Chapter 49 – Mother
"You have a child?"
"Don't argue with me on this!"
Mukuro cast a prolonged, sceptical look at Hiei's missing arm before meeting his eyes again.
"I didn't know you had a child, Hiei," she said again.
"Neither did I, idiot!" he yelled back at her. "Weren't you listening to me?"
"You said rather a lot," she pointed out. "Your entire crew and your patrol vehicle has been destroyed, High Road is impassable, my patrol is in disarray and you're telling me all of this happened because you had a little sparring session with your ten year old daughter, who also happens to have the ability to channel the Sacred Darkness?"
"Don't make me repeat myself," Hiei warned. "Every second you sit there looking at me like that is another second I have to endure knowing that those bastards in Spirit World are twisting reality to protect their own interests! You need to get in there and order them to release Akira: and if you don't do it immediately, I will go to Spirit World and burn the whole place down."
"I'm surprised you haven't already done exactly that," Mukuro dryly replied.
"I thought I should try to do it the right way first."
"I'm impressed. It's not like you to show such self-restraint."
"Why are we still talking about this? Why aren't you moving to do what I've ordered you to?"
Mukuro gave a brief, lop-sided smirk before rising from her gargantuan seat.
"I'll make a deal with you Hiei," she said. "I will leave for Spirit World immediately, and I will not return until I have Akira with me: but in return, you will get yourself into a healing chamber. You look terrible."
"I don't care about that," Hiei replied.
He genuinely did not care. His plan was to pace about by the portal between the demon and spirit worlds until he had Akira in Demon World, at which point he would take her back to Mukuro's base himself, ensure that she was given adequate living quarters, assign someone he could trust to watch her – probably Mukuro herself – and then he would go to Spirit World himself to both destroy every member of the SDF and find out if anything could be done for Botan or if anything or hers – or Akira's – remained there.
"Get in a healing chamber, get your arm sorted, I will go to Spirit World and recover your daughter," Mukuro insisted.
"Are you going there alone?" Hiei asked her.
"No, I'll take Kirin with me," she replied.
She indicated Kirin – standing still and silent in one corner of the room – with her hand as she spoke. Hiei cast him a distasteful glower before fixing his eyes onto Mukuro again.
"If he touches Akira, I will kill him," he warned.
"Hiei," Mukuro began. "You're being ridiculous–"
"If he touches her, speaks to her or even looks directly at her, I'll kill him."
"Hiei…"
"And you better not bother her either. I expect you to show her some respect."
Mukuro looked startled – a look she rarely wore – but her reaction only fuelled Hiei's zeal.
"She is equal in rank to all of you, so don't bother patronising her just because she's a child," he continued. "And anyone who thinks she's less powerful or capable because she's half-spirit is an idiot and I'll kill them too."
"You're killing a lot of people there, Hiei," Mukuro commented.
"I'll kill anyone who tries to stop me or gets in the way of my plans."
"Okay Hiei, that's been noted. Now get in a healing chamber before that barely closed wound starts to fester and stink."
"I don't have time for a healing chamber, I need to prepare for Akira's arrival."
"What sort of food does she eat?"
Hiei froze. He could actually feel his blood pressure dropping as confusion overtook anger as he considered Kirin's question.
"If she's part-spirit, I mean," Kirin added. "And she's been raised in Spirit World. She won't ever have tasted Demon World cuisine. Should we bring a packed lunch back from Spirit World for her?"
Mukuro arched her eyebrows expectantly at Hiei. As he fully realised that he had no idea what his daughter ate or ever had eaten, he also realised that he had no idea what a "packed" lunch was, and, in fact, he had no idea about anything about Akira or about children in general.
"She's like me," he said quietly.
"She looks like you or she is like you?" Mukuro asked.
Hiei was too ashamed to admit that he did not know the answer to that. For all he knew, Akira could be just like Botan: maybe she only looked like her father. Maybe she had only seemed to be like him because she had been influenced by the Sacred Darkness. Maybe, without that influence, she was a scatter-brained do-gooder obsessed with flowers and butterflies and cupcakes and romance.
"Get in the healing chamber, Hiei," Mukuro said again.
Hiei nodded his agreement, but he did not comply until he had watched Mukuro and Kirin depart Demon World for Spirit World. He then finally did go and have the medical staff load him into a healing chamber: but even then really only because, once he had the peace of mind that Mukuro had gone to collect Akira, he had been sensible enough to remember that he could still use his Jagan eye when he was in a healing chamber, and he could use the time to spy on proceedings.
Which ended up being a terrible error of judgement on his part.
At first, Hiei saw Mukuro and Kirin passing through security at the gates of King Enma's palace, and that was a comforting image. Then he saw Koenma and a bunch of ferry girls sorrowfully gathered around Botan, who appeared to be definitely dead, and that was a terrible, depressing image. And then, as though to add insult to injury, Hiei found Akira on her knees and sobbing, still in a prison issue collar, in a dank cell in the back part of Spirit World prison that was reserved for the most dangerous and disgusting of demon criminals: the part that even Hiei had not been sent to following his arrest after his theft and misuse of the Artefacts of Darkness. He saw other prisoners cajoling with her and he could feel her pain. It was strange because, logically, she was too far away for him to be able to see into her thoughts, and yet still he could. Maybe it was their familial bond. Maybe it was because her pain was so great. Hiei never did find out the answer to the puzzle, but there was no denying that he could feel her pain. He knew that she understood her circumstances: she was being blamed for killing two SDF officers, for turning into something else – something dark and dangerous – and she was facing execution for an unauthorised visit to Demon World, the location of her alleged crimes adding to their severity. It was unfair and she knew that she was being falsely accused. She was terrified and outraged at the injustice: but neither of those feelings were the reason for her sobbing, and she almost seemed to have rationalised in her mind that she deserved to be punished so severely despite her obvious innocence.
The only reason she cried was because of her longing: she missed her mother and she feared she might not see her again before she was executed, and she believed that she would go to a terrible place in the afterlife, a place where she would never see her mother again.
Akira's bond to Botan was so overwhelmingly strong, it was almost a literal force in itself. Akira's love for Botan was unwavering and unquestioned. She was loyal and devoted and unashamed of her feelings. She had morals and standards, but, with a frightening degree of detachment, she could rationalise defying them all if it meant protecting her mother. She had Hiei's determination and the clinical ability to set aside her own best interests in the name of something she believed in just like an ice maiden. She was prepared to compromise anything and anyone in the name of protecting her mother. It was an almost unhealthy and terrifyingly deep level of commitment.
It was a beacon that shone so brightly it could be seen by anyone from anywhere: Hiei could see it from his healing chamber, and the Sacred Darkness had seen it from wherever she had been hiding. That unfaltering, glaring light had drawn the Sacred Darkness to her like a moth to the flame. Of course High Road had been the first time Akira had transformed: she had never been in a situation where she had come close to losing her mother before. In that moment only one thought had gone through her mind: I am not strong enough or fast enough to stop that dragon from taking my mother. She had thought it that way, but, to a being like the Sacred Darkness, it had sounded like "no matter what the costs. give me the speed and strength to destroy this dragon".
And that was what had happened.
Akira had unwittingly summoned one of the Ancients. In an instant she had passed every trial any Ancient would ask for: she had, without a shadow of doubt or a moment of hesitation, declared a willingness to sacrifice anything and anyone just to have that extra power. On the surface she was probably affable and agreeable to anyone who met her, but beneath that surface beat a heart alarmingly similar to Hiei's. She could be ruthless and decisive when she needed to. She knew what she wanted and she would do whatever it took to get it.
She was a little girl, lost and confused, surrounded by the worst of the worst and facing her own demise, but still her desires were simple and clear: she wanted to see her mother one last time and she wanted her mother to be safe and to not feel sad after she was gone.
Hiei had never considered that love could be such a powerful, cold, brutal, precise and uncompromising force.
And, as though to further verify just that, Hiei was subjected to the vision of Kuwabara clumsily and noisily bustling his way through the prison guards and ordering them to remove the bars of Akira's cell before he cut them down himself. When the guards informed him that the bars were imbued with spirit energy Kuwabara, ever the stubborn idiot, instantaneously conjured his barrier-breaking spirit sword and warned that he would "cut a hole through this entire plane of existence" if that was what it would take to get Akira free. He quickly calmed down when he actually gained sight of Akira herself, who had stood up and approached the bars at the sound of his voice. Much to Hiei's horror, she was elated to see him and reaching her hands desperately through the bars towards him. He approached her as though she was somehow his responsibility, taking her hands in his and pledging to her that he would do whatever it took to get her free.
Of course, technically, since he had married Yukina, Kuwabara was, by marriage, Akira's uncle.
And Hiei's brother-in-law.
Sobered by that thought, Hiei observed casually then, his visions sometimes fading and sometimes becoming painfully clear. He saw Kuwabara hang around the prison cells for a long time before eventually being dragged out by several guards and brought before Koenma. He saw Akira turn her nose up at any food offered to her – though he did not know if she was refusing to eat out of principle or because the food was not to her tastes, since, as Kirin had pointed out, he did not know what her tastes were – and he saw her occasionally and restlessly sleep.
Several days passed.
Then Mukuro and Kirin returned to Demon World without Akira.
And Hiei blasted his way out of the healing chamber.
Naked, dripping wet and with a slightly graphic attempt at regrowth around the stump of his arm, he marched all the way to Mukuro's chambers and demanded answers. He yelled at her for coming back empty-handed and she yelled at him for a lack of self-control. When neither conceded or listened to the other, Hiei left the room and went directly to his own quarters, where he pulled on his boots and his pants and collected his sword, before heading out to a high tower that overlooked the parking bay for the patrol vehicles. He had noticed it was about the time of day when one patrol duty would be ending, and he intended to accost the crew of the unit that arrived back and recruit them into his efforts to storm Spirit World: not because he needed help burning Spirit World to ashes, but because he would need cannon fodder to allow him a swift passage to Akira. If he arrived alone, Spirit World would have time to react and either take Akira away or else just execute her like they were intending to and so he needed to be prepared.
Hiei stood by the large windows overlooking the yard, resting his good arm against the glass and watching the scene below him carefully.
"Hiei, you didn't let me finish," Mukuro said behind him.
She was making her way into the room behind him – Hiei could see her translucent reflection in the glass ahead of him – and she looked and sounded as though she had finally accepted defeat.
"You have nothing more to say to me," he replied, keeping his eyes on the yard below. "You promised to help me and you failed. Now I have no choice but to take matters into my own hands: which is what I should have done in the first place."
"Hiei, things have changed," Mukuro replied. "I had my suspicions from the beginning, but it's all been confirmed: what happened between you and your daughter has initiated the beginnings of a Dark Age."
Hiei had feared that might happen, but his interest in Akira had superseded his common sense and he had pushed the idea to the back of his mind.
"Spirit World won't release Akira," Mukuro continued. "In their eyes, she is to blame for awakening the Dark Force. I've discussed it at great length with Koenma, but even with the knowledge that she inadvertently channelled the Sacred Darkness, they still will not pardon her. If anything, knowing she has that ability has damned her further in their eyes. The situation is too delicate, Hiei."
"You just didn't try hard enough," Hiei grumbled.
"I took my case to King Enma, Hiei," Mukuro replied. "I argued with him for days. The best I could manage was to convince him that he could control her and that she could be a useful soldier for Spirit World in the upcoming war. He agreed to let her live until the end of the Dark Age: he can stop her from summoning enough energy to channel the Sacred Darkness as long as she is wearing one of those devices Spirit World put around the necks of their convicts, so he is keeping her imprisoned until the war begins, whereupon he will release her to fight as part of the SDF. Koenma helped our case by arguing that anything that girl does can be controlled via her mother. He used his own energy reserves to resurrect the girl's mother from death in order that they would have a way to trigger Akira's transformations. Koenma believes she will only transform in order to defend her mother and that she will only revert back to herself after she is sure that her mother is safe. Or dead, as was the case on High Road."
Hiei clenched his fist tightly against the glass.
"That's not good enough," he growled.
He was pleased that Botan had been revived – because she had died unfairly, because he wanted her alive and because he knew that Akira needed her alive – but, as good as it was, it was not nearly enough to satisfy him.
"She will never be understood or accepted in Spirit World," he said. "The SDF demonstrated on High Road that they neither care about her nor appreciate the extent and complexity of her abilities or her vast potential. She will rot away there. So much time has been lost already: she never should have been living there, she should always have been here in Demon World, where she belongs."
"Do you really think she would have been understood here, Hiei?" Mukuro asked. "Demons are just as judgemental as spirits: in Spirit World they see her as half-demon, but here in Demon World she would be viewed as half-spirit."
"She should be here, right here, in this very building, with me. She should be training with me. She should be living with me. I'm the only one who understands what she is, because she is me. I know what it is to be different, I know what it is to be shunned. I know what it is to have a father who vanished. I won't repeat that mistake. She should be here with me. If we did awaken the Dark Force, then the blame is not hers, it's mine. I'm the one who acted rashly. She did nothing wrong. She was just trying to protect her mother. We have time before any war begins, and it would be a waste to leave Akira in Spirit World during that time. She should be here with me. I can teach her to control it because I know what it is. I've studied the Sacred Darkness. I know why it chose her. I know what it's really capable of and I know how to reach its potential. A force like that can't fight for Spirit World, it can only fight for Demon World. She should be here with me."
"Hiei, when you say "she should be here with me", are you talking about Akira or the Sacred Darkness?"
Hiei rounded on Mukuro, a shivering surge of adrenaline coursing through every fibre of his being: he had never been so insulted in all his life.
"Hiei, I can't allow you to continue down this path," she said.
She sounded strangely gentle and sympathetic.
"Look at what this is doing to you," she said. "You're a mess: right now, you are just the sort of source of emotional energy the Dark Force would feast off of. You're generating enough emotion right now to bring it out of its slumber and up to full power within a matter of days: you'll kill us all if you keep this up. There will be no future for you or Akira like this. Hiei, this is very difficult for me to say to you, but you're going to have to prepare yourself for the Dark Age. And that means you're going to have to forget about Akira – just until it's over."
Hiei could not really hear what she was saying. None of it made any sense.
"Once the Dark Age is over, I personally will go to King Enma and demand Akira's release," she continued. "I will not take no for an answer. I will burn Spirit World down myself if they refuse. I will do that for you Hiei. But right now, for me, for you, for Akira – and for everyone else in existence across all three worlds – Akira needs to stay where she is and you need to forget about her. You will be the Dark Force's first victim at this rate."
"Do you realise that Akira can channel the Sacred Darkness?" Hiei asked. "She's barely ten years old and already she can do that. She can use spirit energy and demon energy in combat. She should be here with me – she should be standing alongside us because this is where she belongs!"
"Hiei… It's very comforting to see how proud a father you are, but if you really do care about this girl, you have to let her go – just for a little while."
"This isn't about pride, it's about facts!"
"Hiei, with all due respect, all you've spoken about since the incident on High Road is Akira. I've never heard you talk about anyone else so much or praise anyone else so highly. You speak more highly of her abilities than you do of your own, and that's something I never thought I'd hear out of you."
Hiei twitched.
"She grew up in Spirit World and she's still that capable," he said. "Can you imagine how strong she'd be if she'd been here with me all that time?"
"There you go again…" Mukuro said.
"I'm stating the facts!"
"You're not thinking clearly. If you were, you would be hearing what I'm saying to you. You pose a threat to yourself, to me, to Akira, to her mother, to your sister and to everyone close to you as long as you retain this much emotion about you. You're going to have to forget about her."
Hiei felt as though he was going to explode, but it was not from anger, it was from some other, bizarre, feeling.
"You might as well ask me to forget about myself!" he eventually said.
"I'll have to help you forget, obviously."
Hiei froze as Mukuro started towards him.
"It's the best way," she said. "For everyone involved."
"Stay away from me!" he warned her.
She sighed.
"What do you plan to do now anyway?" she asked.
"I'm going to gather a team and go to Spirit World," he replied. "And I, unlike you, will not return without my daughter."
Hiei paused, momentarily acknowledging how it felt to actually call Akira "my daughter" out loud.
"First of all, maybe you should just jump back into a healing chamber," Mukuro suggested. "At least until you have something resembling an arm at your side."
"I don't have time for that!" Hiei snapped.
"Hiei, you're almost done, just get back and finish it off. I already told you Spirit World won't execute Akira, she can wait a little longer for you."
Hiei then made the biggest mistake of his life. He agreed with Mukuro.
He returned to the healing chamber, and remained there until his arm was healed.
At first, he continued using his Jagan eye to watch Akira: he saw Koenma and Botan arguing over her fate, he saw Akira taken into a room with a man she trusted who goaded her into attacking him, resulting in her once more channelling the Sacred Darkness and tearing him to pieces. She looked frenzied and wild and out of control, but the second Botan entered the room she seemed to calm down, and when Botan grabbed her into a hug and assured her everything was fine, Akira melted back into her usual self, dazed and confused and with no recollection of what she had done in her transformed state. She was traumatised when she saw what she had done and the SDF were quick to exploit that by reminding her that she did it because she was a "monster". They sent her back to prison and were less than civil towards her, but through it all only one thing clearly radiated out of her.
Akira hoped that her mother would be allowed to visit her in prison because it had been difficult for her to be separated from her.
Akira did not know that her mother had died: she apparently could not remember her death on High Road, and nobody was telling her about it. Nobody was telling her anything. She was probably being kept in the dark because nobody cared enough to tell her anything, but Hiei could feel, even across realms and through states of consciousness, that if Akira knew the truth, nothing would stop her: not even that stupid device Spirit World had clamped around her neck. The only thing that came close to rivalling her love and devotion to her mother was her hatred of deception in any form, and if she discovered that she had been lied to about her mother's fate, Spirit World would never be able to contain her. But Hiei was sure that nobody knew that – not even Botan. Nobody knew that the soul of the Sacred Darkness had become entwined with Akira's, and the surge of power she had displayed on High Road was only ever barely concealed. The Sacred Darkness had made a wise and selfish choice for its host: a child with such hard-nosed direction who lacked the training of mind and body to control herself would not hold back if and when the Ancient chose to surface.
Akira was a bigger victim of the Sacred Darkness than she was of Spirit World.
Hiei's "rest" in the healing chamber became even less restful when he saw the SDF recover Akira from her temporary home in a Spirit World prison cell and relocate her to their training centre, where they wasted no time to inducting her into their idea of spirit-human-demon hierarchy. Rage overtook common sense and Hiei started to feel himself rising out of the sleep the healing chamber held him in.
When Hiei woke up, he found himself stepping out of a healing chamber, dripping wet and confused. His arm had grown back though it still looked scarred and weak and the it was missing the insignia of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, confirming his fear that he had lost it. He tolerated enduring an examination by one of the doctors before retiring to his room, all the while wondering how long he had been unconscious and what had happened during that time. There were no obvious visual clues of the passage of time in his immediate surroundings. He started to understand that what had happened on High Road had awoken the Dark Force and that the next Dark Age would come early: he started seeing reports on the news of an explosion of energy having caused the disturbance and he started to suspect that his cohorts at Mukuro's base blamed him for it. And, just as his situation seemed as though it could not get any more pathetic, Botan arrived at Mukuro's headquarters in the most ridiculous state Hiei had ever seen her in and proceeded to speak nonsense and beg and plead with Hiei as though she was unaware that her last visit to Demon World had caused the start of another Dark Age.
But of course Botan had probably been in that state because she had been forced to watch Spirit World blame her daughter for what had happened on High Road. They blamed Akira for killing two SDF officers: which, although it was true that she had killed them, she had most likely not intended to, as her actions had been the Sacred Darkness forcing them back so that she could confront Hiei alone. They blamed Akira for killing the man they had shut into a room with her to provoke her into transforming. And, by far worst of all, they blamed Akira for killing Botan. Without a hint of remorse or guilt, all seven of the remaining members of the SDF had stood before King Enma and confessed to witnessing Akira killing Botan, despite the fact that it had one of their own who had performed that unprovoked and fully intentional heinous deed. They claimed Akira had only calmed her rage on High Road after she had been overpowered, the collar placed on her and she had been shown the results of her alleged handiwork. If Akira ever found out that they had both killed her mother and then lied about it, she would be the one to reduce Spirit World to ashes: and she would not even need the assistance of the Sacred Darkness to achieve that end, because her cut-and-dry moral mentality would justify her every action and provide her the emotional energy she would need to fuel her assault. Botan feared what Spirit World would do to Akira, but she was also sensible enough to fear what Akira might do to Spirit World. Botan had finally come to understand what Hiei had always known: Akira had to relocate to Demon World, because it was her rightful home.
Hiei had dismissed Botan that day and not seen her again until four years later, when the team had gathered to begin their action against the Dark Force.
And she had continued to try to tell Hiei that he was Akira's father.
And she had continued to fail to tell Hiei that he was Akira's father.
And Akira, despite all that had happened to her, was still motivated only by her love for her mother and that unrelenting rigidity that she could just as easily have inherited from Hiei or her ice maiden ancestors.
And, consumed by the soul of the Sacred Darkness and driven by that unwavering determination, Akira was still trying to kill Touya.
"Everybody get back!" Botan screamed.
Botan, for her own part, was fighting with every bit as much vigour as Akira was employing to keep her hands around Touya's throat and Touya was using to cling to life. Koenma tried to reason with Botan but she shoved him back without missing a beat. Yukina and Kuwabara had entered into an uncharacteristic argument: Yukina refused to let him, Kaisei or Fubuki past her, and Kuwabara was demanding that she let him past to stop Akira.
And the Dark Force was still watching it all and gorging itself on the emotional tension it had created all around it.
Hiei let Yusuke hit him so that he could use the following moment of confusion on Yusuke's part to escape. He fled from Yusuke, moving directly to Yukina and hauling her away from the others. He then joined Botan, who seemed to have understood his intentions, as she summoned her oar and the three of them leapt on. Botan flew straight at Akira and Touya, and Hiei readied himself to grab Akira and haul her off of Touya: but before he could do that Botan leapt from her oar and threw herself at Akira. With Botan no longer on board to keep it airborne, her oar plummeted to the ground, leaving Hiei and Yukina falling behind it. Hiei made to catch Yukina, but he ended up landing in an awkward stumble of surprise when Yukina flipped over and landed on her toes, casting him a slightly critical look that made her look a lot like Akira. She then turned and Hiei straightened and followed the direction she was facing, finding Botan clutching the silver-haired incarnation of the Sacred Darkness in her arms. Hiei remained on the spot, no less transfixed than he had been the first time as he watched Akira dissolve back into her usual self. Yukina meanwhile hurriedly collected Botan's oar and moved over to join them. As Botan stood and a dazed and confused Akira stood with her, Hiei hurried over and all four got back onto Botan's oar to speedily exit the scene.
"What happened?" Akira asked, looking between Botan and Yukina expectantly.
"We can't stay there, pumpkin," Botan answered her.
Pumpkin, Hiei realised, was apparently not a vegetable after all: apparently it was a term of endearment.
"I blacked out," Akira said. "Did I hurt you?"
"No, of course you didn't!" Botan assured her.
Akira looked at Yukina, who shook her head and smiled gently.
"You didn't hurt me," she said. "You never could. Try not to worry about it."
Akira turned her attention back to Botan and Hiei felt as though he had been punched in the chest. Neither Botan nor Yukina seemed to even notice that Akira had neither acknowledged or even seemed to care that she might have hurt Hiei during her transformation.
"What happened?" she asked again.
"The Dark Force found us," Botan explained. "We have to find another place to stay."
"I saw uncle Kazuma back there."
It was strange to Hiei's ears to hear his daughter both refer to Kuwabara by his given name and to address him as "uncle": but memories of how Kuwabara had rushed to Akira's aid following the High Road incident were painfully clear in Hiei's mind, and, combined with how he had seen and heard Kuwabara defend her since, there was no denying that they were like family.
"Yes," Botan said tightly. "Let's not worry about that right now."
"What happened?" Akira asked. "Tell me!"
Botan clenched her jaws and pretended to be focusing all her attention on where she was flying, despite moving at a speed she could have managed before acquiring her power boost and heading in no particular direction towards no determined destination. Surely she knew she could not win this battle of wills. Surely Botan, who had been with Akira every day since the day she was born – with the only exception of the days between Botan's death on High Road and her resurrection – knew that Akira would not let the matter go. Hiei could feel it again, that same blind, singular, dogged, unmoving determination that Akira herself probably did not realise she possessed. It was an echo of that same rigidity Hiei had felt from her when she had been held in prison in Spirit World: his memory was painfully clear and a hint of it again brought him back to the moment he had first felt it.
"I did something bad, didn't I?" Akira asked.
"You didn't do anything bad," Yukina immediately replied.
"Then why is nobody talking to me!" Akira demanded. "Mom?"
Botan's eyes momentarily shifted from the skies ahead to Hiei, and in the moment that their eyes met he saw a hint of that look she had given him when she had come to see him at the start of the second Demon World Tournament, a look that was suddenly so painfully clear in his mind.
As she looked out ahead of herself again, her silence, Yukina's softly-spoken platitudes towards Akira, the events that had just transpired and the situation they had all been shoe-horned into by the Dark Force were all so painfully clear.
Everything was painfully clear.
Because that was how it worked when Mukuro wiped someone's memories against their will.
Mukuro had told Hiei that he had asked to have his memories "cleaned" but that was not true: she had defied him and done it as he slept in the healing chamber the second time around, healing his arm. He understood why she had done it but he did not resent her any less for it. When she acted that way – wiping someone's memories without their permission or without having suitably overpowered them – there would always be something that could undo her work. No matter how intricately she weaved her web, there would always be a tiny thread that could be tugged upon to unravel her handiwork. And in Hiei's case, that one little thing had been seeing the face of his own child accelerated in age and twisted with the desires of one of the Ancients of Demon World.
"Stop."
Botan glanced at Hiei.
"I'd rather we moved further away," she said.
"Stop," he said again. "Right now."
She looked at him again and apparently she still did not appreciate how serious he was, and so he was forced to take matters into his own hands. Hiei leapt off of Botan's oar, grabbing his hand around the middle of the handle as he fell. He powered up to overcome Botan's feeble, panicked attempt to resist, and hauled her oar – along with Botan, Yukina and Akira – to the ground. As soon as his feet touched the ground he turned his arm, tilting the oar and sending all three girls sliding down it to the ground.
"What did you do that for?" Yukina asked as she stood up.
Akira got to her feet and helped Botan up, looking up at her in a strange blend of fear and guilt.
"I did something bad, didn't I?" she asked.
"No!" Botan insisted.
Akira released Botan's hand and turned to leave but Botan's heightened reflexes allowed her to grab the back of Akira's clothing to halt her exit.
"You have to let me go!" Akira insisted.
"You don't have to go anywhere!" Botan argued back.
"I'll just keep bringing problems to everyone if I stay!" Akira said as she tried to wriggle out of Botan's tenacious hold.
"Pumpkin we're all in the same boat," Botan said gently. "The reason you think you're dangerous is because you can channel one of the Ancients, but Yukina, Hiei and I are exactly the same. The four of us need to stay together."
Akira relaxed slightly and Botan released her.
"Your mother's right, Akira," Yukina added.
Akira turned to face her.
"What happened back there?" she asked her. "I saw the way uncle Kazuma was watching us when we left. I've never seen him look that way before. I did something bad, didn't I? Is he mad at me?"
Yukina faintly shook her head.
"I need to know!" Akira begged. "I don't want to hurt you or mom!"
"You could never do anything to hurt me or your mother," Yukina said sweetly.
"I don't believe you!" Akira cried. "What the SDF said about me is true!"
"No it's not!" Botan quickly said.
"Yes it is, mom!" Akira argued. "I am a monster! I ruin everything for everyone! Even my own father didn't want me around, and this is why!"
As Yukina glared at him accusingly, Akira looked over at him sorrowfully and Botan pointedly avoided looking directly at him, Hiei thought that he finally understood the real power of the Dark Force.
"Pumpkin, I…" Botan began weakly.
"Don't bother, mom," Akira said quietly, shaking her head as she spoke. "Don't bother trying to make me feel better. I know it's true. I just wish you hadn't lied to me – you promised you would never lie to me, but you did."
"Your mother hasn't ever lied to you Akira," Yukina said, turning to Akira.
"Yes she has," Akira countered. "She always told me Hiei wanted to see me. She said he was a hero and that the only reason I couldn't see him was because he had such an important job in Demon World. She never did tell me why she couldn't take me to Demon World, but now I know why: Hiei didn't want me around because I'm too much of a monster even for him. I thought he was just ashamed of me, but it's because I'm a monster, isn't it?"
Akira looked around the others.
"Will one of you please tell me what I did back there?" she asked.
Nobody answered her. She sighed.
"I don't want to be a liability," she said. "And I don't want to kill someone I care about – or anyone. I just don't want to fight any more! I just want to go home!"
"Where is home?"
Hiei ignored the slightly irritable way Yukina glared at him upon his question and the slightly alarmed way Botan looked over at him, instead keeping his focus on Akira.
"Obviously nowhere near you," she said, her voice barely above a whisper. "Since you wouldn't even let me come and stay with you when you knew that the alternative was for me to be executed in Spirit World."
The look on her face was haunting.
"Akira, there's something you should know."
Next Chapter: Botan tells Akira the truth – the real truth – and Akira is neither pleased by the facts nor the fact that her mother lied to her about something so crucial. And Akira is not the only one unhappy as Yukina is unhappy with what Botan has announced and she finally voices her resentment and anger towards Hiei. And finally Hiei and Botan have a conversation they should have had a long time ago. Meanwhile, Yusuke and Co. try to come to terms with the fact that they've lost four members of their team, and Keiko and Shizuru recruit Koto into their efforts to truly understand the Dark Force's riddle, and they seem to be getting closer to the truth when they discover a vital missing piece in the puzzle. Chapter 50 – Liability
A/N: I guess technically the "total recall" for Hiei is not quite over until the first part of the next chapter when he gets to talk it out with Botan, but we're getting there. The next chapter also springboards this story into the next major battle, and it's a complex, psychological one – and it's the reason I needed to lay so much groundwork and have to much backstory for everyone before starting into it. Keiko, Shizuru and Koto are going to gradually open a massive can of worms over the next five chapters...