"I'll burn you to ashes!" And he's just completely concentrating his breath weapon on Inuyasha, unleashing absolutely-devastating blasts of flaming lightning straight at him.

And Inuyasha is walking forwards, his sword held straight, pushing through the blast. "You call this fire? Sparks from a smith's forge, maybe!"

(His skin is reddening noticeably. He can drive off the lightning, but the heat is still getting to him, and he still needs air. And he is pushing forwards. Against a heavy gale, step by step, but he's doing it, forcing Hiten back with the strength of the Tetsusaiga.)

Woah.

Can he really do it? Can he really win? It looks impossible, but - he does the impossible, he's done it before -

"Hot enough to burn a mongrel's hide to charcoal!" - So, of course, Hiten will just fly halfway across the battlefield over Kagome's head, turning to blast Inuyasha with more lightning from a different direction while he does it. Since, you know, he can fly.

Block block "BLADES OF BLOOD!" whose idea was it for his only ranged attack method to be one that involves ripping out bits of himself oh right it was him. He needs a better one when he is not SUPER BUSY.

This is not, actually, going to hit! See "flying very fast halfway across the battlefield!"

He can zap Inuyasha with more lightning, though. It's not like he runs out.

And Inuyasha will charge after Hiten, passing Kagome as he does and continuing to barely deflect lightning bolts as he runs.

- well what exactly is the POINT of running, if the battle is going to move to be IN FRONT OF HER.

(He's doing his best. She's the one who stopped when she was supposed to keep running. She just - needs to figure out what to do, now.)

Okay. Inuyasha's not going to be able to win, if he's using blood and Hiten is using lightning. He's not trying to win, she doesn't think; he's trying to buy her enough time to run away, which she can't do, if Hiten is going to fly out ahead of her. It's possible that she just got unlucky and that she could get away if she tried again and got luckier, but - there's nowhere to really lose him for miles around, here.

....also, if Hiten is faster than Inuyasha, then Inuyasha's not actually going to be able to get away, after he's bought enough time.

"He's going to lose, isn't he," says Shippo, peeking out of the ditch beside her.

"Inuyasha's very strong," she says, almost automatically, which isn't exactly disagreement. 

She looks, watching the pattern that Hiten traces through the air. That's what she's supposed to be good at, seeing things. That's why she's supposed to be here.

"It's those stupid wheels. They're pulling him through the air, somehow, that's how he flies. If Inuyasha could break one, he wouldn't be able to, but he won't let Inuyasha get close enough for that. Something has to hit him from further off. A magic arrow would do it, probably, but even if I could hit him, I don't have my bow anymore..."

"I can be a bow."

Well, that sure is an idea. She also doesn't have an arrow on her, but she does know where to get exactly one of those, which is all that she'd have time to use anyway. 

Technically, now that the fight is in front of her, she pretty much has to run back the way she came anyway, which also happens to be where the arrow is. 

This is a bad plan, but she isn't technically committing to her bad plan by scooping Shippo up and running back towards Manten's body, that's - probably the closest thing she can do to a reasonable next step either way - so she's going to do that, and then turn around and check on the battle when she gets there.

The battle hasn't changed much! Right now Hiten is taunting Inuyasha by flying close enough to the ground to tempt Inuyasha into overextending himself and strafing him from all directions!

And Inuyasha is fending off his attacks and carefully not lunging until he can deliver a fatal blow.

(Yet.)

Also suffering from blood loss and dehydration, he's doing that too.

She really wishes that she had a better sense of how much blood loss meant that he was about to die. - but realistically she should probably not do this if she thinks he's about the keel over dead, because the plan she has will only work if Inuyasha is able to immediately kill a disabled Hiten before he can retaliate.

(Or, well, it might still save him. It won't save her, and probably won't save Shippo.)

Manten is, unsurprisingly, still lying there dead. His heart and his jewel shards have been torn out, but her arrow is still stuck through his face. She throws Shippo's father's pelt over her shoulder, so her hands are free, and then pulls the arrow out.

This is dumb. This isn't going to work. She's never hit something dead on with an arrow on purpose, not without cheating. She's only been practicing for a couple of weeks. Hiten is moving, and fast, and far away, and the wheel is a smaller target than Yura or the crow demon.

But running isn't going to work either, she doesn't think. She probably ought to - she said she would - but Hiten can fly in seconds a distance that takes her several minutes to run, and it's going to take her a long time to get far enough away that he can't find her. Inuyasha might not have minutes, the way he's going through his own blood. And she's exhausted, and getting slower all the time, which makes it less likely that she'll get away before he's out of commission. She just doesn't think she can do it.

If the arrow misses wildly enough, Hiten might not notice; she might be able to give up and fall back on running away again. If running away doesn't work - well, she could keep the arrow and try later, but it wouldn't do any good, because Inuyasha wouldn't be able to finish him off.

Her head hurts. It's harder to think than it should be. Neither of her options seem like things that she can actually pull off. She can't think which plan is the right one, and the wrong one will get them all killed. But -

He would take a long shot like this to try to save her. He's doing it right now.

"I've never hit something this far away with an arrow before," she tells Shippo. "Are you sure you want to try this?"

"I'll guide you, don't worry!" He transforms into a kind of bizarre-looking bow, but it does have a string and is probably usable. "Just hurry, before it's too late!"

"Okay. As soon as it's gone we run, okay?"

She takes a deep breath. She's only got the one arrow, and has to make it count. She traces Hiten's pattern in the sky. She waits, one, two, three, four, five pounding heartbeats, trying to get her hands to stop shaking, trying to wait for a moment when Hiten is still.

And at the peak of an arc, well out of Inuyasha's reach, ready to dodge as he opens his mouth to unleash anothe cascade of lightning, Hiten pauses for half a moment -

And Kagome fires her arrow, which miraculously sails straight for one of the magic wheels.

And the arrow strikes, and the wheel shatters into a thousand pieces.

And Hiten, falling, plummeting, glancing at this surprise attack naturally exhales his lightning straight at the source of the arrow that downed him, a massive torrent of pure destructive force, straight at -

"KAGOME!"

Kagome immediately judges that she can't run, and that the thing that she needs to do here is throw her bow as far as possible, in case that can get Shippo clear of the attack.

- but it's lightning, and far too fast for that to work, either, so the blast slams into her while she's still winding up. 

Kagome's gone. There's just fire.

He kills Hiten, while he falls.

It's really more accurate to use that verb than any other. A single blow and the lightning-spear is shorn in two and Hiten with it.

Also, Kagome is dead.