Chapter 50 – Liability

"Obviously nowhere near you. 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."

"Akira, there's something you should know."

Akira glanced up at Botan.

"Don't bother, mom," she mumbled miserably. "I've heard it all before anyway."

Botan shook her head and Akira sighed as though bored: which, Botan supposed, she probably was. She was no doubt bored of hearing Botan's excuses, but the time for making excuses had passed. Botan put her hands on her daughter's shoulders and turned her around to face her fully.

"Pumpkin, do you remember yesterday, when Hiei told about there being two types of liars?" she asked.

"Yes," Akira flatly replied. "Yes I do remember Hiei trying to tell me that he somehow has honour because he's a despicable liar."

Botan flinched and she had to swallow back her urge to sob.

"Well, Akira, there is also a third type of liar," she said carefully.

"There's only one type of liar," Akira replied.

Her face was set and her resolution absolute: Botan was almost certain that Akira was the only living creature more hard-headed than even Hiei.

"There's the type like Saito, just like Hiei said," Botan continued. "And the type like we were yesterday, when we pretended not to know what had happened to Saito, and then there's a third kind of liar. A sort of circumstantial liar."

"I don't like this conversation," Akira said. "Lying is wrong."

"Sometimes a lie happens, and before you can stop or correct it, it appears to become reality for everyone else, and then it gets too big to correct," Botan said.

Akira – and even Yukina – gave Botan a sceptical look.

"After I found out I was pregnant with you pumpkin, I tried to reach your father," Botan continued. "But I never managed to get to him. I wanted to tell him about you face-to-face, because that was the right thing to do."

Akira lifted her chin slightly and her expression softened.

"Mom, it's okay," she said. "I already know you didn't tell Hiei about me until the second Demon World Tournament. I know you didn't tell anyone that he was my father until then either. I don't blame you for lying about that."

Botan blinked and a tear escaped one of her eyes.

"Akira, I wish it were that simple," she said.

Akira frowned, a flicker of doubt flashing across her eyes.

"After I realised that I could never reach your father, I knew that the one way I could reach him would be during the second Demon World Tournament," Botan continued. "And I did manage to reach your father then and there."

"I already know all of this," Akira said.

"You don't know all of it," Botan replied.

As Akira started to look worried and confused, Botan cast a glance over at Yukina, who looked a little confused herself.

"I didn't just go to see your father that day to tell him about you," Botan said, focusing her attention onto Akira again. "I also went there to ascertain if he… I just needed to know if…"

"You wanted to know if he loved you because you're still in love with him," Akira said.

Botan nodded.

"That's okay," Akira said.

"No it's not," Botan said. "Because I let my own feelings cloud my better judgement that day. When your father told me he did not feel the same way about me, I was devastated."

"He's an asshole, mom," Akira said. "It's okay."

"After your father and I parted ways, I cried. And Yusuke found me crying, and he offered me a drink. I had never really drank alcohol before, but I was so sad and for a while, it really did make me forget how sad I was."

"I know you got drunk that night."

"I don't remember what I did after I went to the bar with Yusuke. The next thing I remember is waking up in the morning at the temple with you, Kuwabara and Yukina. And I still didn't know what I had done until you all started talking to me. And when I realised what I had done, I panicked. Keiko came around and I told her the truth and I asked her what I should do and she told me I had to set everything right. But… But then Kuwabara and Yukina announced that they were going to get married, and things happened, the time wasn't right and…"

"Botan…"

Botan lifted her eyes from Akira to look over at Yukina, the horrified look on the ice maiden's face telling her that she had understood Botan's implied meaning that had apparently gone over Akira's head.

"You never…?" Yukina asked.

Botan slowly shook her head and Yukina gasped, covering her open mouth with one hand. Akira cast her a questioning look before both she and Botan looked at each other again.

"When I was drunk I said a lot of silly things, and everybody misunderstood me," Botan explained. "And by the next morning, by the time I had recovered from my hangover, the lie had become so big, I didn't know how to make it stop, and it seemed easier just to let it continue."

"I don't understand," Akira said. "What lie?"

"Akira, I never told Hiei he was your father. Up until that time, and possibly even up until the incident on High Road, Hiei never knew that he was your father."

Akira lowered her head, her face falling out of Botan's line of sight.

"I know it was wrong, but everyone got so caught up in the moment and I didn't think I would ever even be able to see Hiei again to tell him, and so I just went along with it," Botan continued. "And then when you started asking about him I didn't really feel like it was a lie to tell you that he couldn't ever really come to see you, but I did start to think that it was wrong not to let him know about you – but the more time that passed the harder it became and we were all just growing further apart and confronting Hiei when I was pregnant would have been easier than confronting him with an actual baby and confronting him with a baby would have been easier than confronting him with a little girl and confronting him with a little girl would have been easier than… Than what actually ended up happening. I'm so sorry, pumpkin. I should have told you a long time ago."

"You lied to me."

Botan waited for Akira to look up, but she kept her head down.

"Yes, I did," she said. "And I'm very sorry."

"You promised you would never lie to me," Akira said, her voice quiet and low and her head still turned downwards.

"Yes, I did say that," Botan agreed. "But it's like your father said: sometimes you have to lie to protect people."

"You didn't protect me by lying. You made it worse. You made me believe that Hiei actually cared. That's why you didn't tell him. It's because he doesn't care. And it's because I'm a monster."

"That's not true!"

Akira finally lifted her head, the look on her face making Botan flinch and retract her hands from her daughter's shoulders.

"That's what you were going to say before," Akira said. "You were going to say "confronting him with a little girl would have been easier than confronting him with a monster" because that was what actually happened. If you had told him right from the start and if you had told me right from the start, we never would have gone to High Road that day. None of this ever would have happened."

"I have thought about that–"

"None of it."

"Yes, I know–"

"We never would have gone there, I never would have got arrested, and the Dark Force would still be in its prison, there would be no Dark Age right now and you and I would still be living in Spirit World with all the other ferry girls and everything would be fine."

Botan's attention flickered briefly towards Hiei, who made a strange grunting sound when Akira had mentioned living in Spirit World, but he was standing with his head slightly down, his eyes hidden beneath the shadow of his hair and his mouth twisted into what could be an ironic smirk or an irritated grimace: it was difficult to tell without seeing his eyes for some perspective. Botan moved her eyes from him, but before she could return her attention fully to Akira, she noticed the way Yukina was looking at her and she realised just how bad the situation was getting.

"I know," she said, looking down at Akira again. "I know that this is my fault. I've always known that – why do you think I was so angry that Lord Koenma wanted to make you fight?"

"Oh, I don't care about that any more," Akira replied, sounding and looking frighteningly detached.

"What do you mean?" Botan asked.

"I mean I don't care about the Dark Age," Akira replied. "I don't care about the Dark Force, I don't care about the fight, I don't care about Lord Koenma, I don't care about Spirit World and I don't really care whose fault any of this is."

"Y-you don't?"

"No. I only care about one thing now."

"And what's that?"

"That you lied to me."

Botan opened her mouth to answer back, but stopped when Akira took a decisive backward step away from her.

"I trusted you," she said coldly. "I trusted you so completely, I didn't even think "trust" was the right word for it. I believed in you. And you were lying to me the whole time. You were the only one who… And I would have… But you… You lied to me!"

Botan flinched as a flicker of that signature flair of energy that indicated an imminent change emanated from Akira upon her last remark.

"Yes, and it was very wrong of me," Botan said carefully. "And this just shows you why lying is bad–"

"You lied to me," Akira said.

Her face was starting to twist into a look Botan had never been on the receiving end from her before.

"Pumpkin, I–"

"Don't call me that. You lied to me. I don't tolerate anyone telling lies, I can't accept it from you."

"Akira, it was a very difficult time, and I'm telling you now because I know I was wrong and I know we have to be honest–"

"I always was honest. You are the liar. You."

"Yes, I–"

"You."

Botan frowned.

"You," Akira said again.

"I'm not perfect, Akira," Botan said quietly. "Nobody is."

Akira gave her a strange look before vanishing in a blur of motion. Botan had a delayed response of trying to grab onto her, but she knew that, even if she had not hesitated, she would never have managed to catch Akira anyway. She took long to acknowledge that Akira was both still departing at top speed and that she had neither stopped nor shown any intention of coming back before turning to Yukina, who was still looking at her in that same, conflicted, way.

"We have to go after her," Botan said.

"You lied to me too, Botan," Yukina replied.

Botan shook her head but Yukina nodded hers.

"You let me believe that my brother was absent because he was a neglectful person who didn't care about his own child," she continued. "It broke my heart to think of him that way – and you knew it did – and you never bothered correcting yourself. You let me believe that he was evil."

"Yukina," Hiei said quietly.

Yukina rounded on him and Botan hopped back a step as the grass at her feet began to crackle and stiffen over with a layer of frost.

"You're every bit as bad," Yukina said to Hiei. "You may not have known that Akira was your daughter before what happened on High Road, but you knew she was your child that day. We spoke about it. You didn't deny it. You can be forgiven for your absence for the first ten years of Akira's life, but where have you been since then? Why didn't you go directly to Spirit World that day like I told you you should? Why didn't you try to help? Why did you just leave Akira there all alone? Did you even know Botan was brought back to life? You saw her murdered, you knew Akira had lost her mother, it was even more important for you to help, but you did nothing!"

"Yukina, that's not true either," Botan said.

Yukina spun back around to face her, and Botan noticed that the look on her face was remarkably similar to the look Akira had been wearing right before she had disappeared.

"What?" Yukina asked.

"Hiei asked for Akira to be released to go and live in Demon World with him and Mukuro," Botan replied. "But Lord Koenma refused the request. It happened while I was still… Well, while I was dead. I didn't know about it until some time later – if I had known, I would of course have demanded Akira be released and sent to Demon World, but I didn't know. And when I was revived and I did go to Demon World to try to ask for Hiei's help, he…"

Botan looked over at Hiei. She did not especially want to repeat to Yukina any of what Hiei had said or how cold he had behaved that day, but as he was still standing with his head turned slightly down and slightly away from her, she could neither tell what he was thinking or if he intended to join the conversation or not.

"You've both behaved terribly," Yukina said.

Botan turned to her.

"Sweetie, that's not true!" Botan said.

"Yes it is," Yukina firmly replied. "You've destroyed our family. Both of you. I can't forgive you for that. Either of you."

"Yukina!" Botan cried.

"You've taken me away from my husband, you've both consistently failed my niece and you've both lied to me and you can't even be civil towards each other!"

Botan gasped but Yukina did not falter. She posed her hands in the air and, far faster than usual, foggy clouds of white icy air laced with demon energy gathered and took the form of a single Winter Wolf. As the fog cleared and the yellow wolf stepped forwards, Yukina gave one last outraged glare to both Botan and Hiei in turn before jumping onto the wolf's back. Botan called out to her but by the time she had spoken the last syllable of the ice maiden's name, all that remained was a puff of icy fog where the wolf had launched itself from.

She had run in a different direction from either Akira or the way they had come from, so she was neither going after Akira nor returning to Kuwabara, Botan noted.

"Hiei, we have to do something!" Botan cried, spinning on her heels to face Hiei.

He still did not move or respond.

"Hiei are you even listening to me?" Botan yelled, marching over to stand at his side. "Akira has gone and now Yukina has too! We can't leave them on their own at a time like this! What if the Dark Force takes them?"

Still Hiei did not respond.

"Hiei?"

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Botan paused, something about the hushed and strained tone of Hiei's voice making her wonder if her problems were not quite over yet.

"Hiei?" she asked meekly.

"You didn't tell me about her," Hiei said, his voice still sounding incredibly strange. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I-I did try to tell you," Botan began. "But I could never get to you."

"You had chances to tell me."

"Yes, I should have told you when we were alone together at any time before now, but–"

"You could have reached me by another means. You could have sent the message to me through Yusuke or Kurama."

"This isn't the sort of thing I could have sent by messenger: I needed to tell you to your face!"

"And still you haven't."

"…What?"

Hiei's head snapped around and finally his face came fully into Botan's line of sight: and she immediately wished he had kept still.

"There is no excuse for you keeping this from me."

Botan understood then why his voice sounded so strange. His voice sounded broken and defeated, and that was exactly how he looked.

"Honestly Hiei, when you said that you never wanted to be a father, I feared you would reject Akira anyway," she confessed. "I didn't want to actually hear or see you do that."

Hiei looked even worse after Botan's last remark.

"Do you know what they did to her after they arrested her?" he asked.

Botan felt something sinking inside of her, a deep feeling of dread and fear.

"Wh-what do you…?" she began. "I mean, how do you even know about…?"

"And do you know what kept her alive?" he asked.

"Alive?" Botan echoed.

"She suffered because of you. And because of me. We were both wrong there. But now I suffer because of you."

"…What?"

"You kept her to yourself. She doesn't even care that I let her down because I don't even matter to her, but you… Everything she has is for you, and that's not… I should have… I wanted to…"

Hiei turned his head sharply away, but not before Botan saw a single, cloudy grey hiruiseki fall from his face.

"Hiei, I'm sorry," she tried. "We've both been wrong, but now that I've been honest with you, surely you understand that this Dark Age is our fault – you and me – and we have to fix it, not Akira. We alone should be the ones to fix this, nobody else should be dragged into it or hurt by it."

"You haven't been honest with me," Hiei muttered. "You still haven't."

Botan reached out a hand towards him but he stepped out of her reach.

"Don't touch me."

"Hiei–"

Botan stopped talking abruptly but did not even bother trying to stop Hiei when he too took off. And, she noticed bitterly, he did not go back the way, he did not go after Yukina and he did not even go after Akira. And before long, all three were long gone, and Botan was as alone as each of the others were.

"What just happened?"

"I don't know."

Kuwabara turned to Yusuke, who shrugged a little more aggressively than he had meant to.

"I don't know," Yusuke said again.

"But why did Akira attack Touya?" Kuwabara asked.

He looked desperate and shell-shocked and Yusuke wished he knew how to say or do something to make his friend feel better: but saying the right thing at the right moment had never really been Yusuke's strong suit. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the last of the Dark Force's allies disappear behind a whirlwind of debris whipped up by Jin. Once the chaos had died down he found the remaining four members of his group – and Puu – dispersed about the hillside.

"I don't know, Kuwabara," Yusuke said as he turned back to Kuwabara.

Kuwabara, apparently unsatisfied with this response, moved over to Kurama.

"What just happened?" he asked the fox demon.

Kurama, looking a little ruffled and darkly impatient, was less tactful than even Yusuke had attempted to be with his response.

"We just lost four of our most valuable allies to the enemy."

Kuwabara looked around the others. Fubuki looked down at her feet and Kaisei pretended to have noticed an interesting constellation in the sky.

"It's true, I'm afraid," Touya, as the only other member of the team not avoiding Kuwabara's desperate pleas, said. "Yukina, Botan, Akira and Hiei are no longer your allies."

"Yukina is the kindest, sweetest, most innocent girl who ever lived," Kuwabara replied.

"Unfortunately for us, she was also a liar," Kurama flatly responded.

"What?" Kuwabara echoed, turning to him.

"I'm assuming you did not know that she was the one controlling the Winter Wolves all along?" Kurama asked him.

"The Winter Whuh?" Kuwabara muttered, dumfounded.

"Yes," Kurama replied, as though Kuwabara had spoken his question coherently. "Even Hiei declared that the rituals and sacrifices required to command the Winter Guardian were beyond him, but apparently they were neither too great nor too severe for Yukina."

"But that can't be true!" Kuwabara cried. "Touya's the one controlling the wolves, not Yukina!"

"Come on man, even I saw what was happening here tonight," Yusuke said quietly.

Kuwabara looked over at him desperately and Yusuke turned to Kaisei and Fubuki.

"Guys?" he prompted them.

"Yeah, sorry man," Kaisei admitted with a shrug. "Those dogs were doing what Yukina was telling them to: which was mostly to attack us."

"Sorry Kuwabara," Fubuki added softly. "I wish it wasn't true. For your sake, I really didn't want it to be true."

Kuwabara hung his head and Yusuke moved over to pat him on the shoulder.

"It'll be okay," he said.

"How?" Kuwabara asked miserably. "What if they come back? What do we do?"

"We have to restrain them if they do come back," Kurama replied. "It is more important now than ever that we protect those in the sanctity of the safe house."

"Yeah, we've gotta make sure Keiko and the others are safe," Yusuke agreed.

"I've already lost my dad, I'm not letting that thing take my mom too," Kaisei added.

"Yes, let's return to the safe house immediately," Touya suggested.

"I think we should go after Yukina," Kuwabara said.

"We already tried that and look how well it worked out," Kaisei said.

Fubuki slapped his arm with the back of her hand and he winced and scowled at her.

"He's right," Kurama said. "We can't risk going after them again. We walked straight into a trap here."

"Wait, what?" Yusuke echoed.

Kurama turned to him and for a long moment the two looked at each other curiously.

"Are you saying they were here with the Dark Force waiting for us deliberately?" Yusuke asked when Kurama made no attempt to explain himself.

"It would appear so, yes," Kurama replied.

"Okay, I agree that something was off here," Yusuke said. "Especially with Hiei, but I don't honestly believe that Botan and Yukina laid a trap for us."

The unmoved look on Kurama's face made Yusuke falter. When he looked around the others and found Touya looking equally as dispassionate and Kaisei and Fubuki avoiding looking at him the same way they had with Kuwabara earlier, he let out a small "oh" of reluctant realisation.

"Shit," he concluded.

"Indeed," Kurama said.

"I'm sorry your friends have fallen to the darkness, Yusuke," Touya offered.

"It's not your fault," Yusuke muttered.

Dejectedly, Yusuke waved Puu over. As the team carefully took their place on the spirit beast's back, Yusuke found himself once more wondering how he would break some seriously bad news to Keiko.

"Why is she here?"

Keiko cast a suspicious glance at Koto, who was sitting, looking far too perky, at the small card table with her and Shizuru.

"Because she's useful," Shizuru replied.

Keiko growled out a small noise of annoyance. Over the years she had been painfully aware of the fact that she was so longer as youthful as she had once been, and she had been especially painfully aware of it whenever Yusuke showed up, still looking like a fresh-faced teenager. She had endured friends commenting on how she was a "cougar" to be having dinner with a younger man and recently she had even suffered one of her students asking her if Yusuke was her son: and that was something that would only worsen with time. She was dreading the day people mistook ageless demon Yusuke for her grandson. But despite how uncomfortable it had made her feel, Keiko had never felt so pathetic about it as she did upon seeing Koto again. She had not seen Koto since the Dark Tournament, and, whereas Keiko had changed from a fifteen year old schoolgirl into a 31 year old adult in that time, Koto still looked exactly the same. She still looked fresh-faced and perky and youthful and cute and perky.

And exactly the same and perky.

"The first verse, the separate one, is pretty important to this crazy riddle," Koto said.

"It's a poem," Keiko grumbled.

"Right, whatever," Koto casually replied. "The first verse contains the key to what the following eight verses are about."

"I didn't know you were also an expert on poetry?" Keiko sneered.

"I'm not, I think it's lame," Koto said with a shrug. "But in the first verse, the line that says "what was needed, spirit, heart, soul and mind" is a clue."

"Why? Because it contains the word "soul" and the little blob on that message outside looks like the symbol for soul to you?"

Koto gave Keiko a slightly critical look before continuing.

"No, because "spirit, heart, soul and mind" are the four elements of the Dark Force," she said. "Way, way back, when the Dark Force was the only Ancient – though I guess he probably wasn't called an "ancient" back then – he lived as a demon. He was also male back then. Anyway, when he decided that he wanted to take over the human and spirit worlds, he decided that he needed an army, and so he donated some of his energy and an element of his self into different objects and creatures to create his four "children". He chose a wolf to represent his spirit, a tree to represent his heart, a woman to represent his soul and a dragon to represent his mind."

"Nicely disturbed choices for a nicely disturbed asshole," Shizuru commented dryly.

"Well not really," Koto replied. "The wolf was the ruler of the high, snowy grounds of Demon World. It ruled over a harsh landscape and it needed to be wild and free and brave. It was the epitome of "spirit". The tree was at the heart of an orchard, and it was the only tree that bore no fruit but it was the oldest tree and the flowers that grew on it attracted all the bees that were needed to pollinate the other plants so that food could grow. It was like the mother tree. It was literally the heart of the forest and the crop cycle in Demon World. The woman was a human who had mastered sacred energy, but she was old and close to death. She was only able to master sacred energy because of her incredible soul and she ought to have had a special place in the afterlife, but then the Dark Force found her and made her a demon, gifting her with all three energy types and extending the mortal body her mighty soul lived in. And the dragon was the wisest creature in Demon World. It was able to be cold and logical when nobody else could, and it was considered the ultimate "mind" in Demon World."

"So the search the Dark Force is talking about in the first verse was his search for his long lost four children, the four Ancients," Keiko said.

"Exactly," Shizuru replied. "But there's more, right girl?"

"Yeah, there's more," Koto agreed. "The last line of the first verse says "the chosen eight" and then there are eight verses and we all agreed they seem to be about eight people here. But four of those verses are about the four Ancients, the "Spirit of Darkness", the Winter Guardian, the "Heart of Darkness" the Shadow Wood, the "Soul of Darkness" the Sacred Darkness and the "Mind of Darkness" the Dragon of the Darkness Flame."

"So that little symbol was a little reminder that the poem is about the four Ancients," Keiko said.

"It's also about the four pillars of light," Koto replied.

"Light?" Keiko asked, leaning forwards as her intellectual curiosity overtook her pride. "Yes, the whole poem is about light and darkness."

"Yeah, because it's about the spirit, heart, soul and mind of darkness and it's about the spirit, heart, soul and mind of light."

"The spirit, heart, soul and mind of light?"

"Yeah. The four pillars of light."

"What are the four pillars of light?"

"They're the chosen ones. They're the ones capable of countering the darkness."

Shizuru slid her copy of the Dark Force's riddle across the table to Keiko, who quickly scanned over it again, her heart skipping a beat as she came one step closer to understanding the depth of its true meaning.

"This foretells the war between light and dark," she said. "This is what stage five of the Dark Age is: the spirit of light will "surpass the Winter Guardian's might", the heart of light will "not bend to the mighty acer", the soul of light will "stand strong before the red-eyed monster" and it doesn't explicitly say as much, but I'm guessing the mind of light will be fighting against the Mind of Darkness."

"Yes," Koto said.

"So before any of this even really got underway, the Dark Force knew it would find its four children in mortal form, and that they would face off against the "warriors of light"?" Keiko asked.

"And so far, the creep has got exactly what he wants," Shizuru replied.

"And the spirit, heart, soul and mind of light are Koenma, Kuwabara, Yusuke and Kurama," Keiko said.

"And that means the only way to defeat the Dark Force is for light and dark to fight it out," Koto said.

"So my brother has to fight against his own wife, niece, brother-in-law and sort of sister-in-law," Shizuru said sadly.

"Well, technically, Kuwabara just has to fight Botan, right?" Keiko said.

"Yes," Koto replied.

Keiko nodded, looking down at the poem again.

"There's still something else missing though," she said. "It's great that the first verse and that weird symbol explains about the chosen eight, but there has to be another verse because the key to this poem isn't in the number eight, it's in the number ten."

Keiko looked up as both Koto and Shizuru sat up straight and exchanged startled looks.

"You-you didn't notice that?" Keiko asked, glancing back and forth between Shizuru and Koto.

"Where do you see the number ten in there?" Shizuru asked her.

"Well it's everywhere," Keiko replied. "It's in every line. I just assumed the complete poem would be ten verses long to match, and that the final verse would conclude the meaning and explain the significance of the number ten."

Shizuru and Koto looked at each other for a long moment before both snatched the poem from Keiko and began reading through it. Keiko waited patiently for several seconds, watching their eyes frantically darting back and forth and up and down as they shook their heads. When they both finally gave up and looked up at Keiko expectantly she smiled sympathetically and rested both her elbows on the table, holding up her hands in the form of fists.

"There are ten syllables in every line of the poem," she explained.

"What now?" Koto echoed.

"I'll pick a few examples to prove my point," Keiko replied. "The search was short, it was ea-sy to find."

As she spoke she counted out each syllable with her fingers.

"The young child who car-ries a great bur-den," she continued. "When the snow falls gent-ly on leaves of green."

"You counted the sounds in each line?" Koto asked, screwing up her face.

"I had to find the rhythm," Keiko explained. "Some lines look much shorter than others, but when you sound them out, they're all the same length, so I knew it had to be of significance. Like compare these two lines: "she who was born of sha-dows and dark-ness" and "a tri-ni-ty of life force in-to-one". Written together, the first line looks much longer, but when you sound them out, they're both the same length. It's because the number of syllables are significant to the flow of the verse. If it was just for the sake of flow, the number might vary, but it doesn't. Every single line is exactly ten syllables. It was one of the first things I noticed: that was how I knew something was missing. We need to find that last verse."

"Maybe it hasn't been written yet," Shizuru suggested.

"It probably hasn't," Keiko agreed. "But that's why it's so important. I think the number ten is significant because it's not just about "the chosen eight", it's about a chosen ten."

"Well the four Ancients and the four pillars of light are the chosen eight," Koto said. "And if you add the Dark Force itself, that makes nine."

"So there's still one more person unaccounted for," Keiko concluded.

"Touya?" Shizuru asked. "Something has felt off in this house since he got here. I thought it was because he had become that "Winter Guardian", but now I don't know. It seems the Winter Guardian is something to do with Yukina, so maybe Touya is the tenth person."

"That's not the only thing that's missing," Koto mused.

Keiko sat further forwards – she was almost lying on the table – and watched Koto expectantly.

"Something else isn't right," the fox demon said. "I just can't quite put my finger on it. It was something about the way the Dark Force used to refer to itself."

"Well you better start remembering real quick, kid," Shizuru told her.

"Maybe we can figure it out together," Keiko suggested. "Tell us again about how and why the Dark Force made the Ancients, Koto. It seems like the Dark Force is the leader of the four Ancients, so I think maybe the missing tenth person is the leader of the pillars of light. Maybe we can figure out who it is if we understand more about the Dark Force."

"Doesn't it have to be Touya or someone else in this house?" Shizuru asked.

"Maybe not," Keiko replied. "And that's what we need to figure out."

She turned to Koto and indicated for her to begin.

"Okay," Koto said. "Well, in the beginning there was the Dark Force. And then he created his children to help him fight because he wanted to take over the spirit and human worlds, and so he created living embodiments of his spirit, his heart, his soul and his mind."

It was dark outside, and the sky was clear, the waning moon painting the landscape a dusky blue. Botan was walking, but without purpose, and she was fully aware that she had walked in a complete circle at least twice: she was still undecided about which way she should go and what she should attempt to do. She wanted to go after Akira, but she felt she should bring Hiei with her, but she was too scared to face Hiei alone and she wanted Yukina with her, but Yukina was mad at her and Botan wondered if she ought to just go back to the safe house and beg for help. And, just as she reached the lowest ebb of her indecisive despair, Botan felt someone approaching who brought with them a very welcoming, calming presence.

"Botan, I've been looking all over for you."

Botan let out a shuddering sigh and blinked away tears of relieved joy before jogging over to meet the voice that had addressed her.

"Oh Botan, what has become of us?"

"I don't know!" Botan wailed, sobbing openly.

She had not been able to cry properly, but in the presence of Koenma, she suddenly felt free to let go and give in to her misery.

"How did it come to this?" Koenma asked her. "How is it that you are wielding the power of one of the Ancients of Demon World during one of the most aggressive and rapid Dark Ages, but I've found you out here all alone, looking scared and weak?"

"I am scared and weak!" Botan cried. "I am! I know I am! That's why all of this – absolutely all of this – happened! Because I'm a coward!"

Koenma tilted his head and adopted a curious look.

"What do you mean, Botan?" he asked.

"I'm to blame for this Dark Age, Sir," she replied. "Me and me alone. I brought it on. I understand that now: that thing in the Dark Force's riddle about "fourteen years and now it's too late", that's about me!"

"How so, Botan?"

"Because I have always been a part of the Shadow Wood – as a ferry girl, I was created from the energy of the Shadow Wood's sanctity – and so I have always had the dark power inside of me, just in a diluted form. And Hiei had the darkness inside of him – all of it – in the form of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame, and when we… Well… Our child could wield the spirit energy she inherited from me and the demon energy she inherited from Hiei, and I thought that was just normal, but really, it was an outward clue that she had inherited my energy and Hiei's: the energy of the Shadow Wood and the energy of the Dragon of the Darkness Flame. We made her into a vessel for one of the Ancients to take!"

"Botan, you're over-thinking this."

"I can't help it! I'm out here all alone with nothing else to do but over-think this!"

"You didn't create the Sacred Darkness because you had a child with Hiei."

"I didn't?"

"Of course not, Botan!"

Koenma sounded so reassuring and so sympathetic, Botan just wanted to throw her arms around him: and so she did.

But her heart sank when she felt him stiffen in her embrace.

Next Chapter: Koenma and Botan had a long conversation about allegiances and choices, Keiko, Koto and Shizuru continue deciphering the Dark Force's poem and wonder if it might be possible to stop the Dark Force from ever coming back and finally, on her own and questioning her own choices, Yukina is confronted by Kuwabara. Chapter 51 – Spirit