"Hotaru, please!" Kohaku begged. He felt his eyes fill with tears. He couldn't stop them from falling any more than he could feel his hand close around the handle of his weapon. He was using every last bit of his strength to keep his hand there. It was like trying to push a boulder up a cliff..

"RUN!"

""I'm not running!" She shouted. For a moment she lost her temper, showed her anger, like she was insulted by the suggestion she leave him behind. When she spoke again it was in her usual calm, matter-of-fact voice. "I promised that I wouldn't let you die alone. If you die today, it's not going to be because I abandoned you."

No! No! No! I can't let myself kill her! She is everything! She won't leave me! I have to fight for her! She must survive this! She deserves to return to her life of peace. I cannot harm her!

Let go. You're not going to win against me, Kohaku. I can make you forget. Let go. Her death is inevitable. If you don't strike her down, she will surely die by miasma. Look at her. She is barely holding herself upright. You can't prevent her death, but you don't have to remember it. It will be over soon. You two can be together in the underworld.

NO!

Naraku said something out loud, but Kohaku couldn't hear it. Every noise seemed to blur into a louds humming that pushed in on his ears. A pressure squeezed him from all sides. He couldn't even draw breath any more. He only knew the pain.

Submit. I control your body. Your strength will soon run out.

Must

Not

Hurt

Her.

That was all that mattered. Saving her was the only thing that mattered.

His arm pulled back.

NO!

He couldn't keep still any longer. Like a damn breaking, Naraku's influence finally burst through. His strength faltered for one second. Only one second. One second was all it took.

His scythe left his hand before he could stop it.

"NO!" He screamed, as if that could stop the inevitable result of his weakness.

His scythe struck Hotaru before she could even turn around.

There was a terrible thud, the sound of a blade hitting its target. It was followed by a soft little "uh".

For a moment, she just stood there staring at the blade, as if she didn't understand what had just happened. His arm involuntarily jerked back, pulling the scythe from where it had struck her. She gasped and stumbled backwards, falling onto her knees.

"Hotaru!" He cried. He couldn't move. He couldn't run to her. He could do nothing but watch.

She coughed up blood, turning her lips dark scarlet and dripping down her chin. She looked at him. For the second time since they met she saw actual fear in her eyes.

This can't be happening! This can't be happening!

Suddenly, an energy pulsed off Hotaru in a dark wave, obliterating Naraku and leaving a path of burnt trees going off into the distance. Then she collapsed into the grass.

"HOTARU!" He screamed, but he couldn't move. Naraku was gone, but his jewel shard was still corrupted.

"Hotaru, please! Answer me!"

She had healing powers. He had seen them many times. The day they met she had fallen off of a cliff and hadn't received more than a scratch. Any cuts or bruises she ever acquired were gone within seconds. She was stabbed straight through the stomach and brushed it off. She was invincible.

Unless…

"You're not dead! You can't be dead! Hotaru?"

The clearing remained silent.

"HOTARU!"

"Kohaku!" Sango and Kirara burst through the trees. Sango jumped off Kirara's back and ran to her brother. "Kohaku, are you okay?"

"Sister..." He said, he felt tears come to his eyes. "Please, help Hotaru."

In Sango's blind desperation to get to her brother, she must not have seen the broken body of the younger girl. She noticed it now. Kohaku felt Sango tense as she realized what had happened.

"Oh, Kohaku..."

"Please, help her!" He begged. Sango nodded and hurried over to Hotaru's immobile body. She put one hand over the wound to try and staunch the bleeding. With the other hand, she checked to see if there was even a point.

"Is she..?" Kohaku began the question, but he couldn't bear to finish it. He couldn't have killed her. He couldn't have.

But she had never taken this long to heal. She had already been mortally wounded when the fight began. She had used so much energy in the fight.

"She's breathing." Sango assured him, though her face betrayed the severity of the wound. A few moments later, the others broke through the trees into the clearing. Inuyasha carried Kagome, followed by Miroku and Shippo. Rin, Jaken, and A-Un were with them. Rin must have bumped into them while fleeing.

"HOTARU!" Rin cried.

"What the hell happened?" Inuyasha demanded.

Kagome seemed to assess the scene in seconds. Almost instantly she was at Sango's side, digging into her big yellow bag.

"It's deep." said Sango.

"Did Naraku do this?" Kagome asked.

Sango didn't reply. She knew what injuries from Kohaku's weapon looked like all too well, but she wouldn't be the one to verbalize that he was the one responsible. Kohaku felt his hands shaking. Kagome understood.

Sango and Kagome worked in a quick synchronization. They clearly had a lot of practice treating injuries together.

Kagome finished bandaging Hotaru up, leaving Sango to the task of cleaning up. The priestess wiped the blood from her hands and stood up. She looked at Kohaku.

"Your jewel shard is still defiled, isn't it?" She said, and she walked over to him. She knelt down beside him and put one hand on his shoulder. "I can't purify it as well as Kikyo, but..."

A warm sensation flowed from the jewel shard as Kohaku felt Kagome's influence drive out Naraku's. His muscles loosed, and he could move on his own again.

"Thank you." He managed to say.

Slowly, he approached Hotaru. She was pale, her skin was gray. Sango and Kagome had wiped the blood from her face, but the cracks of her lips were still red from what she had coughed up. Her breaths were labored and shallow, but at least she was breathing.

"Is she going to be okay?" Rin asked timidly.

"I don't know." admitted Sango. "She's lost a lot of blood already, but she's strong. She might be strong enough to pull through. She'll need rest. I don't think we should try to move her."

"I told her to leave me behind..." Kohaku said. "I begged her."

No one replied. He wanted to run away, as fast and as far as he could. He didn't want to look at her face, so still and pale. He wanted to hide from what he had done, like he had before. He couldn't handle this. It was too much!

No!

He owed it to her to stay by her side. She had only gotten injured because she had promised not to let him die alone. What if he ran away, and she didn't make it through the night? She would not only have died because of him, but she would have died alone because of him.

"Did Naraku do that?" Inuyasha asked, looking at the blackened and destroyed trees opposite them.

"No." Kohaku said, "Hotaru did."

"She did?!" Repeated Inuyasha repeated in disbelief.

Kohaku nodded.

Miroku went over to look at the scar in the forest from Hotaru's attack. "The damage seems to go back for a while. The attack that did this must be at least as powerful as the backlash wave."

"Come off it!" Inuyasha said. "No kid could do that."

Kohaku didn't respond.

"Where the hell was Sesshomaru during all of this?" Inuyasha demanded.

"What Lord Sesshomaru does in his own time isn't any of your business!" Jaken said.

"Shaddup." Inuyasha put his foot on Jaken's face to force him down into the dirt.

"Lord Sesshomaru was looking into something dangerous. He told Master Jaken to take care of us while he was gone." Rin said.

Jaken let out a sob of terror as he was reminded that he was the one responsible for the children.

"Yeah, you're doing a great job." Inuyasha mocked.

"We should set up camp." Kagome suggested. "When Sesshomaru comes back, you can ask him yourself what he was doing. But right now, Rin and Kohaku need some food and rest."

Kohaku didn't react at all to the conversation going on around him.

"Kohaku..." Sango began. Kohaku shook his head. Sango started to reach out her hand to comfort him but hesitated before putting her hand back down.

Behind him he heard Shippo's voice. "I don't get it. She healed Miroku before. Why can't she heal herself now?"

Someone shushed him.

Sango's eyes darted to Kohaku as she overheard Shippo's question. Kohaku tried to keep himself from shaking. He didn't answer, but his mind went to that powerful black energy wave that she released before she fell unconscious. She had been injured, dying, with no way of knowing that help was coming. Instead of using her last ounce of power to heal herself, she had used it to drive off Naraku. She had chosen to protect Kohaku rather than save herself.

Why did you do that, Hotaru? Why didn't you just run?