The train station was desolate.
The tracks running past had begun to rust. Nearly two years had passed since trains would have run through these woods, let alone how long it had been since a maintenance crew might have visited. Parallel to the rails ran a long, squat building, fallen into disrepair. A tree had a collapsed on its roof, and one of the walls had crumbled away beneath its branches.
It took Hiei only a moment to assess the place and deem it safe. As the purple light faded from his Jagan and the eye shuttered closed, Kalanie hugged her jacket tighter. Her heart was racing, her energy churning through her, sapping strength from the iron coating her skin.
"Mazou and anyone she comes with can't know you're here. I need to appear alone."
"Makes sense." Kuwabara prodded a brick that had come loose from the ruined wall with a foot. "This place gives me the creeps."
"Hn. I told you it's not trapped."
"Maybe not, but I still don't like it."
Kalanie looked between them, frowning. Hiei's Jagan was capable of vision the likes of which little else rivaled. If someone else were here, lying in wait, he'd know it. But Kuwabara's sixth sense was infamous. Every demon for miles knew of it.
"Can you mask your energies?" she asked. "You could stay close as long as Mazou wouldn't be able to feel your presence."
"Obviously."
"Yup," Kuwabara agreed.
In unison, their auras winked out of existence. If she focused all her attention, she could still feel them, the barest of flames burning in the night, but if one wasn't looking, they'd be invisible.
"So what's the plan again?"
Hiei scoffed. "Moron, do you listen?"
Kalanie paced across the fractured concrete walkway. A single bench remained intact, a few feet back from the rails. She sank onto it and curled her hands around its plastic slats. "Mazou will be here in three hours. She'll offer me their terms: agree to rob a vault in Gandara and in turn they'll help me break my brother free. I'll accept. If the timeline she told me is still true, they're planning the heist for two weeks from now, which means we'll have time to return to the shrine and break my brother free before I have to go."
"You really think it'll be that easy." Kuwabara rubbed the back of his neck. "Seems a little fishy to me."
"He's right," Hiei said. "If they divulge their information about your brother now, they've no leverage to force your involvement further."
"Mazou wouldn't lie to me. She'll tell me what I need."
The fire demon's eyes narrowed. He stalked closer to the bench and leaned down until their gazes were level. "You're letting your judgment grow clouded. We are not your nursemaids, here to pick up the pieces after you allow them to fall apart."
"My terms," Kalanie snapped. "That was the deal."
Kuwabara grabbed Hiei's cloak and yanked him backwards. "Enough intimidation tactics, short stuff. Let's find a place to watch from." As he shoved Hiei across the track, he looked over his shoulder. "We've got your back, Kalanie. Remember that."
Mazou showed up just as dusk began to settle, cloaking the mountains in shadows. She flickered into existence out of nothing. Even after growing up together, Kalanie had never grown used to the suddenness of Mazou's teleporting. The girl had come alone, and she moved swiftly, her head bent against a stiff wind, her hands hidden within the overlong sleeves of her coat.
Seeing her sent a tremor of excitement through Kalanie. She'd actually done it. She'd made it here for the meeting. Now, she had her chance to save Nomi. To free him from Project Shell. Before the spirit detectives, she'd never thought about how doing so might fix the worlds. That didn't matter to her. Not compared to Nomi.
But if getting Nomi back would also bring back the barrier, then all the better.
What a blow that would be to him.
Over the last few days, she'd hardly dared think through the implications. With the barrier back, the detectives could set about freeing Human World from its demon invaders. And Demon World… well, maybe its usual chaotic order would return. Or maybe not. Maybe Masaru and his ilk—and whoever the hell commanded them—would remain in control. If they did, Kalanie and Nomi would simply run. Far away. Deep into Demon World's darkest depths. To somewhere they could be alone.
Nomi was all she needed anyway.
But first, this meeting with Mazou. Get the information Maz offered, run the heist, free Nomi. A simple chain of events.
"Well, well, well. You actually came." A grin broke across Mazou's dark features. She practically skipped across the platform, a frenetic sort of energy driving her movements.
She'd hardly changed at all.
"I did."
Settling beside her on the bench, Mazou bumped Kalanie's shoulder playfully. "I'm glad. You won't regret it, Kalanie."
She startled at the use of her name. Mazou had always called her Nie. A silly childhood nickname. To hear something else from her lips seemed decidedly wrong. Perhaps Maz had changed more than she'd first thought. Keeping the unease of that thought from her voice, she asked, "So then you can still get me in to rescue him? I can get him back?"
Mazou's smile dimmed a notch. "Hey, I know this is business and all, but do we have to get to that immediately?" Yes. Yes, they did, but Mazou plowed ahead before Kalanie could say so. "Where have you been? Are you living in these woods?"
Annoyance flared, Kalanie's thrill at seeing her old friend fading. "Maz, I can't do this. I need to know. What's your lead? How do I get to him?"
Mazou's gaze darted away from Kalanie's. She shifted, her sleeves rustling, distending as if she'd curled her hands into fists. "You have to complete the heist first. My boss wants me to bring you in now. I can teleport us to him. We'll go to Gandara, rob the vault, then he'll tell you."
Kalanie sank her teeth into her lip. Were Hiei and Kuwabara close enough to hear? They'd never agree to her leaving like this. Nor was she ready to. Not without a concrete plan.
"No," she said, straightening her shoulders and raising her chin. On this, she would not back down. "I'm not signing on to some idiotic robbery without proof of how I'd get my brother back."
"You haven't said his name," Mazou said softly. "Why not?"
Biting down a snarl, Kalanie banged a fist against the bench. "None of your damn business, Maz. Tell me what your plan was. I'm not asking anymore."
"Just come with me." Mazou's features had gone soft, her eyes pleading. "It'll be so quick. It's an in and out job. We just need you to break the vault. It's sealed, so I can't teleport into it, but you could get us in. Then—"
No.
It wasn't supposed to go like this.
Mazou was supposed to have answers, some means of breaking into the stronghold that housed Project Shell and Nomi. They were meant to strike a deal.
Kalanie lurched to her feet. "What the hell is this, Maz? Do you realize what they've done to him? They've turned him into a machine. A piece of rotten equipment. He might as well be dead. Hell, he might end up that way if I can't save him soon. Don't you see that? Your robbery is nothing. It's a joke. So tell me what you know. Tell me or—"
"I don't know anything." Mazou's shoulders crumpled. She buried her face in her hands, her dark curls tumbling into her face, obscuring Kalanie's view of her. "My boss hasn't told me."
Energy crackled across Kalanie's skin. Her iron writhed in answer. "Then you have nothing."
"Please. Come with me." Mazou reached out, snaking fingers around Kalanie's wrist. "I'll help you after. We'll do it together."
But Kalanie hardly heard her.
Because Mazou's sleeve had slipped, revealing her hands—and the black whorls inked across her skin.
In a heartbeat, the world dropped away from her. No. Not possible.
Yet it was. The Sovereign Binds. Tattooed across Mazou as surely as they were across Kalanie herself. And in the chain links around her wrist, written in crisp letters: Masaru.
"Hiei! Kuwabara!" Her scream shattered the night's quiet. A flock of birds burst from the trees in answer, soaring into the darkening sky.
Mazou's grip went tight as a shackle. "I'm sorry."
Kalanie felt it then, the telltale twisting in her gut that had always proceeded Mazou's teleportations when they'd been young. It dulled her thoughts, blurring them together, but she knew enough to fight and she writhed, clawing at Mazou's hand, trying desperately to tear herself free.
Compelled.
Mazou was compelled.
And he had sent her here.
The ground became a fleeting sensation, perhaps there, perhaps not. The stars winked in and out of existence. She saw him, like an afterimage burned into her eyelids, reclining on a couch, dressed impeccably in a well-pressed dress shirt and fitted slacks. He stared back, his lips curling upward—
The image shattered.
Mazou's grip on her wrist went limp, and Kalanie staggered. Kuwabara caught her before she tumbled from the platform. "I've got you!"
Hiei stood over Mazou's fallen body, his katana readied to plunge through her heart. Blood streaked from her right temple, as if she'd been struck a hard blow, and she was pleading for her life. Her sobs nearly masked Kalanie's own.
He'd been right there. A moment longer and Mazou would have teleported straight to him. What an idiot she'd been to have believed a way to save Nomi existed—or that she could have found it so easily. But worse, so much worse than that, was the place he had been. It looked like no Demon World residence she'd ever seen. Which meant he was here. In Human World.
So close.
"Don't kill her, Hiei!" Kuwabara released Kalanie and lunged forward, smacking Hiei's katana away from Mazou's chest. "We'll bring her back. Maybe she has information."
"We already have her." Hiei jerked his chin at Kalanie. "We don't need another."
"But maybe she knows things Kalanie doesn't." Kuwabara grabbed Mazou's wrists, and a set of spirit cuffs flickered into existence, eliminating her ability to teleport—though, despite the adrenaline rattling through her body, Kalanie realized dully that Mazou hadn't tried to escape. She'd barely even fought.
Hiei's katana clicked back into its sheath. "You're weak."
"Nope. Just thinking ahead. Trust me, Kurama's going to agree with this."
"Hn, the fox has his weaknesses, too."
Shaking his head, Kuwabara hauled Mazou to her feet, then flipped her over his shoulder and held her firmly in place. She hung limp, desperate sobs still shaking through her.
"You all right to run?" Kuwabara asked Kalanie.
Clenching her arms around her stomach as if to hold herself together, she nodded.
"I'm sorry this wasn't what you'd hoped," he murmured, squeezing her shoulder with his free hand, then nodded resolutely. "All right. Let's go."
Kalanie paced her room like a caged beast.
Anger had grown to a wildfire within her. The flames lapped her heart, searing and biting and reminding her with a vicious certainty that the freedom she'd thought she'd found was nothing but an imagining of her own shattered mind. She clung to that rage, to that building heat, clutching it to her as tightly as she did her iron.
She could not let it go. For what lurked beneath it, cold and empty, was a helplessness she refused to accept.
All their promises of her involvement seemingly forgotten, the detectives had closed her out of Mazou's handling. As soon as they'd returned to the shrine, Botan had met them on the porch and ushered Kalanie to the bathroom. Just as she had so many days ago, she showered, stared at her unrecognizable reflection, and emerged to find the ferry girl waiting. When Botan had led her to her room, she'd known arguing would get her nowhere.
And so here she remained. Trapped within these characterless walls. Sensing Mazou close at hand, behind one of the shrine's dozen sliding doors, and yet entirely out of reach.
It seemed the alliance she'd forged here was no more real than that which Mazou had promised.
Where that left her, she had not yet worked out.
But she could not sit idly. This wretched night had returned her to the beginning. No leads. No hazy, half-formed rescue on the horizon. Just the searing truth that Nomi remained out of reach.
The detectives had offered to help her. In exchange for cooperation, they'd promised their takedown of Project Shell would not also entail the takedown of her brother. If that offer still stood, perhaps it was time to accept it. Her thoughts flashed back to sitting on the porch with Kuwabara a few short hours ago and to that odd human gesture he'd asked of her. A fist bump. A promise.
Maybe he'd been right. Maybe it was time for allies. Running and fighting solo had gotten her nowhere. All she had to show for it was a handful of months spent alone in these mountains, living little better than some mindless creature, and a few weeks of captivity.
If she needed allies, surely the detectives would prove her best options. They were strong, their army pitiful and yet more vast than any resistance group left standing. And she could not deny the pull they'd already begun to exert over her—Kurama with his gentle smiles and quick wit, Yusuke's swaggering might, Kuwabara and his overly trusting human heart, that shared moment of brokenness that had passed between her and Hiei in the kitchen six days ago.
They were a team, first and foremost. They always had been.
Perhaps it was time to determine if there was a space for her on their roster.
She strode to the door and reached for the handle. She expected it to resist. After all, Botan had locked her in here. This bedroom had joined the long list of prisons in her life. But when she pushed, the sliding panel offered no resistance.
The hallway beyond was empty.
In the hours since Mazou's betrayal first surfaced, night had given way to the pale light of early dawn, and as Kalanie padded down the hall on silent feet, she heard the murmur of voices in the kitchen. Tentatively, half-expecting panic, she poked her head into the room.
Botan and Yukina sat at the table, cups of steaming coffee set before them. At the sight of Kalanie, a smile split Botan's pretty features. She clapped her hands excitedly. "Hello there, Kalanie. Are you feeling all right?"
Yukina turned to face her. "I was very sorry to hear about what happened last night. Kazuma was so distressed. I can only imagine how you might feel."
Staving off a fresh surge of rage, Kalanie leaned a shoulder against the doorframe. "I'm… coping."
Botan crossed to the coffee pot. "Coffee?"
Kalanie's nose crinkled of its own accord. "No, thank you."
"Please sit," Yukina said. "Have breakfast with us."
What was this? Some sort of mind game? Ignoring Yukina's question, she asked Botan, "Did you mean for my door to be unlocked?"
The ferry girl startled, and coffee sloshed over the brim of her mug. Squawking and flapping her scalded hand, she darted to the sink and shoved her fingers beneath the faucet. She cranked the handle for cold water, then twisted to face Kalanie. "Why in the world would I lock you in?"
"Isn't that why you waited for me in the hall last night? To escort me back to my room?"
Botan grabbed a sponge and set to work cleaning up the coffee she'd spilled. "Of course not. I thought you might want to talk about what happened. I wanted to be there if you needed an ear. But… well, you didn't seem to want that and I didn't want to intrude."
"Oh."
Exchanging a look with Botan that Kalanie couldn't begin to decipher, Yukina rose from her chair. Kalanie could do nothing but watch in dumbfounded silence as the apparition closed the distance between them and wrapped her arms around Kalanie's shoulders, drawing her into a tight hug. "I've spent many years searching for my brother," she murmured. "I know it is not the same, not completely, but I understand your pain. Your loneliness. I'm sorry."
Slowly, uncertain even then if she were falling prey to some cunning trick, Kalanie hugged Yukina back. The demon's skin was cold, and a chill slipped into Kalanie's muscles as they embraced. It was so unlike Hiei and the scorching heat she'd felt from his wrist alone that it was little wonder the ice apparition had never recognized their shared blood—though why Hiei would hide such a truth from a spirit like Yukina's, Kalanie couldn't begin to fathom.
After a beat, the apparition stepped back. Her eyes remained locked on something beyond Kalanie's shoulder. "Oh, good morning, Kurama."
Kalanie turned in time to see him dip his head in greeting. "Morning, all."
"You look like you didn't sleep a wink," Botan said. She hurried across the kitchen, clutching a mug of coffee, and pressed it into Kurama's hands.
An involuntary sigh shuddered through the fox. "That would be because I didn't." His gaze shifted to Kalanie. "How are you holding up?"
She swallowed down a knot that had risen unbidden in her throat. "I'd like to see her. Mazou, I mean."
He chuckled. "I'd hope you'd say that. She's been asking for you."
Kalanie's brow crinkled. "For me?"
"It seems her tongue was not locked up as yours has been, but she has no interest in sharing her secrets with us. Only with you." Waving for her to follow, he started down the hall. After a long sip of his coffee, he added, "She seems concerned for your safety. Apparently we've earned quite the reputation as demon killers."
Kalanie snorted. "You can say that again."
"Truly?" He seemed genuinely puzzled, his gaze growing distant even as he pointed her down another of the temple's hallways. They'd crossed into the ramshackle addition that had been built—a stretch of the shrine she'd never seen before. "We've killed only when we've had to. For the most part, we're able to subdue any apparitions who come upon us here and send them back to Demon World. Kuwabara's been quite stubborn about it actually."
"It's Kuwabara's idea to spare demon lives?"
Stopping at the closed door, Kurama shook his coffee mug as if chiding her. "Don't be so surprised. Kuwabara has always been the most noble of us all. Honorable to a fault."
"Hey!" came a shout from inside. The door rattled open and Kuwabara emerged. Shoving the door closed, he jabbed a finger into Kurama's chest. "I heard that, you know! There is nothing faulty about honor." He whirled on Kalanie. "Don't you dare laugh!"
Biting her lip, Kalanie held up her hands in surrender. When would this human stop surprising her? "I wouldn't dare."
Amusement twinkling in his eyes, Kurama squeezed Kalanie's shoulder. "Your friend is through here. She's been cooperative and non-violent so far, but she's held firm that she'll only answer questions from you."
Kalanie could feel her, Mazou's energy burning low and quiet beyond the sliding door, dampened beneath the spirit cuffs. Beside her, two great pillars of power waited. Yusuke and Hiei. Hell, they were powerful.
And her allies now.
They had to be. For Nomi's sake.
"Got it," she said and reached around Kuwabara for the door.
Kurama caught her hand. He gave her fingers a gentle squeeze. "We'll be with you in there and we're here to help if you need it, but I believe we can trust you to handle this. Ask about your brother, but don't forget everything else. Masaru. Project Shell. Any information she has is valuable to us."
"I know."
"Good. Don't let us down."
AN: I hope you enjoy this one, guys! As always, thanks to my reviewers from last chapter. You guys rock!