I never expected you to love me, much less love me at my darkest, but when I was consumed; you saw the raw core of my being and to my surprise, you loved me for it.
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.
