Disclaimer: As always I own nothing but the plot and my original characters. Thanks to all those who have been reading and I look forward to reading your reviews on this latest chapter.

The Old Ball and Chain

Sora opened her eyes and prayed that she hadn't said anything in her sleep, that was all she needed right now. Well at least her brothers and cousins were all right apparently, that was something. Sitting up she saw that everyone was still asleep, well except of course for her father who was standing guard over the rest of the group from the rock Inu yasha had been on early. Getting up without making a sound Sora moved over towards the rock and stood silent beside it.

"You're awake." Sesshoumaru said simply, not bothering to look down at his daughter. He'd been thinking about it all night and had unfortunately come to the conclusion that he needed her to exist, at least for the time being.

"I don't need to sleep much if at all. I just get some of my better ideas when I'm resting." Sora said with a slight smirk as she caught the sound of Shippou snoring lightly from Sango's side where he'd bedded down for the night. Sora wished that Shippou from her time could be here, he didn't believe he snored.

"You said before that you weren't a half demon technically, what did you mean by that?" Sesshoumaru asked, still not looking at her. He hated half demons as much as humans but if her mother was a half demon then that would narrow the list down considerably seeing as most half demons didn't live very long.

"Long story, bad idea to tell you." Sora said with a bigger smirk, knowing her father way to well to fall for his little traps. "You're a lot happier in the future then you are now if that make you feel any better, not that it probably will knowing you."

"Doubtful." Sesshoumaru said quite certain that his life in the future would be Purgatory if he was mated to a human, even if she did possess some demon blood. What on earth had happened that had reduced him to such a pathetic state?

"Humans aren't so bad, they have their good points, you'll see." Sora said knowing that it would be a while before her father would accept that fact, a lot longer if she didn't get rid of Ferio and see to it that history went as planned. "Should I wake the rest of them up or should we let them sleep a little longer?"

"Might as well let them sleep, they're weak and will need what little strength they have to battle the creature." Sesshoumaru said, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge Ferio as a demon. That pathetic creature was an atrocity that wasn't to be connected with the greatness of demon blood. Not to mention the cretin was responsible for his present situation, forcing him to be near his bastard brother and his little friends. At least that damn human male his brother was often with wasn't with them; Sesshoumaru found him nearly as annoying as Inu yasha.

"Gotcha." Sora said and walked off to get something to drink and think about how life was being terribly unfair to her at the moment.

A little while later

"How much further are we going to walk today?" Sango asked Sesshoumaru who had taken the lead with Inu yasha close behind. Sora had said that Ferio would be more likely to head for familiar territory and that meant going into lands that were well populated with demons of the not so likeable sort. Inu yasha and the rest of his group had been heading that way anyway so they weren't complaining about that much, just the pace Sesshoumaru was setting.

"I can carry him." Sora said referring to Shippou who now resided in Sango's arm after walking for three hours straight. The poor little fox just couldn't handle the pace and Sango had picked him up rather then have the fox start lagging behind, incurring Sesshoumaru's wrath.

Looking at the girl closely Sango held out the sleeping fox demon and raised an eyebrow at the way the young girl took the boy so carefully and cradled him gently in her arms as she moved forward to walk quietly beside her father, the two reflections of each other as she carried Shippou with an ease that suggested she was use to it.

'Those two must be very close in the future, she guards him like he was her own. She tolerates his questions about the future pretty well too." Kagome commented to Sango as she walked beside her friend feeling like she was going to collapse at any moment from exhaustion. And she'd thought Inu yasha set a hard pace, his was child's play compared to this. "I bet it feels good to lose his weight huh?"

"It wasn't so bad, Kagome." Sango said with a rather weak smile as she tried to ignore the way her body was screaming at her to let it rest and re- energize. It was nice to lose Shippou's weight but her muscles were still crying out for mercy either way.

"Something is coming." Sesshoumaru said to no one in particular as his nose caught the smell of someone approaching rapidly. It was faintly familiar but he couldn't place it. "I don't recognize the smell."

"I don't recognize it either. What's today? Perhaps one of you has mentioned this meeting and I can help." Sora asked thinking that maybe that would give her some idea of where she should steer them after this was over.

"It's the fifteenth of October." Kagome said cheerfully as she tried to ignore her feet and losing the battle. She was really out of shape but looking at it positively she was likely losing weight too and that was always good.

"The fifteenth." Sora muttered to herself as she tried to remember why that date struck her as being an important one. It wasn't anyone's birthday and it wasn't a human holiday, what happened on the fifteenth of October? And why did she have this really, really bad feeling that whatever the significance was it wasn't a positive thing.

"Piss anyone off lately, Fluffy?" Inu yasha asked not liking this at all as they looked around them cautiously. He hadn't even seen what was approaching yet and already he had a bad feeling that whatever it was he wasn't going to look forward to meeting it.

It was that comment that jogged her memory. "You're eighteen, Aunt Kagome." Sora said spinning on her heels to look at Kagome like her answer was a matter of life or death; which in Sora's case wasn't an exaggeration.

"Yea why? What's the matter, Sora?" Kagome asked not liking the look of horror on Sora face at all.

"That foul smelling rodent. That diseased, ugly son of a bitch times ten." Sora said, her eyes flashing dangerously looking more like Sesshoumaru by the minute. "It's bad enough that he had to come here at all and cause all this trouble but no, that wasn't enough, he had to come in October. That asshole!"

"What's so important about October?" Sango asked with a raised eyebrow at the look on the girl's face. Whatever it was, it wasn't good.

"Rin come here." Sora said shortly as the smell of their approaching visitor drew closer. Unsure but deciding to trust Rin hurried over to Sora and was promptly picked up and settled against Sora's shoulder. "Why don't I take these two for a quick walk and meet you guys back here in an hour? Okay, bye." She said quickly before going bounding off into the air, ignoring her father's demand to stay put.

"I think whatever's coming is definitely not a good thing." Sango said as she unhooked her boomerang. "Big trouble."

"I believe you're right." Sesshoumaru said as he pulled his sword from its sheath. "You might want to arm yourself Inu yasha, I have a feeling you're going to need whatever help you can get."

"For probably the first time in your life you could be right about something." Inu yasha sneered back as the four formed a line, braced as something came charging out of the trees, straight at them with a really piercing shriek of anger.

An hour later

"Why did we leave them behind?" Shippou asked for the billionth time as they flew back at the appointed time; he and Rin securely wrapped in her arms as she dashed from tree to tree as they made their way back after spend the last hour fooling around in a meadow. Sora smelled nice, like lilacs but Shippou wasn't easily won over and Kagome always said it was a warrior's job to look after those weaker then himself so he had to protect Rin, even if she was Sesshoumaru's human.

"I've already explained that to you, Shippou." Sora said with a sigh, hoping that everything that was suppose to happen had happened. It damn well better have or she would be in serious jeopardy of never existing. "There was going to be a small squeamish and I thought it best that we were out of the way."

"But I thought you said before that it was better if we stayed together." Rin pointed out wisely as she enjoyed flying through the air. It was a lot funnier then when she'd gone flying with Kagura, that hadn't been fun.

"Yeah but in this case it wasn't a good idea. If I'd stayed then I probably would have had to fight which might have resulted in me screwing up history big time." Sora said, simplifying it for the girl. They were approaching the clearing where she'd left them and if she wasn't mistaken she recognized the voices yelling all to well.

"Cut this chain off now Inu yasha or I won't be held responsible for what I do to you once I'm free." Sango said pretty much at the top of her lungs. Someone had better get the chain off of her arm quick or heads were going to roll and they weren't going to be hacked off quickly.

"I've already tried a dozen times Sango so quit yelling at me okay!" Inu yasha growled, holding his ears that were ringing from all the yelling. Who knew that she had such a large set of lungs in that slender body?

"Well try again, baka." Sesshoumaru growled as he yanked on his end of the chain with more then a hint of anger. "Or I will." He added as his eyes slitted as he glared at the demon hunter who was yanking on the chain as well; annoying him more then was wise. "You might as well stop that, your pathetic human strength is no match for this."

"Well I don't see your big, strong demon muscles doing any better." Sango said deliberately yanking hard on the chain, hoping to send the demon into the dirt, which would have made the situation a lot more tolerable.

Since this wasn't the first time in the last half an hour that she'd tried to do this Sesshoumaru managed to stay on his feet and hold back the urge to give the chain a good yank of his own. Stubborn, bitch this demon hunter, she was more annoying then he'd ever imagined, now he wanted to kill her more then ever. No wonder the woman had no mate yet, there wasn't a human male stupid enough to want to take her. "Shut up before I cut out your tongue, wench." He ordered before turning his concentration back to the chain, which was currently linking them together in a hell of their own making.

"Don't tell me to shut up you over grown donkey, at least my daughter wouldn't have run away from a fight!" Sango said aiming well below the belt.

"She was trying to keep the timeline from altering too much." Kagome said coming to her niece's defence. "If she'd been here she might have been pulled into the fight. Who knows, maybe she even saved Shippou and Rin from getting hurt."

"She could have at least warned us of what was to happen." Inu yasha said still holding his poor ears. The enemy had turned out to be a psycho sorceress bent on making his brother pay for some infraction. Unfortunately she'd wanted Sesshoumaru to suffer first so she'd decided to chain him to Sango for a while before she killed him. Inu yasha had the feeling that both his brother and Sango would have preferred death.

"If she knew I was going to be chained to you and didn't say anything she's a dead half demon, Sesshoumaru." Sango growled as she tried to twist the bracelet connected to the chain that held them together. The chain was about two meters long which didn't give the two much space and both were feeling the effects.

"Oh man." Sora muttered as she heard Sango's last remark, this definitely wasn't good. She was going to have to play dumb she thought to herself as she landed meters away from them. It had been necessary for this event to happen but she had a feeling that it would be a while before they thanked her for it.

"And where have you been?" Sango said glaring at the girl as she set Shippou and Rin carefully on the ground.

"In a nearby meadow, why are you two chained up like that? Did I miss something? I assumed that there was a battle going to take place. Was I mistaken?" Sora said putting on her most innocent expression which was rather hilarious given her resemblance to her father. A demon looking innocent was hard to believe much less pull off.

"You had no idea this would happen?" Sesshoumaru said having a pretty good idea that she'd known exactly what would happen. The question was why had she risked his wrath by allowing it to happen?

"Well I've had some pretty weird dreams and ideas in the past but I don't think I've ever conjured up something like this." Sora said with a smirk at the very idea. "Well since there doesn't seem to be any major problems what's say we hit the road."

So what did you think of this latest chapter? Sorry about the shortness but that's all I've got in my head so far and I decided that I might as well give you some ideas so that you can send me ideas to help me out. Thanks for reading and please review. Ciao