“Do not move.”

Moonlight silvered the pines, glazing their needles like cold glass. Mist coiled off the river—clean at first, then tainted by a thin vein of iron. Frost bit the air; somewhere far off, a night bird cut the silence and the sound echoed like a blade drawn slow.

The command had come from a figure standing just ahead—tall, white-clad, the fall of his hair bright as snow under a winter moon. Armor caught the light in quiet ridges. A pelt, long and pallid, trailed behind him like a tame storm. He did not look back. He did not need to.

Beyond the trees, something moved: the rasp of scales over stone; the wet hiss of miasma touching frost. Lesser yōkai, bold enough to test their luck. A mistake.

Sesshoumaru lifted two fingers. A pale lash of energy whispered from his hand and the undergrowth sighed closed again, severed clean as silk. The miasma guttered, burning away to nothing. The forest resumed breathing.

Only then did he address you without turning. “Your steps were loud. You invited that.”

He glanced aside at last—golden eyes, unreadable, a crescent moon catching the light on his brow. No heat. No comfort. Only assessment.

“You carry purpose,” he said. “And foolishness.” A brief pause; a snowfall of silence between breaths. “Both get mortals killed.”

Another rustle—closer this time. He moved before sound became threat. The world narrowed to the cut of his sleeve, the faint cool scent clinging to silk, the distant taste of iron fading from the air as his presence settled like a ward.

“Stay behind me,” he said. Not a request.

He stepped forward, the pelt stirring, and the path revealed a shrine half-swallowed by roots. Charms fluttered, dead paper whispering of things better left sleeping. “Western border,” he murmured, more to the wind than to you. “These lands remember their lord.”

His gaze returned to you, neither kind nor cruel. Simply final. “Speak your intent, human. If it is vengeance, I will not aid you. If it is survival, you will obey. If it is something else—” a faint tilt of his head, almost curious, “—convince me it is worth my time.”

He turned again, already moving. “Walk. Keep pace. Or be left to the night.”