Kurama's strategy talks proved more like war council meetings than mere planning sessions, and when Kalanie slipped into the meeting room the next morning, she found its cushions packed with the hundreds of allies Yusuke had encountered over the years, the lot crossing between the worlds and crawling out of the woodwork in numbers she could hardly fathom. Every demon he'd earned the loyalty of. Every former enemy whose respect he'd garnered. Every fighter who wished to see a return to the time before the Fall.
There were the usual suspects. The former spirit detectives. Their women. Genkai. The ragtag gang of demons who protected the shrine—Jin and Touya, Chu and Rinku, and all the others.
But then there were the faces Kalanie never would've imagined sharing a room with. Yomi. The deceased Lord Raizen's surviving friends. Koenma. Soldiers from Spirit World's Defense Force. Even Mukuro, stripped of her old title yet still one of the strongest demons to ever walk the demon planes.
By the third day of planning, their numbers had swelled beyond the meeting room's occupancy limits, and rather than cramming within the temple's walls, they spilled into the yard beyond, arraying across the grass like a true legion of soldiers.
Through it all, Kalanie remained an observer, watching without interfering. Their strategizing was beyond her, Kurama's quick wit matched by Yomi and Raizen's friends at a level she couldn't hope to achieve. Instead of participating, she hunkered at Kuwabara's side, listening and learning and hoping they proceeded swiftly enough to make a difference, that these talks would coalesce into action before Nomi's clock expired.
At times, Kuwabara tossed an elbow her way, urging her to speak up, muttering that she had the answers Kurama needed. But just as often, Hiei would stand, detailing in quick, clinical terms whatever pertinent information she'd gathered during her time as Masaru's captive, and Kuwabara would cease his prodding.
The anonymity served her well. It was what she wanted.
Because she wasn't like the detectives. She wasn't a hero. She didn't want to be one. Her goal was singular—be a foot soldier. Serve in this war, in the battles looming on the horizon. Fight her way to Nomi.
By whatever means necessary.
To that end, Kurama planned two strikes. The first would hit the Wailing Waters, the largest encampment of puppets other than the one in the Woods of War. It was intended to be a slaughter, a brute implementation of force that would squelch Taku's fighters out of existence.
But more than that, it would lay the groundwork for their second attack, a two-pronged assault on Taku's fortress and the facility that housed the Shells. With the army at the Wailing Waters destroyed, Taku's reinforcements would be cut off.
He'd be weakened.
Vulnerable.
That was how they'd end this. A final battle to eliminate the puppeteers. One in which they threw every last resource on the line. There'd be no holding back, no second chances if they failed.
Now was the time to strike. Before Masaru scrounged up a replacement for Nomi. Before Taku had a means to bring down the temple. No more delaying. No more strategizing.
There was just this moment. These fights. And whatever future came after.
They launched their attack on the Wailing Waters at dawn, amassing outside the temple and awaiting a portal to Demon World.
Per Kurama's instructions, Kuwabara and Genkai would remain behind, commanding a squadron of Spirit Defense Force operatives loaned to them from Koenma. They'd keep the temple compound protected, no matter what occurred at the Wailing Waters. The humans and apparitions who'd gathered in the mountains would remain safe.
Which meant their army had no distractions.
As Kuwabara tore a hole between the worlds, Yusuke threw up a war cry. His aura spiked across his skin, demon and spirit energy alike spiraling skyward. Then he was gone, leaping into the portal and disappearing in a handful of heartbeats.
The rest of their forces streamed after him. Yomi and Mukuro first. Then Jin and the lot who'd been unassigned under his command. One after another, demons flickered out of existence, off to war. Off to bloodshed.
Off to victory.
Hiei and Kalanie moved last of all, waiting a handful of tense moments while Kurama gathered a lay of the battle and conveyed it back to Hiei. It was a compromise—one Kurama had insisted on. He'd wanted to confirm whether Masaru would be present, arguing a second's forewarning might be key in Hiei staving off potential fresh compulsions. Overly cautious, certainly, but a minor acquiescence in the grand scheme of things.
Still, when Hiei at last jumped through the portal, Kalanie was all too eager to follow. Iron coated her skin, forming flowing armor brought to life across her flesh and trailing in her wake as Demon World materialized beneath her feet. More steel pooled in her hands, ready to form swords or throwing stars or any manner of weapon.
The battle already raged, Yusuke's forces fanning out from the portal. They held firm lines, an ever-expanding circle spreading through the puppeteers' encampment. A quick appraisal was enough to show the puppets were already failing, their inferior abilities faltering before her allies' brutal onslaught.
Good.
But not enough.
Not yet.
In a blur of black, Hiei assumed a position to Kurama's left. His katana flashed, sheering through puppets like they were little more than dust, and he fell into rhythm with the fox, his blade and Kurama's whip striking in tandem.
Masaru wasn't here—that much Kalanie processed instantly—and she threw herself into the fight with abandon, confident in her continued independence. Her iron shifted into twin blades, and she wielded them with deadly accuracy, protecting Hiei's right flank just as Kurama guarded his left.
The world boiled down to nothing but the weight of her swords, the clank and screech of her parries and thrusts, the reek of blood and innards and death. In some distant part of herself, she recognized these puppets weren't the enemy, not truly. They were victims, just as she had been—just as she still was—but victory lay in their destruction, and sparing them now saved no one, not even them.
Yet in a lull between enemies, her focus changed. She snuck a glance across the muddied battlefield, spotting Yusuke pummeling his way through a knot of puppets and overlooking Mukuro ravaging a score of opponents, searching and searching until at last she found the puppeteers assigned to this hellpit.
They'd hunkered beyond a sea of puppets. No doubt they were content to let their minions die, every last one falling before this assault, and even then, she imagined they'd rather run than fight. After all, what were puppeteers if not cowards? In all likelihood, only orders from Taku had kept them here in the first place. They'd probably bolt any moment.
Time, then, to take the fight to them—before they made good on an attempt to escape.
Over the clash of battle, she whistled, catching first Hiei's and then Kurama's attention. They followed her line of sight. As understanding lit in his eyes, Hiei's lips curled into a vicious smirk and he barked a command to Rinku, ordering the demon to hold the line. Then he charged forward, his energy crackling across his fists.
Kalanie gave chase, falling in beside Kurama. Now it was her blades striking in sync with his rose whip, their movements coordinating in a bloody dance as they carved a path through the puppets, incapacitating demon after demon.
Then they were there, bursting past the puppeteers' last line of defense, cutting through a final swathe of puppets. For a time, she lost herself to her bloodlust, so consumed by her hatred that she hardly noticed the change sweeping across the battlefield.
In the end, it took Hiei to make her aware. He signaled with his katana, indicating the swarms of puppets still mired in battle—except they weren't anymore, at least not entirely. All around, puppets had begun to falter, their resistance giving way. Many surrendered, collapsing to their knees in the mud, but many more kept up the fight, not against Yusuke or the others, but against the puppeteers.
The truth dawned on her slowly, filtering past the frenzied haze of adrenaline and rage that had fueled her, but she realized it all the same.
As the puppeteers bled out into the Wailing Waters' murky streams, the Sovereign Binds they'd created were breaking, fading from existence link by link, chain by chain. And with each broken Bind, the puppets returned to themselves. Their compulsions weakened. Their will returned.
At long last, they became free.
Yusuke stoked the bonfire to fresh heights, tossing three logs into the roaring flames, then settled in the dirt, looped an arm around Keiko's waist, and raised a beer toward the night sky. "Cheers, you stubborn bastards. It's been a damn honor fighting with you. Try not to die tomorrow, would you?"
Around the fire, beers rose in a chorus.
Whether Botan's cheeks were rosy from the flames' heat or the liquor in her system, Kalanie couldn't be sure, but she suspected the latter as the ferry girl whistled noisily. "Hear! Hear!"
Yusuke's grin turned sly. "Well now, Botan, I wasn't counting you in the fighting bit… Unless you think swinging that baseball bat of yours around counts for something."
Exasperation twisted Botan's lips into a frown. "Excuse you, Yusuke Urameshi! I've saved your butt plenty of times."
Just like that they were lost, devolving into an argument that seemed utterly pointless and yet so completely them all at once. Nursing her own beer, Kalanie watched beneath her bangs as Botan thwacked Yusuke's shoulder with an oar she'd summoned from thin air. He roared with laughter and quickly wrangled Botan to his side, his free arm twining around her neck in a headlock, his knuckles ruffling her hair. Botan's indignant struggle only deepened Yusuke's rumbling laughter.
At Kalanie's side, Kurama took a long draught of his drink before murmuring, "I've known Yusuke for years now. Somehow, he's never changed. He's still the same hard-nosed punk he was at fourteen. And yet, by the same token, he's entirely different."
"He's not what I expected, I'll give you that."
Kurama quirked a brow. "Oh?"
"None of you are." Kalanie drew her knees in to her chest and propped her chin atop them. "I couldn't be more glad for it."
The smile that danced at the corner of Kurama's lips was the first she'd seen from him in days. Of everyone gathered around the fire, he seemed to wear the burden of tomorrow's fight most heavily—second perhaps only to her and her desperate need to rescue Nomi. Though Yusuke would be their leader on the field, his brash bravado doubled as a stubborn shield against worry, and it hadn't been his intellect that had crafted their battle strategy.
That duty had fallen to Kurama's sharp mind, and while his plans were brilliant, there was no way to be sure they'd deliver on their promised genius. Not until the fight was already won.
And that was easier said than done.
She clinked her bottle against the neck of his and changed the subject, hoping to keep their tone light-hearted. "You were wrong about the beer. Last time I found you at one of these fires, you said we were drinking the last case. Thank the Spirit World gods for small miracles, huh?"
He chuckled. "Thank Kuwabara, more accurately. Apparently he'd stowed a haul away, saving it for this night."
"Why this night?"
Another soft laugh. "This night as in the final one before the war's end. Live or die, tomorrow this is over. There might never be another night like this. Not for us. Even if we win, we might not all make it home."
Well, not the cheerful topic she'd hoped for.
A chill trembled down her spine, and not even a swig of beer could stave off the ice settling in her bones. Swallowing down the knot risen in her throat, she peered around the bonfire, soaking it all in. Yusuke and Botan still huddled together, their fake squabble now subsided. Keiko tucked against the half-breed's other side. Kuwabara cuddled with Yukina, murmuring gently in her ear. Genkai and Shizuru knocking back shots of some unidentifiable homebrew.
And last of all, directly across from her in the circle, Hiei. He'd not said a word for hours, but she'd felt his near constant attention. Even now he was studying her, his elbows braced atop his knees, his beer hanging from loose fingers.
They'd shared barely a word since he'd left her room nearly a week before. It seemed his vow of nothing more had been strictly factual. Other than the brief moment while they waited for Kurama's signal to join the battle at the Wailing Waters, she hadn't even been alone with him.
Yet there he sat. Watching. Waiting.
Heart in her throat, she lifted her bottle and tipped it toward him, offering the barest glimmer of a smile. His eyes narrowed, reflecting the firelight like garnets, but slowly his own drink rose. A silent toast. A wordless promise.
Kurama remained at her side a while longer, muttering wry commentary in soft undertones before drifting off to a cluster of demons along the trees' edge. Kalanie spotted Yomi amongst them, and soon Kurama was engaged with him, discussing the upcoming battle or their complicated history or the gods knew what else.
The whole clearing was clogged with their makeshift army, demons and psychics and Spirit Defense Force soldiers milling together on this final night before it all ended—one way or the other. Some nursed beers, others had the Demon World swill she'd grown up drinking, and Chu had even managed to steal himself a handle of Genkai's moonshine.
Over the thrum of their voices, a radio played, blasting loud, tinny music into the night, and she watched in disbelief as Jin inserted himself between Genkai and Shizuru and hauled the human girl to her feet. A moment later, he swept her onto an open swathe of grass and goaded her into dancing. Before long, others began to join.
Movement across the fire drew her gaze back through the flames. Hiei had shoved himself upright, brushing off his pants with rough, unsteady motions. His bottle remained in the dirt, knocked on its side, beer dribbling from its mouth, but he paid it no mind as he stalked toward Kuwabara and Yukina.
Over a sudden bark of Yusuke's laughter, Kalanie couldn't make out Hiei's voice, but then Yukina was rising, Hiei's callused hand sliding around hers. His shoulders locked tight as stone, he steered her toward the forest, leaving Kuwabara gawking in his wake.
Staving off a grin, Kalanie scooted to Kuwabara's side. Ages ago, Hiei had told her Kuwabara knew nothing of his relationship to Yukina, but if Hiei was off to have the conversation she anticipated he was, then she doubted that would stay true for long.
"Might want to close your mouth," she said, elbowing him lightly in the side, "or else some insect might take up residence."
His jaw shut with an audible clack. "What the hell does the shrimp want with Yukina?"
"I imagine you'll find out if you're meant to."
Judging by the deep creases on his forehead, that wasn't the answer he was looking for.
She drained the last of her beer, then set the bottle aside and jostled his shoulder. "They'll come back. Let them have their moment. I think they need it."
He still seemed unsatisfied, frowning at the thicket of trees where Hiei and Yukina had disappeared, and she left him to his moment, letting the fire draw her in instead. Its roaring flames warmed her cheeks as an updraft carried sparks spiraling toward the stars. They danced and sputtered, tiny pinpricks against the dark, mesmerizing and beautiful one second, then gone the next, their heat and light dissipating, their energy consumed.
A pair of slippered feet stirred up dust at her side, announcing Genkai's arrival. Sighing, the old woman sank cross-legged onto the ground and shoved a fresh beer into Kalanie's hands. "The dimwit left a key piece out of that bullshit he called a toast."
With a flick of her energy, Kalanie manipulated the iron in the bottle's cap and tugged it free. A cloud of cold air wafted from the beer's long neck. "And what would that be?"
"You."
She nearly choked on her first sip. "Come again?"
"He left out you, girl. Without you, we'd still be scrounging around like a bunch of fools, struggling to find leads, desperately clinging to what little Demon World territory we still controlled. We'd be losing."
Kalanie shook her head. "You're giving me far too much credit."
"Am I?" Genkai scoffed. "Don't be modest. Doesn't suit you."
"Then perhaps you shouldn't spout nonsense."
"Genkai's right," Kuwabara said, looking away from the woods at last. "You saved our asses."
"Like hell—"
"Don't argue." He chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck sheepishly. "Maybe the rumors you were hearing before you found this place said otherwise, but before you, we were hardly holding it together. We didn't understand the Sovereign Binds. We didn't know about the Shell. We definitely didn't know about your brother. And that's saying nothing of the fact that you spied for us, directly inside Taku's base of operations."
Genkai's usually gruff tone softened a notch. "This whole army… It exists because of you, Kalanie. Your information gave Yusuke the leverage needed to stoke Yomi and Mukuro and all the others back to the offensive." She huffed a snort, sucked her beer dry, and stood. "For fear that you'll think I'm getting soft in my old age, I won't say this again, but thank you, Kalanie. No matter what outcome befalls us tomorrow, thank you."
As the psychic walked off, her hands clasped behind her back, Kuwabara thrust his beer toward the heavens. "Damn straight."
No.
They were wrong.
No one owed her thanks. For years now, she'd been nothing but a tool, a puppet dancing on someone else's strings, a dog on a chain. When her leash had been in Masaru's hands, she'd helped bring about the end of the worlds. She'd helped wrought the Fall. Once she wiggled free, she dragged that leash with her to this temple, and all she'd done since had been atonement, haphazard labors to wash the blood from her hands.
Not behavior worthy of gratitude.
"Hey." Kuwabara swiped a palm in front of her eyes. "Earth to Kalanie."
She swatted his hand away.
He grinned. "Someday you'll get it. You're stubborn as all get out. Heck maybe even more stubborn than Hiei. And you walk around with an even bigger chip on your shoulder than he does. But I promise you, if we succeed tomorrow, it's because of you as much as anyone else. More than, really."
"Enough."
"Fine. For now. But after this is all over, I'm going to remind you. Again and again and again. Until you see the truth. Until you see yourself for who you really are."
Her fingers curled tight around her bottle, every groove and bump in the glass pressing into her skin. "Then promise me something else, too."
Kuwabara cocked his head. "Shoot."
"If I don't come back tomorrow, if Masaru captures me or I'm killed or some other hell claims me, promise you'll look after my brother."
He pressed his lips so thin his blood leeched away. "That's not going to happen."
"But if it does, promise me."
"It won't, Kalanie. And even if it did, then Nomi wouldn't be here for me to protect. If you don't make it back—"
"My brother still will." Sucking down a steadying breath, she stared into the bonfire. It had been a while since Yusuke fed it fresh logs, and the fire had begun to burn down, but blue flames still licked the wood at its center, burning hotter than all the rest. If this fire was the army amassed at the shrine, then those blue flames were Hiei. Steady. Unrelenting.
A heat that had consumed her whole world.
As if she'd summoned him, Hiei emerged from the forest, Yukina at his side. The ice apparition looked at him in wonder, her hand looped around his, just as it had been when they'd left. No disgust clouded her pretty features. No disappointment marred her bright smile.
She was happy. Plain and simple.
Kalanie tipped her head toward them. "Yukina's back."
Kuwabara's gaze flicked toward the pair, but quickly returned to Kalanie. "Explain. You're not distracting me. How can you be sure Nomi will be here if you aren't?"
"Hiei will save him."
The truth. As plain and simple as Yukina's happiness. If she failed to rescue Nomi, Hiei would succeed in her stead. She knew it in her bones, in the very fabric of her soul.
Maybe she'd fall tomorrow. Maybe Masaru would overcome her. But either way, Nomi would still be free. Hiei would see to that.
"So promise me," she said. "Promise to look after him if I can't. Promise that he'll have a home. Promise he'll have a life and a family and people who love him."
For a perilous, tense moment, Kuwabara remained still, his dark eyes narrowed, his brow creased. Then he nodded, one bob of his chin all the guarantee she needed. Only he didn't stop there. Instead, he raised a hand, his fingers curled inward, his knuckles exposed. She answered in kind.
A fist bump.
The most important they'd ever shared.
Then Yukina was at their side, her hand still clutching Hiei's. Kalanie hardly heard a word she said, though she knew what Yukina was about to reveal.
She eased to her feet. They needed a moment alone, this new family of three. Tomorrow, war waited. But for now, they deserved a chance to work out the implications of this secret Hiei had once held so close. Though judging by the stunned pallor in Kuwabara's cheeks, he might need longer than night to accept his new brother.
But before she left, Kalanie caught Hiei's free wrist, her fingers grazing across his blazing flesh. "Find me later, if you can spare a second."
"Hn."
The night had settled by the time Hiei joined her on the porch.
Most of their forces had drifted off to bed, but she'd caught Kurama cloistered in the meeting room, still deep in strategy talks with leaders of their various battalions. Ever the pragmatist, that fox.
"You ready for tomorrow?" she asked, her voice drifting across the empty clearing. Even the forest's insects had fallen silent, as if they, too, knew what waited come dawn. In the quiet, she wondered if Hiei could hear the drumming of her heart.
"Hn. Are you?"
"As I'll ever be."
Glaring toward the trees, he braced his elbows on his knees. The motion pressed his arm to hers, the corded steel of his bicep scorching with his ever-present heat. Despite his promise of distance, when she leaned into him, resting her head against his shoulder, he didn't pull away.
"I wanted you to know that I think you made the right choice," she whispered into the darkness. "About us, I mean. Not because of the compulsions, but because of something you said a long time ago."
She felt, rather than saw, his head shift toward her. His lips brushed the crown of her head, but he remained silent. Waiting. Letting answers to his unspoken questions arise on their own.
"You said you didn't want to be my distraction, my way of forgetting about my brother and the hell he's in and my inability to save him. And that's not what this has been. Not for a long time." She almost laughed, but it caught in her throat and she didn't try to work it free. "You're very distracting, Hiei Jaganshi, but you're not a distraction."
"Kalanie—"
She sat up and sealed a finger over his mouth. "No, let me finish."
But more words didn't come. Not right away.
Her hand traced along his jaw, committing every last detail of him to memory. An image of him had once helped pull her from the dark, and though she prayed she'd never need saving again, she wanted to be sure he'd be there in the shadows with her—in memory if nothing else.
"You're not a distraction," she whispered at last. "But I'm distracted. Without—" Nomi's name tripped on her tongue, still forbidden, even after all this time. Gritting her teeth, she started again. "Without my brother, I'm not all here. And us… Whatever we are or could be…" She squeezed her eyes shut. "I need to put all this behind me. Save my brother. Kill Masaru. Then maybe I can figure out who I am now. Then I'll be here—all of me, not whatever pieces I've cobbled together."
Hiei's answer came without words. He offered no grand acceptance, no beautifully phrased declarations. Instead, he drew her closer, one hand twining into her hair, the other curling like a brand against her cheek.
His kiss started gentle. Tentative and probing. Uncertain. But as she twined her arms around his neck, he grew more insistent. Hungry and desperate. He kissed her like wildfire consumed a forest, burning her up, setting her ablaze.
She was all too happy to burn.
AN: We've truly reached the beginning of the end. There's not much farther to go, but at the same time, there's plenty to wrap up. I hope you'll all enjoy the ending as much as you've enjoyed the ride to get here!
If there's one thing I wish I could have done more in this story it's showing Kalanie's relationship with the entirety of the gang. I've tried to highlight Kuwabara where I can. Kurama and Yukina, too. But I didn't get to do nearly enough with Yusuke or Keiko or Botan or Genkai. I love all these characters so much, and I'd love to play around with them forever, but in the interest of actually finishing this story, I had to draw a line somewhere. Alas.
Thank you to everyone who reviewed last chapter! You guys rock!