Disclaimer: DON'T OWN Yu Yu Hakusho!

Chapter 55: Potions

"Botan, if this is a joke, I'm personally feeding you to the sharks. And don't think I won't follow through with that."

"No, no, no joke! It's up here all right!"

For once, I believe her. I scramble the rest of the way up, and follow the sound of her voice.

There she is!

"Botan, SHOW ME!"

"Right there." She points eagerly.

She really wasn't lying! I can't believe it! "I just, can't believe it." I run over to check and smell it. I'm about as tall as it is."It's authentic, too! No sneaky poisons!" I actually hug the bottle. "Good job, Botan! And you even got it in purple! My favorite color!"

"SO…" She waits for an answer. I have none to give her.

"Yes?"

"Are you going to take it?"

"Oh yeah…I guess I do have to take it." Now I feel really mixed feelings. I could return to normal size, and have all the power back that was once mine.

And get caught all over again…so what's the point? I will not go through this again. I've wasted so much time already!

But if I stay small, even though I risk only a small chance of getting caught, I really won't be able to do much. How can I fight even a tarantula at 4 inches tall?

"Decisions, decisions…"

Botan's voice cuts in. "Well-l-l-l? Are you going to?"

"I dunno. It could really have its disadvantages."

"Oh, c'mon, your robe will disguise you."

"Oh, you mean this old thing?" I fish it out from my POCKET. My tiny, tiny pocket.That's how small it is. It's a dirty gray tattered mess. "I can't wear this at my size, let alone when I'm big again. It disintegrated like salt."

"Salt disintegrates?" She asks, and decides not to ask why. "Okay, scratch that. I can give you my robe, though."

"And where would you be?"

She shrugs, finally out of brainless ideas.

Unfortunately, so am I.

We stand in silence for what seems like hours.

I break it. "We can't grow just yet."

She grits her teeth in rage. "Do you wanna get killed? Then by all means make that decision. I'm going to get big, though."

"Botan, think about it. It would be suicide to try to pass by as human sized demons. They can smell humans or whatever and they'll kill us. At least as little people we can slip by unnoticed."

With nothing, she whines, "I HATE BEING TINY!"

"I don't like it any more than you do, but it's our only option."

"Yeah, yeah," she says sullenly, but the her eyes light. "Katrina, can we at least carry the stuff with us? If we absolutely have to transform. Please?"

Bitch-Botan begging. This is one priceless sight to see. "Well, I can't see any harm in that…"

"YES!" She takes the bottle from my grip. "Glad you saw the light in that one, at least." She dumps out all of the vivid contents, making separate puddles of each. I am too stunned to try to stop what she is doing.

"BOTAN," I scream. "THAT WAS OUR LAST HOPE!"

"Shut up, you moron, keep your voice down! I didn't think you wanted to use it anyway!"

I take a deep breath to start screaming again, but am interrupted by a faint tinkling noise in the background. All of the puddles of violet junk have turned to make imperfect semi-round crystals. I stare at them for a moment, then go to their side. I wiggle one edge and a piece breaks off. I test it by placing it in my mouth. I chew it up, it being about as enjoyable as chewing cardboard.

I swallow.

I shoot up 8 inches! Now I'm a foot tall!

I run back to the now quite tiny Botan and screech with excitement! "Oh my god Botan, you're a genius!"

She shrugs. "I know."

"I'm big! And with just that little mouthful, too!"

"Yes, yes. But back to your old theory, you will really stand out now."

"Oh yeah." I sit down on the shelf to think.

This time Botan has the answer. "Listen, lets take shrinking crystals too! In case we need to reverse the effect!"

I look at her suspiciously. "Why weren't you this smart before I "freed" you?"

"Memories give me quite a lot of strength. By ignoring them, I left my intelligence behind as well."

"Okay, whatever. Let's find a shrink bottle!"

She obliges eagerly, and minutes later she is scuttling back to me with a bottle. I don't even have to say anything before she dumps it out into sections.

Minutes later, I am taking the hard orange crystals and testing them. I accidentally overdose myself with a bit of crystal, and end up being two inches tall.

"Awwww, you're so cute!" Exclaims Botan, bending and patting me on the head.

Angrily, I eat a little more of the growth, and become7 inches tall.

I curse and reach for the next bottle. It goes on like this for quite a while, until finally Botan manages to convince me that being 5 inches tall will work just as well as my original 4. It doesn't matter anyway. I'm dizzy and sick from growing and shrinking.

So, with nothing left to do, we load our pockets and stuff Botan's robe as well, and we still have 5 crystals left over. So, we just break those into tinier pieces still, and stuff them into our pockets as well.

Now we're all loaded physically. But I'm still human. I want to stall.

Here's my chance.

I grit my teeth. "BotanwhyumadKoenma?"

She cocks an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"

"Why are you mad at Koenma?"

"How'd you find out?" Her eyes are calm as ever.

"I went into your memories, remember?"

"Okay then. Well, Koenma will not talk to me about anything anymore. It is the most annoying thing. It's like he doesn't fucking trust me. He's never been this secretive."

"Oh. Hold grudges much?"

"That's fair to say, I guess. Anything else?"

"Er, no. What were you saying about that one war that Maritsi died in?"

"Forget it. I know you're stalling."

Damn. How'd she know?

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Back at the campsite:

"THEY LEFT!"

"Kurama, get the hell over it! Stop hyperventilating!" Jin tries to restrain Kurama.

"I'M HYPERVENTILATING? JIN, DO YOU KNOW WHAT THIS MEANS? Count us all up!"

"There's three." He says nervously.

"Exactly. Okay, look." He ticks off his fingers. "First, Yusuke and Kuwabara. Stuck and tied up in a dungeon. That's two. Botan and Genkai. Dead, most likely. Another two. And now…my little sister and her boyfriend, as well as Mie, who just felt like pissing us off, no doubt. Three! We've gone from a party of ten to a party of three. THREE!"

Touya said nothing, merely gazed into space. He knew Kurama's rage was just out of care, so he thought it best not to fight him on this one. Personally, he thought that Katrina was a selfish bitch, but at least she had tried to do something while no one else did. He commended her for that.

But why did she leave her teammates behind?

He heard Kurama speak. "There's no way she can pull it off, even with Hiei's help. We're leaving at dawn tomorrow. I'll find her and give her hell. Then, we can all give Sensu hell. Together."

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A/N Review! Interesting stuff to come next chappie!