A/N: So I spat out two chapters tonight so that you all could get a better glimpse at what I'm doing here. I hope that it's not too-too odd, and also maybe check out my poll?
The trip into the Spirit World was something that Kuwabara would never forget, or so he hoped. As a spirit, he felt weightless, almost empty. Able to move anywhere and everywhere, with no regards to the law of gravity or mass.
Still, he found himself very promptly informed that he could not travel through the gates and into the Spirit World on his own.
"If you could just go in on your own, what would I be for?" asked Botan, face crinkling up into a smile. Her eyes, which were at times light blue and other times bright green but always seemed to reflect spring in some way or the other, were brighter then they had ever been.
"Oh, yeah. I, uh, guess it makes more sense that you need to take me there." said Kuwabara, givig her a sheepish grin. "So, how does this work?"
Botan reached out, laying a hand on the spirit's shoulder. She was one of the only beings in existance that could touch him right then, in his bodyless shape. "It isn't going to hurt, if that's what you're wondering. All that you need to do is get onto the oar behind me and hold on. I'll be able to do the rest on my own, okay?"
She had been through this exact scenario so many times that it almost hurt. Her passengers, they wanted to be brave. Especially those that fit the profile of Kazuma Kuwabara - who was strong and brash and determined, always trying his hardest to look out for everyone around him. They didn't want to ask the questions that were really on their mind, just like they didn't want to show the fact that they were sad to go.
Botan could tell though. The young-but-ancient ferry girl was able to see it in Kuwabara's dark blue eyes. In the slight tremor of his jaw and how he was standing, tall but defensive. Giving him the slightest of reassureing she squeezes she held out her right hand and, in a flash of energy and cool breezes and something that was like bird song but not able to be heard by the human ear, her almost white oar appeared in her hand.
Kuwabara gave it a dubious look, shifting from foot to foot, but didn't argue. Just waited for Botan to get on, the finely carved plank of wood hoovering in the air, and then he clambered on as well. It was a clumsy acton, different from the graceful and elegant approach that Botan used, but it worked and that was all that mattered.
"You said hold on, but there isn't anything back here." Kuwabara said, looking around in dismay. No buckles no handhold, nothing. Just smooth wood beneath him, which made him feel so very unsteady.
Botan laughed, and it was loud and melodic. Like a brook running through a forest, untouched by human devices. "To me, Kuwabara! Hold on to me! Hurry now, everyone is waiting."
A brief pause and then Kuwabara's brows furrowed. "Everyone?"
"Mhmm. Everyone." Botan offered no other explanation because, truly, she did not know who would be waiting for Kuwabara on the other side. A grandparent perhaps, or maybe his mother. A long lost friend or a dog that had once been his faithful companion. It was different for everyone, but the fact that someone else would be there, that he wouldn't be alone, it gave Kuwabara comfort.
Just as it was supposed to do. Botan had been working for Lord Koenma for many centuries now, and her job was second-nature at this point. She knew all the right things to say, all the right places to smile, everything needed to persuade the lonely spirit to accompany her to his resting space.
Kuwabara proved to be no exception, defined arms moving to wrap around Botan's waist. Large hands rested against her stomach, fingers curling in the light blue fabric that was her dress.
And then they were moving and it wasn't just up and through the air, but through time and space as well. Past the realm where the clouds were white and the sky blue, and into a world were everything was monochrome. Red and blue and yellow, the color just seemed to fade away until only shades of black and white remained.
For Botan, it was a welcome sight. A land free of the vibrant colors and awful noises of the human world. Where the forests were unmarred and the rivers ran freely, apartments and highrises and oil plants a thing of the distant past. Or rather, Botanthought with the smallest of smiles, of the far future.
For Kuwabara, it was nothing more then a heavy pressure on his chest as the color drained away around him. It was as though the very air had condensed, forming an invisible boot that was resting above his lungs, the weight of the world forcing the breath out of him. His grip on Botan tightened, fingers curling against silk and head dipping forward until his chen was pressing against her shoulder.
"Kuwabara? Are you alright?" asked Botan, concern lacing her voice. There should have been no discomfort in the passing between worlds, even for a man who still had unfinished business in the living world, but especially for someone such as Kazuma Kuwabara.
Kuwabara just shook his head and tightened his jaw, because how should he know if Botan didn't? All that he knew was that this strange inbetween worlds left him breathless, and the lack of color was almost painful to be in. As though hundreds of thousands of hands were grabbing at him, trying to pull him from Botan's oar and down into the black and white land below.
"You need to tell me what's wrong, Kuwabara. We can't pass through the veil if there's a problem." Botan tried to explain, slowly to a halt. Issues from the human world could not be brought into the spirit world, after all. Policies could not be broken.
A moment of heavy silence passed before Kuwabara gave a slight shrug. "I don't know...it feels like it doesn't want me to go any further."
Botan frowned, her small nose wrinkling as she looked back at the human boy. He looked so very distraught. Sick almost, like any moment now he was just going to slip backwards and down, into the Passage of Times. "Like what doesn't? Did you see something?"
There shouldn't have been anything to see, not here. In this land, everything was frozen. It had been this way for centuries. Millenia, even. According to the old script, which were lost now and only remembered through the oldest of reapers, it had once been the sight of a great battle. The worst that the spirit world had ever been involved with, and one that they never wanted to repeat.
So it was sealed off, from time itself. Nothing moved in those trees and no wind blew. Everything was forever still and unharmed and unharming, just like Lord Koenma's mother had wanted it to be.
Kuwabara shook his head, but didn't speak this time. Just pressed himself closer to Botan's back, face burrying in the nook of her shoulder. It did not matter to him that he was showing weakness right then, because that pressure was unbearable and the strength to sit up straight had suddenly left him. Were it not for the light-natured girl before him, Kuwabara would have been plummeting from the oar. Down, down, down, until the color left his body too.
"I just want to go," he said, voice muffled against the fabric of her dress. "Please, Botan. Take me somewhere else."
And, after a moment's pause, Botan did. It was against policy, but there was nothing else for her to do. Kuwabara could not return to the human realm, not now that his soul had breached through the veils and into the Between.
-x-x-x-x-x-
Breaking from the Between and into the spirit world was different from entering it. Refreshing, almost, and something that Botan always looked forward too. There was no difference in the world around her that was visible, but she could feel the slight thrum in the air - and so could Kuwabara, lifting his head just slightly so he could look around.
That monochrome world still surrounded them, fading and pressing and squeezing, and it still didn't want to let Kuwabara go. Only it wasn't so much an it anymore, as a person. The feeling of a person. Something that Kuwabara couldn't put into words and didn't want too, because the thoughts that it evoked were horryfing.
Eyes, watching him. Breath, up against the back of his neck. Blood, so much blood, everywhere and on everything and Kuwabara couldn't get it off - just wanted it off!
He didn't realize that he had quit breathing, pupils dilating and face going pale. And neither did Botan, who was so focused on that feeling of her skin being purged of sin and disease and pollution. She tilted her head back, and wind that wasn't really there caught at her bangs and blew them backwards, sun shining down on her face.
She was warm and Kuwabara was cold and then they were there, and that monochrome world was gone behind them. A wave of exhaustion washed down on Kuwabara, and he sunk forward when those invisible hands that had been grabbing at him finally dissapeared.
"Kuwabara? Are you okay?" Botan asked, when the human didn't sit up right away.
Kuwabara gave a small nod against her shoulder, because he was never not-alright, no matter who asked. It was just second nature, it was what he thought and believed, so it was what was true. And Botan didn't push because she didn't know any better, and maybe the spirit world was still a grand sight for her to behold.
The part that she had entered into was a docking system of sort. The air around her was filled with hundreds of other reapers, of all genders and decorum and age, each with their own passenger that they were helping through to the next world. Someone in the distance laughed, and the sound was childlike and gleeful, all to familiar in an aching sort of way.
Just below her was a stretch of marble, white and cold, that rose up into an ever expanding tower. One that went too high to recount, to see, to know, until the clouds just seemed to devour it completely.
Botan made a special point of circling this monument, flying close enough the she could reach out and rest her fingers on the cold stone, tracing the carvings. "Isn't it amazing, Kuwabara?"
Still out of sorts from the experience, Kuwabara turned bleary eyes onto the tower. "What is it?"
The corners of Botan's lips twitched up, those spring eyes of hers softening. "We call it the Tower of Bethusdal. Every human that has ever lived on Earth and passed away, their name is carved here."
"Really?" Something about that struck Kuwabara as odd. But then, he decided, it was the after-life. Everything that had happened to him was odd, strange, and unwavering. This statue was no different. "How do the names get there?"
"No one knows. But they're all here, every last one of them. Even the ones that didn't think they had a name, they have a place here." said Botan, softly. Her fingers moved over a name, Robert Davies, and she could remember when the statue was small enough that she could reach the top with ease. "It grows on its own, so that no one will ever be forgotten."
"Wow," breathed Kuwabara, reaching out to mimic the reaper girl's movement. Beneath his hand, the marble was cold as ice but solid and steady. Hundreds of thoudands of millions of words were etched over its surface, each one another name, another story. It was almost too much to take in, because each word here had once been alive. Everyone that had been alive, they were now here.
A moment of silence passed, and then Kuwabara couldn't resist asking. He was a human after all, and a young one at that. "Is my mother here?"
Botan didn't hesitate to nod, even though she didn't know which scrawl held the name of Usagi Kuwabara. "Everyone's name is, Kazuma. One day, maybe you'll be able to find it."
It was a tempting thought, and for a moment Kuwabara wondered if that would help. Then they were moving again and the statue was out of his reach and far in the distance, just like the memory of his mother and his childhood.
-x-x-x-x-x-x
In another part of the wide kingdom that was spirit world, a boy by the name of Yusuke Urameshi was staring up at the sky. It was a dark hue of blue and purple, black mixing in with the other two colors and forming a heavy bruise that was rapidly taking over the sky. A sight that Yusuke had grown used too in the past several months.
Unlike Kazuma Kuwabara, Yusuke had not just lost his life and was not new to the strange realm. Unlike most, he had been moving aimlessly through the realm for nearing three months, with strange looking creatures and too-kind reapers as his guides. It was one of the few moments where he was left on his own, to sit and relax and not worry about what would happen to him.
It was a state of debate among the higher courts and Lord Koenma, though Yusuke couldn't see why himself. In his mind, the solution was simple. His death, it hadn't been meant to happen, wasn't expected. He was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But he had still died. There was no heart beating in his chest or blood rushing through his veins. It didn't matter anymore if he breathed or not, or whether he ate. And his flesh body was burried in the local cemetary already, partially decayed and most likely already forgotten.
There was no going back, so he should have just been sent on to the next world.
The issue was that, for some reason, Lord Koenma did not want to let Yusuke move on. And so the boy was stuck there, waiting and wondering and floating from one world to the next.