A/N: Hey, thanks for all the feed-back you guys! :D Oh, and if you have a good anime that you think I should watch, tell me, cause I got nothin' to do…. I just finished D.N. Angel, and trust me, when Dark died, I was pretty depressed…. So yeah. Enjoy!

Inuyasha POV:

"Forty-five…forty-six…forty-seven… forty-eight…forty-nine…fifty! Ha-hah! Take that Higurashi shrine!" I shouted from the top of the stairs. Kagome smirked at me.

"I climb this every day, don't get too cocky!" she told me. I put down her bike, which I had carried up the stairs for her after riding on the back of it for ten minutes, and smirked back at her.

"Oh yeah? Well I climb three flights of stairs several times day, so there!"

"Shut up and come inside already!"

"Okay, okay…" I entered through the door that she had been holding open.

"Moooooom, I'm home!" Kagome yelled. A woman that could only be her mother exited the kitchen with a dish rag in hand.

"Oh, Kagome! And who is this?" she asked, eyeing me. I gave a slightly mocking bow.

"This is Inuyasha mom, he's gonna help me unpack!" Kagome's mother looked at her in some confusion.

"What about Hojo?"

What the… Hojo?

"Tch, mom, Hojo is waaaayyyy too obnoxious to have in our house. Ever."

Yes!

"Come on Inuyasha, let's go get started!" she trilled cheerfully. I just kept thinking one, how thankful I was that Kagome wasn't in any way interested in Hojo, and two, why the hell I would care in the first place! Yes, Kagome was pretty hot, but I normally don't look twice at a girl. No, I'm not gay. Jakotsu found that out the hard way. And anyway, why did this girl look so reminiscent of Kikyo?

Before we could head upstairs however, and old man and a little kid, probably a third grader, entered the already crowded hall.

"Oh, hey Gramps. Sota." Greeted Kagome. I turned my gaze on the pair. A fat calico cat ambled into the room and I scooped it up into my arms and held him to my chest, stroking his ears. The old man was looking at me funny and the boy, Sota I assumed was staring at me too.

"Are you albino?" asked the old guy. What? Who asks someone that? I quickly thought back to that one time I had been watching animal planet. The show had said something about a defect found in animals that gave their fur a white color but the skin still had pigment. The eyes still had color too, but lighter shades than their natural form. The defect had some super long name, and I couldn't remember it.

"The doctor gave it some fancy name, but yeah, I'm considered a partial albino." I lied smoothly. The old man nodded.

"That would explain it. Come along Sota, let's go sweep the yard then." The pair left the room and Kagome's mom went back to the kitchen. I tossed the cat lightly to the floor as we ascended the steps to her bedroom.

Kagome POV:

I pulled open the door and promptly sneezed. The room was dark due to the boarded up window and dust covered every surface up to half an inch thick. Inuyasha peered in.

"Where the heck have you been sleeping?" he asked.

"On the downstairs floor mostly."

"What? That can't be too comfortable."

"It's not, but that's why you're here. Um, here's a hammer, try to get the boards off the window so we have a little light while I go get a vacuum." I passed him the hammer I had been holding and flounced downstairs to look for the cleaning supplies.

Inuyasha POV:

I placed the fanged edge of the hammer against the board and pulled, trying to dislodge it from the wall. I tugged and strained, but the thing was really stuck. Though with my superior demon strength, I pried it free. Unfortunately, when the board came loose, I had exerted too much pressure, and the fanged end of the hammer dug into the flesh of my arm, drawing blood. I dropped the hammer and it fell to the floor with a thunk as I grasped my forearm. Blood dripped over the lip of the small wound and onto the floor.

"Ah, dammit!" I yelled. Kagome choose that moment to walk into the room with a tool-box.

"Oh my gosh! Let me get you a band-aid!" I looked at her.

"It's not like the cut's that deep. It'll stop bleeding in a couple minutes."

"But you're bleeding on my carpet!" she complained. Hm, hadn't really thought of that. Now that she mentioned it, I was getting blood on the carpet. Oops. I sighed

"Fine…"

She returned a few minutes later with a band-aid and slapped it on my arm. We talked while we cleaned; we discussed random things really, but it felt nice to just be myself and talk about nothing. After a few minutes of comfortable silence she brought up something that shouldn't really be spoken about: parents.

"So, you've met my mom, can I meet your parents?"

"I haven't met your dad though." I suddenly smelt salt water. Aw damn, I made her cry.

"He's…gone." She said softly.

"Hey, I'm sorry, I didn't know." She turned around and gave a fake smile.

"No no, it's okay!"

"It's not okay, is it Kagome? You were crying." She sighed.

"Is it that obvious?" I nodded mutely.

"Well, you still have avoided my question. Can I meet your parents?"

I grunted as I pushed a dresser into one corner. "My dad's pushin' up daisies a couple hundred miles to the west. He died a few hours after I was born, so I don't mind none."

"Well, what about your mom?"

"You shut your mouth!" I snapped angrily. I didn't mean to, but my mother was a painful subject. "She…died a long time ago…" I added softly. Kagome stayed quiet and I remembered that day. The day I had found out she was gone.

Flashback

I huddled in the corner of my tripled steel wall cell. The floor was cold, and I was hungry. The last forty-three years of starvation in prison had weakened me, and I leaned, shivering, against the cold metal wall. My identification collar chafed against my neck. You can laugh. It's funny. I was like a dog in a kennel. I was here because I supposedly killed Kikyo. She pulled a hand gun on me, and by the time I found her again she already had that huge wound. She shot me in the chest and somehow I ended up here. I missed my mom, my home, everything. Despite the past years, I had hardly aged. Mom was still alive because she had been mated to my dad. Somehow that lengthened her life-span, but it didn't slow her aging.

But as much as I missed her, I was pissed. She had stopped visiting two years ago. I was brought and annual report on what was going on. I stared off into space for a while. There wasn't much else to do in solitary confinement. The door suddenly opened and a short woman walked in. A bit of spiritual energy flowed about her, but it was weak. That was the minimum requirement in a demon prison. To belong to the Demon's Guard you had to be human, over eighteen and have some purifying power. Not much to ask.

The lady carrying the clipboard was alone, and she looked to be in her mid-thirties. Her dark eyes were indigo and her black hair was pulled into a bun with a few locks of hair framing her face. I wondered why she was here. A quick glance at the tally marks on my wall told me it wasn't time for the annual report on my mother's well-being.

She was looking at me fearfully and I wondered what I looked like to her. My sullen, dull eyes drilled holes in hers and she simply stood there. I had taken enough abuse from other guards to know not to stand up yet. If I came too quickly they would hit me with their spiritual energy to watch me squirm. She didn't move and neither did I. Eventually I stood up and walked over to the iron, sutra enforced bars, gripping them to peer down at her.

"What the hell is going on?" My voice sounded rough from lack of use and dirty strands of silver hair fell over my eyes.

"Are you Inuyasha Taisho?"

I snorted. "Read the collar why don't you." I tilted my head to give her a clear view. She nodded slightly.

"I'm afraid I have some bad news." She said gravely. I continued to look at her blankly.

"What?"

"Izayoi Taisho is dead. She contracted lung cancer two years ago."

"No…" I whispered, stumbling back in horror. "NO!" The cry was ripped from me as I fell to my knees, covering my head with my hands like one would do in an earthquake. That's what it felt like. My world was crumbling around me now that the last person on earth that had ever cared about my well being was gone. I dug my claws into my skull until blood ran down my arms and my filthy silver locks turned crimson. I felt my eyes bleed red as the demon blood took over. I stood in one fluid movement and in the same motion sprinted at the wall and body-slammed it.

"Damn it!" I howled, clawing myself, ripping my already tattered shirt to rags.

"Please…" pleaded the woman, "Please stop hurting yourself…" I rounded on her and smelt her sudden fear at the sight of my face.

"Why" I yelled at her. "No one cares any way! I'm a half-breed! Why," I asked more quietly, "did she have to go?"

She didn't answer, and I knew then, that I was on my own. Even more so than when I had lived out on the street to get away from mom's abusive boyfriend. She was gone, and with her went my hope of having a place to go back to when I got out of this God-forsaken prison.

Flashback end

We had finished setting up her room at about four o'clock, and neither of us brought up out parental tiff. I had to admit, her room looked nice. It was bright and colorful, cheery, like her. If I could get over the fact that she could be Kikyo's twin sister, I think we might just work. But then, there's the slight problem of me. The problem that's always been there, dragging me down like a shark drags a swimmer into the deeps. I'm half-breed. I would never forget that. I'm a half-breed.