Summary: Seals have begun to appear in places where demons have been destroyed, and it leads Sam, Dean, and Castiel to none other than Kagome- Guardian of the Shikon no Tama, and mother of a demon teenager. She knew the moment their paths crossed that her fate was sealed, but maybe, just maybe, free will could reign victorious.

Pairing: Castiel/Kagome; [slight] Dean/Kagome

Disclaimer: I do not own either series. Each belongs to their rightful owners!

Prologue

There was a foul aura carried along the wind. It seemed no one else was aware of it, but she was. Perhaps that wasn't all that of a strange thing. After all, they weren't as in tune as she was when it came to this sort of stuff. Still, that did nothing to ease the nagging feeling that'd stirred deep within her chest.

On the horizon, the sky was dark as if a plague of dark smoke was rising higher and higher. She was the only one to see it. She recognized it well, and the mere feel of it made her head spin. It was overwhelming, but she swallowed any and all discomfort she could feel in an attempt to keep any outsiders from becoming aware of her status. She turned on her heel, putting a stop to what was intended to be a leisurely outing as she made her way back to the shrine.

This wasn't good.

Her family wasn't home when she made it back to the shrine, but she wasn't bothered by that. For now, if they weren't where she was, then it was all for the better.

She didn't so much as make a single sound as she got to work on the task that demanded her attention. She made her way to the furthest room in the back, sliding the door shut behind her before she made her way to the center of the room, where a small table rested on the floor.

She settled down onto her knees at the table. Without missing a beat, she removed her switchblade from her pocket, dragging the blade across the skin on her palm in a diagonal strike. Just enough for blood to flow. She refrained from letting her energy heal the wound like it normally would as she turned her attention to the scattered charms across the table. She lifted her hand, allowing her blood to drip across the stark white paper. Once her blood collided with the black ink on the paper, the symbols turned pink.

She allowed the wound to heal once all of them had turned pink. She brought her hands together as she said a quiet chant. A burst of sacred energy pulsed through the room, the decor on the wall trembling under the weight of the power. At the same time, the pink symbols on the paper pulsed before they turned invisible against the white.

"Those who come bearing foul intentions will be forbidden from entering," Kagome stated before finally pushing herself up from her seated position. She collected the rectangular sheets of paper and left the room.

She hung them up along the shrine's property, from the entrance and all the way to the back corners of the lot. It created a barrier near indestructible, crafted of her energy.

Once she had finished with that task, she once again found herself searching out that foul aura, almost out of habit. She'd been picking up on it for a while now, but it was hard to ignore how it seemed to be getting closer.

Of course, it was.

Peace was merely a fleeting dream, and it was time for her to wake up, it would seem.

000

"You're leaving?" her mother asked, stepping into the room with Kagome, a worried frown on her face. "So suddenly? Is something wrong, Kagome?"

While lying was always an option, it didn't sit right with her. After all, her mother was just as aware of the supernatural as she was. Kagome looked at her with a faint smile as she nodded, reaching a hand up to tuck a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Yeah," she confessed. "There's… something coming, and it's coming after me," she stated. The worry in her mother's aura only doubled upon hearing those words. "I'm not worried about something happening to me, but rather, I don't want anyone getting caught in any crossfire," she continued. "So leaving is the best option right now."

"I see," her mother responded. It was clear there was more she wanted to say, but the words seemed to be getting caught before they could fully form. Kagome looked at her, her smile softening some.

"I'll be in contact, don't worry," she said. Her hand came up, moving to curl around the jewel she wore. "This… It should've been expected, anyway," Kagome continued, trying to ease the dampened mood some. "Maybe I…-"

She was cut off when a pair of arms went around her shoulders in a tight, trembling hug. Her smile faltered some as she lowered her arms to return the gesture. There were no words exchanged for a long while as they merely stood there in that embrace in silence.

"Be careful," her mother eventually whispered, her grip loosening soon after those words were uttered.

Kagome smiled as she met her mother's stare. "I will be," she responded. "I'll come visit when I get the chance, too."

+ 2 Months Later +

There was something that had caught his attention in that supposedly empty warehouse. The presence of the demon that'd once been there was no more, seemingly evaporated into thin air.

Stuck to the wall, a white strip of paper caught his eye. There was a pulse of holy energy laced to it, and it appeared to be actively cleansing the area of any lingering traces of demonic energy.

Castiel came to a halt before it, his hand pausing mid-way before he could grasp the paper.

It was handmade and far more powerful than any he'd ever felt before, but there was no mistaking it.

"Cas? What's that?" Dean had taken note of the object that held his attention, both him and Sam approaching to give it a once over. Before Dean could grasp it, Castiel gripped his wrist tight and pulled it down.

"Don't touch it," he advised. "It's a seal. If you touch it, the best case is the one who made it will know. Worst case, depending on the purpose, it could even kill you."

He doubted the worst case would actually happen, given how it was cleansing the area, but there was never any telling when it came to things such as this.

"A seal?" Sam repeated. "So it had to be placed by someone. Do you think they might've…-?'

If there had once been a demon there, and now there was nothing more than a smear of ash on the ground, then that pointed to the one who left the seal being the one to handle it.

Auroua-chan: Gonna end this here!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you all enjoyed. Hopefully I caught all the errors before posting, but if not sorry.

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Bye for now~