Summary: It was the day they remembered their ancestors.

AN: My second entry for The Deadliest Sin's Ringing in the Holidays competition. Not very winter-y, since it takes place in July/August (depending on location in Japan), but since one of the prompts was 'holiday memories', it was one I felt appropriate.

Obon

He knew she could sense him. Kagome had proven herself to be an exceptionally powerful miko, and Hiei expected no less. Yet, the fact of the matter remained that he had been standing against the torii at the top of the shrine for nearly an hour and she hadn't even twitched to acknowledge his presence.

He had come shortly after breakfast, the same time he always did when Koenma didn't have a job for him. At that time in the morning, she was always doing chores around the shrine, or practicing her archery, or reading, and when he made his appearance, she would look up from whatever she was doing and turn her bright smile on him. Despite himself, it was something he had come to look forward to, and it was something he missed today as her back remained facing him as she, kneeling, faced the Goshinboku.

They were all doing it—Kagome, her mother and annoying grandfather, and her brother. They were in a row facing that tree, a hint of fire at the edges of his senses accompanied by a scent—incense.

The brother was the first one to stand, giving a quick bow before rushing back into the house just long enough to grab a backpack weighed down with books—Hiei remembered something Kagome had said about college entrance exams—and a bento box. When he saw Hiei leaning against the torii, arms crossed and expression blank as usual, watching the remaining three, he slowed.

"It's Obon," he said by way of explanation. He paused, looked to Kagome and back to him. "If you're waiting for my sister, you might want to just come back tomorrow. This is…a very important day to her." Then he glanced down at his watch before waving a quick goodbye as he began to run down the steps.

An hour later, he had made himself comfortable at the top of the torii. The mother was the next to relax her position, though she didn't get up. She waited a little longer until the old man seemed to be done with whatever they were doing and helped him get up and walk back to the house. A few minutes later he began to hear the chopping and the clicking of the stove that he associated with cooking.

It was when they left though that he saw the first change in Kagome. The stick of incense was almost burned out, but rather than stop whatever she was doing or light another one, without changing her position, he saw her separate a piece of her miko energy, active like a fire, and place it in a bowl in front of her. It was with this practice that a change overtook her: whereas before she had been in meditation, he could tell now that she was in a trance.

He watched her for a while, curious, but not curious enough to try to intrude on her thoughts. Not that he was likely to succeed anyways: he was sure that, even in a trance, her mind would be carefully guarded. The sun was high in the sky when he caught a motion out of the corner of his eye. The mother was waving at him, motioning for him to enter the house. He sighed. The brother was right; he didn't need to stay here right now, she was too wrapped up in her thoughts.

When he entered the kitchen, his nose was assaulted with the smell of lunch—the lunch that had never been cleaned up, as he learned when the mother lead him to a chair and began to fill a plate with food. "I'm sorry you had to wait, Hiei," she said. He shrugged: he hadn't expected it, so he didn't mind the wait. "But I know youkai don't appreciate my father's…eccentricities." Hiei truly didn't mind now. "He's taking a nap, so we shouldn't be interrupted."

Hiei raised his brow at that, though he didn't stop the chopsticks from reaching his mouth. A youkai's diet was different from that of a human, and the food that Kagome and her mother made were like foreign delicacies for him. He watched as she poured tea into two cups and returned to the table, setting one by him and holding the other in her hands, with no obvious inclination to drink it. They'd been in the same room together, the same table, conversed with each other, but always with Kagome present.

"I suppose Souta told you what today is?" she began.

"Obon. A Buddhist holiday to commemorate the dead." His tone held a question. He hadn't spent so much time with Kurama only to come away with nothing.

She smiled, just a bit. "Yes, I suppose it is strange, for members of a Shinto shrine to be holding a ceremony that is traditionally Buddhist, even privately. Years ago, we didn't conduct the ceremony on shrine grounds—we would visit a nearby Buddhist shrine for the rites, visit the cemetery where my mother and husband are buried…" She looked down into her cup, the steam slowly dissipating. "But my father has gotten old, and it's become harder and harder for him to move, so we began having a private ceremony here. And then Kagome came home. For the last time." She looked into his eyes and he could see the shine of tears in hers and he hoped that she wouldn't start crying. He could barely handle Kagome when she was like that; he didn't know how he'd take care of her mother.

He needn't have worried, though; she composed herself quickly. "I assume, as her suitor, that you know of her time in the past?" He nodded. "Then I'm sure you know of the horrors she faced—perhaps more than I do; and I'm sure you know of all the people she met, and had to leave behind, and…bury."

Hiei knew. Not so much from Kagome's stories—she concentrated on the happy times, not so much on the wars that he knew had gone on then; he knew older youkai who bragged about being alive back then, who loved to talk of the battlefields and how easy the humans were to trick and slaughter back then; he knew the human side from Kurama. But he knew from Kagome of all the people—youkai and human and hanyou—she had befriended, because she made getting into her heart so easy back then; it was one of her strengths, to gather people to her side. She never spoke of having to say goodbye to them, though as every story came to an end, there was always a hint of sadness.

"Her first love—" Inuyasha, his memory supplied "—she buried him beneath the Goshinboku, shortly after the final battle. The first few months, she was so sad, a shadow of the daughter I'd known all her life, crying all the time…" A pause, as she took her first sip, allowing her thoughts to settle. "And then, Obon came, and she kneeled in front of the Goshinboku and it was like all her grief came out at once. The next day," she said, almost baffled, "she woke up like a completely new person, ready to start her life again! It was…such a relief. For a while, Obon was the only day she'd allow herself to truly grieve for her lost friends, her lost love. But these last couple of years…she seems truly at piece. She doesn't walk around like she lost a part of herself. I'm truly happy you met her when you did, Hiei, when she could give you all of herself. You deserve each other, and all the happiness you'll bring to each other."

The quiet, "Thank you," came out unplanned, but heartfelt.

She reached over to touch his hand, in what he imagined was a motherly way. "Obon is a special time for us. It is a time to remember family and friends, loved ones who we hope to see again one day. I would like it—and I'm sure Kagome would too—if you would come with us, when we light lanterns and set them afloat tonight. It's how we say goodbye to the souls of our loved ones each year."

"If it's for family—" he began, meaning to decline her polite invitation.

"You're family, Hiei." Her tone was gentle, but allowed for no argument.

The night was warm, but not overly so. It helped that the family used a more secluded, small creek nearby the shrine grounds leading to the ocean, used by only the few families living nearby, rather than one of the larger gathering places used by most of the population. A line of lit paper lanterns floated down the river, and as other families lit and laid the lanterns on the water, they would stay for a short while, watching it, before leaving, smiling faintly.

Kagome and her family approached the river and, helping the old man, knelt on the bank. Their mother took out a box of matches, struck one and lit her lamp before handing the box to her father to repeat the process. That done, the mother leaned towards the old man and helped him set the lantern on the water and set it adrift. She then picked up the first lantern and, with Kagome and her brother holding onto it on either side of her, set it, too, adrift. They said a short prayer before three stood up and left the riverbank, Kagome's mother giving Hiei a pointed look as she passed.

With the rest of them gone, he joined the miko on the riverbank, standing beside her as she stared at the blue flame-like piece of her power resting in the palms of her hands.

"This is where I say goodbye again," she said in a tone of voice that was quiet, but not sad. She went back to staring at the blue fire in her hands, and Hiei waited beside her, staring across to the opposite bank, hands in his pockets, not sure if he should stay, but also remembering that look in her mother gave him.

"I used to cry over a handful of burning incense," she said suddenly, bringing his attention back to her, "and launch as many lanterns as I could at night, trying to feel some semblance of peace. I never did, not really. Time cleaned the salt out of the wounds, but it never changed the fact that I was wounded. Metaphorically, of course. And physically. Then, one year, as I cried over the incense, Miroku's voice came into my head, something he'd said before, when the jewel was almost complete: 'You're the core of our group, the flame that lures the moth. Your inner fire gives us the strength to go on when all hope seems lost, and as long as you are alive, we will always be together, no matter how far apart.'" She smiled lightly, shaking her head. "Inuyasha was my first love; Sango female friend I had craved all my life; Shippou was like another brother to me, and Kirara a close companion; but Miroku was my closest friend and confidant. He understood what it was like to be bound by duty and not revenge, he understood my powers as they began to grow and change, and…he understood the fear of leaving people behind." A few tears escaped her eyes, falling into the flame, making it shine brighter. "It may sound crazy, but, that night, the first time I used my powers to form a flame, I felt his presence, I could feel his smile, and for the first time, in a very, very long time, I felt at peace. The next year, I could feel their presence all around me, their love, their acceptance, their pride and peace and joy. For one day a year, we are united by my flame. For one day a year, I can honor them and their contributions to my life by giving them a piece of myself. For the rest of the year, I honor them by allowing myself to live again…to love again," she finished shyly, looking up at Hiei. His face softened and her aura brightened at the show of affection. Having said all that she wanted to say, she wordlessly set her ball of flame on the water, not pushing it out, but allowing it to slowly find its way to the current.

As he watched, his thoughts turned inward. He knew the fire was for her friends, but he knew that it was also for most everyone she had met in the past, those who had been lost to the jewel, or lost to time; it was a mourning he didn't understand. Hiei had been shaped by death from birth, born with a death sentence and led to kill to survive, and later, because he enjoyed it. He couldn't recall one acquaintance he'd lost or one living being he'd killed that he'd mourned or regretted.

There was one person, though, in the back of his mind, someone he had never met, but had never left his thoughts. He kneeled down beside the miko, surprising her as he formed a ball of fire in his hand. He looked at it for a moment, as if questioning his sanity, acknowledging that this moment, however small, represented a change in himself. As he set the ball down into the river and pushed it mentally to catch up with hers, he answered the question on her face.

"For my mother."

Content in each others' embrace, they sat on the riverbank for a long time after their fires were out of sight.

The two balls of flame floated together down the river, one orange, one blue, without the assistance of wooden lanterns. Further down, people would see them and wonder at the spectacle. What were these strange flames? Were these truly the spirits of visiting ancestors, returning to the afterlife after their daylong visit? Were they simply the remains of lanterns that had caught fire?

Whatever their conclusions, those who saw those two balls of flame that night could only look on with a sense of wonder as the farewell flames lazily made their way out to sea.