A\N: I was in a weird mood and I wrote this on the spur of a moment that lasted only briefly. I MISS THIS GAME. T_T
Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha or the Cursed Mask.
It had only been a few years since she had last seen him. At first, she had thought it had only been just a dream. There was no way she had magically appeared 500 years into the past. She must have really bumped her head in the storage house. That must have been it.
But then, the dreams never stopped.
Some days she would wake up in a cold sweat, images of demons flickering behind her eye lids. Even though she had the power of shikigami, she still felt afraid. Even with the new friends she'd made there, she still felt alone. Kagome may have understood her predicament somewhat, but at the end of the day, she was able to willingly pass to and from the Feudal Era without worry.
What would she have done if she wasn't able to return back to the present after Utsugi died? What would have became of her? When she had returned, nothing had actually changed at home. The festival was still ongoing. It was like time had stopped the moment her body fell through the floor.
But to her, everything had changed.
"Why are you always spacing out? Come on, focus!" Her friend would say, nudging her as they poured over books. Exams were coming up and she'd felt like she'd forgotten everything she had previously learned being away from school for so long.
She tried. Of course, she tried. But as the days tolled on and her dreams becoming more and more vivid, it was like Kaname couldn't seem to keep her mind off of that place for any number of time. It always came back to her, just waiting patiently below the surface. Her heart would race. Her palms became clammy. It was like she went into a panic for some reason whenever she thought about it.
Thought about him.
Years went by. Her face lost that childish wonder. Her brown hair grew to fall past her shoulders. Her smile never quite reached her eyes.
At first, she thought that maybe she could find some sort of balance now that she was back home. Like a part of her could still be where she had left it. So, she sought out the Higurashi family in hopes that even Kagome wasn't just a figment of her imagination (she refused to dwell on why she hadn't done so to begin with).
And they weren't. Not exactly.
The Higurashi family was just as Kagome had mentioned. Mother, Grandfather, little brother, and Buyo, the family cat. Just as big, fluffy, and lazy as she recalled. Except, no Kagome. When she asked about her friend, they could only smile at her with tears in their eyes and tell her some lame excuse that she had moved on.
But it didn't sit well with her and the thoughts, the dreams, carried on.
She thought she was losing her mind. Worried that she was never going to get over her time spent in the Feudal Era, never going to erase the images from her mind of how wicked and cruel the evil demon Naraku had been.
Her heart hurt. She had started crying herself to sleep at night when slumber evaded her. And she often sat up late at night, grieving over the loss of those she had come to consider family.
"You won't be sad forever, Kururugi-san." A voice had whispered to her one night, startling her out of whatever reverie she had been in.
She didn't believe it. She couldn't. Until...
When she awoke the next morning, dressed peculiarly in a simple white kimono, she found herself laying on the soft grass of a forest she didn't recognize right away. Her hazy eyes met blue skies and her ears picked up the sound of yelling and laughter.
When reality finally dawned on her, she bolted up right and without thinking, dashed towards the familiarity of the voices ahead of her. She had seen him first. His back was to her. His long, silver hair was blowing softly in the breeze. Her own medium length hair caught her in the face and just as she moved to push the stubborn tresses away, he was already turned and facing her head on.
Burning, ember eyes and a face that only haunted her in her dreams.
"Big sister?!" Came Rin's confused voice as she peered around her Lord's long legs just as everyone else came into view as well.
Sango, Shippo, Miroku, Kaede, Inuyasha...
"W-What? Kaname?!"
Kagome!
She didn't even realize she was crying nor that she had made a mad dash forward until after she had wrapped her arms tightly around Sesshomaru's waist, burying her face into his armor and sobbing into his chest. She chanted his name over and over again like a mantra, her voice barely above a whisper but he heard her loud and clear.
Leaning slightly down, he wrapped one arm around her shoulders and surprisingly, the second hand went to rest on top of her head affectionately.
"Welcome back."