Chapter two
"So you think he snuck in just to slaughter everyone and then break out? That doesn't sound like Yusuke at all!" Botan protested to Koenma, as they were hastily packing the most important contents of his desk into a suitcase.
"I don't understand it either, but it's what's happening and if we don't get out of here, we might be next!"
Botan huffed indignantly, but continued helping set plans in motion for the evacuation of their main headquarters, that included ferrying herself and a few chief staff to Genkai's temple in the human world for safekeeping. They would set up shop there and attempt to get to the bottom of this crisis, getting the old team back together to hopefully protect them from their former leader. She wasn't sure they had even seen each other since a few weeks after the demon world tournament had ended, and Enki's reign had begun.
Botan stubbornly refused to believe that Yusuke would hurt her, or the princeling, but the hollow bloodythirsty gaze frozen in time on their viewing screen had her doubting that Yusuke's mental state was entirely stable.
"Botan!"
She looked up solemnly, watching as Koenma snapped the heavy clasps shut on his case and handed it off to George, who began lugging it away while lamenting the end of his short live of servitude.
"It's all over now! I've barely had any fun at all and here I am about to be blown to smithereens, oh, this is just so terrible. Why does this always happen to me?"
Koenma only had eyes for her, and her dark purple gaze was aflame with quiet determination that was not her usual modus operandi.
"I need you to go on ahead, find Kuwabara, and get Kurama and Hiei to Genkai's. She's already expecting us but we're going to need some serious firepower if Yusuke is after us. We have less than a quarter of an hour before he breaks through the last defenses and I don't know what he wants. He won't answer me over the loudspeaker, and he's murdered everything he's set his eyes on since we realized he was in the block."
"Sir, don't you think one of us should try and go down there to talk to him? Maybe he just doesn't realize what's going on."
The look she got then indicated perhaps she was the one gone mad.
"If you go down there, I have no doubt he will erase you from existence. It's too dangerous for any of us to confront him, even with the full backing of the SDF, many more lives could be lost than we can afford to lose."
His hazel eyes softened a little, "You are irreplaceable, let the team handle the dangerous work, you just stay safe on the sidelines."
Botan had been unusually quiet since she had awoken, the thrum of anxiety still running high and the heavy weight of reality crushing her usual cheer beneath it. Plastering on a smile, she summoned her oar and swept onto it.
"I'll assemble the boys, you get to safety too sir! You can count on me!"
She shot through the open door, zigging and zagging around in the crowd of panic, til the ceiling got higher and she could fly above it.
The warm and wonderful weather did nothing to dispel the horrible gloom she wore like a cloak, foreboding hanging on her every thought. Yusuke had been a formidable fighter as a human, but as an S-class demon powerhouse, one of the Three Kings, he was borderline unstoppable. /What will happen to him now? Why is doing this?/ She had so many questions and absolutely no answers. As she passed through the portal into human world and zipped across the Kaiden skyline, she couldn't help but worry for the safety of her other friends as well. What f Yusuke was so far out of his mind that they were in danger too? As she came to a hover outside of Kuwabara's window, she noticed something that she hadn't before. His room was empty. Not just empty of life but devoid of evidence that anyone lived there. The bed was stripped to bare mattress, the Megallica posters missing, even Eikichi's food dish was gone. She was fairly certain that something had been mentioned at one time or another about Yukina coming to stay with the Kuwabara family, so finding the room she expected them to share empty was puzzling. Her oar drifted to another window of the house, where Shizuru's things were as they always were, although she wasn't in her room either. /That's odd.../ Botan thought to herself as she floated towards the back of the house, and finally caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. Under the pergola on their rear patio, the eldest Kuwabara sibling was smoking while texting on her cell phone.
"Shizuru! Oh thank goodness." She landed in front of her and banished her oar. "I'm looking for Kuwabara, something's happened in spirit world and I desperately need to find him and the others!"
Shizuru's pale face looked as though she had seen a ghost, with her spiritual awareness, it was likely that she had a decent idea already of what was going on.
"Kazuma hasn't lived here for months, but I have no doubt that he can sense whatever's happening too. It's a strong feeling and I can just tell something really bad is about to happen." She blew a column of smoke straight up and eyed Botan up and down. "He lives at Genkai's with Yukina, I sent him a text so he knows you're on the way. You don't have to tell me what's going on if you don't want to... but... You look like hell, kid." Botan offered her a weak half smile, it taking more courage than she could muster to offer a comforting platitude. She gave it a half hearted attempt anyway.
"Yusuke is..." She took a deep breath and pressed her hands together over her thumping heart. "Yusuke is in trouble," she finished lamely.
Shizuru's thin eyebrow lifted in a dubious manner.
"Trouble? Isn't that his middle name?"
"Well it's more like he's lost his mind! I have to hurry or I don't know what will happen." Shizuru gave her a sympathetic look as she pulled on the crumpled collar of her kimono, "We'll figure something out. We always do." She loosened her braid and began scraping her hair up into a messy version of her normally quite sleek 'do. "If I can find Kurama and Hiei just as easily, then we'll be in business!"
She lifted one finger in the air and stated firmly, with a ghost of a smile, "Somehow it always goes the right way in the end and I have no doubt it will again this time!"
The brunette looked like she might call her on the obvious lie, before taking another long drag off her cigarette, and seeming to resign herself.
"Take care of yourself, and look out for my little bro. Tell him... Sometimes the fight isn't worth losing."
The cryptic warning gave Botan's heart an extra jump as her wooden transport reappeared in her right hand. She and Shizuru nodded to each other as she mounted up, then rocketed away towards the Minamino residence. By the time she was perched on Kurama's windowsill, looking in on his empty bedroom, she knew that Yusuke would have broken free of the prison. What would happen next, she hadn't the slightest idea.
"Kurama!" She called in a hushed tone, looking towards the closed en suite bathroom's door framed in light. It was only an hour from daybreak, yet finding the fox awake so early was rather unsettling. She called his name again, as her geta sandals made contact with the soft carpet in silence. She leaned her oar against the wall and took in the sight of his made bed, his organized desk with an envelope perched on it, and the impeccable state of his book cases. She briefly wondered about him making excuses to his mother for leaving in the middle of the night, her fear of being seen nonexistent, as she was invisible to any normal human. She had not forgotten her purpose or her haste, and she decided to risk disturbing him in his private quarters. Approaching the bathroom door with one hand extended, she thought to quietly knock on the door in hopes of hurrying their departure. What she wasn't expecting was the door to the hallway popping open, startling her into a retreat and admitting the ever composed redhead.
He held a slender finger to his lips, indicating silence, as his expressive emerald eyes gravely searched her face. He held up a communicator with his other hand, and swept towards the window, motioning for her to follow. Once he had jumped down to the street, and she flown, they began to speak quietly.
"Koenma has spoken with me directly about the situation, and has requested that you fly me to Genkai's at once. My apologies that we must not meet under better circumstances, but there is no time for pleasantries now."
"I can't believe that Yusuke would do something like this, Kurama. There's just no way!" She felt as though she might cry, her throat tight around the words, somehow hoping that the clever fox could put her fears to rest.
"Right now I don't know what to believe, except that we will get to the bottom of this. Hiei has already contacted me and is en route as well. We really must be going." He looked expectantly at her, as she mounted her oar and turned slightly sideways to him. With an inhuman grace, he sprang lightly into a side saddle position beside her, and gripped the handle on either side of his thighs with white knuckles. Botan looked him over once as their ascension began, noted the solemn set of his face figure, and she was ever so slightly comforted to know that Yusuke's friends were coming to his rescue.
