Past Life
Written by Justine JBV / Chibi Botan
Chapter Four: Forlorn Hope
VIII
For a while, the two sat in silence. The guru could feel Botan's hope diminishing. Perhaps the girl realized that the guru had no plans to help her.
"Botan."
Botan looked at the guru. Her eyes told her nothing. But she did not look away.
"I'm asking you this only once, so think before you answer. To what extent are you willing to have your brother back?"
Had the question been asked to someone else, that someone might have felt either challenged or insulted. But Botan felt neither. She felt hope dissipating. No doubt she'd do anything for Keitaro, but the way the guru fired the question scared her. It was as if she was afraid to hear her answer.
Still... "Whatever it takes." Even my life.
The guru needn't react. She had expected that answer. "I see." She stood, and turned her back from the girl. She walked towards the window. "What made you think I'm the person who could help you?"
"When Keitaro was taken, Father left us to save him. He wouldn't allow me to go with him. My sister, Ren, and her husband, Rinji, took me to their village to hide. But I wanted to look for my brother. I asked them questions, but they wouldn't answer me. I don't know where to start finding answers. I asked other people about the sorcerer. No one wanted to tell me anything. I guess they were too afraid of him. And then I heard about a certain guru... you... who was supposed to know everything. So.. I ran away to find you." No need for her to hide it, the guru had already guessed that earlier. "...hoping you can give me the information everyone seemed to hide from me.."
"They wouldn't want to give you information that would potentially hurt you."
"You keep saying that.." she whispered, "..that what I'll learn will hurt me. That it's too dangerous for me."
"Because you wanted more, didn't you? You wanted me to teach you how to fight him. Botan, you don't understand... Don't judge him by his name."
IX
Botan wasn't sure if she fully understood. The guru knew this, and asked, "What is a sorcerer? What do you know about this kind of creature? Have you ever seen one?"
The girl thought for a moment. Sorcerers were a common story from were she grew up, but honestly, she had never seen any. She was sure there really are sorcerers, but all she knew of them was from stories.
The guru smiled her I-knew-I'm-right smile. But the girl did not see it.
"You see, Botan, this particular sorcerer is the first one people have really encountered. These people do not know how powerful this creature is. They named him The Sorcerer for he possesses power, and is quite a mystery. ''Like from the stories', people would say. But they wouldn't know the difference..."
"You mean, he's not just a magician…"
"Exactly." The guru nodded. "There is a difference between magic and power. A huge difference."
"I see." She's trying to discourage me.
If the guru knew what she's thinking, she didn't comment on it.
"So, you see, Botan, calling him The Sorcerer is a grave understatement."
"...And defeating him is impossible." The guru didn't have to say it, she already knew where this conversation was going.
The guru finally looked at her. "Right."
The girl shook her head. "Wrong."
The guru sighed, resignedly. "What?"
Botan looked down, her hands forming a fist on her lap, her shoulders starting to shake. "Why would you let me in? Why would you talk to me like this? Why would you even ask how far I would go... if there was nothing I could do?"
She's smarter than I gave her credit for, the guru thought, watching the girl break in front of her.
"I know," Botan continued, "that you know something. I'm not asking you to teach me to fight him... Please, at least tell me what you know about him. That's all I ask, and I'll leave."
There's really nothing I could do. I tried to keep her away... but I really can't keep her from knowing. Forgive me, Hana, but I'll have to tell her.
X
"I know you've realized from the start that I wasn't planning to help you," the guru started.
By now, Botan has calmed down a bit, though her eyes are still weary.
"I really don't. There's too much risk. But since you are sure you want to save Keitaro, you need to know who you're fighting. As I said earlier, The Sorcerer is not the common sorcerer we know from the stories. It was lack of knowledge that the people who first saw him tagged him as a sorcerer."
Botan nodded absently.
"His name is Satori. From when he was young he was obsessed with being superior. A regular bully. He wanted to be special, to be different from all of humanity. At the start, it's all about fascination in magic. Learning the abilities others doesn't know. Simple magic tricks. He mastered sorcery on his own. But he got bored. You see, he was too smart for his own good."
The guru shaked her head in sadness.
"He learned about power. That there was more to learn and master other than magic. That human strength and spiritual energy can be converted as power, and that he can use it to take down any weaker being. No more magic tricks, no more young sorcery. He hungered for power. Eventually, he found out about Makai."
"Makai?" Botan echoed. As in Makai, from my father's stories? she wondered. She didn't know Makai was real.
"Yes, Makai. The demon world. He learned that there's a place where powerful beings reside. Hungering for other creatures' energy, he combined old sorcery tricks and newly-learned power to get there. There was no stopping him. He fed on other's powers. That's how he survived Makai. He turned himself into a demon."
"A demon..." Botan sighed, finding it all hard to take in. But she knew a lot more is about to come. "Where does Keitaro come in?"
"Keitaro is a power source, so he needs him."
She blinked. "Power source?"
The guru nodded. "Boundless demon power runs through his vein. Your father, he used to be an S-class demon."
For a while there, the guru thought the girl would faint. Why, her face turned all white.
Breathe.
XI
The guru knew it would be hard to accept. But Botan bounced back to normal color quite easier than she expected. The girl still could not comment on the guru's revelation, so she just kept talking.
"Long ago, your father was one of the strongest demons in Makai. He lived there on his own, he didn't have many friends. Well, he was a fighter. But one day, he met a beautiful reigen— one from the Spirit world— who somehow was lost in Makai forest. It was a very dangerous place to be, and soon she was cornered by a group of demons intent to steal a certain item from her. When your father came, he tried to save the reigen and destroyed the demon thugs. But she was already in a bad shape. She was about to die. She gave the item to your father, asking him to carry it back to the Spirit World for her. Your father realized then that the item was the Forlorn Hope."
The guru stopped to check her reaction. She had no idea what the Forlorn Hope was.
"When all hope is gone, you make a request to the Forlorn Hope. It will give you your wish, but it will take something in return."
Botan bit her lip. She had guessed what was coming. "He asked the help of the Forlorn Hope to save her."
The guru nodded at her.
"And what was taken from him?"
"In turn for saving her life, the Forlorn Hope took away what was most important to him then--his powers. He became a regular, low-class demon." The guru clasped her hands together, and paused for a while. "Because he used to be a higher-level demon, it was natural that many demons hated him. Mostly those he had defeated before. If he stayed in Makai, someone will eventually discover his weakness and he will be hunted to death. So he left for the only place he thought safe-- the human world."
"What about the reigen?"
The guru smiled. "Your father couldn't just leave her there, so he took her with him. When she woke up, though her spirit energy had been drained when she almost died, she felt physically stronger. She realized what he had done for her and asked Enma to let her stay until she finds a way to repay him. That reigen was Hana. But of course, you have guessed by now."
Again, Botan nodded absently. Her father was a demon and her mother, a reigen. What more to learn?
"Your mother stayed and eventually, they fell in love. Enma later allowed her to marry your father, though she had been warned that she may be tracked later in the human world when her spirit energy starts to come back. Both your parents decided they will just have to learn how to mask her spirit energy if it ever came back, while your father tried his best to regain his energy by all means. It didn't matter to him how, but he trained very hard. When they had the three of you, your parents knew they made the right decision. This is where the problem with Keitaro started..."
XII
"For some reason, you and sister don't emit any demon ki from your father. Maybe this is because your father had not recovered his demon energy until around Keitaro's birth. Up until the two of you were born, your parents still had not recovered their powers. My guess was both came back about the time Keitaro was conceived. You see, Keitaro was too complex even as a baby. Your father's demon energy and your mother's spirit energy clashing within him, as he grows in your mother's womb. It was because of that, that your mother fell ill while she carried him. They wanted to seal Keitaro's demon energy because it would be easily detected from Makai... So, they came to me to ask for help."
"That's how you knew my parents..."
"Yes. But I had nothing to help them with. There is no way to subdue Keitaro's power while in her womb. At least, not until the child was born. We needed a spirit energy.." She hesitated for a while before she continued, "Only a sophisticated spirit energy can seal a demon energy that strong."
"Your mother used her spirit energy to seal Keitaro's demon energy. It was too strong, and your mother pushed herself to her limit. We couldn't stop her. What we didn't expect was, instead of Keitaro's demon energy, it was his spirit energy that gave out. So you see, it is demon energy that was left within Keitaro. And for Hana..."
"It made her weaker and weaker..." Botan whispered. That much she could remember. Hana being sickly after Keitaro was born. "And not long after... she died."
"I'm sorry. We could not prevent it..."
"It's not your fault..." Botan looked at the guru's eyes. "So it is the demon energy that the sorcerer wanted from Keitaro."
"Yes."
"Well," Botan stood straight, a determined look settling upon her face. "I'll make sure he won't get it."
To be continued… Thank you for reading!