Chapter 9
"You reek."
"Hello to you too, Hiei." Botan swooped down to hover level with the demon riding a giant, shelled…something. "How's life on patrol?"
"Better than life on parole. What do you want?"
She rolled her eyes.
"I came here as a courtesy," she said. "I've been appointed the Official Spirit Guardian of Mt. Mitake and I wanted to keep you in the loop, let you know what all that entails."
Hiei raised an eyebrow at her.
"You'd give away your one bargaining chip because you want to be nice? How do you know I won't sell your loopholes to the highest bidder?"
"Because your honor code won't allow that."
He folded his arms.
"This is foolish," he said.
"So is that a 'yes'?"
Sighing, he slipped off his headband.
"I take no responsibility for your protocols once they're in my head," he said. "Your safety is your own business."
"I understand." She held still while the Jagan sifted through all the rules and diplomatic procedures she'd memorized over the last year. Technically, she wasn't breaking any laws coming to him like this but her peers would still consider it a stupid move. They didn't know Hiei though.
"Or Kurama." Hiei closed the Jagan, withdrawing from her mind with a surprisingly light touch. "Nice necklace."
"Just the protocols, thank you." She shot him a look. "I trust you'll be a gentleman about all this."
"I'm a demon."
"And I'm a player on the field now. You just saw what that means."
He smirked.
"Go. You're making me ill."
"Always a pleasure, Hiei."
B
She hit the ground running. The instant Botan crossed the threshold from the Makai to the Ningenkai, oceans of information just slammed into her. Dozens of crossing spirits, ferrymen, small youkai, humans, psychics, mutants, magic-users, and preternatural powers of all kinds occupied Japan at any one time. Mt. Mitake's spirit energy, with its position on a leyline crossing, attracted a great many of them. Most were benign, even helpful. They just wanted to go about their lives, handle their business without attracting attention.
Of course, the small percentage that wanted to cause trouble was very, very good at it.
"Well, this is annoying." Botan sheathed her sword after yet another small class demon tried to bow up on her.
"Trouble in paradise?" Shizuru asked. Botan turned visible and stepped onto the porch with the other woman.
"Everyone wants to be king on the mountain," she said. "This might be tougher than I thought."
"You're not backing out, are ya?"
"No, just might have to rearrange my plans a little. I have a better understanding of the work now, if you want to go over the contract again."
"Sounds good. I've got some ideas for some of the older youkai, like Jin and Chu. Maybe patrol, back up, intel."
"That sounds good." Botan vanished her sword and followed Shizuru into the house.
B
A month passed, Earth time. They settled into a routine with a plan in place for next summer, when Shizuru and Yusuke would start their camp for spiritually aware kids. Botan thought it was a fantastic idea to keep them from getting involved with something over their heads. The other two were more worried about the kids getting violent or ostracized because they were 'freaks.'
Botan didn't need to ask.
The next time she saw Kurama, the fox was covered in blood, limping from a wound in his side. She found him on the edge of the forest.
"Oh no." Flashing to his side, she helped him lean against a tree. "Anything following you?"
His head lolled, green eyes dazed and unfocused.
"Kurama, are they dead? Is there anything following you?"
"No." He blinked, gritting his teeth, and she could feel his energy start to flux. She batted it away and closed the wound herself. The rest he'd have to do on his own but she was allowed this much at least.
"Are they dead?" she asked again. The very idea that someone could do this to an S-Class youkai… "Kurama, I need to know then you can rest. I promise. Are they dead?"
"…y-yes. They're dead." He took a breath, wincing. "Bit out of practice with sorcerers, I'm afraid."
"We'll talk about that inside." Slipping his arm around her shoulders, Botan helped him to his feet and began the long trek up the mountain. Genkai's property had a lot of houses here and there, more since she started training youkai for the Makai Tournament three years ago. If her map was correct, there was a small building, little more than a shack, about a mile north.
"'Tis better to be vile than vile esteemed,'" he whispered.
"'When not to be receives reproach of being;
And the just pleasure lost, which is so deemed
Not by our feeling, but by others' seeing:
For why should others' false adulterate eyes
Give salutation to my sportive blood?
Or on my frailties why are frailer spies,
Which in their wills count bad what I think good?
No, I am that I am, and they that level
At my abuses reckon up their own:
I may be straight though they themselves be bevel;
By their rank thoughts, my deeds must not be shown;
Unless this general evil they maintain,
All men are bad and in their badness reign.'"
Someone from his past then. With over three thousand years of murder and mayhem, he certainly had a lot of options.
"You are Shuichi 'Youko Kurama' Minamino," she said. "Who cares what people think?"
Kurama laughed, weak and raspy though it was.
"You're sweet," he said. He stumbled, a pained grunt in his throat. She grimaced.
"Sorry," she said. "Almost there."
They walked the rest of the way in silence and when they reached the shack, Kurama all but collapsed on the floor.
"I could have helped you," she said.
"The floor was moving," he said. "Saved your life."
"Right." She rolled him onto his back and started peeling off the bloody clothes.
*sonnet 121
B
It was raining. He didn't have his phone on him but she managed to See far enough to know his mother had no idea he wasn't at school. No one, not even his teachers and classmates, had a reason to worry.
There was something…sad about that.
On the pallet, Kurama shifted. She'd cleaned him as best she could. A good meal and a night's rest and he'd be fit enough to go home. Some focused reiki healing and his plants and he'd be even better.
Not right now though. Right now, he was pale, shivering, his lips almost grey with lack of blood. Botan shifted as close as she dared and gently brushed some hair out of his face.
"'When I have seen by Time's fell hand defaced,'" she said.
"'The rich proud cost of outworn buried age;
When sometime lofty towers I see down-razed,
And brass eternal slave to mortal rage;
When I have seen the hungry ocean gain
Advantage on the kingdom of the shore,
And the firm soil win of the watery main,
Increasing store with loss, and loss with store;
When I have seen such interchange of state,
Or state itself confounded to decay;
Ruin hath taught me thus to rhuminate
That Time will come and take my love away.
This thought is as a death which cannot choose
But weep to have that which it fears to lose.'"
His eyelashes fluttered then green eyes opened, weary but clear.
"It would take more than those hacks to kill me," he said.
"I should think so." She reached over for a damp cloth and dabbed his forehead. "I hate this. I hate seeing you like this. All the blood a-and the—It's Karasu all over again—"
"Hey." Kurama touched her arm. "I'm okay. I was careless, that's all."
"That just makes it worse! You do not do this. You do not try and get yourself killed the minute I get transferred. This is unacceptable and it will not happen again."
"'Tired with all these, for restful death I cry,'" he said. She flinched but he caught her wrist.
"'As to behold desert a beggar born,
And needy nothing trimm'd in jollity,
And purest faith unhappily forsworn,
And gilded honour shamefully misplaced ,
And maiden virtue rudely strumpeted,
And right perfection wrongfully disgraced,
And strength by limping sway disabled
And art made tongue-tied by authority,
And folly, doctor-like, controlling skill,
And simple truth miscalled simplicity,
And captive good attending captain ill,'"
Shifting his grip, he ran his fingers up her wrist until they laced with hers.
"'Tired with all these, from these would I be gone,
Save that, to die, I leave my love alone.'"
Tears pricked her eyes and she closed them, the hot drops rolling down her cheeks as she clutched his hand to her chest.
"Don't forget," she whispered, leaning down to rest her forehead against his. "Promise me. Don't forget."
*sonnet 64, 66
