Kagura stared at the dumb look that the two women, Kagome and Kikyō, were sharing with one another. She wasn't exactly sure what she'd been expecting from two women who were featured on a book cover like Demons Among Us!—but it was apparently something more intelligent than what she was seeing.
"Uh. I'm sorry, but that book is nonsense." The taller one—Kikyō?—stepped forward.
"Isn't your face on the book?" Kagura checked. Sure, the face on the book was more smiley than the resting bitch face in front of her, but… the similarities were obvious. "And I've read a lot of nonsense. Nonsense does not make a weird loopy black void in space. And nonsense definitely does not make some strange white-haired child come floating out of it."
"You mean pink-haired, right?" The shorter one—Kagome's—eyes widened, which made her look a little bit like a bug.
"No. I mean white-haired. Girl looked like she was the main villain in some creepy doll horror movie. Long, perfectly straight, white hair, with little black flowers in it. The same color as her dead-ass eyes." Kagura couldn't keep the shudder from escaping her.
No one wanted to see the girl from The Ring come floating out of a weird black hole in the sky. She sure as fuck didn't need to see it.
…But that didn't mean she'd deleted the video…
"Wait. Where exactly were you when you saw this phenomenon?" Kagome's voice had become high pitched in a way that made it sound like a squeak.
"Uhhh, Lexington and 130th?" Kagura answered.
"That is nowhere near the first phenomenon!" Kagome's answer really was a squeak now.
"Wait, there have been more of these things?" Kagura had been interested before, but two holes with creepy horror children? Interested had evolved into...fascinated.
"Only one other that we've heard of," Kagome explained. "C—can you tell me everything that you saw?"
"Depends…" Kagura smirked, grabbing her phone. "Tell me everything about this book and why you're talking about multiple phenomena."
"We don't even know you!" Kikyō sputtered, causing Kagome to shoot her a look.
There was a strange tension in the room. As if Kagura had walked in on the middle of some intimate fight between the two women. It was getting annoying. She needed answers, not this.
"Wait, did I walk in on something?" Kagura asked. "Lover's quarrel?"
"What?! No!" came both women's responses.
"She—we were… discussing the book." Kikyō regained her composure, though her almond eyes were still wide.
"Oh, good. Then just consider me part of that conversation." Kagura walked over to the couch and settled herself onto it, crossing her legs.
"That's not how it works!" Kikyō's composure broke again.
Kagura watched the way Kikyō's nose crinkled and her full lips gaped a bit as she was trying to calm herself down. She was sort of cute when she got angry.
"I have a proposition," Kagome stepped in, staring Kagura down with interest. "Tit for tat. You tell us what you saw, we'll tell you if it has something to do with our book or the other incident. It answers your questions and might answer ours too."
"This is ridiculous. This woman is… she's here under false pretenses. Kagome—please, just take down the book! Or take me off as co-author so I can get on with my life..." Kikyō enunciated. "I… I don't want any part of whatever is going on."
Kikyō's eyes darted and she wrung her hands—but even the least observant person in the room would conjecture that she was lying. (Although Kagura had a feeling that she was lying more to herself than to them.)
"Ohhhh. Wait. You're the physicist right?" Kagura directed her gaze at Kikyō. She still wanted answers, plus, Kikyō was tall and cute, and had an easily breakable facade of collectedness that was making Kagura want to push a little further, to see what reactions she could evoke.
"Yes, why?" Kikyō crossed her arms, her lips impossibly thin.
"Very cool. Were I to guess, someone was futzing with your theories to try to make an actual device that gets to the other world," Kagura said simply, trying to suppress a grin as the two women finally paid attention to her.
She'd only scanned the book after picking it up (okay fine, she'd spent the previous night reading it cover to cover), and well… she really really needed to talk to Kagome Higurashi and Kikyō Sekimuro… Thankfully the internet had provided the answers she needed, like Kagome's home address.
"M-making a device?" Kikyō gasped. "Out of… stupid debunked theories?"
"Debunked?" Kagura scoffed; she knew enough physics that the theories in that book were not debunked. Speculative, sure… Kagura closed her eyes. "Let me get this straight. What you're saying is that you published a book full of evidence of a parallel universe that happened to house demons… and then you expounded on those theories to explain how to access said parallel universe." Kagura frowned. "Then I get here saying wacky shit is going down that looks exactly like the damn theories you were talking about, and you… what… are telling me it's bullshit?" Kagura huffed. "I know bullshit, girls. That wasn't bullshit. That was—"
"What exactly did you see…?" Kagome's voice grew soft and soothing, a journalist's voice, designed to coax out Kagura's information.
"Oh, I will get to that…" Kagura teased. "But first… why do you keep saying theories are bullshit?"
"Well," Kagome sighed, "she thinks the theories in that book are bullshit apparently. But I sure don't."
Kikyō scoffed, then pointed her finger at Kagome. "She published it without my permission! She is using my name and my theories to make a quick buck. To further her own fucking reputation!"
Their fight was maybe even more interesting than the other stuff…
"Wait, didn't you two write this book together?" Kagura asked.
"We did write it together… she just was not interested in my publishing it!" Kagome squawked, her eyes wide and angry.
"Ohhhh, I get it. Break up revenge?" Kagura was never one who could keep her mouth shut when things were interesting.
Kikyō's blush and Kagome's gape gave away a whole lot more than they both imagined. Kagura smirked.
"Okay, enough shooting the shit. Kikyō, I am pretty sure that your book is not full of bullshit theories. First? Because they check out. Second? Because the very weird things I saw are predicted by your damn book. And third? Because the white-haired dude and the one that looked like Wormtongue from Lord of the Rings were discussing it," Kagura said. "So… let's keep talking."
"How do you know so much about the theories working?" Kikyō asked, interest sparking in her jeweled umber eyes.
"Oh. The physics?" Kagura grinned. She knew she liked to wear torn jeans and old band t-shirts that looked like they were from Hot Topic; it was a really good way to confuse people. "I dabble."
If majoring in Physics at Columbia University was dabbling, then sure, Kagura "dabbled."
"So… there were two men. A white-haired man and one… with dark hair?" Kagome's eyes were now narrow too. Kagura had successfully reeled them both in.
"Hmm, maybe more silver-haired actually? And don't forget about the child of the corn…" Kagura continued. "That was the worst part."
Kagura didn't miss the bug-eyed look had returned to Kagome's face.
"By any chance can you describe, in detail, what the event looked like?" Kagome pressed.
"I can do better," Kagura winked. "But first. I wanna see what you got on the other event."
"Wait. How do we know this isn't some giant hoax from a crazy person?" Kikyō broke in.
"Because I have video," Kagura shrugged. "So… show me yours and I'll show you mine."
She didn't miss Kikyō's little quirk at her double entendre.
"Here." Kagome passed Kagura her phone. "We were looking at this literally just before you knocked."
Kagura pressed the button on the video to play. Some dude was screaming in the background, but Kagura saw the familiar red flash, then the ring of bright blue light, and finally the slow and steady blackening of the space inside the ring, followed by… a tuft of pink? Then the video cut out.
"So… what was the thing that was coming out of the hole?" Kagura turned her attention back to Kagome.
"Guy claims that he saw a pink-haired baby crawl out of it," Kagome answered, taking her phone back from Kagura.
Kagura tried to keep the excitement out of her face. If that was the best video they had, she was about to change everything.
"I'd bet a thousand dollars if you asked this dudebro if his ears popped at the moment his phone cut out, he'd say yes." Kagura raised her eyebrow for that extra deductive effect.
"Why do you say that?" Kagome asked.
"Because…" Kagura paused, knowing she was about to blow their minds, "Whatever the hell that thing is, it emits a giant electromagnetic pulse. Wacks out electronics. That is…" Kagura grabbed her own phone. "Unless you happen to have a van that has a Faraday cage surrounding it…" She handed her phone to Kagome, but kept her gaze on Kikyō, whose eyes had lit with recognition.
"The Faraday cage dampens the radio waves and… that means," Kikyō rushed to join Kagome in watching the video on Kagura's phone.
"That's right. The blast did not make my phone stop recording. Just a little static. So… there it is. Red flash. Blue ring of light. Black hole in the middle. And… creepy little girl floating out of it." Kagura could hear her own voice take on that excited timbre that couldn't be contained when she got excited, usually about something dangerous, and definitely about something she was going to be chasing after more.
As they watched, Kagura listened along, remembering the girl, a white spectre, as she climbed out of the portal like the little girl from The Ring, then floated down toward the ground. As she heard the two loud voices and some clanking and thumping emanate from her phone, she remembered seeing bright white lightning lace through the black space as the black-eyed, white-haired girl got sucked in. She remembered watching the girl claw violently as she was pulled back in, but that her face stayed passive, as if her body was disconnected from her mind.
Kagura had seen some creepy things, but never like that. She'd hidden in her van as the two men raced by, having dropped her phone as she ducked out of sight.
"I was too busy hiding from the creep to record it but… Wormtongue was holding some sort of device. Maybe a… solenoid?" Kagura offered.
"Hmmm… would make sense. It could make a substantial magnetic field they'd need…" Kikyō scratched her chin. "But—"
"But the spark." Kagome continued Kikyō's thought. "What do you think they could use?"
"I dunno… I mean, we can't be the only two who have reiki…" Kikyō and Kagome appeared to have forgotten Kagura was in the room. She didn't mind, because this was all really interesting.
"So. A reiki user is making machines to try to…" Kagome's voice was becoming more high-pitched by the second.
"Open a portal!" Kagome and Kikyō squealed the last sentence together, as if they'd just discovered that they had been accepted into the same sorority. (Kagura still wasn't completely convinced that they hadn't been an item.)
"Okay… can I stop this train right now?" Kagura got up and grabbed her phone from Kagome's hands. "Reiki. Honestly? Is that a real thing?" She then looked at the two women. "And that thing I saw crawling out of the black hole of doom is not something I really want hanging out over in this dimension. So… maybe it is a cool theory, but creepy babies and hell children just flitting about Manhattan is not my idea of something to squee over."
"It confirms our theory Kikyō… it means—" Kagome wasn't listening to Kagura's protests, even after she'd taken away the phone.
"It means that you two figured out how to tunnel between two dimensions and some bonehead criminal dudes are using your book to do it, yes!" Kagura stepped directly in between the two women; she was going to get her point across. "So… when do we get started?"
"Started what?" Kikyō huffed, finally paying attention once more to Kagura.
"Start figuring out what the shit they are doing, and stop creepy babies from coming through whatever the hell it is they're making?" Kagura spat out.
"Reverse cyclotron, I imagine…" Kikyō breathed.
"Right. That's the part you get excited about," Kagura drawled. "The technology. Not the creepy baby."
"How do we know that these things from the other side—these... demons—are malevolent?" Kagome interjected.
"You're currently arguing that a creepy baby that looked like Samara from the Ring was coming to our world to sprinkle happiness and fairy dust on us… Not buying the 'they want to be friends!' bit." Kagura still drawled, but at a louder volume. "Welp. When do we get started?"
"We..?" Kikyō looked incredulously at Kagura.
"Wait a minute." Kagome took her finger and pressed it into Kikyō's chest. "Wasn't it like a half hour ago you stormed into my apartment to demand I take down the book?"
"It's been a weird half-hour…" Kikyō looked at her feet.
"Sounds like you're in." Kagura nudged Kikyō, who brought her gaze back to Kagura (her… very pretty gaze—crap).
"Where do you think they'll strike next?" Kagome turned to Kagura with a wide-eyed grin. Kagome was in.
"Why do you think we are going to do… anything?" Kikyō asked, gesticulating rapidly at both Kagome and Kagura.
"Because. I saw the old Kikyō," Kagome answered. "Today. I saw the old Kikyō. The one who sees these images and just knows something is going on. And… just like back then, you want to explore it."
"Plus. I have a van with a Faraday cage," Kagura added. "A van that I might add I modded myself." When both women's gazes took on an interrogative edge, Kagura continued. "And—and I work the Geek Squad counter at Best Buy and my boss lets me take home all the defective electronics."
"So… you're saying… you work at a Best Buy." Kikyō's eyes had narrowed again.
"Columbia's expensive as shit and I am saving up for my final semester. Sue me," Kagura scowled. "Neither of you look like you could make so much as a simple circuit." Okay, fine, she was getting defensive and judgy, but they'd criticized her employment. "So. Are we doing this? Defending the world from creepy babies coming out of black holes?"
"Hell yes we are!" Kagome exclaimed, then turned toward Kikyō, her voice softening. "I know you, Kikyō. I know you're as interested in this right now as I am..."
"You-you sure you can look at our theories and make… machines to make it all work?" Kikyō looked only at Kagura.
"You bet I can." Kagura reached out and took Kikyō's hands, unsurprised at their silken texture; bringing about Kikyō's puzzled look. "Especially if I have help from the person who created the theory."
"I… I guess," Kikyō sighed, her frown giving way to the subtlest of smiles. "But… I have to teach. And that comes first. And… Kagome, you change my name on that book to a pseudonym."
"Deal," Kagome squealed, then threw her hands on top of Kagura and Kikyō's. "This is going to be fun!"
"It sure will be something…" Kikyō countered, her brows furrowed but her eyes alight.
"An adventure," Kagura said. "By the way, it's really nice to meet you both."