Recap: Hiei went to a reality where he was – basically – Mukuro's sex slave; but, bonus! Botan was her usual, ferry girl, all-loving self, and he was able to talk to her about a few things.
Chapter 9: Seeing Red
Botan looked down at her oar, a frown playing on her brow as though she was conflicted about something.
"C-can I ask you a question now?" she asked, keeping her eyes on her oar.
"Okay," Hiei agreed.
"Why did you just ask me about paradise?" she asked, her eyes still looking down. "I didn't think someone like you even thought about such things."
Hiei wondered about the merits of telling this Botan about what he had seen in the paradise reality. Would she reveal anything of value about how they had come to be married if he told her that, in another reality, it had actually happened?
"You're like an onion, Hiei," she said, laughing slightly. "You have many layers, but whenever I try to peel them I end up in tears!"
She giggled into one sleeve, but Hiei failed to see the humour in her analogy – after all, she was basically telling him that she thought he was a pungent root vegetable.
"If you don't want to answer me, that's fine," she said, turning her head from him.
"I was just curious," he said.
"It was just so unlike you to ask such a thing… Do you know Hiei, you've said more words to me today than you ever have before in the entire time I knew you. I think you must have bashed your head against the headboard when you were making love to–"
"Stop it!"
"Oopsie!"
Botan covered her mouth with her hands but Hiei could tell by the shape and shimmer of her eyes that she was still grinning at him.
"I'm not Mukuro's lover," he insisted. "I'm actually–"
Hiei was cut off by the sound of voices yelling out to him from the temple steps. He turned to see a group of Mukuro's soldiers running through the gate, apparently after him. He turned back to tell Botan to flee but she was already high in the sky. He momentarily wished that he was on her oar with her, but knew that he was too late to catch her, and his priority had to be to escape capture himself: the last thing he wanted was to be dragged back to Mukuro and made to have sex with her. Even if it was an alternate reality, he knew that he would never be able to face his boss again if he had to experience that, and so he grabbed up the roof beam he was still tied to and fled.
Hiei was starting to find his earlier conversation with Botan quite ironic: she had accused him of not showing any humility, and now, less than an hour later, he was handcuffed to a piece of wood, half naked, cowering inside a giant trash receptacle, suppressing his energy and trying to keep himself hidden from a collection of Mukuro soldiers who, in his own reality, feared him, but in this reality, intended to take him back to Mukuro, who would probably want to tie him up again and finish whatever she had been trying to do with him when he had arrived in that reality. Which was, quite frankly, the most vivid example of humility he could think of.
He had made it into the city, though not very far in, before being forced to hide. Botan had long gone, and his pursuers were gradually moving away from his location, but he did not want to attempt moving or healing himself until he was sure that he would not be caught. He had toyed with the idea of tracking down Botan or Kurama and finding out a little more about exactly how this reality had come about and just how different it was from his own as a result, but he had given up on that idea as time passed and his already limited patience wore thin.
Hiei only had one objective: to get back to the paradise reality and stay there.
With that thought in mind, Hiei pushed the lid of the giant trash can open slightly and peered out. He was at the side of a high building in what seemed to be a centre of commercial buildings. The place seemed vaguely familiar, and Hiei started to realise why as he saw two figures walking towards the building he was hiding next to: it was the same building he had found Yukina outside of in the second reality he had visited, where she had claimed to be waiting for Kuwabara, and in this reality, she was returning to the building with Kuwabara, who looked the same as he had across all the other realities, again proving that only the ideal reality had really had any impact on Kuwabara's life.
Hiei wondered why that was.
"Maybe I'll see you tonight?" he heard Yukina say.
"I dunno, I gotta work late tonight, Yukina," Kuwabara replied.
His speech was slurred and he sounded as though he had just woken up.
"Oh that's too bad," Yukina said, sounding disappointed. "I'll see you for lunch tomorrow though, right?"
"Yeah, sure," he replied. "I just have to get this project finished. My boss said if I get this done by the end of the week, he'll consider me for a promotion."
"That's wonderful, Kazuma!" she replied.
"Yeah, but he said I'd get promoted after that last job I did… And the one before that… And the one before that… Well, anyway, it was great seeing you, Yukina."
"I wish we could spend more time together."
"…Yeah, me too."
Yukina gently pulled Kuwabara's tie and stretched up onto her tip-toes, pulling his face down to a level where she could reach him to kiss him on the cheek. To Hiei's surprise, Kuwabara barely smiled in response: which was contradictory to the way he had always dribbled pitifully over her in the past and still did in the perfect reality.
"Good luck, Kazuma!" Yukina called after him as he started to leave her.
He walked on without turning around, but did raise a hand to acknowledge her words. Kuwabara moved out of Hiei's line of sight, but Yukina remained where she was for a long time afterwards, watching the point he had disappeared at, looking slightly saddened and disappointed. She still looked much happier than she did in Hiei's own reality, but she was not nearly as cheerful, relaxed and generally contented as she was in the paradise reality.
Hiei slid out of the trash can, picking a banana peel out of his hair and kicking one foot free of the paper shreddings that had become entangled around it. He then walked briskly towards his sister, who, in her distracted state staring at the point she had last seen Kuwabara, did not notice him until he was upon her.
"Oh, Mister Hiei!" she said, turning to him.
Her expression was completely unchanged, and even her tone had sounded forced.
"What a surprise to see you here," she said, sounding anything but surprised. "I didn't think I would ever see you again, least of all in this realm."
"Why not?" Hiei asked her, deciding to try to pry for some information about this reality.
"Well, you became Lady Mukuro's lover and decided to stay with her, didn't you?" she replied. "But why do you have wood?"
"What?!"
Hiei looked down at himself in alarm, seeing only the chunk of roof beam he was still forced to carry with him. He slowly looked up at his innocent sister again and saw that she had meant her words quite literally, and he then felt a little guilty for thinking otherwise.
"Never mind about that," he said dismissively. "What made you think I was Mukuro's lover?"
"Well, Mister Kurama told me that you became her lover after she nursed you back to life," Yukina replued. "He said you fought Lady Mukuro's associate to replace him at her side, and you almost died, but Lady Mukuro saved your life and you fell in love with her."
Hiei twitched. He distinctly remembered fighting Shigure in his own reality to become Mukuro's right-hand man, so to speak, and he had almost died. She had saved his life and she had read his mind to learn all the secrets about his past before then showing him the details of her own past. After he had recovered, they had, one night, shared a very odd conversation where she had, very ambiguously, suggested that she would take him as a lover if he was interested, which he had, as diplomatically as he knew how to, turned down.
Hiei twitched again. Diplomacy really was a weakness for him, he thought, and he had never really cared or noticed it before, but it seemed to be surfacing a lot since Mukuro had first sent him into another reality. Thinking more about that day when Mukuro had subtly suggested that they should become lovers, he was surprised that she had not done more than just throw him against a wall: he was surprised that she had not left him as a mere stain on the wall. He could still remember that night in sickening detail.
"I'm very impressed with you, Hiei," she had said. "The way you fought against Shigure and the speed of your recovery. And, as I think I already told you, your soul and your life story fascinate me. When I saw who you really were, for the first time ever, I felt as though I had found a kindred soul to my own. I've never told or shown anyone what I told and showed you. I feel there is a special connection between us now, Hiei, and if we strengthened that connection, we could be an unstoppable union. What do you think?"
"Are you suggesting that we become lovers?" Hiei had asked.
She had laughed awkwardly and given him a funny look – one that he now realised was probably because she was thinking he was an idiot for stating the obvious and ruining the moment with his bluntness.
"Or are you just asking me for a fuck?" he had added. "Because I might be interested in that."
She had turned so pale and sat so still for so long, Hiei had wondered if his reply had killed her. Eventually she seemed to recover.
"I see," she had said, nodding tightly. "After learning everything that you have about me and my past, you think that I would be proposing that we just "fuck"? You think that I do this with every man in my service, perhaps?"
Hiei had shrugged, and at the time thought that she was probably only coming onto him because she had seen him naked – he was not an idiot, and he knew that he was, physically speaking, a particularly fine example of the male form, not to mention the fact that he was quite a powerful demon and offered to pass on his strong genes to any potential offspring. Those thoughts had briefly awoken the idea in his mind that she was after him as a father to her heir, and that had pissed him off – she had practically promised him that he was to be her heir, after all.
"I'm not going impregnate you," he had said. "I don't even want to make this a regular thing. I'll do you tonight, but that's it."
She had, at that point, grabbed one of his arms and flung him across the room like a rag-doll, once more reminding him how outmatched he was against her – a difference that was even more obvious back then when he was still just an upper A class demon.
But, as Hiei recalled, between asking Mukuro if she was suggesting that they become lovers and asking her if she was just after a quick liaison, he had paused, and he had thought her offer over. Obviously in this reality, he had decided to take her up on her offer, which a very, very small part of him had considered doing at the time.
"…Yes…" he said slowly.
"It's nice to see you again though," Yukina blandly replied. "You seem to be hurt. Is there anything I can do for you, Mister Hiei?"
Hiei looked back over his shoulder at the building Kuwabara had disappeared into.
"Would you heal the wound for me?" he asked, turning back to his sister.
"Certainly, Sir," she replied, bowing her head.
He wanted to tell her not to bother calling him "Sir", but he reasoned that there was no point: in a matter of seconds he would be back in his own reality anyway and it would not matter.
"But first," he said. "Tell me what the building over there is. Why does Kuwabara spend so much time in there?"
Hiei was not sure what sort of answer he had expected. He supposed he had been hoping that Yukina might tell him that the building contained some sort of secret vortex, a special passageway between or around realities, and that Kuwabara's presence there was why he was unaffected by the differences in all the realities Hiei had visited.
"Kazuma works there," she instead replied. "It's an architectural firm. He works very hard, but it's very difficult to be successful as an apprentice, and he hasn't had his lucky break yet."
Hiei looked over his shoulder again, but just looking at the bland, high-rise building told him no more than Yukina just had about Kuwabara's strange immunity to shifts in reality.
"He's been working very long hours lately because a very famous musician is looking for an architect to design a new house for him in America, and Kazuma's boss might get that contract," Yukina added. "Kazuma is trying to help make that happen, and if it does, his boss will leave the company, and maybe Kazuma will get a promotion."
"Maybe?" Hiei scoffed. "Typical Kuwabara, wasting all his efforts on a "maybe"."
Yukina lowered her head slightly.
"He works very hard and he takes very good care of me," she said quietly. "It's just so hard because he doesn't have much money. I'm still very proud of him though. He could ask me to cry hiruiseki for him to sell and earn his riches that way, but he never does. Kazuma is a very good man, Mister Hiei."
Hiei winced slightly as his sister met his eyes with a determined glare, her last words having come out quite forcefully, making her sound like one of the more fearsome elders of the ice village. He nodded curtly and began unwinding his bandages.
"Did Mukuro give you this wound?" Yukina asked as he carried out his task.
"Yes," he replied.
"Intentionally?" she asked.
"Yes."
Yukina eyed him over and he distinctly saw her eyebrows twist, but she said nothing. Clearly she was having as much difficulty as he was fathoming that he would want to be in a relationship with a woman who had complete control and dominance over him. He was looking forward to returning to his own reality because, quite frankly, in this reality, even though he had not encountered Mukuro herself, he had seen a side of her that he had never wanted to.
"Oh my, that's quite a deep wound, Mister Hiei," Yukina said, again failing to look as surprised as she was trying to sound.
In fact, Hiei thought wryly, the only time his sister had shown any emotion in this reality had been when she had been defending Kuwabara. Maybe that meant something. Or maybe not. Either way, Hiei did not really care.
"I'll try my best," Yukina said.
Hiei nodded, watching her hands as she moved them over his wound. This time around, either Mukuro had not hit him as severely or Yukina was stronger, because this time he saw her disappear part way through her task as he returned to his own reality, standing in exactly the same spot, his hands once more free, two hiruiseki around his neck, an empty sheath at his hip and the tattered remains of his black shirt clinging to his chest.
Hiei slowly turned around, checking that he was completely alone before daring to move. By luck he was alone – there were no humans nearby, no demons and, best of all, no spirit world Special Defence Force soldiers lurking in the shadows waiting to pounce on him. He supposed that he ought to get back to demon world and order Mukuro to try again – though the thought did present a few problems to him. First of all, he was not sure that he was ready to face Mukuro again after having just left a reality where she liked to tie him up and lather him in olive oil. Secondly, he had just left a reality with no war, and he had not bothered finding out why, which was bound to make her mad at him. And, last and most importantly of all, he was once more in a reality where there was a Kakai Barrier between the living world and demon world, and he was, yet again, on the wrong side of it.
"Fuck," he sighed.
Hiei turned in a complete circle for any clue as to what he should do next, and, surprisingly, he found one. As he turned, he spotted a single human turning onto the street, riding a human contraption he thought was called a bicycle. Whilst it was not unusual to see a human on a bicycle, it was unusual to see a human that he could already sense possessed immense spirit energy. As the human got closer, Hiei started to realise why he was so strong: it was Kuwabara.
He looked exactly the same as he had in the reality Hiei had just left. Perhaps a little more harried and haggard, but he was still dressed in that terrible not-quite-blue-not-quite-black suit and gaudy yellow tie, he still had a haircut that was short enough to show what an oddly-shaped head he had and he still thought that an annoying little beard looked good on him.
He stopped by some other bicycles and began tying his own bicycle up alongside them. He was carrying four bags packed full of white boxes and he looked like he might not manage to take them to their destination, as he was apparently exhausted. He was pale, with dark circles under his eyes, and as he walked away from his bicycle, Hiei could see that Kuwabara had lost the ability to walk fully upright and in a straight line.
"Hey, Kuwabara!" Hiei yelled.
Kuwabara jolted at the sound of his voice and dropped one of the bags he was carrying. The contents of the bag spilled out onto the ground and Kuwabara groaned, dropping into a squat to try to clean up the mess, not even bothering to check who had called on him. Hiei growled in anger at being ignored and stomped over to him.
"Hey, Kuwabara!" he said again.
"I know, I'm sorry, just take it out my salary," Kuwabara muttered as he scooped up food items into the bag he had dropped.
"Kuwabara!" Hiei snapped.
Kuwabara finally lifted his head, his face changing as he caught sight of Hiei.
"Oh, hey…" he said slowly. "Do I know you?"
"Not important," Hiei replied.
He was not about to try to explain to this Kuwabara how they knew each other.
"I need you to break a barrier for me," Hiei told him.
Kuwabara looked about himself as though he was afraid that someone might have overheard, or as though he expected someone else to join the conversation.
"Look, I'm not that guy," he said, meeting Hiei's eyes again. "I know, a few years ago, there was a guy who looks a lot like me who vandalised a few places around the city, but it wasn't me, buddy. I don't break barriers – not parking barriers, not police barriers–"
"No, you idiot!" Hiei interrupted him. "The Kakai Barrier!"
"I don't know what a "kakai" barrier is, but like I already told you, vandalism isn't my thing," Kuwabara replied. "You've got the wrong guy."
"Stop fucking about!" Hiei yelled.
"Don't take that tone with me buddy, or I'll call the police, understand?"
Hiei closed his eyes and breathed deeply under his anger had subsided to a point that he could trust himself not to punch Kuwabara through the stupid building he worked in. When he opened his eyes again Kuwabara was depositing the bag of food he had dropped into the trash can Hiei had been hiding in whilst keying something into his cell phone. Hiei thought that perhaps he was following through with his threat to call the police, which would create the sort of chaos Hiei wanted to avoid as it might alert the Special Defence Force to his presence in the living world once more, which was something he was keen to avoid at all costs.
"Oh, hey Keiko," Kuwabara said into his phone. "I dropped a bag, can you send round another order for me? I know you don't usually do deliveries, but I'll pay extra… Yeah, some asshole came out of nowhere and started yelling at me and I just dropped it… I dunno, he's really short, he's got strange hair and he's wearing ripped clothes… I dunno, he knows my name though… Yeah, he's really ugly, too."
Hiei was in no humour to listen to someone as ugly as Kuwabara call him ugly, so he started to leave: but as he passed the front of the building Kuwabara had been aiming for, he noticed something just inside the foyer, and, his curiosity peaked, he pushed his way through the entrance doors and approached the display.
It was a poster about someone with a foreign name Hiei was unfamiliar with, but the end part of the poster captured his interest: apparently the person the poster was about was looking for someone to design a new home for him in America, and the closing date for proposals was only a few months away.
Hiei turned around and walked back outside, where he found Kuwabara gathering up the remaining three bags of food.
"Are you an apprentice?" he asked.
He had to know how similar his own reality was to the others – it was not that he actually cared about what Kuwabara did or was, because he did not care in the slightest about Kuwabara, just his apparent immunity to the changes in realities.
"Yeah, but I'm not ashamed of it!" Kuwabara moodily replied. "I know most guys my age have gone further in their careers by now, but I'm an apprentice at the most successful architectural firm in Japan, you little asshole! And my manager is working on a proposal for a famous musician, and when his design is accepted and he gets the job of building that property, someone in the office will get promoted into his job, and I'll get a promotion into that other person's job!"
"Do you work long hours?" Hiei asked.
"Yeah, but every apprentice does!" Kuwabara argued back defensively. "It's the only way to make a name for myself!"
"Why doesn't it affect you?" Hiei asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously. "What were you doing ten years ago, when all this started?"
Kuwabara gave him a strange look before shaking his head.
"Look buddy, I have to get these lunches into that building," he said.
"Just tell me what you were doing ten years ago!" Hiei snapped.
"I was a freshman in college ten years ago!" Kuwabara snapped back. "Ten years ago right now I had just started studying to become an architect."
"…I see… And so you became an architect in every reality apart from the one where I married Botan… Why is that?"
"Look pal, if you don't back off, I really will call the police!"
Kuwabara sighed and muttered something derogatory about Hiei's height and intellect before disappearing into the building he worked in. Hiei did not bother following him: after all, he had learned all that he needed to. Everyone else around him lived slightly different lives in the different realities he had been to apart from Kuwabara. Only in the ideal reality had his life changed, and perhaps that change he had made in that reality was somehow a clue to what was wrong with his own reality, Hiei decided.
Maybe he should have listened when Mukuro was explaining how the alternate realities came about.
And, he thought miserably, since Kuwabara could not remember how to break barriers any more, he had no way of returning to demon world without letting the Special Defence Force catch him and send him back – and they would probably only do so after beating him or taking him there via spirit world and Koenma again. He tried to think of any unexplored third option he might have for returning to demon world, but none came. Eventually he forgot about his problem as yet another familiar human appeared on a bicycle, carrying a single white bag.
"Hiei?" Keiko said as she dismounted her ride.
"You!" Hiei replied. "You're different in each reality, obviously you're not the problem."
She pulled a face at him, which only made her look more ridiculous than she already did. She was dressed in the clothes of a kitchen worker, complete with a baggy hairnet and a white hat displaying the name "Yukimura Restaurant" on it.
"Screw you," she said, pulling something out of a pocket in her pants. "You're just another demon, and you demons are all bastards. Do you know, my entire life is a mess because of you demon bastards. After Yusuke left, I had to give up my job to help out my parents in the restaurant. It was only temporary, just until they got someone else… Then business went downhill because I'm not as good a cook as stupid Yusuke is, and now I'm stuck there! I had to sell my apartment because my parents couldn't afford to pay me, but if I'd gone back to my old job, they'd have gone out of business – but does Yusuke ever think of that? Hell no! "Oh, Keiko, the Kakai Barrier is going back up, no demon can ever visit the living world again, Keiko!" But look: you're here, so obviously that was just a transparent lie he told so that he could leave me!"
Hiei had started to turn away from her, not particularly caring to listen to her jealous rants about the loss of Yusuke Urameshi from her life, but as he noticed what she was doing, he suddenly turned back to her.
"Isn't that a spirit world device?" he asked.
"Yeah, one of those SDF guys gave it to me," she flatly replied. "He said if I saw you again I had to press the red button so that they would know where you are so they could arrest you."
"Fuck!" Hiei yelled. "Thanks for the help, bitch!"
"You're welcome!" Keiko sarcastically replied.
She really was a bitch in this reality, Hiei thought. Bitter, cynical, jealous, resentful – he doubted Yusuke would even recognise her any more. She certainly would not recognise him now that he had taken a slightly different physical form, looking far more like the late Raizen than the punk kid who had once been a spirit detective. As he thought, Hiei ran. He did not know where he was running to or even why – the Kakai Barrier was all encompassing, and there was no way through it from either side. If he did not let the Special Defence Force catch him, he would be stuck in the living world, which meant that he would never be able to get back to the right reality, and if he did let the Special Defence Force catch him he was almost certain that they would take him to Koenma again. For the third time. That day.
Hiei ran on.
He enjoyed a few minutes of peace before the soldiers started appearing. At first it was just one, and he soon lost him. But then another dropped in front of him. He escaped, but only narrowly, and only to find that he was being flanked by two more. Surely King Enma's elite troops had far better things to be doing with their time – especially when there was a war on in demon world – than to chase after one demon who Koenma was still pissed off at because of something he had done ten years ago?
Hiei jumped to avoid a blast aimed at his chest, only to be hit hard in the back by an attack from another direction. He managed to run on, but he had been slowed and weakened by the attack: apparently King Enma's elite troops did not have anything better to do with their time than to chase after one demon who Koenma was still pissed off at because of something he had done ten years ago. Hiei realised that he was going to be caught, and it was probably for the best, as it would ultimately get him back to demon world, which was what he wanted. He also realised that he should have healed himself back in demon world in the other reality to avoid this mess in the living world in his own reality, but he had never really been one for planning things ahead of time.
Accepting his fate, Hiei decided that he would just try one more thing before allowing the Special Defence Force to capture him: as he passed a clothes shop he snatched up a sweater and pulled it on. It was slightly too big for him and of a strange style, but he had not chosen it for size or style, rather he had chosen it for colour, to test out a theory that was brewing in the back of his mind.
The sweater was red.
"Hiei, I am getting sick of this!" Koenma ranted as Hiei was dragged into his office.
The prince was still in his adult form and now had a few excessive piles of paperwork on his desk and two large stamps immediately in front of him. He picked one up, his eyes flashing.
"Maybe I should use this on you!" he threatened. "It says "condemn", and that's what I feel like doing to you!"
"Hn, as if I care," Hiei snorted.
"And what's this?" Koenma added, holding out his hands towards Hiei. "Is this your attempt at being nice? You do understand that being nice and wearing a nice sweater are not the same thing, right?"
"I didn't know that you cared about my clothing," Hiei replied, smirking as Koenma became flustered at his response.
"I didn't mean it like that and you know it!" he snapped. "You've passed through the Kakai Barrier three times in one day, and it's third strike and you're out!"
"Hn, an empty threat from an empty vessel. They say that empty vessels make the most noise, and that's certainly true in your case."
"You should be mindful what you say, you're already in serious trouble, Hiei!"
"Nothing you can possibly do to me frightens me."
"Well we'll just see about that, shall we? My father knows about the problems you've been causing today, and he is not happy either. In fact, he has said that if you–"
Koenma stopped abruptly as something on his desk began beeping. He frowned at it curiously before giving Hiei a slightly nervous glance.
"I have to take this call," he said quietly.
He cleared his throat and then pushed a button on his desk.
"Yo," he said.
"Lord Koenma, George just told me that Hiei appeared in the living world again," Botan's voice answered him.
Koenma glanced at Hiei again.
"Don't worry about that, Botan," he said. "George is an idiot, he says a lot of things. You have other things to worry about right now."
"But Sir, I think it's more than a coincidence that Hiei has appeared in the living world three times in one day, especially after all this time," Botan insisted.
"Yes, I know what you mean…" Koenma replied, glaring across his office at Hiei as he spoke.
"So he is there?"
"Don't worry about it Botan, just finish what you're doing."
"But Sir, is Hiei there with you?"
Koenma looked across at Hiei again. Hiei grinned.
"Go on, answer her," he said, deliberately raising his voice.
"…Was that Hiei?" Botan asked.
Hiei's grin widened as he saw Koenma's face fall.
"Look, Botan, don't think about it," he said. "Just finish what you're doing, that's far more important than anything that's happening with Hiei."
"So he is there with you?" Botan asked.
"Yes, he is, but you shouldn't worry about it," Koenma replied, his voice gaining a slightly tense edge. "Just… Finish what you're doing."
"But Lord Koenma, I was–"
Koenma thumped his fist onto the button on his desk, cutting Botan off.
"Get him out of here," he instructed the soldiers flanking Hiei. "Send him back to demon world."
"Just like that?" Hiei asked, shirking out of the reach of the soldiers. "I thought I was in "serious trouble" with your father?"
"Get him out of here," Koenma said again to his men. "Now!"
Hands grabbed at Hiei and he let them take him from Koenma's office. He was sick of looking at and listening to the whiny prince, and at least Botan's intervention meant that he was being returned to demon world without consequences, which was what he had really wanted all along. Although he hated spirit world and everything and everyone in it – except for Botan – he did not really want to be at war with the Special Defence Force troops and Koenma.
The soldiers dragged Hiei along corridors of ogres and ferry girls who fled and hid to watch him from what they probably thought was a safe and discreet location: how foolish and naïve they all were, Hiei silently mused. He was being taken out of the temple, where, he assumed there would be other Special Defence Force soldiers waiting by a breach they had opened to return him to his own realm. After a while they stopped encountering ogres and ferry girls and the main temple door came into their view, still under repair from the damage Hiei had done to it early that morning when he had first arrived in spirit world after returning from the ideal reality and been brought there by the damn Special Defence Force.
"Wait!"
The soldiers stopped and so did Hiei. He could hear light footsteps running towards them from one side, and moments later a figure stumbled into his line of sight: and Hiei momentarily stopped breathing.
"Oh," Botan said as her eyes met his. "So you… You are here…"
If he had been lucid enough, he would have paid more attention to the way her eyes roved over him, but instead he was too caught up in studying her appearance. She was dressed in a very luxurious kimono with extensive and intricate embroidered details around the sleeves, shoulders and hem, her hair was swept up at one side of her head, hanging down in a curled ponytail. She was wearing the faintest hint of make-up, but it seemed more obvious because she was slightly red in the face for some reason.
"You look good," he growled, unable to stop the words from leaving his mouth.
"You look…" she began, eying him over again before meeting his eyes with a slightly startled looking, her face turning slightly redder. "I was… I had an important meeting with King Enma."
"About me?" Hiei asked.
He assumed that her reference to King Enma was, after all, the same as the one Koenma had made: that the ruler of spirit world was aware of and displeased by his continual appearances in the living world despite the presence of the Kakai Barrier.
"Not everything is about you," she said, some of the colour fading from her face and her eyes changing.
"Then what?" Hiei asked.
"It's not your business what I do," she replied. "But you should really be more careful. I'm surprised that Lord Koenma has let you go – though he is a very forgiving and compassionate man."
Hiei gritted his teeth and forced down the urge to tell her that, in fact, her precious Lord Koenma was a limp-wristed idiot that could never make her happy, since he did not want to antagonise her: she was speaking to him and looking him in the eye, which, in this reality, was a big improvement, and he was sensible enough to know that he would ruin that if he started insulting Koenma to her.
"I would like to know how you have managed to pass through the Kakai Barrier three times in one day though," she added. "And why you keep doing it, seeing the problems that it causes."
"It's not your business what I do," Hiei replied sarcastically.
Botan narrowed her eyes at him, and he saw her look determined and empowered for the first time in his own reality.
"Well you should take more care what you do," she said haughtily. "If you keep coming back to the living world, Lord Koenma might think that you like it there, and seal you there instead. Would you like that? Being stranded in the living world, surrounded by humans, unable to get back to demon world ever again?"
It was a complex question, as far as Hiei was concerned. In his own reality, obviously the answer was no: he could think of nothing worse than being stranded in the living world, surrounded by humans and stuck with a Kuwabara who could not remember him and acted more idiotic than before, a Keiko who was a bitter bitch and a Shuichi who thought he was still sort of Kurama. In the perfect reality however, being stuck in the living world would not be so terrible, since his wife and son lived there and so did his sister, and she was happy.
"With all due respect, Botan, Lord Koenma would not seal a dangerous demon like Hiei into the living world," one of the Special Defence Force soldiers at Hiei's side said.
"Of course," Botan replied, bowing her head politely to the soldier.
"And if he does reappear in the living world again, don't worry, we'll catch him again," the other soldier told Botan. "We always do. He won't threaten you there."
"I hope not," Botan said quietly, narrowing her eyes at Hiei again.
"Are you really happy collecting souls like a slave?" he sneered back at her.
"Not any more I'm not," she replied. "Which is why I've asked to become a spirit with a physical presence. King Enma has agreed to grant me the privilege because my reasons are noble, but first I have to spend ten years as a human in the living world – but I wouldn't feel safe doing that if you were going to keep showing up and destroying shops and pestering and confusing poor Kuwabara, Keiko and Shuichi."
Hiei ignored the end part of Botan's speech, his mind focusing only on the first part, which was more than a little disconcerting.
"You're becoming a human for ten years, and then a spirit with a physical presence?" he asked in a low voice.
"Yes I am," she replied, raising his chin defiantly. "And I'm sure you'll probably just want to mock me for that because you hate humans and spirits."
"This isn't how it's supposed to happen," Hiei said quietly. "You were supposed to ask for that after you agreed to be my wife. What sort of mockery is this?"
"Hiei, you have to stop referring to me as your wife! It's starting to become offensive!"
"But that's how it works! You defy spirit world by asking to become a spirit with a physical presence because you want to be my wife! You become human for ten years, and during that time, you're able to have children, and that's when our son is born!"
Botan faltered visibly, almost staggering as one of her knees bent slightly.
"That's the only time you can have children," Hiei added, barely noticing her response. "And that's when you have my child!"
"H-how did you know that?" she asked. "How did you know that I can only have children during the time I'm in my human body?"
"Because, you idiot, you have my children during that time!"
Botan tilted her head and her face twisted through a range of emotions, but she mostly just looked upset.
"You can't possibly know that!" she eventually said.
"I do because I've seen it!" he snapped.
"Well you're wrong anyway!" she said, waving a hand at him, her excessively long kimono sleeve sweeping through the air and creating a gust of wind. "I didn't ask to become a spirit with a physical presence because of you! I did it because of Lord Koenma!"
"Oh bullshit!" Hiei snorted. "You did it so that you could be with me!"
"I did it so that I can be with Lord Koenma!" Botan snapped. "I'm going to live in the living world as a human for ten years and then I'm going to be a spirit and live here in spirit world with Lord Koenma as his wife!"
"…What?"
"Lord Koenma will one day take over from his father as ruler of spirit world, and when he does, he'll need a wife."
Hiei momentarily went blind and deaf. When his senses returned to him, there was a hole in the wall at his side and the two Special Defence Soldiers who had been flanking him were lying amongst the rubble. Botan was running from him sobbing as she went and calling out for Koenma. Hiei started after her, chasing her out of the temple, where, as he had expected, three Special Defence Force soldiers were holding open a small breach in the Kakai Barrier for him.
Hiei stopped, looking back at the still broken temple door and the fallen Special Defence Force officers beyond it, over at Botan who was still running crying from him and then at the open breach in the Kakai Barrier. He did not like the thought that he had just made Botan terrified of him again or the fact that she was taking her human trial for Koenma instead of him – that only made things even more detestable and impossibly far from right in his own reality – but he forced himself to focus on the paradise reality, where everything was as it should be, and he was only one more injury away from getting there.
And with that thought, Hiei leapt through the breach and started back towards Mukuro.
Next Chapter: Mukuro is getting seriously annoyed that Hiei keeps wasting his time in the alternate realities and they have a fight over the matter and she reveals to him the truth about the other realities he has been visiting. Mukuro sends Hiei away again: to a reality that really makes him appreciate what she has explained about the rules of her attack. Chapter 10 – The Common Denominator
A/N: I would like to point out that it may seem as though I am bashing Hiei paired with anyone else but Botan (and vice versa), but that's not the point of what I'm doing, and I hope nobody has taken any offence. I do actually see Hiei with Mukuro (though honestly, I see her as the dominant one) and I can see places where Hiei and Keiko would work, and I love Botan with Yusuke and even Botan with Koenma – the chopping and changing is really only being done as a tool to demonstrate something about those other realities that is quite crucial to the main plot of the story (which still hasn't started yet, when will I learn portion control?!)
Just keep watching! As soon as Hiei says "anything she does" the main plot will start, I swear!
