Chapter 23 – Reflections
"It was nice to see Botan again."
"Right…"
Shizuru frowned at Keiko from her position behind the wheel of her car, but Keiko appeared to be unfazed by the implications of Botan's return.
"You didn't think it was weird that Botan is back?" she asked.
Keiko shook her head. Shizuru turned back to the road, slowing her car and steering around a particularly nasty pot-hole in the crudely fashioned forest road that would ultimately take them to Genkai's temple.
"It must have been hard for her though," Keiko said.
"Yeah…" Shizuru said slowly. "How so?"
"Well, she was detained in spirit world like Koenma, wasn't she?" Keiko responded.
"Right," Shizuru said.
She still thought it odd that Keiko had neither figured out that Yasashi had been Botan nor that Botan's absence and sudden return coincided with Yasashi's return and then death. Shizuru was not sure how Yasashi had become Botan, but she had been under the impression that they were not two souls sharing a body like Kurama and Shuichi, rather they were one in the same; the ferry girl Botan was a disguise rather than a separate entity. How then, she wondered, after Yasashi had been killed, was it possible for Botan to appear before her that day – carrying an ugly cat ornament, no less – and cheerfully asked her to come to Genkai's temple for a meeting with Koenma?
"I hope Koenma isn't gonna give us another mission," Keiko said. "It's not that I don't want to do it, it's just that I definitely need a rest after that last one…"
"Yeah, a rest sounds good," Shizuru replied.
Though inwardly she was beginning to suspect that the mission they had just been involved in was not quite over yet.
As she rounded a sharp bend in the road and began to drive up a steeper slope, Shizuru started to catch up to another car. Whilst she was not surprised to see Kurama's car on the road, she was more than a little surprised to see Yusuke in the car with him: she had thought that Yusuke had stayed in demon world, and would have made his own way to the temple or else travelled by Puu or with Keiko. And, as they parked up outside the temple, a glance at Keiko told Shizuru that her friend was having the same thoughts that she was.
"Hey, spirit detective team," Yusuke greeted Keiko and Shizuru as they exited the car. "New Yusuke," he said, nodding at Keiko. "New Kurama," he said, nodding at Shizuru. "So where's New Hiei?"
"Yukina's already here," Keiko replied. "But why did you come here with Kurama? I thought you were coming from demon world: why didn't you just take Puu?"
Yusuke's face changed and Shizuru started to think that maybe he too had figured out what was going on.
"I needed to get a little something from Kurama before I came here," he said.
"Like what?" Keiko asked, hints of suspicion and irritation creeping into her tone.
"Like this," he replied, producing something from his coat pocket.
Shizuru's eyes widened in surprise at first, but as she realised what Yusuke was holding, she started to understand and she began to smile.
"A giant plum?" Keiko asked.
"Not quite," Yusuke answered.
"It's a fruit of the previous life," Kurama added.
Keiko looked around the others, her frown deepening.
"I-I don't understand," she admitted. "What do you need that for?"
"Watch and you'll find out," Yusuke replied.
He started to walk off and Keiko turned expectantly to Kurama, who gave a small shrug.
"He wouldn't tell me why he needed it," he said. "But he refused to leave my house without it."
Shizuru continued smiling until she caught Keiko giving her a suspicious look.
"It'll all become clear soon enough, kid," she said. "Let's go inside. This should be good."
"What is that ugly thing?" Koenma asked, pointing an accusing finger at the ornament in Botan's hands.
"That's exactly what I said," Kuwabara said.
"Some of us happen to like these!" Botan argued back.
"That better not be coming back to spirit world with us," Koenma warned.
Botan pouted at him.
"You're always so much meaner when you take that form, Sir!" she complained, referring to the fact that Koenma had taken his adult form to visit the living world.
Koenma sighed and made to tell Botan in no uncertain terms that she could leave the ugly cat ornament wherever she had found it, since her room in spirit world was already littered with similar things; but before he could finish his thoughts he was interrupted by the arrival of the others.
"Yusuke!" he said, turning his attention first to the former spirit detective. "Did you get a chance to do that little favour I asked of you?"
"No," Yusuke replied.
Koenma's face dropped but Yusuke appeared not to notice or to care as he carried on into the room and sat down on the floor. Koenma made to admonish Yusuke for not immediately recovering the Raspberry Sundae file as he had asked him to do, but again he found himself stopping as something else occurred to him.
"We're a man short," he said.
Kuwabara snorted into his hand.
"It's funny because Hiei is short," he said.
Koenma sighed patiently.
"Does anybody know where Hiei is?" he asked. "Did Hiei know he was expected to be here tonight?"
"I passed on the message, Sir," Botan replied. "But he seemed like he was in an awful snippy mood."
"Did he say he would come?" Koenma asked.
"I doubt he will," Kurama answered. "The last time I saw him, he appeared to be returning to demon world."
"So he came to the living world today, but he couldn't stay a little longer just to come here and meet with the rest of us?" Koenma asked.
"That's Hiei for ya," Yusuke said. "But he always shows up when we need him…"
Koenma silently wondered why Yusuke shot Botan a pointed look after his last remark, but when Botan appeared not to notice and Yusuke said no more, he decided not to question the matter.
"Well, regardless, we should…"
Koenma's voice trailed off as he looked around the room again.
"Okay…" he said slowly. "Looks like we're a woman short too."
The others looked around themselves.
"Nah, Yukina's just in the kitchen making the tea, right?" Yusuke concluded.
"Or maybe she's taking her role as New Hiei seriously and she's disappeared too," Shizuru said.
The others laughed, but when Shizuru remained serious, Koenma suspected that there was more truth to her words than anyone else realised.
"Well, moving on," he said. "I called you all here to just remind you that even though we have returned the cat demons to demon world, they left quite a mess on Ping Island. At the moment, the flowers there are stopping anyone from actually reaching the island without falling unconscious, and that poses a serious drowning risk. And, if the flowers should fade for any reason, there will then be the issue of the dead demon bodies left behind from the battle against Iruka's bandits."
"You're asking us to go on caretaker duty?" Yusuke asked.
"Aw, man!" Kuwabara moaned. "You called us all the way out here just to ask us to clean up? Gees, it's no wonder Hiei didn't show up…"
"The task shouldn't be a very onerous one," Kurama said, much to Koenma's relief, as the others had begun to get unsettled, and Kurama's calming words brought them all back to order. "The flowers there were planted by Yasashi and possibly Tora, and grown using demon energy. With both Yasashi and Tora gone, the flowers will have died too. Our biggest and perhaps only concern will be removing any of Iruka's bandits who perished there."
Koenma's relief turned to panic.
"You're right," he quickly said. "It is really unfair of me to ask you to clean up the island after all the work you've all done lately. I'll just send one or two of the SDF officers to sort it out."
Yusuke and Keiko both fixed narrowed, suspicious eyes onto the prince of spirit world, who expertly hid his rising panic behind a mask of impassivity.
"Where is Yukina with that tea?" he said instead, looking back over his shoulder expectantly.
From the corner of his eye he saw Yusuke and Keiko turn to each other and exchange knowing looks, but he did not dare question them on it.
"Well while we're waiting for Yukina to bring the tea, why don't we start with a little snack?"
Koenma, his interest piqued, turned to look directly at Yusuke.
"Hey Botan, heads up," Yusuke said, taking something from his coat pocket and throwing it at Botan.
She released her maneki-neko and barely managed to catch what he had thrown, looking down at it curiously at first before breaking into a grin.
"It looks lovely, Yusuke!" she said. "Is it a damson or a plum?"
"Who cares," Yusuke flatly replied. "Just eat it."
Botan opened her mouth and lifted the fruit towards it, stopping just short of taking a bite as her eyes flicked between the others sitting around her. She slowly retracted her hand and closed her mouth, looking over at Yusuke sceptically.
"Why didn't you bring enough for everyone else?" she asked him.
"I know how much you like damsels, so I just brought one for you, Botan," Yusuke replied, his tone laden with false pleasantry.
"Damsons," Botan corrected him, before breaking into a grin. "And you did remember! This is my gift to celebrate ten years as assistant to the spirit detective, isn't it?"
"Whatever," Yusuke said, waving a hand at her. "Just eat the damn fruit."
Botan shrugged and took a large bite out of the fruit in her hands. Yusuke and Shizuru leaned forwards, staring intently at her and Kurama tilted his head curiously.
"This is delicious!" Botan said through a mouthful of fruit. "Where did you get such a lovely damson?"
She swallowed the contents of her mouth and took another bite, looking over at Yusuke expectantly. He answered her only with a grin, but she got the reply she sought from another member of the group.
"It's a fruit of previous life, you dope," Koenma growled at her.
Botan froze, dropping the fruit and touching her hands to her mouth. She slowly turned her head to look back at Koenma, her eyes wide and fearful.
"You should have recognised what it was, it came from spirit world!" Koenma added as their eyes met.
She began frantically trying to spit out the contents of her mouth, throwing it down on the floor and then hastily wiping the juice from hands onto her clothing.
"I can feel myself turning into a little girl already!" she wailed, tears forming in her eyes. "Yusuke! How could you do this to me! And on our anniversary, too!"
Yusuke looked slightly less than pleased but generally unaffected by Botan's words.
"It's not turning you into a little girl, you idiot," Koenma said.
"Then why am I crying like a little girl?" Botan asked.
"Because you're over-reacting!" Koenma sternly replied. "Snap out of it!"
"Maybe I'm reverting back to my previous life then…" Botan said.
Yusuke and Shizuru leaned further forwards and Koenma was glad when Kurama said the words he had been about to say; though with far less tact.
"Botan, the fruit of previous life only works on someone who has had a previous or earlier life," the fox demon calmly explained. "As a ferry girl, you have neither a previous life to revert to nor a younger form to take: the fruit will have no effect on you other than to leave a slightly bitter aftertaste in your mouth."
"Oh…" Botan said quietly.
She glanced back at Koenma one last time before looking down at the sticky mess of half-chewed fruit she had thrown onto the floor.
"Excuse me," she said, standing up and hurrying from the room.
Once he was confident that she was out of earshot, Koenma rounded on Yusuke.
"First of all, where did you get that from, and secondly, what were you thinking giving it to Botan?" he demanded.
Yusuke shrugged and started to try to joke off what had happened. Koenma marched forwards and grabbed up the maneki-neko Botan had abandoned, holding it up.
"And who gave her this?" he asked.
"I did," Kurama confessed.
"Why?" Koenma asked, turning to look at him.
"She believes I gave it to her as a gift to celebrate that today is ten years to the day since you made her Yusuke's assistant," Kurama replied.
"Yeah but why did you really get it for her?" Yusuke asked.
"I wanted to apologise to her," Kurama replied.
"For what?" Koenma asked.
"Something I said and did a little while ago," Kurama said. "It was inappropriate and an attempted abuse of our friendship."
"I wonder when that happened…" Koenma muttered.
Keiko and Kuwabara exchanged confused looks.
"This is getting weird…" Kuwabara said.
"And awkward…" Keiko added.
Koenma stepped back as Botan returned to the room with a spray bottle of cleaning fluid and a cloth and hurried over to start cleaning up the mess she had made.
"So, we're off the hook for cleaning up the cat litter?" Yusuke asked, smirking at Koenma.
"It looks like it," Koenma tightly replied.
Yukina stopped to catch her breath. She could have taken Puu to reach her destination far quicker, but she had not wanted anyone to notice her absence, and she knew that taking Puu would alert Yusuke. As she recovered herself she looked over at the building she had been searching for. When she had held Botan's hands and concentrated on what she sought, she had been afforded a vision of the building and how to find it: but unfortunately her vision had ended there. After one last deep sigh she straightened up and started towards the entrance, trying to keep her head high and trying to look like she belonged in the dirty little shanty town of demon world she travelled to (Yasashi had always advised her to keep her head up and look confident when visiting a new part of demon world as doing so would ensure nobody watching her would mark her as a tourist or someone new to town).
She pushed open a wooden door and stepped into a smoky bar, the tables mostly populated by large and scarred demons. She quietly wove her way through the mess of tables and chairs and broken crockery, making her way to the bar itself. She hoped that the bartender might be able to help her find what she sought.
"Excuse me?" she said as she reached the bar. "I'm looking for something and I wondered if you might know where I could find it."
"Who wants to know?"
Yukina paused as the centipede demon turned to fully face her, flicking a dirty cloth over one shoulder and placing a grubby glass mug down onto the bar surface.
"I do, Sir," she said when she realised that he was awaiting some sort of response. "My name is Yukina."
"An ice maiden, huh?" the bartender responded. "Never understood those weird glass things you keep in your hair."
Yukina self-consciously touched a hand to the red hair ornament she was wearing.
"What are you ordering, Yukina?" the bartender continued. "Because this isn't a social club, it's a bar. You buy a drink, or you get out."
"Oh, no, I'm sorry, I'm not here to drink," Yukina replied, trying to refocus the conversation back onto her main purpose for being there. "I'm looking for a treasure. Would you know where I could find something like that?"
"Who wants to know?"
Yukina faltered slightly.
"Well, I do, obviously," she quietly replied.
"Buy a drink, leave me a generous tip and maybe we can talk."
Yukina decided against admitting that she did not have any money on her: as the bartender had already recognised her as an ice apparition, he would probably only suggest she cry her payment for anything she ordered.
"Please Sir, this is really important," she tried instead. "I have to find a special treasure from spirit world."
Yukina realised her mistake when the entire room fell silent. She wondered how it was that her softly spoken words had been heard at the other end of the room over the previous rabble of rowdy conversation, but regardless the room had silenced and she could see, in the reflective surface at the back of the bar, that all the patrons of the bar were turned in her direction.
"Listen Yukina, I ain't the sort who keeps anything from spirit world," the bartender said, resting one of his many elbows on the bar surface and leaning closer to her. "And even I was the sort who kept things from spirit world, I wouldn't admit it anybody. I ain't suicidal. I'm just an honest, hard-working guy, trying to run a bar. So either you order a drink, or you leave."
Yukina sighed in defeat and the noise began to grow behind her again as everyone else returned to their drinks and conversations.
"Are you sure this isn't the place where the treasure is hidden?" she asked. "It's just one thing I'm looking for. You maybe have it but you don't even realise it. Can't you please take a look for me?"
"Yukina, I ain't even got one thing from spirit world," the bartender said. "Like I said, I'm just an honest, hard-working guy who serves drinks."
Yukina gasped as a small resin bag packed full of hirui stones landed on the bar in front of her. She looked first at the bag and then up at the bartender.
"I got a whole basement full of crap from spirit world," he said. "Help yourself to whatever you need."
Yukina's jaw dropped and she hesitated, staring at the bartender in disbelief, only awakening from the moment when she felt a hand on her arm guiding her away from the bar. She stumbled a few steps away before turning to see who was with her, gasping again when she found herself looking at the back of Hiei's head. He led her across the room to a low door, beyond which they descended a long staircase to a cold, damp basement, lit only by a single, aging torch mounted on one wall.
"What are we looking for?" Hiei asked her.
Yukina turned to him, her jaw still hanging open and her mind still blank.
"And for future reference, never give your real name," he added. "And always remember that money is the only language these cretins speak."
"Did you just give that man the bounty money Jagasame paid you?" Yukina asked.
Hiei met her eyes.
"Yes," he said. "Do you have a problem with that?"
Yukina shook her head.
"I thought this seemed like the most appropriate use for it, after all," he added.
Yukina nodded.
"So what are we looking for?" he asked again.
"A mirror," Yukina replied.
Hiei turned around on the spot before looking over at Yukina again. Only when she saw the slightly pained expression on his face did she copy his action of looking around the room, her first impression being that the bartender really did own a tremendous amount of spirit world treasures and her second impression being that most of them were some sort of mirror.
"Any idea what it looks like?" Hiei asked.
"No, sorry," Yukina replied.
"You take that half of the room, I'll look over here."
Yukina nodded and set about her search: though she did think it odd that Hiei was so eager to help her.
"Take a left."
Kurama frowned at Yusuke but did as he asked and turned his car left.
"We're now moving away from the city, Yusuke," he pointed out.
"I know," Yusuke casually replied. "Just trust me."
"We're approaching the harbour," Kurama commented. "Is that where you want me to take you?"
"Just trust me, fox boy."
Kurama felt as though he was being set up for something.
"Why did you give that fruit of previous life I gave you to Botan?" he asked.
"I dunno," Yusuke replied, again sounding far too casual. "Why did you give her that ugly cat statue?"
"I already told you why," Kurama said. "I owed her an apology. It was a peace offering."
"For what?"
Kurama hesitated, at first unwilling to admit the truth; but since the whole dilemma with the rebel cat demons was over, he reasoned that he had nothing to hide any more.
"I went to see Botan in spirit world when we were still trying to find out why the rebel cat demons were contacting Yukina," he confessed. "I tried to force her to use her position as one of Koenma's trusted aides to give me access to the file Koenma kept on the rebel leader. She was clearly uncomfortable with helping me, but she did it regardless because of my persuasion, and I think that may be the reason she was punished alongside Koenma when Yasashi was released from spirit world. Botan took me to the secret file room and I could tell that was something she shouldn't have done. I think she was blamed for what was effectively my malfeasance."
"Sneaky," Yusuke said. "Park up here."
Kurama narrowed his eyes as he entered the Sarayashiki Harbour car park.
"It doesn't bother you that Botan suffered because of me?" he asked.
"No, and pretty soon I don't think it's gonna bother you either," Yusuke replied.
Kurama pulled into a parking space and stopped the car, turning to look at Yusuke.
"I hope you kept the receipt for that dumb cat ornament," Yusuke said with a smirk. "Because I'm pretty sure you're gonna want a refund after you see this."
Kurama started to ask Yusuke what he was talking about, but the mazoku had already left the car. Kurama hurried out after him, catching up to him as he reached the binoculars mounted on the pier that were usually only of any interest to tourists.
"Take a look out at Ping Island," Yusuke said, nodding at one of the binoculars.
Kurama fumbled in his pocket for a coin to activate the binoculars before doing as Yusuke suggested. The view the binoculars gave of Ping Island was not a detailed one – due to the distance and small size of the island – but Kurama did not need to see any details as the colour of what he could see told him all that he needed to know.
"The flowers are still alive," he concluded, straightening up.
"Funny thing that," Yusuke said.
"It makes no sense," Kurama said, turning to Yusuke. "One of the other rebels must have planted them, otherwise they would have died along with Yasashi."
"Unless Yasashi didn't die," Yusuke said.
Kurama gave Yusuke a hard look, but Yusuke remained uncharacteristically serious.
"I didn't check myself, but I knew those flowers would still be alive when I saw how Koenma reacted to you saying they ought not to be," Yusuke added. "And also because of this."
Yusuke reached into the inside pocket of his green jacket and produced a folded up paper. Kurama looked down at the two-page document before slowly lifting his eyes to Yusuke's.
"What is that?" he asked.
"It's the last couple of pages out of the Raspberry Sundae file," Yusuke replied.
Kurama slowly accepted the paper from Yusuke.
"Where did you get this?" he asked.
"The Raspberry Sundae file," Yusuke replied. "Koenma sent me to get it back from where he hid it."
"And you read it?"
Yusuke shrugged.
"I was curious," he said, as though what he had done was not a big deal. "It's pretty boring, but this last part is pretty interesting. It's about you."
Kurama's face dropped and Yusuke nodded at the paper in his hand.
"You really need to read it, Kurama," he insisted. "It explains a lot."
Kurama slowly lowered his eyes to the two-page document, opening it out to do as Yusuke suggested.
"Maybe it's this one."
"No."
Yukina sighed louder than she had meant to, and Hiei stopped, turning more fully towards her.
"You don't understand," he said. "What you're looking for won't look like that."
Yukina looked down at the oval mirror she had picked up. It was about the length of her arm and half as wide at its widest point, set in an ornate silver frame decorated with jade stones.
"You're thinking like a demon, Yukina."
Yukina slowly lifted her eyes from her own reflection in the slightly grubby mirror to look over at Hiei.
"You need to think like a spirit."
"I don't understand what you mean, Mister Hiei," she admitted.
"A demon who created a mirror of such importance would make something that looks like the mirror you now hold," Hiei said as he continued clawing through the piles of treasures around him. "Whereas someone in spirit world creating such a powerful item would make it less conspicuous. Demons make valuable things look valuable. Spirits make valuable things look worthless: that's how they keep them from being stolen by we demons."
"Oh, I see," Yukina said, placing down the mirror she had been holding. "So I should look for something plain and simplistic?"
"Exactly," Hiei confirmed.
Yukina turned back to her section of the basement, pushing her way through several ornate mirrors before finding something ridiculously plain and inconspicuous. She carefully picked it up, finding it to be what looked like a plain wooden hand mirror. The wood was a little dry and cracked and the mirror was darkened over, and the only indication that it was anything other than a plain old hand mirror was the very faded four red spirit symbols painted onto the back of it.
"Like this?" she asked, holding up her find.
"Exactly like that," Hiei replied.
Yukina stood up and smiled as Hiei approached her.
"Does it work?" he asked her.
She looked at the dark reflection of her own face for several seconds before slowly shaking her head.
"I'm not sure," she concluded.
"Usually you need to do something to activate it," Hiei advised.
"Oh, okay…" Yukina said.
"Try this."
Hiei touched a hand to the back of the mirror and Yukina gasped as it illuminated and her reflection changed, brightening and becoming clear.
"What do you see now?" Hiei asked her.
Yukina stared at the mirror, Hiei's question leaving her mind mere moments after it had entered her ears. She reasoned that what she could see was a fair result, but it still felt strange and saddening to see it.
"I see myself," she said quietly. "But… Different…"
She turned her head from side to side and her reflection followed as it would with a normal mirror, but still the face looking back out at her was devoid of a jagan eye, dressed in a kimono and located in the ice village.
"I think this is what it's supposed to do," she concluded.
Hiei nodded and held a hand out towards the door.
"Then let's not linger here," he said.
Yukina nodded and walked past him, her hands still clutching the mirror, holding it up in front of her face. As she passed Hiei his reflection appeared alongside hers and she stopped walking. She stared, unblinkingly, at the face behind her left shoulder, not only shocked to see it but at a genuine loss to explain it.
"What is it?" Hiei asked her.
When Yukina saw the lips of the reflected face moving in sync with Hiei's words she started to understand what she was looking at.
"We shouldn't loiter here," Hiei added. "That bartender may have let us come down here, but I don't trust him not to betray us. If somebody pays him more than we did, he'll reveal that we came here. Don't let him see what you left with. Hide the mirror before we exit the basement."
Yukina swallowed hard as tears threatened.
"Give me the mirror, I'll hide it," Hiei said.
He moved closer and grabbed a hand at the mirror, but he too stopped short when his eyes landed on what Yukina was still captivated by. She slowly turned her head to look at him, seeing his pupils contracted, his mouth slightly open and his skin visibly paler as he stared at his reflection in the mirror.
"Why would it show you that way?" Yukina whispered.
Hiei made a small noise but otherwise did not respond.
"Unless…"
Yukina turned back to the mirror and again saw that Hiei's reflection was identical to her own.
"You're my brother," she said firmly, turning to look at him again. "Your reflection is the same as mine because you are the same as me."
He slowly turned his head and met her eyes, his mouth and eyes twitching several times.
"It's true, isn't it?" she asked. "You can't deny it."
"Stupid mirror…" Hiei grumbled.
"It's true though, isn't it?" Yukina pressed.
Hiei snatched the mirror from her hands and stuffed it into the folds of his coat.
"Let's just say the mirror is doing exactly what you expected it to," he said quietly.
He started out the door and Yukina hesitated to follow him, still reeling from what she had discovered. She only found the strength to move again when Hiei called out her name from the top of the staircase. She then snapped out of her reverie and hurried after him, catching up to him as he crossed the bar to a wall covered with posters.
"None of these posters are for the rebel cat demons," he said, pointing at the wall.
Yukina scanned over the wanted posters with a smile of relief: though when she noticed a poster depicting Kuwabara and mentioning something about slug sausages she started to panic again.
"Wait, somebody is offering a reward for Kazuma!" she said.
"Don't worry about that," Hiei said dismissively. "Follow me, I know what we need to do next."
"You-you do?"
Yukina hurried after Hiei.
"Wait!" she said. "Did you know that you were my brother?"
Hiei grumbled something about ungrateful foxes but otherwise did not respond.
Botan hummed cheerfully to herself as she soared through the skies on her oar. She was glad the madness of the last week had passed and things were back to normal again. She was at her happiest when things were peaceful and relaxed and nobody's life was in danger and there were no threats from any evil demons. She felt a strange blast of air at the back of her head and frowned, looking back over her shoulder to see the blade of her oar dropping towards the ground.
Botan screamed as she began to plummet through the air. Thankfully she had not been flying so high that her fall would be too painful, but she was falling over a forest, and she did hit just about every tree branch on her way down, before landing in a bed of dandelions, a cloud of fluffy seeds rising all around her. She slowly sat up and sneezed before noticing the two figures approaching her. She looked first at Hiei's sword and then at Yukina's concerned eyes.
"Hello you two…" she said slowly. "Fancy seeing you here. Together. At the same time that somebody just attacked me."
"I'm sorry, but we had to get your attention," Yukina replied.
Botan's eyes widened as Hiei replaced his sword to its scabbard with a "hn".
"You-you did this to me?" she asked, holding up the severed handle of her oar.
Yukina glanced at Hiei and Botan turned to him expectantly.
"Don't look at me," he said. "I'm only a part of this because I don't want to have to endure another thirty years of Kurama bemoaning your departure."
Botan turned to Yukina.
"What?" she asked.
Yukina gave her a sympathetic look before opening up her arms – which had been crossed over her chest – to reveal that she was holding a battered old hand mirror. Botan squinted at the object curiously before her eyes widened suddenly.
"That's from spirit world!" she said, pointing at the four spirit symbols on the back of the mirror. "Where did you find it?"
"That's not important," Hiei told her.
"Well I rather think it is important!" Botan protested. "If Lord Koenma knew that something from spirit world was in the living world, he'd–"
"Botan?"
Botan stopped at the sound of Yukina's voice.
"I hope this doesn't hurt," she said sweetly.
Botan started to frown, started to wonder what on earth the little ice maiden had meant, but she forgot all about it when Yukina turned the mirror around and she caught sight of her own reflection in it.
"I feel like a fool."
"Ah don't beat yourself up. None of the rest of us figured it out either."
Kurama shook his head.
"I can't believe it," he said.
"I know, right?" Yusuke responded. "Your hot and powerful girlfriend was Botan this whole time."
Kurama gave Yusuke a withering look.
"Not that I was checking her out or anything!" Yusuke said.
"The fact that Yasashi was Botan and Botan was Yasashi is not the most surprising part of this," Kurama said.
"Really?" Yusuke said. "I thought it was pretty crazy. I also kinda thought you'd feel more stupid for not realising that Botan was your secret girlfriend this whole time…"
"That's why you gave her the fruit of previous life?"
"Yeah. I know the file says the only way to reverse the effects of the crystal is to cut it back out, but I figured it was worth a try. Too bad it didn't work. I wanted to see how Koenma would've explained Botan turning into Yasashi right in front of everyone."
"Did you read all of this, Yusuke?"
Yusuke turned more fully towards Kurama, looking first at the document and then at Kurama.
"Uh, yeah, sorry, I kinda did," he admitted. "I wasn't gonna, but it got kinda juicy and I couldn't help myself."
Kurama nodded.
"I had no idea she might have said such things," he said.
"Really?" Yusuke asked.
Kurama nodded again.
"Well I need to head back anyway," Yusuke said. "Keep that for now, but I'm gonna need to get it back to Koenma soon, so get it back to me when you're done, yeah?"
Kurama nodded and Yusuke started to walk away, cupping his hands at either side of his mouth and making turkey noises. Kurama moved to the edge of the pier and sat down, his legs hanging over the edge so that his feet were barely above the water. He then looked down at the document in his hands, feeling a need to read it through again as he was still barely able to believe that he had read it correctly the first time.