LXX

Ante Mortem

Dawn comes late, the sunlight stuck in the throat of a winter morning that refuses to shed its clouds. The snow falls, and the temperature falls, and every day some new stillness permeates the land, something gone quiet in the cold where before there had been life's noisy pressure. It's closer to spring than autumn now, the buds of plum blossoms weighing down the branches on shallower slopes, but here in the deepest mountains the quiet goes on, interrupted only by the passage of those who know no better.

Unknown to each other, though neither would care about the other if they knew, a pair of intruders are making their way through the stifling winter silence towards the wolf den in the mountains. One, tiny, shredded by circumstance, subsisting off will alone, is being lured by the promise of power that blossoms in the scent of the shikon no tama. The other, above it all, has merely been sent. She drifts where the wind would take her, heartless but not without feeling, and thus unwilling to do what she has been ordered to do.

What I have been born to do.

If it's not this, what is it?

What is it, when everything else has been useless? When I have been-

Useless.

For a moment, thoughts so in sync they might as well have been a single person, the two stop, staring – one up, one down. Then they move on, still in the same direction, but each toward a different fate.

I want to be free. To be what I should be, as I should be. Sweet as summer, wild as the night. Fierce as the storm, or mild as mother. All that I choose, if I could choose… Kagura lingers instead near the border of overlapping scents that fringes the wolf territory, tasting strangeness and collating memories, impressions, ideas. She is saving up the sourness of all these moments for some future time she yet has hope will come. What her master wants, she neither understands nor needs to know. She is less than servant; less than slave. An instrument, only, but played unwilling, and so she chooses to throw his melody out of tune.

If she can choose, it is only such little things. Not to inquire after unnecessary details, not be curious when curiosity can only benefit the one with his fist clenched around her chains. None of what she finds will help him, if she has anything to do with it. If she could betray the game without betraying herself, she would give it all away.

But the Wolf alpha plays his own games unknowing below her, his ties and temptations filtering up past her feather with every gust of wind. He is busy making promises, playing mates, running free with a dangerous human, when he should be watching his borders, tightening his claws on the reins, looking for signs of hunters in motion and intruders at the gate. It's as if he's forgotten what he carries, what the girl wears like a beacon in her skin. That little detail is unavoidable, something Kagura can't help taking in no matter how little she wants to be of use to her master. When the miko is in view, she stands out like fire on the mountain, washing out everything else in her own light, but the rest of the time-

"Who are you? What are you doing here?"

She has time for a single gasp, staring at the Wolf alpha as he stands before her, making demands in midair. He grins, but not to reassure her. It's to show all his teeth, give her a premonition of blood-red on fang-white, and there's a sensation like falling, but it takes her forever to name. The wind doesn't know what falling means.

"Come on, I don't have time for this. You smell like that mess I found at the end of autumn. I've been watching for someone like you."

"Like me?" But his hand is on her wrists, then at her throat, dragging her down with him to the ground.

"Yeah, like you." He turns, speaking over his shoulder to someone else. "I smelled fox, didn't I? But this one's something different."

"You did, and she is."

"We did too, but farther away."

"Does it count, Kouga?"

"Should we send someone to the southern approach?"

She can't see the two who are speaking, answering their alpha, but at least she has a name, now. Kouga. The Wolf alpha's name is –

"Kouga?"

"Yeah. It counts. And one of you might as well go down to the southern edge. But this one's got no scent of her own, just someone else's, and all that trouble was coming from the north." Kouga shakes her, and she moves like limp grass in his grip, limbs flailing in all directions. She can't summon any strength. Why? How is he so powerful? Is there more to him than she was told, than she's witnessed, something else that should have let her predict this? She summons the wind, wild and out of control without her fan to lend it an edge of precision, an edge of death, but maybe it will be enough to make him let her go.

A blue light shines in Kouga's eyes, its reflections tainted with crimson. She stares into it through the rushing windstorm, leaves and dust no barrier to such brilliance. Death, not a threat but the absolute promise of it, rings in his voice. "Stop it. Stop it or I'll forget everything Kagome wants me to be, even if it's just for a little while."

The hand at her throat grows tighter, and she scrabbles at his fingers with her nails. She doesn't want to feel what a mortal wound will do to her, the kind of power it will free to move inside her. How many times has she died already? Once… twice… more? Without a heart, death is no freedom, just a new level of torment. The wind throws branches and rocks and clods of dirt into Kouga's face, but the blue eyes only narrow, defiant, as it all breaks into nothing. His ears tip toward her; his whole body leans forward, and then back. His fingers twitch, and her neck breaks all but effortlessly, with one sharp crack.

"Kouga?"

"What about questions? Didn't you say…"

Kouga meets the eyes of his betas, seeing doubts there that he shares, but he shakes his head firmly. "Didn't you notice she had no scent of her own? No heartbeat? She must be some kind of puppet. It's likely she doesn't know anything, or not enough to make it worth keeping her alive when we don't know what powers she's got. But I don't know what kind of monster would be using that kind of spy, so be careful leaving the den from now on… and I don't want the pups out, unless their parents are taking responsibility."

Ginta and Hakkaku are on the brink of nodding, dutiful intentions in their eyes, but the grass rustles an interruption. The leaves. The wind takes time to build enough force to shake the trees, but by then Kouga is looking for the source of it. It only takes as long as it does because the last place he looks is at the body of a foe that should be dead, and it's only because it takes so long that that the blade catches him as it does, slicing across the flat of his shoulder blade, cutting in at an angle down his back as he turns, so that it barely misses his spine.

"Kouga!" Ginta and Hakkaku shout simultaneously, but he's already moving, chasing down… the wind? The female? Perhaps both, in one being. Over and over Kouga draws close, only for her to slip from his grasp. Her eyes glow red and taunting; the scent of something wrong grows to embrace her fully, a seeping miasma with no visible source. It's not coming from her skin, or beneath it, but it infuses and suffuses her, and the harshness of it makes him snarl in disgust.

He chases, and she retreats, throwing blades of wind with her fan and pieces of forest debris with the wind. Her neck is still broken, leaving her head to flop around with the haphazard jerks of a discarded doll. Her red eyes are blank and unfocused, though she still moves with purpose. Kouga catches on quickly enough that her retreat is in the direction of his den. Not a retreat at all, but a threat or a test, and he doesn't care which. Kagome is there, in smiling slumber. All the pups, and all his people…

Just like that, the game loses its appeal.

Once, twice, he steps, forcing himself through the currents of wind with all the speed and pressure available to him. Kouga has learned over the course of the winter – how to apply his new power, how to dig deep and draw it out when he wants it. There are limits, of course. There are always limits. Not even the power of the shikon no tama is infinite, and he carries only a few pieces of it with him, shining under his skin for those with the will to see it. Still, it's enough that he's learned to run on air, on water, to channel all his protective urges into pure movement. In a blink, Kouga outraces the wind, stands behind his opponent and catches her sleeves. A jerk breaks her arm; another opens a gash across her ribs, staining the violet silk of her robe. A third makes her drop her half-open fan, and Kouga kicks it aside, sees Ginta catch it up off the ground and smirks at the increase of wariness in his foe. "Not feeling up to a fight without tricks?"

But she moves as if she feels no pain, as if there's no need for her to dodge his attacks. The more he pushes, the faster she fights, the faster she flees. Never forward; always back. Never close enough for him to deliver a final blow, but insubstantial as she can make herself, quick as she might be, he has no intention of letting her any closer to those he protects. If he can't kill her… and he is not yet ready to give up on that… then at least he will chase her away. Leave her with wounds enough that her unknown master will have his work cut out for him, putting her back together.

"It would help if I knew why you were here, but you aren't talking, are you?" He ducks, dodging a flying branch as his fist connects with her face, then her bloody ribs. Only a single blow has caught him by surprise, and it's already half healed, in comparison to the litany of wounds he's inflicted on this fleeing female. Who could possibly have expected her to succeed in a fight against him? Who would know of him, yet still underestimate him this badly? Kouga spins on the ball of his foot, lashes out without losing momentum, then stops mid-motion, leg still extended, and nearly falls on his face.

"No! No, you can't! I know it's not your way, but please-"

It's Kagome's voice, shrill with too many emotions packed into too few words. He can taste her fear, her panic, her anxiety. Her blood.

"Kagome-" he's turning almost before he can think about it, but Ginta and Hakkaku close ranks behind him, hair bristling like fur, fangs bared, dropping their lighthearted personas

"Go!"

"Take care of her!"

"We'll take care of this one."

Kouga flees before he can think about whether or not it's a good idea, whether or not they can do what they're saying. The wind fights him, tries to hold him back, but he plants his foot and tears the air apart, racing toward the den.

A/N: STILL ALIVE! Alpha is finished, and this one is next because Bloodlust is not cooperating. It never does, I don't know why I thought years away would help…. Wishful thinking? At any rate, apologies for the long wait, but I know what's happening now AND it's NaNoWriMo, so with luck more shall be forthcoming soon! O, and the title of this chapter, Ante Mortem, means "Before Death".

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