Last Chapter: Botan was sinking under water, but fought her way back out after seeing (yet another) vision of some cartoon animals. After she got out of the water, she discovered she had been left with injuries after trying to stop the black blade that had been attacking Shizuru. She went back to the temple but found it dark and empty, and came to the realisation that a monster was watching over her. She fled back to the rice fields, where she found Hiei, and, after a heartfelt plea and a kiss, he told her to wake up. She fell under the water again, but this time hit solid ground: in the form of waking up in a Spirit World prison cell, where her odd behaviour did not impress the guards.
Chapter 25: My World is Gone
This, Botan told herself, was death. Souls she had collected had spoken about death – the moment of death, the moment between their mortal lives ending in the physical realm and their immortal afterlives commencing in Spirit World – and this was exactly what they had all, consistently, described to her. It was an unending darkness, a soft silence, and a vague sense of floating. It was the loss of all senses, literally only her own conscious thoughts still present: though even that was weak. It felt peaceful, but there was a sense that it was temporary, a sense that it would end and something significant would follow. It was the eye of the storm. She could not remember the past, could not think of the future, and could barely even remember herself. Maybe she was being prepared for a rebirth.
The floating feeling was replaced suddenly with the stomach-flipping sensation of dropping downwards that ended as quickly as it started with a jolting pain in her right wrist and ankle, a pain that did not subside. She groaned – and the sound reached her ears, the first sound she had heard in a long time – and her left arm swung loosely at her side, her knuckles hitting against a soft, cushioned surface as they fell down as far as she could reach on that side.
Botan opened her eyes. She was hanging off the edge of a bed in a strange room. She tried to right herself, but the pain in her right wrist and ankle bit into her skin. She turned her head and gasped when she saw the reason why: she had been shackled to the bed she was lying in. She began to thrash and panic, eventually managing to pull herself up onto the bed properly. Her restraints would not allow her to sit up to assess her surroundings, but, laid on her back, she could move her head enough to see all that she needed to: she was in a small, white room, with cushioned walls, floors and ceiling, with just the bed she was lying on and a small metal toilet.
"Help," she said faintly.
She took a few shuddering breaths and then, with all she had, she shouted for help. She had no idea where she was, but she was sure that it was a bad place. This was not how she had expected to find herself when her senses returned: death should be followed by eternal bliss. Or at least, that was what the world she represented had always told her. She kept shouting until she heard noise outside the room. She looked in the direction the noise was coming from, but, as the room had no apparent doors, she was unsure who had heard her and if they could even reach her.
Suddenly, a part of the wall swung open towards her and she fell silent, watching the space with wide eyes.
"You are literally the lowest ranking, lowest form of creature in Spirit World," a gruff voice said. "You understand that, right?"
A short but well-built ogre lumbered into the room, though he was looking at something beyond the door.
"Well, if that's true, I'm surely not smart enough, or capable enough, to bring anything other than water here in this glass. Wouldn't you agree?"
The voice that had answered him was tight and tense, haughty but a little apprehensive, but, above all, unmistakably familiar. Ayame stepped into the room with a tall, clear glass of water.
"Knock yourself out," the ogre told her.
"You had better leave me the key," Ayame answered him.
"I don't think so," he said.
"She can't even sit up," Ayame argued. "Either leave me the key or remove her restraints."
The ogre neither did nor said anything in response to Ayame's request.
"Surely the restraints are unnecessary," Ayame tried. "Botan is, after all, a ferry girl, just like me. And you have spent the last several minutes telling me why all ferry girls are useless and worthless, so I hardly see how she is any threat to you."
"She's a threat to herself," the ogre replied.
"She can't leave this room and she can't hurt herself in here," Ayame pointed out.
"King Enma's orders."
"Don't you find it insulting?"
"Huh?"
"That a man of your calibre and physical prowess has to restrain a ferry girl this way. It almost seems as though King Enma doesn't trust you to contain her yourself. Is that the case? Do you require to keep her bound because you are incapable to containing her?"
The ogre narrowed his eyes and gave Ayame a scrutinising look. She kept her back straight and her face stoic – though Botan recognised the tell-tale indent below her bottom lip that indicated she was clenching her jaw and on the verge of cracking.
"No funny business," the ogre warned, before approaching Botan.
Botan tried to move away from him, but he casually leaned over her, almost pinning her to the bed, and opened the manacle on her wrist and then the one on her ankle. He then moved over to the opening in the wall, throwing one last glare at Ayame before taking his leave. Ayame started to push the soft-of door closed, but the ogre shouted back at her to leave it open, and with a sneer of displeasure, she conformed.
"I brought you some water," she whispered, approaching Botan's bedside with the glass of water.
Botan scrambled to get into a sitting position, noticing as she did so that she was still in the same outfit she had been wearing when she had awoken in the prison cell.
"I thought you must be thirsty," Ayame offered.
Botan looked about herself before looking up at Ayame, who moved the glass closer to her. Botan nodded and took the offer from her, the weight of it feeling almost excessive, causing her to cradle the glass in both hands as she lifted it to her lips. The water was perfectly cooled and had that particular smoothness to it that only water from Spirit World ever did. She had intended to just sip at it, but found herself drinking it down, only occasionally pausing to breathe.
"Is it good?" Ayame asked.
Botan nodded.
"I'm so glad you're okay," Ayame whispered. "I thought we were too late. I didn't think you would ever wake up."
Botan finished the glass and moved her eyes to Ayame.
"Wake up?" she asked.
Ayame nodded.
"They told me you woke up as soon as they started cutting you free the first time," she whispered. "And the second time it was almost as quick. And the third time, you sort of drifted in and out. But this time, the fourth time, you were completely unresponsive. Do you remember anything at all?"
Botan looking down into the empty glass in her hands.
"I remember you made me tea," she said. "From your special blend…"
Botan looked up at Ayame again, suspicious that the older ferry girl had once again appeared with a drink for her: but when she saw the look on Ayame's face, any animosity she had felt vanished instantly.
"I didn't know, Botan," Ayame whispered, her voice quivering as tears blurred her eyes. "He didn't tell me. I'm so, so sorry."
"It's okay," Botan assured her. "But… Sorry for what? And who told you what?"
Ayame took the empty glass from Botan – which she was silently glad of, as her arms were quite weak and holding it had been quite tiring – and looked back over her shoulder.
"I can't," she concluded, turning back to Botan. "It's not time yet. We have to… I'm sorry, we can't just yet. But soon, I promise."
"Promise what?" Botan asked. "What are you talking about?"
Ayame looked over her shoulder again.
"I have to go," she said. "But I will be back, I promise. Just… Please just hold on."
"Ayame, you're not making any sense!" Botan cried.
Ayame hurriedly moved to the door, where she was met by the same surly ogre from before.
"Are we done?" he asked her sarcastically.
"For now, yes," she tersely replied. "But I will be back to serve her dinner."
"We serve her food," the ogre replied. "She's on a bland diet. She can't have anything that might stimulate her."
"That's fine," Ayame said. "You can supply the food, but I insist that you allow me to bring it to her. An important part of her rehabilitation is to bring order and duty back into her life, and the responsibility for that lies with me."
"How much "order and duty" is involved with picking up dead spirits from one place and dropping them off someplace else?" the ogre asked.
"Considerably more than you might think."
Ayame and the ogre exchanged irritated looks before both stepped away and the door closed behind them, disappearing as it did so, leaving Botan alone once more in the small, soft, white room, devoid of doors or windows. She was at least unshackled, and so she shuffled around to sit on the edge of the bed.
"Where am I?" she quietly asked.
It was a strange room, one she had never seen or heard of before. The fact that an ogre and Ayame had come to her told her she was likely still in Spirit World – and the water Ayame had given her was undoubtedly from Spirit World – but she felt she was somehow at the very edge of Spirit World. She felt as though she was somewhere and nowhere all at once. In fact, other than having her physical senses returned to her, she felt no different to how she had felt in the darkness.
And, with that thought in mind, she crawled onto the bed, curling herself up into a ball and closing her eyes, allowing herself to fall back into the darkness.
Botan awoke suddenly, her initial thought being that she could not remember falling asleep or even that she had been asleep. Her second thought was the thing that had awoken her: she sat up and noticed that she was still in that odd white room, and the disappearing door had appeared, and was open, and Ayame was in the room with her.
"You're awake!" Ayame greeted her. "You slept right through dinner last night."
Botan had no concept of time to really appreciate or know how to respond to what she had just heard, and so she stayed silent.
"Here's your breakfast," Ayame presented a bowl of sticky white sludge to Botan, who peered into it, sniffing at it tentatively.
"What is that?" Botan asked.
"Tofu and bean pudding," Ayame replied. "I think…"
Botan lifted her eyes to Ayame.
"What do I do with it?" she asked.
"Eat it?" Ayame replied.
Botan accepted the bowl from her, but let it rest in her lap, her eyes drifting over to the toilet, the place she intended to dump the contents of the bowl as soon as Ayame left the room.
"You're done," a gruff voice called into the room. "Get out."
"I'm not finished here!" Ayame said sternly over her shoulder. "I have to fix her bedding!"
Botan looked about herself. The bed she was sitting on was a little dishevelled, but hardly looked as though it required "fixing". She turned her attention back to Ayame, who was aggressively fluffing her pillow. Partway through Ayame's exaggerated actions, Botan noticed the twinkle of something silver slipping out of one of her sleeves and into the pillowcase.
Botan narrowed her eyes and slowly moved them to Ayame's face. As their eyes met, Ayame gave her an awkward wink and then dropped the pillow.
"Enjoy your breakfast," she said, bowing her head. "I'll be back at lunchtime."
She left the room, the last glimpse Botan caught of her being as she stopped just beyond the doorway to glower at the short ogre waiting there. The door closed, and, as before, it disappeared into the wall.
Botan stood up, a little shakily, and moved over to the toilet, whereupon she upturned the bowl in her arms, letting the contents drop into the toilet bowl. She flushed away the sludge and put the bowl down on the ground before approaching the bed and carefully picking up the pillow. It felt heavier than she expected it to and when she turned it around, she noticed a cylindrical lump in the pillowcase. She carefully placed the pillow down on the bed, with the lump facing upwards, before cautiously poking at the anomaly with one hand.
It was warm.
Botan pinched the edge of the pillowcase and lifted it up, leaning her head down to peer inside. As her eyes landed on the foil-wrapped cylinder she drew in a deep breath and felt herself turn into an illogical animal. She thrust a hand into the pillowcase and grabbed the warm foil roll, retrieving it and tearing it open frantically. The smell of the still steaming tamagoyaki was intoxicating and, without shame or pretence, she devoured the whole thing, before sucking each of her fingertips in turn to ensure she had consumed every last morsel. She moved over her left hand and then onto her right, starting with her thumb. She got to her middle finger before she realised something was wrong.
Botan slowly removed her finger from her mouth and lowered her hand, looking down at it. Her palm was bound in bandaging and part of her ring finger was missing.
She paused.
She had lost that finger when she had tried to stop the attack on Shizuru.
"Real," she said to herself softly.
She looked at the torn mess of foil at her feet.
"Real," she said again.
She held out both her hands, seeing that her left palm was also bandaged.
"Real," she said. "Real, real, real."
She closed her fists.
"Real."
She began to breathe more heavily. It was real. The wounds were real. How she had suffered them was real. Shizuru's pain was real.
"Shizuru," Botan said, looking in the direction of the disappearing door.
She started to move towards where the door ought to be but fell to her knees before she got there. She was physically weak, but it was not a physical weakness that had caused her fall.
It was all real. Everything. The pain, the darkness, and that creeping shadow that had attacked Shizuru.
For the first time, Botan found herself awake and no longer wanting to return to the Lure. It was a little odd, because, before, the desire – the need – to return to the Lure had been overwhelming, but this time, she knew she would not go back. Something had changed, but nothing had changed the fact that something terrible had happened to Shizuru, and, stuck in that odd little room, Botan had no way of knowing what.
And then, from nowhere, Botan remembered something she had thought about before: she was alone. Every time she had woken up, she had ended up alone. Nobody had come to see her. The fact that King Enma had become involved and decided to put her into prison was not good, but that, combined with how the prison guard had treated her, left her wondering if everyone felt that same way he had. She wondered if everyone thought she was terrible for going back to the Lure so many times. The Lure created illusions of hope: maybe that moment when Shizuru had spoken about dealing with her mother's addictions and telling Botan that she cared about her and forgave her was just another illusion of hope the Lure had created.
Botan let herself slump to the floor, finding that lying there was at least as comfortable as lying on the bed due to the padded flooring. She closed her eyes and felt a tear roll down one side of her face.
She had no idea what had been real and what had been an illusion, but, as she lay there thinking about it, she supposed that anything that had happened after she met the Lure was probably false. The very fact that she was so very isolated in that strange room was really all the answer she needed. Nobody else was there because everybody else had given up. In a way, she felt they were right. If anyone she knew had wilfully chosen a false existence over real life so many times, it did seem pointless to intervene. The only person who, in any way, she could genuinely say had appeared to care was Koenma: at least he had tried to fight her being detained in prison, tried to stop her move to the place she now found herself.
With her eyes closed, in darkness, she had felt safe: but she was no longer sure feeling safe was enough any more.
Botan groaned and rolled over as something pushed up against her. She heard Ayame enter the room and talk about a meal, and, even without opening her eyes, Botan already knew it was more of that white mush. Ayame then stood over her and spoke about leaving an important book for her to read, and argued with the ogre outside the room that the contents of the book were an important part of ferry girl duties. Ayame hovered over Botan for a little longer, but Botan kept her eyes shut, not really wishing to get into any sort of conversation with her. She waited until the door had closed and the room was silent before finally opening her eyes and sitting up.
She was still where she had fallen, on the floor, by the temporary, disappearing door. There was another bowl of white mush on the floor by her bed, and, alongside it, was a thick, hardback book. Botan moved onto her hands and knees and crawled over, hooking a hand over the book and pulling it towards herself. The cover told her it was "The Principles for Correct Behaviour and Protocol Between Officers of the Spirit Realm and Departed Souls of the Living Realm". Botan sat back onto her heels and laid the book on her thighs with a sigh. Maybe reading it would be a comfort. Maybe reading and thinking about something so dry and mundane would be a welcome distraction. Holding the book – one of the ancient, leather-bound and gold-leaf detailed tomes from the upper echelons of the Spirit World library – did give her a strange sense of purpose. It was the sort of official relic of a book that only Ayame was ever entrusted to touch, and so the fact that she had it in her hands did give her a small sense of reassurance that she was being trusted.
Botan opened the book.
Botan closed the book.
She gave a small shake of her head, blinked purposefully a few times and opened the book again: but a second look changed nothing. The inside of the book – the very pages themselves – had been desecrated. A square hollow had been cut into the pages, destroying almost every page in the book, in order to create a space for hiding something. Botan reached a hand into the hole and lifted out a small plate, which was barely supporting an enormous slice of strawberry cream cake and a small cake fork.
Botan briefly contemplated the fact that what was happening was more like an illusion than anything else she had experienced recently, but the thought faded when she began eating the cake, shortly tossing aside the tiny fork and using her fingers to polish off her meal. The cake – just like the tamagoyaki Ayame has brought to her earlier – was one of her favourite foods. Which was a fact she was sure Ayame would not be aware of. And yet Ayame had been the one to serve her both meals. In secret. In ways that could have gotten her into a lot of trouble. Botan looked down at the defaced ancient book on her lap and concluded that Ayame still could get herself into a lot of bother. Ayame was not the type to defy Spirit World, to risk her reputation, to destroy a valued book for anything; least of all for delivering preferred food items to Botan, an apparent prisoner.
Something had been strange about Ayame since the very start of the mission involving the Lure. And it was strange that she was visiting Botan in the strange room she was in. It was clearly a part of Spirit World, but also clearly not a very nice part, and Ayame was not usually the type to do anything that strayed from her regular duties. The only reason Botan could possibly think that Ayame might be acting so unusually was that she was following orders from Koenma. Ayame was always very dutybound, but one thing that may make her do something unconventional or unexpected would be if Koenma asked her to as a personal favour. It was reassuring at least to think that Koenma was looking out for her, but, as she closed the book and placed it back down on the ground, she wondered how the destruction of a sacred item would be handled. It was something that Botan was surprised even Koenma would do: she wondered if Koenma had placed the cake and given the book to Ayame without telling her. Despite her personal loyalty and attachment to Koenma, it was doubtful Ayame would have carried the book in the condition it was. It would be more like her to refuse or else to report the act of vandalism.
Botan got up and moved over to the bed, climbing onto it and wrapping herself up in the bedsheets. The book and the food had been a welcome distraction, but her mind quickly moved past them to her situation. Wherever she was, she knew it was a bad place, and she had no idea how she would ever come back from it. It was possible King Enma might decide to leave her there forever. The room was quiet, plain and contained nothing to do or think about: though she supposed that was deliberate, as it was forcing her to think about what she had done. She closed her eyes, but sleep evaded her as her mind raced between a physical need to get up and run and a physical need to stay where she was, enveloped in the bedsheets and relatively safe. She shortly found herself obsessing over finding a way out, obsessing over the if and when she would ever leave the room.
And in a way, she was glad of the distraction that obsession gave her, as the other idea lingering at the back of her mind was the absence of her friends, and the idea that, if she ever was released from where she was being held, by then, all of her friends may well be long gone.
Botan awoke suddenly, at first mostly surprised that she had been asleep. She sat up – a little awkwardly, as she was tangled up in bedsheets – and turned towards the one wall where the intermittent door was. There was no sign of the door at that moment, but, at that moment, she could hear muffled voices beyond it. They sounded frantic.
She impatiently unwound herself from her bedding and stood up, but stopped there as the outline of the door appeared and Ayame entered the room, pushing a large food trolley, covered with a grey blanket: but rather than food, the trolley was supporting a small television and video player.
"Why did you open the door?" the angry ogre shouted at her.
"I already told you, I am here on duty," Ayame answered him.
"You can show her your dumb ferry girl training videos any time!" the ogre argued. "We're in the middle of a crisis here!"
"I have a duty to do," Ayame said.
"You've opened every door on your way in here!" the ogre cried. "You let that monster in!"
Botan felt a cold jolt of panic stab into her as, for one brief, horrifying moment, she thought that maybe the Lure had gotten to Ayame, and somehow convinced her to let it into Spirit World.
"You can't come in here!" the ogre yelled at something outside the room, beyond Botan's line of sight. "You shouldn't even be in Spirit World, demon!"
Ayame calmly pushed the trolley over to Botan's bedside and plugged the television and video player into a wall socket Botan had never noticed before.
"What's happening?" Botan asked her.
"I've come to show you some videos," Ayame replied. "To help with your rehabilitation."
Botan looked over at the open doorway, at the aghast ogre.
"What's going on out there?" she asked.
"Oh, yes, he did insist on coming with us," Ayame replied.
Botan wanted to ask Ayame who she was talking about and what she meant, but she struggled to find the words, and shortly found herself dropping into a sitting position on the edge of her bed at the sound of a familiar voice.
"I don't care about your rules. Your rules are as dumb as you are ugly."
The ogre stepped back out of Botan's line of sight and a demon she knew only too well stepped into his place. He turned his head to look into the room, offering a cocky smirk as his eyes met hers.
"Hey Botan," he greeted her. "Nice digs you got yourself here."
"You can't come in here," Ayame told him.
Yusuke, his hands in his pockets, casually stepped through the doorway and looked about himself.
"Did you hear what I just said?" Ayame said, her tone sterner. "You can't come in here. You must leave."
Yusuke sniffed and gave her a disinterested look.
"Now," Ayame added.
Yusuke looked back over his shoulder before facing her again to address her directly.
"Nice," he said quietly.
She gave him a strange look, one that did little to settle Botan's mounting suspicions of her.
"In here!" the ogre called out.
Captain Otake of the SDF appeared in the open doorway, looking stoic and poised: but when he caught sight of Yusuke looking back at him, he visibly faltered.
"Y-you!" he gasped. "What are you doing here?"
Yusuke turned back to Botan.
"I did come to see you," he told her. "But I guess I gotta go already."
"It's very disrespectful of you to just barge in here the way you did!" Ayame admonished him.
"You let him in!" the ogre complained from beyond the door.
"I can take a hint," Yusuke said with a sigh.
He then reached a hand up to his mouth, removing a piece of chewed gum.
"I'll see you soon, Botan," he said, pressing the gum onto the top of the television set as Ayame glared at him in abject horror. "Until then, enjoy the show."
He pointed at the television screen and then turned to walk away. Botan reached out a hand, wanting to say something to stop him, to ask him where the others were, if they were alright: but her hand fell as he stopped in the doorway, his hands still in his pockets.
"By the way," he said over his shoulder. "It's the ass muscles that give the power, not the thighs."
He pushed his hands further into his pockets, tightening his jeans around his backside, before slowly taking his leave. Botan was so confused by his words that she momentarily forgot all about his very presence there, only returning to the oddity of the situation when Ayame crept up to the open door and peered out into the hallway.
"What is–"
"Shh!"
Botan fell silent upon being hushed by Ayame, but she only felt more suspicious than she had before. Outside the room, she heard Yusuke casually commenting on things around him that were making Otake and the ogre increasingly irritated.
"What's this for?" he asked.
"Don't touch that!" Otake cried.
"What's this little room all about?" Yusuke asked. "Oh. It this where you spy on the girls' locker rooms?"
"You can't go in there!" the ogre yelled frantically.
A few more voices joined the protest, but Yusuke remained unaffected: even after Otake called out for "all available units to provide back-up". At the sound of footsteps running, Ayame quickly and quietly closed the door, sealing the room once more, with herself inside it. Botan made to ask her what she was doing, but again, Ayame shushed her. Botan then watched in a state of bemusement as Ayame slid one of the pins from her hair – the central pin, the one that was of uniform thickness, and not tapered, like the other two – and moved to one corner of the room. With a clicking sound, she revealed that the pin was in fact a pen, and with it in one hand, and summoning her oar in the other, she quietly lifted herself up until her head was almost touching the roof, whereupon she began scribbling over something in the very top corner of the room. Curiosity getting the better of her, Botan took a few steps closer to Ayame, squinting up at the object she was colouring over with black ink.
It was the lens of a camera.
Ayame held a finger to her lips to indicate that Botan should stay quiet, before drifting down and retrieving the lump of chewed gum Yusuke had deposited onto the television set she had brought in with her. Completely consumed by curiosity, Botan watched intently as Ayame stretched out the gum in her fingers and drifted up to another corner of the room, where she pressed the piece of gum, moulding it around what appeared to be a microphone.
"Someone's been filming and recording me in here?" Botan asked.
"Yes," Ayame replied, slipping off her oar and banishing it behind her. "But now we're clear."
She grasped the grey cloth covering the trolley she had pushed into the room, yanking it clear from the trolley in one smooth movement that managed to remove it from under the television and video player without knocking them over. Ordinarily, Botan would have been impressed with the trick, but she was distracted by what lay underneath the grey cloth: a white cloth emblazed with a familiar symbol. Ayame touched a hand to the cloth and, after a soft blue glow illuminated it entirely, the mark faded from the cloth.
"Clear!" she said.
Botan stumbled back as the cloth on her side of the trolley flew outwards, and a body rolled out from under the trolley, alone with a pile of pyramid shaped boxes.
"I don't know what was worse: being stuck in such a small space for so long or listening to your hammy acting."
Ayame touched a hand to her mouth as the figure shook off the pyramid boxes and stood up.
"I thought I did a very convincing job," Ayame said.
"Not really. Though I guess your audience weren't exactly the brightest."
The figure turned from Ayame to Botan and Botan felt tears burn her eyes before falling into the arms that opened for her. She gladly buried her face into a silky shirt and squeezed her arms around a familiar form, inhaling that distinct scent of menthol cigarettes and violet perfume that always made her feel just that little bit safer.
"Hey, it's okay," Shizuru said softly. "Don't cry."
"I didn't think I would ever see you again!" Botan wailed.
"Yeah, you nearly didn't," Shizuru said, in what seemed like an inappropriately light-hearted manner.
Botan leaned back, holding her at arms' length and meeting her eyes.
"But you saved my life," Shizuru added. "Do you remember that?"
"It was the most amazing thing I've ever seen," Ayame gushed.
Botan glanced back and forth between the two of them.
"I tried to talk to you when the Lure had you," Shizuru explained. "It seemed like you heard at least some of what I said."
Botan momentarily felt numb.
"That was real?" she asked faintly.
Shizuru nodded.
"You said… You said you forgave me," Botan said.
Shizuru smiled and planted a hand on top of Botan's head.
"There's nothing to forgive, silly," she said warmly. "We're all just glad to have you back."
"You are?" Botan asked. "But… I went to the Lure!"
"Yeah, I know."
"I went back to the Lure. Over and over!"
Shizuru moved her hands to Botan's shoulders and looked her straight in the eye.
"Hey sweetheart, do you remember when Tarukane kidnapped Yukina?" she asked.
"Of course I do!" Botan replied. "But what does that have to do with–"
"He tortured Yukina, do you remember that?"
"Yes, of course!"
"Right. Some twisted bastard hurt her. Did any of us blame Yukina for bleeding when that monster hurt her?"
Botan shook her head.
"Well, it's the same thing here and now," Shizuru said. "None of us blame you for what the Lure did to you."
Botan shook her head.
"I promise," Shizuru added.
"But I chose to go back!" Botan said.
"I don't really think you did," Shizuru answered. "I think you tried to fight it the first time you met it, you realised it was tougher than you thought, you tried to call for help, but it had already got you. Then what it did to you left you in a way that you couldn't stop yourself going back. Not even if you wanted to."
Botan gripped her hands into Shizuru's shirt, partly to reassure herself that she was real, before her mind switched focus to something she had just heard.
"I did call for help," she said. "I called everyone, but no-one came!"
She could remember that much clearly at least: during her very first encounter with the Lure she had tried to call for help to fight it, but everyone she had called had mocked her.
"Yeah, my brother picked up the call," Shizuru said. "But you weren't there. That was how we first knew you'd been taken."
Botan frowned, tilting her head slightly as she tried to remember back, through all the wild experiences she had been through, to that moment when she had called for help. She remembered calling Koenma, and him telling her she could not possibly have found the Lure; she remembered calling Kuwabara, and Kurama doubting her and then Kuwabara telling her she should back off; she remembered calling Yusuke and him telling her that she could not possibly have found the Lure, as he and Hiei were tracking it and they were heading in the opposite direction to her.
"Kuwabara told me to go home when I called him," she concluded aloud.
"No," Shizuru said, shaking her head. "That's not what happened. He answered your call – I was with him when you called him – and you weren't there. Kurama told us it looked and sounded like the Lure had taken you and your communicator into its lair."
Botan searched Shizuru's eyes for any indication that she was telling any sort of lie: but the determination in her expression was unwavering.
"As soon as we got the call, we came to you," Shizuru continued. "Me, Kazuma and Kurama – we were all together – we ran to where you were."
"You-you did?" Botan asked. "But when I woke up that first time… There was only Kuwabara and Kurama with me."
Shizuru nodded.
"Look, it's a long story," she said gently. "And that's why I'm here: I figured you wouldn't have known what's been happening out here in the real world all that time you were inside the Lure's lair. So… That's what these are for."
Shizuru took a step back, releasing Botan, and together they looked down at the small pile of pyramid-shaped boxes on the floor.
"Did you get an adaptor alright?" Ayame asked.
"Yeah," Shizuru said, with a flat look on her face. "Don't tell Unworthy, but it turns out the "adaptor" is just a couple of triangles to make the shape right."
"He was right? Oh, that's so silly!" Ayame said.
Botan, although curious about what was inside the boxes at her feet, turned her attention to Shizuru, frowning at her curiously.
"What did you just say?" she asked.
"Oh, I'll explain later," Shizuru replied with a wave of her hand. "We probably don't have much time, so we should get to it. Will you guard the door, Boring?"
Botan's face dropped.
"On it, Worthy!" Ayame replied.
"What?" Botan whispered.
Shizuru turned to her and smiled.
"Oh, it's just a thing we started," she said, waving a finger back and forth between herself and Ayame.
"You and Ayame?" Botan asked.
"Yeah," Shizuru said, smiling fondly at Ayame. "You know you've got a pretty great Spirit World sister right there."
Botan looked over at Ayame, who was smiling at her warmly.
"I-I do?" Botan asked.
"Yeah, you do," Shizuru confirmed, bending down and picking up one of the pyramid boxes. "Now check this out."
She opened the box and removed what looked like a video cassette with the top corners shaved off the make it triangular-shaped.
"What's that?" Botan asked.
"This is the sort of cassette a Chekhov's video camera uses," Shizuru replied. "And unfortunately, I had to use eight of them to get the whole story."
Botan looked down at the seven remaining pyramids on the floor.
"I don't understand," she concluded.
"Kurama had this crazy idea," Shizuru explained. "He said I should film the fight with the Lure. I didn't understand why at first, but the more time passed, the more I was glad that I did. I think the answer to all the questions you have – and all the questions you didn't know you needed to ask – will be on these tapes."
Botan pointed a shaking finger at the triangular cassette in Shizuru's hand.
"That's a recording of me with the Lure?" she asked.
"Yeah, it is," Shizuru replied. "But you really have to see this."
Botan shook her head.
"I don't want to!" she protested. "I don't want to ever think about that thing ever again! I don't want to have to watch myself being stupid all over again!"
"Well, I could argue you are the least stupid person on these videos," Shizuru said.
"Least…?" Botan began. "Who else is on there?"
"We all are," Shizuru replied.
Botan shook her head.
"I know it probably sounds awful, but trust me Botan, you need to see what is on these tapes," Shizuru insisted. "I'll sit with you through it all. But you do have to see this."
"Why?" Botan asked. "Why do I have to see it?"
"Because some of the stuff that's on here is so unbelievable, you really are gonna have to see it to believe it."
Botan narrowed her eyes warily, but Shizuru pulled two small plastic triangles from the pockets of her jeans and clicked them into place on the triangular cassette, making it the size and shape of a regular video cassette. She then moved over and inserted it into the video player on top of the trolley, before wheeling the trolley around so that the television was facing the bed. She picked up the remote and crawled onto the bed, moving herself around to sit with her back against the wall and her legs crossed in front of herself.
"Come on, sweetie," she said, holding out her left hand towards Botan.
Botan hesitated, looking down at her friend's proffered hand, finding the gesture all-too-familiar: it was the same way she had held out her hand that night by the rice fields, right before she had been attacked.
"What happened to your arm?" Botan asked, slowly crawling onto the bed.
"This one?" Shizuru asked, holding up her left arm. "I nearly lost it. But then some badass babe jumped in and saved me."
Botan paused, on her knees at Shizuru's left side, frowning down at her.
"If you don't know what that means, you should make yourself comfortable, because the answer is on one of these videos," Shizuru said.
Botan sighed and tucked herself up at Shizuru's side in the way she always did when they were watching scary movies. Shizuru put an arm around her shoulder and Botan rested her head on Shizuru's shoulder, turning wary eyes to the television screen as it blinked to life.
Next Chapter: I took an artistic decision around chapter 7 of this fic that I would not write out the contents of the videos. Instead, the next few chapters jump back to the Lure's first appearance, and the story is told from Shizuru's point of view, watching on: showing which parts of Botan's illusions were actually real. Chapter 26: Stay with me
