Chapter Text
“Kurapika.”
At the sound of his voice, the nen beast’s head shifted to look at the Spider Head and a chill ran down Kuroro’s spine as a human face stared back at him, brown eyes wide with childlike innocence. The air emptied from his lungs as he took a stumbling step back.
The First Prince’s nen beast had been terrifying, certainly, but this… this perversion of nature was something else entirely. The monster rose to its full height, its impossibly-long neck twisting to get a better look at its new victim. Kurapika was quick to recapture its attention, though, saying something loudly in a lilting language as his chains doubled in strength around the prince’s neck.
The beast responded in kind in its own hissing tongue, sinking its claws deeper into the blond’s chest. A pained grunt left the Kurta.
“You will suffer for what you’ve done,” the monster promised Kurapika, “you will suffer the pain you have dealt my host one hundred fold.” A curved talon slid down Kurapika’s flank, slicing open flesh as it carved downward.
His screams colored the air and Kuroro snapped back to focus. He knew what had to be done. Gunshots began to ring out from the other side of the room and Kuroro ran toward them, his Skill Hunter fitted in hand and thumb wedged in one of its pages.
A dozen of so guards looked up at him in surprise as he approached them, horror filling their expressions as their bullets slid past the Spider’s skin, harmless.
“No, no,” Kuroro chided, “don’t waste those on me.” It would be a shame if those insipid heavyweights emptied their clips before he could have a chance to put them to use. Kuroro could only assume that the soldiers he was facing were nothing but cannon fodder as they fell under his hands with little resistance. He grasped a guard’s chin, tilting the man’s slack face up. The stamp materialized in his hand and Lucilfer sealed the other’s death.
人.
Quickly, he made puppets out of the rest of them. Kuroro had learned since his match with Hisoka in Heaven’s Arena—had learned the restraints and limits of this new ability.
“Direct your fire to the far left corner,” he ordered, pointing to where the Fourth Prince still writhed under the constraints of his captor’s chains. “Aim to break.”
Wordlessly, the guards obeyed his command.
The nen beast let out an ear-splitting shriek as gunfire rained down upon its host. Turning away from its near-dead prey, it sprinted towards the guards.
Kuroro took the opportunity to run to where Kurapika was splayed out onto the floor. Blood, still warm, lapped at ornate tile as he tugged the other man out of the main line of fire.
“You shouldn’t be here,” Kurapika murmured, eyes hazy. His hands scrabbled up to Kuroro’s collar, slick with blood, dragging the Spider down to face him. “You need to leave. While you still can.”
Breath escaped the broken Kurta in sharp pants but Kuroro knew he was far from surrender. “God, what have you done, Kurapika?” he murmured, panic pressing on his chest as Kurapika seemed to see through him.
Kurapika shook his head as he struggled to get up. A slender chain snaked around the Kurta’s wounds, glowing a gentle green. Kuroro watched the gaping holes begin to close on Kurapika’s flank.
But in the end it made no matter. The hunter, despite his new, unmarred skin, looked shell-shocked and exhausted, a kind of age-old weariness draining his pallor. His movements were weak, slow, as he got to his feet. There was an air of finality to his movements, a bone-chilling acceptance; Kurapika wore the face of a man who had met Death once before and was ready to welcome it back with open arms.
Kuroro had seen that look before, that same haunted look of dead-fast determination. A vision of Paku, so deadly calm as she raised her pistol, flickered across his thoughts unbidden. Fear, startling as it was consuming, ran heavy the Spider’s veins. He wouldn’t lose another, couldn’t lose another…
“Leave,” the broken man commanded. Kuroro met the other’s gaze and saw only emptiness.
“No.” Perhaps it was selfish, denying the man’s wishes, but Kuroro had obeyed him before and had nearly lost him because of it. Never again. “You’ll kill yourself.” He paused, voice growing quiet, feeling slightly foolish as he tacked on, “You lied.” You said you wouldn’t. You said you wouldn’t plan to die.
The accusation, spoken so softly, caught Kurapika off-guard. Recollection flitted across his face. “I—”
An inhuman screech ripped through the air as the Nen Beast caught sight of them and Kuroro was running before he could think to process it. Chunks of the ornamental ceiling rained down. Kurapika was knocked backwards as the floor shook; it was all Kuroro could do to grasp the blond’s arm and pull.
His fingers found the right page in his Skill Hunter. The prince’s nen beast wailed in the distance, but Kuroro paid it no mind, yanking Kurapika through the barrier of stolen nen. He let go only when solid ground settled under his feet, when the dim lighting of the engine room slid across his vision.
“I haven’t seen you use this ability in a while,” he heard Machi remark from behind him.
“Machi,” he greeted. “Phinks, Shizuku.” His subordinates all nodded back in acknowledgment, protective as they gathered behind him. He knelt down next to Kurapika’s prone form, checking his pulse. The hunter stirred at his touch, groaning.
“Is he?” Shizuku asked, curious.
Kuroro closed his eyes, sighing. “No. Not yet.” Thank god. Phinks was quick to chime in.
“Do you want us to... ?” Irritation mixed with something sickeningly defensive in Kuroro’s gut.
And ruin everything that I have worked for so far?
“There’s no need.” Kuroro brushed a lock of hair out of Kurapika’s face on impulse, momentarily forgetting his company.
“Oh,” Machi said quietly. There was a note of hurt, of betrayal, in her voice but Kuroro did not dwell on it.
“When did this—?”
Kuroro cut Shizuku off. “I need you to contain the prince’s nen beast in his chambers at the upper deck. The guards I am controlling have probably all been disposed of by now, and I need you to keep the beast at bay until I return.” He looked down at Kurapika’s unconscious face. “I do not know the full extent of the nen beast’s capabilities at the moment, but I trust that you will be able to handle it.”
Phinks cleared his throat, uncomfortable, perhaps, at the vulnerable state of his leader that he was witnessing. “Of course.”
“And if those Association idiots deny you entry, force your way in,” Kuroro added. “But I highly doubt they will put up much resistance if it means that their hands remain clean of this affair.”
“May we kill them?” Shizuku asked, tilting her head.
Kuroro smiled. “Whatever gets you into the room the fastest. Now go, quickly.”
Once they were alone, he reached for Kurapika’s arm to shake him awake, only to be met with a vice-like grip on his wrist. Bone creaked under the hunter’s hand but Kuroro paid it no mind. Not when crimson eyes bore up at him, a tired flame in them that scalded nonetheless.
“Why,” was all that Kurapika said, more blame than question.
“You wouldn’t have lasted two more minutes in there,” Kuroro told him. “You would’ve died.”
“And what would that matter to you?” the blond fired back. “Do not misread this” —his voice caught at the word, at its implications— “as my submission to you. You have no command over me.”
Kuroro brushed the taunt aside. “I am going to take you to the medical bay, and then I will finish this. For you.”
“No,” Kurapika rasped, struggling to rise. “This is my responsibility. My duty.” The Spider pushed him back down gently.
“Let me do this for you.”
“You do not need to do anything for me,” Kurapika said slowly, impatience lining every syllable, “but take me back there. This is something I must finish myself.”
The Spider Head shook his head. “You’re in no condition to.” Kurapika pulled himself up with a grimace.
“That is not for you to decide.”
Kuroro was quick to restrain him, trapping him in his embrace. “It is when my interests are concerned.”
“Interests?” Kurapika scoffed, trying to twist out of grip. Kuroro frowned, unyielding.
“You,” he clarified. “You are my interest, Kurapika.”
Kurapika froze in his arms.
“It is in my interest to keep you alive,” he continued. “If that means finishing this last deed for you, then so be it.”
The other man’s scowl deepened. His tone was baiting when he replied, “You have no right, Lucilfer. You interfere in matters that you will never understand.”
“I saved you life,” Kuroro reminded him. The look that the blond gave him was devastating.
“And who says that it was yours to save?”
The Spider faltered. He hadn’t expected this. “I—” Kurapika shook his head, cutting him off.
“I want none of it. None of your charity.” Fierce, now, unbridled rage overtaking calm.
“This is not a debt, Kurapika.”
“It is.” It is from you.
Kuroro grit his teeth in frustration. “Then consider it my form of reparation, then. For the crimes I have committed against you, against your people.” Anger, then pain warred across the Hunter’s features.
“Your entitlement will only get you so far, Lucilfer,” Kurapika spat, although there wasn’t much heat to it. “And this is where I draw the line. You do not get to do this for me.”
“You will die if you go back.”
“Do you not think I know that already?” Kurapika coughed, the sound a death rattle if Kuroro’s ever heard one. “It is about time for me to rest, is it not? “
Composure slipped past Kuroro’s fingers and he floundered.
“Death is not rest.”
“It is.” The hunter swallowed back blood. “It is.” Kurapika looked up at him, the crimson in his eyes flashing dull. “I am willing to forgive you, Kuroro.” The use of his first name shocked the Spider Head. The way that the other man said it—careful, as if it would cut him as it sat on his tongue. “I am willing to forgive you, if you take me back there. That is all I ask.”
He swallowed, words dry. “Is that what you want?”
The resolve in the other’s expression flickered. “It’s what I need.” He reached up, touch soft as he stroked the Spider’s cheek. “If you ever… if you ever cared about me, Kuroro, then let me end this.”
Kuroro was no fool. He knew manipulation when he saw it. Yet his mind halted as Kurapika’s fingers skimmed over his skin, deceivingly tender. Fingertips traced the line of his jaw, the hollow of his throat. His breath caught. “You are so maddeningly cruel,” he accused, taking the other man’s hand and bringing it to his lips.
The blond almost smiled. “As life has taught me to be.” As you have taught me to be, went unsaid. The Spider just stared back at him, conflicted.
“I—”
“—you hate me, don’t you?” Kurapika finished for him. The certainty in his voice bordered triumphant, every intent of driving him away, and Kuroro snapped. He made sure that his words were clear, firm, when he said—
“I love you.”
It wasn’t true, Kuroro tried to convince himself, not in the slightest, because what had festered between them would never be anything more than a fragile imitation of the love that the both of them feared so greatly, but it was enough to stop Kurapika in his tracks. The hunter’s expression crumpled, shattered, and he stumbled back. That moment of shock, of vulnerability, was all that Kuroro needed to sweep the blond into the dark fabric of his Fun Fun cloth.
Kurapika’s protests rose clear from his confines but Kuroro paid him no mind as he activated his stolen ability again.
He appeared in the middle of the medical bay under the watch of Kurapika’s beloved doctor.
At once, Leorio sensed his presence, locking eyes with him. Fear was quickly replaced with anger, suspicion, and then confusion as Kuroro emptied the cloth onto one of the nearby cots. Kurapika attempted to rise and Kuroro forced him down. Leorio stumbled backwards.
“What—” Leorio sucked in a deep breath, calming his panic. “What did you do to him?” The sheer emotion, the sheer love that saturated the man’s accusation made Kuroro want to vomit.
“Kuroro,” Kurapika said hoarsely, calling his attention back to the man confined in his arms. Leorio’s eyes widened at the easy utterance of the name, at the reluctant familiarity in it. The doctor’s shock was clear, growing even clearer when Kurapika’s hands went not for Kuroro’s throat but for his face. The man openly gaped as Kurapika stared up at the Spider Head with desperation instead of hatred.
“Tell me you don’t mean it,” the Kurta demanded, shaking him. “Tell me you don’t—”
Perhaps it was in an attempt to dodge the question that Kuroro turned instead to Leorio. “I need a sedative.”
Distrust still clouded the man’s features, but the unnamed emotion lining Kuroro’s request made Leorio pause.
“Why?” the doctor questioned. It was clear that he was asking about something different, larger, with how his eyes lingered on the points where Kuroro’s hands lay on Kurapika’s chest.
Kuroro’s words ran dry. “Sedative,” he repeated instead, “please.” Love, pain, relief, worry crashed over Leorio’s face, painfully slow, and Kuroro couldn’t help but resent the ease, the carelessness of the man’s feelings.
“No,” Kurapika protested, even as his voice took on a defeated note to it. “For the sake of my bloodline, of my honor, Kuroro I…” the Kurta faltered, as if what he was about to say physically pained him, “... I beg you to take me back there.” Kurapika’s pride splintered with his plea, shattering hard enough to cut.
“Save your pride,” the Spider advised him, unflinching. “Wash your hands of this deed, Kurapika.”
“I can’t.” What would I have without it?
Leorio approached the two of them, a syringe of clear fluid in hand. Kuroro held fast to Kurapika as the needle sank into the Kurta’s arm. Sleep began to sink into Kurapika’s veins.
“You will,” Kuroro assured him. Kurapika didn’t fight him as he drew him closer, pressed a kiss to his forehead under the heavy gaze of Leorio.
“I hate you,” the blond murmured, slightly slurred, and Kuroro just laughed.
“As you should,” he replied. Once he was satisfied that Kurapika was asleep, he turned to Leorio. “Take care of him,” he bid.
The doctor’s frown deepened. “I will, but not because of you.” His defiance was foolish, immature, but Kuroro could care less. Whatever the man threw at him in well-earned anger meant nothing as long as it kept Kurapika alive and safe.
The Gen’ei Ryodan took care of their own—this instance would be no different.