Chapter 12b: Only Friend of Mine
"You know Uso, for such a devil, you still have the face of an angel."
Botan forced a smile at the rat-faced old man at her side. He was disgusting, but she just had to pretend to like him long enough to reach Mukuro's compound, and, from peering down at the navigation screen the old man was hovering over, it seemed they were very close to that destination.
"You have such a pretty face," he continued. "You're really too pretty to be a common masquerader. I wonder why you do. You could live with me forever. I would take good care of you."
"That's nice," Botan tightly replied.
"If you don't like it at Mukuro's place, I could buy you a home anywhere in Demon World."
"Lovely."
"Your hair is lovely. It's such a pretty colour. It's the prettiest colour I've ever seen: though, you know, today, for the first time ever, I saw another girl with hair the exact same colour as yours. She had a very pretty face too. But she was an actual angel. She was a ferry girl."
Botan quietly clenched her fists at her sides, her leather gloves creaking and her knuckles whitening.
"Really?" she asked, as casually as she could, under the circumstances.
"Yes, she was with one of my colleagues, a moody little man named Hiei."
Botan clenched her teeth and fought the urge to reach for her bow. The only thing keeping her grounded at that moment was the thought that her instinct in her anger was to reach for her bow, and she wondered if that was because she had come to rely on it, or if it was the manifestation of exactly what Matsurika has forewarned: she had finally, completely, become Uso. The old man at her side certainly seemed to think that she was Uso: but he had also thought as much when he had picked her up in the living world immediately after Uso had swapped their energies.
"You know, the thing I would like the most from you, would be if you would go and run a bath for me," Botan began, an idea formulating in her mind.
"I have superior bathing facilities in my living quarters," the old man said.
Botan had to bite her tongue to stop herself from asking him why then did he not use that facility, since he was visibly dirty and emitting a quite horrid odour.
"Yes, I would like to just have a little walk when we arrive," she continued. "To stretch my legs – these vehicles are so tough to travel in – and while I do that, if you could prepare a bath for me, then–"
"Then I wash you in the bath."
Botan stiffened and had to fight to keep her mouth straight as a wave of disgust washed over her.
"Did-did you say you wish to watch me in the bath," she began slowly. "Or did you say you wish to wash me in the bath?"
"I wish to wash you with fragranced oils."
Botan shuddered and let out a noise of disgust despite her very best attempts to remain stoic. The old man shot her a sideward glare and she quickly covered her response, playing one hand through her hair.
"Oh-ho-ho," she said, hoping her voice did not sound as false to him as it did to her. "That sounds so… Sensual."
"Yes," he said, nodding his head and grinning a wide, brown-toothed grin. "You like that, don't you?"
"Oh yes, I really do!" Botan replied.
"We're almost there," he added. "I'm going to oil you up and then slide all over you."
"What does that even mea – I mean – I can't wait for that," Botan awkwardly replied.
"Yes…"
Botan suddenly wanted a bath, if only to literally wash herself since she felt so metaphorically dirty. The vehicle finally rolled to a halt and the old man and his colleagues disembarked: the old man offered Botan to walk ahead of him, but she had seen Keiko fall for that trick with Yusuke one too many times, and knew better than to accept, lest she have to contend with a hand groping at her rear-end as she walked. She made sure to exit last, jumping out of the vehicle, and into the world of Hiei.
Botan stepped away from the vehicle, looking all around herself in awe. She had heard Hiei talk about his home in Demon World, but she had never expected it to be such a large and foreboding structure, or that it would also be inhabited by hundreds of immeasurably powerful demons. Just the presence of so many powerful auras was almost too much, and Botan found herself hugging her elbows and cowering into herself a little as she walked.
"I shall prepare your bath, Uso," the old man told her.
"That's lovely, thank you so much," Botan mechanically answered him, her eyes still looking around the complex.
She could quite easily have become lost in the atmosphere of her surroundings, but Botan was shortly brought back to her senses when, mere moments after the old man had left her, she spotted a shadow fleeting through the sky. Against the backdrop of so many powerful auras, she could not pick out the energy signal, but she did not need to, as she already knew it would be Doshu. The bird demon flew to a point around the back of the building, and Botan duly ran in that direction to investigate.
Many demons watched Botan as she went, but many of them also appeared to recognise her, which only confirmed her suspicion that the old man had been a regular "client" of Uso's. Her ability to, even as a lowly D-class demon, walk amongst some of the most powerful demons in Demon World, in their own home, only proved that what Doshu had told her really was the best way to deal with her situation: as long as she dressed, walked and talked like Uso, she could survive in Demon World. And again, the thought that Doshu had given her so much helpful advice – and so much actual, practical help – only made her all the more sure about what she faced. She had had some time to think on the journey there – not much time, as the old man had insisted on speaking to her quite a lot, but still some – and she had come to the conclusion that what Matsurika had told her about Doshu still serving Uso was true.
Botan finally reached the back of the building and looked up, seeing a decent sized, circular balcony overhead: Doshu was perched on the railing, and she appeared to be speaking to Botan.
For a moment, Botan stood staring up at them, her jaw hanging open, her ears deaf to not only their conversation but to any sound at all, as she considered just how accurately Uso had taken on her appearance. She had straightened and tamed her hair, tying it up into a high ponytail like Botan usually would, and she was even wearing Botan's actual pink kimono.
"What are you saying to me, bird?" Uso asked Doshu, in her rough voice that sounded nothing like Botan's own.
"I wish to sever our alliance," Doshu replied. "I no longer wish to be your partner. I'm asking you to release me."
"You say that as though you think it's simple," Uso sneered.
"I hoped it was," Doshu replied. "I've been dismissed by other masters in the past. I'm asking you to dismiss me now."
"Why?"
"I no longer wish to be your partner."
"Answer me properly. What changed your mind?"
Doshu paused for a long time before answering, and as she waited for the answer to come, Botan edged back to try to get a better angle to better see Uso. The ground beneath the balcony was short, and beyond it was a steep – though not absolutely vertical – rocky cliff, falling down a dizzying height to a gravelly valley below. Botan carefully stepped down the rocky ledge, taking herself over the edge and down the steep slope, positioning her feet very carefully. The slope was almost vertical and covered in loose rocks, meaning she faced the very real risk of losing her balance and sliding all the way down to the ground far below.
Stabilising herself with her forearms on the edge of the drop, Botan looked up again, finally having a good enough angle to see that Uso was standing just outside of a large room inside Mukuro's compound.
"Botan."
Botan froze upon hearing Doshu say her name, momentarily assuming that she had been spotted.
"The idiot ferry girl?" Uso asked.
"She's not an idiot," Doshu quietly replied. "She's my friend."
Uso's face changed, warping in a way Botan had never seen her own face do.
"You idiot!" she scolded Doshu. "Coming here because you made "friends" with a spirit, asking me to release you: you are a tool. You are not anyone's "friend". You are just a tool, and you've expired your usefulness for me."
"Does that mean you will release me?" Doshu asked.
"Get out of here, and don't ever bother me again," Uso flatly replied. "I live here now, with Hiei. I clearly have no good use for a pathetic bird like you."
Botan felt her heart sink upon hearing Uso say that she lived with Hiei: and her moment of distraction caused one of her feet to slip. She scrambled to regain her balance, all the while slowly sliding down the drop.
"I have a request before I leave," she heard Doshu say.
"You dare request something of me?" Uso retorted.
"Give me Botan's notebook."
Botan finally lost her balance and began to slide, with increasing momentum, down the steep slope. She scrambled desperately about, eventually, out of desperation, grabbing the ugly knife from its sheath at her thigh and stabbing it into the rocky ground. Due to both the hook-like shape of the knife and the desperate strength Botan had used to drive it into the ground, it found hold and shortly halted her descent. Once she had her feet secured beneath her once more, Botan returned the knife to its sheath and looked up, intent on finding a way to climb back up. She had fallen quite some distance already, but not so much so that she could not very clearly see what happened above her next.
Doshu's lifeless body flew out over the edge of the drop, and began to plummet towards the ground. Botan, without thinking, turned around and grabbed her arms out, but closed them around empty space, rolling over herself twice before stopping on the unforgiving rocks. Doshu was falling fast and was apparently unconscious, the drop certain to be the death of her. As she had already passed Botan, there was really only one way Botan could catch up to her: and so, without any further thought on the matter, she leapt from the security of the cliff-face and began free-falling through the air.
With the momentum of her launch and her greater weight, Botan soon caught up to Doshu, who was clearly unconscious and very badly injured. She quickly threw her arms around her friend and pulled her in close to her body.
And then, with Doshu safe, Botan realised that she was plummeting a great distance with no way of breaking her fall and it was highly unlikely either of them would survive the impact with the ground.
Panicked but determined, Botan tried to move herself closer to the gravelled slope as she fell, her movements and the slight angle of the cliff finally crossing over. Her left foot was the first part of her to hit the rocky incline, the pain of the impact shooting up her leg. She did not have long to dwell on that particular pain however as her other leg hit the ground, and then her back. She slid down the rocks at high speed, tearing skin, painfully impacting with larger rocks as she went. The collisions and friction did, very gradually, slow her descent, until she ultimately slid onto her back on the ground below, Doshu still encased in her arms, and largely unaffected by the damage Botan had suffered.
Botan managed to look back up the slope, but promptly regretted doing so when all she saw was smears of blood over every rock she had slid over or bashed into. She groaned and closed her eyes, taking a moment to gather her strength. Once the initial shock of her fall had passed, she hauled herself into a sitting position and opened out her arms, Doshu flopping lifelessly onto her thighs.
"Doshu?" she whispered. "Can you hear me, Doshu?"
Doshu looked dead, and on instinct, Botan felt for a heartbeat. When she felt nothing she panicked again – but only briefly when touched a hand to her own chest and was reminded that the lack of a heartbeat meant very little to a demon. She then held her fingers over Doshu's beak, and when she felt a faint tickle of warm air, she optimistically took that as sign enough that her friend was indeed still alive.
Feeling renewed enthusiasm and motivated by emotion alone, despite her injuries, Botan gathered Doshu back up into her arms and stood up.
And that was when Botan realised that she had broken her left leg.
She cried out and stumbled awkwardly before falling onto her right hip. Without Doshu to fly her away, with a broken leg, and with no idea how to get back to her apartment, she finally realised that she was truly stuck. Doshu was going to die without help, and Botan, because she no longer had her ferry girl healing magic and because she had acted without thinking, was no longer able to help her: or even to help herself.
And if what Matsurika had said about Uso being able to seal Botan's fate as a demon by securing herself a relationship with Hiei had been true, then truly all hope was lost, as what more obvious sign was there that she had been successful than seeing her in Mukuro's compound and announcing that she was living there with Hiei.
Botan's head dropped and, for the first time since her arrival in Demon World, she surrendered entirely to the well of emotion within her. She slumped lower and let herself cry, openly and shamelessly, her tears soaking through her masque and dripping onto Doshu. Nothing was right: Hiei was in love with someone pretending to be her – even though he had never thought enough of the real Botan to fall in love with her before; even Yusuke and Kuwabara had failed to recognise her and passed her by; none of her friends in any of the three worlds had even suspected a thing or come looking for her; and now Doshu, her only remaining friend, would probably die.
"Please don't die, Doshu!" Botan wailed. "Please! You're my only friend, I need you! I can't do this without you – I can't do anything without you!"
Botan huddled into herself, holding Doshu as tightly as she could without injuring her further, and prayed for a miracle.
Botan awoke with a start, her first thought being that she had to get up and get help for Doshu. She tried to move, but found that her wounds had swollen and the full extent of them overtaken her, and she literally could not lift herself up.
"I'm not doing this for you, I just want to be clear about that."
Botan moved her eyes – apparently the only part of her body she still had full control of – to the source of the voice that had addressed her, finding Matsurika standing a short distance from her, cradling a white towel in her arms, with a small bunch of blue and pink feathers protruding from one end.
"Doshu!" Botan cried.
She tried to move, and did finally manage some movement, but really only managed to roll the upper half of her body onto one side.
"Is she okay?" she asked.
Matsurika gave Botan a very hard look before placing Doshu's bundled form down onto a nearby armchair.
"Also… Where are we?" Botan added, as it occurred to her then that she was lying on a very comfortable bed in a very lovely room.
"That old pervert at Mukuro's place was hiring out a couple of your peers – other masqueraders," Matsurika replied, in a tone so monotonous it would not have sounded out of place coming out of Hiei's mouth. "They were leaving and they heard you screaming. By the time they got to you, you were unconscious. They took you to me because they knew I could fix you up."
Botan peered back at her mangled left leg and the open wounds she was covered in, most of which were still wet with blood.
"You came round, briefly," Matsurika continued. "Maybe you don't remember: you begged me to save Doshu before I did anything for you. And, again, I'm not doing this for you."
Botan buried her face into the pillow and sighed. When she started to feel a warm, soothing sensation in her left leg, she turned her head again, looking back at Matsurika, who was standing at the side of the bed, her hands glowing white over Botan's broken bones.
"You have healing magic?" Botan asked her.
"Yes," Matsurika replied.
"I used to have healing magic..." Botan grumbled. "I was such a good healer... I was the second best healer any of my friends ever knew!"
"Yukina was the best healer they knew."
"Yes, that's right. Yukina, and then me."
"There has to be some advantage to being an ice maiden. We're not exactly powerful in other ways."
"I don't know about that, healing wasn't the only thing Yukina was capable of – wait, what?"
Botan tried to lift herself but hissed as aches in her back and shoulder kept her down.
"What did you just say?" she groaned out, her natural curiosity far outweighing her common sense. "Did you just say "we"?"
Matsurika nodded.
"Like as in you too are an ice maiden?"
Matsurika nodded again: then promptly fixed Botan with a fearsome glare.
"Outside of Uso and the ice maidens themselves, you are the only one who knows," she said sternly. "Not even that flying rat over there knows: you will not tell a soul."
"O-okay," Botan agreed nervously.
Matsurika turned her attention back to healing Botan's wounds and, for a little while, Botan let her continue in silence, before speaking up again, partly because she was feeling better with some of her wounds healed, but mostly because she was just far too curious to let the matter drop.
"So if you are an ice maiden, why do you work?" she asked. "You can literally make your own money!"
"And I do," Matsurika replied. "How do you think I pay for the goods I sell?"
"I thought you paid for them with... Well... With sex – but I see how silly that is now! As an ice maiden, you of course can't have sex with a man!"
"Nobody said I can't have sex with a man."
"No – well – obviously you physically can have sex with a man – I only really meant that you shouldn't – not that I'm telling you what to do – it's just that I am aware of the curse of the emiko – and I wouldn't want... Why are you laughing?"
"It's nothing."
Botan was certain it was not nothing, but she was also relieved that Matsurika had not been too offended by her candour, and so she chose to remain quiet. For some time, Botan lay on her stomach and Matsurika quietly moved between her wounds, healing them with a level of efficiency that rivalled only Yukina's. After a bit she asked Botan to move onto her back, and when the ferry girl did so, she let out a small laugh as she realised how much better she actually felt: when she had first landed at the base of the cliff, she had been sure that she would be crippled and in pain for the rest of her existence in Demon World.
"Botan?"
Botan propped herself up onto her elbows, looking over at the armchair as the bundle there began to stir.
"Botan?"
Doshu's head poked out of the towel and she looked about the room frantically.
"Doshu, you're alive!" Botan greeted her.
Doshu's eyes locked onto Botan and she visibly started.
"You're hurt, what happened to you?" she asked.
She hauled herself out from her encasing in the towel and shook herself off, as she often did when she first awoke: but instead of then stretching her legs and wings, she froze, her eyes growing large. She slowly opened out each of her wings in turn, eying them incredulously.
"I didn't do it for you, don't go getting any ideas, I still don't like you," Matsurika told her.
Doshu turned to Botan again.
"How did I...?" she said faintly.
"I was there, Doshu," Botan explained. "I caught you. And... I fell – again, like I've been doing so much lately – and I had to be rescued – again – but luckily we ended up here, with Matsruika, who has been so kind–"
"Knock it off," Matsurika grumbled.
"You... Caught me?" Doshu asked.
"You were falling," Botan replied. "And you've caught me many, many times when I was falling, so I suppose it was just my turn to catch you!"
Doshu gave her wings an experimental flap before jumping off the armchair and flying over to land on the bed beside Botan – on the opposite side Matsurika was standing, Botan noted.
"Botan, I have... Many things to tell you," she said.
"I already know," Botan assured her, lying back down, flat on her back. "You're Uso's partner. You were working for her all this time."
"Yes, that's true," Doshu replied.
Matsurika snorted and Doshu glowered at her.
"Please let me explain," she said to Botan. "Please allow me the chance to apologise to you, and your friends, and to redeem myself."
"There's nothing to explain," Botan replied. "You did a stupid thing. You're sorry for it, and that's fine. I forgive you."
"No, I really am sorry, Botan!"
"And I really do forgive you. Why wouldn't I?"
Botan propped herself up onto her elbows.
"How many times do I have to tell you, Doshu?" Botan said to her with a smile. "It doesn't matter where we are or what Uso made me, I'm still Botan, and Botan is someone who cares about her friends."
"You're my best friend," Doshu immediately replied.
"Doshu, you're my only friend," Botan answered her.
"So... Even though I... You still want to be my friend?"
Botan nodded.
"You are a terrible demon..." Doshu muttered.
"One thing we finally agree on," Matsurika muttered.
"Doshu, what you've done was stupid, but I never doubted that you were my friend," Botan said.
"You've been a real friend to me, you've treated me so much better than anyone else ever has," Doshu gushed.
"Only a true friend would be willing to die for her friend."
Doshu tilted her head.
"Doshu, you almost took a direct hit from a blast of energy launched by a member of the SDF," Botan reminded her. "You did it without thinking. You almost took that hit for me."
"She can't let you die, or the deal ends, remember?" Matsurika interjected.
"You weren't there," Botan shot back at her. "Doshu acted on instinct, and she did that because she is my friend, and it was her instinct to help me."
Doshu nodded.
"There is just one thing I have to ask of you Doshu, and I'm asking you as my friend," Botan said.
"Anything," Doshu said. "Anything at all."
"I didn't like what I saw going on at the border to Spirit World – I think they need help."
"You... Want me to help you help Spirit World?"
Doshu looked incredibly wary.
"And there is another thing I need your help with," Botan added. "I need you to tell me everything Uso has done, and I need you to help me fight her."
Doshu searched Botan's eyes for a long moment before opening her wings and flying over to the nearest window. Botan watched, in horror, as the bird demon fought with the latch, her large talons struggling at first to grip on, before finally she opened it, and she immediately shot out, quickly disappearing.
Botan turned to Matsurika, who shrugged her shoulders.
"Flying rat," she said. "If you want my advice, the best thing you could do right now is just accept your fate, and start learning how to live here."
Next Chapter: Botan reveals her plans but Matsurika insists she first ensure Yukina's safety. Matsurika tells Botan why she left the ice village – how she witnessed Hina's fate – and she tells Botan the secret to freeing Yukina without the use of violence. In return, Botan reveals what she was writing in her notebook the day Ryuhi was giving her briefing in Spirit World (chapter 1). Chapter 13b: The Lie
