The dream felt too real to be just a memory.
Kagome stood in a field of withered flowers, the air heavy with silence. Inuyasha was there—back turned, sword at his side, gaze lost somewhere beyond the horizon. She called his name, but no sound came from her mouth. When he finally turned, his golden eyes held no warmth. No recognition of the girl standing behind him.
She jolted awake.
The scent of morning rain clung to her sheets, and her heart thudded like it was trying to remind her of something she'd forgotten.
It had been three years since the well closed. Three years since she'd made the final wish. Three years since she'd seen Inuyasha.
Her life in the modern world had continued— she went to college, lived at home with her family, and had quiet days filled with the kind of normal she used to dream of having during her adventures into feudal Japan with her companions.
Inuyasha, Sango, Miroku, Kilala, and Shippo. Heck, even Sesshomaru, Jaken, Kohaku, and Rin had become involved in several instances, including when they finally defeated Naraku.
But lately, her dreams weren't normal. They were strange. Familiar, and yet not.
And this morning, something was different.
The Bone-Eater's Well, sealed and silent for years, hummed beneath the surface of her thoughts like it was calling to her again.
She had never fully stopped thinking of it, or the world it used to lead her to full of people she began to see as her other family. But over time, her hope of seeing them again had diminished into a dull glow, and she was tired of getting heartbroken every time she visited the small shack that held the way she would travel back and forth. She grew tired of feeling her hope deflate and crumble into disappointment, and leave her in bed with tears in her eyes.
So, for the last year, she had tried her best to live a normal life, and keep the memories of her other lifetime shoved into an overflowing drawer, locked, and tucked away in the very back of her mind.
Kagome sat up slowly, brushing her hair back with a shaky hand. The dream still clung to her like fog. Her room looked the same—framed photos, schoolbooks stacked in uneven towers, her old yellow backpack resting in the corner like a relic from a past life. But it felt different, like a layer of dust had settled over everything in her absence, even though she never left.
Downstairs, the smell of miso soup drifted up from the kitchen. Her mother's voice called out for her, light and warm as always. She responded automatically, but the words stuck in her throat for a moment, like her body needed a second longer to catch up to reality. She untangled herself from her bed sheets before cascading down the steps to meet her family in the kitchen.
As she moved through the morning, the world felt… skewed. Not wrong, exactly. Just off. Her brother's face looked older than it should. Her textbooks had notes in the margins she didn't remember writing. A calendar on the wall marked a holiday that didn't exist.
No one else noticed.
And Kagome couldn't explain why it made her uneasy.
She couldn't explain the growing pressure in her chest, like a thread was being pulled taut from the inside out.
It wasn't until later that day—while she was walking past the shrine steps, tea in hand and thoughts far away—that she felt it.
A tug.
Not physical, but deep. Instinctual. Like something was waking up beneath the earth.
Her gaze shifted and fell toward the well house.
The door was closed. The shadows around it hadn't moved. And yet… she knew.
The Bone-Eater's Well was no longer silent.
Kagome didn't even realize her feet had carried her to the old building until she was standing in front of the door. She placed the tea down beside her feet and hurriedly gazed in both directions, making sure her mother or gramps wouldn't see her and get concerned that she was obsessive over trying to get back again. To see Inuyasha again.
Sleeping beside the well full of demon's remains for a week was hard for her family to watch, and even harder for Kagome to jump awake every couple hours with false hope that she heard or felt something.
What if she was imagining it again?
The wood creaked beneath her hand as she slid it open, the familiar scent of earth and dust rising to meet her. Light filtered through the worn and cracked slats in soft beams, illuminating the old rope ladder and the empty, open mouth of the Bone-Eater's Well below.
It looked the same as it always had. Still. Silent. A grave.
She stepped closer, heart thudding in her chest.
Nothing stirred. No wind. No glow. No voice calling her name from the darkness.
Only silence.
She leaned over the edge and stared into the well. The bottom was just as it had been the last time she'd looked—dry and lifeless. No soft blue light. No swirling magic.
Kagome let out a breath she didn't realize she'd been holding.
You're just imagining it, she told herself. Dreams don't mean anything.
Still, she didn't turn her back on the well right away. Her hand hovered over the lip, like maybe if she just touched it, something would happen.
But nothing did.
After a minute, she exhaled a breath she didn't realize she was holding in with anticipation. With a beat of resistance, her fingertips slid off the rugged, wooden edge of the well. She felt the familiar pull on her heart strings as she let go of the only thing that connected her to Inuyasha anymore.
She stepped away, hesitantly turning her back to it and gently closed the door, trying to shake the feeling that the past was waiting just beneath her feet.
The rest of the day, she tried her best to ignore the thoughts and memories of anything in relation to the feudal era, or a certain hanyou with silver dog ears.
She helped her gramps with putting boxes away in his small shack full of history, some she could confirm was real fron encountering it first hand. She even went as far as to help him dust off some of the shelves and sweep the floors.
When he waved her off, insistinv she had dond more than enough to help, she let out a cheerful giggle before skipping into their house and deciding to help her mother with dinner.
Anything to keep her hands and mind busy.
That night, Kagome finished brushing through her freshly washed raven locks with gentle strokes before climbing into her soft bed. One of the few things she did miss while on the other side of the well. Despite being comfortable, sleep came slow.
The dream came faster.
She was running through the forest, barefoot and breathless. The air was thick with the scent of sakura blossoms and ash. Someone was calling her name—not her mother, not her brother.
Inuyasha.
She turned a corner, heart pounding. The familiar shade of red was in her view. His back was to her again, just like before. But this time, she caught a glimpse of his profile—eyes wide, wounded, confused.
And when she reached out in urgency to touch him, to feel him, her hand passed through like mist. And everything in her stilled.
Kagome gasped awake, the sheets tangled around her legs.
The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of her phone charging beside her bed. She sat up, rubbing her arms, trying to shake the cold creeping over her damped skin from the sweat she was now covered in.
Then she heard it.
A distant hum. Low. Rhythmic. Familiar.
She froze.
That sound didn't belong in the modern world. Not in her room. Not here.
That nostalgic feeling of power humming through her body, just beneath her skin, as if it was pulling her in a specific direction, nearly brought her to tears. She remembered when she returned for good, and that feeling disappeared, she suddenly felt like a normal teenage girl—and it made her feel empty.
Kagome rose slowly and stepped to her window. The shrine grounds below were still. But beyond the main hall, past the trees, the well house stood like a shadow—and from it came a faint, pulsing blue light.
No…
Kagome blinked and rubbed her eyes, mentally pleading for her to not be imagining it all, and when she opened her eyes again for the faint light to still be there, her mind went blank.
She didn't remember crossing the floor. Didn't remember grabbing her coat. Only the feeling—urgent, magnetic—that pulled her back across the stone courtyard, barefoot and shaking in the cold.
The well was glowing.
Not wildly, not like before. Just faintly—like something stirring beneath the surface, like something forgotten was beginning to remember her.
And as she practically plowed theough the well house's doors, with fear of not reaching it in time, she had zero hesitation as she ran down the steps and towards the well. She placed her hand on the wood again, the light flared brighter—welcoming and beckoning for her.
A whoosh of wind came from the well and pushed her now frizzy, wavy locks over her shoulders. It didn't startle her though. If anything, a smile of relief spread across her face as she closed her eyes and basked in the feeling of it all. The humming of her spiritual powers and the well, the puffs of wind, the light shining among her pale skin.
The familiar feeling of her eyes burning overwhelmed her, but not a single bad feeling was causing it. She felt relief, hopeful, and in awe. She spent days imagining this moment, and now that she was experiencing it, she didn't know how to react.
This wasn't a dream.
It was beginning again.
She stood at the edge of the well, the pale blue light brushing against her skin like a memory trying to take shape.
It pulsed gently—familiar and strange all at once.
Kagome's hand hovered just above the rim, fingers trembling. The hum echoed in her chest, in her bones, like something long buried was being unearthed.
This wasn't over.
Whatever peace she thought she'd found… it had only been an illusion. A pause from her true reality.
The well was calling her back.
And deep down, she already knew—this time, things wouldn't be the same.
