Work Text:
Fictober 2025
Prompt 1: “Just take my hand.”
Fanfiction_Yu Yu Hakusho
Summary: Botan reflects on her work as a Grim Reaper
-----
There were many roles in the Spirit World Botan had anticipated she might receive, but Grim Reaper was definitely not one of them. For some reason her hiring manager thought her bubbly personality and pleasant disposition would help make the transition from life to death easier on mortals.
They weren’t entirely wrong.
Botan didn’t want the job, but she accepted it – she really didn’t have any other choice – and she was determined to excel at her work.
The children were the hardest, but they seemed drawn to Botan. She always worked extra hard on those cases to make the transition smooth and comfortable for the tots.
The idiots were the easiest. It wasn’t easy telling anyone they’d passed on, but somehow it seemed a tad easier when their last act as a mortal was something so completely moronic she wondered how they’d honestly expected a different outcome.
The elderly, though, were her favorites. They were the ones who were the most likely to thank her because death was a relief, and not a thief. The ones is chronic pain; the ones so lonely her immediate presence was a gift; the ones who’d lost their soulmate years ago, and couldn’t wait to be reunited; the ones so lost in their own minds: these were the souls Botan loved the most. She’d arrive in a whisk of blue and pink, and their eyes would widen just a touch before a smile split their face.
“You came,” some would say, and she would smile.
“Of course. Are you ready?”
“More than you know. What happens now?”
“Just take my hand.” She would extend her own, and their frail, tissue paper thin skin would slide against her ethereal palm, and she would watch them shift. No longer the bent and broken ancient, but someone younger and whole, healed completely. These moments made her job worthwhile. These moments she was grateful for an assignment she’d never wanted in the first place.