"You need to get sleep."
"Just ten more minutes. I'm so close, Gu!"
"You said that yesterday, and the day before, and the day before…"

Kikyō didn't need Kagura's bad attitude right now. She really was close this time.
Because Kikyō just knew, down to her bones, that Kagome wasn't dead.

That was why she'd asked Miroku to help her find her 'lost key' to Kagome's apartment.
That was why she was keeping up on Kagome's bills (Kikyō had gotten excellent at forging Kagome's signature).
That was why she'd told Mushin that Kagome needed an extended 'leave of absence' from trauma.
That was… why she had not yet talked heavily to Kagome's mother or brother…

Because Kagome was not dead.

One more tweak was all she needed: a reiki injector that had the ability to seek out what it was looking for. Kikyō had only blown out her neighborhood's power grid three times thus far as she perfected the device.

For the first month, everyone was there, everyone was supportive. They considered it mourning for Kagome and for Inuyasha.

It wasn't mourning.

When Kagura's arms wound around Kikyō's torso, she tensed.

"They're alive," Kikyō grumbled. "I just—"

"Know." Kagura finished Kikyō's sentence. "But it's 3am and you're working with electricity that could arc and kill you. So… come to bed, and tomorrow we'll try again, okay?"

"But…" Kikyō didn't want to say it, because her heart clenched when she tried.

"You figured out how to kill Naraku." Kagura kissed Kikyō's cheek. "That's why he went after you first. It gave Kagome time to pull the switcheroo and send him to hell from his own digestive system…"

Kikyō sighed, which turned into a tremble, which turned into a whimper, which turned into a sob.

"If I had been faster, we could have stopped him! And Kagome would still be here." Kikyō's tears had started streaming from her eyes. "I made Inuyasha feel like he didn't belong, so he… he c—couldn't stop Naraku… not until…"

"You don't think that I would tear a spider demon apart with my bare hands if it went after you?" Kagura said, tugging Kikyō toward their bedroom. "Tomorrow you'll have fresh eyes, and you'll have me."

"No classes tomorrow?" Kikyō asked, finally giving in to Kagura's tug.

"No classes tomorrow."

Kagura had re-enrolled at Columbia to finish her degree. She had decided to work with the collider at Brookhaven laboratory as a co-op as part of her senior thesis. Not as exotic as going to Japan and working with neutrinos (like Kagura had dreamed of doing), but it kept her close to New York, close to her friends, close to Kikyō.

When Kagura and Kikyō moved out of Sango's place, Kagura moved into Kikyō's Manhattan flat. Kikyō ignored the jokes about U-Haul lesbians lobbed her way, because she was in love. (It wasn't every day that you found a girlfriend who could build you a working reiki bomb three different ways while debating quantum field theory… then make you laugh, then make you moan…)

"Okay." Kikyō plodded into the bedroom after Kagura.

"We'll get it to work," Kagura assured, not leaving Kikyō alone until she was snuggled into bed. "And then we'll know for certain what happened to Kagome and Inuyasha."

"She's alive." Kikyō had been through this.

Kagome and Inuyasha had successfully reversed the portal. The entire city of New York watched with glee as the noodle demons were sucked back through the black hole, vaporizing the moment that they crossed its threshold.

They had won! The human world was now safe. But… Kagome hadn't had her pack on when the big booms happened, and Inuyasha's mesh might not have been enough to protect him from the violent reaction between the opposing forces. Kikyō understood the data, understood the science, understood that a blast that big would not be survivable without a miracle.

Yet, something in her soul nagged her. Begged her to believe. Promised her that if she made the portal work, that Kagome would be on the other side, alive, waiting for her.

Kikyō closed her eyes, letting Kagura's already-steady breathing lull her to sleep.

There was only one more tweak needed—the most important tweak, the tweak that would let her use her own reiki to call out for Kagome across the dimensions.

The tweak that Kikyō would have to master tomorrow.

"You don't have to aim that many blasters at this," Kikyō drawled. "It's going to be fine."

"Remember the other six times these things opened?" Kagura grumbled, her hand on the nozzle of her aura blaster.

Those six times were why Kikyō had revised Demons Among Us!, to make each formula subtly wrong, so no one would be able to use it as instructions to create another device. The demon attack on New York had created a windfall of interest in their book, so much so that Kikyō was making more in royalties than she ever would make at CUNY. So she had resigned. She figured if she ever needed another job, the Ph.D. in physics was marketable, and it meant that in the month since Kagome disappeared, Kikyō could devote all of her time to re-opening the portal.

"This is going to be different." Kikyō looked at the three nozzles aimed in her direction—well, more to the point, in the direction of the arched device that was just then humming to life.

"And we're here to make sure that if it isn't different, we stop mayhem before it starts," Miroku pursed his lips.

Kagura had made Miroku an aura blaster not even a week after the demon day, bedazzled with his name in indigo.

Sango and Miroku had gone on their second date, and their third date, and probably a fourth and a fifth. She and Kagura stopped counting when Miroku moved into Sango's place (which also marked the day that Kikyō and Kagura moved out).

"It will be different," Kikyō assured, "that's why it took so long. To make sure that when this portal opens, it opens in the right place."

"We all hope that you're right," Sango murmured. "We just wanted to make sure that, well… we're here if something happens."

Kikyō knew what Sango was implying. This portal was designed to use Kikyō's reiki to find Kagome's, to use their connection to find each other again. But that made one big assumption: that Kagome was alive, and that she was in the demon realm.

"I know, Sango." Kikyō smiled at her friend.

Instead of going back to her job with the force, vindicated by the appearance of demons in New York City, Sango had taken an early retirement, and formed a private investigation firm with Miroku. When Kikyō asked about it, Sango had merely shrugged and said, "I get to help those who need it, and tell those who don't to piss off." Being with Miroku and choosing her own destiny had added a new spark to Sango's eyes. It made her smile more, too.

Everyone had moved on.
Everyone except Kikyō.

While Kagura studied and took the train to and from Long Island, Kikyō studied the plans for the devices. In particular, how Inuyasha had designed the yōki/reiki injection nozzle. While Sango had printed new business cards and applied for her P.I. license, Kikyō had been stabilizing the solenoid design, so that the portal itself would be contained inside of a gateway. While the royalty checks rolled in, Kikyō was sorting out the biggest, toughest problem: how to open at exactly the right place.

It was a problem that Naraku had solved. It was why Onigumo had been so insistent about opening exactly where he had. The portals had left residual energy across the ley lines, before the big portal opened. Those ley lines had remained charged even after they closed the big one. Kikyō had hiked from the top to the bottom of Manhattan, mapping each and every one of them. Every newly discovered line or estuary led to a tweak in her device.

And it was finally time to see if it had worked.

If Kagome was anywhere in the demon realm, Kikyō would be able to feel her. Kagome's reiki would be a beacon calling out to Kikyō's. A candle magnified a thousand times by the ley line map.

All Kikyō had to do now was close her eyes, spark the trigger, and search.
If Kagome was alive, Kikyō would find her.

"You ready?" Kikyō asked, searching the eyes of Sango, then Miroku, then Kagura, in turn.

Each of them carried the same look. The one that said that they were there for her, but also the one that grieved Kagome. One that didn't believe that she was still alive. One that… Kikyō had started to recognize in her own eyes in the mirror too.

Maybe that was why she'd doubled down. She needed to prove that Kagome was alive (or not) before she too gave up hope and gave in to the grief of losing her best friend—again—so soon after they had returned to each other.

"I hope you're there, Kagome." Kikyō pressed her finger to the trigger. "Because if you are, I'm coming."

Kikyō let her reiki flow through her finger, feeling the prick of the portal tapping directly into her.

Find Kagome. Find Kagome. Find my friend.

Kikyō's body felt lifted from the ground, flying through the channels of the ley lines. She could see darkness, so dark everywhere that she looked.

Then…
A flicker. Light pink. Like a candle. Kagome.

Kikyō forced her reiki toward the flicker, ignoring the feeling of drowning. She would get to Kagome; she had to get to Kagome. She stretched her magenta light toward the flicker, refusing to relent until they connected.

Kagome. You're alive, and I'm coming for you.
Kagome was so close. So close. Just a little bit more. Just a little bit more.

Kikyō?
The instant that Kikyō's reiki touched, she heard her name.
Kagome.

"Kikyō?!" Kagura's arms were around her. Dammit, had she collapsed again?

"I'm okay." Kikyō got up, her eyes were full of tears. She was smiling.

"We need to shut it down!" Sango was yelling.

"No, we don't." Kikyō lunged forward just before Sango had turned off the toggle. "Please. Trust me."

She wanted to cackle, to shout for joy, to cry and to dance. But right now, she needed to wait. Because the electric white ring bordered the archway, and the inky black descended like a veil.

"Just… wait." Kikyō said it as much for her friends as she did for herself.

She could hear the hum of their blasters as they waited, preparing for some demon or other to come crawling out of the blackness, but Kikyō knew better. It was not going to be a creepy-crawly this time.

It was going to be Kagome.

Soon the black began to dissipate; in its place was green grass, lush and ancient trees, and a resplendent garden. As the scene became clearer, two figures materialized. One tall, with silver hair and dog ears, and the other, shorter, with obsidian black hair arranged in a long braid.

"Holy fuck." Kagura's voice broke the silence.

Then squeals came from both sides of the portal, as the friends all looked at each other.
Then Kagome's arms were around her, and Inuyasha was yelling Kagome's name.

"You found me," Kagome sobbed. "You found us."

"You're alive." Kikyō returned Kagome's sobs. "You're alive, Kagome!"

The months of mapping the ley lines. The tweaks to the device, waiting for it to be perfect. The watering Kagome's plants and paying her bills. The dreams and the hopes and the assurances to Kagura that her mesh had protected Inuyasha, all of it—all of it—was worth this moment.

Kagome was alive.
And Inuyasha was alive.

"I'm too stubborn to die," Kagome sniffled, her sobs rapidly transitioning to laughter.

"And I'm too stubborn to give up," Kikyō whispered back.

"I knew you would find me," Kagome's voice was high and shrill, "I had hope."

"So did I," Kikyō laughed, letting tears flow freely from her eyes now. "And I found you."

"Kagome!" It seemed like Kagura, Sango and Miroku all realized at the very same moment that what they were seeing was real, that it really was Kagome embracing Kikyō.

Their two-person hug quickly became a three- then four-person hug as both Kagura and Sango joined in. And the crying was back.

The demon hunters were together again.

"We saved the world, bitches." Kagome was back to laughing, well laugh-crying. "We saved the world and came out the other end."

"That we did!" Kikyō joined Kagome's laugh-cry.

"So…" Kagome nudged Kikyō, and motioned to the portal; Inuyasha was standing nervously on the other side, "is this thing stable as it seems to be?"

"Hell yes it is!" Kikyō beamed. She and Kagura had found and debugged every last engineering flaw in the portal device. The thing would run through the apocalypse at this point.

"And it'll stay open as long as we want it to?" Kagome asked; looking back through the gate, back at Inuyasha who stood nervously on the other side, his ears wiggling at Kagome's question.

"That it will," Kikyō answered.

"Then… do you guys maybe… want to see the demon realm?" Kagome practically bounced up and down as she asked.

"Fuck yes!" Kagura shrieked, and bounded through the gateway without so much as an ounce of hesitation.

"You landed in the Taisho's front yard," Kagome giggled. "Be warned, Inuyasha's dad is prone to bear hugs and his mom likes to over-feed guests… especially friends of their daughter-in-law."

"I swear to god if you got married and didn't invite us?" Kikyō was mock-scandalized by her friend.

"You were in another dimension!" Kagome shrieked back. "How was I supposed to get you a save-the-date?"

"Well, no time like the present to celebrate." Sango's boisterous guffaw broke the moment. "And I for one would love to meet Inuyasha's family."

Sango and Miroku both followed Kagura in.

"I… didn't tell your mom. anything," Kikyō whispered, a bit ashamed. "I just… well, I really hoped and believed you'd be back." Kikyō then chuckled nervously. "I even kept your plants watered."

Kagome redoubled her impossibly tight hug. "Thank you." She nuzzled into Kikyō's neck. "You are the best friend anyone could ever ask for."

Their moment was broken up, once more, by shouting. Apparently Inuyasha, Miroku, Sango, and Kagura were tired of waiting for them to cross.

"You coming?" Kagome asked, taking Kikyō's hand.

"Yes!" Kikyō laughed and let her best friend lead her into the realm of demons.

Demons Among Us! would be a best-seller for years to come, although not a single additional 'demon' incident occurred. Not in public anyway.

But down in Sango's basement, where scorch marks from past experiments still marred her floors, the secret gateway was never closed; that way Kagome and Inuyasha, who called two worlds their home, were never forced to choose between them again.

And the Demon Hunters would always be ready, just in case there was ever another Naraku lurking in the shadows.

THE END