"Uh, yeah, yeah," Winter replied, still glancing once or twice at Sakiyo. She felt rather spooked at seeing him alive. "Keiko must have mentioned us."

"She did," Shizuru agreed with a little smile. "She also told me about your history."

"Alright," Winter said. "Ah, um, Genkai is in the dojo with Peggy, if that's who you're looking for." She gestured back towards the temple.

Shizuru shrugged. "We're here to see everyone," she said calmly. "Why don't we bead inside? Tea sounds good."

"Yeah, okay," Winter said. She glanced at Sakiyo again, and then turned to head back into the temple. Mentally, she was going over what she knew about Sakiyo. Something definitely wasn't adding up right.

Shizuru walked after her. Sakiyo was eyeing her, since Shizuru hadn't told him much about her, and something was a little off about her.

Peggy had just gotten into the kitchen, as had Genkai. Because of course Genkai knew when someone came onto her property.

Winter looked at Peggy when she got into the kitchen, and she scrambled over to her friend.

"Oh god, it's Sakiyo," she breathed in Peggy's ear. "I thought he was dead."

"Wasn't he?" Peggy whispered back. "I swear he died."

"Stop muttering over there," Genkai ordered grumpily. "Come sit."

Peggy looked rather guilty and brought over the tea pot with her as a sort of apology.

"Yes, ma'am," Winter said, obediently sitting down.

"Hey, Genkai," Shizuru greeted as she also sat down.

Genkai nodded to her. "It's been a while," she said. And you even corralled him into coming, too." She smirked a bit at Sakiyo.

"Had to happen sometime," Shizuru said with a shrug. "Keiko told me you had a pair of newbies on your hands."

Genkai nodded. "We'll see how long they stay," she said with a little shrug. "Was there anything specific you wanted to chat about? Or just getting the gossip on this old lady?" She smirked, clearly amused either way.

"Do I really need an excuse to stop in?" Shizuru asked, shrugging. "It's nice to come out here."

Genkai snorted quietly but didn't dispute that. "You've always got a reason, even if it is just getting away from the city," she said instead, taking a cup of tea and holding it for a few moments.

"That's a pretty good reason," Shizuru admitted. She shot a glance at Sakiyo. "Figured I'd drag him out with me, it's good for him to get out of the city once in a while."

Genkai nodded. "No trouble recently?" she asked, both because she was kind of a nosy old woman and also because she was curious and wanted to keep an eye on things.

"Nothing I couldn't handle myself," Shizuru replied with a bit of a shrug. "Nothing worse than a couple of dumb kids in the city and an imp that got tossed out a window."

Genkai snorted quietly at that. "You've got everything well in hand, as usual," she agreed.

"I did learn from the best," Shizuru said with a bit of a grin.

Gnekai shook her head a little but kept chatting for a while, catching up on everything new. After a bit, though, the topic of conversation turned to something interesting, and something that caught Hiei's attention from where he'd been sitting outside.

"So, wait a second, what good is a sword that doesn't cut things?" Winter asked, holding up a hand.

"I said it doesn't cut living things," Sakiyo said evenly. "In living things, it cuts the soul instead."

"That sounds bad," Peggy offered after a moment. "Probably worse than just cutting living things. And you said it's unaccounted for? As in someone could have it?"

Hiei migrated closer, intrigued by talk of this sword.

"It's possible," Sakiyo acknowledged. "But I doubt it. It's far more likely that the sword is still lost."

"How do you know this?" Winter asked, looking at him. "You had a stadium fall on you, you shouldn't even be alive, let alone handing out rumors of a soul-cutting sword."

Sakiyo smiled a little. "I died," he agreed mildly. "But it was deemed advantageous to reverse that."

"Of course it was," Winter said, mentally adding another thing to her working knowledge of the world. "Okay. So what's the word on the sword?"