Botan sighed as she looked high up at the tall building for the next school she was going to. It looked a slightly broken down and rather old with the crumbling bricks that lost their vibrant red color and the windows looked like they were becoming too fragile to be safe to touch. She fingered the piece of paper that was in the pocket of the pair of pants she had been wearing. All the information she needed to find this person was on it. She pulled it out to look at it one more time to assure herself.
"Wesley Sterling" she said out loud. She coughed as if trying to fix her voice, her accent a strong Japanese. She was just glad that she could speak German well enough, which she found easier than English even though the English tongue is a Germanic language. She brushed her white and blue striped shirt before walking into the building, and pushed the creaking door open. She winced as she did this, and ran forward into the building for a few steps as she gazed around. An eerily silence hung over the area, and Botan hesitated to move forward as she looked around, surveying the area in front of her.
"Hey" A voice called from behind her. Botan jumped and turned around sharply. A brown haired boy carrying a book with chocolate eyes was staring at her. He tilted his head as he chuckled. "You must be new; you look so scared."
Botan nodded and muttered under her breath"Yes, yes." She sighed as she regained her breath and looked up at the brown haired boy. "So, what is your name"
"Alvin" he said quietly. Botan blinked as she looked at him. Upon regaining her senses, she noticed that there was high feel for spirit energy in the room, which she may have overlooked. The name 'Wesley Sterling' ran through her head as she mused upon the thought that they possibly located the wrong name. A blonde haired boy with blue eyes walked over to the two of them and smiled.
"Oh, hello Alvin. Are you chatting up the new girl" he asked. Botan studied the new member to their conversation closely. As he got closer, she concluded that he was the one with the high level of spirit energy.
Alvin flushed pink and shook his head. "Oh, no, I was doing no such thing. I was just welcoming her to our school." The blonde haired boy nodded.
"Oh, I see." He turned to look at Botan and extended a his hand . "Hello, my name is Wesley" he said. Botan smiled, both to his kindness and the luck she had.
'Yes,' she thought to herself, 'Wesley Sterling is found.' She shook his hand and added"My name is Botan."
"Oh" Alvin started. "Why don't you come hang out with us downtown after school" Botan nodded.
"That would be lovely" she said. Before she had any time to say anything else, Wesley grabbed a book out of Alvin's hands and dashed behind Botan. Alvin did not look surprised as Wesley swung the book around to hit a rather large insect, smashing it into the wall. Alvin recollected his book from Wesley and sneered.
"Third time this week" he said as he looked at Wesley. Botan raised an eyebrow at the two of them.
"You mean you can see those" she asked. Wesley and Alvin stared at her.
Alvin shrugged and Wesley took a step toward her to question her. "We know we can, but we weren't aware that anyone else could." Botan nodded.
"Well, I can. And what do you mean by third time this week? Do you mean there have been many of them here lately" she asked. Alvin nodded slowly.
"Within the past month, anyway" Alvin replied. "We saw one try to suck the blood out of a girl a while ago, so we view that as a potential threat."
"And then there was that monster last week who attacked the old woman" Wesley added. Botan's eyes grew wider. Demons running around in Germany was the last thing reikai needed at the moment. "Good thing it was only a small little bloodsucker."
Botan sighed. Although she had gotten her hopes up with Wesley who had already begun to fight some demons, if he was Kurama, he should have recognized her by now or had some memories coming back to him, which he appeared to not have. Then again, having spirit detectives in Germany might not be so bad.
"Well you what" Botan started"how about we continue this after school? I think I might have something that may be of interest to you."
Alvin and Wesley exchanged glances, and then turned back to Botan. They then both nodded. "Alright" Alvin said. "Front hall right after the last bell rings."
A few hours later, Botan sat on top of the school holding open a compact mirror. Inside the small mirror was not a reflection of Botan, but of KoEnma. KoEnma seemed to be in deep thought as Botan listened thoroughly.
"Yes, perhaps." KoEnma said. "We could use reinforcements, reincarnation or no." Botan nodded.
"Yes, yes, and they have already encountered demons, so it will be nothing new to them" she said. "They say they have found insects swarming around." KoEnma mused on the thought.
"Insects you say? Demonic insects from makai? Then this is even worse than I thought. Insects are and always have been the first to come." Botan nodded.
"As I've witnessed before. Bring them to reikai then, sir" KoEnma nodded.
"Yes. I'll assign another ferry girl to them when they arrive." Botan grinned.
"Alright. I'll get them now." She closed the compact mirror and looked down. Standing outside were Wesley and Alvin, looking around for Botan. She materialized her oar quickly and hopped onto it, and dove off of the building and halted right before them. The two of them jumped, looking taken aback and stared at her wide eyed.
"What the" Alvin muttered as he looked at it. Wesley surveyed the oar.
"How are you floating like that" he demanded. Botan shook her head.
"No time for that now. Lord KoEnma requires you both come to the spirit world." Alvin raised an eyebrow, looking from her, to her oar, and then back to her. He then looked at the oar again, and tempted to push it down and see if he couldn't figure out how it were really floating. The oar shook a little, making Botan who was sitting on it shake as well and caused Wesley, who at the moment Botan was not focusing on, to stare a little lower than her face as her whole body shook. As Botan turned to face them both after firmly gripping her oar, Wesley's eyes darted up with well enough time that Botan didn't notice where he had been staring and saved him of a swing from her oar.
"Where exactly is spirit world" Wesley asked. Botan sighed.
"I cannot give you a very long explanation at the moment, I need to fly to Japan shortly after. But here is the basic jest of it. All of the dead people from this world have their spirits taken to reikai, the spirit world. I am a ferry girl, I carry the spirits to spirit world on this oar, like a grim reaper. Another world in existence is called the demon world, which is where those pesky insects have been coming from. The head of spirit world, KoEnma, is in need of what we call spirit detectives. You two are the most cut out for the job in Germany as far as we can tell, and it seems Germany has been a target recently." After her explaination, Alvin and Wesley eyed eachother. Neither of them were quite sure they believed her, yet they didn't seem to think she had any reason to lie quite yet.
"So? What will it be" she asked. Wesley seemed to be in deeper consideration as Alvin shrugged, deciding that he would go along with whatever Wesley agreed to do.
"We need to have more information on what a "spirit detective" is" was his answer. Botan nodded.
"Spirit detectives protect the human world from interference from demons and other troubles that may cause harm to the world, the people in it, or mess up the order of it" she said. "At the moment, we do not have many and are in desperate need of them. I believe those demonic insects you saw earlier would be good enough proof." Wesley paused to muse upon her information, and then nodded.
"We'll do it, then" he said.
Botan smiled, and grabbed Alvin's wrist because he was closer and plopped him onto the end of the oar as she shouted "Great" with happiness. In a crazed sudden haste of surprise, he struggled to grab the oar and gain his balance before falling off. He failed, falling backwards off of it and landing flat on his back. Wesley calmly sat behind Botan as Alvin scrambled off of the ground and sat down behind Wesley just as calmly. "Hold on tight"
Within a few minutes, Alvin, Wesley, and Botan all stood outside the large building in the spirit world where she had taken Yusuke before. She couldn't help but remember the moment he first came there, and soon after commented about how the whole world as ruled by a toddler which greatly upset KoEnma. She suppressed a light hearted laugh upon the memory, but couldn't help smiling even more brightly. She turned to them to inform them of mroe information.
"In a few minutes you are going to meet KoEnma. He is far older than he appears to be, as do I and most of the inhabitants here. You will have another ferry girl conduct your training as a spirit detective while I attend other duties. I do not know who it is, so I cannot tell you anything else." They both nodded, and Botan opened the big door to lead them down a long, large hallway. Within a few minutes of silence, they reached KoEnma's office.
KoEnma was standing up, looking out a window as the three of them approached. He turned his head as he looked at them and smiled. Alvin and Wesley were very taken with the fact that he looked like a teenager with a binkie in his mouth, yet didn't say anything about it and found it best to stay silent. "Ah, good to see you two so soon. My name is Lord KoEnma, ruler of the spirit world. I have arranged for Ami to train you as spirit detectives. I wish you the best of luck. If you have any urgent questions, you may ask them now." There was a brief pause before KoEnma spoke again. "Good, then. Off you go."
A girl dressed in a light green kimono and a blue obi stepped into the room. She had dark green eyes and short wavy green hair. She grinned as she saw Wesley and Alvin, and waved at the two of them. "Hi there. I'm Ami, your trainer."
KoEnma turned to Botan as he sighed. "There are three more left, Botan. One is a Chinese boy and the other two Japanese. Tomorrow you will visit China and Japan and hopefully this investigation for Kurama will be closed."
Botan nodded. "Yes, KoEnma."