The next morning, Rin was awake before anyone else- mostly because she'd taken last watch. She looked over her friends, and, comfortingly, found that Shippo was still curled up on his side, Haruno was still sprawled out across her sleeping mat (and then quite a bit of the open ground as well), and Yukifusa was still peacefully drooling on his own arms. In the morning, even summer air could have a bit of a nip to it, but she didn't find it so uncomfortable, really. She resolved to take last watch more often as she looked out at the rising sun in the east, casting its soft light on the trees and all that dwelt within them, illuminating the world around her in a pleasant shade of green as it woke the birds, the first creatures to get up most mornings, their lively chirping announcing the new day to the world. Rin had always loved such summer mornings, and taking the scene in was a fine respite from lingering thoughts about the day before. She thought she might wait a while to wake her friends, leave them at peace and have this to herself. Time wouldn't wait for them, but it seemed to her that they could afford to lose an hour or so for this. Kaede had always been very insistent with her on an appreciation for the natural world in all its beauty, and this was one of the many moments in which she truly understood why. Today was already promising.

In an hour or so, Yukifusa extricated himself from his bedroll, taking a moment to straighten out his clothes and stretch from head to toe, limbering up for a day's travel, before fishing out the food and tools for breakfast, the noise of which soon woke Haruno, whose first act of the day was to change her bandages and check to ensure she wasn't developing an infection. She nodded in approval when she found that, in spite of recent activity, it was coming along at a good pace, and wrapped a clean new compress and poultice around it. Shippo, however, was still asleep.

Yukifusa smirked down at the other fox. "How should we wake him? Bucket of cold water? Wasabi up the nose?"

"That's cruel!" Rin exclaimed. "He'll get up when he smells the food!"

"Fine, fine. Maybe you're right."

"She is right, you crazy fox," Haruno grumbled. "Something must be wrong with you."

"Nose wasabi is a pretty common prank. Not like it does any lasting harm."

"This isn't up for debate!" Rin interjected, exasperated. "Nobody is putting wasabi anywhere!"

Yukifusa just smiled and shook his head. "Whatever you say. I'll let everyone know when breakfast is ready. You two ladies just sit and relax for a while, before you stress yourselves to death. The road ahead is long, hard and probably disgusting. Take rest and relaxation while it's available, or you'll regret it like one regrets the sake when they wake up in a city they've never seen before."

"You'd better not be speaking from personal experience," Haruno said. Yukifusa's only response was a raised eyebrow, as if to say she should know better.

As Yukifusa began cooking breakfast, Shippo's nose began to twitch. Rin had been right- the smell of food was waking him, albeit slowly. The young fox stirred, blinking a few times to make sure he was really awake before slowly sitting up. "Am I last?"

"Last but not late," the other fox answered. "Be glad Rin was here, or I'd have woken you up the nasty way."

"Nose wasabi?" Shippo inquired. Everyone nodded. "Classic. I'd have gotten you back, though."

"No. No tricks," Rin said, cutting off the budding prank war. "We can't afford it." Haruno followed this up by grumbling her agreement as Yukifusa put the finishing touches on the morning meal, consisting of pickled plums, rice, and fish, fried to golden-brown melt-in-your-mouth perfection and seasoned with salt and but the lightest hint of wasabi. The others found the spicy stuff a bit of an odd touch, but enjoyed it no less. While the others enjoyed his cooking, the fox lamented the lack of ingredients for miso soup or natto, while Rin was simply glad she hadn't had the cooking left to her today, and Haruno found herself surprised with the food's quality, having never expected that Yukifusa, the moron in fine silk clothes, would be capable of cooking at all.

Yukifusa sat between Rin and Haruno, smugly satisfied with himself and his cooking. "What's the matter, didn't you think I was capable of making food, Botan(1)?"

"Flattering, and no, I really didn't. Since when can pampered rich boys cook?"

"Since about the time we became expected to actually do something. Which, under Lord Sesshomaru, has been from the beginning. I'm told his father was the same. What good am I to him if I'm so helpless I can't even make my own food? We don't work like you. Among demons, status is earned, through strength, integrity and wits. Although I won't lie, it's much easier to build and maintain those when your father already has some status."

Haruno scoffed. "Integrity?"

"It's important to follow through on promises and threats when everyone's memory is centuries long. Especially threats. Fail to carry out your threats, and you're seen as lacking the power to back up your words. Break your oaths, and, at best, nobody wants to deal with you for fear of being backstabbed. And your kids carry that stain, too. Believe it or not, demons care for our offspring and bloodline just as much as humans do."

"Fair, fair," Haruno said, holding up her hands in mock surrender. "And you know what? Thanks. You do a lot of dumb things, but your cooking? Not dumb. This is actually really good."

"Well, I'm glad you like it. The touch of wasabi was actually my sister's idea. She... Overdid it the first time. To say the least." Everyone collectively shuddered at that. "Ah, but it was good for a laugh when we got our father to eat some, so it didn't end up going completely to waste, thankfully. Never liked wasted food. Regular folks out there starving and Lord Hakuchi(2) is throwing away perfectly good venison because there's a bit of black on the edges."

Rin blinked in astonishment. Not so long ago, he'd lamented how few people knew how to read, in ignorance of the common person's complete lack of time or motivation to learn such a thing, and now here he was, bitter over the idea that, somewhere out there, someone was wasting perfectly good food that someone less fortunate would be thrilled to have.

"What? I might not know a lot about the average way of life, but it's not like I'm totally ignorant of the fact that people out there don't have enough to eat. I always hated leaders who don't look after their people, and it goes double for the ones enjoying total luxury while everyone else suffers. Lord Sesshomaru looks after his followers. Rin can attest to it, as far as Jaken's told me. I wish more people were like him."

Rin merely blinked again, confused by the bizarre mix of the relatively deep understanding he was now displaying and the utter ignorance he'd shown on their first journey. After a few moments, she simply shook the thought from her head, chalking it up to her bodyguard and friend's oddball nature.

MUQFF

Not long after waking, the small party was on the move, looking for the nearest village or town in search of clues. Yukifusa and Haruno, both experienced information gatherers, albeit for different reasons, figured that the best place to start would be asking after rumors of sword fragments or similar artifacts at inns and other places frequented by travelers. But first, there was the matter of finding a village or town. Yukifusa suggested simply following a path- after all, roads to nowhere ought not exist and thus all roads must be connected somewhere along the way, meaning that one would eventually find people. Haruno suggested that following a river might be more expedient, given the human tendency to settle near water, and the group agreed, especially after Rin noted the added bonus of a reliable water and food source. Packs securely fastened, they followed the waterway downstream, with Rin and Shippo in front, while Yukifusa and Haruno trailed not far behind- a demon conveniently on either end of the party to make the fullest use of their superior senses in case of danger. Shippo and Rin quickly fell into idle conversation.

"When do you think we should go back to Edo?" he asked. "We can't let them worry too much."

"After we get a bearing on a piece of that sword. The only shard we have right now is in Haruno's kimono, and I don't like the odds with just one. But you're right... We should go back as soon as we can after this."

"Then let's make it as quick as we can. I don't like leaving Kagome in the dark- she gets all mad."

"I hope Lord Sesshomaru doesn't worry too much... You know how he gets."

"Yeah, firsthand..." Shippo said with a shudder. "I don't know what he thinks we get up to."

"He just cares. He'll learn to like you, since you're my friend. … I mean, eventually. He takes time to warm up, that's all."

"I'm not sure 'warm up' is in his vocabulary," Shippo scoffed. Rin rolled her eyes.

"Yes it is," she retorted. "That's how I started traveling with him, after all. It just takes time. It might help if you could impress him, though. Or at least show him you're not going to hurt me. I don't know why he's acting like this all of a sudden. He never had a problem when we were kids."

Shippo sighed. The truth was that he was pretty sure he knew just what wild misconception was going through the great dog demon's mind, and was silently praising Rin's ignorance of certain parts of human culture thanks to her unusual lifestyle and upbringing, plus natural innocence. "Maybe you're right." I really hope she's right, or I'm as good as a scarf.

Meanwhile, the pair in the rear engaged in their own talking. "Were you really going to put wasabi up his nose if Rin didn't stop you?" Haruno inquired.

"Well, yeah," Yukifusa said casually. "Pretty standard joke. Painful, but ultimately harmless. And being a fox himself, he'd have gotten me back just as good. It's all in good fun. Don't worry about it- I'd never do anything to actually hurt someone. Unless they really, really deserved it."

Haruno found herself worried about what, exactly, might constitute a deserving person, but decided not to push that particular issue. "Do I even want to know what the revenge prank would've been?"

Yukifusa shrugged. "I'm sure it wouldn't have been anything overly nasty. Some really vindictive or sadistic foxes like lethal or near-lethal jokes, but I never saw what was so funny about them. I've played a deadly prank exactly twice, and I remember the exact reason both times."

"What reason could you possibly have?"

"I don't want to talk about it in detail, but fair warning. Not that I think you would, but never hurt a kid in front of me. Or really anywhere at all, but especially not in front of me."

Haruno tried to divert the conversation away. "Do you have any? Children, I mean."

"What? No way, I don't even have a mate or a wife. Do I look that old?"

"Don't get all offended! You could be seven hundred years old for all I know!"

"And now I'm actuallyoffended."

Haruno merely scoffed and rolled her eyes, and the group carried onward.

(1)Botan- the Japanese word for the peony flower, used in Japanese flower language as a symbol for bravery, and, additionally, it is seen as a masculine flower, simultaneously a complement and a joking dig at her lack of femininity; left untranslated because it's a nickname.

(2)Hakuchi- a nasty word for an intellectually disabled person, basically equivalent to "retard." Left untranslated because it was being used simultaneously as an insult and placeholder name.