divine move

Three teenagers sat in the Sheriff's Station with bowed heads, not a word shared between them as they all rehearsed the lines they had been given over and over in their heads, the script Argent had given them to make it seem as though Allison's death was a mere case of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. None of them wanted to belittle her death like that, they knew it was so much more. She'd died a hero, a warrior, a huntress, in the arms of the person who meant most to her. Her death wasn't what they were about to describe it as to make sure no questions would be asked so that she could die in peace like she deserved, not as an investigation. All three were in awe of how well Allison's father was handling this, he was yet to shed a tear, maybe he hadn't quite processed that his little girl had left them yet, but so far, the man had been his usual strong self, guiding the group of teenagers through their first stages of grief.

He made sure all of them knew the same story, word for word, making them repeat it over and over through their sobs until it was burnt into their brain without any mistakes. Their story had to lack some detail, that was how the questions would be avoided. They were all hanging out, next thing they knew, someone was stealing their car, before they knew it, something sharp and metallic had been pulled out and Allison was on the floor, bleeding out in Kinsey's arms. That is one part of the story that hadn't changed. Something had to be there to explain why she was so distraught, traumatized, and shaken to her absolute core. They had to believe that Kinsey saw a light fade out of Allison Argent's eyes, they had to believe that the two girls the entire town knew to be inseparable had been separated by a cold-hearted and sudden murder.

That part wasn't a lie. It was a cold-hearted murder. Sudden? Perhaps in some ways, yes. Kinsey and Lydia, the harbingers of death hadn't seen it coming, they had both known that it wasn't the older Argent who was supposed to die tonight, but the younger one. Neither had predicted that Allison would see the events of tonight too, that she would somehow tap into her angel abilities and stop it from happening, sacrificing herself instead. Kinsey knew that Allison would do it one day, she just didn't think it would cost Allison her life, she didn't think it would be a sacrifice for her that gained Allison the activation of her supernatural genes.

The entire station had heard about what had happened tonight, from the second they had seen the four solemn faces walk through the main door, the grief across their faces, they knew that a teenager had lost their life to this godforsaken town, someone too young to have had to worry about dying. None of them knew who the said teenager was, not at first, they all had their guess, but when a particular brunette teenager had excused herself from the room, unable to breathe or control her sobbing, their guesses narrowed down further. Until all were left suspecting that Allison Argent had been the one to die.

The only person yet to find out? Sheriff Stilinski. All he knew was that he had been called back to the station for an urgent case, a murder that needed his immediate attention, of course, he was the Sheriff of this town, he had rushed back to the station like he would have any other murder, suspecting that it might have something to do with the Nogitsune or the armored hooded ninjas that swarmed the town. His guess was somewhat right, but when he had seen the witnesses to the murder sitting in front of his office he knew that it was much more than that.

Noah walked up to the three teenagers, all three looking up at him with tearful eyes, he could see their broken hearts through their eyes. "What happened?"

"Allison," Isaac mumbled, a crack in his voice.

The Sheriff placed a hand to his mouth, stunned as a few tears shed from his own eyes, unsure what to say to three teenagers who had just lost someone who meant so much to them, to him too, Allison was one of them, she was family. Now he knew he would have to collect statements from each and every one of them, making them relieve her death, it was cruel to do such a thing but it was his job. And this was possibly the worst day of his entire career.

He looked around the room, in search of the brunette girl before he turned back to the three in front of him, all knowing who he was looking for. "Where's Kinsey?"

Sheriff Stilinski walked through the halls of his station, delaying his questioning just a little more as he searched for Kinsey Argent, a girl who had disappeared half an hour ago, nobody knowing where she had disappeared to since. She hadn't told them, only that she couldn't sit here longer than she already had. Eventually, the man found her. Sitting against a wall, her knees pulled into her chest, her head buried as she sobbed, shielding herself from the world.

The man didn't say a word as he sat down beside the girl, wrapping his arm around her shoulder as he pulled her in for a hug, not expecting her to speak, to look at him, just to be comforted in a time of need. Kinsey's sobs didn't stop, even if she wanted to, she couldn't possibly stop them, it was a waterfall, she thought that after crying so much in her life she would run out by now, but it didn't. They kept flowing, worsening with every flashback she had of it, the sword plunging into Allison's back, the light that dimmed in her eyes as it ripped back out. Any of the gory details, all of the last words that Allison had managed to spit out through a bloody smile. They would never stop replaying in her head, it was a mark left to eternity, she would die with the guilt that she felt inside of her tonight.

Kinsey looked at the Sheriff with her swollen eyes, a shake of her head. "I don't know what to do anymore." She admitted. "I wasn't supposed to be here. This is my fault."

"Kinsey, what are you talking about? None of this is your fault." The man reassured her.

"For weeks I've watched it over and over again. Preparing myself. Saying my goodbyes. And- and she wouldn't let me do it. It was supposed to be me who died tonight. And now- now she's gone and it's all my fault."

"Hold on, hold on." Sheriff Stilinski stopped her, confused by the details he had just been given. "You knew something was going to happen tonight?" He asked, the brunette nodding, wiping a tear with her sleeve. "Our talk in the elevator. Did you know then?" He asked again, she nodded again. "You've been keeping it to yourself for that long?"

The brunette nodded again. He didn't ask her reasoning, frankly, he was too scared to hear it, in case he heard a sixteen-year-old girl tell him that she was prepared to die, or that she wanted to just so the rest of them could live, he didn't want to hear the girl who he knew his son loved say that she was prepared to be killed by the thing that possessed Stiles, just so that he could live to see another day. "Go home for the night, Kins. Go and be with your uncle. Take Isaac with you. I'll get Scott and Lydia's statements but right now you need to be at home."

"No." Kinsey shook her head wiping her tears. "I'll do it. I need to deal with this unemotionally and clinically. That's what we do. That's what hunters do. I need to-"

Noah stopped her again. "You need to go home and mourn." He urged. "You're a sixteen-year-old girl, Kinsey. You don't have to be strong all the time. You can hurt. It's okay."

With their hands intertwined, Kinsey and Isaac followed Chris out of the elevator, they all stood in front of the apartment door that read "Argent" their hearts dropping, it was a name that they connected to her, even if two of them had it too, that name was Allison's, she was embodied the Argent name. She was pure Argent. Not like Chris who was born to an Argent and a White. Or his niece who was half Hale. Allison was born to two married Argent's, she had been raised with the name, she was the name.

Chris and Kinsey could remember the first time they had seen that sign on the door, the first day back before the end of summer, Chris and Allison had only been back in Beacon Hills an hour but Allison insisted on picking up Kinsey and getting straight to work, settling back into the town she had missed so much. The brunette had been beaming that day, excited to see her cousin again, it had been a long summer without her, the two of them were seeing Lydia of the night, reuniting their trio, she felt home again. This apartment had been home to them for the past four months, but now, it was nothing but a reminder that she was gone. All that was left here for them was the pain and silence of her death, pieces of shattered hearts. This wasn't a home anymore. Not when it didn't involve Allison. She was their home. The glue that kept the Argents together, the hope in two otherwise hopeless Argents.

None of them wanted to step back into the apartment so soon, they didn't need to see all of her things scattered around the apartment, reminding them that her death was sudden, at least to them, apparently not to Allison who'd known for the entire day that she would be dying tonight in place of her cousin. As soon as they opened the door, the three pairs of eyes looked straight at the bedroom at the end of the corridor, Allison's bedroom. She had picked that room specifically so she could keep her door open, able to see the front door from her bed, able to see when Chris or Kinsey came home so that there were never any surprises.

Chris's foot teetered over the threshold of the door, holding his breath as he dared to step over it and onto the cold laminate flooring, into the darkness of the apartment that he refused to light up in his daughter's absence. Isaac looked at Kinsey, she stared down at her feet, unsure if she'd even want to go back into the apartment, whether she would rather never come back at all, she could just avoid it with every fiber of her being, ask her uncle to pack up her things so she didn't have to look at it again. She didn't doubt that that was what they would do. Pack up and leave. It was what they should have done after Kate, or when Victoria died, this town wasn't good for any Argent, they should have known that after two of them had been killed here. Now, three.

Kinsey released Isaac's hand as she stepped into the apartment, an immediate sob escaping her that she couldn't control anymore, her tears had managed to stop on the ride back here, but she had known that it would only be a matter of time before they returned. And they had.

Isaac followed them both in, shutting the door behind them, a quiet sob from him too. Perhaps he hadn't been as close to Allison as his girlfriend and her uncle, they were family, he couldn't of possibly known how they felt to lose her, but in the months of his relationship with Kinsey, he'd grown closer to Allison, she had become like an older, annoying sister to him, he didn't see her as an enemy like she used to, or even just an ally. He saw her as a friend. He didn't know that she had once called him family while he was in the hospital, he would have liked to call her that too, but while he stood before Allison's real family, he didn't want to say those words. Instead, he let himself quietly think it. After his father's death, the Argent's and McCall's were the closest he had to family, he knew that it would never be the same again after tonight.

Chris didn't turn to face the werewolf he spoke to, refusing to let Isaac see the weakness inside of him in the mourning hours of his daughter's death. "I appreciate the concern, but you don't have to stay. We'll be all right." The man said, on behalf of him and his niece. "We've dealt with this before. We have a capacity and... An ability to compartmentalize our emotions." Chris said as he tried to convince himself of that, he had tears in his eyes, Kinsey was sobbing, he knew it wasn't true. Perhaps it had been once before, but that wasn't the case now.

"I don't," Isaac admitted through a soft whimper.

Chris pulled the boy in for a tight hug, allowing him to cry on his shoulder, pulling his niece in too, the three of them standing in the hallway of the apartment, for how long, none of them had quite known, but they didn't dare break apart, not until it felt like the tears were gone, that the emotions were beginning to compartmentalize. They were the only family each other had left in this world. And Chris knew that the two teenagers in his arm were his responsibility, his family, it was all he had left to fight for, and he was going to give a hell of a fight.

Eventually, the three were brave enough to wander into the bedroom at the end of the corridor, Isaac sat on the edge of Allison's bed, a ring dagger sat there, a silver one, he knew it wasn't one of his girlfriend's, he had seen her collection, hell, he'd even stolen some of it, but that was new. Kinsey didn't pay attention to it, instead, her focus was on the letter that had been sitting on her cousin's dresser, her own handwriting on the envelope, her goodbye letter, the one that had no purpose now. Allison had probably known while she was writing it that it would be pointless, the goodbyes should have been coming from her, not Kinsey. And they had.

Kinsey didn't see it until now, but Allison had been saying her goodbyes, downstairs with Chris as they prepared to make their molds, she told them how proud she was, how she loved them, in the case that something happened and she didn't get to say it like she did to her mother. She had said our goodbyes, she knew that she wouldn't make it another day.

The brunette picked up the letter she had left Allison, tearing it in half, throwing it into the trash can beside the dresser. Allison was supposed to be the one coming back to an empty apartment where she would have to face seeing her cousin's room, she was supposed to come back and see a letter waiting for her on her bed so that she knew just how much she loved her, why she had to leave so suddenly. This wasn't how it was supposed to be. None of this was right. Chris walked into the room, seeing his niece standing at the dresser, leaning on it while she tried to cope, Isaac sitting on the bed, tracing his fingers against the silver ring dagger that had been left there.

"Careful." He warned the boy. "That one takes some practice." Kinsey turned to see what Isaac was doing, seeing the dagger in his hand, he immediately gave it back to the girl, he knew she was much better equipped for it than he was. "When Allison was learning in France, she had to bandage her fingers because they got so raw. She wouldn't give up on it though. She wouldn't stop saying that she wanted to impress you when we got back." He told her, looking at Kinsey, she was the one Allison aimed to please, Kinsey didn't have that struggle of training with a ring dagger, she was a natural, just like how Allison was a natural with the crossbow.

Isaac told the man how Allison was trying to say something in her dying breaths, how she asked Kinsey to tell him something, a confused Chris sat on the edge of the bed, curious to know what Allison wanted to tell him. The wolf told him how she hadn't managed to finish what she tried so hard to say, but he assumed that it was just to tell him how much she loved him. Isaac struggled to say the words without breaking down into another sob, the man comforting him, reassuring him that Allison had made a point of telling him and Kinsey earlier that she loved them, how she was proud of them. Isaac's sobs had suddenly stopped as he questioned the "earlier" part Chris mentioned, wondering how Allison would have known to say something earlier.

He questioned Kinsey, quoting another set of Allison's last words, how she had told her cousin that she had felt it, asking whether Allison meant that she had felt that her cousin was going to be the one to die. That it was meant to be Kinsey. The brunette nodded. Until now, Chris didn't know about his niece, how she had kept it to herself for weeks on end that she had been seeing tonight before it happened, the ending it was supposed to have. Isaac had only found out from Lydia while sitting in the station, now, her behavior made sense. And so did Allison's. Allison was right to think that something was going on with Kinsey, that it felt like she was saying goodbyes to everyone because she had been.

Isaac watched his girlfriend as she spoke, telling her uncle that if she had lived, Allison would've been like her, an angel who was pure of heart, who had made a great sacrifice. His focus was less on her words, more so on the dagger, she spun on her finger, how it was silver, he thought it was strange that it was silver, normally, they weren't.

"Why is it silver?" He questioned simply, nodding at the dagger.

"It's a tradition we have." Chris told him.

"The silver bullet." Isaac nodded.

Chris told him about their earlier conversation, how Allison was making arrowheads for her and Kinsey, that was their weapon of choice over a gun, suggesting that Allison hadn't been able to resist making a mold for Kinsey's preferred weapon- the dagger. It was at that moment Isaac had jumped up from the bed, asking where the arrowheads would be. Kinsey looked at her uncle, it wasn't something she knew, she had left before either her uncle or cousin to see Meredith, she'd no idea where the arrowheads were now. But Chris did. They were downstairs.

Isaac began walking out of the bedroom, prepared to head to the warehouse, the two worried Argents following him as they questioned why he needed to see them. His answer was simple. He believed that one of them would be missing.

And he was right. After rushing down to the warehouse they had found the rows of arrowheads. Only ten there. Allison had made eleven arrowheads, one dagger, Chris was sure of that. Allison had asked him how many bullets he had made so she could make the same amount in arrows. One was missing. Not only was there a missing silver arrowhead, but a note had been left on the bench beside them, Kinsey's name written in Allison's handwriting.

Kinsey scrambled to open the envelope, a simple note inside. 𝐈𝐭'𝐬 𝐲𝐨𝐮𝐫 𝐰𝐞𝐚𝐩𝐨𝐧 𝐧𝐨𝐰. 𝐘𝐨𝐮 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐰𝐡𝐚𝐭 𝐲𝐨𝐮 𝐧𝐞𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐝𝐨. As she read those words, Kinsey realized the same thing that Isaac had, it was what Allison had used, her last arrow in Oak Creek had been her silver arrowhead. It was the arrowhead that killed the Oni before it had killed her.

"How?" Chris asked, still unable to understand.

"The same way you almost did it." Kinsey told him as she held up one of the arrowheads. "You told us about your first deal with the yakuza. The bullet you shot at the Oni, it was silver, wasn't it?" She frantically asked her uncle.

"Yes." He nodded. "But it didn't kill him. It just broke his mask."

"What if silver is like poison to them?" Isaac asked. "What if it needs to stay in the body?"

"Like an arrow." Kinsey nodded. "That was what she was trying to tell us. She figured it out. And she knew we would too. This is what this note is." She explained as she waved it around. "Allison knew that we had what we needed to stop the Oni."

"No." Chris held up an arrowhead. "To kill them."

He gave his niece orders. She had to find Scott and Stiles immediately, she had to tell them what she knew, he told her to take the dagger that Allison had made her, they would gather the other weapons that they needed as well as the silver arrows, but someone needed to protect everyone else, she was that someone. Kinsey was hesitant to leave after what they had just found out, but Chris hadn't given her much choice. He had shoved the dagger into her hand, telling her to go as fast as she could, before anyone else was hurt. Isaac nodded beside him in agreement. They had to be as quick as possible, making sure that they were all armed against the Oni, tonight was the night that this all ended. The Oni. The Nogitsune. Chaos wouldn't come again.

·❥·

Kinsey had sped the entire way to the school, where Lydia had told them they were all headed, her driving had been so fast and reckless that she had reached it before any of them, meaning she was able to help a week, ghastly Stiles climb out of the Jeep, throwing his arm over her and Lydia's shoulder to support him as they walked, he wasn't strong enough to carry himself, even if there wasn't much left of the boy, even a little weight was more than he could bear to hold up alone. His skin was as pale as ever, red circles around his eyes, and his entire looked disheveled. Even then, he still managed to provide the girl with a guilty look, it was the first time that he had seen her since what had happened, he had been told how bad she had been, he had asked each and every person possible to see how she was, they had been the ones to inform him on how it was supposed to end, how Kinsey and Lydia predicted her death, not Allison's.

As Kinsey pulled him onto her shoulder, hobbling towards the school, he opened his mouth, he was prepared to apologize, to put the blame on himself just like she had with herself, she could see it coming, and she sharply stopped him, telling him that for what remained of the night, and possibly their lives, not to talk about it. If they made it through the rest of the night, then they'd be able to argue over whose fault it was that Allison had died, it was bound to be a long one.

Lydia looked over to Kinsey, asking if she felt it too, she didn't need details, she had the feeling, they were bonded, of course, they both shared it. It felt like time was running out. Despite their connection, they weren't the only two who felt it, Stiles did too.

Just as Scott and Kira prepared to push through the school doors, Stiles stopped them all. He'd told them he knew what they were thinking, if this elaborate plan of theirs worked, trapping the Nogtisune in the triskele box that had belonged to Talia Hale, that it might kill him too, but Stiles made it clear, if that was the case, they had to go through with it, they had to stick with the plan.

There was a plan. And that was part of it. But above all the plan was to save him, Scott reassured him of that, that was the plan he was going to stick to, and it was the plan the three girls around them planned on sticking to also. Nobody else was going to die tonight.

Scott and Kira turned back to the door, pushing them open, but they weren't in the school halls, far from it. They had opened the door to a snowy wonderland, a Japanese garden, there wasn't a single part of it that wasn't draped with flawless white snow. Wearily, the five teenagers went further in, snowflakes falling down on them, settling in the hair of the three girls who shared the same curled look. Kinsey looked around them, confused as to how they had ended up in such a snowy place, and through the doors of the school. She was sure that Narnia involved a wardrobe and not a school. But both she and Lydia tried to focus on Stiles, ignoring how cold they'd both become in the dresses they wore, neither had dressed in preparation to end up in a snowy place.

The door slammed shut behind them, all five whipping their heads around to look at it, the girls had released Stiles, too startled by the slam to keep ahold of him, their arms wrapping around themselves, shielding themselves from the cold snow. Stiles turned back to the Japanese snowy garden. This was definitely not part of their plan.

For only a moment they were left in peace, Kira lay out her palm, allowing snowflakes to rest in it until they all heard the sound of footsteps crackling in the fresh snow, all of them turning toward the door that they had come through, a bandaged figure standing there. One that Kinsey and the sickly Stiles knew too well now. Kira extended her Katana, Kinsey her dagger, prepared for a fight against the Nogitsune, to end this, just like their plan.

"Like I promised, Stiles." The Nogitsune spoke, the boy stepping forward. "We're going to kill all of them. One by one."

From a puff of black smoke, the Oni began to appear, surrounding the two armed girls first, Kira and Kinsey were quick to collide their weapons with the swords of those ninjas, Kinsey looked straight into the dead eyes of the Oni's mask, she wouldn't become a victim to that sword, she'd had enough of letting them win, in her dreams, or in her life. Both of the girls took a step back as the Oni drew in on all five of them, dragging their ninjatos through the snow.

"What is this? Where the hell are we?" Scott asked.

Between life and death, the Nogitsune said. Bardo, Lydia called it. But there were no peaceful deities here. Stiles was dying, he told them, as though the boy didn't know, he could see it in his appearance, he could feel it inside of him, that feeling of time running out on them. He taunted Stiles, telling him how everyone he cared about was dying too now, he had captured almost all of the territories on the board. The hospital. The Sheriff's Station. And the animal clinic. He said as two of the Oni's disappeared for a moment, claiming that territory for him, their master.

The Nogitsune stepped closer. "Do you know the ritual of seppuku, Stiles?"

"No, and I don't want to." He shook his head.

But he told them all anyway. It was when a samurai disembowels himself with his own sword to maintain his honor, but it wasn't the cut that killed him. The killing stroke is made by his trusted friend, a kaishakunin, who would finish him off with a beheading. He had cast Scott as that role for Stiles, his kaishakunin. He was going to make his best friend kill him, and he was going to let him, if not, everyone who'd been touched by an Oni's blade would die just like him, unless Scott killed him first. That was how this game was to be won.

With a snap of his fingers, the Oni stood tall, raising their swords. Kira and Kinsey followed their leads, Scott transforming until his eyes were their blood-red color, Lydia protecting Stiles as she pulled him away from the fight. The garden was alive with the sounds of a battle, the sounds of metal colliding with one another, Scott's growls interjecting as the three of them battled each of the Oni, the Nogistune spectating from the sidelines, watching his players against Stiles's.

Scott tried to stay close to Kinsey, swinging and kicking at every Oni who came near her, trying to make sure that she didn't meet the fate she had planned for herself, she tried her best in her own battles with the Oni, but they were stronger than her, she didn't have the strength of them, or a werewolf, or a Kitsune, she was mostly human, fighting against things much stronger than she would ever be. In one moment where Scott had moved even an inch away from her as he'd kicked an Onis' chest, one of them had gotten too close, able to disarm her, its sword hitting the silver dagger out of her hand, sending it flying into the snow. Kinsey had dropped down to find it, dodging a hit from the Oni in the process. She scoured the floor for the dagger, refusing to let it be lost, Allison had made it, and it was one of their chances at killing the Oni, she just had to get close enough.

Before the brunette had managed to find it buried in the snow she had been dragged away by a tight grip on her ankle, pulling her through the snow, she turned back to see Stiles, desperate to get her away from the fight before she got herself hurt. She begged him to let her go, how she'd need the dagger, but he refused to listen, and so did Lydia as she grabbed the brunette, pulling her away from the fight just as she had done to Stiles. They couldn't afford to let her into it with nothing but her training in self-defense, that was nothing against a group of supernatural ninjas.

"This can't be real." Kinsey muttered under her breath.

"Yeah, tell that to them." Stiles remarked.

Kinsey shook her head. "I need that dagger." She insisted, searching through the snow again as Stiles and Lydia begged her not to get too close to fight. Her hands filed through the cold snow, searching for her silver dagger, she couldn't leave without it. As she searched, another weapon landed in front of her. One of the Oni had disarmed Kira too, sending her weapon flying until it was in front of Kinsey. The brunette grabbed the katana, scrambling to her feet, pointing it at an Oni, but before she could do anything with it it was snatched out of her hand.

Stiles stood beside her, holding the sword to his stomach, prepared to disembowel himself.

"Stiles!" Kinsey warned him.

"What if it saves you? What if it saves all of you?" He asked the girl.

"What if it's just another trick?" Lydia intervened.

The Nogitsune told her it wasn't a trick, telling Scott to end it in his next breath, to let his friend fall on his own sword, to do for him what he couldn't do for himself. As Stiles held the sword in his hands he looked at Kinsey, her eyes tearful as she begged him not to, she couldn't lose him too, not when she had already lost Allison. The Nogistune continued egging on Scott, telling the wolf to be Stiles's kaishakunin, to end the game. Stiles was breathing heavily, building up what courage it would take to disembowel himself, he averted Kinsey's eyes, staring into the reflective surface of Kira's katana, only then did he get a glimpse of something.

In the metal of the katana, he saw a book, a business book buried in the snow. He turned toward it, seeing it just a few inches away from the brunette huntress, he looked around further, until he saw a snow-covered classroom desk in one of the corners of the garden. Kinsey was right, none of this could be real, because it wasn't. They were still in the school, not Bardo. None of this was real. The Nogistune looked at the boy, insisting he had no moves left, but Stiles disagreed as he tossed the sword back to Kira. Not only did he have a move. But he had a divine move.

Kinsey grabbed ahold of Stiles, holding him up as he urged them all to stop fighting against the Oni and Nogistune, it was all an illusion. It looked and felt real but it was nothing but an illusion, he begged Scott to trust him on this, a trust he had gained from Kinsey as she stopped trying to look for her dagger, she wouldn't fight it anymore. Scott and Kira turned to the Nogitsune, four of the Oni standing in front of him, an illusion.

Scott led them all, walking through the line-up of the Oni, allowing them to slash his chest, that felt real too as he groaned in pain, but he continued to walk through them, Kira joining him as she gained a few slashes to her body too, pushing through the pain, telling themselves that none of it was real. Kinsey and Lydia stumbled behind them with Stiles on their shoulders, watching it all fall apart in front of them. Scott reached the Nogitsune, pushing him through the doors with a scream until all five had stumbled into the school hallway, no snow, no Oni's, nothing.

The Alpha looked down at himself, not a single scratch, nor was there any on Kira. They were all okay. He wasn't sure how, but they were. He was about to repeat those words, flabbergasted by it, until they hadn't made it out of his mouth. The wolf was thrown against the lockers, Kira hit in the face, knocking her and her katana to the ground. Void standing behind them. He turned back to the other three standing, the two girls Stiles leaned on, the horror in their faces as they looked back at him. The one who had killed Allison.

"This was my game." He spat out. "You think you can beat me at my game?"

He rushed towards the three of them, all three scrambling backward, desperate to get away as he looked them dead in the eyes, rambling. "Divine move, divine move, you think you have any moves at all? You can kill the Oni but me? Me? I'm a thousand years old! You can't kill me!"

"But we can change you!" Kinsey yelled, her voice cracking in fear.

"What?" Void spat out.

"You forgot about the scroll."

The shugendo scroll, Lydia told him with a smirk on her face. Fear had grown across Voids as he mumbled his defeat, changing the host. He couldn't be a fox and a wolf. Scott jumped up from behind Void, biting him on the arm as the Nogitsune screamed loudly in their ears, teeth sinking deep into his arm. When he finally released him from his claws Void stumbled for a moment, in that moment, Kira stabbed her Katana through his heart. Lights flickered around them as Void dropped to the floor, shaking as he rested on his knees, the small buzzing of a fly coming from his mouth as one flew out, flying down the hall. Suddenly, it was trapped in the triskelion box as Isaac came out of nowhere, locking it inside. Sealing it.

Void began to twitch and jerk, all eyes turning back to him as they all took a step back, as they did he suddenly stopped, freezing for a moment as his dead eyes stared at Stiles. His skin started to dry out, cracking like clay until he'd fallen to the ground, a pile of dust, dissipating, complete and utter nothingness. Relief washed over them as they looked at one another. Kinsey looked at the boy resting on her arm, how uneasy he looked, his eyes slowly closing, his grip on her slowly loosening as she called his name, trying to catch him, but he had already hit the floor.

The group dropped down around him, Scott pulling off his jacket to elevate his head, following the instructions that Kinsey snapped out at him, her ear to his chest, relieved to hear that Stiles was still breathing, he was still alive despite the death of the Nogistune. Kinsey tapped his face over and over again, begging him to hurry up and wake up. They all stood silently around them, watching as she begged him, hoping that his breathing would remain, that he wasn't just getting out his final few breaths before he drifted away from them.

One person watched them closer than the rest. Isaac. He stood with the triskelion box inside of his hand, his grip tight around it, and not because he was scared of dropping it. His grip had only tightened when he watched his girlfriend almost in tears over Stiles, laying on his chest, he knew she loved him, but until he had saw them there he knew he had a decision to make. She needed time with Stiles. Not just a day or a few hours. She needed a relationship with him, to work out if she loved him the way she loved the wolf, to work out the feelings that had been between them for months on end, neither ever having the opportunity to try it. He had to give her that chance.

Stiles's eyes fluttered open, a large breath of relief coming from the girl who quickly sat up, he'd looked up at Kinsey, asking if he had fainted, from what she could tell, he had. A laugh erupted as he looked around his friends, all of them with relieved smiles, all apart from Isaac.

"We're alive. We're all alive?" He asked as the brunette hovered over him.

Her face dropped, and her heart in her stomach. A silence throughout the hallway as they looked at the two harbingers of death, even they looked at one another, the same expression on both of their faces as they both quickly stood up, staring at the doors at the end of the hallway.

Kinsey muttered her best friend's name. The redhead turned to her with tears in her eyes, Kinsey nodded, confirming the feeling inside of her. Lydia began running down the hall, Kinsey running after her, shouting her name, the rest of the pack following them, unsure what was going on. The answer had been found as they reached the two girls outside, Lydia sobbing into Kinsey's arms, in the tunnels leading up to the school, a body lay on the floor, his twin sitting beside him Derek and Chris standing with bowed heads. One more person had died tonight. They'd lost Aiden too.

·❥·

Kinsey Argent walked into her apartment for the last time. It was bare, all packed up. Everything that carried sentiment was packed into a box, tightly bubble wrapped, ready to be shipped over to France. Anything else, sofas, beds, dressers, were all ready to be dumped onto the street, the two remaining Argents didn't want them, nor did they have a purpose for them. They didn't see the need to keep constant reminders around them that Allison was gone, that she had touched each part of the furniture in the apartment.

Her black heels clicked against the laminate as she walked through the apartment, straight into the bedroom at the end of the corridor, Allison's room. She took a deep breath, remembering all of the good memories that had been made in this room over the past four months, the nights or days she and Allison spent in here together, girls' nights, nights where they would be plotting on the edge of the bed how to disobey Chris that day, that had happened a lot.

The brunette looked in the mirror that had been left behind, her black dress, her funeral dress, it belonged to Allison, it was the one that she had worn to Victoria's funeral, the one that she may have worn if things had gone the way Kinsey expected them to. It had been a month since Alli's death. And two days, if she was counting the days, which she was. How did she know that it had been that specific amount of days? Because it had been exactly a month since Isaac had broken up with her, announcing that he would be leaving for France, and that she wouldn't be.

Kinsey sat in the car as the rain crashed against the windows, drowning out the silence while she sat beside Isaac, he had asked for them to meet tonight, to talk, something neither of them had done since leaving the school when she had left with Lydia to comfort her over Aiden's death, he with Scott, to comfort him over Allison's. Even if it had been his idea, to speak, he couldn't. Isaac stared straight out of the window, trying to gather his thoughts, he couldn't look at her. Neither of them quite had words lately, too much had happened in such short time, it had only been one day since Aiden's death, two since Allison's. The healing process had hardly begun.

Even if he hadn't spoken, Kinsey had a feeling that this was it. She could feel it inside of her, this was the end of something, if she had to assume, it was them. Her uncle had told her the offer he had given Isaac, because he had given it to her too, but unlike him, she hadn't made a decision yet. He had offered them both to come to France with him, to help him restart Argent Arms, and to become the people who were at the gun deals, since both of them had done so well with the last deal. Chris hadn't told her what Isaac had said, but the fact they sat here made it seem that he had taken the offer to leave Beacon Hills, to put his old life behind him, the pain, and to start fresh in France, training with Chris to be a hunter, the first werewolf Chris would welcome with open arms, treating him as one of his own, no matter Kinsey's decision.

"Uh..." Isaac cleared his throat, beginning the conversation. "Me and Argent, your uncle, uh- we were talking and... We think it's best that we don't stay in Beacon Hills." He announced, making it clear that her uncle hadn't told him that she'd had the same offer from him. "So, uh, I'm going to France with him. Tomorrow."

"I know." She nodded with a faint smile. "He asked me too." She told him.

Isaac nodded, an awkward silence shared between them for a moment. "I think you should stay in Beacon Hills." He told her, taking her by surprise as she turned to him with wide eyes. "Come on, Kinsey, you and I both know you don't want to leave this place."

"I don't want to run." She corrected him in a mumble.

"It's not running, Kins. It's surviving, and we both know that it isn't pride getting in the way of you leaving." Isaac deadpanned. But she knew it too. "Be honest with yourself. Be honest with me. Why do you really want to stay in Beacon Hills, Kinsey? There's nothing left here. Chris and Allison aren't here. Peter's barely here. Everyone dies here, Kinsey, you almost died, so tell me what the hell it is about this place that makes you want to stay and risk getting yourself killed?"

Anger built up inside the girl as he spoke, she could hear the frustration growing in his tone, he wanted to be told that she didn't want to stay, that he assumed it wrong, and that she'd told Chris that she would come to France with them, that she wasn't stupid enough to actually stay here in the town that had killed her entire family. "Because I don't leave the people I love."

"That's why you were prepared to die and not tell anyone?" He asked in a snarl.

"Don't use that against me, Isaac." She spat out. "I was trying to do the right thing. I didn't want to hurt you. I didn't want to hurt-"

"Him?" He finished her sentence, but with a different answer.

Kinsey swallowed the lump in her throat, her voice had quietened down with that word, she'd known exactly who he was referring to before she asked, before he said the name. "Who?"

"Stiles." He deadpanned. "You wouldn't be staying for anyone else, you'd be staying for him and you know it. We all know it. We've all seen it. Maybe you should stay, be with him, see if you were just wasting the past eight months with me, maybe I was just a rebound for Stiles."

"Are you serious right now?" Kinsey asked in a scoff.

Silence filled the car once again as both of them looked down at their lap. Isaac knew he was wrong in what he said, he knew better than to think that she had used him as a rebound, that it was all fake between them, a distraction. But he was hurt, angry, he thought that she would put up a fight, but she wasn't, she really did want to stay here. For more than just Stiles, but he was part of it too. He took a deep breath as he looked at the girl beside him, tears falling into her lap, wondering how she had gotten herself in such a mess.

He took the girl's hand, asking her to look at him. And with brown tearful eyes, she did. He told her to stay, to be with Stiles if that was what she really wanted, that she deserved to know what was going on between them. Maybe it would work, maybe it wouldn't. And if it didn't, he would be in France, always there for her to turn to. Right now, she needed time to figure out her life, it was changing, shifting beneath her feet, she needed to know what she wanted, and Isaac was willing to wait until she had figured that out.

And with that. The two of them were over. Their goodbyes shared. But somewhere between hello and goodbye, there was love. One neither of them would ever forget.

Kinsey wiped a tear as she looked at her reflection, another shaky breath. It had been a month since Isaac had left. She had waved him off at the airport, wishing him luck with her uncle, the two promising to keep in touch, though neither of them were sure that they would. So far, that was yet to happen, she hadn't heard from him, only when her uncle mentioned him had Isaac been mentioned in her life, that, or when Lydia had asked about him. She wasn't sure if he was coming today, she was too scared to call and ask, or even text, she would find out when Chris arrived at Scott's house later today, just an hour before the funeral he was meant to get here, it was the last day she would see him before he flew back to France, unsure when his next visit might be. But he had promised that he wouldn't miss her birthday. It was a mere coincidence the funeral had landed on the same day as that.

She fiddled with the piece of paper in her hands, the eulogy she had been asked to read out at the funeral, though she hadn't been strong enough to write one, instead, she chose to reuse a piece she had written before, to Allison. The goodbye letter she had written. Kinsey hoped that Allison activating her abilities just before her death meant that she would be in an afterlife that was catered to her, where she could watch over her, especially today, able to hear the goodbye she had planned to give her.

A knock sounded at the door behind her, she had been so consumed in her thoughts that she had failed to hear anyone even walk into the apartment, let alone walk through it. A soft smile grew on her face as she saw Stiles in the doorway, wearing his black suit, ready for the funeral, he leaned against the door, a nervous look across his face. He wasn't sure how she would be today. She had spent the past month slowly healing, she was taking it better than they thought she would be, at least she had been on the outside. There were bad days, days that reminded her of Allison a little too much, days she told them how much she wished it was her still. But it was getting better, it would take time, a lot of it. She had lost her other half.

That was why they had all made the collective decision not to tell her some things. It was too soon for her to know some things. Everyone but her knew. Including her father now. They all knew that somehow, she was part werewolf, that one day, it would show, and she would turn into the very thing that she had always begged not to become. None of them were prepared to drop that bomb on her, not even Peter was heartless enough to break her healing heart. They had also agreed that it wasn't the time to tell her about Malia. She had just lost a sister figure, she didn't need to find out that she had a real sister, one that she had helped save, that she'd instantly bonded with. Perhaps the thought of having a sister to lose would push her away. It would take time for her to be ready to hear about that too. Until then, it would be a secret only she didn't know about.

Kinsey held up her mother's necklace, asking if he would help her put it on, she wanted to put it on in here, a commemorating Allison, the girl who had been her daily reminder to put it on, now she would have to remember it for herself. That didn't seem to be too hard yet, all she had to do was think of Allison, and she checked whether it was around her neck.

Stiles walked into the room, placing a box on the dresser, wrapped in a blue bow. Suddenly, she was prepared to delay putting on the necklace for a moment. She pointed at the box, asking the boy what was in it. He told her to wait with a smile on her face, to put the necklace on first, that the gift would still be there in ten seconds when they had put on the necklace.

Once Kinsey had her mother's necklace around her neck, he gave her the gift. "Happy birthday, Kins." He smiled, watching as she gently unraveled the blue ribbon.

Her eyes softened as she opened the box, pulling out the silver dagger from inside of it. "Where did- How did you-" Her words were stammered as he tried to talk, amazed by the gift. "You are an amazing gift-giver, you know that right?" She laughed softly, wrapping her arms around him.

"Well, that's just your main gift. I have about fifty in my room in case you didn't like that one."

"I love it." Kinsey smiled. "And I love you."

The brunette walked up the path to his house, her hair sticking to her face from a mixture of the rain and tears. Her hands were shaking, her lips trembling as she fought the tears, she refused to cry any more tonight. She couldn't. All she wanted was to see him and talk to him. And that was what she planned to do. She had to admit, she wasn't dressed for the occasion, she had as little as a tank top on, she planned on sitting in the car talking to Isaac, she didn't think then that she would have felt the need to come anywhere else. But alas, she did.

She could remember the first time she had walked up like this, she was dressed just as bad then, when her car had broken down in front of his house, prepared to be knocking on a serial killer's door, not the door of a boy she had met in English class on her first day, the first person she had ever met in Beacon Hills, nor someone she would come to love. If she would have known the first time she walked up this path that this would be the outcome, perhaps she might've dressed better, or not have acted so awkwardly for her car breaking down because she had driven her car through a deep puddle.

Kinsey hadn't even reached the porch before the front door had swung open, Stiles shouting to his dad that he was going out, not to wait up for him, his keys in hand prepared to rush out. She stopped in her tracks, the rain pouring down on her as she watched him. He hadn't noticed her standing there until he had jogged down the stairs of his porch, he too stopping when he'd saw her in front of his house in the rain. He too reminded of that first night.

"Sorry, I- I didn't know you were going out." The brunette mumbled. "I can come back?"

"I was coming to find you, actually," Stiles admitted, he had become soddened just as quickly as she had, his flannel soddened, his hair sticking down to his forehead, his white and green shoes filled with puddles. "Lydia just called. She told me about Argent's offer."

"Yeah." She muttered with a nod.

The two stood in the heavy rain, looking at one another in silence, figuring out who was going to be the next to speak, to start the conversation, both unsure how it was going to go, both knew of very different things. All that Stiles knew was that Lydia had just called him, telling him that she might be leaving for France in the morning, that this was his chance to finally tell her how he felt before she left, the thing she had been telling him to do since the night of the winter formal. She hadn't been so gentle this time, she told him he had no other choice but to drive through all the bad weather outside until he had found her and told her straight. If he didn't, Lydia threatened to help pack Kinsey's bags for her, that she would personally ship her off to France as his form of punishment for being an ignoramus.

Kinsey on the other hand, she knew she wasn't going. She had just left Isaac at the McCall house to pack for the flight in the morning, she already knew why she was staying, who she would be staying in Beacon Hills for. She had come here to tell him, to say the words that she hadn't been able to spit out at the hospital, to grow a pair and admit her feelings for once in her life before it slipped away from her once again. She couldn't let that happen again.

"So this is it, huh?" Stiles begun. "You're coming to say your goodbyes?"

He didn't give the brunette chance to speak, it had taken him a few moments to gather the guts it took to speak, now he couldn't stop the word vomit about to escape his mouth.

"You know, when I saw you walk through that door on the first day I knew there was something about you, that I had never and would never meet a girl like you. And when you spoke to me, I was amazed that you actually noticed me. And then I thought I'd never speak to you again, that you would be one of those popular girls and you would forget I ever existed. And then here you were, standing on my doorstep because your car had broken down. And somehow, I knew that you were the girl for me. That from that moment I'd die for you."

"Stiles-"

"I told you once and I'll tell you again if I lost you I'd go out of my mind. Kinsey Argent, I have loved you since the moment you walked into my life, it kills me to see you with him and now I might not be able to see you at all because you'll be in France with him. I can't do that, Kins. I can't let you leave with him."

"Stiles."

"No. No. Don't say it. I can't, I can't hear it. You have to stay here. For me. For Lydia, Scott, all of us. I know you're hurting and you probably think that this is your only way out but it's not true. You can't leave." Stiles continued to ramble.

"I'm not leaving." She muttered, her words being lost in the rant the boy in front of her was having as he fought back the tears, too deep into his thoughts to stop now.

"You can't tell me that you don't feel anything for me, Kinsey. That kiss in the locker room. The hospital. I know you feel exactly the way I do and that you always have. I've saw it in your eyes. We're not just friends and we're never going to be just friends. So you want to run away? Great. Let's go. Because if your going then so am I." His chest heaved as he took deep breaths, finally finishing his rant, the brunette standing waiting for him to finish. "Wait. What did you say?"

"I said I'm not going." Kinsey deadpanned. "We both knew that I couldn't leave you."

Silence filled the air as he stared at her, he didn't quite know how to process what she'd said, he had prepared his half, but he had expected some tears, silence, a little more need for a fight. He had spent so much time working himself up he hadn't thought about what he would do if all of it went his way, if he managed to get her to say. Maybe he hadn't been the one to convince her, but the point stood, she was staying, and for him nonetheless. He was worked up, filled with nothing but love and anger, he had convinced himself that he was losing the girl he loved.

All he could do now was what his instincts told him to do.

Stiles grabbed ahold of the brunette, pulling her into him as his lips pressed against hers, their bodies warming up from each others touch as his fingers ran through her wet, slightly knotted hair. Her arms wrapped around his shoulders as she became more desperate to get closer to him. Somehow, even after only an hour of being apart from Isaac, this felt right.

The boy pulled away with a smile. "You have no idea how long I've wanted to do that."

a/n 

i cannot believe that i have just finished writing the last chapter of season three, and therefore, we are halfway through the book, minus the movie. so i just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you so much for the love and support that you give me, inheritance, kinsey and even the other books i have made that some of you may read. i love motivation to write quite a lot, i'm young with a hectic life, trying to make something of myself. but reading your comments on these books helps me so much and seeing that you all love kinsey as much as i do means more than i can explain. 

when i started this book and even wattpad itself, i didn't think i would come this far, i thought i'd get bored and stop because nobody would read it. I can't write. i'm not a writer, i'm just a girl who made an impulsive decision based on a few tiktoks. now here we are. as i originally wrote this author's note we were on 68k, now I'm making some adjustments, we are almost on 100k.

thank you. i love you. 
and sorry for any heartbreak this chapter may have caused , nova x