With a sharp jerk, Kalanie tore free of Masaru's grip. Her boots clacked against the polished floor as she lurched into a sprint, racing for Nomi's Shell.

Iron pulsed on every horizon of her senses, nearly overwhelming in its volume, and she seized that strength, readying to throw any steel she could get her hands on directly at the machine. She could shatter it, break Nomi free, tear him from this hellscape—

"Oh, I don't think so, Kal. Freeze."

Her legs locked up, but the force of her momentum carried her torso forward even as her feet stopped answering. It sent her tumbling to the floor, and she shoved out her palms just in time to stop her chin from cracking against the tile.

Anger pulsed like a second heartbeat in her veins as she struggled to her knees. His compulsion grated against her every movement, but she batted it away. He'd meant her to stop running, not for her to be entirely motionless. She could move. She would move.

And she could still use her iron. She didn't need to run for that.

Her memory flitted back to her training sessions alongside the detectives and their allies. More than once, she'd managed to control iron without physical contact. It wasn't an impossibility. Not after all they'd taught her.

With that in mind, she gritted her teeth and threw her power at Nomi's tank. Trapped behind a layer of glass, the iron pooled around him was slow to respond. Stubbornly, she pushed harder, focusing every drop of energy she'd accumulated into the act of calling on that metal.

Still, it didn't answer.

A snarl wrenched from her throat. She crawled forward. A foot. Then two. The weight of his compulsion was like hundreds of pounds bearing down on her shoulders, but in the end, it wasn't his words that stopped her but Masaru himself.

His strides languid and relaxed, he stalked in front of her and bent until his eyes met hers. "Hello, Kalanie. Woken up at last, I see. I'd almost begun to think I'd imagined your rebellious spirit." He chuckled, sick pleasure glinting in his eyes. "I missed you."

She ignored him. At last, her power had brushed against the iron floating in Nomi's tank, and she struggled desperately to sink her control into the molten metal, seizing it like a beast grappling prey with sharp claws. It flowed sluggishly in answer, lapping against the edge of the tank, but try though she might, proper manipulation evaded her.

The iron remained out of reach.

She couldn't break Nomi out.

"Stop fighting."

As if he'd flicked a switch, her energy dissipated.

Shaking his head, seemingly disappointed in her, Masaru settled on the floor. Careful not to wrinkle his pants, he crossed his legs into a neat pretzel and rested his hands atop his knees. Then he watched her, his smile innocuous, his eyes lit with mirth, looking for all the world as if this were a perfectly normal conversation—as if he weren't her tormentor, her brother's captor, her most vile adversary.

"If you have questions, Kal, now's the time to ask them."

"I'll kill you," she hissed. "For what you've done to him, I'll kill you—"

"No. You won't."

Still hunched on her knees, her palms pressed flat against the tile floor, she spat at him. Her spittle splattered across his cheeks. A grimace twitched onto his lips as he dragged a sleeve across his chin, but his temper remained unchanged—still perfectly idle, entirely at ease.

"I will kill you," she vowed, meeting his gaze unwaveringly. "I will make you wish you never found us. Not me. Not my brother. You'll wish the Fall never happened. You'll wish you never came looking for puppets in the Forest of Fools. It will be the most glorious thing I've ever done. It will—"

"These aren't questions, Kal."

"I have no questions for you."

He clucked his tongue. "You and I both know that's not true."

And truth be told, he was right.

She hated him. She wanted him dead. Nothing he said would ever change that. But that didn't mean answers weren't in order.

For a moment, her gaze flicked to Nomi. Hell, she had so many things to say to him, so many apologies to make, so many requests for forgiveness. More than that, she wanted him to know how much she loved him, that she would love him until her last wretched day amongst the living. And beyond it, too. She would love him as her soul waited for processing in Spirit World. She would love him as Koenma ruled on her fate and dictated the punishment befitting her crimes these last years. And she would love him throughout whatever came after, in the great beyond that waited after a soul's time ended in the three worlds.

But she couldn't tell him any of that. Not while he was in the Shell. In there, he was lost to her. Perhaps he was even lost to himself.

Masaru sighed. "You're running out of time, Kal."

Curling her hands into tight fists, she rocked backward until her butt hit the floor. "Why? What fresh hell is on the horizon?"

Masaru's laughter echoed off the empty walls. "Have I said how much I missed you? This real you, I mean. These last weeks of your company have been terribly lonely."

"You told me to ask questions," she snapped. "Answer them."

He rolled his eyes, but complied. "Taku is on his way. He expects the new Shell to be operational by the time he arrives. Meaning your Shell, Kal."

"Because your timeline changed?"

"Correct." With a pleased grin—as if she'd at last seen the light and was behaving rationally—he continued, "We'd intended to hold off on your installation until our fresh troops arrived; however, Yusuke Urameshi and his band of demon traitors changed our plans. A few hours before dawn, they launched an attack on our training compound in the Forest of Fools. Inconvenient, as you might imagine, but it's created a unique opportunity."

He paused deliberately, waiting until she prompted him to explain further. "An opportunity for what?"

"To attack that dismal shrine they call home. You see, they've left it undefended. How they learned about our training center I can't say, but in their haste to destroy it, they've left themselves vulnerable."

A knot of anxiety gathered in Kalanie's gut—the first emotion that had gripped her since they arrived at this hidden lab. Had the detectives truly been so foolish? So blind?

She fought to keep her voice even as a lie formulated on her tongue. "You think you can attack the shrine without your full strength? They won't have left it defenseless. Those left behind will—"

"Die. They will die, and it won't be a contest. Once you get us past their barrier, they'll have no means to protect the weakling humans they've penned in like sheep for a slaughter." He wet his lips, his eyes narrowing a hair's breadth. "Perhaps we owe them our thanks, to be truthful. After all, they've gathered every human psychic for miles in one place. A weak bunch, but an annoyance nonetheless. Wiping them from the worlds will be a favor to all demonkind."

"You're wrong."

"I'm not. Why don't you see it, Kal? Demons like us deserve to rule these worlds. Not Spirit World goons. Nor Human World maggots. We are stronger than them. We are bolder. Braver. I wish you wouldn't fight our destiny."

No.

None of that was true.

Kuwabara rose in her memory. So vibrantly alive. So staunchly loyal and unwaveringly fierce. He was living proof of what humanity could be. Just as Yusuke and Kurama were evidence of the ways humanity and demonkind could coexist. A half-breed. A demon soul living alongside a human's, sharing a single body. Ten years ago, they would have seemed as farfetched as any grand myth.

But they weren't.

The detectives were proof of life as it could be—as it should be.

Maybe the barrier between worlds was necessary to protect that way of life. Or maybe it wasn't. Either way, Taku and Masaru's intentions were wrong. Crushing humanity beneath the collective brutality of demonkind wasn't a future she would ever be a part of. Not by choice.

Perhaps she should have been afraid, sitting there, ten feet from the Shell created to steal away her strength and another ten feet from the machine that had ravaged Nomi for nearly two years, stripping away his life and strength and vibrancy until he was nothing but the husk floating before her now. Perhaps all of that should have awoken fear.

Yet it didn't.

She felt only a sense of sudden clarity. This was her moment. Her final stand. If she could outwit Masaru, Nomi might have a future—even if it didn't include her. If she failed, she was destined for the Shell. There were no other options, no shades of gray. A fork waited on her path into the future, and now was her chance to decide which route suited her.

It wasn't really a choice.

"Do you realize he's dying?"

A crease darkened Masaru's brow. "The first Shell, you mean?"

"My brother. He's not a machine. He's not the Shell. He's my brother. And yes, him. He's dying in there. Surely Taku hasn't missed that key detail in his grand schemes?"

"No, he hasn't."

She kept her voice impassive, channeling the even steadiness that marked Hiei's patterns of speech. "That doesn't worry you? If he dies, how will you keep the barrier down?"

"Simple," Masaru said. "You."

Her mask nearly cracked, but she staved off the rush of unease roiling in her chest. "I'm not strong enough to produce the power he does."

"You don't need to be." He fiddled with his watch, checking the time before continuing. "We've known for awhile that the first Shell isn't feasible long term. He requires too much iron—runs through it much too quickly. Since the first day it came online, Taku has been searching for a better technique." With a smug dip of his head, he indicated the new Shell at her back. "He's created an amplifier, a means of doing more with less. You'll be enough. For a few months at least. Once we've tapped you dry, we'll find another. Your kind is rare, but not so atypical that we can't replace you."

His words sent a wave of cold snaking down her spine, but she filed away everything he'd revealed, refusing to dwell on it. If miraculously she ever managed to escape, she could worry about his secrets then.

For now, all that mattered was freeing Nomi.

Somehow.

"Then you don't need him." She chose each word carefully, laying them out before Masaru like concrete, irrefutable facts. "I can take his place. If you'll free him, I'd do it by choice."

He shook his head, pity written across his features. "We don't need you to choose. Don't play dumb, Kal. It doesn't suit you."

She didn't rise to his bait. "What's the sense in keeping him?"

She glanced up at Nomi. The iron in his tank had dropped a few inches as the rust around his feet was siphoned away. His eyes remained closed, his body kept standing by a harness around his chest, not his own will. He looked no more alive than a corpse.

A sob threatened to rise in her throat, but she choked it down. "Look at him, Masaru. He doesn't have long. Let him be free—let him be free and I'm yours. However you want me."

A beat of silence descended, disturbed only by the faint beeping of a distant machine. Masaru sat frozen, his lips half-parted, his eyes widened in surprise.

For a desperate moment, she wanted to take the offer back. She couldn't be his. It would kill her—not her body, but her soul. Then her thoughts flicked unbidden to Hiei, to the animalistic rage he'd exhibited when she'd revealed what Masaru wanted from her. He'd sworn to murder the puppeteer if he forced Kalanie to bend to him—but this wasn't the sort of manipulation Hiei had envisioned.

This was for Nomi.

And she'd do anything for him.

Anything.

But before she could further humiliate herself, Masaru stood, rising fluidly and smoothing out his pants with firm swipes of his palms. "Sorry, Kal. Too little, too late. We've a plan, and I won't deviate from it. Now stand."

She did so.

For the first time, her panic broke past the walls she'd built, bringing with it tendrils of the fog. She curled her hands into fists around the hems of her sleeves. "Think of what we could be together. I want this. I'm choosing you—"

Masaru moved like lightning, seizing her with a viciousness she'd rarely seen from him. His fingers clamped tight as vices around her biceps. "You're choosing him. Your brother. Not me. No more lying. No more games. You had your chance to pick the right future, and you turned it down. Now I'm picking for you." With a parting squeeze, he shoved her toward the second Shell. "Get in."

Her legs carried her forward, but she stared back at him. Desperate, she resorted to pleading, whatever traces of dignity she'd once possessed long forgotten. "You could do this for me. You could make it right—all of it. You—"

"I could. But I won't. Now, silence."

The compulsion locked her voice away, and every attempt to speak sent wracking coughs through her chest.

When she reached the Shell, her hands rose of their own accord, bracing against the tank as she stepped through an opening in the glass. Her boots clanked against the ceramic base.

She hadn't even turned around before Masaru shut the tank's opening and latched the glass into place. It formed a perfect seal, utterly without cracks, and at the press of a button, molten iron began to pump into the container, rising around her ankles and quickly climbing up her shins.

Unlike Nomi, she wasn't intubated. What that meant she couldn't be sure, but Masaru seemingly read the question in her eyes. His voice came through the glass slightly distorted. "You'll only be in there a day or two—for now. No need for feeding tubes yet."

As panic rose, bile surging into her throat in its wake, she banged a fist against the glass. It didn't give—not even when she threw a shoulder against it.

"Be still."

Her muscles locked up.

Masaru heaved a sign. "I wish it hadn't gone this way, Kal. I hope you know that."

Had she the means, she would have told him all that she did know. That he was scum. The worst filth in all the worlds. That she would never hate another soul the way she despised him. That dreams of his death would give her comfort in oblivion.

But as the iron level rose over her hips, sending her aura spiking impossibly high, and he flipped a new switch, she remained incapable of any movement at all, let alone speech.

With a crackling thrum, the Shell stirred to life. Instant pain blackened the edges of her vision as the machine siphoned her newfound energy away, bleeding it from her frame, tearing it from her bones. Only Masaru's compulsion kept her standing.

She thought, then, of Nomi. How he had lived like this for months. Alone. Enduring the unbearable. And she wished she could look at him, that she could find him through the growing darkness and gather him in her arms, taking him with her into whatever came next. Together, maybe they could face it.

But she couldn't turn her head. She couldn't even shift her eyes.

So it wasn't Nomi's face she saw as consciousness slipped away.

It was his.

She saw him not in person, not standing next to Masaru in that sterile laboratory, but within her mind, blazing like a beacon against the pain. Dark hair. Crimson eyes. Purple light shining from his forehead.

–Resist. Hold out.–

His strength buoyed hers, forcing back the dark, shutting out the searing pain, and with his help, she clawed her way back to the surface. The lab sharpened into focus, bringing with it Masaru's somber features, the downward turn of his lips. Other than the puppeteer, the facility seemed deserted.

Where was Hiei? How was he in her mind?

Or maybe he wasn't. His voice, his face, his heat—they might all be imaginings of her failing intellect. A last defense against the Shell's onslaught.

–I'm not a trick.–

He pushed an image to her. Moonlight gleamed off orange leaves. Tree trunks blurred past at ludicrous speed. Then there was the silver flash of his katana, a puppet falling before the blow.

It was unmistakably the Woods of War. His victim must have been one of Masaru's guards meant to protect the laboratory. Swift and merciless, Hiei had cut him down like he was nothing.

–Keep your wits. Be ready. Two minutes.–

Ready for what?

–I'm getting you out.–

No. Not her.

Nomi.

He had to get Nomi.

She hurled the idea at him with every fiber of her being, forgetting all else in the urgency of her conviction. His target had to be Nomi. Her freedom meant nothing, not if it meant leaving Nomi behind to die.

If Hiei heard her, he gave no indication.

She pressed harder, screaming with everything but the voice she no longer controlled. Nomi. Save Nomi.

Hiei didn't listen.

AN: I know this chapter was very light on the YYH gang (as have been the last few), but that is almost behind us. Forgive me for the intense, tight focus on Kalanie!

I've turned in my revisions to my agent, which means I can go back to drafting this story. Can't wait to dive back in! I'm so glad I never ran out of pre-written material to update with.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed last chapter! Hope you enjoyed this one.