Disclaimer: Don't own YYH, I only claim onto the storyline.
Hey, some reviwer crap! I haven't done this in years! And sorry, but this only applies to chapter 52 reviewers.
Wyvernwings: I know there are spelling errors. (shoots computer) A word of advice to everyone. Don't use QuickEdit. Just don't do it. It mashes words together so much. And Wyvernwings, most of what you say is praise, so I don't mind if you have criticism. I know there needs to me more on the plot too. My plots are better in later stories, like my fictionpress one. I'd like you to compare it. If not, thank you for just reviewing my fanfiction thing.
fan: Um, no, I don't plan to discontinue Kara. You don't have to get all up in my face about it (nervous laugh) but I hoped you liked it. And I'll post something for you in the next edition of Kara, too. Sorry you was confuzzled over this one, though. He's not a traitor! Well, in his way, I guess, if you don't count...never mind. I'm not making you read it, though. I know it's confusing.
I just hope I tie it up all right in chapter 63. But I think most people will like it. At least, you all had better. It's 18 pages single spaced size ten font! Took me practically a year!
And of course, my dear old RebelWriter! Continue to review! My head just might inflate to the size of a blimp one day!
soccerchic91588: Thanks! I know, it is ironic. Fanfiction should make that into a genre on it's own: Cruel. Sick. Irony.
Seeyu: Yeah. Growth serum wouldn't kill Hiei. With it, he might even be able to battle a mouse and win.
Black Wolf Jaganshi Lover: You spelled it right (smiles). Yeah, I was sort of wondering if I should have deleted the Hiei traitor escapade, butI put it in just to be ironic. If you don't like it, I WILL NOT CRY! (sob)
Silent Storm 2000: Wonderful name...I'm glad my story is "cool beans" whatever that means (smiles) and I couldn't be happier that you like it. Thanks!
Now, we can get to the part that is actually of importance!
Chapter 53: Traitor
I run down the now dark hall, my rage fueling my speed. That bottle was empty all along. I wasted all that time, too. If I were to have given into Hiei, then he would have just taken me straight to Sensu. Tainted or not, he still should have been able to fight it.
But maybe I'm being too hard on him. He has had so much hardship in his past, it's no wonder he grew up like he did. I mean, I was taught from the start the Ten Commandments and all that other junk, but Hiei didn't have that. If anything, his parents encouraged it with their behavior. It probably was easy for Sensu to push him the other way. He was always border lined. His mind is so full of rage and hate that it probably isn't fair to blame him.
My emotions get the better of me. I run back and hoist Hiei's limp body up on my shoulders.
Or, at least, I am attempting to hoist him up onto my shoulders.
A four inch tall person doesn't carry very easily a four foot tall person. Thank God he's short.
I won't even be able to drag him, let alone carry him. What can I do?
He tries to speak every now and then, but I guess it always overwhelms his stupid little jaw. I didn't even hit him that hard. He should have woken up by now.
Unless…what if Sensu is reaching out to him again? Maybe that is why he hasn't woken up, because of an extreme mental battle. If that should happen, then I'd have to fight him again, and possibly kill him. I don't need that on my conscience, along with everything else.
Hiei is now starting to twitch violently. I quickly envelope him in my power, giving him both temporary camouflage and mind protection. But now, in the darkness of the hall, anyone could easily step on him and discover him in a heartbeat, and then they'd save me the trouble of having to kill him.
"I guess I am carrying you after all." I leave him there for a minute, and I walk around a little bit before I discover a door. I jump up randomly and I feel around for a doorknob, grab onto it quickly before I fall again, and open it. This is a real broom closet, with all the floor detergent and brooms and whatever else. I run back and drag Hiei with all of my remaining strength to the door. I put Hiei down roughly, slamming and locking the door. I take his sword before I go, which is surprisingly light and easy to carry. When my power over him runs out, at which time he'll fall to evil again, at least he won't be able to hack his way through with this sharp, pointy thing. Now, with his firepower, I don't know. But taking the sword - that will slow him down by a lot, and that is exactly what I need. I knew I shouldn't have taken him! I only wasted energy lots of energy and worry!
You know what, why should I be worried? I don't like him like I used to anymore, (did I ever like him that way anyway?) so there really is no reason for me to feel this way. It wasn't meant to be, we weren't meant to be, and I just have to get used to it. He was just stupid and pried open my shell, and I shouldn't like him for that.
Although maybe it's a compliment. He never pried open anyone else's shell before.
Whatever. I really need a life.
I quickly leave the scene, dashing down the hall at a mile a minute. I need to get big again. Who cares about stealth? I'm through with stealth. I need power. Stealth can die. Since I'm in the dark anyway, it wouldn't matter until morning. For some reason, the lights have been growing progressively darker and only now did I notice because it is almost pitch-black like Hiei's brain.
Wait! I recognize this intersection! This is right by the lobby! True enough, I do see the big brass doors which I ran through to escape Maurice. Which means…
I run faster than ever, switching to panther mode. Even though my robe trips my four feet, it is only a minor nuisance. The chemical closet should be right here…
I swear, God/Enma shone a pillar of light down on that door. I jump up about 3 feet onto the handle and press down. The door swings open, and I take a deep breath, trying not to look down. Once I have fully gotten my balance, I curl around the door, (my back legs are the only thing keeping me up)and I jump directly onto the second-to-top shelf. As soon as I land with a soft thump, my panther ears pick up on some skittering and ragged breathing.
I decide not to morph back to a human. Who knows what something as little as me is doing around here. It could be merely a rat – a very intelligent rat that somehow got onto one of the highest shelves. It could also be yet another miniscule demon employed by Sensu who is also after my blood. Still it could just be another stupid human who took a random drink trying to escape the guards and is starving to death at the size of a human hand. Hah. That sounds vaguely familiar.
What, I'm hungry!
Fighting Hiei made me realize how hungry I was. I wish I'd thought of bringing my pack. Even though it was extra dry beef jerky and bits of parsley and the occasional cracker – I didn't pack too neatly – it was still food.
There it is again! That annoying skittering! Maybe it has food with it! Maybe it is food, even! Maybe it's a grasshopper! A yummy demon grasshopper!
Now I'm scaring myself. Does hunger really do this to you?
Trying to smother my agonized stomach, I take one step, the two, then three. The breathing becomes more obvious. I'm closing in. My instincts; the real panther form; says kill it. I suppress it angrily. That's a long time since that has happened to me. I guess I'm getting sloppy with my panther mind control.
Now I hear the breathing as if it was right next to me. I prepare to strike. What could be here? Because if it is a rat or a demon, maybe I will eat it. Much as I hate eating anything that hasn't already died or been cooked, I think I'll take it raw today. Even though I absolutely hate sushi...
Well, I think me in my panther form will digest it perfectly anyway, and I'll starve otherwise, and I'll be ridiculed by everyone for not saving the world. I do not want that. Can you even die in the spirit world, anyway?
I grimace. Survival of the fittest…I must survive…whatever is here is going on his or her own private tour of a panther's digestive system.
Finally, I corner it. It squeals...like a human.
I prepare, but I decide not to strike it. I lower my massive paw. That blue hair…
For I see a face that I thought I would never see again.
But she's...she's dead...
She shrieks, but then stops when she sees I'm not going to hurt her. She studies me, as I'm studying her. She circles me, as do I. It's not registering: this can't be Botan. Botan was dead! So was Genkai! We already decided this! Am I hallucinating or what? Maybe this is an unknown side effect of starvation.
The reality hits both of us at the same time. I...
"I can't believe you're alive." I whisper.
"I can't believe you're alive." She responds.
"What happened?"
"Your whole group started it, so you have to start talking."
"All right, Botan, this is my long and boring story."
"What about the others?" She demands.
"I don't know about anyone else, except that they are alive. I left without them because none wanted to go with me." Okay, it's a bit of a lie, but I don't want to sound like a fool by saying I wanted to go alone. "Now tell me about you."
"They left you? That's harsh." (My insides give a guilty squirm.) "But anyway, you know how Genkai and I were traveling together? Well, first off, we got sidetracked with these monster worms, called Paras or something. Genkai got really hurt---"
"Where is she?"
"I'm getting there, I'm getting there. She saved my life by deflecting a blow, and basically, she needed healing time, so we couldn't risk going to the village. So we stayed out there for about 3 weeks, and when Genkai was healed, we went up to the alley that we said we would meet."
I groan. "21 days? You're sure?"
"Yeah. You guys weren't there."
"That was the day we were tracking you! We were out for a few hours. Why didn't you guys wait before going up to the castle? Why?"
"Are you serious? Well, it was Genkai's idea. She figured you guys had gone up to the castle because you figured we were dead."
"This is so unbelievable..." I can't believe this. We both thought the same wrong thing! Why can't my life ever be fair? What happened to my life back in America?
"Yeah," she agrees. We sit in silence.
"So," I begin angrily. "So, tell me where the hag is? And why are you my size?"
"Yeah, her. Well, we got into a scuffle with a guard, and so we ran in to hide. We picked this chemical closet, at random. Well, the guard caught us, so I took a random draught from one of the shelves. It turned out to be a shrink potion. But Genkai wasn't quick enough, and so the guard caught her and probably took her to a dungeon. He subdued her by whacking her hard upside the head, so now she's probably sitting in the dungeon all cuckoo. I've been hiding out here ever since, eating some edible food scraps. The guard saw me too, I think, but he tried to corrupt me and it didn't work, so he just left me."
"Damn it, that's exactly what happened to me! What do you mean, 'corrupt?' What is that?"
"It's basically mind control for evil. To corrupt someone, you take every bad memory the person has, and move it into their soul room. The person lives with the memories and eventually makes it part of them. When the soul room is totally black, you know they are either evil or corrupted to be evil."
"So that is what happened to Hiei." I can't tell if I'm relieved or frightened.
"What?" She asks sharply. "Hiei was corrupted? But to break a will like his, you'd need some kind of psychic demon. Who do we know who is a psychic demon?"
"I dunno, maybe Sensu. We know nothing about his powers, after all. Lahri maybe. But that's it. And Lahri couldn't manage a huge task like that."
She thinks for a moment, something she seldom does seriously. Even weirder is the frown that follows. "You know, I've always kind of wondered about her. Always aloof, scared to talk, worried about everything. Her behavior matched those of spies Koenma caught recently."
"He caught some spies?"
"Yes. I don't know exactly who. Koenma didn't trust me enough." Her voice is bitter.
"So then, why couldn't you be corrupted?"
She smiles. "Nothing to use against me." She says, tapping her head happily. "As soon as I get a bad memory, I just totally forget about it. It's a weird brain trick that I learned 12 years ago. It's why I'm always cheerful. Nothing to cloud my mind." She smiles again.
"Botan," I ask gently, "Isn't that a pretty self-deceiving way to live?"
"Yes, it is. But it's a habit with me, and it makes me happy, so I continue it. Even though I had to ditch my old personality for it. When I was younger, I am told I was very...different. I don't remember. It was a bad memory."
"Where do those memories go?" This is really important. I try to sound uncaring, and hide my hunger for the answer.
"Just in some corner of my brain. Why?"
"Botan, I think you might have some memories that could be really important." This was why she didn't remember her encounter! "Like, what happened when you were attacked by the Beast in the Fog?"
She screws up her face. "That must have been a bad memory, for I do not recall it."
"But Keiko and Mie said that you were partially conscious, and when you spoke to me in the fog, you said you had 'found out too much'. What did you find out, Botan?"
"I told you, I can't remember."
"All right. Um...Botan, sorry..."
"For wha---"
I morph and slam her with all my strength of one massive paw. She falls to the ground in front of me with a soft thud, dead asleep. Tons of turquoise hair arranges itself about her tiny head. Getting sidetracked, I feel all that pretty hair. God, how can anyone hold their head up with this much hair? I could count strands for 5 years and I still wouldn't be done!
Slapping myself mentally, I let go of her hair. I astro-project and enter her sleeping mind.
Why did I not think of this before? Botan being the key; what was so difficult about that? This is how I can find out what that creature actually did to them. And why Mie was so strange after that encounter. I wasted all that time trying to get it out of Mie, and Keiko was really closed-mouthed about it.
When I open my eyes again, I see that all of her mind mazes are white. Not a speck of impurity anywhere. The tunnels are round, making it hard to balance. Exactly the opposite of Hiei's. I need to look for a deathly black room; holding all of her bad memories.
I don't have to look long. I just follow the trail of inky black stuff spreading across the spotless floor. Her bad memories must be building up and clogging up any other thought. Her mind is very complex, though. There's a point for Botan's intelligence! She'd be perfect for Kurama. Perky and personality-less.
Ah. The source of it all. A door is slightly ajar, and is leaking that arsenic-like stuff. I guard myself with some demon power, and open it.
There are so many memory screens in here; I don't have to wonder why some are fading and slipping out into her conscious mind.
I start to search. After many minutes of searching through all of these horrible memories, some quite violent or inappropriate (let's just leave it at that), I find one memory showing her seeing a Japanese woman getting killed by an advancing wall of demons. She actually looks a lot like Mie.
I mentally shut myself up again. It can't be Mie. That woman is about thirty.
Moving on, I find a memory showing two demon men talking. I recognize them to be Parasi (that thing that I kept slapping in the garden), and a blue creature in a hood. They are also talking to a huge white beast with yellow eyes. This is what I need. (The screen is obviously what Botan's eyes saw.) Keiko and Mie are on either side of her. They are listening just as hard as Botan herself.
"Here's the message, Ogre and Parasi."
I stop. Mr. Under Appreciated? A...a spy? This is really serious. This was how Sensu found out everything about me! Ogre did it! And...of course. Botan couldn't tell Koenma because she forgot that memory, and Mie and Keiko hadn't met Ogre yet...
Damn. What has he been doing back there in Koenma's office? I turn back to the screen.
Whitey speaks. "Now, your Katrina will come after the girl soon. When that happens, we are to bring her to him. If we fail, well, we'll have to find another."
"What if the daughter does not come?"
"Then we keep using more humans, until she finally comes. Once Sensu has those two powers, then he'll successfully destroy the human pests."
"I suppose," said the other.
Keiko hisses, "Guys, we gotta get out of here."
The other two nod. Keiko creeps away first, followed by Mie.
And guess what Botan does?
She TRIPS.
The big blue demon turns around, and notices them, and yells. He roars and the white one runs over to Botan with god-like speed, stopping only to fling Botan behind him, digging his claws into her back, where she falls with a nasty crunch about 6 feet away. Keiko cries out and tries to run back to Botan, and Mie pulls her back too late. The creature runs at them, and Mie has that much time to put up a shield of wind.
The demon slashes mightily, but it can't penetrate it. At first. Then Mie's power starts to weaken, the red glow on her hands vanishing slowly, and so she uses her last bit of strength to blow Botan out of harm's way.
Now, I am watching from a distance, and my eyes are rapidly going out of focus. I'm watching Mie and Keiko vanish without me. Then, a black thread of something slips out of nowhere (was it from the demon or something else? too far to tell!) and strikes Mie on the center of her forehead. Her eyes widen, flash black for an instant, and then return to brown. Suddenly, she gets severely enraged, and her power dies. But then, she gets this burst of renewed power and conjures up a winstorm to fly away Keiko and herself. Botan loses consciousness and the memory dies.
That was very odd.
After inspecting other memories for other clues and finding none, I walk out of the hall.
An idea comes to me.
I have no right to do this, but Botan is betraying herself. I must call her back to reality for her sake. She has to come down to Earth. I ignore that sinking feeling in my stomach that comes when I know I'm doing something wrong.
I dip into my power. I open all of the doors to the outside, to the perfect whitewashed walls.
The lost memories seep out, filling her perfect little brain, until I know Botan is back to normal, and the personality she should have had is back in play. As the black washes over me, I get depressed, both because of it and because of myself. Why did I do that?
With a sigh, I walk around, trying to sort out the information. Botan was conscious; she must have been for her to have that memory. It had happened all like Mie and Keiko had said it did. But what was that black strike? Why had Mie's eyes changed color? And why had her power suddenly intensified after she had been struck? And it certainly did sound like they had planned to kidnap someone, probably Lahri, so it was not a random kidnapping. She was my lurefor a reason.What is it about Lahri that makes her so special to the Dark Side?
It's all becoming confused, like a dream. It's mind-boggling. Nothing makes sense.
I boot myself out of her mind, and re-enter my rightful body. I use some of my power to heal the fresh new bruise on her cheek, and then go to sleep.
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I guess I thought that if I woke up, I would have the answer. Well, I don't. I'm just as confused as before. All I have figured out is that something happened to Mie that day, whether good or bad or crazy or even accidental I don't know.
I glance over at Botan. She has already woken up. I notice a definite change in her eyes.
"Er…Botan?"
"Yeah?" She has a more tomboyish voice.
"Do you feel all right?"
"Yeah."
"You sure?"
"Yeah."
"Botan, talk to me."
"Why? You got a damn problem with it?"
Oh my god. What have I done to her? "I have a confession."
"Yeah?"
"I released all of your bad memories last night, to find out some information."
"WHAT? Why'd you do that?"
"To save lives."
She's quiet. "So that's why I feel so different."
No one speaks. Then she says, "Thanks, Katrina."
"For what?" Now I'm bewildered. Wasn't she just really angry?
"You're right. It was a stupid, self-deceiving way to live. Thanks for freeing me. This was how I used to be; I'm more valuable now."
"I'm not sure I like you this way, though."
"Why?"
"Well, you were always positive the other way. I liked that."
"Oh. But I was useless that way."
"How are you any more useful this way?" For some reason, I'm feeling pissed at her.
Botan merely focuses on a poison bottle sitting next to her. She breaks it cleanly in half with an outstandingly destructive ax kick.
I gape at her. I couldn't do that. But Botan? "You can stay."
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A/N Well, this is just to make up for the length of the last chapter. Hope you enjoyed it. R&R! Thanks to all of my signed and anonymous reviewers! Have a nice day! 11 more chapters left! And wyvernwings, I am so done proofreading this. I hate QUICKEDIT! So, I'm sorry for my many errors.