They departed at dawn.

In the solemn quiet, as the sun's first rays peeked through the trees, Kuwabara tore a hole between the worlds. Sweeping in a smooth arc, his dimension sword gleamed as if it had been wrought in gold, its edges shining with an otherworldly light.

The resulting portal yawned wide as a maw, beckoning any soul brave enough to pass beyond its threshold. The demons who called the mountain shrine home were only too eager to comply. One after another, they leapt through the gaping chasm. Yusuke. Kurama. Hiei. Jin. Touya. Chu. Rinku. On and on. The hope of humanity.

But more than that, the hope of all three worlds.

Kalanie watched it all from her bedroom, peering through the curtains. A gnawing anxiety writhed between her ribs, winding gnarled fingers around her heart. If all went as planned, come sundown, Nomi would be here. In this compound. With her.

Free.

Safe.

Reunited.

The very idea of it was almost too much to take in.

So she didn't. Instead, she focused on Shishiwakamaru disappearing through the portal, on Genkai barking orders for Yukina and Keiko to go back to bed, on Kuwabara sealing the hole he'd opened.

But as quiet fell again, nothing but the trilling of distant birds disturbing the forest's silence, she crumpled to the floor. The bony angles of her knees bit into her cheeks as she wrapped her arms about her shins and began to sob.

The cries shook through her body, twisting up her spine and knotting in her throat, great mewling gasps for air that left her breathless and broken. Tears soaked into her pants, damping her skin beneath.

Hell, but she missed him. So much. More than she'd dared truly think about until now, until this moment when he was both so very close and so very far away all at once.

"Please," she whispered—to her knees, to Hiei, to whatever monstrous Spirit World god might still be listening. "Please bring him back to me."

An hour later, Kalanie stepped into the kitchen with her head held high, no sign of her tears left to reveal her weakness.

Once she'd gathered herself enough to risk the hallways, she'd showered, scrubbing the dried tear tracks from her cheeks with a vigor that left her palms stinging and her face red, then stood before the mirror and braided her hair with painstaking care, twisting her rampant locks into tight submission. All the while, she schooled her emotions to a neutral calm, shoving away the nervous jitters that had plagued her all night.

As so often seemed the case, Botan was hovering at the coffee pot. "Let me guess," she said, her voice ringing an octave too high, "no coffee this morning?"

"Not any morning."

"Right, right." Her hands fluttered uselessly before she clamped them together atop the counter. "It's rather foolish, isn't it?"

Kalanie sank into a chair at the table. "What is?"

"Being so nervous. Koenma started sending Yusuke on life-or-death missions when he was barely even a teen, after all, and if he could survive those, he can do this." She bobbed her head in affirmation. "Yes. Of course, he can. They all can."

Averting her eyes, Kalanie answered, "So the stories say."

"The stories?" Botan perked up, all but bouncing to the seat across from Kalanie's. She cupped a mug of coffee in both hands, steam rising in lazy tendrils from its surface. "What stories?"

But it had only been a phrase, a means of diverting the conversation away from fears Kalanie couldn't look at too directly. She'd heard no stories of the detectives—at least, not the way most demons had over the last six years. For her, they were men who lived within reports she'd been forced to study. They were data points and Dark Tournament footage, lists of strengths and weaknesses and battle strategies. By the time the first whispers of Yusuke's name reached the Forest of Fools, she'd already been under his control for months.

Luckily, she was saved from saying as much by Kuwabara stomping into the kitchen. "I hate waiting!" he declared. "I don't care if I need to stay here to help keep the barrier up—being left behind is still a load of crap. It's unfair!"

Botan startled to her feet. "Coffee, Kuwabara?"

He flapped a hand. "Nah, I've already had five cups."

"Oh, I should have guessed. You do seem high energy for so early in the morning."

If he caught the wink Botan tossed Kalanie's way, he gave no indication as he stomped to the icebox the humans kept their perishable food in. He riffled through its drawers, but emerged empty-handed. "You know, I'm not even hungry. I'm just in here because I can't stand another moment out there—" he jerked a thumb toward the window "—waiting around like I'm useless."

Kalanie knew that feeling only too well. The ache of it had haunted her ever since Kurama informed her she'd play no role in Nomi's rescue, hollowing out a place in her chest and hunkering there like a plague intent on rotting her soul from the inside out. It screamed and whined and needled that she should have been in Demon World—doing something—not here, waiting for someone to save Nomi in her place.

She hated it.

Squeezing her knees up to her chest, she rolled inward, compressing her body until there was no room left in her ribcage for anxiety. Time for facts. "Do we have a timeline for their return?"

Kuwabara's eyes widened fractionally before recognition flitted across his blunt features. "Right. You pranced off into the woods yesterday and missed Kurama filling us in. You know, you didn't need to bolt like that. The shrimp wasn't pissed. He actually seemed… impressed?"

Botan bobbed her head. "Most certainly."

"I didn't leave to avoid Hiei." She dug her fingers into her calves, pressing her cold iron along the outer grooves of her shins.

"Sure. Whatever you say." Grinning, Kuwabara hoisted himself onto the counter and rocked his head back to study the ceiling. "Anyway, Hiei found your brother, best he can tell. Said there's an energy signal under the Plains of Peril—which, can we just stop to talk about how ridiculous a name that is?"

Botan clucked her tongue chidingly.

Kuwabara cleared his throat. "Never mind. So yeah, Hiei sensed an aura under the plains that reminded him of yours. But stronger. Way stronger. He figures that's got to be your brother."

Way stronger. Despite everything, she couldn't help a flutter of pride. Yes, that was Nomi. "Sounds about right."

Soft footsteps announced Genkai's arrival. Kalanie twisted to see the psychic in the doorway. "Hiei only recognized your brother's energy because it's so similar to your own," she said, leaning a shoulder against the wall. Her sharp gaze roved to Botan and Kuwabara before flitting back to Kalanie. "It was hidden deep beneath the plain, no doubt in the facility that shelters the original Project Shell. Even once Hiei sensed it, it took them nine days to find the bunker's entrance."

Kalanie read the unsaid accusation in the woman's eyes. "I couldn't have told you where it was even if the Binds didn't forbid it." A strand of hair had slipped free of her braid and dangled into her eyes. She blew it away. "He only took me there once, the last time I saw my brother. Before the Shell was even operational. I saw nothing of how we got there—he made sure of it."

"Very well." Genkai's features softened, though only just. "The boys intend to ambush the transport as it leaves the underground compound. There's just the one entrance. If they move quickly, they'll have the element of surprise."

"How will they know when that is?"

"When the barrier rises."

Ah. She should have known.

"We should feel it, too. Even here. That will be their signal. Project Shell will be offline, indicating your brother is on the move. With any luck, they'll have him secured not long after."

Kalanie frowned. "Will they be in contact? If the barrier is up, how will they get back here?"

"Easy," Kuwabara said. He tapped the tip of one long finger against his temple. "Hiei will let me know once they're ready for a portal."

The memories the fire demon had shown her flashed through her mind. It had seemed as though he'd only been able to reach Kurama from Demon World because the barrier had fallen. "The Jagan can do that despite the barrier?"

Genkai's lips pressed thin. "Kuwabara's heightened awareness makes him more susceptible to the Jagan than the average human. Even with the barrier, Hiei should be able to reach him."

Which meant it was just a matter of time—of waiting. They'd thought of all the answers. Now, she had to trust that they could win, these men who'd forged themselves into legends. If anyone could do it, surely it must be them.

Her feet thudded to the floor. Splaying a hand against the table, she lurched to her feet. "May I see Mazou?"

They'd moved Maz from the interrogation room.

But for its lack of windows, her new holding cell was little different than Kalanie's own bedroom. Well, that and the barrier crackling on all sides, turning the room into a veritable cage.

Mazou lay curled on her bed when Genkai let Kalanie in. The demon didn't stir as Kalanie paced to the corner and sank down against the wall, resting her temple against the cool plaster. For a time, silence held them. Kalanie let it sooth her racing heart, allowing her breathing to time itself to Mazou's soft exhales.

"I expected you to go," Mazou said at last, shifting beneath her blankets until she could see Kalanie. Her dark curls had flattened on one side, as if she'd been lying on them for days on end. "To save him. To fight."

"The detectives didn't think it wise."

"And you trust them?"

"Do I have a choice?" Kalanie laughed softly, but then, as much to her surprise as Mazou's, she added, "I think I do though. They'll fight for him." Hiei would.

Mazou rolled onto her back. "He's all I can think about. All the time. He's even in my dreams." Her voice hitched, and she choked down a fresh breath—as sure a sign as any of a compulsion at work. "Your brother, I mean. Not him. I don't know how you've gone on, knowing he's in their hands."

"Because I have to. Someone has to. How else will he ever get free?"

"What did they do to him, Nie? I'm still not sure I get it." The bed creaked as Mazou sat up. She ran a hand through her rumpled curls. "When I first heard about Project Shell, I thought it was some kind of generator. Everything I've heard since then… Well, I don't get how he fits in."

Kalanie thought of the file Kurama had shown her weeks ago, the stack of schematics and documentation he and Hiei had stolen from the encampment at the Wailing Waters. In it, there were sketches of the confinement chamber, illustrations of the system that would pour molten iron into Nomi's containment tank and filter rusted waste out after he depleted it. They'd tested it on her four years ago—confirming the superheated metal wouldn't scald her skin—and the pain she'd felt as it leeched her energy away had rattled her so thoroughly she'd risen from the fog of his control for the first time in months.

But all of that was secret. Not something she could share with Mazou, especially not after she'd so blatantly revealed her lack of knowledge. The compulsions would never let her.

Biting her lip, she toyed with the frayed hem of her sleeve. "Remember when we were young and that channeler passed through our village?"

"You can't tell me, can you?" Mazou slumped. "Of course you can't—"

"Maz, answer the question. Do you remember him?"

"Maybe. Denku? Something like that."

"Exactly," Kalanie said. "He climbed to the top of old Sekou's during an electrical storm, all the way to the tip of the spire, and he let the lightning strike him. His power levels spiked. Skyrocketed."

"Same as when you touch iron." Mazou's brows creased together, her forehead puckering. "What's your point?"

"Hear me out." She peered down at the iron coating her hands, seeing herself in the reflective surface on her palms. Her cheeks had filled out, the shadows beneath her eyes had lessened, and if she squinted just right, she could almost see the girl she'd been way back then, when Denku had leapt down from Sekou's roof and all but created a miracle. "When he came down, do you remember what he did? Because I do. I remember how it felt when he took my hand and channeled a piece of his newfound power into me. More energy than I'd ever possessed. To this day, I've never rivaled it."

Mazou was nodding, recognition dawning in her eyes, but Kalanie carried on, lost in the memory of that borrowed strength. "He did the same for you and a dozen others, imbuing us all with energy he'd drawn from the storm. It didn't last. We burned through it in hours, too busy enjoying it to dwell on how he'd done it."

"I could teleport anywhere." A grin tugged at Mazou's lips. "It was incredible."

"It was. For us." Kalanie curled her hands into fists, and her mirrored-self rippled and disappeared in her gloves. "But for Denku… He was left powerless, drained until the next storm."

The wonder faded from Mazou's eyes. Her smile dimmed. In little more than a whisper, she asked, "What does this have to do with your brother?"

"Denku was a conduit. Nothing more, nothing less. He could capture power and transfer it on, but he didn't use it for himself. Or maybe he could and we just never saw it, but I don't think so. That was his fate, his lot in life. To capture energy and channel it for others. An eternal power source."

Just as Nomi had become.

They'd turned him into a puppet, same as her, but a puppet controlled with chains and pain and brutality, not the ink that pulled Kalanie's strings. For two years, he'd been a conduit for their schemes.

His power wasn't his. His choices weren't his. His very life wasn't his.

But it could be. Soon, it could be.

Wrapping her arms tight about her stomach, Kalanie murmured, "Tell me a story, Maz. Any story."

And Mazou did. Dozens of them. About the village where they'd grown up. About the places she'd been after leaving home. About serving as a messenger for high-class apparitions, clawing her way up Demon World's ladder until Lord Yomi himself employed her talents every once and awhile.

All the while, Kalanie tried to lose herself in the thrum of Mazou's voice, in her bright laughs and quick wit. She tried to forget the terror clawing through her ribs, tearing at her sternum as if it wanted to shear her open, forever exposing the weak beat of her erratic heart.

She tried. And she failed.

But hell, how she tried.

When the barrier rose, Kalanie felt its presence burst across her consciousness.

One moment, the space around her felt boundless, as if it extended endlessly in all directions. A breath later, a spiteful god cleaved that grand expanse into pieces. The change was profound, earth-shattering—and yet, somehow, nearly imperceptible. Here one second, gone the next.

It left Maz gasping. Rattled, she clutched at her chest, whatever story she'd been weaving long forgotten.

Perhaps Kalanie should have stayed, taken a moment to explain, but she didn't. She couldn't. Instead, she lurched to her feet and bolted for the door. Tossing an apology over her shoulder, she shoved it open and passed through the barrier trapping Mazou. The door thudded closed behind her.

Her pulse pounded in her temples as she ran, weaving her way back to the shrine's main halls, racing toward Kuwabara's aura. She found him in the clearing out front, his dimension sword in hand.

"You felt it?" he asked through clenched teeth.

"I did."

Sweat beaded along his brow. "Feels like someone chopped my arm off."

Did it? Not for her. In fact, the sensation had already faded. The world felt no different than it had minutes before.

Only then, as her heartbeat began to slow, did she remember the wait was not over. The barrier had risen, but there was no telling how long it would take for Nomi to be brought aboveground. Nor how much time the detectives would need to secure him.

Slowly, each movement a carefully orchestrated effort, she sank onto the steps and patted the open space beside her. "Come. Wait with me."

For a moment, Kuwabara seemed poised to argue, his lips parted on some half-baked refusal, but then his sword flickered away. His hand fell to his side. "I'm sick of waiting."

"Me, too."

"Shit!"

Kalanie startled as Kuwabara surged to his feet. "What? Is it Hiei—"

"It was trap. A fucking trap." The psychic's dimension sword flared in his hands. Still spitting curses, he slashed it through the air and rent a gaping hole between the worlds. Instantly, energy signals flickered along her awareness—the detectives, their allies, scores of puppets.

More questions clogged in her throat, but she swallowed them down and settled into a fighting stance, readying her iron. This was her assigned task. Protect the portal. Keep puppets from infiltrating the temple compound. Hold the line until her allies brought Nomi through.

She would not fail.

But the demons that poured through the portal weren't enemies.

First came Jin, dragging Touya after him. The ice apparition slumped against Jin's back, his head lolling. Unconscious, but not dead. His aura still pulsed, weak as a candle, but present nonetheless.

Rinku was next. Chu a second later. Each sported injuries that twisted Kalanie's stomach into knots. Shattered bones. Gaping wounds. Then a wave of apparitions she knew from days spent at the shrine, by face if not name.

After that, a lull. She closed ranks with Kuwabara, her iron writhing in her hands. Questions clawed like knives in her throat. Nomi. Was he safe? Did they have him? "What happened?" she managed, sneaking a glance at the human's stricken face. "What did Hiei tell you?"

"Only that they'd been tricked. That's all—"

The portal spat Kurama onto the grass. As his feet hit the ground, his left leg buckled, and Kalanie darted forward, wrapping an arm around the fox's waist to keep him standing. His frame dwarfed hers, and she nearly stumbled leading him to the steps. As she twisted back to the portal, his fingers caught her wrist. "Kalanie, we tried…"

No.

She wouldn't listen. She refused.

Hiei had sworn. He'd promised. And he knew what that meant to her. He knew why she needed to get Nomi back. He—

The Jaganshi burst from the portal in a splattering of blood. The bandages that normally wrapped his right arm were missing. In their place, a black dragon twined over his flesh, its body covered in blood spilling from a gash in his shoulder.

He was alone.

Nomi wasn't with him.

A heartbeat later, Yusuke appeared. "Close it! Kuwabara!"

"On it!" Throwing out his hands, Kuwabara withdrew the spirit energy that kept the portal open. It flickered, its edges fading, shrinking in on themselves.

Nomi's name rung in Kalanie's ears, echoing in time to her heartbeat. Panic surged through her veins as she lunged for the portal. She had to get to Demon World. She had to find Nomi. Someone had to—

An arm snagged around her chest. She snapped back against a solid torso. Hot, wet blood dampened her shirt.

The portal closed.

She fell to pieces.

AN: I swear, at some point, I'll stop torturing Kalanie. We just haven't reached that point... Next chapter is a very fun one, I can't wait to post it!

I have officially received revision notes from my agent, which means my brain is now consumed with sentient robots, desert sandstorms, and twisted politics. As a result, I'll be taken a break from drafting this story until those edits are done, but don't fret! I have a significant lead on drafted material, and in all likelihood, I'll be done my revising before I run out of chapters to post.

Thank you endlessly for my reviewers last chapter. I adored hearing what you all had to say!

Happy New Year, everyone! (Here's to hoping 2017 is nothing like 2016.)