A Wrinkle in Time

It is the scent of lightly spiced okayu that wakes her up, the air in the hut perfumed by what she assumes to be their breakfast cooking. She sits up and rubs the crust from her eyes before stretching her arms out over her head.

"Good morning, Kagome-san," Kaede greets as she hobbles into the hut and over to the fire pit. She lifts the lid and checks on the food, giving a soft hum of satisfaction. "Breakfast is ready if you're feeling hungry."

Kagome's stomach decides to answer for her by the way of a very obnoxious gurgle that has her flushing in embarrassment. "I'm so so-"

"No need to apologize, child. You wore yourself out yesterday and expended a great deal of your reiki. It's only natural that you're hungry," the elderly miko gently chides and fills a bowl with okayu. She brings it over to Kagome's bedroll and holds it out for her to take.

Kagome cups the earthenware dish in both hands and gives Kaede a strained smile. "Thank you, Kaede-san."

"Eat up and regain your strength, Kagome-san. You will need it for the journey ahead." Kaede hobbles away, back towards the hut's exit. "I'll go let that handsome kitsune traveling with you know that you're awake now." She throws Kagome a rather mischievous wink, at which Kagome blushes and nearly buries her face into the bowl of okayu.

Once she is alone Kagome sighs and takes a tentative sip of her breakfast. Thankfully it is only warm and she marvels at how delicious it tastes. There is cinnamon and a sweetness that can only be honey. She isn't aware that there is cinnamon in Sengoku Jidai, and it isn't a very popular spice in her original time. While this isn't a normal way to fix okayu it is still very good.

"I see you're enjoying the okayu I made," Kurama comments as he enters a minute later.

"It's good. I never had it made this way before." Kagome fights the urge to blush and sets her bowl down onto her lap. "I can't believe I slept for a whole day."

"I would make it for my mother, especially when she was sick." Kurama takes a seat by the fire pit and ladles some of the okayu into a bowl for himself. "Or when she needed to recover her energy. What you did yesterday with undoing the Mu-Onna's spell and then with Tessaiga drained you. It won't always be like that once we get further along in your training, but it is something you'll have to be wary of."

"We might not be able to find places safe enough for me to recuperate my energy," Kagome guesses and frowns softly at her breakfast.

"And we might not be able to return to this village for long periods," Kurama adds in a gentle tone. His ears give a slight twitch and then he glances in the direction of the hut's door just as InuYasha hesitantly steps into the hut. The inu hanyō's eyes are downcast and his ears have a slight droop to them. "Would you like some okayu, InuYasha?"

InuYasha looks up at the offer, surprise in his amber eyes while his ears perk up. "Sure…and, uh, Kagome…" His gaze goes to the human girl, who gives him a wary smile, and he fumbles slightly for the words he wants to say. "I… I was horrible to you for the past few days and I wanted to say that I'm sorry."

"I accept your apology, InuYasha, and I hope this means that we'll continue to travel together?" Kagome's smile becomes brighter and she gives the hanyō a hopeful look with her question. At his silent nod, she looks radiant with happiness and there is a soothing quality to the space inside of the hut. "Then let's eat up so we can go find the next shard!"

Three days. They have been traveling for three days and there hasn't been a clue or a sign about any of the Shikon no kakera. That isn't to say that Kagome hasn't tried sensing for the shards. Her training is going about as well as it can given their circumstances and the near-constant travel.

"We're getting nowhere like this," InuYasha complains from the rear of their group. "I'm gonna go ask around to see if anyone knows about the jewel shards." He takes off without even waiting for a response, leaving her in the company of Kurama and… just Kurama.

"Hiei had gotten the same idea when we broke camp this morning," Kurama helpfully supplies when she glances his way. "Try to see if you can sense him."

"Okay." It is harder to focus on searching for yōki signatures while on the move, since she has the habit of wanting to close her eyes, so she slows her pace and takes in a deep breath. Kurama is the easiest to pinpoint, an effect from having a part of his yōki mixed in with her reiki. As she expanded her senses she finds that she can easily make out InuYasha's yōki heading away from them to the northwest. There are a few others that she can detect, far weaker than both Kurama and InuYasha, but there is no sign of Hiei.

Kagome pushes her senses out as far as she can manage and frowns. There is a flicker, just at the edge, that is familiar. "Is he masking his yōki?"

"It would seem so. Were you able to find him?" Kurama asks with a hint of curiosity.

"To the north, at the edge of what I can sense." Kagome picks her pace back up and frowns in thought.

"You are correct, but you seem troubled," Kurama observes and halts as he turns to face her. "You're making excellent progress for someone who just learned about being a miko, Kagome-san, so have more faith in yourself."

"I know that, but I feel like I should be able to do so much more at this point. I just… I'm supposed to be Kikyō's reincarnation, and she-"

"Is not who you are. You are Higurashi Kagome, and you have the potential to be even better than Kikyō, so don't worry about what you can and can't do right now. It will only hold you back if you keep comparing yourself to Kikyō," Kurama explains gently. "Why don't we take a break? I can smell fresh water nearby and it should do you some good."

Kagome blinks back her shock then gives a weak smile. "Yeah, that sounds great, Kurama-san, and thank you. I get so caught up in how great Kikyō was that I forget that we are not the same person."

"It would be best if you just forget about Kikyō and focus on yourself, Kagome-san. You may find things will become easier if you do." Kurama smiles at her then turns and motions for her to follow. He leads the way off of the path they have been following and through the trees towards a gently flowing river.

"Oh wow! This looks so nice!" Kagome exclaims as they come upon the river, a clear and sparkling blue with fish lazily swimming in circles. "I'm going to go change into my bathing suit," she adds happily and ducks behind some fairly sized bushes.

"I'll be by the water, Kagome-san." Kurama politely turns away from where the miko is and makes his way over to the water's edge as promised.

Kagome gets changed in only a matter of minutes and folds her hakama and haori as she walks out from behind the bushes. She sets them down, along with her backpack, about fifteen feet from the water's edge, then joins Kurama. Her bathing suit is a white one-piece with a red Hawaiian Hibiscus pattern on it.

Kurama politely does not stare at Kagome and has to stop his gaze from wandering in her direction as she enters the water. "How is it, Kagome-san?" he asks as she wades out to the middle of the river where the fish circle around her in curiosity. How strange. They are normally more skittish.

"It's nice, Kurama-san! Aren't you coming in too?" She turns towards him, her face lit up by her smile.

"I'm afraid I don't have anything to change into." Which is the truth, but there is one other option. "If you don't mind, however, I could take on my animal form."

Kagome's eyes go wide at that piece of information and then she wades over to him. "You have an animal form too? Wait…"

"I'm nowhere near as large as Sesshōmaru-sama in my animal form. Maybe just slightly larger than a normal fox." Well, at least she doesn't seem to be frightened by the idea of it. Instead, she is fascinated.

"Oh, could you?" She clasps her hands together in front of her, her eagerness almost making him want to chuckle.

"Certainly, Kagome-san." It has been such a long time since he's been in that form, but shifting to it is as easy as breathing, even if being on four legs instead of two feels a little weird at first. He gives a shake of his body, his tails fluffing up behind him, then takes in Kagome's expression.

"Oh, wow! The legends about kitsune are true! And you're so gorgeous!" She nearly squeals in her excitement and she comes up onto the shore to kneel next to him. She starts to reach out to touch him, only to falter with her hand a few inches away. "May I, Kurama-san?"

He gives a soft yip then pushes his snout against Kagome's outstretched palm as his response. It is all the encouragement she needs to carefully run her hand along his jaw and delicately scratch her fingers through the fur there. His eyes close and he tilts his head into the gentle touch, eager for more.

Kagome obliges him, working her way along his jaw and down his neck. "Your fur is so soft and warm, Kurama-san," she remarks as she pulls her hand away from his neck and scratches behind an ear. She brings her free hand up to tend to the other one, and all he knows is bliss as he flops to the ground.

It is somewhat embarrassing to act as a dog does, but Kurama finds it well worth it to have Kagome scratching his ears for him. His tails are even wagging.

"What in the hell are you two doing?!" InuYasha shouts as he lands a few feet away from them.

The thought of biting him passes through Kurama's mind as Kagome stops what she is doing out of surprise, but instead, he rolls to his feet and shifts back to his humanoid form. "Exactly what it looked like," he responds coolly to InuYasha.

"Geez, InuYasha, no need to-KYAAAH!" Kagome's shriek has the unfortunate effect of making both canids wince, their attention going to her. "My clothes!"

InuYasha whirls around while Kurama looks past him to see a small white monkey leaping away with Kagome's haori and hakama in its grasp. Kurama is quicker to react, darting after the monkey to cuff it across the back of its head before it can get too far. The monkey drops to the ground, knocked out by the blow, and Kurama retrieves Kagome's garments with a frown. He also picks the monkey up by the scruff of its neck and sniffs at it. "This is a trained creature," he comments as he makes his way back over to Kagome.

"I'll go find its owner then," InuYasha says with a smirk as he cracks his knuckles. The hanyō takes off in the direction the monkey had been heading, leaving Kurama alone with Kagome once again.

"You may want to wash your hands, Kagome-san. Foxes give off a particularly unpleasant smell from their scent glands, and it applies to even yōkai such as myself," Kurama advises and sets Kagome's clothes on the ground for the time being.

"Oh, okay," Kagome says with a glance down at her hands. "Why is that?" she asks as she gets up and goes to her bag to grab a bar of soap.

"It helps convey a fox's status as well as to mark territory," the kitsune explains candidly as Kagome returns to the stream and begins scrubbing her hands clean. He is pleasantly surprised to find that the soap is unscented, something that will keep them from attracting unwanted attention.

"O-oh," Kagome replies with a faint flush to her cheeks and she worries her lower lip as she scrubs her hands with the soap just a tad bit harder. She only stops once the skin of her hands is pink and rinses the soap lather off just as InuYasha reappears with a young human man thrown over his shoulder like a sack of rice and an unfamiliar sword held in his free hand.

"Here's the monkey's owner," InuYasha states gruffly as he tosses the rather well-dressed human onto the ground very unceremoniously. He holds onto the sword, which belongs to the human who is decidedly unconscious at this point. While it doesn't look like the hanyō has done anything beyond disarming him, Kagome won't put it past InuYasha to knock out what he views as a troublesome human.

Her assumption is proven wrong, and she feels a twinge of guilt for thinking the worst of InuYasha, as the stranger stirs after a few seconds. Kurama hastily presses her garments into her still-damp hands and silently ushers her towards the thick foliage of the surrounding forest, leaving her no time to consider the why of his actions. It isn't until she is half-dressed that she realizes greeting an unknown man, no matter his status, in her bathing suit will lead to needless awkwardness and discomfort considering the era they are in. Cheeks flushing a hearty pink, she quickly finishes dressing and tentatively emerges to find both InuYasha and Kurama staring down the human man who hasn't moved much from where he's been tossed down except to sit up. As she joins them she sees that the little monkey is cradled in his lap, equally awake and glaring daggers at Kurama.

The man glances her way, almost dismissing her presence at first before he seems to realize what she is. He starts to get to his feet but with a glare from both InuYasha and Kurama he stays put."Miko-sama, please help! These yōkai are-"

"My friends," Kagome interrupts with a slight frown as she comes to stand between InuYasha and Kurama. "Your monkey tried to steal my clothes."

The stranger first flinches with Kagome's interruption and then again with the accusation against his pet. His face flushes red and he bows his head while he holds the monkey closer to himself."Forgive me, miko-sama! Hiyoshimaru was only supposed to take food!"

"Ya mean steal," InuYasha bites out gruffly with his arms crossed over his chest.

"Which I am sure Takeda-sama doesn't approve of," Kurama says as he takes note of the pattern on the stranger's clothes.

"Please don't tell Takeda-sama!" the stranger cries out in a rush as he looks up at Kurama in horror, his face ashen. "I must rescue Tsuyu-hime!"

Kagome blinks slightly, looking a little taken aback by the stranger's outburst, while Kurama and InuYasha both look at each other then at Kagome before they settle their gazes back on the stranger. "Rescue?"

"Yes!" The stranger nods fervently and points in the direction he was brought from. "I am on a mission to rescue Tsuyu-hime from the Lord of Musashi Province!"