It was the scent of lightly spiced okayu that woke her up, the air in the hut perfumed by what she assumed to be their breakfast cooking. She sat up and rubbed the crusty sleep from her eyes then stretched her arms out over her head.

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

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

"No need to apologize, child. You wore yourself out yesterday and expended a great deal of you reiki. It's only natural that you're hungry," the elderly Miko chided gently and filled a bowl with okayu. She brought it over to Kagome's bedroll and held it out for her to take.

Kagome cupped the earthenware dish in both hands and gave 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 hobbled away, back towards the hut's exit. "I'll go let that handsome Kitsune traveling with you know that you're awake now." She threw Kagome a rather mischievous wink, at which Kagome blushed and nearly buried her face into the bowl of okayu.

Once she was alone Kagome gave a sigh and took a tentative sip of her breakfast. It was thankfully just warm and she marveled at how delicious it tasted. There was cinnamon and a sweetness that could only be honey. She wasn't aware that there had been cinnamon in the feudal era, and it wasn't a very popular spice in her original time. While this wasn't a normal way to fix okayu it was still very good.

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

"It's good. I never had it made this way before." Kagome fought down the urge to blush and set 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 really 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 guessed and frowned softly at her breakfast.

"And we might not be able to return to this village for long periods of time," Kurama added in a gentle tone. His ears gave a slight twitch and then he glanced in the direction of the hut's door just as InuYasha hesitantly stepped into the hut. The Inu Hanyou's eyes were downcast and his ears had a slight droop to them. "Would you like some okayu, InuYasha?"

InuYasha looked up at the offer, surprise in his amber eyes while his ears perked slightly. "Sure…and, uh, Kagome…". His gaze went to the human girl, who gave him a wary smile, and he fumbled slightly for the words he wanted 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 became brighter and she gave the Inu Hanyou a hopeful look with her question. At his silent nod she looked radiant with her happiness and there was a soothing quality to the space inside of the hut. "Then let's eat up so we can go find the next shard!"

A Wrinkle in Time

Three days. They had been traveling for three days and there hadn't been a clue or a sign about any of the Shikon no Kakera. That wasn't to say that Kagome hadn't tried sensing for the shards. Her training was going about as well as it could given their circumstances and the near constant travel.

"We're getting nowhere like this," InuYasha complained from the rear of their group. "I'm gonna go ask around to see if anyone knows about the jewel shards." He took 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 supplied when she glanced his way. "Try to see if you can sense him."

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

Kagome pushed her senses out as far as she could manage and frowned. There was a flicker, just at the edge, that was familiar. "Is he masking his youki?"

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

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

"You are correct, but you seem troubled," Kurama observed and halted as he turned 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 Kikyou's reincarnation, and she-"

"Is not who you are. You are Higurashi Kagome, and you have the potential to be even better than Kikyou, 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 Kikyou," Kurama explained in a gentle voice. "Why don't we take a break? I can smell fresh water nearby and it should do you some good."

Kagome blinked back her shock then gave a weak smile. "Yeah, that sounds great, Kurama-kun, and thank you. I get so caught up on how great Kikyou was that I forget that we are not the same person."

"It would be best if you just forget about Kikyou and focus on yourself, Kagome-san. You may find things will become easier if you do." Kurama gave her a smile then turned and motioned for her to follow. He led the way off of the path they had been following and through the trees towards a gently flowing river.

"Oh wow! This looks so nice!" Kagome exclaimed as they came 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 added happily and ducked behind some fairly sized bushes.

"I'll be by the water, Kagome-san." Kurama politely turned away from where the Miko was and made his way over to the water's edge as promised.

Kagome had changed in only a matter of minutes and folded her hakama and haori as she walked out from behind the bushes. She set them down, along with her backpack, about fifteen feet from the water's edge, then joined Kurama. Her bathing suit was a white one piece with a red Hawaiian Hibiscus pattern on it.

Kurama politely did not stare at Kagome and had to stop his gaze from wandering in her direction as she entered the water. "How is it, Kagome-san?" He asked as she waded out to the middle of the river where the fish circled around her in curiosity. How strange. They would have normally been scared off.

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

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

Kagome's eyes went wide at that piece of news and waded over towards him. "You have an animal form too? Wait…"

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

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

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

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

He gave a soft yip then pushed his snout against Kagome's outstretched hand as his response. It was all the encouragement she needed to carefully run her hand along his jaw and delicately scratch her fingers through the fur there. His eyes closed and he tilted his head into the gentle touch, eager for more.

Kagome obliged him, working her way along his jaw and down his neck. "Your fur is so soft and warm, Kurama-kun," she remarked as she pulled her hand away from his neck and scratched behind an ear. She brought her free hand up to tend to the other one, and all he knew was bliss as he flopped to the ground.

It was somewhat embarrassing to act like a dog would, but Kurama found it well worth it to have Kagome scratching his ears for him. His tails were even wagging.

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

The thought of biting him passed through Kurama's mind as Kagome stopped what she was doing out of surprise, but instead he rolled to his feet and shifted back to his humanoid form. "Exactly what it looked like," he responded coolly to InuYasha.

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

InuYasha whirled around while Kurama looked past him to see a small white monkey leaping away with Kagome's haori and hakama in its grasp. Kurama was quicker to react, darting after the monkey to cuff it across it's head before it could get too far. The monkey dropped to the ground, knocked out by the blow, and Kurama retrieved Kagome's garments with a frown. He also picked up the monkey by the scruff of its neck and sniffed at it. "This is a trained creature," he commented as he made his way back over to Kagome.

"I'll go find it's owner then," InuYasha said with a smirk as he cracked his knuckles. The Hanyou took 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 a youkai such as myself," Kurama advised and set Kagome's clothes on the ground for the time being.

"Oh, okay," Kagome said with a glance down at her hands. "Why is that?" She asked as she got up and went to her bag to grab a bar of soap.

"It helps convey a fox's status as well as to mark territory," the kitsune explained candidly as Kagome returned to the stream and began scrubbing her hands clean. He was pleasantly surprised to find that the soap was unscented, something that would keep them from unnecessarily attracting unwanted attention.

"O-oh," Kagome replied with a faint flush to her cheeks and worried her lower lip as she scrubbed her hands with the soap just a tad bit harder. She only stopped once the skin of her hands was pink and rinsed the soap lather off just as InuYasha reappeared 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 stated gruffly as he tossed the rather well-dressed human onto the ground very unceremoniously. He held on to the sword, which clearly belonged to the human who was decidedly unconscious at this point. While it didn't look like the Hanyou had done anything beyond disarming him, Kagome wouldn't have put it past InuYasha to knock out what he viewed as a troublesome human.

Her assumption was proven wrong, and she felt a twinge of guilt for thinking the worst of InuYasha, as the stranger stirred after a few seconds. Kurama hastily pressed her garments into her still damp hands and silently ushered her towards the thick foliage of the surrounding forest, leaving her no time to consider the why of his actions. It wasn't until she was half dressed that she realized greeting an unknown man, no matter his status, in her bathing suit would lead to needless awkwardness and discomfort considering the era they were in. Cheeks flushed a hearty pink, she quickly finished dressing and tentatively emerged to find both InuYasha and Kurama staring down the human man who hadn't moved much from where he'd been tossed down except to sit up. As she joined them she saw that the little monkey was cradled in his lap, equally awake and glaring daggers at Kurama.

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

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

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

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

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

"Please don't tell Takeda-sama!" The stranger rushed out as he looked up at Kurama in horror, his face ashen. "I must rescue Tsuyu-hime!"

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

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