Broken Glass
Chapter Seventeen

The girl looked at the door before her. Her little fingers shook as she tentatively reached for the handle. It wasn't that she was nervous… she was extremely excited. Her family had just moved because her father needed a new job and the opportunity had arisen in the suburban city.

Leaving her old school hadn't been as hard as she'd thought… after all, she had only been in the preschool there and did not know many people. Here she had the opportunity to meet new friends and she was bubbling with excitement. Her kindergarten teacher, Ms. Johnson, was just on the other side of the door awaiting her arrival.

Gulping the lump in her small throat she hadn't been aware was there, the small six-year-old reached out a quivering hand and grasped the door handle, opening it slowly. The rest of the class was out to recess —she'd come to school late at her mother's insistence— and the only person in the room was her new teacher.

The blond teacher looked up and smiled. "You must be Kagome," she greeted as she stood. The woman towered over the small child. The said girl meekly nodded, staring up at the woman with large blue eyes.

"It's nice to meet you, Kagome. I'm Ms. Johnson, your new teacher." The tall woman knelt before the small girl and smiled, offering a hand. Not quite understanding the ways of adults but knowing that the hand was a sign of greeting, Kagome' s small hand found its way to Ms. Johnson's large, stronger one. They shook.

"Hi," she managed to squeak out as the woman didn't release her hand and led her towards the tables in the center of the room.

"This will be your seat," Ms. Johnson said as she led the girl to a small table with a giant red heart hanging over it. With further inspection Kagome discovered that each table had a different colored heart hanging above it. "You'll be sitting at the red heart table until we change seats, okay?"

Kagome nodded her head.

"Recess is almost over, so why don't you stay in here with me?" Kagome nodded again at the teacher's suggestion.

That day Kagome Higurashi had introduced herself to her classmates. She was eagerly greeted and her new tablemates were nice to her. A girl with frizzy blond hair named Alexa befriended the blue eyed newcomer, and by the recess that afternoon had convinced the girl to let her braid her hair.

Life at her new school seemed perfect for Kagome. She had friends. She was happy. She liked her teacher. She was having fun in school. She was in the carefree world of a child— a realm that once is left can never be returned to.

Which is exactly what happened to the blue eyed girl two years later.

The second grader rubbed her eyes as she attempted to finish her math homework. It was simple addition equations, but Kagome had never been very strong when it came to mathematics. She frowned as she silently counted on her fingers to get the answer of five plus four.

She heard giggles behind her. Curious, the girl turned around to see a redheaded girl look away and laugh. Kagome frowned thoughtfully and returned to her work.

It wasn't the first time someone had laughed behind her. Kagome didn't understand it. She assumed it was all coincidence, but couldn't shake the feeling.

A change had seemed to befallen her fellow classmates. She didn't understand it, though. Why were they all acting so strange all of a sudden? She bit her lip as her pencil's lead snapped. She sighed and stood, moving cautiously to the pencil sharpener in the back of the room. Someone tripped her.

That marked the first act of bullying in her life. But it only got worse.

Lunch time. Usually it was Kagome's favorite time of day… but today there seemed that a pall had befallen her fellow classmates. They all glanced at her out of the corner of their eyes as she took her lunchbox towards a picnic table. It was a bright, sunny day in April, and the students were allowed to each outside.

Children flocked to tables and other areas to eat when they spotted their friends, and laughter filled the beautiful spring time air. Kagome grasped her lunchbox happily and looked around for her friends.

She smiled as she spotted Alexa and a couple of her other friends. She moved towards them. As she sat down, her friends exchanged glances with one another. They seemed to be communicating with one another silently— or at least trying to. Kagome frowned.

Mary whispered something to Ashley and they both gave her a look that clearly stated that she was unwelcome. Kagome blinked in surprise.

"Is something wrong?" the second grader asked, her blue eyes staring at the three girls she shared lunch with. Mary and Ashley snorted, but Alexa looked extremely uneasy.

"Nothing," Mary said a little too quickly. Kagome frowned. "We have to go to the bathroom." Mary gestured to Alexa and Ashley.

"I'll come with you," Kagome offered. She didn't want to sit alone. Maybe if she made an effort to try and stay with them they'd stop acting weird…?

"No," Ashley said forcefully and shook her head. "You stay here."

Kagome felt like a bucket of ice water had been thrown over her head. She understood now.

They stood, leaving Kagome. "Alexa," Kagome called before her best friend could dart away. Alexa looked behind her and fixed Kagome with a sad look. "What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry," was all she said and she left. Alexa never spoke to Kagome again.

Kagome felt tears collect in her eyes and a couple of girls passing by to the next table giggled and kept walking. Kagome, not wanting to sit alone, stood up with her food and moved to the next table.

"Can I sit here?" Kagome questioned the redheaded girl who sat behind her in class. The girl looked up at her and fixed her with a disbelieving look.

Kagome felt uneasy when no one spoke. They simply stared at her like she'd grown a second head. She hesitantly took a step backwards, grasping her lunch firmly as she looked at each steady face glaring at her.

"Um… I've got to go," she said uneasily, turned on her heel and darted away. As she ran she heard the laughter of the children who felt her embarrassment was hilarious.

She went from table to table and got pretty much the same reaction. At times they'd answer her with a firm 'no,' but majority of the time they just stared at her like she was a freak.

Things seemed to only go downhill for Kagome. The girl, still shy and unsure with herself in her school, was mortified to learn that she was now the new bullied child. She, in the children's mind, was poison. It had taken her a while to learn that she was, indeed, the new person to pick on, even if it was for no apparent reason.

At first she'd tried to ignore it, afraid to tell her parents because of their reaction. But the tripping, the pushing, the shoving, the stealing, the hair pulling… nothing compared to the one thing that could shatter a little girl's soul: isolation.

School became unbearable for Kagome Higurashi. No matter where she turned, the cruel gestures only increased. Her lunch was stolen. Her shoelaces were untied— at the time she didn't know how to tie her shoes. Her hair was pulled. When she got glasses, they were stolen from her and hidden. When partners were needed during PE, no one chose her. When she needed help with homework no one raised their hand to help. When she was alone at recess, no one bothered to play with her. When she tried to speak with someone, the children would disperse.

They treated her like the plague (Though Kagome, of course, was unaware as to what a plague was. The knowledge wouldn't have helped her anyway).

Lunch was the worst, by far. She sat alone, eating food and trying to find a friendly face. The girl she had relied on, Alexa, would spare her pitiful glances every so often, but never made a move to mend the rip she'd torn between the two girls.

Kagome feebly ate her peanut butter and jelly sandwich. She felt the familiar sting of tears as she faced the humiliation of eating on her own. She blinked and closed her blue eyes, willing the tears away. If someone saw her crying it would only be a new reason to make fun of her. Kagome had learned from her experiences as the product of class bullying.

They'd gone from ignoring her, never speaking to her or answering her questions to just laughing at her. Everything she said was replied to with a giggle or a laugh, like what she had to say was the funniest thing in the world. The mere thought of their sickeningly twisted feelings made her cringe.

The first time it had happened Kagome had been horrified by it. "Have you seen my lunch?" Kagome had asked the girls in the cubby room. Her lunchbox was missing.

Instead of ignoring her, like Kagome had expected, they had started laughing and giggling with one another. They had exchanged looks and left the cubby room. At first Kagome had thought they'd done something to sabotage her lunchbox hence their giggles.

On her birthday Kagome brought cupcakes for the class. The birthday song that her classmates sung was weak and only a couple of children dared to sing happy birthday to the freak of the school. Kagome felt her heart plummet.

"Now," her teacher said, oblivious to the isolation Kagome had been forced into. She wasn't a very intelligent teacher. "Choose someone to help you pass stuff out. Whoever wants to, raise your hand."

No one raised their hand.

Kagome felt the familiar pressure of tears at the back of her eyes but she didn't shed a tear. They were not worth her tears. Not this time.

"Alexa," she said firmly. It didn't matter if her friend hated her- she'd choose her anyway. Alexa looked rather annoyed with the burden, but stood anyway. She passed out napkins and didn't speak to Kagome.

"Chocolate or vanilla?" she'd ask her classmates. They'd all laugh each time. A cruel, harsh laugh that ripped Kagome apart inside.

They all enjoyed the torture she suffered, knowing that they would never be as low as her. It gave them a sense of satisfaction to know that they were safe from the pain that the girl suffered daily. They blindly turned away from her pain when they saw her feeble hand reaching out to them.

But they couldn't possibly understand.

Their sneers, their giggles, their cackles… Those sickening sounds tore her soul apart every time.

'I'll just keep my head down,' she told herself. 'I'll just be silent. They'll all leave me alone. I'll be invisible to them. They'll all leave me alone.'

She was ripped from her thoughts when she saw a hand come out, grasp her milk carton, open it and dump the contents onto her head. Giggles erupted around her as children watched the humiliation at her expense. Kagome bit her lip and felt tears pool in her eyes.

Her bottom lip quivered and she tried to fight the gut reaction to cry and run from the room. She saw her tormenter run away towards his table, cackling all the while about the hilarious gesture he'd just accomplished.

"You're worthless, Kagome!" he sneered as he ran. The term 'ugly' would not be given to her for several more years… but the words still bit into her.

You're worthless.

You're nothing to anyone. You're existence is pointless. That's what they told her daily. And it had sunk in. She was worthless. She was worth nothing. She was lower than dirt. She believed their words.

The second grader sniffed. Another day of milk on her head. It was often that they would dump some kind of content over her. Milk, chocolate milk, orange juice, apple juice… But never water. No, water was easy to just let dry. Milk tuned sour and juice was sticky. It provided hours of discomfort.

"Just leave me alone!" Kagome whispered out to herself, clenching her eyes shut and allowing herself to succumb to the tears.

Kagome sat bolt upright in her bed, sweat at her brow and her eyes opened wide. She shivered and drew her knees to her legs. Tears ran down her porcelain cheeks and she felt her heart beating heavily against her chest.

"That dream…" she whispered. "No, nightmare."

She shivered again as she recalled the all too familiar past of long ago. Her elementary school years had been worse than her junior high school years. Both were bad, of course, but…

She shook her head and felt a sob leave her throat. Those devastating memories. Back then, her mother had realized something was wrong and had gotten her counseling… but the counselor had been unable to breach the broken girl.

Her schoolmates had shattered her will. She'd come into school as a bright and happy young child but she'd left it as a defeated, doomed youth. Her eyes had lost luster, her head had bowed and her feet had shuffled. She wished to be invisible; she wanted to just disappear from those around her.

They'd taunted her, teased her, and humiliated her. They'd successfully made her wish to die. And for what reason?

Kagome glared at her bent knees as they rose from beneath the comforter. "Why? I don't know. I still don't know. Why did they choose me? Why did they suddenly decide that I was the one that deserved all the ridicule?" She realized she was talking to herself and shamefully wiped away her tears.

They'd hurt her physically by tripping her, pushing her, shoving her, pulling her hair, pinching her and all other kinds of bodily harm. They'd hurt her emotionally by excluding her from all social games from the playground to the classroom to the gym to the music room to the art room. But worst of all, they'd shattered her mental resolve.

The girl, once so bright, bold and confident had shrunk away to a shadow— bitter and afraid of the people around her. She kept her head bowed so she could not see the stares directed at her. She shuffled her feet in hopes of not drawing attention to herself. She refused to speak because of the ridicule she received whenever she opened her mouth.

And for what?

She still didn't know the answer. But it was far too late. She'd already been destroyed.

She pulled her knees to her chest and sobbed into her blanket. She mourned for her lost childhood. The lost friends. The torment had ebbed away and she could no longer remember any of their faces. The children who had made her feel like below dirt during her elementary school years had dispersed into a big blur of anguish and torment. But it didn't matter. Their reasons and their motives, their pain and torture… it meant nothing to her now.

She closed her eyes and tried to sleep again. There was no use in trying to forget what had happened to her.

But there was no point in remembering either.

"What have you done?" the voice demanded. A glare was sent towards the speaker. The woman baffled at the mess that had left her kitchen in ruins. "Inuyasha! What have you done?"

"Shut up!" an angry voice demanded, his eyebrows furrowed into a brow. He tossed long silver hair over his shoulder and sneered at his grandmother. "Just shut up!"

"Inuyasha!" his zadie said with a frown. "Don't talk like that. What have you done to our house? It's in complete ruins!"

"I lost my video game!" Inuyasha sneered. "Keh!"

The elderly couple exchanged looks. "Inuyasha!" Kaede demanded, her lips pursed and her face an unhealthy shade of white. "That's no excuse to trash the house completely! You'll be cleaning this up and doing chores to make up for the damages."

"Hell no!" the boy screamed, grasped a giant bowl that held fruit and lifted it over his head. He screamed again and, before his guardians could stop him, had thrown a bowl at his zadie. The man yelped in surprise as the thing crashed at his feet and shards of glass flew around them. "You can't control me, damn it!"

"Inuyasha!" He didn't listen to the protest because soon he was running from the kitchen, stomping through the house and knocking down whatever he came in contact with. His anger only grew when he heard his grandmother mutter, "And he was such a happy child…"

Inuyasha felt his anger seethe and he grasped a vase on his way up the stairs. "Shut up!" he screamed at the top of his lungs and threw the vase against the wall, thrilled at seeing the shattered glass shoot through the air. The boy, even though only at the age of twelve, was extremely short tempered and violent.

He smirked as he entered his room and slammed the door shut for good measure. He stared at himself in the mirror of his bathroom and opened his mouth, revealing canines he'd sharpened with a nail filer one night when he was bored and over at Naraku's house.

He poked one of his teeth and frowned when the mock fangs did not draw blood. How tedious. He'd have to sharpen them soon. His dentist warned that it was extremely bad for his teeth, but he really didn't care enough to stop. He didn't care about anything. Life was stupid and pointless— especially in the hellhole he called home.

Clawed nails —also sharpened in spare time— groped the jewelry that hung from his neck. The dog tags his mother had given him… the mother he didn't even know.

"Inuyasha," Kaede had told him one day. "You're mother left this for you so that you'll always remember where you came from. She may not be here with you now, but she did love you. She wants you to wear this so you'll always remember her."

"Bullshit," Inuyasha said to his reflection, observing his ruffled and rough features. His eyebrows seemed to be permanently creased in a furrow and his lips quirked downwards in a frown. His teeth were pointed, and his hair was long and shaggy, falling to the middle of his back. "Heh," he laughed without mirth. "Who could love me?"

His mother had abandoned him and his Bubbie expected him to believe that she actually loved the monster she'd given birth to. He glared at his reflection.

"She fucking hated me!" he snapped to himself— he wasn't trying to convince anyone. He already knew the truth. His mother had abandoned him for his father.

He sneered. "I hope you're dead, bitch!"

He looked at the Star of David hanging from his neck. The reason he wore it? He wasn't sure. He was not religious in the least. He was really only nominally Jewish. Had it not been for his grandparents he wouldn't even know what Judaism celebrated.

He released the star and cracked his knuckles. "I hate this place."

He heard a knock at the door and he whipped his head around. He growled and marched towards it, throwing it open. It smashed against the wall with a loud bang. "What do you want?" he demanded as he glared up at his zadie.

The man was much older. He'd aged significantly over the past few years after Inuyasha had become the way he was. It had become clear that he had an anger management problem, as well as a violent streak a mile long. He also had a tendency to go out of his way to break the rules. He glared up at the man.

His face was wrinkled and he looked positively old, at least twenty years older than he truly was. "Inuyasha," he said gravely. "This needs to stop. We can't allow this anymore."

Inuyasha sneered. "Keh! Whatever!"

"Inuyasha…" The boy felt a harsh hand on his shoulder as he turned away. He was whipped back and slammed against a wall. Wide golden eyes looked up at his zadie and for a brief moment he was scared.

Then he smirked. "Go ahead. Hurt me. You know you'll pay for it in the end." He was cocky. He knew. He laughed bitterly. "You won't hurt a hair on my head."

His zadie cursed as he glared at the boy. He was too observant. He knew that his grandfather was too soft and caring to hurt his youngest grandson.

"Inuyasha, this has to stop," he heard his grandmother behind his zadie. Inuyasha sneered.

"You don't even try to understand me!" Inuyasha snapped angrily and pushed his zadie away. The man stumbled in his step in surprise, not expecting the preteen to overthrow him. Inuyasha glared at him when he made a step towards him. "I'm going out," he decided firmly and moved towards the stairs. His bubbie blocked his way. "Move," he commanded.

"Inuyasha," Kaede said softly. "We want to help you. We want to understand you. If you'd just let us help you—"

"I said move," Inuyasha snapped and pushed his grandmother backwards with such force that she was unable to keep her balance. Her husband tried to stop her, but it was too late; the woman was toppling down the staircase.

"Mr. Cohen?" called a voice and Inuyasha's zadie looked up, his eyes worried. He stood at once.

"Is she okay?" he demanded, staring at the doctor fearfully. He kept a death grip on Inuyasha's shoulders, preventing him from moving. They'd spent hours waiting in the emergency room. Kaede had toppled down the stairs and hadn't awoken.

"Yes. But unfortunately…" The doctor trailed off and sighed. "She's broken a couple of bones and has lost sight in one eye. She'll need to keep it covered from now on."

Despite the morbid news, the grandfather breathed a sigh of relief. He looked incredibly old. "Thank goodness."

The doctor nodded. "You may go in and see her now."

Zadie pulled the boy along. Inuyasha no longer struggled, though he had on the way to the hospital. He didn't want to see his grandmother. He didn't want to see what he'd done. But his grandfather kept a death grip on him and pulled him along.

They entered the room to see Kaede lying down in bed, half her face covered with bandages in an attempt to keep her bad eye from being exposed to light. Her arm was covered in a cast, as was her leg.

"It's not as bad as it seems," Kaede said as her greeting as she shifted as best she could. It was difficult. "I've lost my eye, broken my arm, my leg and two fingers." She pursed her lips. "I've also done something odd to my hip, the doctor had some fancy word for it."

Zadie sighed and came to her side. "Are you in pain?" he asked his wife fearfully.

Kaede shook her head and looked up into her husband's golden eyes. "No. But I'll need a cane to walk from now on." Zadie sighed. "It's okay, I'm fine."

Inuyasha stood uncomfortably next to his grandmother. Dark golden eyes stared at the woman as she exchanged words with her husband. He felt a sneer pull his lips back to reveal his mock fangs. Why was he here? He'd seen the damage his grandmother was in. She said she was fine. He didn't have to be here!

"I'm leaving," he declared and turned on his heel, strolling towards the door like he owned the world. A hand clamped down on his shoulder before he could go.

"You're not," Zadie said firmly. "You're going to stay here and we're going to determine your punishment."

"Punishment? What for?" Inuyasha snarled.

Zadie and his bubbie fixed him with a disbelieving look. "Inuyasha," Kaede said calmly. "You pushed me down the stairs. Now, I've told the doctors that I've only fallen… but you intentionally hurt me."

"I did not!" Inuyasha protested with a snarl. "You should have known better than to stand at the top of the stairs!"

"Don't you dare blame this on your bubbie, young man," his zadie demanded, dark golden eyes glaring down at his grandson. "Inuyasha, we care about you and—"

"Shut up!" Inuyasha snapped.

He took a step away from them. "You don't care about me at all! You don't love me either! I'm just some damn whore's son who was dumped on your doorstep." His grandmother gasped and said his name in a chastising way, but he didn't care. "I'm not even human!"

"Inuyasha, don't say that," Kaede said with a look of despair in her eyes. "You're human…"

"Then what the hell are these things on my head?" Inuyasha snapped, pointing to where his ears would be if he were to remove his baseball hat. "Huh? Humans don't have weird ears!"

"Inuyasha." She looked like she was on the verge of tears. "Your ears make you special."

"I don't want to be special! I want to be normal!" he wanted to punch something. Destroy something. "I bet if I were normal my parents wouldn't have left me alone!"

Zadie looked beyond enraged. "Inuyasha, I don't want another word out of you."

Inuyasha snarled. "I'm a freak! I'm a damn dog! What person would want me?"

Before there could be a protest, Inuyasha threw the door open and ran from the room, feeling his heart thundering in his chest.

Inuyasha sat on his bed, silently stroking Midnight as the fat cat dozed lightly in his lap. Golden eyes stared at the dirty floor, something he'd meant to clean up but had been unable to.

He felt disconnected from the world. His tiny TV, that didn't get cable, silently played the video that his grandmother had made for him.

"Inuyasha. We care about you very much. Now that your zadie is gone you're the man of the house."

Inuyasha sighed as Midnight found something of better interest and darted away.

"I love you, Inuyasha. You may be my grandson, but I've treated you like nothing but a son. I'm worried about you, Inuyasha. Your temper has become worse now that your zadie is gone. I know he was taken from you rather suddenly, and that he left you in anger, but you need to know that he loved you very much as well.

"We both love you," the virtual Kaede said with a sad frown. "We hate to see you like this. The doctors and counselors say that if you see a video of the destruction you've caused then perhaps you'll be willing to let us help you. We love you, Inuyasha."

The video camera fizzed and then showed a new scene. The camera panned to the left, making a full circle and showing the viewer the destruction that was the kitchen. "You did this, Inuyasha. You destroyed the kitchen because I wouldn't let you have dessert."

Inuyasha felt a sting of guilt run through him. He remembered that day all too well. The camera darted to a new scene. There was a boy sleeping. But even in sleep, his dark brows were furrowed and his long silver hair tumbled over his bed. There were cans of beer on his bedside table. A withered and old hand grasped the can and showed it to the camera.

"This is what you've become, Inuyasha. You were a happy child. But even in sleep you're cursed with your anger." The sleeping boy shifted in his sleep and mumbled something. The camera panned back to show his whole figure, his body distorted in a weird position as he slept. "When did you become angry? Why? Do you truly feel as unloved as you say you do?"

The camera changed again. Inuyasha watched the movie silently. He remembered his binge drinking with Naraku. It was odd, thinking back on it. He was only twelve, going on thirteen, yet he'd already gotten drunk before. He'd never touched illegal drugs, though. Maybe a couple of cigarettes here and there, but he'd never gone towards the illegal stuff like the hard narcotics.

Inuyasha shifted and stretched on his bed. He remembered seeing that video all too well. His reaction, looking back on it now, was odd. It seemed that his past self had just needed a kick in the pants to see what he'd been doing. He had completely broken down like a little boy and cried.

Very unexpected. Knowing himself back then, he would have expected to throw a fit and to scream at bubbie for invading his privacy. But that had not been the case.

Inuyasha clicked off the tape before it could show more of what he'd done to people and property. It was not a part of himself he'd been proud of. It was because of that boy that his bubbie had originally put him on Doxepin. "He must be depressed," she had told the doctor as she turned to look in the other direction. She couldn't bear to face the boy she knew had more than just depression, if that. "He's always moping around and…"

The memory trailed off as his bubbie named off symptoms of depression. Some he'd never really remembered experiencing. Eventually, though, he was put on the antidepressant despite his disapproval of it. "I'm not depressed!" he'd scream at his grandmother every night after dinner.

The death of his zadie weighed heavily on his mind. The man had passed away shortly after leaving the hospital. He'd chased after Inuyasha but had been unable to find him. He'd searched for hours as he drove around time, looking for some sign of his grandchild.

He'd found him, eventually, and with a great effort managed to get him into the car. The boy had put up an effort but they'd finally managed to start to drive home.

"Let me out," Inuyasha demanded firmly to his grandfather. He sat in the passenger seat with his arms crossed and his eyebrows knitted together.

"No," Zadie said equally as firmly. It was obvious where the younger of the two silver-haired boys had inherited his stubbornness. "We're going home and we're going to talk about what has happened. Your bubbie won't be allowed to leave the hospital until tomorrow. For observation due to her age. But we have some serious issues we need to discuss."

"No!" Inuyasha shrieked with a glare. "I won't. You can't make me."

"Why must you be so difficult?" Zadie snarled as he turned to look at the boy. Inuyasha glared darkly.

They continued to argue. They argued for miles. They started to approach the main road that would lead to their home when Inuyasha turned to his zadie and snarled.

"Why must there always be something wrong with me? Why is it always my fault?" Inuyasha demanded with a dark glare as he fisted his hands. "It's never your fault! Or Bubbie's fault! NO! It's always my fault! Blame the freak, right?"

"Don't say that," Zadie said firmly. "You're not a freak. It runs in our family, you know that."

"Keh! It didn't always! We're just a bunch of freaks living together, aren't we?" Inuyasha demanded with a mirthless smirk.

"Now listen, Inuyasha…"

"NO! You can't make me! I did nothing wrong! I was protecting myself!" Inuyasha protested. A lie, but he didn't care anymore. He could no longer tell the difference between good and bad.

"Inuyasha, if you disobey me one more time…!"

"NO!" Inuyasha screamed and threw his fist out, catching his zadie in the head. The man was surprised and swerved. He turned to look at him, anger in his eyes. But that split second was all it took for the accident to happen.

Inuyasha shook his head, willing the thoughts away. He'd lost his zadie that day simply because he'd thrown his attention away from the road and onto the delinquent. Inuyasha felt guilt wash over him. He'd been the cause of his zadie's death. It was his fault.

After his grandfather's death and after seeing the video Kaede made for him, Inuyasha had come to a decision. He'd promised his bubbie that he'd get better. He wouldn't be the way he was anymore.

Reluctantly he'd agreed to go to a boarding school in Montana. A school named Spring Creek Lodge.

Author's notes: Shorter chapter this time around. Only eighteen pages as opposed to the typical twenty pages. I decided to hold off on some things for next chapter. And, there you go. Kagome's past.

So, I want no more complaining about how wimpy Kagome is. She was traumatized as a child. Get some respect. People don't suddenly sprout courage (at least not under normal circumstances). I'm sorry, but that's a pet peeve of mine. So is the "I hate you, how could you do that to poor Kagome/Inuyasha? Oh well, I sill love you and your story" reviews. I mean, I'm flattered that I get reactions from people, but it's still a little annoying and discouraging—whether the reviewer meant to be or not.

Lots of fanart this time around. I'd like to thank all my readers, reviewers, and fanart artists!

Fanart:

(By me)
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(By Lil'Inu-yasha)
www(.)deviantart(.)com(/)deviation(/)17197876
www(.)fanfiction(.)net(/)s(/)1918035(/)6

(By Josie101)
www(.)deviantart(.)com(/)deviation(/)17284793