Last Chapter: Botan watched a scary movie that sent her into a freefall that only ended when she woke up in her own bed in Spirit World. She tried to head out to do her job, but her first task took her to another unusual movie, one that (literally) pulled her in, bringing her to the rice fields, with Hiei. Hiei told her to wake up and she was sent into another freefall, that again ended with her in her bed in Spirit World: but this time she found she was apparently under watch from a prison guard.


Chapter 19: You Have to Wake up

Botan awoke with a start as she heard something metallic clanging nearby her, her entire body jerking in her bed, her eyes snapping open. Ayame was standing by her open doorway with a fresh kettle of hot water, but a thick arm across the doorway was blocking her access.

"I already told you, visiting hours are nine to five," the guard told her, the remainder of his body somewhere beyond Botan's line of sight, in the hallway outside of her room.

"Let her in," Botan said.

Her voice sounded thirsty.

"It can't be long past five," she added.

After she had drunk all the tea Ayame had in her room, Ayame had left with the empty kettle, and Botan must have drifted off to sleep, because she could not remember anything else after that.

"It's ten to nine," the guard said.

"Ten to nine?" Botan echoed. "Already? You said it was five o'clock when Ayame left!"

"It was," the guard replied. "When she left. Now it's ten to nine."

"This is ridiculous!" Ayame argued. "You can't hold her prisoner here like this!"

"That's exactly what I can do, Miss," the guard answered her. "Lord Koenma's orders. Be thankful you're here, in your own room, and not in a prison cell, like you ought to be."

"She is not a criminal!" Ayame insisted. "And you have no right to treat her as one!"

"We already went over this yesterday," the guard replied.

"Yesterday?" Botan asked.

"You can't restrict visitors to the same hours applied at the prison!" Ayame said. "And even if you must, I am but ten minutes early!"

"Ten-ten minutes e-early?" Botan echoed. "D-don't you mean four hours late?"

"It's eight fifty in the morning," the guard replied.

Botan's face dropped and she slumped into her bed.

"Let me in, please!" Ayame said to the guard.

"If I make an exception this time, you'll keep expecting it, and start pushing for more," he replied.

"Let her in!" Koenma's voice suddenly barked.

The guard's arm dropped out of Botan's line of sight and Ayame hurried into the room, placing down the kettle and wiping her hands on her kimono. She turned around, pressing her back against the desk she had laid out the items for making tea on.

"I'm ready for more tea now, Ayame," Botan said, grabbing at her bedsheets and hauling herself up.

Her arms and legs were weak and the points where she knew she had wounds throbbed and thumped in rhythm with her rising heartbeat, but her throat was painfully dry, and her need for hydration overtook every other sense. She managed to get herself up into a sitting position, her back resting against her headboard.

"Tea, Ayame," she said, weakly holding out a hand towards the ferry girl. "Please."

"Make her some tea, it's fine," Koenma said to Ayame as he entered the room.

Ayame gave Koenma a strange look.

"Make me a cup too, while you're at it," he added.

"But Sir, I…"

Koenma and Botan watched Ayame expectantly as she fidgeted uncharacteristically, her face slowly turning pink.

"You took a big enough kettle of water," Koenma pointed out.

"I only have the two bowls, Sir," she said, her voice sounding forced and pained.

"Ogre!" Koenma yelled.

George's head appeared in the doorway.

"Go to the common room and fetch another bowl for me," he instructed.

"Yes Sir," George agreed with a nod of his head. "Right away, Sir."

Ayame held up a finger, but George was gone before she could speak.

"I'm not sure I have enough for three people, Sir," she said.

"Don't be ridiculous, Ayame," Koenma dismissively replied.

Ayame opened her mouth, but said nothing. Koenma watched her until she turned around and began hovering over the kettle of hot water. Koenma pulled out the chair from the desk and hopped up into it, but Botan kept her eyes on Ayame for a moment longer. She had never noticed before that the three pins Ayame had in her hair were not exactly the same. Two were regular hair pins, but the middle pin was of uniform thickness and much shorter than the two pins: almost like it was not a pin at all.

"Now Botan, Yusuke assures me he's hot on the trail of the Lure," Koenma began.

Botan turned her attention to her boss.

"The Lure is still alive?" she asked.

"Yes, Botan, it is still alive," he confirmed. "And still at large in the human world."

Botan turned to look at her window.

"Which is why you are being contained here," Koenma said.

Botan slowly turned back to look at him.

"My father wanted to hold you in a prison cell," he said solemnly. "He was angry when he heard you had approached a Lure alone, he was irate when he found out you went back and sought it out again, and now, now that you've gone back to it twice, he is inconsolable. I had a long, hard fight with him to convince him to let me hold you in your room. He is angry that I'm using a prison guard, that I've taken a resource from the prison, but I've done it to support you, Botan. I've done everything I can to help you, and now you need to help yourself. Do you understand?"

Botan slowly shook her head.

"You can't even so much as think about looking for the Lure," he explained. "Or looking for any other Lures."

"I wasn't thinking that," Botan lied. "But… I don't understand what happened."

"You found the Lure, at the start of the mission," Koenma patiently explained. "It took you. Kuwabara and Kurama freed you and took you back here, and when I put you back out to work the next day, the first thing you did was go to find the Lure. It took you again, and Kuwabara and Yusuke freed you and took you back here. I put you under Ayame's supervision, but you escaped and went looking for the Lure, where it took you a third time."

"So… Nothing that happened to me was real?" Botan asked. "Nothing at all?"

"Most of what you've experienced over the last few days has probably just been an illusion," Koenma replied.

"I saw some strange things."

"The Lure will have shown you your ideal life."

"It showed me a lot of bad things."

"Bad things?"

"It made me think I'd assaulted Ayame with my metal bat."

Koenma said nothing. Botan moved her eyes to Ayame, who was still standing over the teapot. One of her hands was fluttering by her head, but she quickly lowered it to the teapot when she noticed Botan looking at her.

"That was real, Botan," Koenma said.

Botan froze.

"You were really so desperate to go back for more from the Lure, you took leave of your senses and assaulted your best friend," he added.

Botan looked over at Ayame, who did not respond.

"I-I didn't mean to do that," she said quietly.

"I know that," Ayame quietly replied. "I'm not angry. I don't blame you."

Botan slowly shook her head.

"But I would never…" she tried. "I thought I was hallucinating… I would never intentionally hurt you, Ayame!"

"I know that," Ayame said turning to face her with a smile that Botan felt was far kinder than she deserved to be on the receiving end of.

"I'm so sorry, Ayame," Botan told her, Ayame's smiling face blurring before her as tears burned her eyes.

"Don't cry, Botan," Ayame said gently, touching a hand to her shoulder. "You don't have to apologise. I know you didn't mean to do it."

"Alright, well, I have to go," Koenma said. "Ayame, don't stay here all day, you still have duties to perform yourself, remember."

"Yes Sir," Ayame answered him, bowing politely as he walked past her. "Of course, Sir."

Koenma approached the door as George appeared there, holding a bowl for tea.

"Too late, ogre," Koenma said to him. "As usual…"

Koenma continued out of the room and George hesitated in the doorway for a moment, fumbling awkwardly with the bowl before dashing back in the direction of the common room, presumably to return it.

"How are you feeling this morning?" Ayame asked.

"Tired, thirsty, confused," Botan admitted.

She turned to look at Ayame at the exact moment the older ferry girl slid a zip-lock bag of crushed leaves, berries and flowers from one of her sleeves.

"That's…" Botan began, pointing at the bag.

"My special blend," Ayame replied with a smile. "I save it for my friends."

Botan watched Ayame move over and pour out the contents into the teapot. As she added water from the kettle, Botan found herself unable to think of anything other than the one, slightly sinister, idea that arose in her mind.

"You didn't want to share that tea with Lord Koenma," she said, voicing the idea to gauge Ayame's reaction.

"Koenma already has access to all the finest food and drink in our world," Ayame casually replied. "We deserve something special just for us, right?"

Botan took a moment to think about what was happening. Ayame had made that same blend of tea the night before, but she had also drunk it herself – although she had not taken much of it, and had seemed displeased with the flavour – and she had served it to Botan before. Possibly more than once.

"What's in it?" she asked.

"Just some leaves, some berries – for sweetness – and some flowers," Ayame replied.

"Berries for sweetness?" Botan asked.

"Yes," Ayame confirmed.

"What are the flowers for?"

Ayame paused before answering, and although her pause was brief, it was enough of a lag in the conversation to arouse even more suspicion in Botan.

"Depth of flavour."

"To take away the bitterness?"

Botan remembered Ayame had been upset the night before, concerned that the tea tasted bitter.

"Exactly, yes," Ayame replied.

"The bitterness of what?" Botan pressed.

"The leaves."

Ayame turned around, stirring a bowl of tea.

"I never thought of tea leaves as being bitter before," Botan said, eying Ayame suspiciously.

"Here you are."

Botan accepted the offer of the tea, the scent wafted up to her nostrils and the combination of the sweet scent and her uncomfortably dry throat overtook any other concern she had. She lifted the bowl to her lips and gulped down half the contents before she could stop herself. It tasted as delicious as it always did, and it seemed especially satisfying, the warmth travelling all down her chest, the relief to her dry throat making her sigh and relax a little.

"It still tastes bitter," Ayame muttered.

Botan looked up at Ayame as she took another sip from her own bowl, her lip curling as though she disliked the taste. Botan meant to ask her why she thought it was substandard, but before she could, she found herself finishing her own bowl. Ayame took another sip but her face changed, and her eyes shifted as three other ferry girls appeared by Botan's open doorway.

"This isn't a show, girls," Ayame said to them coldly. "I'll thank you to move along now."

Two of the girls looked concerned and moved on as asked, but the third smiled and took a step closer, moving herself into the doorway.

"You should be careful what you say, Ayame," she said smugly.

"As should you, Izanami," Ayame replied, lowering her bowl of tea.

Izanami's smile widened, as though Ayame had just said something amusing and ridiculous.

"I saw you," she said.

Ayame put her bowl down on Botan's nightstand at her side, a little more for forcefully than seemed necessary, some of the tea sloshing out over the sides.

"Yes, that's right," Izanami said. "You think you're better than all of us, but you're just the same. King Enma wants to lock up Botan because a demon attacked her and took control of her, but that wasn't her fault. What you did yesterday absolutely was your fault, and I don't see anyone locking you up."

Ayame clenched her fists at her sides.

"You don't know what you're talking about," she said quietly. "And you should mind what you say. Starting dangerous rumours like that could land you in a lot of trouble."

"Are you threatening me, Ayame?" Izanami asked, stepping into the room. "Seriously?"

"I'm telling you to stop being foolish," Ayame coldly replied.

"I was there, Ayame," Izanami said pointedly. "I saw what you did."

"You don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes I do. And so do you. If King Enma thinks Botan needs to be locked up for trying to fight a demon, what do you think he would do to you if I told him I witnessed you making a deal with a demon."

There was a short, tense, pause. Botan became aware that she had, at some point during the exchange she was witnessing, picked up Ayame's bowl of tea and already consumed half of it. She started to drink some more, but almost found herself choking on it in alarm when Ayame suddenly, and with a brutal amount of force, slapped Izanami across the face. The younger ferry girl stumbled into Botan's wardrobe, took a moment to wince at the pain of the blow, but then righted herself and smiled at Ayame again.

"I saw you, Ayame," she said. "I saw you making a deal. I saw you giving one of the ancient books from the Spirit World library to a demon in exchange for–"

Izanami was cut off as Ayame slapped her again, hitting her hard enough to send her crashing to the ground.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Ayame said sternly. "And if I so much as think you've repeated any of your nonsense to anyone else, you will be the one in a prison cell. Is that clear?"

Izanami awkwardly got to her feet, one hand touching the side of her face she had been hit on. She gave Ayame a harsh look, but Ayame stood her ground, the look on her face positively terrifying: Botan had never seen Ayame show so much emotion, and for it to be anger, an emotion she seemed too in control of herself to succumb to, only made it all the more shocking to behold.

"You don't know what you're talking about," Ayame said quietly. "Is that clear?"

Izanami nodded solemnly before scurrying out of the room. Ayame took a step back before leaning to one side a little, as though looking for the guard she knew was outside the door. She then darted into Botan's bathroom, sitting onto the edge of the bath and covering her face with her hands. Botan finished her tea and readjusted her position to better see Ayame. She was shaking all over, her breathing loud and ragged. After a few moments of sitting that way, she bolted up, threw up the toilet seat and vomited into the toilet.

"Ayame?" Botan called to her. "Are you okay?"

With a shaking hand, Ayame wiped her mouth, flushed the toilet, and moved over to the sink, splashing cold water on her face. She wiped her face clumsily with a towel and then came back into the bedroom.

"I don't know how you do it, Botan," she said faintly.

"Do what?" Botan asked.

"Deal with demons."

Botan tilted her head questioningly, but Ayame took the bowl from her hands and refilled it with tea, bringing it back over to her.

"Thanks," Botan said, keenly accepting her offer. "Are you sure you're alright?"

Botan began drinking her tea, watching Ayame expectantly. She nodded shakily.

"You're really brave, Botan," she said. "I don't know how you do it. I never could. I can't even handle talking to demons. I could never be courageous enough to fight one."

"…Really?" Botan asked.

Ayame nodded, sitting down a little roughly onto the chair from Botan's desk. She put her face in her hands again and, as she finished her latest bowl of tea, the thought occurred to Botan that Ayame admitting to failure, seemingly acting guilty when accused of making a deal with demon, and Koenma ordering a guard from the prison to contain her in her bedroom all seemed like unreal concepts.

"Am I awake?" she asked, more in the expectation that the Lure might answer her than anything else.

"Yes, Botan, you're awake," Ayame answered her.

Botan turned to look at her, and, after a moment, Ayame met her eyes, smiling softly, despite the fact that her hands were still shaking, and her face was still sickeningly pale.

"Is it true?" Botan whispered to her. "Did you give a book to a demon?"

The look on Ayame's face was all the answer Botan needed.

"Don't worry about it," Ayame whispered. "It's all over now. You're back, and you're safe."

Botan looked over at her open doorway. The guard was nowhere to be seen, but she was sure he was just out of her line of sight.

"Why did you do it?" she asked, looking at Ayame from the corner of her eye.

"Don't worry about it," Ayame said again. "Lie down, get some rest. You'll heal up quicker after a good rest."

Ayame stood up and Botan placed down her bowl onto her nightstand. She intended to make herself more tea once Ayame had gone, but found her plan spoiled as Ayame gathered up the bowls, teapot and kettle, and took them with her when she left the room. Botan watched her go, waited what she thought was a reasonably long amount of time and then threw off her bedsheets. She scrambled out of bed, but groaned involuntarily when her feet hit the ground and the wounds in her legs throbbed painfully. She took a few steadying breaths before turning towards the open doorway. The guard stepped back into her line of sight then and she smiled at him falsely before turning away and moving into her bathroom.

Botan hid in the bathroom, listening carefully until she heard the guard moving. She then peeked back out into her bedroom, ensuring herself that he was out of sight before leaping towards her window and fumbling with the catch. She quickly and quietly opened it, throwing open the window. She summoned her oar – something that took a little more effort than she cared to admit – and sat onto it, levitating up and aiming herself towards the opening.

The second the end of Botan's oar passed the windowframe, the entire window flashed white and a jolt of energy shot through her. Her oar popped out of existence and she fell to the ground, her entire body hissing and smoking from the shock.

"The window is protected with a barrier," the guard called in to her.

"Yes, thank you!" she called back sarcastically. "I see that!"

She tried to stand up, but between her wounds and the shock she had just received, she found her limbs failing to support her weight.

"If you've got any sense, you'll sleep this off, then beg for forgiveness," the guard advised her. "Maybe if you spend the next century keeping your nose clean and doing any task asked of you without hesitation or complaint, you might be forgiven for what you've done."

Botan clenched her hands into fists in frustration. She had to be hallucinating. Koenma would never confine her to her room under the supervision of a prison guard. Ayame would never give a book from the Spirit World library to a demon. Izanami – or any of the other ferry girls – would never dare try to bribe Ayame. Ayame would never panic and throw up.

"You-you've cheated me again," she said, looking about herself, expecting to see the Lure's little face appear at any moment. "You've never given me what you did the first time – you promised to, but you didn't!"

Botan received no answer and she sighed, slumping down against the floor.

"Botan."

She groaned and closed her eyes.

"Botan."

The Lure sounded far, far away.

"Botan."

It was probably in the living world. It was probably at the rice fields. The only way out would be to find it, to confront it, to demand that it either fulfil its end of their deal or release her.

"I just wanted to be happy," she said miserably, her voice muffled by the floor.

"Come to me, Botan."

Botan groaned and pushed her face into the floor.


Botan awoke with a start. She was on the floor, slumped into a ridiculous position, underneath her bedroom window. She lifted herself up to sit on one hip and looked about herself. Her room was dark, the sky outside was barely dark, as though the sun had just set. The last thing she could remember was trying to fly out the window after Ayame's visit, which she was sure had been at nine in the morning, and yet it appeared to be nine at night already. She glanced over at her desk in the off-chance Ayame might have left her some tea, but unfortunately found nothing.

Botan slowly stood up, turning as she stood.

Her bedroom door was closed.

She slowly, silently, crept towards the door, stopping inches short of it and turning her head, craning her neck to bring her ear as close to the door as possible without actually making contact. As her ear got closer to her target, she started to hear that buzzing sound again, and the air became warmer. Her hair began to prickle, and shorter strands were drawn towards the door from the static energy she could feel around the doorframe.

There was a barrier over her door. Just like how she had earlier discovered there was a barrier over her window. The guard was likely gone – she could not hear anything outside of the door – but with a barrier that powerful blocking the door, there was no need for him to stay.

But the door and the window were not the only ways out of the room.

Botan backed up, all the way to her bathroom, glancing at the window and the door one last time before backing into the room and approaching the laundry chute. It would be an uncomfortable fall, but if she jumped into the laundry chute, it would take her down to the ground floor of the temple, to the laundry room. If the sky outside was any indication, it was late evening, and the laundry room would be empty. Once there, she could sneak out, through the back corridors, around the ogres' quarters and out the back of the temple.

She reached out a hand towards the hatch to the laundry chute, the air getting warmer around her fingers and a buzzing sound starting up: apparently Spirit World had foreseen her attempt to escape that way and put a barrier over the laundry chute access hatch. She retracted her hand with a growl of irritation and began looking about herself. There had to be another way out, a way nobody else would have thought of.

"Botan."

The Lure had quite an annoying voice sometimes, Botan thought to herself as she gritted her teeth and frantically tapped on the tiles on the bathroom wall and poked her toes at the floor, in the vain hope that she might find a secret hatch somewhere.

"Come to me, Botan."

Botan growled and gripped her hands into her hair at either side of her head, squeezing her hands into tight, tight fists, strands of her hair snapping as they were pulled out from the root, her fingernails biting into her palms.

The fan.

Botan slowly opened her fists and relaxed her stance – which had been slightly crouched and hunched and tense – and her eyes moved up to the circular fan high on the bathroom wall above the shower. She fumbled up her sleeves, retrieving the Psychic Spyglass. She held it over one eye, a smile growing on her face at what it revealed: behind the fan, behind the wall, the space opened up and joined a ventilation system that moved in the direction of the back wall of the temple. It was a short distance from the fan to the exit, but the path was very tight and twisted at sharp, rigid angles, seemingly joining up with vents from fans in the adjacent rooms.

She stowed the Psychic Spyglass and quietly retrieved a nail-file from her bathroom cabinet. She then stepped into the shower cubicle and stretched up to quietly unscrew the screws attaching the fan to the wall. She had the covering off in under a minute, and, after experimentally reaching a hand into the cavity in the wall, she found that there was no barrier to block her exit that way. She would just need to jimmy a few tiles from the wall and collapse some of the plasterboard to create a hole big enough to climb through.

The tiles around the edge of the hole were not very well attached to the wall, and the first one came away with only a little force. The second tile eventually came loose, but not before Botan had bent her nail-file out of shape. She carefully placed the tile down on the toilet cistern and crept over to the sink, where she had a small box of tools. The most useful one she could find was a flathead screwdriver, which she took with her, grabbing a full bottle of bath oil, which she wrapped in a towel. She then looked for small, hairline cracks in the grouting, placing the sharp end of the screwdriver against them and hitting it with the bottle of bath oil. The towel helped muffle the blows, allowing her to hit quite hard, breaking away the tiles slowly, painfully, piece by piece.

Her arms ached, and holding them above shoulder-height to work was torture, but she knew she could not stop. She was unsure how long it took her, but she eventually had created a jagged hole big enough to crawl through. She placed down her tools and grabbed the wall, hoisting herself up and pushing her head and shoulders through the gap. She reached her arms deeper into the wall, into the air duct, clawing for purchase to haul herself up and into the space entirely. Her left leg rose through the gap no bother, but her right leg, coming through the slightly shallower side of the jagged hole she had created, caught. She winced and moaned and jerked herself forwards, slamming the wound in her right leg into the edge of a tile.

Botan balled her hands into fists and pressed her forehead to them as she broke out into a sweat, the sickening pain of her action overwhelming her for several seconds. But it was not like she could stop, it was not as though she could just let herself slide back down to the floor and crawl back to her bed, to sleep, to drink more tea, to heal.

She had to get back.

Botan steeled herself and began crawling, on her belly, along the air duct. She had to move carefully, the space so small every movement threatening to be loud enough to be heard in other, neighbouring, rooms. After just a few wriggling movements, she reached the first bend, which turned to the right and angled downwards. She reached her arms around the corner and let gravity assist with pushing her weight down and around. As her legs rounded the bend, her still aching right leg was forced to scrape against the join between two sheets of metal on the wall of the duct, bringing out a fresh burst of sweat over her body, the pain so intense she had to hold her breath to stop herself from crying out.

She eventually slid to the next bend, a sharper bend to the left, that continued at the same height, so lacked the advantage of a slope to ease her progress. She had to hook her elbows, one at a time, around the corner and push down on them, making the wounds in her arms throb – particularly, the swollen bands of skin around her wounds, which felt as though they were filling up to bursting point – to pull the top half of her body around the bend. Once she was around as far as her waist, she began scrambling with her feet, wincing every time she unintentionally kicked the side wall, sure that every thump and bang she made would betray her location. She was torn between desperation to get out as quickly as possible and the need to be discreet.

Finally, she got the lower half of her body around the bend and began crawling, still on her belly, towards the opening to the outside. Thankfully it was just a hard, plastic flap, and it took little effort to push it open, finally bringing the sky beyond into her line of sight.

It looked lighter outside.

How long had she spent breaking down the tiles and crawling through the airduct?

Botan wriggled forward further, pushing the flap open and pulling her head, arms and chest out of the opening. It was a long, long drop down, and she would need to fall out, as there was no room for her to get onto her oar. She held onto the frame of the exit with one hand and reached out her other hand, attempting to summon her oar. It took effort to summon it, her spirit energy apparently still being drained dealing with her wounds.

If she concentrated hard enough, she could re-channel it. She could leave her wounds to fester and gain the energy she needed to summon her oar, leave Spirit World, and find the Lure.

The Lure had not called on her since she began her escape, but it did not need to: she needed no motivation, no encouragement, beyond her own burning desire to get back.

Botan swallowed down her tension, drew in a deep breath, and concentrated. Drawing her spirit energy together, focusing it into her hand, her oar popped into existence almost instantly. The feeling of it in her hand was reassuring, the presence of something solid, something real. She reached her other hand out and grabbed onto it, adjusting each of her fingers in turn to ensure she was gripping on as tightly as she possibly could before willing her oar to move away from the temple. Slowly, her oar drifted away, dragging her body out of the air-duct. Once she had the top halves of her legs free, she bent her knees and leapt out, leaving herself dangling in the air, hanging from her oar. She started to perform a pull-up, to lift herself up onto her oar, but it quickly became apparent that she would not be able to complete the action. She looked about herself desperately, her eyes eventually landing on the rows of bedroom windows above her. She willed her oar upwards, taking herself to her own bedroom window, aiming herself onto the narrow ledge, to balance her feet there.

With great care and precision, Botan steadied herself on the narrow ledge, passing her oar into her dominant hand and moving it around behind her legs before sitting back down onto it with a sigh of relief.

The sky was definitely lighter: apparently, she had awoken just ahead of dawn rather than just after dusk. Not that it mattered. Time was not an issue. All that did matter was getting back.

Botan flew straight up. Up, up, high into the sky, to be sure nobody would see her from below as she navigated to the correct portal. She wanted to make her journey as short and fast as possible, and the most efficient way to do that was to use the closest portal to her chosen destination, rather than just go through the nearest portal and then have to cross miles and miles of the living world.

The Lure had said nothing, shown her nothing, but she needed no clues. She knew exactly where it was. There was only one place it could be, after all. And, fortunately, there was a portal at the exact location it would be.

After a few minutes of brisk flight through the increasingly lightening pink skies of Spirit World, Botan shot through the portal to the living world, bursting into a clear blue sky, the sun rising on one side of her, casting long shadows across the land below. It was bitterly cold, the whitening of the bare trees below telling her it had been frosty overnight. She flew over a massive expanse of frozen trees before passing over Genkai's temple, whereupon she descended a little, bringing herself down to just above the height of the trees as she passed the complex entirely and continued over more forest. She rose up a little as the land sloped upwards, eventually coming to a peak, at which point the trees stopped, the land falling away beneath her.

The rice fields were as blue as the sky overhead.

Botan lowered herself down until her toes were almost touching the water, partway down the first slope. She looked about herself before slowly, sickeningly, becoming aware of eyes watching her. She looked back up the hill, up to the line of trees, where she saw a little girl, standing, her arms folded behind her back, the smile on her face unnaturally wide. Pointed, almost.

"Back again," she called down to Botan. "Of course. This will be last time you do come back to me. You realise that, right?"

Botan nodded.

"Good," the Lure said. "Then come to me. Come to me. Your demise will be exquisite. I'll take you to the peak of ecstasy and then I'll devour your soul."

Botan started to drift towards the Lure.


Next Chapter: Botan has returned to the Lure, for one final time. One final time, she falls under its thrall, and this time is like no other: this time it's paradise, pure perfection. Botan finally has everything she ever wanted, and so she continues down, deeper and deeper. Chapter 20: Walk on by