It was early the next morning when Sanzo awoke.

The little living room was bright with morning sunlight and it took Sanzo a moment to remember where he was and what was going on. Everyone seemed to have fallen asleep wherever they'd been the night before; Sanzo himself had fallen asleep sitting up in the chair he'd pulled over to the coffee table. Goku, he saw, was sprawled on the floor nearby, still snoring, while Gojyo was draped over the more comfortable chair. Hakkai was asleep in one corner of the couch and Sanzo glanced over to where Miya had been, across from Hakkai.

But Miya was gone.

---

"Do you think she left already?" Goku asked, a little sadly.

The four companions paused in the kitchen one last time before heading out, looking around at the place that had been their home for the last two days, and Miya's for the last year. Miya herself hadn't appeared that morning, while the others gathered their things and ate a quick breakfast. There had been no note, though her kausinge and her mah jong pieces were gone; everything had been left neatly cleaned up, showing no sign that she had ever lived there at all.

"Probably. She said she was going to go this morning, she probably wanted to get an early start," Hakkai guessed. "It is a shame, we never got to thank her for everything that she did for us."

"Yeah." Gojyo shrugged, though there was a trace of disappointment in his eyes. "Oh well. Maybe we'll run into her again."

"I doubt it," Sanzo answered briefly, trying not to show his relief. Miya's disappearance had made things easy for him, and he felt a moment of gratitude to her for that. There would be no call to decide if she was the demon the three heads of heaven had told him about and no need to decide just what that meant if she was.

"Come on," he added, turning away. "Miya's gone and we need to go too."

Outside, they headed for the jeep, waiting for them just a little up the road; Hakuryu knew the drill well and had transformed long before, as usual. It wasn't until the four companions got closer that they saw what the bamboo tree had been hiding.

Sanzo stopped dead. "No. Absolutely not."

In the back of the jeep, one leg folded over the other and propped on the seat ahead of her, wearing a wicked smile, sat Miya.

"You four take forever to get ready in the morning, you know that?" she greeted them cheerfully. "I've been waiting with Hakuryu, here, for more than an hour."

"Oh, so that's what you meant when you said you were leaving in the morning," Hakkai called, grinning, but there was far too much laughter in his eyes for his surprise to be real and Sanzo glared at him.

"Hey, does this mean you're going with us?" Goku demanded, clearly delighted.

"No, it doesn't," Sanzo answered before she could and Miya's dancing violet eyes flickered to his.

"You need me," she stated simply.

"No," Sanzo shot back, "we don't."

"All right, then." She tilted her head to one side, eyes still sparkling. "Let's just say you could use me."

"Let's not," Sanzo retorted.

"Hey, speak for yourself." Gojyo was grinning.

"Damn it, Sanzo, will you just once drop your ego?" Miya demanded, laughing. "Screw fate. You know as well as I do that it doesn't matter at all if I'm the demon that you were supposed to meet or not. I can fight as well as anyone here, I can cook better than anyone here, and I can see things that you can't, and you may not like that, but it'd be helpful and you know it. Besides, where exactly is a demon like me supposed to go at this point? Until we finish this quest, I'm not going to be able to find a home, and if I am going to spend the next however many years wandering, I am damn well going to do it for a reason." Her voice softened a little. "Preferably with a group of people like me." There was knowing in her eyes as she added gently, "It doesn't mean they won, Sanzo."

For a second, he held her gaze, his irritation at the situation she had put him in warring with his irritation that she should have been able to read him so well. And yet…

Her second sight would give them insights that would be helpful, that would save them time. Certainly she was right about another fighter being useful, with the number of assassins sent after them at any one time. And he couldn't deny her last point: like all of them, she really didn't have any place else she could go.

No, they didn't need her.

But there was also the look in the eyes of his three companions. Whatever he decided, they'd abide by it and stick with him, however much they complained. At the same time, he'd already seen the way that they looked at her, all of them, as if she was already part of them. And… for a moment, every now and again… he'd forgotten that she wasn't.

"Just remember that I reserve the right to kill you with any of the others."

He stalked forward to his seat in the jeep. Miya grinned and resettled herself, leaving room for the others, but he caught the look she gave him, expressing her gratitude more clearly than words. The others had followed him, taking a moment to get comfortable before Hakkai, in the driver's seat, glanced over his shoulder and asked, "Everybody ready?"

Goku, between Miya and Gojyo, grinned. "Let's go!"

Gojyo gave him a thumbs up. Miya nodded, still smiling. Hakkai called, "Go ahead, Hakuryu."

They weren't out of sight of the village yet when Sanzo remembered something.

"Miya, what were the dangers on the road you were talking about?"

"Oh, that. There are a couple of groups of demon bandits around here that cause problems every now and again."

"That was what was stopping us from leaving the first night?"

"Well… there are a lot of them."

"I hate you."

"I know."

And so the jeep drove off into the morning sunlight.