Chapter 13 - Surprise Visitor.
Music recommendation: Jonathan Coulton - Code Monkey
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On their trip back to the hotel after a brief and unsuccessful search for any more clues out in the woods, Kurama couldn't help but eye Hiei. He was too calm about the whole situation, and there's no way he'd make the special effort to go searching for Botan. There must have been another piece to the puzzle, and for that matter, he thought, what became of the other day when he arranged for them to meet up behind the hotel? An even more suspicious Kurama-eye was directed at Hiei when he wondered about this.
"What." Hiei said returning Kurama's weird-eyed stare with a half cocked eyebrow.
"What did happen a couple of nights ago?" He was intentionally trying to keep Kuwabara out of the loop this time to avoid any unnecessary gorilla-like flare-ups. It was bad enough trying to get information out of Hiei without Kuwabara beating his chest in search of his pilfered bananas. Only the bananas were a girl.
"What business is it of yours?" Kurama just sighed finally feeling as though pressing him for information was hopeless. "You needn't wonder Kurama," if Kurama had been in his fox form, his ears would have suddenly perked up, sensing something of interest was about to come out of Hiei's mouth, "if you were a girl in trouble, I wouldn't help you." Hiei returned his stare ahead of them, which made it difficult to determine that this was a joke Hiei had just told. Kurama just stared at him with one eye wide and one twitching furiously, until he almost ran into the doorway of the hotel entrance.
"So Kurama's not your type then, Hiei?" Kuwabara snickered to himself, apparently not sensing how close to death that remark put him. "I dunno, I'd help any girl in trouble," Kuwabara used his fingers in a framing gesture, sizing up Kurama, "even if she was a little rough around the edges..."
"Excuse me," this call from the reception desk diverted Kurama's attention from the Hiei-badgering. Kurama made his way over, fearing whatever was at the end of Kuwabara's thought. "I almost forgot," the receptionist said when Kurama arrived closely followed by the other two, "that kid with the pacifier was back down here last night, but it was quite a bit after the blue haired girl left, so I don't know if that helps. Maybe you could ask him if he saw her while he was out?"
"Since Hiei doesn't seem to know anything," Kurama paused to give Hiei a glance that was appreciated about as much as chunky milk, "I guess this is our best lead. Do either of you know where to find Koenma?" His fellow investigators were silent.
The three of them tried asking around into the early afternoon, but there seemed to be no trace of the elusive baby-teen. All reports of Botan seemed to end with the evening before as well. Though Kuwabara had become complacent with Hiei after he claimed to also be searching for Botan, Kurama remained suspicious. Despite this, the trail went cold, and they eventually had no choice but to call off their search for that day and focus on the upcoming semi-finals.
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The next day, Team Urameshi continued on to the semi-finals. Each of them had their own worries, and Yusuke and the Mask were nowhere to be found. But in Kuwabara's first battle of the semi-finals, he was in for more of a shock than he thought when he found himself transported to the arena of the previous matches. He sat in the old arena dumbfounded, searching around, trying to get his bearings.
"I know this place... The stadium?" He looked quite puzzled.
"WHAT!!!" The volume of this exclamation alone nearly knocked Kuwabara over. He looked over to see a bug-eyed group of girls.
"Kuwabara, what are you doing here?" Shizuru was the only calm-looking one of the bunch. Of course Shizuru rarely showed any sign of emotion, Kuwabara thought, even during that one incident some years back involving pancakes, and Kuwabara catching on fire in his underwear. Seeing someone appear out of thin air was no big deal.
"You just fell from the sky!!" Said a slightly more impressed Atsuko. Almost immediately he keyed in on Yukina like a dog just released from the pound during mating season.
"Miss Yukina and her friends!" Kuwabara didn't take notice of his sister while she grumbled a comment about not being acknowledged. "But Miss, what are you doing here?" He was suddenly over the shock of being magically teleported to the old stadium, and losing his match.
"We mistook the stadium," she seemed more puzzled by his sudden boisterous behavior.
"I'm lucky to find you like this then!" And after being reminded of his losing match, and a brisk beating by Shizuru, Kuwabara opted to guide them to the matches. Once they were on their way, Kuwabara finally noticed that Botan was with them, "Miss Botan, where have you been?" He frantically shook her by the shoulders as if she had just been mysteriously brought back form the dead. Or at least brought him a delicious sandwich.
"Oh, I was called away to take care of some business," she scratched the back of her head with an abashed look on her face, clearly flattered by the concern of her one fan.
"You had us all really worried," he said finally able to sigh with relief. Botan looked confused.
"'Us'?" The other girls certainly had not seemed worried, as they were all sitting around idly when she returned. Atsuko had even asked her to fetch a soda first thing, as if she had been there the whole tome.
"Yeah. Kurama, Hiei, and I were all out looking for you because we heard you hadn't returned." As he spoke of his noble deeds, he began to look as though he was posing for a statue being made in his honor. Botan's eyes widened as if Kuwabara has once more fallen out of mid air.
"Hiei!? Looking for me," she pointed at herself in mellow disbelief, as if he may have been talking about a different Botan.
"That's what I thought at first, too, because everyone at the hotel said they saw him follow you out. Plus the night you went missing," his obnoxious voice suddenly got quieter at the sensitive nature his following statement, "when he came back Kurama and I found panties in his pocket." Botan's face suddenly froze and her complexion almost instantly transformed from fair to red. Her eyes squint, and her lips parted in something that resembled a forced smile, revealing clenched teeth. All of the other girls' eyes instantly focused on her with expressions ranging from shock to "please do tell." All except Yukina, who was still trying to follow Kuwabara's story, unaware that the answer to the mystery was right in front of her. Botan suddenly burst into a loud, artificial laughter that even made Kuwabara look at her strangely.
"HA HA HA! Panties, HA! How silly."
"I know, it must have been from someone else, because when we followed him out the next day, he said he was looking for you. Even found some place that looked like someone had been tied up there."
"YES! That's exactly what must have happened! HA HA! That Hiei sure is helpful, isn't he? REALLY not such a bad guy!" She said this all as if talking really loud would blind those who got it from the truth of the matter.
"Some other girl, hm? I didn't know Hiei had it in him," Atsuko snickered flashing Botan a patronizing smirk.
"I'm sure the others will be glad to know you're okay." Botan laughed nervously along with Kuwabara, trying to act as normal as possible.
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Botan was grateful for the crowd and distractions of the semi-finals to avoid any awkward interrogation. For this very reason, she snuck out of the arena just as soon as the final match came to a close. She was most likely the first to arrive back at the hotel, and she sat in the lobby waiting for everyone else to show up. During her wait she thought about what Kuwabara had told her about the three of them looking for her. What bothered her the most were the details about the mysterious panties, and Hiei leading them to a place that looked like someone had been held captive there. Kuwabara may have been a bit of a dunce, but Kurama could have very well figured it out. Her face turned bright red at the thought of Kurama suspecting what had happened. It was bad enough that Koenma...
"Botan?" The hand which touched her shoulder startled a squeak from the reaper, "sorry, I'm glad to see you are unharmed." Kurama smiled politely at her.
"Oh yes, Kuwabara told me that you guys looked for me. I appreciate your concern," she took a small bow of gratitude.
"Hm," the fox crossed his arms looking at her thoughtfully. This made her avert her eyes, with the thought of what he probably knew in the back of her mind, "I think there's someone you should probably see."
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This was mentioned a few times in comments so I thought I'd address this for those of you wondering. I am going by the manga, so at this point, Yusuke and the Masked fighter were training (so said to avoid spoilers as much as possible). They didn't actually show back up until midway through the semi-finals.