::Authoress' note--one of the ideas in this chapter was inspired by something from Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (which i sure as hell don't own, in case you can't tell). can anyone guess what? for those of you who don't like guessing, it's a mirror. for those of you who do like guessing, sorry to ruin your fun. don't worry, though; this chapter'll make it aaallllllll better!
DarkFlame136
Btw, does anyone know the deal on this Harry Pothead and the Sorcerer's Bong? if that's a real book, i wanna know where to find a copy!
##Take II: Stuff you WON'T Find in a Spirit Headquarters Yard Sale##
Botan, Yusuke, and Kuwabara left through Mitsuno's bathtub soon after. Once there, Kuwabara had the nerve to ask that one question no one else wanted to.
"What do you think she meant by it's odd that the other two still trust him?"
Botan didn't answer right away. Normally, she was the queen of gossip; this was way too personal. 'And Sairen's kinda scary when she's mad…'
"It's probably between those two, so it's definitely nothing for you to worry about, " Yusuke supplied. He looked down at the air Elemental's little list once more. "And just what the hell is a 'Ebon Blade'?"
"THAT is her second most prized possession, so I'LL take care of that one!" Botan insisted.
'Second most, huh?' he thought. 'Do I even want to know what the first one is?'
"Botan, we passed Vault 4 a LONG time ago!" Kuwabara complained. "We're almost done with the fifties now!"
"I know, but we've switched the rooms again due to security reasons," she explained, "the vents in this area have been sealed off and we installed a hi-tech particle beam laser system and a vacuum if that doesn't work."
"What's the vacuum for? I thought you guys had janitors to clean up."
She thought of Sairen's ability to turn herself into a fine mist. "Um…it's not meant for dust. Let's see now…Vault 64...65...here we go!"
Yusuke frowned. Kuwabara looked totally freaked out. The former spoke.
"Botan…why's there another 6 spray painted in red next to the number stenciled on the wall?"
Kuwabara latched himself onto the other boy's arm without thinking. "Man…what if this place is cursed?"
Botan sighed. "It's not cursed, silly. This is Sairen's handiwork, I'm sure."
"But you just said the security's been stepped up here!"
This went in one ear and out the other while she tried to remember the code to open the first part of the lock system (they now had a different seven digit number for every day of the month). Using a pass card, she then opened the doors.
The other two blinked. "I thought this was a SECURITY vault, not a museum!"
"She DOES have a wide assortment of toys, Yusuke. Don't touch anything if you don't know what it is; and chances are, you don't."
As she pointed this out, the red head was looking sideways at a severed head that looked fresh off the shoulders of the sexy yet unlucky apparition it came from, only without the blood pooling around everywhere making a big mess. He poked it. "This thing can't be more than it seems--"
As he pointed this out, the not-so-dead head opened its eyes. "Got beef, bitch?"
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
WOMPH!
"KUWABARA, YOU ASS, GET OFF ME!"
"BUT, URAMESHI--!"
"Kuwabara, I TOLD you not to touch anything!" Botan stalked straight past the teens (who were in a wrestling match) over to the head. "What did you do?"
"Nothing, he started it! I almost lost an eye!"
She sighed in exasperation. "You're a severed head, for crying out loud; you shouldn't even be ALIVE!"
"Hey, don't hate me for making YOUR job easier!"
WHAM! Yusuke's fist connected with Kuwabara's face, sending him on a one-way trip across the room, narrowly missing Sairen's collection of poisoned pole-axes.
Dusting off his hands, the spirit detective asked, "Why in the world does she HAVE that thing?"
The head scanned the room as well as it could from its stationary position. Satisfied that no one else was there, it whispered, "I'm Sairen's old boyfriend!"
"NANI!?!?!"
"I came before Hiei. I'll admit I kinda liked her friend, too, so things didn't end on a good note. I'll tell 'ya, though, I can't WAIT to see what she did to HIM for letting Mitsuno--"
WHACK!
@v@;;
"That's enough out of you for today," Botan put her paddle back in the dimensional place she stows it in. "Yusuke, there's a jewelry box over there. One of the rings is a band with shifting colors. Be gentle yet fast when you take it. And, please, don't insult the stand!"
"Um…right." he followed the direction she pointed in. Sure enough, there was a jewelry box, only it looked more like an open box with a…tree resting on a red velvet cloth. A very strange tree with a semi-familiar shape. All five of its branches were full of rings, including the smaller one farther down on the left.
He whistled. "Wow, she sure has a lot of jewelry. I might need a hand in finding the right one!"
Botan's cry carried clear across Vault 66(6), almost making Kuwabara drop his end of the large, cherry oak box they were moving. "Yusuke, you idiot! Apologize, and quickly!"
"Why, what'd I say?" he reached to take a ring off of the stand. "Botan, I really don't--HOLY SH*T!"
The stand--which he KNEW looked a little too much like a hand--latched on to his wrist with a death grip unlike any demon he ever faced.
"GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!!"
At this point, Kuwabara just couldn't take anymore. "AHHH! That's IT! I'll see you guys later!"
"Kuwabara, get back here!" Botan demanded, who, since he totally dropped his end, was having trouble lifting the dark box containing Sairen's sword.
"NO WAY! THIS PLACE IS HAUNTEEEEEEEEEDDD!" the last word faded out as he hauled his chicken ass out the door without a backward glance.
"Botan, a little help--" Yusuke madly waved his arm around and pried at the fingers with no avail.
"Yusuke! Just relax--"
"WHAT?"
"I SAID, just relax! That was a present from Shalmar, so chances are it will absorb any energy you emit!"
Shalmar? 'Isn't she one of those off-beat earth Elementals?' Yusuke did the exact opposite of what Botan told him; at the same time he increased his Spirit Energy, the hand began to glow with power of the same color.
Yusuke didn't feel his own increase at all, no matter how much he put out. 'What's going on?' He stared at the hand, which now could have lit up a dark hallway with ease. 'Wait a sec' "That's MY energy!"
"No sh*t, Sherlock!" Botan grabbed the hand. "Return that at ONCE, and let go when you're done!"
He immediately felt his energy draining back INTO him instead of out. After almost a minute of dimming, the hand completely winked out and allowed itself to be placed back on the stand.
He massaged his sore wrist. "What the hell IS that thing?"
Botan was peering closely at the rings on the hand, none of which had been lost during their little disagreement. "Elementals have an interesting sense of humor, Yusuke. Don't ask and I won't answer."
"Don't worry."
She found the ring she had been looking for on the middle finger ("Of all places," she rolled her eyes). It took them almost ten minutes to find the next item on the list, and another twenty to persuade the suit of armor to let them have it.
"What the hell does a suit of armor need with a damn mirror?" Yusuke fumed, stuffing it in his pocket next to his house key.
"Hey! That Glass isn't unbreakable and it's very rare!" Botan snatched it out, examining it for scratches.
Grumbling, he took the crumpled list out of his other pocket, which also contained his lighter. "Ok, we have everything except the Ebon Blade, magnifying Lens, and the sweet Corn. Gods, I hope that last one has nothing to do with a foot!"
Botan frowned. "Now I see why we need the magnifying Lens. That has to be found before we can move the sword."
"Why do we need a MAGNIFYING glass when its so damn big as it is?"
"That's just it--the Lens has two sides: one magnifies, one "zooms out", if you will. Or, to be more precise…" her eyes rested on a blue whale the size of a goldfish playing in a fish tank. "…it makes objects smaller."
*sound of object falling* BOOM! *dust cloud* (that would be Urameshi's jaw dropping ("*sound of object falling*"), hitting the floor ("BOOM!"), and causing a spray of fine debris ("*dust cloud*") )
He stood motionless as the dust cleared. Botan didn't seem to have noticed a thing, including the pot hole his mandible left in the floor. "Lord Koenma keeps the Lens in his office. I COULD just use the Glass to get it, but I don't like borrowing her stuff without asking…"
Yusuke bent down, picked up the rest of his face, and shoved it back into place. "Cuen--*twist twist* *crack!*
("Oh, Yusuke, that's just gross!")
--Couldn't you just do it, anyway? I mean, she DID send us to get it so we can actually USE it!"
"Hmmm….Well, you do have a point. It beats the walk, too, and I can just tell him that we were making sure it still works." Botan took out the Glass and gazed into it. The onyx surface began to swirl into pearl gray smoke (you know, like in one of those dream-sequence thingies) and then Koenma's (Dad's) office appeared. With little extra effort, she called up a view of the inside of his top right drawer.
Yusuke was peering over her shoulder into the mirror. "Why's it so dark, Botan?"
She answered slowly, not wanting to lose concentration, which had been known to have deadly consequences. (Sounds hard to believe, neh? you'll see why in a minute…or to save time, you can just ask the severed head. What? You can't get to the vault? Guess you'll have to wait and see, then! ;P )
"This is the inside of the desk where Lord Koenma keeps it. Now, don't distract me…"
In slow motion, she placed one hand on the surface of the Glass. Or, rather, THROUGH the surface. It took all Yusuke had to keep his mouth shut. 'Since when do people go through mirrors?' He could also hear her rummaging around the drawer, which was a little freaky. Her arm stopped moving.
"Got it…I hope." a few more seconds of muttering and she took her arm out of the Glass, with a vermilion, spiraled magnifying glass in hand. Taking one look at it, she nodded, "Yup, this is definitely the right one!"
Her partner started. "Woah, that's…neat, I guess."
Botan smiled. "If you are able to use it, the Glass allows you to see anything, anywhere, or anyone you wish to; with enough will power, you can also pass through to get what you want."
"But, if the person loses their concentration, you'll also get stuck--if you're lucky."
They both jumped, having forgotten about the head. It continued after a few seconds, "I HATE that stupid thing! It's all fine and dandy until someone gets caught!"
"So, then…what happens if you're NOT lucky?"
If it had shoulders, it would have shrugged. But, since it was just a head, it winked at the detective. "You end up like me!"
"He kinda lost the rest of his body when he was coming through the Glass--"
"You mean, SAIREN kinda lost the rest of my body when I was coming through the Glass," it interrupted. "She did it on purpose, too, that witch!"
"Serves you right for trying to cheat on her," Botan shot back. "And personally, I think her idea was a pretty good one!"
Yusuke looked as sick as Kuwabara did before he left. "Yeah, but…she STILL HAS his head!"
"Probably as an object lesson to show everyone after me," it glared at Botan. "And I STILL think I look better than Hiei, Botan!"
*Tsch* "Looks aren't everything, you know." For good measure, she whacked the head over the…well, head, a second time with the paddle of death…you know, she BEING Death and all.
The Head: @v@;;
Botan: *satisfied smirk* "Ok. All we have to get now is her sword and the sweet Corn. You can get the last one, Yusuke, and I'll meet you outside the lounge."
*blink, blink* "What? Botan!" 'Good grief! Who's feet am I going to get THAT from?'
She laughed at the face he was making. "It has nothing to do with feet, if that's what you're thinking!"
Yusuke breathed a very grateful sigh of relief.
"She's talking about the POPcorn that's sweet and buttery!" Botan giggled some more. "And she did that on purpose to see how you'd react, plus she didn't feel like going to the store."
"I knew that…hehe…" Totally ashamed of his misinterpretation, Yusuke headed out of the vault to try to find one of the lounges. He snapped his fingers as he remembered something. "Botan--that magnifying Lens…what does it do, again?"
"I'll show you." She stood over the large case holding Sairen's large blade. "Don't you try this, mind you, because if you use the wrong side you could be in a lot of trouble!"
He started to say "I don't see how", but then he remembered that Elementals have an interesting sense of humor. Especially this one. Instead, he stood back and watched Botan focus one side of the Lens above the box. Nothing happened.
"Um…maybe it's broken." 'I HOPE it's broken, actually'
"Oh, darn. I forgot that you need sunlight." an industrial sized flashlight materialized out of her nifty dimensional place where she keeps everything else. "Here, hold this above the Lens and turn it on. Look away as soon as possible."
He did as he was told (for once). And, damn, that was one bright little light. More like a miniature sun, actually…
Ok, I admit it, I lied. He didn't quite do what he was told: He looked right through the Lens at the box. Not that he could see anything besides white light. If Yusuke had been wearing sunglasses like Botan's, he would have seen the box shrink in size until it could easily fit in the palm of his hand. In truth, he continued to see white light five minutes after the lamp was shut off. And he was starting to get a headache. Yusuke hated headaches almost as much as he hated being stupid enough to do the inverse of what someone tells him.
Botan had pocketed the miniature box and Lens. Now she was leading the blinded, pissed off detective towards the lounge to get the last item on the list.
"Dammit, Botan, why the hell didn't you tell me the light was so damn bright?"
"Because I thought that you could take a hint. I SAID the Lens needs SUNLIGHT in order to work, baka." She sat him down on a sofa. He could hear her walk across the room and open a cupboard. "And what kind of bulbs did you think a flashlight THAT large took? Ten watts?"
Yusuke grumbled for the second time that day. Not too much later, he felt someone standing in front of him. "Keep your eyes closed and hold still," he heard Botan's voice above him before her warm hands eclipsed his eyes. The warmth began to seep through his eyelids, soothing his now pounding headache. The brightness inside his eyelids was fading into darkness.
She removed her hands. "Don't open your eyes for a few more minutes and you should be fine. No, better yet," she slipped something into his hand. It felt like glasses. 'Please don't let these be bifocals!'
"Put these on afterwards, so your eyes won't hurt from the lights."
"Thanks, Botan. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"You know what, Yusuke?" she patted his hand in understanding. "Me, too."
DarkFlame136
Btw, does anyone know the deal on this Harry Pothead and the Sorcerer's Bong? if that's a real book, i wanna know where to find a copy!
##Take II: Stuff you WON'T Find in a Spirit Headquarters Yard Sale##
Botan, Yusuke, and Kuwabara left through Mitsuno's bathtub soon after. Once there, Kuwabara had the nerve to ask that one question no one else wanted to.
"What do you think she meant by it's odd that the other two still trust him?"
Botan didn't answer right away. Normally, she was the queen of gossip; this was way too personal. 'And Sairen's kinda scary when she's mad…'
"It's probably between those two, so it's definitely nothing for you to worry about, " Yusuke supplied. He looked down at the air Elemental's little list once more. "And just what the hell is a 'Ebon Blade'?"
"THAT is her second most prized possession, so I'LL take care of that one!" Botan insisted.
'Second most, huh?' he thought. 'Do I even want to know what the first one is?'
"Botan, we passed Vault 4 a LONG time ago!" Kuwabara complained. "We're almost done with the fifties now!"
"I know, but we've switched the rooms again due to security reasons," she explained, "the vents in this area have been sealed off and we installed a hi-tech particle beam laser system and a vacuum if that doesn't work."
"What's the vacuum for? I thought you guys had janitors to clean up."
She thought of Sairen's ability to turn herself into a fine mist. "Um…it's not meant for dust. Let's see now…Vault 64...65...here we go!"
Yusuke frowned. Kuwabara looked totally freaked out. The former spoke.
"Botan…why's there another 6 spray painted in red next to the number stenciled on the wall?"
Kuwabara latched himself onto the other boy's arm without thinking. "Man…what if this place is cursed?"
Botan sighed. "It's not cursed, silly. This is Sairen's handiwork, I'm sure."
"But you just said the security's been stepped up here!"
This went in one ear and out the other while she tried to remember the code to open the first part of the lock system (they now had a different seven digit number for every day of the month). Using a pass card, she then opened the doors.
The other two blinked. "I thought this was a SECURITY vault, not a museum!"
"She DOES have a wide assortment of toys, Yusuke. Don't touch anything if you don't know what it is; and chances are, you don't."
As she pointed this out, the red head was looking sideways at a severed head that looked fresh off the shoulders of the sexy yet unlucky apparition it came from, only without the blood pooling around everywhere making a big mess. He poked it. "This thing can't be more than it seems--"
As he pointed this out, the not-so-dead head opened its eyes. "Got beef, bitch?"
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!"
WOMPH!
"KUWABARA, YOU ASS, GET OFF ME!"
"BUT, URAMESHI--!"
"Kuwabara, I TOLD you not to touch anything!" Botan stalked straight past the teens (who were in a wrestling match) over to the head. "What did you do?"
"Nothing, he started it! I almost lost an eye!"
She sighed in exasperation. "You're a severed head, for crying out loud; you shouldn't even be ALIVE!"
"Hey, don't hate me for making YOUR job easier!"
WHAM! Yusuke's fist connected with Kuwabara's face, sending him on a one-way trip across the room, narrowly missing Sairen's collection of poisoned pole-axes.
Dusting off his hands, the spirit detective asked, "Why in the world does she HAVE that thing?"
The head scanned the room as well as it could from its stationary position. Satisfied that no one else was there, it whispered, "I'm Sairen's old boyfriend!"
"NANI!?!?!"
"I came before Hiei. I'll admit I kinda liked her friend, too, so things didn't end on a good note. I'll tell 'ya, though, I can't WAIT to see what she did to HIM for letting Mitsuno--"
WHACK!
@v@;;
"That's enough out of you for today," Botan put her paddle back in the dimensional place she stows it in. "Yusuke, there's a jewelry box over there. One of the rings is a band with shifting colors. Be gentle yet fast when you take it. And, please, don't insult the stand!"
"Um…right." he followed the direction she pointed in. Sure enough, there was a jewelry box, only it looked more like an open box with a…tree resting on a red velvet cloth. A very strange tree with a semi-familiar shape. All five of its branches were full of rings, including the smaller one farther down on the left.
He whistled. "Wow, she sure has a lot of jewelry. I might need a hand in finding the right one!"
Botan's cry carried clear across Vault 66(6), almost making Kuwabara drop his end of the large, cherry oak box they were moving. "Yusuke, you idiot! Apologize, and quickly!"
"Why, what'd I say?" he reached to take a ring off of the stand. "Botan, I really don't--HOLY SH*T!"
The stand--which he KNEW looked a little too much like a hand--latched on to his wrist with a death grip unlike any demon he ever faced.
"GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF!!"
At this point, Kuwabara just couldn't take anymore. "AHHH! That's IT! I'll see you guys later!"
"Kuwabara, get back here!" Botan demanded, who, since he totally dropped his end, was having trouble lifting the dark box containing Sairen's sword.
"NO WAY! THIS PLACE IS HAUNTEEEEEEEEEDDD!" the last word faded out as he hauled his chicken ass out the door without a backward glance.
"Botan, a little help--" Yusuke madly waved his arm around and pried at the fingers with no avail.
"Yusuke! Just relax--"
"WHAT?"
"I SAID, just relax! That was a present from Shalmar, so chances are it will absorb any energy you emit!"
Shalmar? 'Isn't she one of those off-beat earth Elementals?' Yusuke did the exact opposite of what Botan told him; at the same time he increased his Spirit Energy, the hand began to glow with power of the same color.
Yusuke didn't feel his own increase at all, no matter how much he put out. 'What's going on?' He stared at the hand, which now could have lit up a dark hallway with ease. 'Wait a sec' "That's MY energy!"
"No sh*t, Sherlock!" Botan grabbed the hand. "Return that at ONCE, and let go when you're done!"
He immediately felt his energy draining back INTO him instead of out. After almost a minute of dimming, the hand completely winked out and allowed itself to be placed back on the stand.
He massaged his sore wrist. "What the hell IS that thing?"
Botan was peering closely at the rings on the hand, none of which had been lost during their little disagreement. "Elementals have an interesting sense of humor, Yusuke. Don't ask and I won't answer."
"Don't worry."
She found the ring she had been looking for on the middle finger ("Of all places," she rolled her eyes). It took them almost ten minutes to find the next item on the list, and another twenty to persuade the suit of armor to let them have it.
"What the hell does a suit of armor need with a damn mirror?" Yusuke fumed, stuffing it in his pocket next to his house key.
"Hey! That Glass isn't unbreakable and it's very rare!" Botan snatched it out, examining it for scratches.
Grumbling, he took the crumpled list out of his other pocket, which also contained his lighter. "Ok, we have everything except the Ebon Blade, magnifying Lens, and the sweet Corn. Gods, I hope that last one has nothing to do with a foot!"
Botan frowned. "Now I see why we need the magnifying Lens. That has to be found before we can move the sword."
"Why do we need a MAGNIFYING glass when its so damn big as it is?"
"That's just it--the Lens has two sides: one magnifies, one "zooms out", if you will. Or, to be more precise…" her eyes rested on a blue whale the size of a goldfish playing in a fish tank. "…it makes objects smaller."
*sound of object falling* BOOM! *dust cloud* (that would be Urameshi's jaw dropping ("*sound of object falling*"), hitting the floor ("BOOM!"), and causing a spray of fine debris ("*dust cloud*") )
He stood motionless as the dust cleared. Botan didn't seem to have noticed a thing, including the pot hole his mandible left in the floor. "Lord Koenma keeps the Lens in his office. I COULD just use the Glass to get it, but I don't like borrowing her stuff without asking…"
Yusuke bent down, picked up the rest of his face, and shoved it back into place. "Cuen--*twist twist* *crack!*
("Oh, Yusuke, that's just gross!")
--Couldn't you just do it, anyway? I mean, she DID send us to get it so we can actually USE it!"
"Hmmm….Well, you do have a point. It beats the walk, too, and I can just tell him that we were making sure it still works." Botan took out the Glass and gazed into it. The onyx surface began to swirl into pearl gray smoke (you know, like in one of those dream-sequence thingies) and then Koenma's (Dad's) office appeared. With little extra effort, she called up a view of the inside of his top right drawer.
Yusuke was peering over her shoulder into the mirror. "Why's it so dark, Botan?"
She answered slowly, not wanting to lose concentration, which had been known to have deadly consequences. (Sounds hard to believe, neh? you'll see why in a minute…or to save time, you can just ask the severed head. What? You can't get to the vault? Guess you'll have to wait and see, then! ;P )
"This is the inside of the desk where Lord Koenma keeps it. Now, don't distract me…"
In slow motion, she placed one hand on the surface of the Glass. Or, rather, THROUGH the surface. It took all Yusuke had to keep his mouth shut. 'Since when do people go through mirrors?' He could also hear her rummaging around the drawer, which was a little freaky. Her arm stopped moving.
"Got it…I hope." a few more seconds of muttering and she took her arm out of the Glass, with a vermilion, spiraled magnifying glass in hand. Taking one look at it, she nodded, "Yup, this is definitely the right one!"
Her partner started. "Woah, that's…neat, I guess."
Botan smiled. "If you are able to use it, the Glass allows you to see anything, anywhere, or anyone you wish to; with enough will power, you can also pass through to get what you want."
"But, if the person loses their concentration, you'll also get stuck--if you're lucky."
They both jumped, having forgotten about the head. It continued after a few seconds, "I HATE that stupid thing! It's all fine and dandy until someone gets caught!"
"So, then…what happens if you're NOT lucky?"
If it had shoulders, it would have shrugged. But, since it was just a head, it winked at the detective. "You end up like me!"
"He kinda lost the rest of his body when he was coming through the Glass--"
"You mean, SAIREN kinda lost the rest of my body when I was coming through the Glass," it interrupted. "She did it on purpose, too, that witch!"
"Serves you right for trying to cheat on her," Botan shot back. "And personally, I think her idea was a pretty good one!"
Yusuke looked as sick as Kuwabara did before he left. "Yeah, but…she STILL HAS his head!"
"Probably as an object lesson to show everyone after me," it glared at Botan. "And I STILL think I look better than Hiei, Botan!"
*Tsch* "Looks aren't everything, you know." For good measure, she whacked the head over the…well, head, a second time with the paddle of death…you know, she BEING Death and all.
The Head: @v@;;
Botan: *satisfied smirk* "Ok. All we have to get now is her sword and the sweet Corn. You can get the last one, Yusuke, and I'll meet you outside the lounge."
*blink, blink* "What? Botan!" 'Good grief! Who's feet am I going to get THAT from?'
She laughed at the face he was making. "It has nothing to do with feet, if that's what you're thinking!"
Yusuke breathed a very grateful sigh of relief.
"She's talking about the POPcorn that's sweet and buttery!" Botan giggled some more. "And she did that on purpose to see how you'd react, plus she didn't feel like going to the store."
"I knew that…hehe…" Totally ashamed of his misinterpretation, Yusuke headed out of the vault to try to find one of the lounges. He snapped his fingers as he remembered something. "Botan--that magnifying Lens…what does it do, again?"
"I'll show you." She stood over the large case holding Sairen's large blade. "Don't you try this, mind you, because if you use the wrong side you could be in a lot of trouble!"
He started to say "I don't see how", but then he remembered that Elementals have an interesting sense of humor. Especially this one. Instead, he stood back and watched Botan focus one side of the Lens above the box. Nothing happened.
"Um…maybe it's broken." 'I HOPE it's broken, actually'
"Oh, darn. I forgot that you need sunlight." an industrial sized flashlight materialized out of her nifty dimensional place where she keeps everything else. "Here, hold this above the Lens and turn it on. Look away as soon as possible."
He did as he was told (for once). And, damn, that was one bright little light. More like a miniature sun, actually…
Ok, I admit it, I lied. He didn't quite do what he was told: He looked right through the Lens at the box. Not that he could see anything besides white light. If Yusuke had been wearing sunglasses like Botan's, he would have seen the box shrink in size until it could easily fit in the palm of his hand. In truth, he continued to see white light five minutes after the lamp was shut off. And he was starting to get a headache. Yusuke hated headaches almost as much as he hated being stupid enough to do the inverse of what someone tells him.
Botan had pocketed the miniature box and Lens. Now she was leading the blinded, pissed off detective towards the lounge to get the last item on the list.
"Dammit, Botan, why the hell didn't you tell me the light was so damn bright?"
"Because I thought that you could take a hint. I SAID the Lens needs SUNLIGHT in order to work, baka." She sat him down on a sofa. He could hear her walk across the room and open a cupboard. "And what kind of bulbs did you think a flashlight THAT large took? Ten watts?"
Yusuke grumbled for the second time that day. Not too much later, he felt someone standing in front of him. "Keep your eyes closed and hold still," he heard Botan's voice above him before her warm hands eclipsed his eyes. The warmth began to seep through his eyelids, soothing his now pounding headache. The brightness inside his eyelids was fading into darkness.
She removed her hands. "Don't open your eyes for a few more minutes and you should be fine. No, better yet," she slipped something into his hand. It felt like glasses. 'Please don't let these be bifocals!'
"Put these on afterwards, so your eyes won't hurt from the lights."
"Thanks, Botan. I don't know what I'd do without you."
"You know what, Yusuke?" she patted his hand in understanding. "Me, too."