Last Chapter: Botan was at a sleepover at Genkai's, but felt herself compelled to go out to the rice fields, where she found a broken Hiei and Shizuru appeared. Shizuru told Botan about how she had lost her mother to addiction, but that she didn't blame her mother, and likewise didn't blame Botan for where she is now. Shizuru tried to reach out to Botan, but was attacked. Botan tried to save Shizuru, but lost sight of her and Hiei, and decided it was time to DIVE UNDER.


Chapter 24: You Need to Wake up

Botan was close to the bottom. She could not see it, but she believed it, and that was determination enough to keep her swimming down, down. She was focused, intent, her conviction unwavering.

"You know, if looks could kill…"

Botan stopped instantly at the sound of a voice, talking so clearly. She looked about herself but could see nothing but darkness.

"I'm still pissed at you," Worthy the dog said tensely as she gradually came into sight in front of Botan.

"It was an honest mistake, I promise you."

There was a fox beside her, talking to her.

"I didn't think you made mistakes," she said sternly.

"Likewise," he answered her.

"What the hell is that supposed to mean?" she snarled.

"I think it would be wise for you to accept help right now," the fox calmly answered her.

"Wise, huh?" she said. "Like it was wise for you to give more drugs to someone already under the influence?"

"I do still believe it was for the best."

"You're an arrogant son of a bitch. Just admit you were wrong, asshole."

"Worthy?"

Boring appeared at Worthy's other side. Worthy gave her a wary look.

"Let me help you," Boring said gently. "Please?"

"Absolutely no way, Boring," Worthy said. "You need to be at one hundred percent."

"As do you," Boring said.

"No," Worthy said. "I can still fight. I lost an arm, but I gained a weapon."

A length of black blade appeared in the air between Worthy and Boring.

"I still have my dominant hand," Worthy added.

"You aren't seriously going to use that as a weapon?" Boring asked.

"Why not?" Worthy replied. "It hurts like a bastard. I'm gonna stab this thing into one of its eyes."

"I don't think you should even be touching it."

The blade lowered out of sight and Worthy looked at Botan – but not directly at her, not into her eyes, rather in the direction of her throat.

"It hurts like a bastard," she said again. "I don't know how he does it."

Botan realised then that she had stopped moving. Altogether. Not only had she stopped trying to swim down, but she had also stopped sinking.

"I think it's like he said," Boring said. "It isn't neat. It's messy. And it's much bigger than the size of the word that describes it."

Worthy made an amused grunt.

"Yeah, I think you're right, Ayame," she said. "And that's part of the problem. I think they only way Botan's coming out of there this time is when Hiei gets his shit together and actually says the word."

"He doesn't like the word," Boring said.

"I noticed," Worthy replied.

"Demons are much more complicated than I ever thought they were."

Worthy nodded.

"I don't know how Botan does it. Dealing with spirits, humans and demons…" Boring said.

"I think she does it by not differentiating based on which category the soul in question falls into," Worthy replied.

"Gees, Shizuru, you're starting to sound like Kurama!"

"Don't do that. I'm still mad at him."

Boring nodded.

"Yes, me too," she agreed.

Botan reached a hand out towards the images of the dog and mouse in front of her, but her hand passed right though them, blurring them into the water itself. Something about them was giving her an uneasy feeling. She felt as though something really bad was about to happen, and if she just watched the cartoon, she was somehow allowing it to happen.

Botan no longer wanted to be at the bottom.

She began thrashing around in the water, the thought occurring to her that she was not even breathing down there, panic striking when she realised she was in complete darkness. She could not even see her own hands in front of her face. A myriad of thoughts raced through her mind, including the idea that she may have gone blind, before she felt that maybe there was something above her head: and so, without any further hesitation, she began swimming upwards towards it.

She tried to breathe, but drew in water, and her limbs felt weak and useless as she swam, her mind screaming at them to work harder, to get her to the surface faster. She thought she could see a white circle of light above her, and it was growing and brightening the more she moved, and her desire to reach it became frantic. It seemed to take a lot longer to go back up than it had to swim down. The weight of the water was pushing down on her and it felt mocking, as though it was trying to show her it would be easier to let go, to sink back down to the bottom. She was not even sure why she was still fighting it, but something felt wrong, and she had always acted in her instincts in the past.

Eventually, after some time of fighting, the white light took shape, and she realised it was the moon, on the other side of the water. It was becoming clearer and the bubbles around her were becoming higher in pitch, so she knew she was close. The last part of her journey felt the most oppressive, the water felt the most resistant, eventually forcing her to start throwing her arms up and grabbing at what she hoped was the row of grass at the water's edge. Her hands slapped against rocks and mud a few times before her left hand finally found purchase in the turf. She gripped her hand into a fist and hauled herself up, slapping her right hand onto the grass as her head finally broke the surface. She gasped in the air and clung on with both hands, hauling herself out to her waist before slipping back down a little.

Something was wrong.

Botan grunted in confusion, gripping at the bank of grass and pulling herself up. She only moved a short way before pausing, looking down at her arms. Something felt odd in her right forearm when she gripped the bank. Like something was not connecting properly. She relaxed her grip a little and then gripped again, a sickening realisation dawning on her as she felt her fingers pressing into the soggy earth. She tightened her grip with her left hand and then opened out her right hand, straightening out her fingers and looking down at them.

Most of the ring finger on her right hand was gone.

She frowned, curling and uncurling her fingers on her right hand experimentally. It looked as though her finger had been torn off, quite crudely, from the second knuckle.

She used her good hand to haul herself up again, raising the top half of her body out of the water and bending at the waist to anchor herself there. She paused long enough to steady her breathing before moving her arms out ahead of herself and grabbing at the grass with her good hand, kicking her legs up until her knees reached the edge and she could crawl free of the water. Once she was free of the water, she scrambled to her feet, holding out her hands in front of herself and looking down at them. Looking at the backs of her hands, other than the fact that most of one of her fingers was missing, they looked normal. She slowly turned them over, palms facing upwards, revealing two ragged cuts across each of her palms. The cuts – and presumably the wound to her finger – had been caused when she had grabbed that blade.

Botan slowly looked up, looking about herself apprehensively. It was night time, the sky was black, though still filled with stars, which lent a bit of light to the land below, which made her visibility reasonable enough that she could see there was nothing over her head: but she could feel something was there.

She looked down at her hands again. The cuts across her palms were clotting, but the stub of finger she had remaining was still weeping blood. She slowly curled her fingers around until they covered the cuts on her palms, and then she turned her hands over, looking down at the backs of her closed fists. From that angle, her hands appeared to be uninjured: but the deep, dull aching in her finger and the stinging on her palms told her the injuries were very real.

"Unreal," she said quietly.

She opened out her hands and turned them over, exposing all of her wounds to her view.

"Real," she said.

She closed her fists and turned them over again, concealing all of her wounds from her view.

"Unreal."

Botan looked about herself before starting towards the trees. She moved briskly but cautiously, the distinct feeling that there was still something hovering in the air above her lingering no matter how far she went. Moving down the slope and through the trees, she could not even feel the ground beneath her feet, despite walking in just socks over rough undergrowth: but she was keenly aware of the sting of her lacerations and the deep, dull pain in her dismembered finger.

At the end of the tree cover, at the edge of the lawns around Genkai's temple, Botan stopped as she noticed a large bird poised on the temple roof. It was a silhouette, only its outline definable, but she felt as though it was there to stop her going any further. She waited for a moment, watching it carefully for any sign of hostility. It did not move, but the feeling of malevolence emanating from it was undeniable. The idea grew stronger in her mind that she ought to turn around and go back, but she also had a burning desire to find out what the bird was protecting. She needed to go inside the temple. She needed to see if her friends were still where she had left them, sleeping so peacefully.

Botan started forwards, keeping her eyes on the bird as she moved. As she drew closer, other than the bird appearing larger due to perspective, it remained unchanged. As she stepped onto the paved approach to the temple front entrance, she began to feel that the bird was very unhappy with her coming so close, but it remained still, and so she continued on, up the steps, and through the front door.

Inside the temple was black. It was dark, but it was also black. The walls were black, the individual wood panels still clearly definable, but no longer warm shades of brown, rather they were black. The roof was black, the floor was black, and all the doors were black. Botan could hear her footsteps as she moved – slightly soggy, muted thumps – and she could feel her heartbeat in her chest. The cuts in her hands were still stinging a little, but it was nothing compared to the dull ache where she had lost a finger. The pain was making her feel a little nauseous, but she pushed it down, and pushed on, moving through the temple to the room she had woken up in.

As she turned a corner and the door she sought came into sight, Botan became aware that she was being watched. The feeling started as a mild idea, but grew in intensity rapidly, until she felt more as though she was being stared at, aggressively, rather than watched.

Botan slid open the door and found the room empty. Even the beds were gone, the entire room just a hollow black space. She curled her fingers into the doorframe, wincing as the pain of her amputated finger throbbed. It was close.

She slowly slid the door closed and turned around to leave.

But that was where it was.

Botan turned around and quickly moved further into the temple. She twice quickened her pace, but her efforts made no difference, as she knew it was keeping pace with her, regardless of what she did. Her heart began to beat faster, until it was pounding louder and more rapidly than the thump of her footsteps against the floor. In her increasing panic, she unintentionally brought herself to a dead end, which forced her to turn around and face it.

In the dark, all she could see was two eyes and teeth. The eyes were round and bulging, pupils small and piercing, the eyes possibly without eyelids due to their shape and the way they never seemed to blink. The teeth were jagged and curved, off-white and every one on both the top and bottom rows visible, the mouth they were set in wide and slightly triangular. Although she could not see the mouth the teeth were set in, the shape of the gumline made it look as though the mouth was shaped like the beak of a bird of prey.

Botan carefully took a step forwards, towards it. It seemed to remain the same distance away from her. She took two steps together before pausing again, but still it seemed to remain the same distance away. Just as it had followed her when she had moved away from it, it seemed to be following her movements still, maintaining the same distance regardless of which direction she moved in. Despite not wanting to get any closer to it, despite every instinct within her urging her to turn her back to it, she kept facing it and kept moving towards it, until she reached another branch in the hallway, and could then turn away.

She ran, all the way out the back door of the temple. It was still behind her, still the same distance away, still watching her, intensely, unblinkingly. She did not need to look at it to confirm that, she could feel it burning into her. She could also feel that it wanted her to move a certain way, but she was intent on going the way it wanted her to go regardless. She ran back, across the lawn, through the trees, up the slope to the top of the mountain and out of the trees again, only stopping when she saw what she had already expected to find there, by the start of the valley of rice fields.

She waited for a moment, trying to steady her breathing. It was still the middle of the night, the landscape still dark. She looked down at her hands, and, even though they were shaking terribly, she turned them upwards, looking down at her wounded palms and the remains of her maimed finger.

"Real," she said quietly to herself.

She closed her fists and turned her hands over, hiding all traces of her wounds from her eyes.

"Unreal."

She drew in a shuddering breath and walked forwards, still aware that it was behind her, watching her, following her, urging her towards the edge. She looked down as she walked, moving until her toes were lined up with the edge of the grass, touching the drop down to the first rice field. Once she was sure she was as close to the edge as she could safely be, she lifted her head, surprised to find that Hiei was closer to her than she had expected him to be. He was hanging in the air, already looking at her, held up by an invisible force.

"Hiei?" she said.

"I'm here," he replied.

He sounded tired. He looked tired. He looked and sounded much the same way he did after releasing the Dragon of the Darkness Flame. His hair was a little flatter than usual and looked dull and matted. She slowly reached out a hand, touching his hair just above his forehead. His eyebrows inverted and his jaw tensed, and as she moved her hand backwards a little, her skin began to stain with blood.

"Does it hurt?" she asked quietly.

"Hn," he scoffed, smiling that smile he wore when an opponent was goading him.

"Does it hurt, Hiei?" she asked again. "It-it must hurt."

"There's nothing I can do about it," he replied.

"Does it hurt?" she tried again.

"I can't defend myself, of course it hurts."

Botan bit her lip.

"Then-then why are you doing it?" she asked.

"Idiot," he said through a bitter laugh. "You shouldn't even need to ask that question."

She smiled, sliding her fingertips down one side of his face. She had intentionally used her left hand to touch him, keeping her right hand balled into a fist, her missing finger hidden from her sight.

"I know what you want," he said.

"Really?" she asked. "Because I don't think I know what I want."

"You do know," he replied. "And so do I. But it's not that simple. I need you to know that."

Botan stuttered out a dry sob.

"I don't know anything any more," she said.

"You want me to say it," he said. "But I can't. Because it's not enough."

"Not enough?" she repeated.

"No," he confirmed. "How can it be? I hear it being said and I see how it's used. And it's not enough. It never was, but it definitely isn't now. And never will be again."

"I'm so confused."

"I won't say it, because it feels cheap. It's not enough. But I understand now that you need to know it. So just listen to me now."

Botan shivered. It was moving closer. She could feel the heat of its breath on the back of her neck, hear the rattling sound it was making, almost like a whispered growl.

"I don't think those words say enough for how it is," Hiei said. "But you need to know that I do love you."

Botan get out a shuddering gasp, reaching her outstretched hand up a little until she was touching the side of his face. He looked at her for a long moment before touching his hand to hers and leaning towards her. With her sock-covered feet, she curled her toes over the edge of the bank to steady herself so that she could lean towards Hiei, closing the gap between them, bringing her lips to his.

Kissing him felt completely different to how she had imagined it in the past. His lips were warm and soft, but he put a keen amount of pressure into them. The reassurance of the physical connection momentarily made it seem like nothing else mattered. He was surprisingly gentle and restrained – though Botan could not be sure why that surprised her, only that it was not how she had imagined he might proceed the first time they did engage her in a kiss. It was a relatively short gesture, barely a few seconds long, and only the pressing of their lips together, but she felt there was a sense of desperation on Hiei's part, and when they drew back she was almost sure she could see a look of frustration on his face. His mouth twitched a little and, for a moment, she was sure he would move in for a second kiss: but his eyes drifted up, to a point above her head, and his expression hardened. Botan copied his action, looking up to see those jagged teeth, in that triangular mouth, hanging over her head.

"I'm scared, Hiei!" she wailed. "I don't know what to do!"

Hiei lowered his eyes, looking into hers with a renewed look of determination.

"You need to wake up," he said.

"I don't understand what you mean!" she wailed.

"Please Botan, just wake up."

Botan gasped and spluttered and slipped at the edge of the water. She expected to fall, to sink into the dark depths again, but Hiei grabbed her hand by his face, holding on tightly.

"You need to wake up," he said again.

Botan was hanging by her arm, Hiei's grip of her hand to only thing holding her up. She had sunk into the water up to her thighs. She looked up at him, his eyes barely visible in the dark, but she could see enough to see the odd sadness in them, a sadness that stood stark against the hateful, evil glare from the bulging eyes hovering over him.

"Just wake up," he said, his tone sounding broken, defeated.

"I want to–"

Botan's voice broke off as her hand slipped out of Hiei's and she fell.

She plunged under the water, sinking down, down into the darkness. She sank slowly, she sank quickly. Her senses slowly faded, until she could not see or hear anything, only feel the sensation of herself falling, quickly, slowly, quickly, slowly.

Suddenly.

Botan cried out as she clattered against unforgiving stone, her elbow and hip on her right side having taken the brunt of her fall. She groaned, but the noise was difficult to make, her mouth so dry her tongue felt as though it was stuck to the roof of her mouth. She put her right hand on the ground and pushed herself up onto her right hip, blinking blearily at the fuzzy white and grey images before her. She touched her left hand to her forehead, mostly because her head was aching, but the sensation of ragged cloth against her skin made her retract her hand, moving it down into her line of sight.

Her left hand was bound up in bandages.

The middle of her left forearm was bound up in bandaging.

Her arm was otherwise bare.

Botan blinked a few more times, before looking down at her legs, curled up at her side. There were bandages around both her thighs. She was dressed in shorts and a vest. Her right arm also had bandaging around the forearm. She rolled onto her backside, lifting her right hand from the floor to hold it alongside her left, finding that it too was bandaged around the palm.

Her right hand was also bandaged over a space where one of her fingers ought to be.

Botan felt her heart start to beat faster, harder, louder in her chest. Her breathing hitched, despite the discomfort it caused her to breathe so deeply when her throat was so dry. She began picking at the bandaging around her right hand, frantically trying to remove it: but she stopped short at the sound of a familiar voice admonishing her.

"Leave it. You take that off again, you'll only cause yourself more pain."

Botan lifted her eyes to look directly forward. She was sitting on the floor of a small room with a stone floor and stone walls. To her right was the small, plain, basic bed she had just fallen out of. And to her left, was an open space.

Botan slowly turned her head to her left.

"No," she said faintly, shaking her head. "Oh please, no."

"I'm delighted to see you again too."

The enormous guard looked less disproportionate standing over the entrance of a prison cell he would usually have been guarding.

"Am I…" Botan said weakly. "In prison?"

"Turns out fourth time's the charm," the guard answered her. "Not even Prince Koenma could convince King Enma not to lock you up here where you belong."

Botan's jaw fell. For a horrified moment she was frozen on the spot. But, as she noticed a bulky man who almost looked entirely human pacing about in the cell opposite her own, she broke. She scrambled to her feet and stumbled up to the seemingly open space where her cell ought to have a fourth wall.

"No," she said. "This can't be!"

She reached out her left hand towards the open space, the buzzing sound and the feeling of the small hairs at the base of her scalp prickling warning her that she was getting too close to the barrier that was containing her.

"But… I haven't done anything wrong…" she said.

"Except going to a Lure four times," the guard answered her.

Botan shook her head.

"I'm the laughing stock of this unit, thanks to you," he continued. "After your little stunt picking your way out through the extractor fan in your shower, everybody else down here thinks I can't even handle a pathetic little ferry girl."

"That's not true," Botan said.

"That's right it's not," the guard said. "They should have locked you up here the first time you went near that thing. What sort of ferry girl goes to a Lure in the first place, huh? What can a Lure even do to you? What sort of dreams have you got that a Lure can even work with?"

Botan clenched her fists, but the action did not bring the sense of satisfaction she had been hoping for as the bandaging around her palms was so thick. But feeling that bandaging reminded her of its presence, and she went back to unravelling it, ignoring the insults of the guard outside her cell. She did not stop until she had removed all the dressings from both of her hands, then forming them into fists, looking down at the backs of her hands.

"Unreal," she said to herself.

She then opened out her hands and turned them over, her palms facing upwards, revealing two red welts across her palms that looked like the scars of healing cuts, and the ring finger of her right hand was missing from the second knuckle upwards, the stub she was left with smoothed over but still purple in places where the skin had clearly been patched over the wound.

"Real," she said.

She looked up at the open space, but the guard had gone. She looked down at her hands again, closing her fists and turning them over.

"Unreal," she said.

She opened out her hands and turned them over, the sight of her scarred palms, the growing sensation of a lingering dull pain in her maimed finger proving to be oddly reassuring.

"Real."

She moved her eyes to the bandages on her forearms and thighs. She just had to remove those, to expose the wounds she had there to make everything real.

"Botan, you're awake."

Botan turned her head, looking out of her cell as Koenma walked into her line of sight, looking alarmingly out of place in his small toddler form, walking amongst the gigantic ogre guards.

"You've been out for a while," he told her. "It's good to see you finally up."

"This isn't real," she told him.

He frowned slightly.

"No, Botan, this is real," he said. "You've been under the thrall of the Lure, but you're back with us now, back in the real world."

Botan shook her head.

"No," she said. "This isn't real. It can't be."

Koenma looked up at her guard, who simply looked back at him plainly.

"I can barely feel anything," Botan said. "That's the difference between reality and a dream, right? If I can't feel anything, then this isn't real."

"This is real Botan," Koenma quickly corrected her. "Maybe you just don't feel much because we've had to treat your wounds."

Botan looked down at the scars on her palms. They were real. She then moved both her hands towards the barrier, pushing through the point where she could hear the buzzing of energy and feel the static of the forcefield, before grabbing her hands into fists, light illuminating around them as she closed her hands around a line of a barrier net.

"Botan, what are you doing?" Koenma yelped.

"I can feel this," she plainly answered him. "It hurts. This is real."

"I already told you this is real!" Koenma wailed. "Let go! Before you really hurt yourself!"

"It doesn't feel like it can really hurt me," Botan flatly replied. "It hurts just enough that I know it's real."

Botan held on, the sensation of pain sublime, feeling overwhelmed by physical pain finally giving her a sense of relief.

"You know what this means, right?" the guard said to Koenma.

Koenma shook his head, but the horrified look on his face seemed to suggest he did know what the guard was talking about and he was shaking his head more because he did not want it to be true.

"It's what you should have done the first time it happened," the guard frankly told him.

He then turned and eyed Botan over.

"Or maybe even before that."

Botan sighed as the pain in her hands reached a plateau where her hands were the only part of her body she was aware of. The guard began to walk away and Koenma ran after him, pleading with him frantically: but his words were just a blur of noise to Botan's ears as she closed her eyes and let the darkness take over.


Next Chapter: Botan wakes up in a new place, and it's actually worse than waking up in the Spirit World prison. The only consistent thing in this new place is regular – if short – visits from Ayame, who at first appears as diligent and duty-bound as always, but shortly appears to be up to something nefarious, something that plateaus when, on one particular visit, she brings, amongst other things: a demon, a stowaway, a pen and a whole lot of pyramid-shaped items. Chapter 25: My World is Gone