The first snow of winter had settled over the Feudal Era like a thin white sigh, soft enough to quiet the world, heavy enough to blur every edge. Kagome stepped out of the Bone-Eater's Well with a puff of breath that instantly turned to mist. Frost laced the tree branches overhead like delicate veins of silver. The air felt sharper than she remembered, colder, but in a strangely welcoming way.
It had been weeks since her last visit.
Between exams, family obligations, and the quiet realization that she was no longer tied to a quest, Kagome's trips had slowed. She told herself that Inuyasha and the others didn'tneedher constantly anymore. The jewel was gone, Naraku defeated, the world finally breathing again.
But the moment she inhaled that old, familiar air, she realized exactly how muchsheneededthis.
A distant tremor rolled through the ground.
Kagome froze. Demonic energy brushed across her senses, sharp, chaotic, wrong. It flashed through her like a warning, the way someone might jerk awake from a nightmare they didn't remember having.
"What was that…?"
Another rumble. Then a roar so deep she felt it in her ribs.
Kagome ran.
Her boots crunched through untouched snow, her breath ragged as she followed the pull of her spiritual senses. The forest thinned into a frosted clearing, and her heart almost stopped.
A massive demon, all jagged claws and slick armored hide, towered over a burning village. Snow hissed where the fires licked at it. The creature's miasma warped the air like heat over sand.
And in front of it—
"S-Sesshomaru…?"
He stood alone.
Pristine white robes drifting like smoke, silver hair cascading over his armor, mokomoko rippling behind him like a living cloud. He glided across the ice-laced ground with lethal grace, sword drawn but face utterly emotionless.
He was the eye of a storm made of steel and snow.
She hadn't seen him in months.
Before Kagome could call out, the demon lunged. Sesshōmaru sidestepped, swift as breath, and his blade flashed. A single arc of light severed three limbs and the monster's roar splintered the air.
Screams followed.
Kagome's gaze snapped toward a collapsed hut. A demon child—tiny, furred, trembling—was pinned beneath a broken beam. Its little hands clawed at the snow, its cry thin and panicked.
Kagome sprinted before she even realized she'd moved.
Purification energy hummed beneath her palms as she shoved aside the debris. The child recoiled from her aura at first, terrified, but she softened the light, cupping it gently in her hands.
"It's okay, I'm here to help," she whispered.
The wound was deep, miasma poisoning. She poured soothing energy into the injury, letting the corruption burn away in harmless sparks of pale pink light. The child's breathing steadied, wide eyes blinking up at her in shaky gratitude.
A shadow fell across them.
Kagome looked up—and nearly swallowed her own heartbeat.
Sesshomaru stood over her, towering and still. His eyes—molten gold and utterly unreadable—flicked from her face to the child and back again.
"You." His voice was soft, but sharp as frost.
Kagome forced a nervous laugh. "Um… hi. Long time no see?"
He said nothing.
No greeting. No acknowledgment. No indication he even remembered she existed.
Same old Sesshomaru.
She kept healing the little demon, ignoring the heavy weight of his stare. Finally, when the child was stable, she stood.
"He was injured by the miasma," she said. "If more demons are getting sick, you might want to—"
"I am aware."
Ouch. So hedidremember how to be irritatingly dismissive.
Kagome crossed her arms. "Well, excuse me for trying to help."
Sesshomaru turned from her, flicking blood from his blade with a lazy grace that was almost insulting. The great demon behind him writhed, slowly regenerating its lost limbs, but then Sesshomaru aura surged.
A single silent pulse—and the beast disintegrated.
The air stilled. Snow drifted gently around them again.
Sesshomaru sheathed his sword and finally gave Kagome a measured look.
"Why are you here?" he asked.
"…I came to visit," she admitted, brushing snow from her jeans. "But I felt this disturbance, so I ran toward it."
"Reckless."
"It's calledhelping."
He didn't argue—just turned away, motioning Jaken and Rin forward. Kagome hadn't noticed them through the chaos, and her heart warmed when Rin ran up with a bright smile.
"Kagome-sama! You're back!"
Kagome kneeled to hug her. "I missed you too, Rin!"
Sesshomaru walked ahead toward the ruined village, silently surveying damage and the lingering taint of miasma. His posture never changed, but Kagome sensed something beneath it—a tension like a string pulled too tight.
Rin tugged Kagome's sleeve. "Sesshomaru-sama's been restless lately. He's been patrolling every day. More demons are acting strange."
So it wasn't just a random attack.
And Kagome… she had stumbled right into the middle of it.
Sesshomaru glanced back over his shoulder, eyes sliding across her.
"You will come."
Kagome blinked. "Come where?"
"With us."
He didn't explain.
He didn't ask.
He simply turned and expected her to follow.
Jaken squawked. Rin beamed. Kagome sighed.
Some things never changed.
But the air felt different around Sesshomaru—subtly heavier, subtly more charged. And the way his gaze lingered before he looked away…
That felt different too.
Kagome pulled her coat tighter and stepped forward, crunching across the snow after him.
Her return to the Feudal Era had barely begun and already, the winter wind carried the feeling that something was shifting.
Something cold.
Something dangerous.
Something fateful.
And Sesshomaru… was at the center of it.
.
.
.
.
Author's Note: Greetings readers! It's been so long-over a decade-since I've last logged in. Although I've been absent a long while, Sesshomaru and Kagome have always been dear to my heart, and this story has been trying to write itself for quite some time now. Enjoy!