Youtou Shinnoken

A Rurouni Kenshin/Yuyu Hakusho Crossover Fan Fiction by Chester Castañeda

Original Concept by Chad Yang

I'm playing tennis with the scenes this time around.

Disclaimer: Yuyu Hakusho is the rightful property of Yoshihiro Togashi, Shueisha, Fuji TV, and St. Pierrot. Rurouni Kenshin is the rightful property of Nobuhiro Watsuki and Sony. This disclaimer also covers all the other copyrighted material that are far too many to mention here. Don't sue me please, I'm very poor.

Chapter 20: Freckles (Part 2)

Back in Koenma's office...

"Ah, Himura-san. Botan. It's nice to see you two again. Thank you for handling that surprise attack at Genkai's temple superbly. Even though the Chojin's minions took you all by surprise, you still managed to defeat them all and keep the sword safe. I even heard you took on a grand total of four opponents during that event, Himura-san! That's amazing!" Koenma articulated in one breath, which made it quite hard for both Kenshin and Botan to keep up with him; the prince didn't even bother with further pleasantries, even. "So what can I do for you two today?"

"Hello, Koenma-dono. I have a couple of questions to ask you, if you don't mind," Kenshin automatically greeted as he struggled to find the right words to say in order to get the ball rolling. Botan, for her part, stayed close behind the former hitokiri in deference to her infant superior.

The spirit guardian moved towards Koenma and relayed, "We've come here to talk about why I've been trapped in this sword for so many years." He gave Botan a cursory glance, and the ferry-girl nodded back with a determined half-smile. "Among other things."

Koenma's eyes widened and darted back and forth from Botan to Kenshin for a couple of seconds before he sighed, tensed his body slightly, and narrowed his eyes into thin, unreadable slits.

"About a century or so, Himura-san. You've been trapped inside that sword for more than a century. Don't you remember your day in court in the afterlife? Your Day of Judgment right after you managed to kill a potential despot cum genocidal maniac from taking over Japan? That was the rough equivalent of assassinating Genghis Khan or Adolf Hitler before they came to power! I can't believe you don't remember that!"

"I do remember that. It's one of my first memories after waking up from my long slumber," Kenshin interjected before asking, "Who's Adolf Hitler?"

Koenma paused for about five seconds before waving Kenshin's question aside with his tiny hands. "You were probably still asleep when Hitler came into power. My bad. Don't worry about it too much; it had nothing to do with you."

Inwardly, the Lord of the Spirit World thought, 'So he still hasn't remembered what happened to him during World War II, has he? It's better this way.' He also thanked his lucky stars that the Youtou Shinnoken's powers were too random and nebulous to be controlled, or else Kenshin would have used the Reikai artifact to read his mind or something.

Botan grabbed Kenshin by the shoulder and turned him towards her direction, chirping, "I know where you're coming from, Kenshin. Why, when I myself was first awakened, I had a lot of catching up to do too. But I was able to go catch up with the times after I've started my shinigami duties. It must be doubly disorienting for an old soul such as yourself who still has memories of his past life, but..."

The blue-haired ferry-girl bit her lip and ceased talking after she looked over Kenshin's shoulder and saw Koenma make a continual slashing motion over his neck with his hand. Alas, the damage had already been done.

"Awakened? So unlike old souls like me, shinigami like yourself get awakened?" Kenshin repeated, mulling over the words carefully. He faced Koenma again just as the toddler ceased his pantomiming. "Koenma-dono, I remember the first time we met, when you ultimately decided to turn me into the Guardian of the Demon Sword instead of banishing me into the bloody depths of Phlegethon in order for me to atone for the sins I've committed. For that, I am forever grateful."

Koenma waved Kenshin off in relief, eager to steer the subject into another direction. "Oh, think nothing of it, Himura-san! Your actions were done for the sake of bringing about a new age of peace in Japan. Moreover, aside from indirectly causing the demise of Shishio Makoto, you've also done a lot of good deeds while you were alive as preemptive penitence for your crimes. Putting you in a life of servitude is the least I could do."

Botan rolled her eyes and shook her head at Koenma's speech. 'Can you even hear what you're saying, Lord Koenma? You paid Kenshin back by making him your slave, for goodness' sake!'

Kenshin commenced pacing across the office as he struggled to take control of the conversation once more; there was no way he'd forget Botan's slip of the tongue that easily. "With that said, there are large patches of my memory that are still missing. Am I supposed to believe that, after being turned into the caretaker of the Youtou Shinnoken, I've been sleeping for the better part of this modern era?"

"No, you don't." Koenma scratched his nose ponderously before adding, "Actually, you were one of the most magnificent warriors the Spirit World had ever gotten. Because of the double-edged powers of the Demon Sword, you're the only soul whom I can entrust it with. Only you can handle the Youtou Shinnoken's extreme dualities between being a weapon for and against demons."

"So what caused me to slumber within the Demon Sword, then? When was I put to sleep and why? Why can't I remember my years... if it really did take 'years'... as a 'magnificent' warrior of the Spirit World?" Kenshin pointedly queried, feeling rather perturbed by the way Koenma kept beating around the bush when it came to answering a relatively clear-cut topic.

Back at the Kuwabara residence...

The corporeal spirits of Yahiko Myojin and Sanosuke Sagara both winced at the shotgun blast that never came. Another simultaneous, nigh-telepathic thought entered their minds.

'W-We're still alive?'

They opened their eyes to see a mirthful Shizuru laughing goodheartedly at the fake money, though they did still warily look at the gun pointed at them all the same.

Sanosuke was the first one to speak. "Hey, sister," he broached. "'Sup." He instantly held his hands up as Shizuru placed the barrel of her shotgun in his mouth this time around.

Shizuru smirked and patted the taller man's spiky hair with her free hand, grinning. "You should have told me you were one of Kazuma's weird friends from the Spirit World. That would've saved us a lot of trouble."

'Kazu who?' Yahiko mused to himself in puzzlement, but he decided to keep his thoughts to himself lest the deranged... or perhaps not so deranged, merely protective... lady decided to blast him and Sanosuke to kingdom come. "Er... yes. Koenma sent us."

"Yup. He sure did," Shizuru confirmed, chuckling as she waved the play money in front of the two spirits. "And he does have a weird sense of humor, doesn't he?"

"That's why I hate him so much," Sanosuke mumbled to himself.

"Well, introductions are in order, I guess; but perhaps after a nice cup of tea and some snacks?" Shizuru smugly offered as she clipped the shotgun under one arm while getting a cigarette stick from her vest pocket with her free hand. "Do you mind?"

"Er, not at all, sister! It is your goddamned home... and a lovely home at that!" Sanosuke corrected as the shotgun was pushed against his nostrils, now understanding why the strange woman gave him such a weird spirit vibe. 'Dammit, she's a lot like a female Saito!'

'Dumb rooster head,' Yahiko merely reflected to himself as he directly addressed the ballsy yet nice lady, asking, "Can we at least know the name of our hostess? We were given a mission, but we're kind of lost on how we're going to go about it."

"I see," Shizuru said, nodding sagely. "No problem! Although I think it's best for you to wait for my 'dear' brother Kazuma first. He's the one who should be briefing you, not me." She looked for the lighter for a bit then finally savored the ecstasy of breathing in burning tobacco. "I'm Kuwabara Shizuru, by the way."

"I'm Yahiko, and this is rooster head." Thud. "Sanosuke. His name is Sanosuke, but you can call him rooster head." Another thud.

Back in Koenma's office...

Koenma shut his eyes and shivered in remembrance of what Kenshin... no, the Youkiri Battousai... did and almost did at the Reikai's barriers in between the Demon World and the Human World. Granted, his father greatly exaggerated the threat that Makai posed against Ningenkai, and he himself had gotten rid of the blockades after peace was finally restored in all three worlds, but this was a time when there was no Enki to keep the warring factions of Yomi, Mukuro, and Raizen in line. There were also no Spirit Detectives acting as second-in-commands to help the wild frontier of the demonic plain from invading the mortal realm as well.

Stone-faced and adamant, the youthful-looking celestial entity eventually responded, "You know full well why you were put to sleep. You still haven't fully come to terms with your dark side, and there was a time when you yourself posed a threat to the Human World because of your extreme measures when it came to bringing about your own brand of justice. As for your blocked memories, let's just say it's better for you to keep them blocked for the time being in order to avoid letting the same uncontrollable anger you felt at the time reemerge and consume you."

As Kenshin pondered over Koenma's words, the toddler deity gave himself a metaphoric pat on the back. His explanation was lengthy and involved, yet at the same time, it explained nothing of the true events that transpired forty-eight years ago. However, self-congratulations aside, a tiny voice at the back of his head admonished him for taking a page right out of the incarcerated Enma Daio's book when it came to answering questions without really doing so. Even as he rationalized his actions to himself, he idly wondered if it was he, not Kenshin, who was willing to justify his questionable means with good-intentioned ends.

Instead of pushing the issue any further, Kenshin remarked, "Speaking of blocked memories, Botan gave us some interesting insights regarding shinigami and how they're... born, so to speak." The redhead motioned the blue-haired grim reaper to move closer, and she followed his lead. "Before she started working for you, Botan had to cleanse her soul off of her past memories by staying at a so-called Elysian Field and becoming a lotus eater. Is this true?"

Relieved that he didn't have to talk about Kenshin's Sensui-like fall into the dark side, Koenma readily replied, "Yes. That's the standard operating procedure Reikai follows when it comes to recruiting new death gods. In order for a soul to become more than just the spirit of a deceased human, it needs to shed its mortal identity and cut all of its earthly connections. Depending on a soul's karma and my astute judgment, it could either be sent straight to its ancestors, reincarnated, or dropped into the pits of hell."

Kenshin nodded earnestly while Botan flinched at the implications of Koenma's words. "I see. My second question is, does the Tree of Knowledge serve as a cure for the effects of lotus blossoms from the Elysian Fields?"

Koenma countered, "It depends. Why do you want to know?"

"Should her past life be kept hidden from us the same way my memories as a Reikai warrior were?" Kenshin responded in kind with a measured tone and probing violet eyes that belied a gilded sheen of methodical intelligence. "Please, if you think we can't handle the truth, let us be the judge of that."

From out of the blue, Botan inquired, "Who is Kamiya Kaoru?" Afterwards, both Kenshin and Koenma turned towards the shinigami. "I want to know the truth. Was it only a coincidence that, as soon as I ate that fruit from the Tree of Knowledge in order to encourage Keiko-chan to do the same, I started seeing visions of this bokuto-wielding tomboy that Kenshin knew from many years ago? Or am I really...?"

"Let's not jump to any conclusions." Koenma smoothened his clothing. "Just as there's a reason why Kenshin's memories of his time as a guardian has been erased, so do you with your past memories as a human. Simply put, I gave you a choice between meeting your ancestors or serving the Spirit World, and you opted for the option where you can, shall we say, get a clean slate. Are you willing to risk opening your personal Pandora's Box, Botan?"

Back at the Kuwabara residence...

After everything had been cleared up in regards to who was who and what was what, Shizuru let the two time-displaced souls in presumably borrowed bodies sort out what television was. "Oh my goodness! Were you two raised in a barn? You actually have no idea what TV is? Did you actually believe that little people are trapped inside that box?

"Yeah, well, tell us how you'd react the next time you're faced with unknown technology beyond your ken," Sanosuke grumbled as he helped himself with some of the potato chips on the table. "Man, these are delicious! It's good to be alive again! I missed being able to taste stuff! What are these made of anyway?"

The twenty-something young woman took one look at the packaging. "That's actually Kappa Ebichu." Sanosuke made a face and Shizuru rolled her eyes. "It's not literal water goblin, you cockle-headed dolt. It's actually shrimp-flavored French fries. Sort of."

"This food of yours is really interesting to eat, but I'd rather have old-fashioned food like grilled eel or snake sake any day instead of these lightweight dishes," came Sanosuke's token resistance to the modern delight as he engorged himself with them anyway.

"Says the frog-eating man," Yahiko rebutted, and then contemplated, 'Future people are spoiled. They'd rather eat food that's already been prepared in factories than make some for themselves.' He blanched at the chips on his plate, which Sanosuke took as a cue to gobble the dish up right under the revived boy's nose.

"Oh, they even made wasabe-flavored fried fries too!" Sanosuke happily exclaimed.

"French fries, not fried fries... and those aren't fries anyway, they're potato chips." Shizuru raised an eyebrow at Sanosuke's relentless consumption of junk food, then turned towards Yahiko as the boy attempted to open a different bag of chips. "You better not touch my pack of takoyaki-flavored potato chips. That's mine."

"Fine. I'd rather eat takoyaki-flavored takoyaki anyway," Yahiko groused as he relinquished the bag to Shizuru's hands. "Hey, where's the instant cup noodles I've been hearing my descendants talk about? I was hoping to finally eat some, now that I'm alive again... in a manner of speaking."

Shizuru harrumphed as she put the chips on the nearest coffee table. "Like I'd actually let my family's stash of cup noodles get eaten by a bunch of zombies from thousands of years ago. There's a limit to a person's hospitality, you know, and I'm only playing hostess to you two ghostly country bumpkins. Be thankful you even got junk food."

It was Yahiko's turn to huff indignantly. "I'll have you know that I'm a true blue Tokyoite. If you want to talk to a real country bumpkin, then have a chat with this birdman from Nagano."

"Oh, please. Spare me. And keep my place of birth out of this, you samurai brat! You're the one who bothers to keep tabs with your precious little descendants on what the living world is like right now! And yet you stared as dumbly as I did at that TV thing once we arrived here," Sanosuke spat, then reconsidered, "You know, Koenma keeps something like that in his office too. Why were we so surprised to see it the first time again?"

"I've heard of television, but I haven't seen one myself since I've been busy playing patriarch with the rest of my ancestors in a never-ending family reunion!" Yahiko grumbled. "My grandchildren described television as a wasteland of intellect and critical thinking that turns people into lobotomized sheep, so I expected the worst, thinking that it's some fishbowl contraption that sends mind-numbing images directly into the brain. I didn't realize it's just a smaller version of the silver screen."

"Movies. We call them movies nowadays," Shizuru helpfully corrected, fascinated at how this presumably fifteen-to-seventeen-year-old teenager talked about technology like her grandfather. 'Resurrection is a funny thing, huh?'

Yahiko blinked. "It's a good thing you don't call them 'talkies'. Even back then, I thought that was a stupid name."

Shizuru shook her head in bemusement and amusement. "No, that'd be redundant. We also call them films too, among other things."

Yahiko guffawed. "Oh yeah, 'movies' were also called that milky thing that sticks to your teeth if you don't brush it!"

The young lady shook her head in confusion. "No, that's called plaque."

The time-lost boy chortled some more. "That sounds so strange! So what do you call an ornamental plate you put your diploma in, then?"

"It's also called a plaque, you old-timer! What's so funny about that?" Shizuru half-bewilderedly exclaimed, feeling mildly insulted by the way Yahiko reacted to her manner of speaking. "And let me remind you, grandpa, that it'll be you who'll get laughed at once you show off your antiquated grammar to the general public!"

"I'm sorry for laughing at you like that. My bad." Yahiko twiddled his thumbs while restraining his mirth the best he could. "Pardon me. I hope you understand that, from my point of view, those words sounded ridiculous."

"So why isn't rooster head laughing too... Hey! I told you to lay off the takoyaki chips!" Shizuru berated as she slapped Sano's fumbling hands, took her snack away, opened the bag of chips, grabbed a handful of chips, and stuffed them into her mouth.

"Oh, Sano? I think he died during the time radio became popular, so he couldn't relate. He isn't really the 'movie'-going type anyway. We could barely force him to ride a train, much less have him watch cinema or kabuki plays," Yahiko assessed as his memories of becoming a distinguished samurai and doting father all came flooding back to this presumably artificial brain.

After she was done chewing her greasy foodstuff, Shizuru observed, "Judging from that geisha quip he used on me earlier, I'd say that the only places he went to are restaurants and the red light district."

"Hey, you two should stop talking like I'm not here! That's rude, you know!" Sanosuke complained without bothering to correct the comments made against him as he attempted to none-too-subtly take a swipe at the open bag of potato chips. However, just like Kaoru before her, Shizuru exposed the hoodlum-looking man's utter incompetence when it came to issues unrelated to anti-Meiji sentiment and pure barroom brawling.

"Get your own chips, rooster head! Besides, the dead aren't supposed to eat the food of the living," Shizuru mocked before asking, "If you lived during the time when radio and movies were invented, then why were you so surprised with TV?"

"I'm kind of wondering about that too," Yahiko admitted as he personally mused about Sanosuke's difficulties in purging his soul of his violent tendencies; it was the darkness inside the former Sekihoutai member's heart that kept him from reuniting with his family and his ancestors in heaven. "I heard you roamed the whole world during the early decades of this century, even. Do you even remember how you died?"

Sanosuke shrugged as he decided to lick the chip crumbs on the snack plate Shizuru placed on the table. "I don't know. It's something I've forgotten and, quite frankly, I would rather forget. Then again, maybe I was already going senile by that time. Who knows?"

The street fighter tilted his head upwards as a stray memory flashed before his mind. "I heard there was an earthquake in the Kanto region around the last few years of my mortal life. It was around that time that these so-called radios were just becoming the next big thing. So yeah... I'd have no idea what these boxes of light and sound are all about!"

Back in Koenma's office...

"Are you willing to risk opening your personal Pandora's Box, Botan?"

Kenshin and Botan were at an apparent loss for words as they looked at each other and Koenma.

Koenma sighed. "Are you willing to be like Urashima Taro, who ignored the orders of Otohime and opened the box that contained his old age?"

"Oh, you thought we weren't familiar with Greek mythology. We understood you the first time, Koenma-dono," Kenshin reassured.

"For me, I liked the Urashima Taro example better. I found the Pandora's Box story a bit sexist, to be honest," Botan commented.

"That's not fair, Botan. Are you saying that men can act stupidly, but woman can't?" Kenshin queried.

"Of course not," Botan clarified with a wag of her finger. "I just noticed that western stories tend to portray women as the bane of men's existence. For instance, with the Urashima Taro story, the only person he hurt by opening the box given to him was himself. With the Pandora's Box story, Pandora doomed mankind because of her curiosity. That's hardly fair."

"Oh, so Japan is more progressive about equal gender rights than the western world?" Kenshin innocently asked, to which Botan answered, "Well played," much to his confusion.

Koenma produced a handkerchief and wiped his sweaty brow with it. "The point here is that there's a good reason why you went ahead and became a shinigami in the first place, Botan. Your sins and memories were too much to bear, and your soul couldn't be saved without purging it altogether. What's the very first thing you remember as a ferry-girl?"

Botan raised her head and stared blankly at the ceiling for a couple of minutes. "I remember a toddler talking to me in complete sentences, which made me freak out. Then I remembered that I don't remember much of anything at all, but for some weird reason, I can still speak perfect Japanese without remembering how I learned it. It's bizarre."

Koenma groaned. "So what did I ask you as soon as you 'woke up'?"

"Hmm. I think you asked me if I can remember anything about my past, and I said... no," Botan whispered with a harsh, sober voice while Kenshin theorized that this supposed meeting happened at the amnesia-inducing Elysian Fields. "Then I asked you where your mother is, and I marveled at how smart you were because you can say all sorts of big words even though you're just a kid."

"I get that a lot from all the purged souls I visit at Level 10 Block 4 of the Purgatorial Sector. Selective memory wipe can be real amusing at times." Koenma cleared his throat. "Anyhow, what else did I tell you at that moment? I know it has been a while since that time, but please do try to recall."

Botan crossed her arms and leaned on a nearby wall as she attempted to dig deep into her psyche. After she was done, a haunted expression took hold of her features. "You said, 'You're dead. You're here because you wanted to be here. You're here because you wanted to forget your past and your overwhelming guilt over your sins that prevent you from passing on. You have now been reborn. Arise, my shinigami.'" She bit or lip. "Or something like that; that's the gist of it, at least. It's been so long, I forgot when I first awoke, so to speak."

Kenshin tensed his astral body as he attempted to read between the lines of Botan's revelation. 'She was a soul who was so traumatized by her past that she let the Spirit World purge her memories of her human self and made her the shinigami she is today? I didn't realize that the death gods of this realm were nothing more than former humans! Or maybe I myself was a shinigami before my own memories were also erased.'

Koenma nodded. "So you more or less remembered what I told you, Botan. Basically, becoming a ferry-girl was the best way for me to save your soul from oblivion. The weight of your sins and guilt were so great that not even death could cleanse your soul of your worldly connections. You could've ended up as an earthbound spirit or one of the damned in one of the seven hells. By the way, the Corporeal Punishments Sector houses eight hells now, but don't tell the Buddhists, Hinduists, Tibetans, and the like about it."

"What about the legend of the Tree of Knowledge and its ability to reverse the effects of the memory-erasing lotus blossoms? Is that really true? Because I know firsthand that Yukimura Keiko avoided becoming one of your ferry-girls by eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge," Botan stated as she gulped down the rising feeling of dread that slowly but surely crawled up her esophagus.

Keiko wasn't the only one who ate that fruit, and the ferry-girl had an inkling that her visions of Kaoru Kamiya started as soon as she took a bite out of that goddamned magical produce. She didn't want to jump to conclusions, but...

Her eyes alighted upon Kenshin's, and her heart broke as soon as she saw the glint of comprehension and hopeful expectation in his bright and unnaturally purple eyes. She immediately looked away and focused her sights on her so-called employer. The ex-vagabond probably realized (or had long understood) what she'd suspected just now.

Nonetheless, perhaps she should be happy if ever their suspicions came to fruition. However, why was it that Koenma's next few words filled her with dread instead of anticipation? Did she really want to open her personal Pandora's Box after all?

Back at the Kuwabara residence...

Yahiko rubbed his chin as he reminisced about his past life some more. "Going back to Japan is quite nostalgic for me, but the time I'm spending here right now is almost like a dream. In retrospect, opening up Japan to the rest of the world was one of the best and worst things to ever happen to it. On one hand, the country was able to recover from the horror that was the atomic bomb quite nicely, becoming one of the major economic forces in Asia. On the other hand, it got bombed to kingdom come because of how disastrously it handled foreign relations and its catastrophic participation in the Second World War."

Yahiko frowned as he blocked out several painful memories at the very last minute; his idyllic appreciation of his stay in his home country was cut short by nightmarish visions of sobering reality. Perhaps that was the reason why Koenma allowed him to return to his ancestors without purging his soul of his sins... he'd already experienced hell on earth, so his personal karma showed that his soul had already suffered enough torment for one lifetime.

"Stop talking like an old coot that's giving a lecture, kid. It's creeping me out," Shizuru scolded Yahiko as she exhaled a cloud of burnt tobacco and withheld a shiver. She wasn't there to entertain guests anyway... this was supposed to be her day off at work, damn it!

To Shizuru's chagrin, her brother, Kazuma Kuwabara, was taking his sweet time in returning to their abode and taking care of these museum pieces with whatever it was they needed to accomplish in the world of the living. She figured that that was the reason why the Spirit World sent them to the Kuwabara residence from the get go.

"Got any beer? I tried it out during my travels around the world as an adult, and even though it's not quite like sake, it's an okay substitute. Where's that self-freezing ice box I kept hearing the new souls talk about?" Sanosuke called out to Shizuru... or he attempted to as a metal ashtray hit him square on his noggin as soon as beer was mentioned.

"If you don't want to get sent back to the Spirit World using my shotgun express, then don't touch any of my beer! Drink from the tap instead. Jeez, what am I doing here anyway? Babysitting?" She considered watching VHS tapes for a change, but she'd already seen the movies that they did have right then and there, and she felt too wary to leave the two strangers in her house just to rent something at the local video store.

Back in Koenma's office...

"What about the legend of the Tree of Knowledge and its ability to reverse the effects of the memory-erasing lotus blossoms? Is that really true? Because I know firsthand that Yukimura Keiko avoided becoming one of your ferry-girls by eating the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge," Botan declared in a mixture of anxiety and expectancy.

The shinigami felt Kenshin twitch and stand stock-still from behind her. If personifications of death like her had hearts, blood, veins, and adrenalin, she'd be dizzy with anticipation by now. Interestingly, the long-forgotten habits she'd gathered from the mortal realm... breathing, yawning, blinking, gulping, and so on... was carried on to her spiritual form even though these actions were about as necessary as the human appendix and despite having her entire past wiped out by the memory-erasing lotus blossoms of the Elysian Fields.

Koenma opened his squinty eyes ever so slightly and crossed his chubby little arms in concern. "Thank you for bringing that up, Botan. I was meaning to ask you about that. Who authorized the transfer of Yukimura Keiko into the Elysian Fields anyway? If I had approved her death, she would've gone straight to her ancestors for her good behavior and her relationship with one of my best Reikai Tantei!"

Botan's metaphoric heart quivered with a gamut of emotions at Koenma's uninformative disclosure. "I-I don't know, Koenma-sama. I only homed-in on Keiko's whereabouts because she was a close friend of mine, and I wanted to be the one to ferry her into the afterlife just as I did with Genkai-shihan. I'm also aware that I broke quite a lot of Spirit World rules by doing so. However, I did what I thought was right, a-and... with all due respect, my lord, I don't want this conversation to get sidetracked! Does the Tree of Knowledge's fruit cure the amnesia caused by the lotus blossoms?"

Koenma drew out a belabored breath. "Yes and no," he replied, which infuriated Botan all the more to nearly the point of insubordination. She kept her cool long enough to understand that the response to her question, like most everything else in the afterlife, was a bit too complicated to be answered with a simple "Yes" or "No".

"Please explain," Kenshin, to Botan's surprise, voiced out her sentiment for her. "We want to understand what's going on with Botan fully. When does or doesn't the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge act as a cure for the amnesia-inducing effects of lotus blossoms?"

"If you two are familiar with the western faiths of Islam, Christianity, and Judaism, you'd know that the Tree of All Knowledge was the very catalyst to the supposed downfall of humankind in western civilization. In turn, the lotus blossoms of the Spirit World's version of the Elysian Fields was based from the legendary narcotic and addictive lotus blossoms of the Grecian 'Myths', so to speak. Lotuses in our culture and in our afterlife symbolized enlightenment. Buddha himself had lotuses represent enlightenment, and in terms of developing competent and obedient shinigami, enlightenment meant emptying yourselves out completely."

Koenma loosened his stuffy collar and coughed several times, secretly thanking his lucky stars that, at the very least, Kenshin wasn't pushing the issue in regards to his own lost memories. "In Yukimura Keiko's case, the Tree of Knowledge did well to counteract the lotus blossoms' effects because she just got there in mere hours. In Botan's case, it gets a little more troublesome than that. Once you've passed the Purgatorial Sector, you can never get back your memories. Or rather, you're not supposed to. That's the whole point of the Purgatorial Sector of the Spirit World... to purge your worldly desires or connections, even if it tragically clears away your past identity as a human as a consequence."

A strange mixture of disappointment and confusion washed over the thunderstruck expressions of Kenshin's and Botan's faces. "W-Wait a second," the blue-haired angel of death remarked while doing her best to conceal the incredulousness of her shaky voice. "So you're saying that what's currently happening to me right now isn't supposed to be happening at all? Is that it... s-sir?"

"That's what becoming a shinigami entails. You have to abandon your humanity in order to do this job... Well, no, that's a poor choice of words. Conversely, maybe it isn't. You have to fully forsake your past memories, personality, and identity as a mortal in order to qualify as a god of death. Heaven was created as a reward for people who are virtuous, and their remuneration involves letting them keep the mortal identity they liked best and sharing their happiness with their ancestors and descendants. Earthbound spirits are unable to cross over into the afterlife because they are afraid of forsaking their worldly ties. Like I said, it's... complicated."

"But why did I start having visions of Kenshin's lady friend from the past after I ate that fruit? Are you saying that my eating of this," Botan produced the twice-bitten fruit for both Kenshin and Koenma to see, "has nothing to do with my seeing of Kenshin's past and his involvement with Iehik and Iehog? Are you honestly implying that my transforming into that bokuto-wielding girl whenever I touch the Youtou Shinnoken has nothing to do with my eating of this damned fruit? Actually, I'll stop beating around the bush and just come out with it: Am I her? Am I Kamiya Kaoru transformed into one of your shinigami?"

Kenshin held Botan's free hand and grabbed it supportively. "I also have that question in the back of my mind, Koenma-dono. Is it true? Is Botan really Kaoru-dono?"

Bewitched, bothered, and bewildered by the accusation hurled at him, Koenma ruefully admitted, "To be honest, I have no idea whatsoever."

Back at the Kuwabara residence...

Sanosuke deftly caught the piece of furniture that was hurled at him as it bounced off his forehead without even blinking or wincing. "Speaking of guns, have they become standard issue in every Japanese household nowadays? Man, the American occupation during postwar Japan sure influenced your way of life and then some! So much for the Tokugawa Era's weapons ban!"

Shizuru didn't answer, knowing full well that her licensed firearm was a rare "household" item in Japan that she had to pilfer using questionable "connections" that would've made even Atsuko Urameshi proud.

Despite Japan's low crime rate and virtually nonexistent gun crimes, licensing of firearms was really more of a formality; enforcement of this law had been lackadaisical at best for those who bothered to get a gun. However, deranged criminals like the pedophilic Otaku Murderer and the necrophiliac Kiyoshi Okubo (whom she knew about from a TV drama she saw from behind her parents' backs when she was about nine years of age) had convinced her that she did the right thing. 'They don't make television shows like they used to,' she footnoted to herself.

Feeling Sanosuke's and Yahiko's respective stares from behind her neck as she sat stock-still on the living room couch in front of the blank television set, the eldest Kuwabara daughter opted to change the subject. "Never mind the weapon's law. I'm kind of curious as to when you feudal-era clods kicked the bucket anyway. What, did you die as young twenty-somethings or... something?"

It was now both Sanosuke and Yahiko's turn to pause and contemplate. A few seconds later, the older of the two resurrected spirits replied, "Hey, weren't you listening earlier? Didn't I just say that I was probably senile when this radio doodad came along? It's hard to go senile when you're just nineteen. Besides, we lived during the Meiji Restoration, not the feudal times, lady!"

Yahiko exaggeratedly curved his lips downward like a kabuki actor, raised his eyebrows way up, and slowly nodded in approval of Shizuru's question; she had, after all, brought up a good point.

"Well, Koenma allowed our souls to get the bodies we had when we were in tiptop condition. I only appear as 'Grandpa Yahiko' whenever my descendants are around so that they could recognize me immediately. In fact, my father and grandfather in heaven love to appear in their early twenties and thirties as well. To be honest, the only times spirits in the Spirit World appear as their older selves is when they need to. Otherwise, they'd rather look like teenagers, young adults, or even children regardless of how old they were when they died. I mean, if you were a ghost, would you want to spend the rest of eternity as an old crone?"

Shizuru blinked repetitively at Yahiko's answer. "Really? Wow. It's nice to know that you can actually pick what you look like once you're dead. However, that just opens up a whole lot of other questions. If you were thin before, then got fat, can you make your spirit look thin? What if you were never thin? Can't you make your soul look better all the same? Also, what about those who died young? Can they make themselves look older? What if you had a lot of plastic surgery, and you actually look better with it? Can that carry over once you're dead?"

The sound of ethereal "flesh" and "bone" hitting wood was heard in the background. "Can we not think about that, nee-chan? You're giving me a serious headache, and it's a sensation that I definitely did not miss as a ghost in the Spirit World," Sanosuke proclaimed while sitting down at the dining table and placing his overloaded, bandanna-wearing forehead on the furniture's surface. "Why are we even talking about that? It's not even important!"

Nevertheless, Yahiko... like a doting grandparent who was telling old war stories to a curious grandchild... humored Shizuru's questions, answering, "Just as beauty is in the eye of the beholder, the appearance of the soul is in the eye of those who see it. Besides, 'seeing' souls in their bodily incarnation is just the way the human mind can interpret what a soul is, which doesn't have a physical form at all, come to think of it. If you died as a child, then you could stay at the banks of the River Styx and wait for reincarnation, appear in the form of one of your past lives if you're an old soul and you still remember those identities, or remain as a child in the afterlife if you so wish."

"Wait. Wait. The second-to-the-last one... You said if you're an old soul, you can essentially choose which reincarnation suits you the best once the Spirit World finally allows you to meet your ancestors? As in you have a choice between ancestry?" questioned Shizuru, because she was fairly sure this was never discussed to her during religious studies. Meanwhile, Sanosuke raised his head implicitly to roll his eyes and slam it again on the table as Yahiko worked himself up to a storm.

"It... gets kind of chaotic from that point. Some people usually get reincarnated endlessly because of their ever-changing karma, so it's either they come back as slugs or humans with improved lots in life depending on how well they fared the last time they were alive. For these people, their past lives and identities might as well have been written on beachside sand, because it gets constantly washed away by the ebb and flow of the tides of fate."

Yahiko wondered briefly if he himself should've chosen to be reincarnated, but he was mostly glad that Koenma deemed him worthy of patriarch privileges in his ancestral family tree. He got to stay with Tsubame and her own family, and they got to learn about the facts of the afterlife such as this. "For some people who have particularly old souls or potent willpower, their identities practically stay the same as they get reincarnated from one life to the next; they have the ability to retain all their memories and identities once dead. They get to pick which ancestry or house to belong to in heaven because they're probably the ones who started those houses from the very start."

"But if you're not a powerful soul and you've acquired bad karma throughout your life, your past identity becomes meaningless, and your whole life is nothing more than a collection of forgotten identities," Shizuru finished for Yahiko, surprised at how different actual afterlife politics worked when compared to the religions they were based on.

Back in Koenma's office...

"YOU HAVE NO IDEA? What do you mean you have no idea? Don't give me that copout excuse for an explanation! What kind of a Spirit World Prince are you? And what was with your theatrics concerning 'Pandora's Box' and all that nonsense? Are you kidding me?" was what Botan didn't scream out in sheer frustration and lividness because she still held Koenma in high regard despite the obtuseness of his repetitive answers. Her scorching eyes did all her talking for her, though. Kenshin, on his part, appeared confused, frustrated, and disillusioned by the turn of events.

The Lord of the Dead clarified, "You don't understand. The Spirit World typically purges all past records of souls who've been judged to move to purgatory in order to complete their purification." Koenma furrowed his eyebrows in sympathy to Botan's plight as she slowly realized what he meant earlier by her "Pandora's Box".

"You want to know the truth? Here it is. We only keep records of the living in order to keep tabs with their final fate and karma in the afterlife. Once they're dead and deemed fit for purging or reincarnation, all records of their previous incarnations are destroyed in order to protect them from any 'relapses' that may damn their soul to nothingness or hell. The Tree of Knowledge can serve as a good failsafe procedure for people who had just been purged care of the lotus blossoms, but otherwise, it's not supposed to clear the 'hidden' memories of shinigami, because there are no memories to be retrieved once you've passed through purgatory."

Koenma moved in front of his speechless shinigami and gently removed the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge from her weakened grip. "I'm sorry, Botan. You're not Kaoru Kamiya. To be frank, I'm not sure who you were before you were purged of your bad karma and memories in the Purgatorial Sector. For all intents and purposes, you're Botan now. Just Botan. That's the fate that all shinigami have to resign themselves to. Even I who've been tasked to discern the intricate web of fate that bind and move mortals towards their ultimate destiny have no clue of who you were before. In your case, it's something that's best left forgotten anyway. Presumably."

Botan was at a loss for words. Out of all the scenarios she played inside her head, this was the most unexpected in the sense that she was surprised at how depressing this non-revelation turned out to be. She imagined that the news of her still having no past as a lot less depressing than how it eventually turned out.

Koenma breathed a sigh of relief. If he could pat himself on the back, he would've right then and there. 'I'm so glad that everything is settled,' he appraised to himself as he prayed for karmic absolution for the tough decisions he had to make that very moment. He was just about to share the good news concerning Kenshin's recently revived compatriots when Kenshin himself mentioned one major detail that the boyish god left out. "If what you say about shinigami is true, Koenma-dono, then why did Kaoru-dono appear to me as soon as I lent the power of the Demon Sword to Botan?"

Koenma thought for all of three seconds before disintegrating the fruit he had on hand into spirit energy and shrugging. "Oh, don't worry about that. It must have been the work of the chaotic magic that's been placed on the Youtou Shinnoken. It's probably the same reason why Yusuke reacted to your sword in a different manner to Botan or to those demons that tried to steal it."

Kenshin and Botan stared blankly at Koenma for a minute. "You never mentioned anything about the Demon Sword being cursed by chaotic magic before, Koenma-dono."

Had Koenma the power to kick himself on the seat of his pants, he would've then and there. The information he inadvertently relayed wasn't just a slip of the tongue; it was a linguistic double somersault of catastrophic proportions. He'd just wasted his earlier feigning of shock and ignorance in regards to the Reikai artifact's unpredictable behavior. To be true, the reason why that sword was cursed with a smattering of chaotic magic on it was because Reikai didn't want a repeat of what happened within the dimensional barrier back when Hiroshima and Nagasaki were utterly annihilated by the Americans.

Koenma only had one solution to this dilemma... talk his way out of it. "I have no idea. Reikai artifacts can be moody things, y'know? Why, there was this one time when the Mirror of Forlorn Hope granted the wish of its thief without taking a life because it was touched by the selflessness of the wish: to bring back the healthiness of the thief's foster mother. Who knows? Maybe this chaotic magic is the Demon Sword's way of protecting itself from the demons that it's supposed to slay."

Koenma started to perspire a lot under the suspicious, half-lidded glare that Botan aimed at him despite the fact that celestial entities didn't even have any sweat glands to speak of; the ferry-girl knew him long enough to know when he was talking nonsense for the sake of impromptu mendaciousness. "Hey, if you two are so curious about why Kamiya Kaoru's soul and memory is residing within Botan, then why don't you ask her for yourselves? I mean, she appears whenever Botan is holding the sword, right? Then go for it!"

Back at the Kuwabara residence...

"Are you two going to go on gabbing and loitering around the Human World instead of doing what you were instructed to do? Some of my living Reikai Tantei weren't exactly the sharpest tools on the shed, but at least they knew how to obey orders and finish missions!" a muffled, disembodied voice suddenly announced from out of the blue.

"Koenma? Koenma, is that you?" Yahiko curiously said, confounded by the deity's non-sequitur appearance. "Why the heck did you send us out to Ningenkai, only to come here and talk to us again? And where are you anyway?"

"I'm the only begotten son of a Buddhist Dharmapala and the Crown Prince of the Spirit World. Of course I could be omnipresent when called for," Koenma rebuked, only to add, "Just kidding, this is a magically recorded message. Check the bills I gave you earlier."

"You mean the play money? We dumped them in the trash," Sanosuke commented, which prompted the collective yet stifled screams of what sounded like hundreds of Koenmas. "GET US OUT OF THE TRASH, YOU DUNDERHEADS!" the multiple clones of the only begotten son of a Buddhist Dharmapala commanded with as much dignity as they could muster while stuffed inside mounds of garbage.

Yahiko grabbed the first crumpled piece of Spirit World money on the top of the trash heap and smoothened it out. Sure enough, the not-so-legal tender's picture of Koenma was huffing and puffing in disgust and indignation. "Didn't I tell you two to crash into one of Tokyo's many hotels if you can't find either Yusuke or Kenshin? At the very least, you could've bought some clothes that would help you blend in this new world!"

"Do you have that bib on too tight? What hotel will accept you? I mean, this money you gave us?" Yahiko retorted warily, feeling slightly silly about arguing with a piece of paper.

"Tokyo has special-issue rooms for Reikai Tantei who present this type of money, you dolts. When I said there are a million hotels you can go to in Tokyo, I meant it. A variety of hotels and other businesses are willing to accept this currency on a "no-questions-asked" basis to boot. They advertise that they accept Visa, MasterCard, check, and C.O.D., but what they don't tell you is that quite a lot of them accept Spirit World money too," the paper bill bearing the self-aware "recording" of Koenma's peace-waving portrait admonished, which made Yahiko feel a lot more sillier than before for an assortment of reasons.

"DON'T THROW ME BACK TO THE TRASH!" the Koenma buck soon shouted as Yahiko did what he deemed as the sane thing to do. To the resurrected boy's surprise, Shizuru snatched up the errant piece of money and asked, "How many 'other businesses' are we talking about here? Will it be okay for these two morons to use, um, you and your little friends in the Harajuku shopping district? Are you even accredited with the Bank of Japan?"

"W-ell, it's a bit trickier in Harajuku, but I can easily point out all the possible Shibuya stores that do accept... well, us," the Reikai paper bill reassured while both Sanosuke and Yahiko felt an inimitable feeling of revulsion and horror in the pits of their stomachs. Most any manly man would at that point.

Shizuru beamed with cold anticipation as she put out the cigarette butt she had on her mouth on the ashtray she threw at Sanosuke's head earlier. "Boys, it looks like we're about to go shopping at Shibuya."

To be Continued...

Next: The Kaoru and Botan Power Hour.

Sorry for the unreveal. There's a reason for that. Also, Sanosuke was talking about the Great Kanto Earthquake that destroyed Tokuji Kayakawa's mechanical pencil factory, which led him to shift his focus on radios and establish the Sharp brand of electronics.

Meron pa ba akong masasabi?
Abdiel