"Well, it looks like you and Inuyasha need a little time apart from each other." Her mother's kind tone didn't hide the concern in her eyes, and Kagome felt a pang of guilt at the look in the woman's soft eyes. She had thought it would be better now, now that Naraku was dead and the jewel was in her hands. She hadn't ever thought that Inuyasha could turn on her like that… not again.

"Yeah, but…"

"Kagome, I told you when he first arrived that that demon was trouble. You should never have had anything to do with him."

"Yeah… thanks Gramps." So he claimed. For quite some time now her grandfather had been pretty used to having Inuyasha around, and had at least seemed to like him. As for saying he was trouble, all he'd managed to do was place a useless seal on the well and insist that he would protect her, on top of that all he'd managed to do was throw another useless sutra at Inuyasha, and scream something about banishing evil demons.

"Well you should have listened to me. Now we see his true colors."

"Gramps…" It was still her first instinct to jump to his defense, for some reason she just couldn't help herself, but Kagome bit on her tongue to keep them in, but the words continued to spill out of her, "He was just… upset… and got a little carried away… it's not like he would have actually hurt Sota, or any of you." She hoped. That look in his eyes earlier had been… terrifying, but she knew Inuyasha… he wouldn't hurt a kid or anyone that didn't deserve it.

"He hurt you." She thought the words just as Sota swung into the doorway to say them, revealing his hiding place and that he had been eavesdropping the entire time. Kagome glanced past her mother's back to stare at her younger brother. She'd never seen that look on her younger brother's face. Sota's eyes were practically glowing with anger, his mouth tense like he was clenching his jaw. She could see his small hands were curled into fists at his sides.

"Sota…" She didn't have a chance to say anything else before her mother stood and walked to the doorway. Whatever the woman said was too quiet for her to hear, but after a few moments her brother nodded and walked away leaving them to finish the discussion in private.

"He'll be all right, he's just a little upset." She offered a small smile as she sank into the chair she'd vacated moments before and turned back to the conversation. "Now as I was saying it seems you and Inuyasha should take a break Kagome, just until he calms down."

"But I can't make him stay away! Every time I tell him not to come back he won't listen." She crossed her arms and leaned back in the chair, wondering why they were trying to make this sound like she'd brought it upon herself.

"Then we'll seal up the well again."

"Gramps that didn't work the first time, do you honestly think it'll do any good now?" She sighed, "I'll just have to talk to him about it or something."

"Absolutely not."

"What?" Her mother had never used that tone, she was always soft spoken, patient, she never snapped, never spoke very harshly to any of them, and she especially never said no. Kagome stared at her in shock for a long moment.

"Kagome…" With a soft sigh her mother turned to her, "After last night I don't think you speaking with Inuyasha alone is the best of ideas."

"Then what am I supposed to do? He's going to keep coming back after all."

"Then you'll just have to go stay somewhere safe for a few days."

"More like a few months." He wasn't going to cool down that quickly, particularly not about this stupid jewel and his stupid wishes for it.

"Then if that's what it takes."

"Mom, I can't just go stay at a friend's house for a few months."

"I know dear." There was a slightly pained look on her mother's face, a look that made Kagome want to run instantly to her side, "I didn't want to tell you this… not until you and Sota were older at least, but…"

"You didn't want to tell us what?"

"I didn't want you to think badly of your father you understand, all I ever wanted was for you to love him, he was your father after all."

"Mom, what are you talking about?" Why wouldn't she love her father? What could he have possibly done that was so bad?

"You have to understand… it wasn't… oh Kagome I don't even know how to tell you this."

"Oh, come on Yusuke, you remember her…"

"If I did wouldn't I say something about it?" His voice was loud, even coming from the other room. Leaning against the wall Kurama did his best to keep from eavesdropping, but with the volume they were speaking at it was nearly impossible. He ignored Hiei's questioning look, leaving it to the blue haired Botan to explain the situation to the annoyed red-eyed demon that had just entered through the open balcony door.

"What is taking so long?" Hiei demanded sharply, his annoyed glance sliding over the mostly closed bedroom door.

"Oh, just some family things. Yusuke just found out he has a sister… well a half sister, and his mother has arranged for her to come visit." Botan smiled in a way that she found only gossip could put on her face, "Things are going to get interesting around here for a while."

"He wasn't aware he had a sister?"

"Apparently not." Botan sighed, "I'm afraid this may take a while."

"Mom! I don't even know her name."

"Ka… something. She'll be here soon you can ask her what her name is then."

"That's nice, but I've got plans."

"There's something more important than meeting your only sister? What kind of kid are you?"

"I guess I take after my mother."

"Yeah whatever, look I've got places to go. Watch the house while I'm gone Yusuke." They heard Yusuke stammer a little before a distant door opened and closed loudly.

"Well this is just GREAT!" He punched the door half-heartedly to open it, looked at them like he'd forgotten they were there in the first place, "Sorry, guys I got caught up." Grumbling to himself he made his way across the room, searching through his random belongings, trying to find the compass Botan had given him. The knock at the door earned only a groan from him, grumbling Yusuke glanced over his shoulder, "One of you get that, I'm kind of busy."

Sighing Kagome adjusted the backpack strap digging into her shoulder and dropped the suitcase in her hand. She nervously rechecked the address against the one her mother had written on the slip of paper in her hand, her nerves finally pushing through the shock she'd been living in for the last week. It was still almost impossible to believe what she'd heard in the kitchen of her family's home only a week before. Her father had had a second family, she had a brother she'd never heard about. Everything had happened so quickly, her grandfather had surrounded the house with his sutras, attempted to seal off the well, not that it had done any good after all, she'd seen Inuyasha return, but due to the seals she'd obtained from Miroku and secretly used to replace her grandfather's had kept him from entering the house, but it was the news that her mother had come home with. She was not only meeting her newly found brother, she was going to live with him and his mother for the next few months. She hadn't wanted to, but she'd agreed to come, understanding her mother's reasons for wanting her away from the shrine for a while. It wasn't like she'd never been away from home for that long before after all, the only difference was that now she wasn't going to be wondering around a different time period fighting with demons, she would be in another city, going to a new school, and hoping that she could get home soon.

But apparently she hadn't been the only one to have troubles lately, apparently her brother's family wasn't long out of a hard patch themselves, several accidents, including one that they had thought had been fatal, but her brother's mother, Atsuko, had been happy to have her come. And while leaving home wasn't easy Kagome was sort of glad to find a chance to settle into a relatively normal life far away from time traveling through mysterious wells with short-tempered demons and without the harassment of that same temperamental half demon.

"And all of this over you." She murmured under her breath, examining the nearly complete jewel hanging from the keychain in her hand. No one in the modern era was searching for the jewel, but she didn't want it to seem special and draw anyone's attention to it. She wanted the jewel to seem like only a copy, a trinket that was only sentimentally important. Still as the door began to open she stuffed the keychain back into her pocket and looked up into a pair of bright green eyes framed by shockingly red hair. "Oh… um…" She mentally kicked and scolded herself for having not spent more time thinking of what to say when she got here, "I'm looking for Atsuko Urameshi…"

Something inside of Kurama shivered away from her, sending an uncomfortable shudder through him, but even as he examined her he couldn't see anything that should have caused it. She seemed like any other girl really, black hair that hung down to her shoulders, big brown eyes in a pale face, eyes that met his shyly, full of uncertainty and what appeared to be the faintest traces of fear.

"Um… I'm sorry to bother you… could you maybe tell me which apartment it is, it looks like my mother gave me the wrong address."

He shook himself inwardly and offered an apologetic half smile, " Forgive me, she gave you the right address, I was… thinking." He stepped to one side, "Please come in." He closed the door quietly behind her and turned back into the room.

"Are you…?"

"I'm a friend of Yusuke's, he's otherwise occupied at the moment." Kurama reached for the suitcase she carried, "Allow me." He avoided flinching as his fingers brushed hers and something close to a strong static shock just short of jamming his finger into an electrical socket and instantly found himself frozen. Instinctively his power rose to counter the threat that was coming. He glanced from his hand to her slightly narrowed eyes, and smiled again, "Static." He murmured and turned away leading her down the hall toward Yusuke's room. There was definitely something odd about this girl, he just wasn't quite certain what yet.

"Hey, where the hell did you go Kur…" Yusuke froze outside his door, his coat only on one shoulder as he stretched. "What the…"

"Yusuke, I believe this is your sister." Kurama moved slightly to the side, expecting to see a warm family moment, and instead only witnessed feigned disinterest and nervous eye shifting.

So far this was going great. Sighing inwardly Kagome swallowed on her nerves and moved forward a little, holding out her hand, "Hi… I'm Kagome." Her hand trembled a little in the air for a long moment before she gave up and dropped it back to her side, absently smoothed the side of the sweater she wore over her favorite yellow sundress, dropped her eyes nervously to the ground, almost afraid of meeting his as he watched her coldly.

"Oh… come on Yusuke say hello. She seems absolutely delightful." A young woman with blue hair rushed past him through the doorway and caught her hand in a way that made Kagome cringe just a little, and despite her attempts to pull away simply wouldn't release her, "Hello, I'm Botan, it's so nice to meet you. Forgive Yusuke, he's only just found out about you, but he's really pretty nice once you get to know him."

"Botan!" Yusuke sighed and turned away, "We don't have time for this right now."

Well, it looked like this was going to take a while, if she ever managed to get on his good side at all, "I'm sorry, I guess I came at a bad time." Snapping at him wasn't going to do her any good, and Kagome really wanted this to work out well. She was still only adjusting to the idea of having another brother, and she wanted to get along with him, "It was nice to meet you Yusuke, is Atsuko…"

"She's gone, probably won't be back for a while." He interrupted, looking away and back again, rolling his eyes like he was annoyed, "Look, I don't have time to give you a tour, this is my room, yours is that way," He gestured over his shoulder, and when he looked back was mildly surprised to find her meeting his eyes squarely for the first time.

"I wouldn't want to keep you from something important." Disinterest was the best way to handle this, if she tried too hard she wouldn't get anywhere, "I'll just show myself around… if you don't mind that is?"

"Sure, whatever you want." She refused to move as he came toward her, forcing Yusuke to sidestep and go around her rather than step out of his way, mentally screaming at herself to stand her ground rather than give in to her instinct and move out of his path. She was happy to step aside for the girl he'd called Botan, and found herself returning her smile despite herself. She turned back, her eyes searching for the suitcase only to find it in the hands of the red head who had answered the door.

"You'd better hurry, or they'll leave you behind." She reached for the case, but he was already walking down the hall.

"I won't be that far behind." He pushed the door at the end of the hall open, turned back to smile at her, "You handled that very well."

"oh… thanks." She took a hold of the handle, avoiding his eyes as she did so, "I'm sorry… I didn't hear your name."

"Shuichi," He bowed his head slightly, then turned and started down the hallway, "It was nice to meet you Kagome."

"You too."

He stopped at the front entrance and turned back with a small smile, "Don't worry about Yusuke, I'm sure he'll warm up to you soon enough."