To say that Nenriki and Sagaku were marched down a long hall would be to lie. Nenriki was led, struggling and gagged, while Sagaku was dragged, still unconscious, down the hall. True to his promise, Harou had commanded Hisakata to break three of Nenriki's fingers for each time the girl had passed out. Usagi trailed behind, until her suitor ordered her away.
There was food between Nenriki and Sagaku when the girl's eyes fluttered. Nenriki heard her sharp intake of breath-the room was too dark to see-and reached blindly for her face. Feeling it, he grasped the water bottle with his other hand and held it to her mouth.
"Drink," he said.
The water soothed the burning in her throat. It made her want to vomit.
When Sagaku would have refused the bread that Nenriki tried to feed her, he turned her blood cold by passing on the message, "If you don't eat, that freak said, he would cut me up one piece at a time for you."
Nenriki's voice was bleak when he passed on the message, resigned to a horrible death regardless of the path Sagaku took. Sagaku tried to nibble on the bread. The few bites she managed sat on her stomach like bricks.
"Why is it so cold?" Sagaku asked against the chattering of her teeth.
Nenriki choked on a brief, harsh laugh.
"There's ice on the walls," he told her. "Can't you feel it?"
"No," Sagaku admitted. She struggled into a more upright position. "I can't feel much of anything."
There was silence between them for a moment. It made the darkness seem that much thicker.
"I'm sorry, Sagaku," Nenriki said miserably when the silence got to be too much.
"Sorry for what, Nenriki?" Sagaku asked.
"They got the journal from me." Nenriki's voice cracked, like he was about to start crying. "They threatened to kill my girlfriend unless I gave it to them, and then they killed her anyway."
Hoarse sobs filled the room. Sagaku reached out to pat Nenriki's shoulder weakly. Much as she would love to comfort him, she had little strength to do so.
"What journal?" Sagaku asked when his sobs had quieted.
"Shoseki-" Nenriki's voice cracked again but he carried on, "he sent me one of his journals. I got it the day before you came to me, but he told me to keep it a secret for now, I was just supposed to hide it!" The words came out faster and faster until Sagaku had to struggle to decipher them.
"It was a secret," she tried to comfort him. "You were trying to keep your word." As an afterthought, she asked, "Did you read any of it?"
"Only a few pages," Nenriki told her. "It was...well, it wasn't very interesting. There was math and diagrams. Not a light read, you know?"
"I know," Sagaku murmured. Shoseki had liked empirical data, so she could only imagine what one of his personal journals would look like.
"It was like the same stuff in the email," Nenriki said, trying to redeem himself. "About the thinning veils and the mountain and stuff."
"What mountain?" Sagaku interrupted anything further Nenriki would have said.
She felt Nenriki's shoulder shift under her hand-a shrug. He didn't know what mountain. But she could assume Shoseki had figured it out, written the location in the journal. The journal Harou had now. So Harou had the information he needed, but not the means to carry it out. That's why he brought her here. He wanted to make sure she knew what to do, and then he was going to make her do it. She'd already given in to the first half.
Sagaku and Nenriki huddled together until the poor man's breathing evened into longer, albeit shallow, breaths. Sagaku let him sleep. He could tell her nothing else and at least he could escape the pain for a few minutes.
The door opened at one point. There wasn't any light, really, just a shift from blackness to dark gray. Sagaku tensed, waiting for whatever pain Harou wanted to inflict now. At least she wasn't in the tank. She tried to use that thought to quell her panic. She wasn't sitting in a puddle of water, more terrified of drowning than broken bones.
"Sagaku?" a voice whispered softly.
"Usagi," Sagaku said. Relief drained the tension from her muscles.
There was a sniffle. Usagi was crying. Sagaku wasn't sure if she had the will to comfort yet another person.
"He gave me permission to visit," Usagi sniffed. "He said you wouldn't be around anymore after tomorrow."
"He," Sagaku said. "Harou?"
"I'm not allowed to call him that." Usagi knelt to the floor and crawled to her younger sister. For the first time in days, Sagaku felt the calming presence of people she loved all around her. She hugged her sister with one arm, pressing her lips to Usagi's hair, and held Nenriki to her with the other arm. And then she let sleep claim her. Apparently it would be the last opportunity she'd ever have to dream.
"I've got it!" Koenma startled the team awake, sweeping into the room like blustering winds. Botan followed behind him.
"What?" Yusuke snapped, peeling the map that had pillowed his face through the night off his cheek.
"Three of my reapers found a congregation of demons," Koenma said.
Hiei was very suddenly next to the spirit leader, nearly startling the man back. Kurama pulled the map from Yusuke's hand.
"Show us where," Kurama commanded their leader.
"Get me a map of all the worlds, not just the Makai," Koenma said. He smoothed the crinkled imprint of Yusuke's face from the map, ignoring the small wet spot of drool that was appropriately located over a marshy area.
The three maps were unrolled, spread out over the floor. Koenma jabbed a finger at one spot on the Makai.
"Here," he said. "Botan, put your finger here."
Botan did as commanded, torn between looking excited that Sagaku would be found soon and upset at the girl's absence.
"Here," Koenma pointed to a spot in the Spirit World. Without waiting to be asked, Kurama marked it with a slender finger.
"And," Koenma walked around the maps to the Ningenkai, "here."
"I don't get it," Kuwabara said blankly, looking at the three spots. "How does this help?"
"The worlds aren't side-by-side like this," Koenma explained. "They're not exactly stacked on top of each other, either. Sometimes parts of one world might exist in planes that the others don't reach."
"Hiei, stop growling," Kurama hissed under his breath. "Listen."
"If you keep that in mind, this is an oddity that all three of these points share a landmark. Look," he commanded. They all looked. Marked by each finger was the key for a mountain. "She's there."
"How do we get there?" Yusuke asked. "Do we have an army or anything to fight against the-what did you call it-congregation of demons?"
"Not an army, really," a chipper voice from outside the room said. If Hiei hadn't been so preoccupied, he would have felt Jin's team approaching. "Just us."
"Let's talk strategy," Kurama demanded. "We're running out of time."
Light flooded the small cell, burning fiercely at Sagaku's eyes. Beside her, Usagi cried out in sudden pain. Before Sagaku could reach out and grab her sister, Usagi was ripped away.
Slowly and painfully, Sagaku's eyesight came back against the light. Hisakata was waiting, shifting gleefully from one foot to the next. As soon as he saw her eyes focus on his, he grinned and dragged her up by her arm. Another demon was already treating Nenriki to the same hustle.
"What are you doing?" Usagi whimpered. Sagaku twisted to see Harou holding the pregnant woman tightly by her wrists.
"Hush," Harou said, "you don't want to upset your baby."
Hisakata started dragging Sagaku through the cell. Usagi lunged after her sister only to be stopped short. With a sharp twist, Harou brought the girl to her feet.
"Usagi!" Sagaku cried. She honestly hadn't expected Harou to hurt the girl. Not while she was pregnant with the start of his own, personal army.
Hisakata dragged Sagaku back with a chuckle.
"Take them to the mountain," Harou commanded. "I'll meet you there."
Nenriki's wild eyes met Sagaku's as they were forced from the room.
Outside, the sky wavered uncertainly as if it couldn't decide what the weather was. Harou's command had been misleading-they were already on the mountain. Hisakata and the nameless demon forced them up. They didn't quite make it to the peak before Harou caught up.
Onna…
Sagaku froze mid-step, nearly sending Hisakata over the edge of the path. When she eyed it speculatively, he wrapped her hair firmly in his hand, yanking her head back to where they were climbing.
"You're too weak," he growled in her ear. "I'll just hurt you if you try."
She barely heard his words; she was listening too hard for that call. That achingly familiar voice.
Wait...be ready… The voice wavered in and out like a bad radio. Sagaku wasn't able to catch all the words. She suspected that had something to do with the odd energy in the air here, the thin veils that leaked environment into each of these realms.
They reached the peak of the mountain. In Sagaku's mind, she had expected it to be sharp and jagged and bare of life. It was bare of life, mostly; there was a little growth that could have been lichen or something along one of the rocks. It was not, however, sharp and jagged. The top of the mountain was smooth, almost flat. Maybe it had been a volcano at one point, blasting off any excess rock from the top. But no, Sagaku mused, there was no caldera.
"What are you making my mate do?" Hisakata asked from behind Sagaku. Harou, who was stepping to the front of the group, spun around with a disgusted face.
"Mate?" he sneered incredulously. His seafoam eyes found the bedraggled, thin and bruised girl who stood demurely in front of Hisakata. "You idiot," he said, "you don't mate with hanshoku. They're breeders, not worthy of the status of mate." His contemptuous gaze stayed on Sagaku, waiting for a reaction. She ignored him and stared at the sky.
Sagaku tried to ignore the shivers that ran up and down her spine and the energy that made the hair on her arms stand upright. They were as close to the veils as they could get. Sagaku could feel it as clearly as she used to be able to feel her serpentine's pulse. That same energy was leaking through the roof of the mountain, shifting beneath her feet. He would try to make her tear the veil here.
Nenriki met Sagaku's eyes when she turned her head to him. In the light, she could see how damaged he was now; his normally vibrant hair was lank against his shoulders. Chunks had been ripped out. His right hand, with the broken fingers, was swollen, and there was a bloody gash across the left side of his face. It was yellow around the edges, infected. The look in his eyes wasn't subdued though. He nodded, a miniscule motion. He knew what would happen and made his peace with it.
Sagaku would not tear through the barriers between the worlds. She would die refusing. Unfortunately, Nenriki would die first.
"Do it," Harou demanded.
Sagaku clenched her bare toes onto the rock below her feet. Metamorphic rock, pressurized quartz and feldspar. Layers and layers of slate. She catalogued it in her head, trying not to think about what was going to happen.
Are you even listening to me?Hiei's voice interrupted her thoughts, loud and clear and very angry.
Hiei...Sagaku thought it tentatively, trying to address the thought to Hiei. Without the use of her stones, she wasn't sure it would work.
"Now!" Harou slapped her, breaking her from her reverie. One stream of water pooled from his cupped hand, slipping over Nenriki's face. Nenriki made a frantic noise, muffled by the water. "Now, or your friend dies!"
Nenriki struggled in the demon's hold, but the water masked his face.
Sagaku fed her energy down through her feet, opening herself up to the mountain the way she had a lifetime ago to bring her friends to her aid against the shadow demons. She fed more and more energy. The mountain warmed beneath her feet, curious and solid.
"No," Sagaku said. She looked up, meeting Harou's eyes directly.
Almost there, stop- Hiei tried to command Sagaku. Miles below them, the explosions and screams and cries of battle sounded. Hisakata loosened his hold on Sagaku, spinning to peer past the edge of the mountain. Had the edge been steeper, Sagaku would have pushed him over.
Instead, she spun on Harou. He gestured sharply and the demon that held Nenriki twisted his neck. Nenriki fell to the hard surface. The mountain took Sagaku's rage and sadness, feeling emotion for the first time. It fed the garnet and quartz to her, lending her strength and grounding and peace.
Harou did not fight fair, gesturing for Hisakata and the other demon to stop Sagaku in her tracks. The mountain obediently opened beneath their feet per Sagaku's whim, stopping at their ankles so they were anchored there.
"I will not let your army through," Sagaku told him, crying in pain as water stung her eyes. "You will not kill the humans and weaker demons-"
Harou punched Sagaku. It hit her hard, unbalancing her in her weakened state. The mountain steadied her, feeling Harou with more interest now.
"A rabbit that fights will die sooner than the rabbit that runs," Harou snarled.
Sagaku let the mountain feel the human world through her, the people and life there. Surprisingly, the mountain sent similar awareness back. It knew the human world. It did not like knowing that this man intended to anchor the worlds to the mountain and then tear through them.
Harou hissed in pain, stumbling as the rocks crumbled beneath his feet. Sagaku stepped too closes to Hisakata. The man got his arms around her, crushing her arms to her ribs as he still struggled against the rock that anchored him down.
Sagaku fed more and more of herself to the mountain, sharing the pain of the torture Harou had inflicted on her, his willingness to hurt innocent people like Usagi.