Author's Note: I do not own Inuyasha or any of the source material for this story. All are owned by Rumiko Takahashi. This fic is labeled MA per standards for eventual violence, sex, and language so be warned.

So the separation years are going to be broken up into each season, one for each year, for a total of eight chapters. They're most likely going to be shorter but I promise they're important. The first few with Kagome are pretty rough, I won't lie.

Updated 06/20/2020: Added a new middle section for Shippou's point of view. It was mentioned to me that I didn't address at all how she got better and how Shippou was dealing with her being so ill. Truthfully, I took that section out because I thought maybe it was too much. This section is sad AF so I took part of it out to spare you but I agree with my reviewer that it's needed to so I tucked it back in. Sorry in advance. It ain't any happier.

...

Reconciliation

Chapter 24 – The Separation: Year 1: Winter

Three days after returning Kagome to Edo, back at the Western Palace…

Tomomi sat on a wide bench in the sun of the courtyard, stitching together one of the last few pieces of her future Lady's wardrobe. A wide swath of cloth was spread beneath her to keep the delicate piece out of the dirt. The young shikayoukai squinted applying threads laced with beading in just the right way to add the finishing touches to a silken mural of a cascading waterfall. She paused and looked out over the cloud-dotted valley below, thinking of Kagome.

'She will look so lovely in this when she returns. I hope she is well.'

"What is this?" came the gentle question over her left shoulder.

The maid startled and heat instantly filled her face as she looked back down to her work, pulling a thread through the fabric the full length of her arm.

"I am finishing the last of Kagome-sama's formal attire, Kenshin-san. The sun was pleasant and silk does not mind the cold."

"No, it does not. May I join you?"

"Of course."

The healer sat down next to her on the bench, being careful of her work, and cleared his throat.

"I have news. Would you hear it?" He cocked his shaggy head to the side and waited for her to catch his happy, magenta eyes.

"Do you? You spoke with him today?" Impossibly large, dark green orbs stared up at him with hope and fear.

"I did. He has agreed. We are free to- Oof!"

Silk forgotten and fluttering to the ground, Tomomi leapt across the bench and toppled Kenshin to the grass below, kissing him soundly.

"Tomomi- Mmm!" She kissed him again. "Tomomi, please! There are others about!"

"What care I for others when you are here?" she smiled brightly. "And to be mine!"

"You are surprisingly much less reserved than I realized!" Kenshin laughed, giving up and holding her close.

"We will have our entire lives to discover such things now." Tomomi beamed above him.

Their laughter filled the dead and empty courtyard for several minutes, drawing the attention of the other servants but two other individuals in particular. They met each other at the base of the stairs, where Sesshoumaru was coming from the small meeting room and Ryota was leaving the study.

"Gave your word then, did you?" Ryota asked wistfully from the cover of the overhang, watching youth at its finest through the two intended youkai.

"I was on my way to you. And yes, I did. His request was a simple one." Sesshoumaru said, tucking his arms in his sleeves.

"They all thought you'd say 'no,' given their heritage."

"They are a good match. I wish for the brothers to both be free to make their own choices. Differences do not preclude happiness, General."

"My Lord?"

"Hm?"

"In the future, remember you said that."

"General?"

Ryota sighed. "Nothing. Come on, I have the new troops awaiting your inspection. The skirmishes at the eastern border require our immediate attention but I don't want to leave you at less than half strength when we go."

"No. This Sesshoumaru will handle their insolence personally this time."

"Poor bastards." Ryota shook his head.

"And this evening, I leave the West in your charge."

"Hunting?"

"Hm."

Sesshoumaru's answer was quiet and distracted. His Lord looked tired. Exhausted. The kumadaiyoukai expected that he might take some time away from the West to recover from Inuyasha's death but so far, he had not. Even youkai have their limits and this one was approaching his.

"Take your time, Sesshoumaru. Camp. Rest. We shall be fine. You have much to consider."

Sesshoumaru nodded, grateful for his understanding, and left for his own quarters once again. Climbing the stairs, his sharp hearing caught the gentle humming of a familiar tune. The miko had sung such a song. Apparently, his ward had been fond of it and was carrying the melody in her own room almost exactly.

'Her influence reaches nearly all beings she encounters. How odd. She has a unique skill for disruption.'

If he inhaled deeply enough, her scent still permeated the halls. It had been only days since she left the West but she was universally missed. Her presence had sparked an excitement for the coming years in his staff and in Rin.

'Am I allowed such feelings regarding her return to the West?'

So much of the miko's past was wrapped around her love of his brother. His dead brother. But her future was bound entirely to him, to the Lord of the West and all that title entailed. Reconciling the emotions of stepping into his brother's place as the caregiver for this human woman was difficult. Any excitement he might have felt at finally being bound to another, and spared the nagging of the Cardinal families to find a Mate, felt indecent simply because of who she had been before: Inuyasha's miko.

Aside from her past, she was the strangest choice for a Mate he could possibly have imagined. Not a weak, wealthy princess of a human Lord, offered like a lamb to sacrifice in return for his goodwill. Not a demoness of noble birth from a great family with power and history to speak of. Those scenarios had played over in his mind for centuries. No, his Mate-to-be was a clumsy, belligerent, opinionated priestess, of all things, who was expected to fill the shoes of a great demoness in her short lifetime. The first Lady of the West in over three hundred years. It was preposterous. It was strange and incongruent with the rest of his entire existence.

It was exciting.

He slid open Rin's door and waited for her to notice his presence before informing her of his plans.

"Rin, I am leaving for the night. Mind your tutors tomorrow and sleep well."

"Of course, Sesshoumaru-sama. May I-" she shook her head. "Never mind. I shall see you tomorrow."

"What is it?"

"Forgive me, milord. It is nothing."

"If it was truly nothing, you would not have attempted to ask." She smiled at the raise of a single, silver brow. "Speak."

"May Rin… hug you goodnight? Only, Kagome-sama was so free with her hugs and I miss her. And Shippou… And her hugs."

'And now she is spoiling Rin even from far away.'

But her bond with the miko was important and he was glad for it. If Kagome's love and protection until death came at the cost of hugs demanded from Rin, it was a price he could afford to pay.

"Very well."

Rin didn't wait for him to change his mind and instead launched herself at him, squeezing his middle tightly and nuzzling her cheek against his chest. His hands rested on her small back and he realized she had grown once again.

"Thank you." she whispered against him.

"Now, sleep." He pulled her away and met her eyes.

"Goodnight, Sesshoumaru-sama."

His reward, her smile, was like the sun and he found himself not entirely sorry the miko might have changed things between Rin and himself. It was common for pack to embrace and engage in physical familiarity, after all.

Rin taken care of and watched over for the night, he walked to his own rooms and removed the light clothing he had worn all day in favor of… nothing. Hunting did not require clothes. And the feeling was freeing.

Divesting himself of clothing was also leaving behind the need to hide that which was natural and normal. Clothes were universal but he, in particular, appreciated sparing himself the curious and lecherous glances of others in this two-legged form. Sesshoumaru had been made familiar with the scent of arousal, both male and female, since his adolescence. None would have dared approach him while his father drew breath, but he knew it as pup well enough anyway.

There was a time in his younger years, he had refused to take such a human form in favor of remaining the much more impressive silver inu he truly was. Finally, after cutting his teeth on one of the central pillars of the gallery some time in his second century, his mother had put her foot down. He learned to appreciate both forms in the years that followed, both the benefits and detriments. Not that Kikuko hadn't shadowed him without rest for the several years after to make sure he did not embarrass himself again.

His mother. Would she be present for the meeting next year? For the Bonding ceremony? Could she recover from her own disappointment and realize that the human would not live overly long and then she could plot and plan once again without worry? Surely this situation could never repeat itself. He made a decision then to repair the breach in their civility to each other at some point in the next few years. They were the only two left now who knew. Well, he, his mother, and the miko.

'Enough of this delaying.' he thought.

Dashing back down the stairs with excitement boiling in his veins, Sesshoumaru dropped his guard and unshielded his aura entirely. Youki buffeted the entire courtyard without any effort from him. As the pale blur that was the Lord of the West reached the edge of the low wall, he rocketed into the sky. Clawing free of the oppression of the much smaller form, his aura exploded and Sesshoumaru transformed into a monstrous silver dog, roaring his freedom into the dark sky.

He heard the boisterous cheers of the soldiers on the Fortress side of the mountain follow his howl and turned in the direction of his men to howl again, showing his appreciation for their loyalty. His heart lifted when another familiar howl joined the air. The howl of another silver inu.

'Ren.'

He would leave the pup to himself on the south side nearer the Fortress and continue on his way north.

One day, he hoped the howl that returned might sound much more like his own. One day, he might have a pack to hunt with again. His heart thudded and clenched at the thought. He had waited long enough to share his knowledge and this burden of leadership with his heir. A pup of his own. Perhaps, the timeline could be accelerated for his visit to the kitsune village. By the summer, any of their own kits would be born and he could make a contract with a willing female. Yes, it was past time.

…

Later that same night…

Kagome wasn't sure how she arrived in Sango and Miroku's house, and she couldn't remember being tucked into a bed or being dressed in one of Sango's green yukatas, but that was how she woke. Her face, eyes, and lungs were sore. Head pounding and stomach empty, Kagome felt a gnawing hunger but no urge to cure it as she rolled her weakened body up and looked around.

The dark and silence of the early morning in the house was unsettling. The family hadn't begun to stir and wouldn't for hours yet if the total darkness outside was any indication of the time. Kagome walked quietly through the common room, through the thick bamboo curtain, and out onto the silent road. Without shoes or another layer beneath her yukata, the walk on the packed dirt of the main thoroughfare was cold and rough. Kagome's hands grew numb as she reached the rise of the hill to her own house. Their house. Red and swollen steel blue eyes gazed across the field at what should have been an abandoned dwelling.

Only it wasn't.

There was amber light shining through the windows and through the cracks in the screen across the door. Her heart and her steps quickened. She slipped on numb feet through the grass wet with overnight dew. Only a few yards away now. She would tell the squatters off and board everything up to make sure no one came back. The house wasn't empty for good. She would return to it one day when she was stronger; whole again.

Throwing back the curtain, feeling the rush of heat from inside the room, Kagome froze. A silver head topped with flickering triangular ears tipped in her direction. His broad shoulders turned toward her and he crouched to rise. Her heart stopped.

"Hey, idiot. Where have you been?"

The blood drained from her face.

"No…"

He stood fully and stepped toward her, red Fire Rat armor rasping as he walked, golden eyes flickering in the firelight. Kagome backed away.

"No! No, you're dead!"

She held her arms out to keep him away but felt the warmth of his chest press against her chilled hands.

"Do I look dead to you, wench? What is wrong with you?"

He was grabbing her arms now. A shiver wracked her body and she lost her balance. Weak legs failed and Kagome's knees hit the wood floor. Delicate hands clutched her ears and she squeezed her eyes tightly closed in an attempt to block out the phantom.

"Get away from me! This isn't real… I watched- watched you die. Oh kami, make it stop!"

She slammed her hands on the floor but gasped when they slid out and away from her body, causing her chest to graze the floor. Glancing down, the floor of the house was now dark, shining, and sticky. Her hands lifted from the floor with a wet sound, the dark liquid dripping down her forearms as she held them up, horrified, in front of her face. Blood. The smell of it filled her nose.

"Why is this happening to me?" she sobbed.

Arms fell limp to the floor at her sides and suddenly Inuyasha laid prone and broken before her, just as he had died. His ghost was mercifully silent.

But Kagome screamed.

Out on the road, Sango and Miroku heard a shriek of terror come from Kagome's dark house and they locked eyes then sprinted down the road as fast as they could. Miroku got there first. Throwing open the tattered curtain, he took in the collapsed miko, sprawled across the cold floor.

"Sango, she's in here!" Miroku bellowed back out the door. "Kami in heaven, she's frozen! Hold on, Kagome."

His voice wavered and hands shook as he took off his own robe and covered her. Sango ran in the door just after and dropped to the floor to check her friend. She was pale and her breathing was shallow.

"Oh no, her fever's gotten worse! Miroku, go get Kaede!"

Heavy footsteps back out the door rattled in the frigid ear pressed to the floor and for a second, Kagome forced her eyes to open and saw the worried mahogany of her friend's filled with tears.

"Oh Kagome, I'm so sorry. How did I let this happen again?"

"Sango, tell him- tell him to go away." the miko whispered, swallowing dryly. "I tried. I tried… to help but I couldn't."

"Tell who?"

"I couldn't. I was- wasn't… enough…"

The miko's consciousness ebbed and she slipped heavily back into sleep, going limp. Sango stroked the sweat-dampened hair from her friend's brow and felt her eyes burn.

"Oh Kagome, please come back. We cannot lose you, too."

Sango pulled Kagome's limp and feverish body into her lap and cradled her head gently against her breast.

"Please come back." Sango whispered, tears slipping down her cheeks.

It had been three days of fitful sleep and tears and nearly forcing her to eat. Of yelling and raging. Of intense fever and nightmares. She was fading and they were watching helplessly as she died by small measures every day. It was getting harder and harder to convince Shippou she would eventually be okay because they didn't believe it themselves anymore.

"Sango!" came the yell through the door. "I've got Kaede!"

Miroku crouched down and let Kaede slip off of his back. His desperation for haste had convinced the old woman to swallow her pride and allow him to carry her. Sango looked up from the floor with tears running down her face and Miroku's heart sank again.

"She fell asleep again, Miroku. She's getting worse."

"What is young Kagome doing out here all alone?" the old miko whispered, kneeling down beside them.

"She snuck out in the night." Sango cried. "I did not hear her- I was sure she was still- Can you help her?"

"She needs to stay with me from this night on. I will board the door." Kaede said firmly to them both. "Keep the kitsune in your home until she is better. I cannot say if she will wake from this."

"She will. She must. She's too strong to succumb to grief." Miroku said determinedly, wrapping Kagome tightly in his robe, lifting his friend from Sango's lap, and starting for the door. "We have been through too much to lose her, too."

"Careful. Carry her back to my house and then to sleep with you. Ye both look like hell."

Miroku was out in the road and disappearing into the darkness before the women had left the porch.

"Thank you, Kaede. Whatever we can do to help, please tell us. I am the limit of my knowledge. I have never seen grief like this."

"This is a trial she must find her own way through. We can only keep her steady and light her way." Kaede sighed sadly.

Out on the road, Miroku was not giving up.

"You must find a way through this, Kagome." He shook her limp body in frustration and fear. "Damn it all! I will not bury you, too!"

…

Three days later…

Shippou padded through the forest, searching for any passable winter vegetables, fungus, or roots he could find. It was boring sitting in Sango and Miroku's house hour after hour, wondering how his mother was doing. He shook his auburn head. He knew how Kagome was doing.

Kaede tried to be vague and wrapped his mother in extra blankets when he came to visit but the kit knew she was losing the fight against the fever. She smiled only for his benefit and it was a lie. She didn't smell of happiness, that bright natural juniper of her excitement or the shades of sweet jasmine that told him how much she loved him without words. It was all gone. She smelled only of salt and sadness and the bitter scents of her humanity now. He almost dreaded going to see her.

The light was leaving her eyes. Kagome was giving up.

The initial outpouring of grief had been overwhelming and the young kit had watched as all of the sorrow he thought she'd stuffed away came pouring out. He felt guilt for having disappeared on her in anger at the Fortress. She definitely hadn't forgotten Inuyasha. Shippou began to wish she'd forget again. Anything other than this heartbroken and decrepit version of his mother would be better.

On the second day back, Kagome had quietly asked to walk through the woods alone after a warm meal and a bath, but when night fell and she hadn't returned, her friends abandoned respect for her solitude and went searching. They had found her leaning intimately into the Sacred Tree, one arm slung through the gnarled roots at the bottom and one clutching over her heart, tears streaked down her unconscious face. She was shaking with cold as Miroku carried her home. That night, the nightmares started.

Drained by loss, the illness had taken hold of her frail body and refused to leave. The fever was quick and hot and never ebbed. She tossed and turned, mumbling things he didn't understand and then a few occasionally he did. Sango let him keep a cool cloth on her head. She smiled and hummed quietly sometimes. She begged someone to help her save him and cried when they refused. She screamed when he died, over and over again. Eventually they stopped letting him help and tried to distract him instead. Sango had taken to sitting next to her at all hours and holding a hand over her mouth so Shippou couldn't hear her plead with the phantom of Inuyasha over and over again in her fits. He had heard anyway.

The shaking was next. Since she didn't ever really wake up and eat after the fever set in, her friends had taken turns feeding her as best they could. Once in a while, she woke up and chewed a few bites but never enough. She couldn't keep food down as of today and without strength, she would die.

Back in the forest, Sango found Shippou a few hours after lunch and knelt down. The twilight was a bright apricot shade of orange and the bare trees cast long dark shadows in uneven rows on the forest floor. Shippou stopped foraging when he heard her approach but didn't turn around.

"Are you ready to come home? Dinner is almost ready." Sango said sweetly.

"Yeah. Give me a little longer. I smell something new over here."

"Okay." She watched him rifle half-heartedly through the roots of a young tree. "Are you alright?"

"Yep. Just need to be alone for a while. I'll be fine."

He felt Sango lay her warm hand on his back and he flinched.

"But Shippou, are you not as affected as Kagome? Are you sure you are alright?"

He nodded. Sango was silent for a moment then decided to press.

"Have you found peace with Inuyasha's death then?"

His small chest began heaving in and out, and he shook his head.

"Then why stay out here alone? Why not sit with her and grieve together? She needs you."

He swallowed and answered her with a thick voice, not turning around still. She respected his need for privacy and sat down on the ground behind him.

"I can't. I don't feel the same way she does about it. Inuyasha was good for her but I loved him like a brother. She loved him as a Mate. It's different. I'll always miss some stuff about him, and I'm sorry, but I know how to deal with it."

"Then you could help her. Why not be there for her now?"

He pointed a clawed finger towards the village.

"That's not Kagome. I don't know if she'll ever come back… and I have to be ready."

"What do you mean?"

"This isn't the first time."

"First time for what?"

He faced her then, tiny fox feet crunching the fallen leaves as he turned, and the tears spilled over onto his cheeks when he blinked up at her.

"I've buried my parents before. I know what comes next. I don't want to watch her die."

Sango got angry then, scooped him up, and held him in front of her face.

"Kagome is not dead. She is sick and grieving. And you are giving up before she has. She is fighting for life against an illness none of us has seen before, made worse by her sorrow, and you are hiding in the woods out of fear."

'You are hiding.'

Sesshoumaru had said that to him, too. Maybe that's all he did when things got hard. It's what they'd all told him to do when the battles had gotten dangerous. Maybe that's all he was good at.

Sango saw his faraway look and called him back from whatever thoughts he was having. She knew it was hard for him. She understood intimately how losing parents felt and Shippou had lost more than she. But if Sango needed to make him angry to prod him into being strong for Kagome, like her friend had been so many times for all of their sakes, Sango would do it.

"Shippou? Kagome needs you. Maybe it is unfair of her to need your help but she does. We have tried and we are not getting through to her. You are young but you are the only one who knows what she has endured the past several weeks. There is something you are both not telling us, and we accept that, but it is past time for you to take your place as her son and make her see that life is worth living."

"And what if I can't?" he said, new tears coming.

"Then you can be at peace if she does not recover, knowing you tried everything, tried your hardest and she was not able to heal from her illness. If you stay out here, and she dies with no one but Kaede for company, how will you feel?"

He sobbed in her arms. "Wuh-worse." Sango saw the moment he decided to grow up reflected in his bright green eyes and he furrowed his brows and stared right back at her. "Let me go! I have to go!"

And he pushed her away and bolted for the village.

"Good boy." Sango smiled.

That night, Kagome ate. Shippou made sure of it.

The next day, he fed her again, reminding her he was here and he needed her. That night, her fever finally broke and she spoke for the first time in nearly a week.

"Thank you." was all she could manage to him.

"I love you, Momma."

The scent of jasmine filled his nose as she laid a shaky palm against his cheek.

…

Two months later…

Kagome's feet shuffled through the spiky, dry grass and carried her through the small maze of worn and sun-bleached stones, past a few newer memorials, farther back and all the way to the newest. She laid her staff down next to her on the grass. It was not a weapon right now, but a cane. The young miko was recovering but slowly. The climb up to the shrine had taken her well over an hour but she was determined to do it alone. This new, fever-ravaged body she found herself in was weak and shaky but Kagome was determined to live, whatever life it would be now.

The dark stone nameplate was still blank but expertly cut, framed with sharp corners and set on a base of contrasting lighter gray stone. Kagome knelt down in the twilight and ran her cold fingers down the small, frigid coal-black pillar. Incense that burned to ash long ago was left piled in a fragile, painted dish beside a wreath of small flowers that were wilted but still held some of their color.

'Thanks, kids…' Even her trembling grin still felt weak.

Sango and Miroku's children must have scoured the forest for all of the petaled weeds left alive just to honor their Uncle Inu.

She stared at the blank stone and felt her heart squeeze painfully in her chest. Her breath came out in steaming pants, curling around her face before disappearing into the air.

"What am I gonna do without you?" Fresh tears dripped down her face and onto the stone as her thoughts picked up speed and intensity. "How can I stay here? What does my coming back here mean anymore? I don't belong here without you. I don't belong anywhere now. I can't go back home because I made a promise. I can't stay here because I see you ah- around every corner. I keep wuh- waiting for you to come running from the forest by our house. Damn it! How could you leave me here alone?" Her fists pounded on the cold ground. "What am I supposed to do now?!"

"Ye must find new purpose, child."

Kagome jumped and turned around to find the gentle, one-eyed gaze of the elder miko. The young woman scowled and turned back to the silent grave. When she spoke again, her voice was still thick with emotion.

"What purpose? Stay here and be a chaste, pious miko for the rest of my life? Travel as a lone woman during one of the most dangerous and divisive periods in our history? Or maybe I should go back home and try to pretend like I haven't battled the real-life monsters we tell campfire stories about to scare little kids? Get a cell phone and go to college and pretend I'm any fucked up version of 'normal.'" She scoffed. "I'm not fit for anything anymore."

"You are. Ye are brave, loving, selfless, and valued. Your grief prevents ye from seeing it but all is not lost. It will lessen over time."

"Time." Kagome breathed a hollow laugh. "Time is a bastard. I can't see the reason for being dragged back here. I couldn't save Inuyasha in the end. We stopped Magatsuhi, ended the curse of the jewel, but now what? Why am I still here? I thought it was to be with the man I loved. Loved. I can't love him anymore. I can't even do that." She sobbed once and let her head fall back, longer ebony hair touching the ground at her back. "I wish now I'd forgotten everything and been left the hell alone!"

"You do not truly wish that. Your companions do not wish that. They need you and wish desperately for you to heal. Your kit needs you as well. Should ye go back, he would be left motherless once again."

"He'll be taken care of. I made him promise me. But no, I can't go back anyway. At least, not for good."

She didn't elaborate on who the 'him' was and it was the first time Sesshoumaru had crossed her mind in weeks. No, she couldn't go back to Tokyo for good. Rin would still die. She had made a promise. But she hadn't told any of her friends about what was going to happen to her in two years. There hadn't been a good time, and it didn't change anything.

More and more, Kagome felt like it might be a relief to be somewhere else. Inuyasha was everywhere and nowhere here. She kept waiting for him to come back only to remember in the next moment that he never would. It was torture seeing all of the special places they had kissed, held hands, and promised their lives to each other day after day. The shrine, the forest, hell, even the road were all whispering painful memories. She would never be free of them as long she stayed in Edo.

…

The same time, at the southeastern border of the West…

Two armored legions stared each other down across an open and rocky plain.

"Stand down and your lives are spared!" Sesshoumaru bellowed. "Continue to press your claim to the lands of the West and you will die! The choice is yours!"

"We will never bow to demons!" the Lord of the Lowlands yelled back. His armor clattered around him as he raised an arm and pointed accusingly at the youkai before him. "What claim have you over this land? There is nothing here! It belongs to no one!"

"My claim is centuries old and you have trespassed for the last time. Your forebears were warned, your father was warned, and my patience grows thin. You and your men may return to whatever squalor you call home! I care not, but you will not remain here."

"That's it, you pale bastard! See you in Hell!"

The General charged from several yards away but never had a chance. Sesshoumaru's blade was flicked clean of the blood before the human's head met his body on the ground. The inudaiyoukai turned to address the stilled human army behind their dead Lord.

"You do not have to suffer the fate of your leaders! Return home! This land was won by my father long before your kind crawled from the mud. Remind your betters not to return or they will be met with the same fate! This Sesshoumaru, Lord of the West, swears it."

Slowly, but without further protest, a few of the humans took charge and herded the others to begin packing up. Sesshoumaru turned his back on them and was met with the bored pale blue eyes of General Ryota.

"Well, that went well."

"They would not see reason. You disagree with the course of action?"

"No, I agree. It was a shame they refused to meet us on the field. The soldiers were ready to try their strength."

"Unnecessary loss of life, General. The humans remain outmatched and always will. It is hardly a challenge to snap a twig beneath your boot."

"I will not tell Lady Kagome you said that."

"The miko? She knows the limits of her strength."

"Ah, but do you?" Ryota raised an eyebrow and Sesshoumaru only turned and walked away.

"Hn."

Sesshoumaru turned his silver head to the sky and sniffed. The first few flakes of snow fell around them. It was time to wait out the winter. Nothing else need be done until spring.

The world retreated into silence and waited for the sun.

…

AN: So, like I said, shorter. Kagome's moments are gonna be rough through the first year. The second year might look better. Grief is a bitch and I feel like I can't do it justice if everything turns all rainbows and lollipops before she's really worked through it. You can't start a new life under the black cloud of the old one. Spring sees her unseal the well and go back to modern Tokyo. Stay tuned! And let me know what you think, if you have a second!