Smut warning. Not really sure what was wrong with me when I wrote the "stop looking at it" scene…

Recap: Hiei learned that he can prolong his stay in any given reality by keeping his wound open, he learned that the realities he visits are exclusive to him (ie they are created from decisions he has made in his own life), Mukuro told him of her plan to kill Kurama and Yusuke if his journeys to other realities don't give her the answers she is after and Hiei arrived in a reality where is the general of Mukuro's army and Botan is an SDF trooper.

Chapter 11: Not So Simple

"You're the mother of my children."

Botan's eyebrows slowly moved up her forehead and her arms fell to her sides.

"Excuse me?" she said.

"What are you doing in those ridiculous clothes?" Hiei asked, ignoring her surprise at his earlier remark.

"This is my uniform, Hiei!" Botan replied. "I'm a soldier of the spirit world Special Defence Force, remember? I may not yet be as strong as the other soldiers are, but I'm well on my way. I've been training hard, and I've been doing this job for almost ten years now… I know we're still no real threat to an S class demon like you, but you'd be surprised at how much stronger I am… Assuming that you can even remember who I am to make the comparison, which obviously you can't, because you seem to under the delusion that I'm the "mother of your children"… I had no idea that you had any children, Hiei. And, if I'm being honest, that's quite a frightening thought. Both the thought of you as a father and the thought of children like you existing…"

"Bigger fool you, they're your children too!" Hiei snapped irritably. "If you insult my son then you're insulting your own son too!"

Botan slid a step back from Hiei.

"Why are you doing this?" he asked, waving a hand at her ridiculous uniform. "You're not a fighter. And that uniform is hideous, I can't even see that shape of your b–"

Hiei turned his head downwards to one side as he abruptly cut himself off. He inwardly congratulated himself on having finally learnt to apply tact to his words. This diplomacy thing was perhaps not so difficult after all, he mused.

"…Okay…" Botan said slowly. "Well that's quite insightful, especially coming from a man wearing the insignia of a war hero, when, as I recall, you are anything but heroic."

Hiei slowly lifted his head, his eyes finding Botan's, the look on her face all too familiar to him.

"Hn, that's brave talk from a being as weak as you are," he said flatly. "Maybe you've forgotten how powerful I actually am."

"I wasn't questioning your power Hiei," she replied. "I was questioning your integrity."

Hiei waited for her to continue, feeling confused when she simply glared at him expectantly, almost as though she had been trying to provoke him into a fight.

"Aren't you going to say it?" she eventually said when he did not speak. "You usually do. Although it's been a while since I last saw you, maybe you've forgotten. It always was easy for you forget about me, wasn't it, Hiei?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," he replied. "You seem to be confused."

"I'm not confused, I'm just disappointed," she said. "And you know why."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do."

"No I don't."

"Yes you do!"

"…Alright fine! I've forgotten. You'd better remind me why."

"I'm disappointed because you forgot about me. Quite literally."

Hiei again waited for Botan to continue, but again she appeared to be waiting for him to speak, her body squaring and stiffening defensively as though she was expecting a violent outburst from him at any moment: what sort of reality was this, he wondered? How could something he had done ever have made Mukuro want to make him the general of her army and Botan want to become one of those whiny, do-gooder Special Defence Force officers?

"You're supposed to be my wife," he told her.

He did not really even care why she was what she was now, the facts were still the same: she was supposed to have married him, she was supposed to have given him Monzan and she was supposed to be carrying his second son. And despite that all being quite obviously the way that things were meant to be, she looked confused and even a little angry at his words.

"Your wife?" she asked. "Did you just say that I am supposed to be your wife?"

"Yes," he replied.

"And why would that be?" she asked. "Why would I want to marry you? I'm afraid you'll have to remind me what it was that you did that made me fall in love with you, since I seem to have forgotten…"

Hiei growled quietly under his breath. Sarcasm did not suit Botan, and presumably it was something she had picked up being around those cynical Special Defence Force soldiers.

"You fell in love with me in the cave," he patiently replied.

"The cave?" she echoed. "What cave?"

"The cave we hid in after the rock monster nearly killed me!" he said, his patience quickly fading.

"After the rock monster nearly killed you?" she repeated, her face changing suddenly. "Well now, that's certainly an interesting twist to the tale! I thought that you ran away from the rock monster – while it was killing me!"

Hiei stopped. He was surprised that she knew about the rock monster at all, since he himself had not even known whether or not they had encountered it in this reality: but that thought made him realise that he probably should not have started yelling at her about the paradise reality as if she would know what he was talking about, especially since all he had achieved was to confuse and irritate her and to get the attention of the other Special Defence Force soldiers, who were starting to gather behind her on the other side of the barrier.

"I didn't save you from the rock monster?" he asked quietly.

"No, you most certainly did not, Hiei!" she snapped back. "I screamed at you to help me, you stopped, looked back, smiled and then ran on and let me die! And you were terribly rude to me in Lord Koenma's office afterwards!"

Hiei tilted his head slightly, his confusion growing to the point where he was finding it hard to contain it any longer. So far, this reality sounded exactly the same as his own: so then why was he the general of Mukuro's army and why was Botan a Special Defence Force soldier?

"And why do you never remember this?" she added. "And why am I always surprised that you never remember this? You didn't even think that I was real when Lord Koenma asked you to apologise to me!"

"I didn't think that you were real," Hiei replied, simply saying the first thing that came to mind. "I thought that you were just a soulless puppet spirit world used to ferry human souls to the afterlife."

"I know you did!" she roared. "And that's why I can't forgive you!"

"But I don't think that any more," he pointed out.

"Oh really? That must be a recent change of heart then."

"It is."

Botan yelped out a noise of indignation and turned to her colleagues, pointing at Hiei and shaking her head. She was starting to piss him off: she was acting shamefully and like a resentful child, and he was not really sure that he wanted a woman like that raising his children. He wondered how he could tell her that she was setting a bad example for Monzan.

"What do you want, Hiei?" she asked, turning back to him. "Why are you even here? Shouldn't you be off fighting Yusuke and Kurama?"

"So Yusuke and Kurama really are the same here," Hiei muttered. "And probably Kuwabara is the same too, he always is…"

"What?" Botan echoed.

"Do you mind, woman?" he snapped. "I'm trying to figure this out, and your nagging is unnecessary and distracting for me!"

"Oh, I'm sorry Hiei!"

Hiei faltered slightly. Botan looked and sounded genuinely apologetic, which completely contradicted everything she had been saying and doing before that moment.

"Did you see what I just did there, Hiei?" she asked, pointing at her face. "I apologised like I meant it!"

Her face dissolved back into the look of angered disgust she had been giving him before she made her last remark, and Hiei silently noted that, in this reality, Botan was a far better liar than she had been in the last reality he had met her in, where she had been unable to hide her true feelings in the slightest. Clearly something had happened to change her in this reality, and it probably had something to do with those Special Defence Forces bastards or that little brat Koenma.

"You don't even know what I'm talking about, do you?" she asked quietly. "Here I am, torturing myself over this, and you don't even remember…"

She sighed and hung her head, her anger fading. She started to look quite upset, and it was almost a relief for Hiei, because it made her look more like how he knew her in his own reality.

"Never mind," she said, lifting her head again. "I have to get back to work, and I'm sure that you do too."

"Wait!" Hiei said, grabbing at her arm desperately.

He caught hold of her a little harsher than he had meant to, and he could tell by the way she stared down at his hand around her elbow, the whites of her eyes clearly bordering the pink of her irises and her throat visibly moving as she quietly gulped, that she was afraid and upset at his actions, but he stubbornly held on.

"I came here to see you," he said.

She lifted her eyes to his, studying him curiously before attempting a sarcastic smile.

"Oh, of course you did!" she said. "You can't even remember me, but here you are, come all this way just to… See me…"

Her words had been sarcastic, but her tone was anything but that and her expressions were slowly betraying her: it was all an act, apparently.

"I did come here to see you," he said. "Why else would I come here?"

"Well usually you just come here to try to pry information out of us about what's going on in Yomi's territory," she muttered.

"You can see into Yomi's territory from here?" he asked.

Botan narrowed her eyes at him and Hiei quickly shook his head.

"No," he said. "Not that. I just needed to see you."

"Why else would you need to see me?" she asked.

"Because I… I need some answers."

Botan rolled her eyes.

"So this is about you trying to get me to spy on Yomi!" she said.

"No!" he snapped. "Just tell me more about the rock monster."

"Why? Because it meant so little to you that you forgot about it? Again?"

"…Whatever. Just tell me about it."

"It was summoned to kill you, it caught me, I cried out to you for help, you ran off and left me, it killed me. There, is that what you needed to know?"

Hiei sighed. Clearly there was no reasoning with Botan on the matter. She was so bitter about the whole thing, even in another reality: though a very small part of him did sympathise, because when he thought about anyone else leaving her for death the way he had, he became furious. That was his wife and the mother of his children, after all.

"Why did you become one of them?" he asked instead, glaring pointedly at the other Special Defence Force soldiers still lurking beyond the barrier as he spoke.

"Because I didn't want to ever be in the situation where a rock monster killed me again," Botan replied. "The things you said to me that day made me realise two things: first of all that I was, as you said, weak and useless in a situation, and secondly that you are an insensitive jerk who is completely incapable of apologising or admitting when he's wrong."

"Would it have made any difference if I had apologised to you?"

Hiei ducked, surprised at just how close Botan came to slapping him across the face. She certainly did seem to have grown stronger and faster spending time around the Special Defence Force. He could not even tell why she had suddenly become so irate: he was only asking what he thought was quite a valid question after all. He had let the monster kill her, and apologising really would not have taken away from that any. He realised that he was wrong to have insulted her the way he had in Koenma's office that day, but if he had apologised as she had asked him to, it would not have changed anything: surely she could see that?

"I knew you were faking!" she said suddenly. "I knew you didn't mean it! You just pretended to apologise that day so that Lord Koenma wouldn't ban you from the living world and so that Yusuke and Kurama wouldn't get you banned from the rest of demon world!"

"…What?" Hiei grunted.

"You never even said the words "I'm sorry" yet," she continued. "What was it that you said? It was something ridiculously contrived… Oh yes, I remember – even if you don't – it was: "I would be regretful if I let an important living soul die". But you had already said that you thought I was not important and not a living soul, so that apology was completely redundant! Lord Koenma, Yusuke and Kurama might have accepted it, but I never did, and I never will! The only part of what you said that day that I did take to heart was when you told me that I should have been strong enough to save myself or else I should not have bothered going on that mission. I've made it a point ever since then to become strong, because on that one point you were right, Hiei. I'm big enough to admit when I'm wrong, even if you're not."

Hiei was barely listening to Botan any more. Something inside of him had snapped, and he paused only long enough to try to think who he was the most angry at before letting his anger out.

"Fuck!" he yelled.

Botan leapt back a step from him, her face quickly changing into that same look of fear she gave him in his own reality.

"This is it?" he shouted. "This is what would have happened if I'd apologised? This? Everything's just as bad as before! The only difference is that I've got a pointless title and you're dressed like a man! You said that if I apologised you would forgive me!"

Hiei glared at Botan expectantly, and as she backed up through the Kakai Barrier, he finally lost what little self-control he had been holding on to. He leapt into the air and cried out in sheer frustration, punching a fist downwards as he landed, blasting a crater into the ground and creating a small earthquake. The destruction and the pain of the rock tearing at his skin gave him a small measure of relief, but it was not enough. He almost felt willing to throw himself through the Kakai Barrier, to chance the pain of touching it in the vain hope that he might somehow manage to overcome it. He wanted to break everything around him and he wanted to fight: and apparently he was going to be able to fulfil one of his desires, as the Special Defence Force soldiers were marching through the barrier and surrounding him.

Hiei grinned and leapt up, gladly fighting them off with his bare hands. He was getting tired of being patient and being careful with his words and restraining his actions. This was something he felt far more comfortable with. A few of the soldiers managed to get in a few lucky shots at him, but he actually relished every bit of pain he felt, because it was something that he understood and something that he knew how to deal with. He loved every second of beating down those fools who had taken so much pleasure beating him down in his own reality until something quite terrible happened.

Their leader punched him hard in the gut, his armoured fist catching on the gashes over Hiei's chest and tearing them wider and deeper down over his abdomen.

Hiei went numb. He let himself fall to the ground, barely caring that he was in pain and bleeding quite profusely: with the wound widened, his time in that reality had now been lengthened, and he could feel that the damage had been quite extensive, meaning that he was probably now stuck where he was for the next week at least.

"Stop!" he heard Botan shouting.

He vaguely saw her dropping to her knees at his side and grabbing at his clothes. She tore the fabric with surprising strength and speed, and the look on her face as she saw the cross-marked laceration he bore made him momentarily forget about his concerns. She moved her eyes to his and a strange look of recognition and realisation passed over her eyes before she did something Hiei thought was probably the most unexpected, embarrassing and bizarre thing ever to have happened to him: the former ferry girl grabbed her arms around him and pulled him over her shoulder before launching them both into the air.

Being carried by a woman, being carried by a former ferry girl, being carried by a spirit or being carried by an officer of the spirit world Special Defence Force: Hiei could not decide which interpretation of his circumstances was the most humiliating. His only slight consolation was that Botan flew remarkably fast and soon landed again, far away from her peers and the Kakai Barrier itself, landing in a crouch as Hiei had seen the other Special Defence Force soldiers do. She carefully lowered him down onto the ground again, lying him on his back, her hands then immediately moving to his wound.

"Oh my…" she muttered as her delicate fingers carefully parted the torn material of his clothing, peeling it back from the bloody mess underneath.

Hiei jerked involuntarily as she slid her hands up under his clothing and then dragged her fingers around the edges of the wound, exposing it entirely to her view. Her hands lingered at the base of the wound for a little while, and Hiei began to wonder if her actions were deliberate: with her fingers pointing downwards, she was only inches away from touching him somewhere she only ever had in the paradise reality.

"Oh, Hiei," she said in a low voice.

Her hands slipped out of his clothes and he was finally able to relax. He steeled himself to look her in the eye, but she was still staring at his wound, her mouth hanging open in wonder.

"Hn, I'm sure you've seen worse," he grunted.

"The Dividing Realities."

Botan's words had been barely more than a whisper, but Hiei's head snapped up and he hurriedly dug his elbows into the ground to hold himself up enough that he could look directly at her.

"What did you just say?" he asked.

"This wound," she said, meeting his eyes. "It's from the Dividing Realities. You're acting strangely because you're not my Hiei, you're another Hiei, from another reality."

"I am your…"

Hiei stopped himself partway through his response, because he was, of course, not her anything in this reality, and also he had just noticed that her touch had unfortunately caused a physical reaction in him, one that was not subsiding any time soon: but thankfully she appeared not to have noticed that.

"What do you know about the Dividing Realities?" he asked instead.

"It's Mukuro's new attack," Botan quietly replied. "She told Lord Koenma about it. She said she was working on an attack to split reality, a method of sending an individual to another reality. She said she was hoping to send someone to a reality where there was no war in demon world, because if she could find a reality where it hadn't happened, maybe she could figure out a peaceful way to end the fighting in this reality. That's what that is, isn't it? It's the Dividing Realities! Mukuro used the attack on you, and it's sent you here, to this reality!"

Hiei could hardly believe what he was hearing: Mukuro had spoken to Koenma about her Dividing Realities attack? Had she done that in his reality too?

"Oh dear, but Lord Koenma wasn't supposed to tell me!" Botan said, covering her mouth with one hand. "It was supposed to be a secret, but I overheard some of it and I made him tell me the rest! I'm such a no–"

"Nosy little kitten, right," Hiei finished for her.

Her face dropped.

"How did you know that I would say that?" she asked. "Did you read my mind?"

"I didn't need to," he replied, smirking to himself.

Botan's face shifted through a range of emotions before she spoke again.

"It's quite terrible," she said softly.

Hiei groaned involuntarily as she started touching her fingers at the unharmed skin around the edge of his wound again.

"Is it very painful?" she asked.

"Fuck yes," he replied.

"Oh dear it does look painful," she said.

Hiei realised that they were talking at cross-purposes, but he was beyond the point of being able to correct her. She was, of course, talking about the newly widened, crossed gash over his torso, whereas he was talking about the increasing discomfort of his inappropriately timed and rapidly hardening erection straining against the fabric of his pants.

"It's strange, you know you even look different," Botan said, still oblivious to the full extent of his sufferings under her feather-light touches. "Your expression and even the way you carry yourself is different. It must be an amazing experience to visit a completely different reality like this… Am I an SDF officer in your reality too?"

"No," Hiei managed to reply.

"Interesting…" she said. "Wait… You called me your wife – oh my goodness, are we married in your reality?"

Hiei froze as Botan's eyes met his. He could tell her truth, he thought. He could tell her that, in his reality, things had gone almost as badly as they had in this one, except that he had refused to apologise to her for letting the rock monster kill her. It was the honest answer, after all.

"Yes," he said. "You're my wife in the other reality."

She was his wife in the other reality, he assured himself after the words had left his mouth. Just not in his own reality: but this Botan did not need to know that.

"Really?" she squeaked. "Oh my goodness! I married you? You married me? Wow, what a strange reality that must be! What sort of reality could I possibly have – oh gracious!"

Hiei winced as Botan's eyes doubled in size and suddenly locked onto his crotch. He had hoped that she would not notice his little problem there, but her noticing it and staring at it unblinkingly in a sort of impressed fashion was only making it worse.

"Is that…?" she asked, pointing at what her eyes apparently could not leave.

"My penis, yes!" he snapped irritably.

She gasped, but still did not look away.

"That's despicable, Hiei!" she said.

"Well stop looking at it, then!" he retorted.

"I can't, it's so… That's despicable, Hiei!"

"Seeing you looking at it like that is turning me on and that's making it worse so just stop fucking looking at it!"

Botan gasped again and finally turned her head, moving her eyes to his face.

"Hiei!" she said in a disapproving tone.

"You're my wife!" he said defensively. "In the other reality, you'd be pleased to see that! In the other reality, you'd have put that in your–"

Hiei's voice was cut off as Botan managed to slap him across the face. It was not an especially sore hit – in fact, he was sure that she had not even been using all of the strength she possessed in this reality – but by the look on her face it was the best that she could have managed, as she was apparently quite embarrassed and upset by his words.

"I'm not your wife in this reality," she said quietly. "In this reality, you let me die. Maybe in your own reality you treated me differently, but in this one you let me die when I was in my human body, and you only apologised because Lord Koenma made you do it, and you didn't even say it nicely or like you meant it."

Hiei lowered his eyes to one side to avoid having to see the hurt in her eyes. He was sick of seeing it over and over in every reality he visited. He just wanted to see that loving look she had always given him in the first reality. That look that had made him feel as though he was finally home: which was strange to him, because he had never really thought about having or even wanting a home before, but when Botan had looked him in the eye in the paradise reality he had just known that he was exactly where he was meant to be, and that, he assumed, was the definition of home.

"What happened in your reality?" Botan asked.

Hiei tried to sit up, but between the now gaping wound in his abdomen and the tension in his groin he found himself stuck on his elbows and eventually gave up.

"We got married," he said flatly. "We have a son and you're pregnant again."

"We have a son?" she echoed. "Did we call him Monzan?"

"Of course we did – wait, how did you know that?"

"Well, I…"

Botan sat back onto her heels and lifted one fist to her mouth, her eyes looking away from Hiei. She looked nervous and worried, but, Hiei told himself, it was at least an improvement on the fearful hatred her eyes had been filled with moment's earlier.

"I never thought that I would be a mother," she said softly. "I was a ferry girl and now I'm one of King Enma's guards, it was something that was never meant to happen… But I did still sometimes think about it. I did always want children. And I always knew that if I had a son, I would name him Monzan, after Monzan Kadokura."

"That happened in this reality too?" Hiei asked.

He felt stupid the minute the question had left his mouth: of course that had happened in this reality too. Botan had told him that she had met Monzan Kadokura during the Edo Period, and that had been before Hiei himself had even been born, which meant that, for it to be true in any one of his alternate realities, it had to be true in them all: including his own reality.

"Yes, I see…" he muttered pensively.

"I really have a son?" Botan asked. "We really have a son? Really? And his name's Monzan?"

"Yes," Hiei confirmed, meeting her eyes again.

"How old is he?"

Hiei hesitated. He had no idea how old Monzan was. He struggled for several seconds, the gradually sceptical look creeping onto Botan's face doing little to ease his nerves. Then suddenly he remembered a conversation he had held with Kuwabara – how ironic, he thought, that Kuwabara was to be his saviour in such a moment.

"He's almost four years old," he said, quoting Kuwabara exactly.

"Oh my!" Botan gushed, smiling slightly. "How wonderful! What does he look like?"

"He looks just like–"

Hiei quickly stopped himself mid-answer as he remembered how badly the Botan of his own reality had reacted when he had told her that their son looked just like him, and so he corrected himself by using some of that thing called tact.

"He has blue hair," he said carefully.

That was at least true, the boy did have blue hair – it was a very dark, midnight blue and nothing at all like Botan's, but it was certainly not as black as Hiei's own hair was.

"Really?" she asked, her smile widening. "What colour of eyes does he have?"

"Red," Hiei replied.

Botan's smile faded slightly and Hiei again corrected himself.

"A sort of pinkish-red," he said.

Again it was not really a lie, as the boy's eyes had not been the same blood-red that Hiei's own were, though they were a far cry from the magenta hue of his mother's.

"Does he have spiky hair like you?" Botan asked.

"...Yes," he replied as he failed to think of any way to dress that fact up.

"With a white star in his hair like you too?" she asked.

"…Yes," he said, again failing to manufacture a better answer.

"Oh my goodness, how cute!"

Hiei's arms almost slipped out from under him in surprise as Botan clapped her hands together and grinned so widely her eyes were pressed shut by her cheeks.

"…Yes…" he said slowly, quirking an eyebrow at her response.

"And I'm pregnant again?" she asked, her smile dropping and her eyes suddenly opening out wide. "Is it a boy or a girl?"

"I can't tell you, you made me promise not to."

"Oh yes, I wouldn't want you to spoil the surprise, but I probably will ask you a lot, and you'll have to try not to tell me, and you'll sit there keeping it all secret, and it'll drive me crazy, but I'll be so frustrated, and you'll be…"

Botan and Hiei exchanged confused and curious looks.

"That makes a lot more sense than it ought to," she said, her tone almost mechanical.

"…Yes…" he agreed.

"…Huh…"

They both turned from each other, and stayed that way for some time and in silence. Hiei finally managed to calm himself, but the result of doing so was that could feel how badly torn the wound in his chest was.

"I'm stuck here now," he muttered.

"Why?" Botan asked him.

"The wound…" he said, pointing at it but still not looking at Botan. "I can't leave this reality until it heals."

"Oh dear," she said. "In our reality, Mukuro wouldn't use the move on you because she said it sends the victim around several different realities at random until they die."

"I can understand that."

"Is it the same in your reality? Are you being sent around many different realities?"

"Yes."

"Oh no, then you'll die too!"

"Probably."

"Aren't you scared? It sounds so terrible: travelling around from reality to reality with no control until you finally reach a reality where you're dead, and you're transported into a dead body and then bam! That's it! You're dead too!"

"What?"

Hiei turned his head sharply to Botan.

"I think it's awful," she replied. "You could die, and all you want is to get home to your son and your wife, who also happens to be me… Is it weird for you to see me like this?"

"…What?"

"Is it weird for you to see me–"

"No, not that! What did you say about going to a reality where I'm dead?"

"Well, that's the downside of the attack, isn't it? Every time you get hit you take the risk of ending up in a reality where you're already dead, and so you yourself die too?"

Hiei was going to kill Mukuro. Forget her plan about killing Kurama and Yusuke to end the war, Hiei was going to kill Mukuro because she had lied to him – and maybe that would have the added bonus of also ending the war.

"…Mukuro never told you that part?" Botan asked carefully.

"No she fucking well did not!" Hiei roared.

He was on his feet before he remembered that he was still hurting. He staggered slightly and again found himself at the mercy of soldier Botan as she grabbed an arm around his waist and caught his weight as his legs gave way beneath him.

"I don't understand why she wouldn't tell you something as important as that!" Botan said as she put her other arm around Hiei and gently lowered him down to sit on the ground again.

"I do!" Hiei growled. "She lied because she knew that it was the only way to make me do it! She said something about trying the move on others and them never returning, this must be why!"

"Well at least you're still alive so far, right?"

"So far?"

Hiei glared at Botan and she grinned back at him nervously. He realised then that it was pointless for him to argue the matter with her, since she was not the one responsible for his circumstances. However, this was an added complication he was going to have to factor into his attempts to get back to paradise: now every time he was sent to another reality he was going to have to face the possibility that he might die in a quite pathetic way.

Though death by being sent to a reality where he was already dead was still slightly better than death by luring Kurama and Yusuke into a sorry little death-trap, which was the fate he faced in his own reality if he did not manage to get back to the paradise reality.

"It doesn't matter anyway," he concluded aloud. "I have to get back to the right reality."

Botan gasped and he turned to her, expecting to receive another admonishment of some kind.

"That's so gallant of you!" she said instead. "Do you really love me that much? I mean the other me, the one from your reality?"

Her words were strangely ironic to Hiei as he considered the true relationship that he shared with the Botan of his own reality, but he did not bother correcting the Botan of this reality on that point.

"I really can't imagine that we would have become husband and wife," she said. "How did it happen?"

"I saved you from the rock monster," he replied.

She gave him an odd look that made him feel far more uncomfortable than he thought that just a mere look ought to have.

"No, really," she said slowly. "How did it happen?"

"I saved you from the rock monster," he repeated, deliberately talking slower to ensure that she heard him correctly.

"…Really?" she echoed, her face changing again in a way that unsettled Hiei.

"Yes, really," he insisted.

"Well, whilst I am glad you did save me from the rock monster in your reality – because honestly, I never have forgiven you for that, even though you did pretend to apologise, and I don't think I ever will forgive you either – I can't honestly say that I would have wanted to marry you just for doing that for me."

"What are you talking about? I saved your life!"

"Yes, and though would probably have made me less afraid of you than I always was, it wouldn't make me fall in love with you."

"But I saved your life!"

"Yusuke saved my life more times than I can remember. So did Kurama. And Kuwabara. And Genkai revived me when I was hit by a bookcase. But I don't want to marry any of them."

Hiei glared at Botan intensely for several seconds, expecting her to tell him at any moment that this was one of her jokes or that she just trying to annoy him because, in this reality, she was still mad that he had not saved her from the rock monster and that he had faked an apology afterwards. But, despite giving her his most intimidating glower, she did not falter.

"So why did I fall in love with you?" she asked.

"In the cave," he said, the answer suddenly returning to him. "It happened in the cave."

"Right…" she said, nodding slowly. "What cave?"

"The cave we…"

Hiei really had no idea what the story about the cave was. He had, of course, only heard Botan briefly mention it in the paradise reality, and he had since only been able to guess what had happened then and there to make them end up marrying each other afterwards.

"I was mortally wounded, and you healed me in a cave," he said. "I showed humility and it made you love me."

"I can't imagine you ever showing humility," she said. "That would definitely change my opinion of you."

Hiei almost wanted to laugh that the whole thing was so simplistic: just because he had been hurt and forced to rely on her healing powers she had turned her back on spirit world and Koenma and become his wife, with the intention of living out her days in demon world with him and their children.

Maybe, Hiei thought, if he let Botan heal him in his own reality she would realise that she was supposed to be taking her human trial for him and not that idiot Koenma.

"When did you realise that you were in love with me?"

Hiei met Botan's eyes, the hopeful look on her face doing little to ease the mounting tension in his gut. It was a reasonable question for her to ask him, but he really had no idea how to answer it. He supposed that the honest answer was that he just wanted to be with her after hearing about the lengths she had gone to for him and because she had given him one son and was on her way to giving him a second son. And although that was the honest answer, he could tell by the look on Botan's face that she was waiting for an answer that was not quite so practical or reasonable.

"Well…" he began, turning from her as he realised that lying to her was proving increasingly difficult, especially when he was looking her in the eye.

Hiei was more relieved than embarrassed when the silence was broken by his stomach growling, reminding him that he had not long left a healing chamber back in his own reality, where he had been unconscious and not eaten anything for several days.

"Oh my!" Botan exclaimed. "You should get something to eat."

"Yes," he agreed, slowly rising to his feet.

He looked back in the direction he had arrived from, seeing a woodland area where he was likely to find something he could eat as well as the necessary herbs to make a decent healing balm for his wound.

"Will you be alright?" Botan asked him.

"Of course," he lied.

"If you need anything, come back and see me," she replied. "But only come back is it's you. I don't want to see that other Hiei, I don't like him."

"…Right…"

"He let me die. And he wasn't even sorry about it, he just pretended to be. Isn't that mean?"

"…Yes…"

Hiei started to walk off, no longer able to listen to what Botan was saying.

"Take care, Hiei!" she called after him. "I hope you find your way home soon!"

"Me too…" Hiei muttered to himself.

Next Chapter: SDF Botan has a few more things to say to Hiei that he finds surprisingly educational before he goes back to his own reality: but unfortunately he is still in no-man's land, and he learns – the hard way – where the area got it's name from during the war as he has a close encounter with a former ally. Chapter 12 – Beyond the Cave