One
The sparse patches of grass on the forest floor bowed flat against the ground, as if trampled by an invisible force. Botan was careful to avoid the large area of mud to her left as she steered her oar to bank parallel to the floor. The weather recently of recent in the Makai had been downright terrible (not that it had ever been of the sun and sand variety). Still, it pulled at her heartstrings when the souls she ferried had to watch as their own bodies were swept away by rainwater, unclaimed by a loved one.
Her eyes fell to the body scantly ten steps away. Standing at just above twenty feet and nearly four times her width, the deceased was the bullishly built Tabuno, a mountain king infamous in the region for his insatiable greed and thirst for blood. According to his file, he had spent seven hundred and fifty three long years pillaging village after village, striking terror into the souls of neighboring demons. He then carved his infamous lair out of the solid rock in the heart of the Echo Mountains, to the dismay of demon villages in the vicinity. Accepting warriors' calls to battle from all over the area, Tabuno haughtily built a reputation for himself as a tyrant to the weak and an indestructible challenge to the brave. Rumor had it that he took the skulls of the defeated as trophies and stashed them somewhere in his lair.
It was strange. Generally, powerful demons like Tabuno lived well past two thousand, even with their hazardous lifestyles. His time had come prematurely, killed by a powerful foe unforeseen by Spirit World.
His corpse, not yet stiffened by the grips of death, was a gruesome sight to behold. Thick, purple vines wrapped around the demon's limbs, suspending him in a mock-fighting stance. His great, horned head hung from a bent, thick neck (that Botan didn't think she could wrap her hands around, even). Stabbed through the appendage were more vines, coated in blood and sinew. As if as a finishing touch, the vines tapered in size in a ring around his throat and sprouted small, pink flowers. Like a necklace.
Since the plants didn't appear to be of the mountain variety, she supposed Tabuno's murderer must have some control over them, along with a morbid sense of humor.
Right on time, the body began to glow in a manner similar to Yusuke's the resurrection, although Tabuno's energy was red. After a bit struggle, as if his body was forcibly sucking his soul back out of sheer will to live, Tabuno's spirit rose out of his body. An exact, albeit semi-translucent, copy of the demon stood before her, eyeing his deceased form.
"Wha- what's this?" he growled, looking down through his transparent hands.
Botan, already trying to figure out how she was going to ferry such a large being on her oar, quickly responded, "Hello, sir. My name's Botan and I'm a ferry girl for the Spirit World. As I'm sure you've figured out, I'm here to escort you to the next step of your journey."
"No, it's too soon…" he said, voice steadily gaining confidence. "I've got to see him, one last time." His eyes roamed their surroundings, desperately searching for something.
Oh, so he was one of those types. She hoped he wasn't going to try and deny her presence. Because on the dead scale, this guy got an A plus.
"I understand that this is hard to comprehend, but you must come with me at this moment."
The demon gave a frustrated shout. "It's not that, it's just… Things can't end like this. I'm the great Tabuno! King of the Mountains!" His voice dwindled, and he met her eyes for the first time. "How could I lose my life to a mere fox?"
Curiosity got the best of her. "If you wouldn't mind me asking, do you know who this fox demon is?" In addition to ferrying souls, it was also her duty to periodically update Koenma on the newest killers in the area who had the potential to end a significant amount of lives and upset the balance of power.
"It was… he…" Tabuno seemed to stumble a bit, his anger giving way. Upon second inspection, Botan was surprised to see that the enormous being was trembling.
"Long white hair, and an immense aura. And his cold, yellow eyes…" Here he trailed off, looking at her. "I don't know his name."
"That's quite alright," she said. "Thank you for your information. Are you ready?"
The great demon took one final, look at his mutilated self, and resigned himself to his fate. He was a heavy soul, but Botan managed to haul him up by the hand while riding on her oar.
"Here we go," she said, cheer back again.
"That fox certainly knows how to add insult to injury." Tabuno grunted, as they lifted off the ground.
The oar took a steep incline, flying fifty feet from the ground. As she was looking down at canopy of trees for a directional guide, Botan noticed a white-clad figure, standing by the hulking form of Tabuno's vine-choked body. The figure looked at the corpse and made a motion with his hand. The violet plant retracted its grip, wilting into the ground. Without its strings, the puppet that was the corpse crumpled to the ground with a thud that roused birds from their nests.
The cold, golden eyes of the demon followed Botan and Tabuno on the oar, until they disappeared behind a low-hanging cloud.
Botan hopped from her oar and landed delicately on her feet, pleased to feel the firm ground. The last time she'd been in this area of the Makai was a couple months ago, when the area had still been swamped with storm after storm.
This time, the deceased was Unaro, a water nymph of the river. The uncovered parts of her body were covered in iridescent scales that shone a spectrum of colors by the rays of light peeking through the dense canopy overhead. She was dressed in the spiny armor of a water warrior, which always reminded Botan of the spikes of a starfish. Unaro's garments were stained by the blood seeping through a hole in her chest. It seemed as though her heart had been ripped out.
Botan followed the trail of blood a couple feet to her left, where a Venus fly-trap like plant held a bloody ball of gore in its translucent jaw. Yes, the lady was definitely heart-less.
Botan leaned against her oar and took a deep, exaggerated breath of the spring air, as she waited for Unaro's soul to rise. It was gorgeous out here, but she didn't know if she would ever be brave enough to enjoy the vegetation to its fullest, what with all the man-eating plants and all.
Suddenly, she felt someone grip her forearms.
"You! How could you do this to our general?" A fetid smell of rotting fish and Yusuke's socks washed over her face gently. Behind her stood a tall, imposing demon who resembled a goldfish, standing on its flippers.
"You have me mistaken. I didn-"
"Silence!" he screamed, accented with a gurgle on the "sss" sound. "Unaro has no business with you Spirit world people! Let us keep her and we will ensure her honor after the disgrace that was her death!"
Placantly, she said, "Please, I realize death is always a painful thing to admit but-"
"Don't give me that bullshit!" Either that or 'done gwoy mwoy de'at boe sit'. The fish looked enraged, eyes bulging and antennae-like appendages waving in the wind. "You, pathetic apparition, have no choice!"
Maybe it was because this was her fourth case today in which she'd been bodily threatened, or maybe it was because she'd been getting massive cramps the past three days (a sure sign of her period). Perhaps she just hated her job, or the guacamole she had for lunch triggered sporadic periods of insanity, but Botan grew very irritated.
"Don't yell at me!" she yelled. "I'm just doing my job!"
"You can't handle your job! None of you ugly, puny Reikai tramps can." The fish glided over to the body of Unaro, leaving a slimy trail. "You don't deserve to gaze upon the beauty of Unaro. Take your hideously colored blue hair and leave... or I will personally eradicate you from this world!"
"Oh yeah?" Botan shouted, characteristically irked at the hair insult. "You and what army?" She gripped her oar in one hand, ready to show him how useless the Reikai "tramps" really were.
He thrashed his head around, like a fish out of water, and small droplets of water sprayed forth. To Botan's horror, each droplet of water swelled in size and turned into a fish-warrior demon as they hit the ground.
Oh, she just had to go there.
The soul had yet to rise from Unaro's body, and in defense position or not, it was still Botan's duty to ferry the soul, no matter how overprotective the she-warrior's boyfriend was. She couldn't simply turn tail, no matter how appealing the option seemed.
But then… Her insides clenched with fear as the first fish-monster pointed his spear at her.
"Insolent Spirit-world apparition- I'm taking your life for hers!" He drew back his hand and set the spear on a deathly precise path towards her head.
Out of reflex, Botan squeezed her eyes shut and dodged to the left, when she heard a massive crackling. Wind whipped her face, and she tried to open her eyes to see what was happening, only to have them tear up with the dust that had blown around.
She felt an incredible flux of power that knocked the wind out of her, but it was gone as soon as it came.
Finally, after what felt like minutes (although it was really probably five seconds), Botan opened her eyes. The sharp point of the spear was a scant two inches from the tip of her nose.
Jumping a little, she quickly gathered herself and slid out from under the suspended spear. The vine that had halted the weapon, saving her life in the process, was a stark green and it was attached to a starburst of leaves on the floor. The rest of the ground was littered with the bodies of the fish soldiers, all strangled to death by the same strange plant. The growth of the plant was constricted to the forest clearing where she stood.
"You should be more careful, Reikai apparition."
Botan looked above, where a figure loosely robed in white was perched on a low branch. His defined build denoted he was a fighter, while the white ears atop his head detonated he was a demon. If there had been a breeze, she was sure his hair would billow fabulously in the wind. Every bit the stuff teenage girl-demons' dreams were made of.
He jumped in front of her, and she met his golden gaze with a start. They looked awfully familiar. Giving an awkward laugh, she nervously brushed her bangs back from her face.
"Thanks for that. I guess I was being stupid, ahaha…" She peered nervously at the taller demon who was looking at her with mild interest. His body posture displayed no tenseness, even though he'd just slain half a hundred men in one go.
Recognization hit. "We've met before!" she told him. "I ferried the mountain spirit Tabuno a couple months ago. Was that you standing by his corpse?"
The demon with long, silver hair looked with looked to have some faintly recollecting expression. "Oh, him. That dragon skull encrusted throne fetched quite a price."
"Oh… er, I see," Botan was fast sensing that this wasn't the hero in shining armor that he'd appeared to be. "Well, I guess I should get back to my job, now if I can just find my oar…"
She peered around the ground for it, picking through similarly colored twigs. She must've dropped it sometime between the verbal inquisition by Nemo and the running for her life bit.
"You mean this?" The demon was standing before a pile of splinters in the mud, crushing a piece with his foot.
Dread twisted through Botan. No, it couldn't be. That oar was her one ticket out of Demon World. Without it…
She walked towards the demon with a gasp, not wanting to believe her eyes. Without it, she was as good as dead, stranded in a world of unfriendly apparitions, amongst whom she was probably known for taking the souls of their fallen friends.
"You broke it!" she gasped.
"It was already broken," he told her, with a flat expression. "Splintered by a stray thorn of the lionsnare."
Confused, she looked down to see the massive coils of sharply thorned vines littering the ground, vines she was sure hadn't been there before.
Desolation filled her. He'd spoken the truth. What she going to do now?
Botan's gaze fell to the ground to her right, traced an invisible path to her left, before she mustered the courage to look the demon in the eye.
"Hi, I'm Botan. Maybe… perhaps… could I stay with you?"
A/N: Don't own yuyu.