Hello all. Time for *da dada daaa~* the last installment of the Yourouzoku's involvement in canon (unless they somehow came back later when I lost track of the manga but I don't think it's likely. >.>)
Anywho, on with the show.
So, to cap aaaaall the stuff I haven't covered, there has been a big battle with Naraku. Kouga has lost his shards and, yes, Kikyou has passed on. But it is not a total loss because Midoriko (the priestess who formed the jewel originally and whose soul is bound to it) put some purifying mojo on the shards, resulting in a little spot of purity in the Shikon jewel that will later serve as a weakness for. That doesn't cover all of what's happened, by any means, but it covers enough so that the following will make sense, I think.
For the record? I love Kouga's method of trying to cure Inuyasha's emo. XD