• 1-2 in 1
• 2-The Walk Home
• 3-Dinner Manners
• 4-Name Calling
• 5-A Few Surprises
• 6-Kyo's Little Trick
• 7-Kyo's Deception
• 8-Trading Graves
• 9-My Other Half
• 10-Mistaken Identity
• 11-Afternoon Visitor
• 12-Creativity
• 13-Tying the Knot
• 14-Unexpected Shelter
• 15-Banishment
• 16-Changing
• 17-A Real Bargain
• 18-Wind Talk
• 19-A Hint of Silver
• 20-Curse of the Wolves
• 21-Golden Opportunity
• 22-Possessions
• 23-Winner Take All
• 24-Traditional Seduction
• 25-Engaged
• 26-Moon Song
• 27-Heart of the Fire
• 28-Freedom
• 29-The Wrong Moon
• 30-Friendly Persuasion

Chapter Fifteen:

Banishment

Leota was a gift from Heaven.

She had to be. What
else could explain the things she was doing for him? Her ankle had healed the day after she awoke, and so as soon as
she woke up, she was up and running with the wolves. The noise had attracted Ginta and Hakkaku, who had been sleeping
nearby, and they could only stare as they watched her running with them, past
them, behind them and swiping at their back legs with her hands.

Then the noise brought Kouga.

Who sat just as dumbfounded as the other two.

At this moment, she was sitting on a rock with her back
turned to the three gaping wolf demons, and the wolves were tugging at her
pants begging and pleading to have her run with them again.

“You’re all such children!
You’re shjustjust a little bit of fun and then you want to do it over,
and over, and over again!” She laughed, rubbing a wolf on his head, “Speaking
of children, what do you all think we should do to the three that are sitting
all by their lonesome?”

Kouga blinked. Had
she just called him a child? The other
two he could understand, but him?
His eyes narrowed.

“What do you mean by that?”

She turned around to face him and then disappeared, a smile
on her face. He heard Ginta and Hakkaku
gasp beside him. Turning around, even
Kouga stepped back a little.

Leota sat on the rocks behind them, her legs pulled up to her
chest and her chin resting on her knees.
That wolf smile was still on her face, and the slyness of it all had
managed to shine in her eyes.

“I call you children because if you’d look at yourselves,
that’s what you look like. You’ve got
this fascination in your eyes and it’s got that innocent little ‘I wanna go…’
look to it. It reminds me of a group of
outcast children who want to join in the fun of the others. And don’t try to argue with me,” she
said, pointing a finger at Kouga, whose mouth was slightly open to protest,
“I’ve had that look on my face tons of times.
I’m an expert at what it looks like.”

“It must have been hard for her to look at the ot chi children and know that she could not join them becaof wof what that man made
her do.” Kouga thought, his eyes softening.

“What’s the matter with you, Kouga-dono?” Leota asked,
putting her bare feet on the ground and walking over towards him, “I know! Why don’t you all stop being such wishful
children and join us? This way we can
all have fun and leave no one out of it!”

“That’s allht,”ht,” Kouga said, “I don’t…”

Leota dismissed Kouga’s sentence with a wave, “Fine, fine do
what you want. You’re just afraid that
I’ll be able to prove that I’m faster than you are.”

It took Kouga a minute to realize what she said after having
first to notice she said anything at all.

“Damn her scent is intoxicating,” he thought, snapping
back to reality, “no one’s faster than me!”

“I. No one’s faster
than I. Speak properly!” Leota smiled as she jumped down to where the
wolves were waiting for her.

Shrugging, Ginta and Hakkaku jumped down after her, leaving
Kouga to stand alone on the platform made of rock.

“How did things get like this?” Kouga asked himself as
he sat down again, “How did I ever get distracted from Kagome?”

“You got attacked by that girl.” A voice said in his head.

“But Kagome is my woman, not this girl.”

“Originally, though, you only wanted Kagome because she
can see the shards of the Sacred Jewel.
And because she had spirit after that.
Does not this Leota have both of those and more? Leota has yet to hit you, while Kagome would
have hit you many times by now.”

Kouga did not want to admit to the voice that it was
right. Leota could so far do all the
things he had wanted in Kagome. She
could see shards, could match his temper, and she could control the element of
fire.

“Which no human could do. Humans don’t have the right blood to control any of the elements…”
Kouga thought, standing once again, “Hey!
Fire sprite!”

Leota immediately stopped scratching the ears of the wolves
and stood, her back straight and her eyes wide with surprise.

“W-What did you call me?”
She asked, her voice sounding tiny.

Kouga jumped down to face her, “It’s what you are, isn’t it?”

“No.”

“You deny it?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re wrong.
I’m not a fire sprite. I
can’t believe you would insult me as such.”

“Then what are you?”
Kouga asked challengingly

“Do you even know the growth process of fire entities?”

“Uh…. no.”

Leota sighed, “Fire entities are first born as pixies who
need about one thousand or more power points beftheythey can grow to their next
stage. Some can prolong that growth,
but it means they learn slower than if they just went on like everyone
else. After pixies, they become a
faerie. They need about one thousand
five hundred points before they move on.

From faerie, one would grow to a fae. Points needed: two thousand. After fae is elf, and they need two thousand
five hundred points to become what you have wrongfully called me, a
sprite. A fire entity can choose at any
point in the growth process to stop learning fire magic, but I was an
overachiever, I suppose. I didn’t want
to stop at sprite, so dug into the old books at home and made my own race. A race that, from sprite, one needs at least
five thousand points. To maintain that
rank, one needs to gather ten thousand or more points.”

“And what race is that?”
Ginta asked.

“The race of fire demon. Demons require much power to become what they from sprites, but
to remain a demon takes even more power, for you’re constantly needing
to use it, thus always needing to replenish your energy.”

“So that’s what you are?
A fire demon?”

Leota shrugged, “I didn’t know what else to call myself. Demon, at the time anyway, seemed
appropriate, and my teachers all thought so as well. They thought that whomever possessed such power as I do, might as
well be a demon.”

“You feel like a demon,” Kouga began, “but you don’t look
like one.”

“I can change that, if that’s what you’d all prefer?”

The three of them nodded, “Yes.”

Leota smiled and shrugged, “Have it your way.”

Closing her eyes, Leota began to change. It was subtle at first, the slight change of
scent, the feel of her aura, and then her ears grew slight points to them. She had longer canine teeth, and her eyes
slanted somewhat. Her clothes also
changed. From the odd pants she wore
and the equally odd shirt, to a black skirt patterned with runes of red. The skirt had no sides, allowing the three
wolf demons a glimpse of her legs, something Kouga hit the other two for.

The top Leota wore almost matched the one she’d worn
previously, except that it tied around her neck and behind her back. It was patterned the same as the skirt, and
the outfit seemed to make Leota glow.

When Leota opened her eyes, Kouga, Ginta, and Hakkaku stepped
back. Leota’s eyes were a deep sapphire
blue, with soft flames flickering within their depths.

“Weren’t your eyes green a minute ago?” Hakkaku asked.

“Yes.”

“Then why are they blue?”

Leota seemed surprised, “Blue? What do you mean they’re blue?”

“Just what he said,” Ginta shrugged, “your eyes are blue.”

She must have still been surprised, for Leota ran over to a
bowl that held water in it. After
staring at it for a long moment, she stood up and smiled.

“They are blue!
My eyes are blue! Finally! After all these years! My eyes have returned to the color they were
at my birth!”

Leota seemed completely oblivious to Kouga or anyone else’s
presence. She jumped up and down, did
cartwheels, which did not upset her skirt one moment, back flips, and soon even
Kouga felt her happiness from where he stood.

She finally stopped, which allowed everyone to stand still
for a moment and allow their minds to unwind from the dizziness they felt from
following her excited movements.

“Are you all right, Ota-chan?” Ginta asked.

She turned to look at him, her clothes changing to what they
were originally, “Of course I’m all right! I’m me again! Now,
when I look up at the moon, I’ll be able to see the halo that surrounds it.”

“Huh?”

“If you look through my eyes, when they’re blue, you’d be
able to see the aura of everything around you.”

“And you’re saying the moon has an aura, too?”

“Ourseurse she does!
Now come on! I feel like running
and proving to Raven Hair that I’m faster than he is. Even if he does cheat.”

“Oh yeah? Well for
your information, Fire Wolf, I’m going to be defeating you!”

Leota was surprised, “Fire Wolf?”

Kouga suddenly became shy, but quickly hid it from her gaze,
“When we first met, you wanted me to call you Ookami-chan, ookami meaning
wolf. Well, you’re a fire demon, so I
decided I’d call you Fire Wolf to combine the two.”

Her eyes softening Leota walked over and gave Kouga a hug,
“No one’s ever called me that before, let alone ever connected the two at
all. Come on, Kouga-dono, while we’re
running, I’ll teach you how to run on the wind without using those damned
shards.”

She pulled away after giving him one last friendly squeeze.

“Uh, Kouga-sama? What
do you want us to do?” Hakkaku asked.

“Watch the wolves and guard the den.”

“You won’t have to worry about the den,” Leota smiled, “I’ve
already put wards on it to make sure any presennwelnwelcome by Kouga-kun gets
burnt.”

The three stared at her, shocked by what she’d just said.

“Did she say what I think she said?” Kouga thought,
“Excuse me?”

“What? Do you have
problem with the fact that I decided to help out around here?”

“N-No, it’s not that…”
Kouga began.

“Good! Then get
going! I’m giving you a head start.”

Deciding it was better not to bring it to her attention,
Kouga raced off, determined to show her that he was not slower than a female
fire demon.

No matter how beautiful she was.

“Inu-Yasha? Are we
there yet?”

“If you don’t keep quiet, we’ll never get there!” Inu-Yasha yelled.

“But how do you know that this is where she even
went?”

“Shippo, do you want to find her?”

“Yes!”

“Then shut up!” Inu-Yasha
warned, jumping from tree to tree trying to pick up her scent once more.

Life with Kagome for the past few days had almost made
Inu-Yasha want to go find Naraku and ask him to kill him. But that’s when Shippo had asked if they
could go look for Leota, rather than waiting to see if she’d ever come back.

Miroku and Sango had decided that they would go with them,
for perhaps the more there were of them, the better they coull pel persuade
Leota into coming back with them and sorting everything out.

So far, they’d found no traces of the green-eyed,
flame-throwing woman they’d all grown to love despite the short time that she’d
been with them.

“Inu-Yasha! I sense a
strong aura coming this way!” Miroku
warned from behind Sango on Kirara.

He took a quick sniff of the air.

“I smell wolves and… fire?”

This was odd. He did
not smell ashes, or anything else that might be burning, but just the smell of
fire itself. He’d never known fire had
a smell.

“Inu-Yasha, look over there!” Shippo exclaimed as he pointed off in the distance.

Turning his head to look, Inu-Yasha saw the cyclone that was
undoubtedly Kouga trying to see if Kagome were with them. Oddly enough, the scent of fire was coming
from that same direction.

Leota was now not only a gift from Heaven, but she was a
goddess and a she-devil at the same time.

She was a goddess because noty hay had she stayed with him,
placed wards upon his den, called him ‘Kouga-kun’ several times that day, but
she was also teaching him wind magic!

And this same Leota was a she-devil because though she was
teaching him the wind magic, she was doing just as she threatened: she was not
only outrunning him, but she’d fall back just to run circles around him and
then speed up before he could do anything about it!

He felt something smack his head, undoubtedly Leota’s hand…
again.

“Concentrate! If you
ever hope to catch up to me, you’ve got to concentrate, dammit!”

Having learned not to say anything back to her, lest he
wanted another smack to the head, Kouga tried to utilize the cyclone he was
making into the energy he needed to run on the wind.

“If only I didn’t keep thinking about her,”
Kouga thought, trying desperately to please her, “I know I could do
this!”

“Stop!”

Also having learned to hear her voice while drowned in his
thoughts, Kouga obeyed her command and stopped just short of a cliff.

He turned to her, about to thank her for stopping him but the
look on Leota’s face stopped him. She
looked ready to cry, and if he looked hard enough, Kouga could see tears
welling up in her eyes.

She fell to her knees, hands covering her eyes. And then there’s all this stuff with Kagome-san, and I smell rain
on the wind, and all of this stuff just keeps happening that’s got me all
stressed out!”

“Would you really rather leave me and go to Kagome?”

Leota’s sobbing stopped at once, and she used her hands to
wipe away her tears, “No.”

“Then just tell me what I’m supposed to do. Am I supposed to jump off the cliff? Am I supposed to take you to Kagome? What?
What do you want me to do?”

Her eyes suddenly showed him all she had to offer him, and he
was taken by surprise as Leota’s entire life played before his eyes. He saw all that she feared, and also saw why
she was so happy to have blue eyes again.
Saw what Kagome meant to her.

Saw what he meant to her.

“Have I ever told you what you smell like?”

“Cold, damp caves?”

“No, Kouga-kun, you smell like the mountain breeze that blows
over the earth of a forest after a downpour of spring rain,” said whispered,
knowing full well that he could hear her, “and believe me, Kouga-kun, I may be
a fire demon, but I love the rain.”

Today was a day for surprises, for Leota wrapped her arms
around his neck, kissed him lightly on his lips, and rested her head on his
shoulder.

He put his chin on topher her head, “I’ve made up my
mind. This is who I want.”

From the bushes, which were downwind of Kouga and Leota, four
pairs of eyes watched.

“Is that Leota-san?”
Sango whispered.

“It has to be, those are the same clothes she was
wearing when she walked away,” Inu-Yasha said, taking a sniff of the air just
to be sure, “yeah, that’s her all right.
Her scent is just a little different.”

“And her aura,” Miroku added, “it has an even more demonic
quality to it.”

Sango nodded, “Hai, and her aura alone is surrounding the
both of them. There’s almost no chance
for us to get to either of them without being turned to ashes first.”

“Well, you said ‘almost’, so how do we get her to not toast
us?”

“Simple: we run out there screaming for her attention and
hope that she recognizes our voices quickly enough before we go down in
flames.” Miroku said as he shrugged.

“That can’t be the only way.” Inu-Yasha protested.

“Unless you can think of a different way, Inu-Yasha, then
that’s how we’re going to do it.” Sango
said, leaving her giant bone boomerang behind as she ran out to the clearing,
waving her arms and screaming Leota’s name.

Shrugging, Miroku did the same, also opting to leave his
staff behind.

Sighing in annoyance, Inu-Yasha ran out, too, his Tetsusaiga
and Shippo by his side.

She felt them coming, but most of all, she felt a woman
coming. Her eyes snapped open. No.
There was no way that she would let any woman come near
him. He was hers and hers alone.

He could smell the mutt coming, with that monk and the kit
that Kagome loved so much. He certainly
wasn’t going to let that stupid hanyou mutt take this away from
him. He’d taken Kagome and he could
have her, but Leota was his. The
monk, too, would pay. No way in all the
hells was he going to let that hentai even get a look at her face, never mind
any other part of her.

Leota’s mind was still clear enough to see that there was
only one woman coming towards her. That
made it all the easier for her to concentrate on the woman running at her.

“Up.” Leota
commanded, her hair tying itself out of her eyes, revealing her pointed ears.

Her eyes slowly getting blurry, Leota could just barely see
Sango stagger to a halt. By then,
Leota’s vision was scattered. She saw
only reds and oranges. She could feel
one of her newly lengthened canines from her top jaw protruding over her bottom
lip. This made her smile, an even more
wolf-like gesture, for it was in actuality a warning.

All she needed to attack was one more step, and then Sango
would be in her space. Just one more
step. To tease Sango’s curiosity, Leota
laughed at her confused expression.

And that’s when Sango took that one extra step.

Gathering the first energy that came to her, Leota summoned
the earth magic that had taken her many days to finally master. Many vines snaked their way towards the
exterminator who, had she had her boomerang, could have easily sliced through
them.

“Leota-san! What are
you doing?” Sango called, doing her
best to dodge each of the vines.

Using her wind magic to amplify her speed, Leota appeared
right in front of the now confined woman.

“Keeping you away from what is mine, that’s what.”

It took Sango a moment finally realize what Leota was talking
about, and that’s when she fully noticed her ears. Before, Sango had gasped at how Leota’s hair moved by itself, but
now she saw how this had been accomplished.

“You’re a…”

“Fire demon, yes, yes.
Now, what do you want here, and why aren’t Kagome and Tora with you?”

“Tora went down the well the same night you left, after
having told Kagome what he was. Shippo
then said that it was her fault all of this was happening. Then Inu-Yasha told her she was wrong and
left. After that, we all left her out
to the fire, even Kaede.”

“You did all of that, just because she sent me away?” Leota asked, her voice softening with every
word.

“Of course we did.
You’re our friend, Leota-san, and we know when to say someone’s wrong.”

The vines around Sango suddenly began to drop one by one, and
the fire in Leota’s eyes subdued itself.
All of a sudden, Leota turned around and began running towards Kaede’s
village.

“Hey, where’s she going?”
Shippo asked.

“Who cares? We just
have to make sure that she doesn’t meet up with Lady Kagome!” Miroku yelled.

Kouga was about to follow, but Inu-Yasha stopped him.

“Don’t worry, we’ll bring her back.”

“No way, Mutt! That’s
my woman, and I’m not leaving her for a second!” Kouga yelled, following after the fire cat
that Sango and Miroku were riding towards the village.

“Kouga! Why don’t you
come up here?”

“No way! Sorry, but
that cat’s too damn slow!” Kouga called, trying to concentrate on where he was
going, “Wait a minute, ‘up here’?
Maybe that magic Leota was trying to teach me could be used to fly? Or at least glide for a while?”

Concentrating on what Leota had tried to tell him, about feeling
the wind under his feet, Kouga looked down.

He’d done it! His
feet were no long hitting the ground, but the wind itself! Leota would be so proud of him!

But that was only if he could catch her. She’d been using the spell a lot longer than
he had, and she probably knew other things that could help him.

Things he might not be able to even ask if he didn’t catch up
with her.

She took a quick sniff of the wind, testing it to make sure
nothing was going to jump at her, for she would burn it to a crisp in a
second. She extended her senses to
cover at least twenty feet around her, and used her eyes to check whatever her
senses might miss.

Finally, Leota could sense the powerful aura of the well that
Shippo had been telling her about.
Well, when they were speaking, Leota had still been Kyo, lying unable to
move in Kaede’s hut. While they talked,
‘Kyo’ had told little Shippo everything.
About the fact he was actually a she, about her demon side, her other
demon side, and everything that Kouga had seen in her eyes, seemingly
just moments ago.

Shippo and now even Kouga kneo sho she was, and she hoped
they could keep their mouths shut until this whole thing with Kagome could be
settled.

“Down.” Leota
thought, quickly deciding that the fire demon story should probably wait until
the whole assassin issue was over with.
She waited as her hair untied itself and began trailing behind her. Any branches that it might have caught on
were immediately burned.

At last, Leota reached the well. She took one sniff and was glad to know that Kagome was headed
her way. She walked over to the well
and stood, waiting.

“Maybe a little math will help me vent out some of my
frustration.” Kagome thought, headed
towards the well to go home and hopefully forget about all of this.

She’d been told earlier that morning by Kaede that Inu-Yasha
and the others had left, claiming to have heard a rumor about a Sacred Jewel
shard.

Coming up the hill that led to the well, Kagome was stopped
by the sight that greeted her.

There stood the object of her frustration, right by the place
she needed to go. Once she stepped overover the hill, Kagome immediately felt a powerful barrier being erected around
the two of them and the well.

The creator of the barrier nodded to her, “Higurashi
Kagome-sama.”

“What do you want?”

“To talk.”

“And why would I want to talk with you? You’re the reason I’m in this mess!”

“I am? Funny, last I
checked, I wasn’t the one that disapproved of my friend’s
occupation. True, I despise the reason
of hoggot into my occupation, but I don’t disapprove of my
friend’s. In actuality, my friend
doesn’t even have an occupation that I could disapprove of.”

Kagome stepped closer to the one she’d thought was her best
friend, “I have nothing to say to you, now step away from the well and…”

“And what? You’ll
just forget about this whole thing? No,
you’re not like that, Kagome-sama.
You’ve never been the kind to just ‘forgive and forget’, or ‘let
sleeping dogs lie’. No, the only way to
settle this once and for all is to talk about it! Now talk!”

Sighing, Kagome put her hands on Leota’s shoulders, which
surprised the other girl so much that she took a step back.

“You want me to talk, Leota-san?” Kagome asked, her head down
as she spoke to her verbal assailant, “Then let me say just one thing.”

“What’s that Kagome-san?”
Leota asked as Kagome raised her head to look her in the eye.

“I thought I told you that I never wanted to see you
again!” Kagome yelled as a pink light
surrounded Leota’s body and threw her into the well, causing the barrier around
them to shatter.

Inu-Yasha, Miroku, Sango, Shippo, and Kouga were lying on
their backs, the force of the barrier breaking must have pushed them all
down. Miroku was first up.

“I can’t believe it,” he said, coming closer to the well and
looking at the rim, which now sported a black symbol that looked as though it
had been burned there, “you…….. you banished her.”

“I what?” Kagome
asked.

“You banished her from this world. Now she can never return here.”

Kagome and Miroku both turned when they heard a small
whimper.

“No……. she can’t be…….”
And with that, Kouga of the Wolf Demon Tribe fell to the ground.

Inu-Yasha, Sango, and Shippo looked at Kagome disapprovingly,
“What have you done?”

A/N: ::evil cliffhanger music:: So! Ota-chan
has been banished… what will Kouga do after he wakes up… if he wakes up
at all. How will Inu-Yasha and Co.
handle it? Will Kagome ever stop being
stupid and pushing all of her friends away? Find out in the next chapters, because
I don’t know what the heck is gonna be in chapter 16!

Chapter Sixteen: Changes