Chapter 1 – Who You Are

"We will be moving two clicks westward and one click northward, and this is obviously a significant advance on our previous endeavours – in no small part thanks to the relationships we have been able to build with our counterparts within Demon World's Border Patrol – and, as everybody here knows, triangulating the distance we are talking about here amounts to an expanse of space that will require full-time effort from every officer in the SDF: which brings me to exactly why I have called you all here today. As we will be thus engaged, it has become clear we need to nominate some trustworthy, savvy, combat-experienced individuals to man the existing line for us as we push this advance. Koenma has given me a list of names he believes would be capable for this task. Ayame?"

Ryuhi turned to the pale-faced, dark-haired and dark-clothed ferry girl who duly stepped forward from the crowd upon hearing her name. She bowed her head politely and Ryuhi nodded at her in reply.

"Botan?"

Ryuhi was irritated when nobody responded instantly, but held her patience in check as the crowd of ferry girls and ogres before her – most of whom looked like a truly pathetic rag-tag group of cretins – glanced about between themselves with obvious confusion and a hint of concern.

"Botan?" Ryuhi repeated, scanning over the group, her firmer tone having clearly ruffled them all and yet still failed to produce the one she sought. "Which one of you is Botan?"

"It's her!" an ogre squawked, his voice cracking as he pointed shaking hands at a ferry girl standing near the back and at the far side of the group.

Ryuhi's eyes thinned as she fixed them onto the only ferry girl dressed in pink, whose face was barely visible behind a book she was leaning into and frantically scribbling in.

"Botan?" Ryuhi said sternly, causing one ferry girl to yelp in fear and one ogre to cower over entirely. "Botan!"

"Botan!" Koenma shrieked. "Why aren't you paying attention?"

Botan finally lifted her head from her book, where she proceeded to – much to Ryuhi's chagrin – first fix her attention onto Koenma.

"I am listening, Sir," she said. "I heard what Officer Ryuhi said."

"Did you really?" Ayame asked her in a low voice that Ryuhi suspected was meant to be subtle.

Botan turned to Ayame and nodded before finally turning to face Ryuhi.

"I did!" she said, beaming brilliantly despite the inappropriateness of the expression. "I heard every single thing you said about clicking triangles with the Border Patrol. I'm not sure what sort of game "clicking triangles" is, but I think it's just super that we have such a great relationship with Demon World now that even the officers of the SDF can play games with demons–"

"Botan!" Koenma barked. "You're embarrassing me!"

Ryuhi smoothly and swiftly marched forwards, not even needing to hesitate or break stride as the crowd hurriedly parted to allow her passage. She came to a halt directly in front of Botan, whereupon she snatched the book from the ferry girl's hands. To her surprise, Botan gladly released it, and remained unfazed as it was taken from her. Ryuhi gave a long glower before lowering her eyes to the recovered journal, finding the pages littered with crude cartoon drawings of cats and catlike people, accompanied by haphazard passages of text that rambled on at length about complete nonsense.

"What exactly were you writing about that you felt was so important that you could ignore the speech I was delivering about Spirit World's movements within Demon World?" Ryuhi asked her.

"I was just writing down what you said about the snack packs the SDF carry, and how the blue is your favourite," Botan replied, pointing a sleeve-covered finger at the pages. "I write everything down about all my friends. Every detail. It's all in there."

Ryuhi arched her eyebrows at Botan, but the ferry girl did not falter with her brilliant smile nor did any of the sparkle fade from her pink eyes. Ryuhi slammed the book shut, and although everyone else in the room – including Koenma – flinched at the sound, Botan remained unfalteringly bright and cheerful before her. Ryuhi growled out a sigh and then thumbed through the pages of the book, flicking them loudly until she came across an especially messy collection of pages – a literally messy collection of pages, as fragments of dried flowers fell from them, and some were partially stuck together by what appeared to be browned honey. Ryuhi stopped there, smoothing open the pages.

"Those are my notes about my good friend Yukina," Botan explained. "We used the book to press some of her favourite flowers too!"

Ryuhi slammed the book shut again before slapping it against Botan's chest. Botan's smile finally faltered as she hurriedly grabbed at the book to accept it back from Ryuhi, who quickly turned from her, spinning on her heels until she had located Koenma.

"Find me someone else," she told him sternly. "Someone competent."

"Well, Ryuhi, Botan has actually had extensive experience in Demon World," Koenma replied, clearly feeling foolish but trying his best to hide it. "She has had hands-on experience working with demons when she was assistant to the Spirit Detective–"

"Ah yes, the Spirit Detective," Ryuhi said with a sigh. "And which "Spirit Detective" would this be? The one that went insane and tried to unleash the worst of Demon World upon the living, the recluse who rejected all three worlds so hard she went to live in a cabin in the woods, or the Mazoku?"

Koenma opened his mouth and held up a finger, but dissolved into a sheepish grin when Ryuhi merely folded her arms and sneered down at him.

"I'll find someone else," he quietly concluded.

"And be quick about it," Ryuhi grumbled.

She began to leave, but before she had left completely, she heard Botan ask if the "class was over". Clearly, she thought to herself, Koenma had no idea about the right sort of person to take on a mission surviving on the dangerous borderlands between Spirit World and Demon World, a place where it was possible that D-class, C-class – and sometimes even the occasional B-class – demons could potentially wander.

Koenma was marching through the corridors of his father's temple as fast as his little legs could carry him. He had exited his office so briskly, the door had slammed shut behind him before George had even finished that not-so-silent, not-so-subtle, sigh of relief he always expended whenever he saw his boss irritated and realised that none of the ire would be directed at him. Koenma did not even have the time to consider such things though: he had to find Botan as soon as possible. And fortunately, that was no difficult task, as she was – as she often did when she was wandering aimlessly around in Spirit World with nothing to do – humming very loudly, and so all he had to do to track her down was follow the sound of her lilting, vaguely fey, tune.

After what felt like several minutes, the elusive ferry girl finally came into his line of sight, walking at a leisurely pace towards him, her face still stuck in the same book she had been poring over during the meeting with the SDF earlier that day.

"Botan!" he barked, stopping directly in her path.

He had expected to startle her with his harsh tone, and although she did flinch, the brilliant smile she greeted him with clearly indicated she did not appreciate just how irate he was.

"Oopsy Sir, I almost tripped right over you!" she said, lowering her book enough that he could clearly see her face over the top of the pages.

"Botan, the whole purpose of that meeting this morning was that you joined the team to guard the border between Spirit World and Demon World!" Koenma immediately spat back, seeing little need to hesitate in getting to the point.

"Oh, I see," Botan replied, looking far too surprised and sounding far too relaxed for his liking.

"Can you not put that book down for even ten minutes?" he shot back.

"I like to keep note of all the important things in here, Sir. I was just taking notes."

"Give me the book."

"Well, the thing about that is, the way I write my notes is in a way that probably really only I can understand them – they are written in my voice, as a reminder for my brain – and reading my notes won't mean anything to anyone else–"

"Give me the book right now, Botan!"

Botan closed her notebook and duly handed it down to the prince.

"Well you could at least say "please"…" she grumbled as he grabbed the book out of her hand.

Koenma ignored her – despite the fact that she began humming again, albeit at a much lower volume than usual – and he began flipping through the pages. All manners of items fell out of the pages as he proceeded, from glitter to dried plant matter to feathers and even some sort of hair or fur. The pages were haphazardly filled with text that ranged from neatly written lines to hastily written notes, pictures that ranged from semi-impressive in quality to nearly illegible scribbled doodles. Not all of the handwriting was even Botan's own. Some of the pages were just lipstick kiss-marks in differing shades. Eventually Koenma reached a long section of themed information.

"Oh, that's my section on Yusuke, Sir," Botan offered.

Koenma grunted and continued on.

"And that's the part about Kuwabara, and that's the bit on Keiko – ooh and that's the part about Shizuru, which is a little bit fragmented because some of those pages are about Yukina and some are–"

"Botan, this notebook was issued to you in order for you to take notes at your morning briefing so that you were prepared with all relevant background information to meet, greet and escort the souls assigned to you for the day."

"Yes, I use it for that too."

Koenma sighed, one hand still supporting the underside of Botan's notebook as the other hand slapped over the pages.

"I would feel a lot more reassured if you were helping out at the front line instead of drawing pictures of…"

Koenma paused to try to fathom exactly what he was looking at.

"That's a picture of Kurama's Death Plant," Botan explained.

Koenma slowly lifted his head to look directly up at her.

"It's actually very pretty Sir – oh, but what am I saying, you already know that, you saw it too!" she said. "At the Dark Tournament, remember?"

Koenma lowered his head again and continued through the book, all the while painfully aware that Ryuhi had been looking through it that very morning, and would surely have been even more critical of the contents than he felt right then. He only broke pace when the information before him suddenly changed format – a change so drastic, he thought perhaps he had misjudged Botan after all, as he appeared to have found pages upon pages of formally written passages that looked more akin to the contents of Ayame's notebook.

"Well Botan, I–"

"Gimme that!"

Koenma froze, both amazed and offended at just how fast and just how roughly Botan had snatched back her notebook. His eyes were barely fast enough to catch her stowing it up a sleeve, but he did not need to be quite so quick to notice the pinkening of her cheeks and the twitching of her lips. He opened his mouth, intent on telling her that he was actually pleased to find that she did appear to be using at least half of the book correctly, but before he could speak, she began talking at him in a slightly flustered and almost defensive tone.

"So what if I write that sort of thing in my notebook?" she said. "It's my notebook – my personal notebook – to write whatever I please in! If I want to use it as a diary or use it to write about Hiei that has nothing to do with you or anyone else!"

"Hiei?"

There were many things amiss with Botan's manner, tone and words, but for some reason, the inclusion of the fire demon amidst them had seemed to most unusual.

"It's none of your business!" Botan snapped. "A girl's allowed to have some privacy, isn't she?"

"Privacy?" Koenma echoed, suddenly far more confused than annoyed.

"This isn't fair!" she wailed. "I don't go into your personal belongings and start judging you!"

"I… Wasn't judging you…"

"Maybe I don't want to be on the frontline with the SDF anyway! Did you ever think of that? Maybe I've already had my time fighting demons and now I just want to relax!"

It was rare for Koenma to be at a loss for words, but, in that moment, he was genuinely speechless.

"After everything," Botan began, her tone even and calm despite her face being redder than ever. "After Yusuke dying and coming back as a demon, after you being ousted from Spirit World and all the confusion with you coming back in, after Genkai dying… I just wanted to relax…"

Koenma nodded.

"Okay Botan," he said. "I understand. If you change your mind, do let me know, because I do think you'd be a valuable asset on the frontline."

"I don't think Officer Bossy Boots would agree with you…" Botan muttered.

Koenma smiled and Botan returned his gesture, looking almost as cheerful as she had when he had first encountered her in the hallway.

"Well then, I'll be on my way," he said, turning around and starting back for his office.

"I'll see you on Monday," Botan called after him.

"Monday?" Koenma muttered. "But today is Friday! Hey, wait, I didn't authorise you to go another one of your parties with…"

Koenma looked about himself but saw no trace of Botan, other than a single feather floating through the air around the small dusting of glitter that had fallen out of her notebook. He sighed in resignation: he was too busy to go after her, so he would simply make her work double shifts when she did come back.

Kurama tried to chew his lunch more slowly, if only to delay having to answer Kuwabara's question. It was a glorious summer's day, and they had decided to meet outside on the lawns of the university campus instead of in the library, and, as he often did, Kuwabara had asked Kurama to read over one of his assignments as a sense-checking exercise. Across the picnic table, Kuwabara was fidgeting more fervently than Kurama had ever seen him do, and so he decided that he could not delay any longer. He swallowed the contents of his mouth and forced a gentle smile.

"Kuwabara, were you, by chance, a tad distracted?" he asked.

As he finished his question, Kurama moved his eyes to Kuwabara, who he found to be glancing frantically between himself and something behind and beyond his left shoulder.

"Kuwabara, are you by chance a tad distracted right now?" Kurama asked him, his smile coming more easily then.

"Um, Kurama?" Kuwabara began.

"Yes, Kuwabara?" Kurama prompted.

"Um, there's this really pretty girl who keeps looking over at us."

Kurama sighed softly and placed Kuwabara's assignment down onto the table.

"And, um, I've noticed her a few times before," Kuwabara continued. "And, um, she's in my marketing class, and she doesn't even see me there, but when I'm with you, she always looks over, so I think maybe she's into you."

"Well, that's nothing to worry yourself over," Kurama assured him.

"No, Kurama, it's not normal."

"Kuwabara, please, it's fine, just forget about it–"

"Kurama, you don't understand! It's the worst possible thing that could happen – the biggest gossip and matchmaker wannabe we know is over there talking to that pretty girl who likes you!"

"Whuh?"

Kurama twisted around, curiosity overtaking common sense, and looked out across the lawn in the direction Kuwabara was so nervously glancing. There were few people in that direction, and the girl Kuwabara appeared to be referring to was standing facing away from them, wearing a hoodie with the hood pulled up over her head despite the summer heat. The girl would otherwise have been indistinguishable from anyone else out on the lawn, and, as she was turned away, Kurama would never have guessed that she was the girl Kuwabara was referring to: however, the reason she was turned away made her highly conspicuous.

She was facing a familiar, blue-haired girl, dressed in a shocking pink dress that was a little too revealing to be appropriate to wear on campus and was at least ten years out of style.

"You have to get over there quick, Kurama!" Kuwabara urged.

"Why?" Kurama asked, turning to look at his friend again.

"Because if you let Botan talk to that girl any longer, she'll tell her something really embarrassing about you, like how you like plants, or how you're really close to your mom, or that people often think you're a girl!"

Kurama gave a small frown.

"But Kuwabara..." he said quietly. "I do like plants, I do enjoy a very close relationship with my mother and people often do think that I'm a girl."

"But you don't want her to know that!" Kuwabara cried. "Botan knows everything about us, Kurama! She's always listening in and gossiping, and she always remembers everything about everyone – every little thing!"

Kurama smiled.

"You're worrying yourself over nothing, Kuwabara, I assure you," Kurama said to him gently. "Concern yourself with your assignment, not Botan, or that girl. I don't even know who that girl is: and there is no girl on this entire campus who I would find so interesting that I would forego completing one of my class assignments for her: that I can guarantee you."

Kuwabara pouted.

"I dunno, Kurama," he muttered. "She was really cute and it seemed like she was really into you – well, she was really into you, you know, before Botan came on the scene and started messing it all up for you..."

Kurama smiled and shook his head.

"Trust me Kuwabara, I don't care what those two are discussing."

Botan's senses were numbed – even her ears were deaf to the chirping birds and crackle of twigs beneath her feet as she walked – as her entire being was focused on finishing a note she was writing up in her notebook. She was not too concerned that Ryuhi had not picked her to join in the special Spirit World mission in Demon World, but after how irritated and clearly affronted Koenma had been following the selection ceremony, Botan felt that she ought to take note of everything that had been discussed anyway. She had started taking notes in Spirit World, but had run out of time when, after checking the task section of her notebook, she was reminded that she was due to travel to the living world to join the girls for a weekend getaway at Genkai's temple. And so she had changed into the first outfit she laid her hands on and raced through the portal between worlds, taking herself to the university Kuwabara and Kurama attended – because someone had to address the issue of Kuwabara interrupting the girls' weekend, as he was highly likely to do, to check up on Yukina and to (unintentionally) infuriate his big sister Shizuru – and there Botan took a moment to finish her notes.

"Ow!" she yelped, stumbling back and inadvertently dropping her notebook and pen.

In her distracted state, Botan had walked underneath a particularly jagged set of fine tree branch-ends, her high ponytail becoming ensnared. She moaned in complaint and began the arduous task of picking about blindly at the back of her head to free herself. It quickly became apparent to her that she was really quite trapped, and so she removed the clasp holding her hair up. Her patience thinned and, after losing a few hairs and breaking a few more, she managed to free herself: though she was left with some barbs buried in the back of her hair. She did not really want to approach Kuwabara with her hair looking so messy from both her tugging at it and the remaining twiglets entangled at the back of her head, as she felt that she needed to look as authoritative as possible if she was going to admonish him and warn him not to bother the girls that weekend. He was so ungrateful: he would surely argue with her and tell her she was interfering and spying on him (as he, in turn, spied on the girls) but really, her warning was kindly meant. She knew, as well as he surely must, that an invasion would incur the wrath of Shizuru, which would leave Shizuru tense for the rest of the night, spoil the mood for the rest of the girls, and leave Kuwabara bruised and bloodied.

But, just as she was considering her apparent unappreciated altruism, Botan noticed that Kuwabara was sitting at a picnic table out on the lawns of the university campus, and he was eating lunch with Kurama. Kurama always carried a good comb and was an expert at removing stubborn plant matter from human hair – since that was basically how he spent a good deal of his own time after a battle and before he could return home to his human mother. She could ask Kurama for help to fix her hair and then she could confront Kuwabara in Kurama's presence, as the wise fox demon would surely back her up, making her task all the easier to complete.

And then she could enjoy a nice relaxing and peaceful weekend in the living world, surrounded by friends and in a lovely setting.

Botan took one step forwards before remembering that she had dropped her notebook in her struggle, and she turned her head to find it still lying on the ground at her side.

"Oopsy…" she muttered to herself. "Can't leave you lying around here like that – now that really would be a disaster."

Botan reached out a hand and began to crouch down to retrieve her book, only to snatch herself back upright at the sound of a girl's voice yelping urgently behind her.

"Uso!"

"Oh, bless you!"

Botan turned around with a smile, facing the girl standing behind her. For someone who had just sneezed, she looked unduly concerned and confused. In fact, she looked nervous and worried, almost as though she was somehow afraid of Botan. Botan reached out a hand towards her and made to move to place her hand on the girl's shoulder, but she stopped short at the words she heard next.

"Don't move. I know who you are. I know what you are."

Botan froze on the spot, her mind drawing a blank when she tried to think why she was being addressed in such a manner.

"I've been looking for you. I knew you'd come here – you always do, eventually. You can't even imagine what I've been through trying to find you, how long I've spent planning the moment when we would finally come face to face right here."

Botan allowed herself to blink before frowning ever so slightly at the hooded woman addressing her. Something about the look in her eyes warned Botan that her plans for the weekend may be about to change quite drastically.

Next Chapter: It appears that Botan has found Maya, a spiritually aware girl from Kurama's past, and both he and Maya have a lot of catching up to do, and so Botan does the decent thing and gets Kuwabara out of their way before heading off to join the girls for a weekend stay at Genkai's. Chapter 2a – New Girl

A/N: There is an INSANE amount of foreshadowing in this chapter. This was chapter 1. The one and only. (That was some more foreshadowing, thrown in for free.)