"I loved it!" Koto declared. "It was terrifying, and half of the stadium is in ruins, but the pain, the agony, the absolutely gut-wrenching force of that whole fight was magnificent! I'll be wanting a copy of it on video to keep me company on boring days!"
"Winner of the first fight is Yusuke Urameshi!" Juri declared, having confirmed the younger Toguro down for ten counts. The way his flesh had splintered away from him and left him white might have been a clue that he would never be getting up again, but procedure was procedure.
"If everybody would be patient with us while we get something done about the total absence of a ring, we'll get on with the next fight as quickly as possible. Unfortunately, we will not be rebuilding the stadium to fit safety standards in that time, so everybody in the building who is still alive, please move to the areas that aren't crumbling." Koto added.
"So, are you going to stand up now Kuwabara?" Kagome asked the boy who had pretended to die, despite Toguro missing all vitals when 'killing' him in order to jump-start Yusuke's power.
"What did you say?" Yusuke demanded, running up to her.
"How does it feel to be out of the loop-de-loop Urameshi?" Kuwabara asked, jumping up to tease his friend.
"The heart? The finger-poking!" Yuuske insisted. The whole stadium had known his despair when he had thought that his best friend was dead.
"He missed," Kagome answered. "I don't know if he intended to or not, but we all agreed you needed some kind of kick up the rear to get going, so yes, we all did a terrible thing and let you believe that Kuwabara was dead."
It took a while, but the security demons eventually rolled in the ring that had been used in the old stadium. As long as that took, however, it still wasn't long enough for Yusuke to get over Kuwabara faking his death, though Hiei had recovered from the shock of seeing the detective trying to kill his friend for nearly dying.
The elder Toguro brother stepped up immediately, wanting revenge for his dear brother's death.
Kagome and Kurama exchanged glances and held out their fists.
"One, two, three," they said together, bringing their fists back around. Kagome won the small game of janken and stepped up into the ring.
"Such a pretty face," he said. "I shall enjoy destroying it."
"That's really interesting," Kagome answered. "But you remind me of this guy I killed a long time ago, so I hope you don't mind, but I'm going to do to you what I did to him, " she said as she drew her bow off her shoulder and pulled an arrow from the quiver resting against her back.
"Begin!" Jury declared.
The weedy little man's fingertips shot out and halted in the air two feet from Kagome's neck, the air crackling around them as they struggled to push past the barrier she had up around her.
Calmly, the miko knocked her arrow and took aim. Glowing pink light flowed out from the arrow tip as it flew to lodge in the elder Toguro's neck. Kagome had a second arrow at her bowstring almost as soon as she had released the first one. When the elder Toguro fell, he had an arrow sticking out of each eye, one in his throat, one lodged where his heart was expected to be, one in each shoulder, and the last arrow made every male watching the fight wince and cover themselves instinctively.
"It burns! It burns! How can mere arrows burn at me so?" he demanded, even as his body began to disintegrate.
"Because you are not only a demon, but you also gladly shelter evil in your heart," Kagome answered, turning her back on him and walking away.
"Okay, that officially freaks me out," Juri said, moving away from the ashes that had once been the older of the Toguro brothers. "But the winner by death is Kagome Higurashi!"
Karasu stepped up onto the stage just as Kagome jumped down, and fixed his blue-grey eyes on Kurama.
To his disappointment, it was Hiei who stepped up to fight him.
Hiei dodged all the small explosions that Karasu set around him with ease, taunting the taller demon's speed with his own, even going so far as to snap off his mask as he dashed past and leaving Karasu's bombs to explode in his own face.
It was shortly after that explosion that Karasu went blonde and Hiei got serious, unleashing his dragon of the darkness flame. It surprised everyone when the dragon continued to rage even after Karasu became an imprint of soot and ash, though Hiei didn't seem concerned when it turned on him.
"Um, in a remarkable turn of events, the attack used by Hiei of Team Urameshi appears to have killed both combatants," Jury said, stepping out from behind the fragmented piece of stadium that she had been hiding behind.
"Look again," Hiei's voice called out softly, as a ball of black fire descended, becoming the small demon as it touched down. Visible now on his bared right arm was a swirling black dragon, for all appearances as attached to Hiei's skin as a tattoo.
"I stand corrected. Winner by death is Hiei!" Juri announced. "Winner of the this year's Dark Tournament: Team Urameshi!"
"Well congratulations," said the human, the fifth member of Team Toguro, as he lit a cigarette and watched Bui leave the arena. "You are all entitled to any wish you want, as the winners of the Tournament. Of course, the committee isn't in much of a position to fulfil any wishes right now, as they are all dead."
"Then I got what I wanted," Hiei stated, narrowing his eyes before he turned away.
"Let's go pack," Kagome urged. The Tournament was over. "I just hope that another committee doesn't ever come knocking and demanding for us all to fight again," she added as she ushered Yusuke and Kuwabara to the great hole in the wall and walking out.
It was rather a nice surprise to be greeted by Jin, Touya, Chu and Rinku when they got out there, and the celebratory dinner that night was, as Chu stated as he staggered from one person's shoulders to the next, 'bonza'.
~oOo~
Kagome ran with everybody else when she saw Master Genkai standing before them all, revived in a way that Kikyo had not been. That is, she was actually alive again, not a piece of soul shoved into a clay recreation.
It was especially good to see her again after watching the way Yusuke was behaving in the hotel room, talking about how life would be dull without fearing for his life all the time, and trying to get Puu to patch him through to Genkai in the spirit world, before marching out the door up to his eyeballs in denial.
Kagome smiled when the old woman offered a home at her temple to Yukina. It would be easier for Hiei to keep an eye on his sister if she was so close by, and he might even come to like the human world if Yukina was there to teach him how to take delight in more than just ice cream and hot baths. Her thought processes abruptly came to a halt. Ice cream and a hot bath sounded really good right then. Sure, they had been available at the hotel, but the idea of just being able to hog the bathroom for an hour or so, with a small tub of ice cream all to herself, maybe with her favourite music playing at the same time, and when she got out she knew that Shippo would be right there, smiling for her, and telling her all about what crazy things her grandfather had gotten up to without her there to keep an eye on him.
"Kagome?" Kurama asked, catching her attention as they boarded the boat that would take them back home.
"Hm?" she answered, looking up at him and letting him take her hand to help her off the gangplank and onto the deck.
"I believe we agreed to a little talk after the Tournament was over."
"You want this done with or without an audience?" Kagome asked, jerking her thumb at the various friends, family and team members who were standing nearby, all with half an ear cocked towards their conversation. Keiko had dragged Yusuke away so that they could sit together quietly, something he hadn't seemed to mind too much, but everyone else was there.
"I don't see that it matters, but whatever will be more comfortable for you," Kurama said.
Kagome just shrugged. "Alright," and with that she leant against the railing and watched the horizon beyond, just waiting for Kurama to say something.
He sighed heavily and rested against the rail beside her, his back to the sea and face tilted to watch the sky above. "I don't know what you want me to say Kagome. Our dates have all been things that two friends might do together, and apart from the displays we've done for my fanclub, we haven't been behaving like a couple at all."
"And how do couples behave?" Kagome asked. "Know that if you cite Yusuke and Keiko's relationship, I may have to hit you. If you refer to Kuwabara's behaviour, then I will have no choice but to have you psychologically examined."
Kurama chuckled, shaking his head. "I meant things like holding hands, embracing, kissing sometimes," he said. The closest they had ever come to kissing – for the benefit of his fanclub – had been pecks on the cheek.
"Hn, apart from the kissing, I have seen you do all those things," Hiei grunted, "and without any of your fanclub in sight."
"You've been spying on them Hiei?" Kuwabara demanded, pulling himself up behind the short demon. "What are you? Some kind of perv?"
"No," he answered. "I am simply aware of the people around me and their actions. I refuse to be caught by surprise."
Kagome sighed, shaking her head at the two before she turned back to Kurama, straightening up and facing him fully. Laying a hand on his shoulder, she let it trail slowly up his neck to cup his cheek gently, locking her soulful brown eyes with his shining green ones.
"Shuichi Yoko Kurama Minamino," she said solemnly. "Do you, or do you not, want me to kiss you right now?"
Kurama's eyes grew wide with surprise and his mouth fell open in his shock. Then his gaze dropped to Kagome's lips and, whether he was aware of the action or not, his tongue darted out to lick his lips before he closed his mouth.
Kagome smiled gently and stepped closer to him, raising herself onto her toes slightly so that their mouths were level and they could each feel the other's breath on their faces. She stopped there though. "Well?" she asked quietly, her voice husky.
A hand was suddenly buried in her hair and lips were pressed against hers, warm and soft but with the hardness of the teeth behind conveying the urgency of this moment of touch. Another arm went around her waist and she let it pull her closer to the firm body of the one kissing her. When Kagome was eventually released, she saw contentment on Kurama's face.
"I've been wanting to do that for five hundred years," he admitted quietly. "I didn't think you would ever let me get close."
Kagome shook her head at him and rolled her eyes. "I thought you were supposed to be the smart one," she quipped, smirking slightly as she turned back to watch the line where sky met sea. "But I am left with the question of what you want us to be when we get home. I can live with us just being friends, and acting out to save you from the fangirls, but I can't live with being strung along in an indefinite position."
"I would never do that to you Kagome," he insisted. "How about we work towards me marrying you when I've got my degree?" Kurama asked, wrapping his hand around Kagome's and drawing it to his chest in a silent plea.
Kagome smiled. "A real relationship then," she said softly. "I can live with that."
"Congratulations," Hiei said, stepping up to them with a small smile on his face. "Both of you."
"Thank you Hiei," the pair answered together. They blinked at each other and laughed a moment at the way they had said the same thing at the same time.
"I do not want to have to be on my guard just because the two of you have teamed up," he informed them curtly once their laughter had subsided.
"Hiei, you're Kurama's fighting partner and one of my best friends," Kagome answered. "I think you're stuck as part of a trio."
"You're forgetting Shippo and the detective," Hiei said.
"No, they will sometimes be victims as well as cohorts," Kagome said with a chuckle. "You? Never."
Kurama ginned and nodded his agreement.
Eyes flashing red with contained mirth, Hiei smirked at his two friends.
~oOo~
"Hiei! Shippo! Get your fiery selves inside before those clouds decide you look too dry!" Kagome called.
"It'll hold off for five more minutes!" Shippo answered, throwing a fireball at his sparring partner.
"It will take you those five minutes to get all that ash off yourselves, and those same five minutes for dinner to be ready. So either drop the extra-curricular training session or expect Souta to start eating without you!" Kagome yelled back.
"Hn. What are we even eating tonight?" Hiei asked, not wanting to cut training for a meal he wasn't interested in.
"Chicken in plum-sauce, noodles with bacon, and stir-fried fresh greens," Kagome answered.
Both demons halted their attacks and raced inside, not wanting to have to forego their third helpings because Souta got a head start on them.
Kagome sighed and stared out at the world as the first drops of rain fell, leading the way for their companions to follow. The incident at the hospital the other day, with the doctor who had been so thoroughly convinced that the human race was a plague on the world, left the young miko very worried. Hiei had been slicing up demonic insects as he spotted them when they had only been back from the Dark Tournament for a week, and three boys had gone to Master Genkai for help with their suddenly manifested powers – powers of a similar type to the deranged doctor's – at about the same time. She had also heard talk of Kuwabara's spirit powers and awareness having fallen, possibly completely disappeared. Kurama had gone to see Koenma earlier that day about the situation.
Suddenly, Kagome shivered, feeling a brief surge of power like the doctor's, like the three boys Master Genkai had helped. She could feel the pain in their aura as well, the way it was screaming for someone to help, but also crying that it knew that nobody ever would. It was only a brief moment, but still conveyed so much.
"Here we go again," she murmured to herself.
Kagome hadn't been present for any of the fights up until that point – not even watching from the sidelines, being visited only in the event that healing was needed. She had of course heard more details from Hiei and Kurama – even if they weren't directly involved either. That painful scream in the person's aura however, made Kagome decide that the time had come for her to step up.
She was fairly sure that she had time to eat first though.
After they had eaten dinner, Shippo escorted Kagome through the streets to Yusuke's apartment complex with Hiei shadowing them. Kurama had called and said that he would meet them there – he had his answers from Koenma.
Kagome felt another, longer surge of the energy she had felt just before dinner, and begged a detour towards it. It wasn't completely out of their way, and she would stop before getting 'within range', but she just felt as though she needed to be there.
"Kagome-Kaa-san," Shippo cautioned, lacing his fingers with hers as they got closer. "You'll catch cold if you stay out in the rain too long, even if you aren't getting that wet."
"I promise, I'll be careful," she answered, recognising Shippo's way of saying he was nervous for her safety.
The fox, even with five hundred years under his belt, still sometimes worried and feared when faced with completely unknown circumstances.
When they reached the border of the surging power, Kagome was able to discern a boy in a yellow hooded rain jacket, as well as Kuwabara and three other boys inside a watery beast. The boy in the jacket was clearly the one the power was coming from, and Kagome's heart wrenched for the state of his soul when suddenly Kuwabara was able to rip his way out of the water creature. The energy sword in his hands, however, was different than the one he had used before. The boy in yellow fainted, and Kuwabara's friends were all unconscious as well.
Kagome ran forward, Shippo close behind her.
"Miss Kagome?" Kuwabara asked, surprised.
"Yes, it's me," she confirmed, "and do you remember Shippo?" she asked gesturing to the fox demon even as she summoned some of her energy to sustain Kuwabara for a little while.
"Yeah. Hey man, long time no see," Kuwabara greeted. "Uh, could you help me get these guys to Yusuke's apartment? My pals live near there, and the kid seriously needs someone who is willing to take care of him."
Kagome smiled at the big-hearted boy, then bent to pick up the boy who had attacked Kuwabara and his friends, carefully pulling him onto her back so that she could carry him without too much hassle. Shippo picked up the largest of Kuwabara's friends and arranged his passenger the same way. They both knew that if they hadn't been there, Kuwabara would have piled them all onto his back and carried them himself, and probably pass out beneath them all when he was just two feet from the door-buzzer of the apartment block.
Kagome saw Hiei dash off ahead of them, likely to inform the others – particularly Kurama – that they were on their way, and to get the medical supplies out.
~oOo~