Disclaimer: I still don't own YYH
Ch.2
Week 1
"Hello Koenma sir, you called for me?" Botan questioned as she approached the desk in the middle of the large room bowing respectfully before straightening and waiting for Koenma to turn his chair around and tell her what was going on. The air was heavy and filled with anxiety but she couldn't think of a reason for it all. Yusuke's training had been successful so far and there had been no signs of trouble in the demon world... So what in the world could be troubling everyone so much?
"Botan," she jolted to attention as she looked down at the toddler's serious face.
"Yes sir?"
"You have a new mission," she opened her mouth questioningly but he held his hand up to stop her. "You will be taking on an apprentice of sorts, your job is to train her to the best of your ability so that she will be an asset to the team. That is all." And with that he swiveled around in his chair so the back was facing her, a clear dismissal before hopping off and running away as he felt the impending rant coming yelling a quick "Ogre will take you to her!" before he disappeared and left a whimpering George to deal with the angry woman.
"I can't believe him! Just deciding this on his own! Grrrr! I already have my hands full with Yusuke!" Botan ranted behind George as they wandered through a large hall. Meanwhile George was trying really hard to lead the way and be invisible at the same time.
"I'm sure he had his reason…" He ventured only to quickly shut up with a yip and a 'please don't hurt me!' at the death glare he got.
"Oh really?" she asked dangerously.
The rest of their journey was made in relative silence only some grumbling, growls, whimpers and the sounds of their own feet hitting the tile breaking the silence.
They finally reached a large door that George pushed open with a quiet mutter of "She's in there." Refusing to even meet Botan's eyes before slinking back the way he came grumbling about why he took this job.
"Hello?" a soft voice called out from a room that was way too large for just one person. "Who's there?" the voice questioned again as quiet footsteps came toward the door and a face appeared. Murky green eyes looked up into pink.
"Are you my teacher?"
Botan snapped out of her previous enraged stupor with a bright bouncy smile and exclaimed "Bingo! Wasn't expecting you to get it so quickly! Botan's the name, guide of the River Styx is my game!"
The girl blinked at the sudden energy change before holding her hand out politely "I'm Jessica, thank you for taking me on as your s-s-student." She finished off shakily as Botan shook her hand so fast that it almost popped her arm out of its socket.
"Yes yes, it's no problem at all!" She laughed as her grip tightened around Jessica's hand and started to drag her from the room she'd been kept in for the last few days.
"Where are we going?" Jessica questioned as she was forced to look away from the only room she knew in this place to keep from stumbling and being forcefully dragged the rest of the way.
"Why to your first lesson of course!" she laughed linking her arm with Jessica's as she summoned her oar. "Hold on!"
"wha? Aaah! I really don't like heights!"
"So that's the basics." Botan finished to the wide eyed girl sitting on a random bench in an abandoned theme park that was to be torn down in a few months… she could have sworn Botan didn't breath through the whole explanation.
She shook herself out of her daze as she realized that Botan was looking at her expectantly. Was she supposed to repeat everything she just said? Cause she was pretty sure it had been in some alien language!
"Um, our job is to help people?" she took a shot in the dark.
Bam
She groaned as she fell over clutching her head. That had really hurt….. What the hell was it with Spirit World and beating their subordinates?
She cursed as she rubbed the growing bump, glaring up at her new teacher with venom. She would definitely get even later…
Botan sighed as she put the evil oar away. "Maybe a slower more direct method is needed." She muttered glancing around as Jessica pulled herself back into a sitting position.
"Hey it's not my fault that you expect me to remember everything you learned in the last one hundred years in one day." Jessica pointed out narrowly avoiding the oar this time. "I remember that you said that it's important to find the spirits before they become corrupted and turn into evil spirits and that eventually I'll learn how to summon things and fly but you said that I couldn't even try that until after months of training. You still haven't told me about what this training is or about the demons you keep mentioning or the Spirit Detectives?" Her eyes were shining with curiosity now. Those were the things she really wanted to know about; not about this high and mighty Koenma guy that was apparently her boss. He sounded like a real pain in the ass.
"W-well, that's not important right now!"
"What? Come on! What if-"
Botan was saved from further arguments when the sound of the communicator pierced through the air causing Botan to smile at her small victory and excuse herself as Jessica huffed and sprawled back on the ground her head cradled in her hands as she watched the clouds moving above, vaguely listening into Botan's conversation before losing interest once again. It looked like it would rain tomorrow. She drifted off to sleep to the lull of the wind, the smell of the distant rain, and Botan's angry squawking at that Koenma person. Her last thoughts before sleep claimed her were ' What am I not ready for? I wonder if I'll get to meet a demon or the spirit detectives... I didn't know spirits could sleep.'
"Jessica," she woke quickly her eyes shooting open and locking with the owner of the voice. "You have your first solo mission."
She blinked, already? They'd only been 'training' as Botan called it for a few days. Truth of the matter was that just meant Botan had been trying to teach her the boring facts of the job and hitting her every time she got distracted or dozed off and now she was on her own with no practice?
This cannot end well. She thought as she pushed herself off the ground and to her feet once more with a confident grin. "So what do I have to do?"
Botan glared, clearly not happy with Koenma's decision. "You have to find a spirit of this puppy and lead it back."Botan grumbled showing her a picture of the little white fluff ball starring at her worriedly. "You remember the directions of the River Styx and how to get back to spirit world right?"
She smiled sheepishly; directions were not her strong point. "Kinda, besides don't have I to be able to fly to get to the portal anyway?"
"Koenma will create one on the ground when you contact him once you complete your mission. All the information needed has been sent to your communicator. Try to be careful." Jessica smiled at the serious look in Botan's eyes. She obviously didn't trust her but she had no plans of failing. She liked puppies and failing meant going back to wherever she was before and she wasn't ready for that.
Nodding she gave her a thumbs up, "Don't worry! I have an awesome abusive teacher!" and with that she ran off before she became victim to said abuse again.
Yusuke and Botan had gotten into an argument again. Botan had just told them as much as she knew about the trainee and how she would be joining them and the gang wasn't exactly happy about it. No one really saw a need to add anyone else to the team, especially a newbie that would just get in the way. Yusuke was just being more vocal about it…. Mostly because he felt that the add on meant Koenma was going to force more work on them during their summer break….
"Yusuke! You're being ridiculous!" Botan shouted getting dangerously close to just knocking him out.
"Damnit Botan! We don't even know anything about her!"
Any further argument was cut off as the sound of Botan's communicator cut through the air followed by a shout of "Botan!" before Botan could even open it all the way. Botan quickly switched back into business mode, "Yes Jessica what is it?" Botan asked as Jessica's face came on to the screen, though she didn't seem to be looking at her communicator at all. No, she was completely focused on something around the corner of the alley she was hiding in as she gasped for air.
"Um, Botan? You know how you said that you'd teach me how to deal with ghosts that have become evil spirits when I got more experienced?" She questioned hesitantly her voice a mere whisper.
She felt a surge of panic run through her spine. "Yes Jessica, what's going on?"
Jessica glanced away from whatever she was looking at to give Botan a quick sheepish grin before looking away again, "Looks like you might need to teach me that now…."
Botan's eyes widened as she clutched the communicator with both trembling hands. She'd only been training Jessica for a week! There was no way she was ready for an evil spirit! "Jessica! Get out of there now!"
Jessica winced at the volume of her paniced scream, "I don't think that's possible," after all she was in a dead end with an evil spirit that was quite a speedy little thing circling her. "And I'm not sure I would even if I could. I can't just abandon him Botan."
Botans eyes softened a bit even though she was still in panic mode, "I suppose not, but-"
Jessica smiled brightly at Botan her eyes gleaming with some kind of light, confidence or maybe a challenge? Botan wasn't quite sure but for some reason she was reminded of Yusuke.
"So, you ready to give me instructions? I mean I could wing it but... well ya know." She shrugged with a lazy smirk playing across her face. Still not looking at the communicator at all, her eyes instead tracking something over head.
Taking a deep breath Botan made her decision nodding, "You need to lead it away from the city, head towards the woods. All the noise and impurities in the air will only drive it further into the darkness."
Crouching down Jessica nodded, her face set in determination before she took off running knowing that the spirit would follow. I mean it had been following her for the last hour, problem was she was still really tired from all the running she had done the last hour.
"Jessica," She heard Botan's voice ring from the now closed communicator, "You need to summon your oar."
Jessica sweatdropped as she yelled back at the communicator "That's a nice ideal and all, but I haven't really learned how to do that yet either!" she grabbed onto a pole with one hand using it to whip herself around a corner, not slowing down even the tiniest bit.
"I know that Jessica, but you need to focus, just picture the oar and focus on that image." She heard the frantic twinge in Botan's voice as she tried to reason with her so she tried to do what Botan wanted glancing behind her to see if the spirit was still following. Before trying to picture an oar….Problem was focusing on a picture of an oar is really boring and she was severely ADD, yeah turns out that doesn't go away even when you're dead, so this whole focusing just on the oar was really hard when your mind was thinking about a million different things at once, and let's face it, an evil spirit following you is way more interesting than an oar.
Come on Jessica, focus. Think oar. Think oar. Think flying oar that you can hit people with!
And with a pop she finally succeeded in a grayish blue oar….not exactly what she was picturing but cool. Thank you violent tendencies!
"Ok! Now what?" She yelled as she turned another corner when she noticed the spirit was getting close enough to bite her ass.
"FLY!"
Jessica sweat dropped just barely managing to catch her footing before she had done a face plant into the cement, that had definitely not been Botan's voice unless Botan was secretly two males…that would be weird.
Bam!
"Be quiet you two! Jessica you need to jump up and mount the oar!" she heard chuckling and a "that's what she said" in the background followed by the sound of a bat becoming acquainted with two skulls.
And that's what she did… only it didn't really work since she crashed back to earth… you know they never told her that spirits could actually get hurt because what she was learning today was that you most definitely did not need a solid body to injure yourself.
"Botan!" she yelled as she scooted back away from the spirit that was looming over her and into another wall. She would never understand why someone would make so many dead ends in a city, I mean it wasn't like it was suppose to be a labyrinth!
….I think he's gotten bigger… Fuck.
"Try again!" She didn't move. "Jessica! You have to try again or he'll consume your soul!"
A glare appeared on her face as she swore picking up her oar, jumping up and smacking the spirit in the head before running around the corner and making her second attempt at flying…this time catching herself as she stumbled back to the ground and kept on running as she cursed the stupid oar and her inability to fly.
"What the hell, Botan! Why can't she fly like you? You do it all the time!" Yusuke yelled pointing at the screen where the girl was running through the city barely managing to stay ahead of her pursuer.
"Yusuke!" Botan yelled back, annoyed even though she knew he was just reacting because he was worried about the girl. "I've also been doing this for over a hundred years, it's not as easy as it looks, it can take months, even years for even a genius to perfect and she's trying to perfect it in five minutes. It's honestly a miracle she even managed the oar since it should have taken three more months of training for her to be ready to summon anything…"
"Then why don't you go help her?"No response. "Botan!"
Sinking further into her seat she sighed, "I can't, this is her first mission if she can't do it herself there's a good chance they'll decide she's not cut out for the job and assign her something else or they may just send her back to wherever we pulled her from." It was odd seeing the normally bubbly Botan so serious, they were all quiet as they turned their heads back to the screen where a young girl was dashing through the trees.
Botan flipped open her communicator and said her one final bit of info, "Jessica, there's a holy spring at the bottom of one of the cliffs your headed for. You need to find a way to get the spirit into the spring, if you do it will be purified and you can help it move on."
Oh Koenma, why did you give her this mission if you knew he was going to become an evil spirit? You know she's not ready, it's only been a week…
They watched in shock as the girl nodded before picking up speed and barreling straight for the edge of the cliff.
"What's she thinking?"
"She's lost it!"
"Jessica! If you fall in your soul may be destroyed!"
"Jessica! If you fall in your soul may be destroyed!"
She had a feeling that might happen but she didn't stop instead she closed her eyes, forcefully swallowing her fear, and threw herself over the edge jumping onto her oar as she plummeted down towards the boiling spring, glancing up behind her to see if the spirit was still following her, smiling gently when she saw the enraged spirit above her she turned back to the fastly approaching spring.
Well, now or never, I really hope this works. And with that she closed her eyes, kicked into the side of the cliff, and threw her body to the side at 90 degree angle, her knees and hands clutching the oar tightly as she put all her will into flying for just a few seconds.
"You idiot!" Botan growled as she hit the back of Jessica's head with her oar, knocking her back to the ground she had barely managed to separate herself with to begin with. "What were you thinking?"
"Hey, come on Botan! It worked didn't it?" She asked with a sheepish but cocky grin as she looked up at her pissed off and violent teacher rubbing the new bump on her head with one hand that wasn't terribly burned, the other cradling the little Japanese spitz puppy in her arms.
"And did you know it would work before hand?" Botan growled hovering over her menacingly as she took in her student's roughed up and burned appearance.
"Well, no!" Jessica murmured with a happy smile, despite her many injuries, as she sat up crossed legged with the puppy sleeping in her lap and opposite hands grabbing opposite ankles. "But I just felt like it would!"
She got bonked on the head for that, "You idiot, what were you going to do if that didn't work?" She asked grabbing a piece of Jessica's burnt hair. "Be boiled to death?"
"Hm, looks like it!"Though I'm technically already dead. She laughed, her hands behind her head in a makeshift pillow as she flopped back out of the way of Botan's oar, being careful not to jostle the puppy too much.
"YOU IDIOT!"
And so the first week of training between Botan and Jessica came to a close.
To be continued
Ok, so that's' the second chapter, seven pages and almost 3000 words my apology for the lateness. I started college and it's been more or less insane. I'm also sorry if the flow of this chapter is a bit off. I wrote the parts of this chapter in a rather strange order and I kind of went months without finishing it so I hope it turned out ok.
Please let me know what you thought in a review
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Love you all!
