Yu Yu Hakusho:Kōrudokēsu

Chapter 6 Case Closed?

"H-Hideshi..." Wendy's voice began to trail off as she watched her sole childhood companion trudge towards the recovering demon, his confidence completely unaffected by Ginobly's slowly regenerating arm. It was only then that she realized why he had intended to do, and why he had ordered her to leave with Botan.
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Just before Botan could seize the girl and force her onto her flying oar, Wendy hastily rushed at Hideshi, tears forming in her eyes. "No! Romano! Don't do it!" she ran to him and embraced him, burying her tear-stained face into his back between the shoulder blades.
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"Please don't do this! There has to be another way!" She pleaded as loudly as she could, wanting to avoid the conclusion of this battle to be her lover's suicide.
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Hideshi slowly turned around to face her, his face solemn and expressionless. "I'm so sorry Wendy... There is no other way. Just go, leave me here. There's no reason why you and Botan should die with us here..."
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"B-But... Hideshi, I-" Wendy's words were interrupted as Hideshi used his free hand to close the gap between them to kiss her passionately. He knew he had to make it count...
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...It would probably be the last they ever shared...
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Memories began flashing through Wendy's mind. She saw herself and Hideshi when they were still young children, holding hands outside the school playground. That's when he made the promise... The promise to protect her, no matter the cost.
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That's exactly what he was doing now...
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As Wendy was still caught up in the bliss of the kiss, Hideshi thrust her towards Botan violently. "Botan! Take her now and get the Hell out of here!"
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The blue-haired grin reaper nodded and immediately pulled Wendy onto her oar and flew off through one of the broken windows of the warehouse, all the while, Wendy was calling his name out of anguish.
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"I love you Wendy..." Hideshi said in a soft, almost inaudible voice "and I'm doing this for you..." Turning towards Ginobly, who was still struggling to reform his arm. He held up the orb of spirit energy he created earlier up to eye level, then over his head, primed to throw it at the injured demon.
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Ginobly's eyes then widened in fear as he realized what was about to happen. "No! Don't you do it! You'll regret it!"
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"Spirit Grenade!" Hideshi shouted as he allowed the orb of energy to slip from his grasp and then detonate as it was about to make contact with Ginobly.
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In the very next instant, the warehouse exploded in a blinding white light. To Wendy, it signified the death of the only man she would ever love...

The light began to glare even brighter than before, it's rays protruding out like the tongues of flames, waving and flickering...

Wendy was forced to look away from the spectacle, as the light from Hideshi's Spirit Grenade now shone brighter than the sun in the sky above them. Botan kept looking forward, not even daring to look back at the remnants of the warehouse. She was a realist, she knew what she would find upon looking back, and the thought filled her eyes with tears.

H-Hideshi... Why couldn't you be more careful?... The situation should've never come to this... Botan's tears fell even more wildly now, yet she tried to keep herself from sobbing in fear of making Wendy feel even worse. I'm so jealous of her Hideshi... I've always felt something more towards you, and so has she. The only difference is that you held her close to your heart while I stood back like a coward, too scared to admit how I truly felt... You made that sacrifice for her; you were trying to protect her... And now you're gone... And I'm never going to get the chance to tell you how I feel. Not that it would ever matter... I don't deserve your love like she does...

After flying away from the scene of the explosion for a few more moments, the blinding white light began to recede, and all that was left behind to two women were the burning remnants of the destroyed warehouse.

Neither of them dared to look back now...

The thought of what they might see terrified them to keep their sights set straight ahead.

About a whole minute passed as Botan and Wendy flew away over the vastness of the ocean, both keeping to themselves. The silence was deafening...

This carried in until Botan saw the speck against the horizon which made her heart stop in paralyzing fear. In accordance with her nonexistent heartbeat, the magical oar also ceased to move, which snapped Wendy out of her upset trance to bring inquisitive thoughts forward from the depths of her mind.

"B-Botan? What's going on? Why did we stop?"

The grim reaper sat there, straddling her oar with an expression of absolute terror emblazoned upon her face.

Realizing it must be something she had spotted out in the distance, Wendy leaned to her right a bit to get a glance over Botan's shoulder. Then she saw them...

About a hundred yards out, suspending Romano Hideshi by the collar of his shirt and his jacket in his hand, was the nightmarish form of Ginobly.

"Hideshi!" Wendy exclaimed excitedly, a smile breaking across her face. She began to squirm around sporadically, barely able to contain herself. "Botan! There he is! He's ok! Quick! Go get him!" She urged on her driver, pushing forward on her shoulders, trying to get her to move.

Botan still just sat there, immobilized with fear at the sight of the tremendous monster Ginobly, flying with his black wings giving him leverage over the surface of the ocean.

"Botan?... What's wrong?" Wendy questioned after she gave no response to her demands at all.

"...Wendy... This is clearly a trap... Ginobly is trying to bait us with Hideshi so he can kill us too..." Botan whispered in a scared tone to the girl sitting immediately behind her.

"I don't care Botan! Please! Just go out there and get him! I'd rather die with him in my arms than die alone!"

You and me both... Botan silently thought to herself as she began weighing out the risk associated in moving towards Ginobly's position.

"You're both a bunch of fools..." A familiar, deep, sadistic voice echoed from immediately in front of them before the figure of Ginobly clutching Hideshi appeared before the two women. "If I had intentions of killing you, I would have just destroyed this entire pathetic planet. That was Lord Karr's plan in the first place..."

"Lord Karr?" Wendy questioned in a frightened whisper.

"Aye, he's the reason I've become so powerful. Loyalty to Lord Karr brings infinite power and all that comes with it! Even in my present state," Ginobly nods towards his still-severed arm with a loathsome tone hinted in his voice "I just had more than enough power to turn this entire rock to ash! All thanks to Lord Karr!"

"...T-Then why haven't you already?" Wendy asked, afraid, but still wildly curious about all that Ginobly had to say.

The demon allowed a small grin to cross his face. "Because both myself and Lord Karr are curious as to what this Spirit Detective can really do. So I've decided to give him three weeks." Ginobly finished his sentence by tossing Hideshi's limp body over to the two women, who reacted quickly and caught him as gravity began to pull him down.

Ginobly then raised three of his black, demonic fingers up in front of his face, the repeated himself. "Three Weeks. If Hideshi isn't ready to give me a good fight by then, everything on this planet dies! Understood?"

Botan looked back towards the demon and gave him a small nods as Wendy held the unconscious man tightly against her chest.

Ginobly returned the nod and then vanished just as quickly as he came. Presumably to return to Demon World...

Three weeks?!? Hideshi is going to need at least a month in intensive care at Spirit World just to be able to stand again in his current condition... Botan thought hopelessly as she glanced down Romano Hideshi, lying in Wendy's arms.

We're doomed... Ginobly is going to destroy everything...