#hibo

The room was quiet except for the soft rustle of fabric and the steady beat of rain tapping against the paper windows. Botan exhaled slowly, her eyes adjusting to the dim light. Candles flickered on the low table, casting Hiei’s shadow in jagged, dancing shapes across the walls.

She lay on the futon, wrists resting above her head where energy tendrils—soft red—looped delicately around her skin. They weren’t tight, but there was no mistaking their purpose. They held her in place, humming with the unmistakable presence of Hiei’s Jagan. Cool to the touch, and yet it made her feel hot beneath the surface.

"Still breathing?" His voice cut through the stillness—dry, edged with amusement but carrying that undercurrent she was learning to hear. Concern disguised as indifference.

Botan’s lips curved. “You’ll know if I stop.”

He stepped into her line of vision, shirt half undone, dark hair casting shadows over one crimson eye. The Jagan pulsed faintly at the center of his forehead, half-lidded and glowing.

“You let me do this,” he said quietly, crouching beside her. His fingertips brushed along her collarbone, light as mist, yet her skin came alive under the touch. “You let me hold you like this.”

Botan’s throat was dry. “Maybe I’m just curious what a night with the infamous Forbidden Child is really like.”

He leaned in, breath warm against her ear. “You already know I’m dangerous. But I think you want to find out just how dangerous.”

Her heart thudded hard. The restraints around her wrists tightened, not painfully—but enough to remind her who held the reins. And that she had offered them to him willingly. The first time she seen Hiei used them was during their first encounter at the warehouse and on Yusuke. Instead of using them during a fight he decides to use it in the bedroom.

The air around them felt charged, like the moment before a storm. Hiei’s touch trailed lower, down her arm, across her ribs, never rushing—never giving her more than a flicker of what she wanted. His restraint was infuriating. And intoxicating.

She arched slightly, testing the binds. “So serious tonight,” she whispered.

His eyes flicked up to hers. “You wanted this. You said you trusted me.”

“I do.”

The moment stretched—silent, heavy with promise. Then he moved closer, lips brushing her jaw, voice low.

“Then surrender to me. Completely.”

Botan didn’t look away. Couldn’t. The restraints shimmered with energy, holding her body in place—but her heart was already in his hands. The Jagan pulsed once, and she felt it—not just physically, but inside. A psychic caress, brushing the edges of her thoughts, her emotions. Seeking permission.

She let the barriers fall.

And Hiei felt it—her longing, her nervous excitement, the flicker of vulnerability she rarely let anyone see.

His breath caught.

He kissed her—not rough, not rushed, but reverent. And when his body pressed over hers and the restraints drew tighter, she wasn’t afraid. She was his.

A strange and unknown corruption is infecting the souls of the Renkai, transforming them into oozing sludge-like monsters with a violent temperaments. Those with human souls and bodies are barred entry to the Spirit World in order to stem the spread of the corruption, but not before the cheery ferry girl Botan is affected. Left with little choice and fewer resources, Prince Koenma enlists the fire demon Hiei to track down the missing ferry girl and to keep her safe until a cure can be found. While less then enthusiastic about the idea, Hiei agrees to the task. Hiei finds what he's looking for as he's standing in front of a towering, gaunt figure that radiates a sickening sludge and a bone rattling shriek. By all accounts, a monster, any other person would think. Hiei though, he knows monsters better than most, living amongst them most of his life- even considering himself one of them- and the creature before him is no monster. It's the ferry girl Botan. Connecting telepathically to the creature's thoughts he expects to find a sniveling, blubbering ferry girl's mind. Instead, he finds a hidden resistance steeled and hardened against the corruption in the center of the transformation. It's like nothing Hiei's felt from this woman before, nothing he's noticed, but then again he never took note of much regarding Botan. Resigned to a long wait and secretly plagued by a tinge of curiousity, Hiei opens the connection between their minds more and more frequently as time wears on. At first, Botan lashes out and fights off his presence, thinking it a cruel trick that one of her friends (she thinks them friends, Hiei initially scoffs) has some to her rescue. Eventually though, Botan realizes the truth and welcomes his visits. Minutes, hours, days bleed into one another with only the link tethering them. Hiei should grow weary, tired of it, but instead he finds himself opening it more and more frequently into her mind. There's a strength, a hidden side of Botan that enraptures his sensibilities. He tells himself once this is over, he'll forget it- forget her- but he can't. She should grow weary of holding back the darkness, of pushing back the corruption, but she's far stronger than he ever thought to give her credit for. Hiei finds he's been corrupted in a wholly different way, for which there is no cure. Hiei likes her, and eventually, through much tribulation, he realizes he is even capable of saying he loves Botan. They were never monsters, just lost souls searching for one and other.