Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The shadow of Gon’s body lingered beyond the curtain. Killua, forever his own ghost, stood right outside the partition that divided the world of the living from-- well, something else. Gon wasn’t quite dead. He wasn’t quite alive, either.

Killua’s skin buzzed with a static that lingered just below the surface. He could feel its need to escape, to tear itself out like broken stitches. He pushed it down further and hoped that would be enough. Nen was connected to emotion. Killua feared that if this failed, all he’d be able to do was run to the desert and hope that no one noticed the way lightning seemed to strike the same place over and over again; it would take allthe skies could give him to balance the sparking circuits inside his chest.

He knew that these thoughts helped nothing. They were all he could think.

Swallowing, Killua grasped Alluka’s hand tighter.

“Big brother?” Alluka asked groggily, sitting up from the bench. He’d probably woken her up from the pressure on her hand. He couldn’t forget-- she was still a child. He had to hold her delicately, or she would break, and then what would he have? Strength had never been enough. 

Killua wiped his face, so quickly that Alluka couldn’t have seen the tears at the edges of his eyes. “Good morning,” he said, and put on his best imitation of a smile.

“Where are we?”

“The hospital.” Killua glanced around at the makeshift area they’d set aside for Gon. It had all the fittings of a hospital, from constantly beeping machines to the smell of antiseptic. All it was missing was the sense of death. “My friend is here, sleeping. He’s--” Killua forced the words to come out smoothly. “He’s very sick.”

Raising her head, Alluka acknowledged his words with a sleepy eyed blink. The lights are too bright , he thought. Alluka’s eyes must hurt .

If he spent all his energy taking care of Alluka, perhaps he could forget what was in front of him, that smudge behind the curtain where his best friend used to be. Alluka’s gaze traveled towards it and Killua resisted the urge to let his shoulders climb a little higher, even if there was no use in it. Killua had learned better than anyone the definition of futility.

“I want to help get him on his feet again.” Killua continued.

“You want Something to take over,” she replied, and it wasn’t a question. “Just when I was able to spend time with you!”

“Don’t worry,” Killua assured her. He cocked his head to the side, letting that soft, brotherly smile drift onto his face that he knew Alluka was weak to. “Like I told you, we’ll be together from now on.” Manipulative. Necessary.  “And that’s a promise.”

Then, after a long dragging second, in which there was nothing but fluorescent lights and the harsh whir of Gon’s breathing apparatus, Killua’s first fracture showed. Quietly, arms braced on his knees, Killua’s self control splintered and pushed itself between his lips in a jagged whisper. “Please help me .”

The darkness that swallowed Alluka couldn’t see his lip tremble.

Alluka was gone, replaced by the specialist that they called Nanika, the Something. Killua could barely look at her placid eyes and an empty smile-- but she was part of his sister, and she would save Gon.

“We should go in,” Killua said to no one at all. Nanika rarely responded. “I just need a moment.”  

Pull yourself together, Killua.

If only you had run together, Killua. If only you had taught him how to.

“We should-- we should go in.”

The plastic curtain scuffed the floor as he pulled it back. The two of them crossed the threshold.

The change was immediate. Hazy, the air waved in a swarm of malice, Gon’s destructive determination washing the oxygen out of the air until all that was left to breathe was hatred. Killua drew Nanika further behind him, like he could afford any protection from what lay before them.

Nanika’s expression was unchanged.

“This is Gon,” Killua trailed, gesturing towards his friend as if Nanika needed an introduction.

“Hand,” Nanika murmured. “Hand?”

Steeling himself, Killua reached underneath the covers for Gon’s desiccated wrist. Years of training and he couldn’t stop the way his stomach dropped at the sight.

Nanika reached out to take Gon’s hand, the shriveled, blackened thing that it was. The scent of desperation, sharp and harsh-- could it really be there, or was Killua just imagining it? It undulated from Gon’s skin like heat off the pavement. 

Killua had to keep it together. His sister was here-- he had to. He had to keep it together because she was watching and she couldn’t know how weak her brother was, how deep the cracks went under his porcelain exterior. But seeing Gon like this-- Killua took a step back, biting his lip so hard that he tasted harsh iron; no surprise, because blood was everywhere here.

He had to keep it together. He had to. 

“Please, Nanika.” Killua’s voice shook. He shook. “I wish--” and the thought came unbidden, welling up from somewhere deep and vital. That I could do it all over. “For you to heal Gon.”

Nanika turned to him, sickly grin untempered by the darkness in the air. “ ‘Kay.”

But instead of turning to Gon, she waddled over and wrapped her arms around Killua. He wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not when her hands became warmer, but as they heated he realized that he most definitely was not.

“Nanika, what are you doing?” He asked, his voice rising in pitch as her hands became even hotter, like brands on his back. He tried to gently detach her from him. “Nanika, I need you to stop.” When the smell of burning flesh reached his nose he tried to push harder, then with all his strength. It was no use.

“Nanika!” Killua yelled, teeth grated against the pain. “Please save Gon!”

There was nothing in the world but heat and pain and grief, because under all of it, this meant that Nanika couldn’t do it, couldn’t grant his wish. Why else would she be doing this?

“Please, Nanika,” Killua murmured, his vision blurring. For all his training, there was only so much pain the body could take. “--Gon.”

Outside, the pigeons on the roof took off in a flurry of wings; whatever mangled scream had come from inside, they wanted no part of it.

---

The first rays of sunlight fell in lazy lines, warm and pleasant on Killua’s face. Had he passed out? Killua rolled away from the light, surprised at the give of the bed beneath him. Too soft to be from the hostel.

And he could smell--

Oh no.

Illumi must’ve brought them back home. He’d recognize the smell of their mansion anywhere, disinfectant and heady incense. If he could smell it that strongly, it meant he was near the meditation rooms, which meant that he was probably back in his old room.

He jolted out of bed, flailing his way to the floor with an unusual lack of grace.

Definitely my room, he thought looking around for the first time. Strangely, he’d been sleeping in regular clothes. Even more strangely, they were not the ones that he’d been wearing before.

It didn’t matter. The only thing that did was getting up and finding Alluka. He didn’t want to think about what they’re going to do to her now that Killua’s half-stolen her-- and who’s he kidding about the half? If he hadn’t proved a serious threat to his family, he would’ve never gotten Alluka out of here in the first place. He would’ve never gotten her to Gon. The thought hit him like a boulder to the stomach and he started towards the door.

It was then that Killua realized that something was wrong. Something was very, very wrong.

Killua could be subtle when the occasion called for it, and he was certainly cautious-- cautious enough to maintain a low level of aura around his body at all times, so that if an unexpected attack came he’d be able to minimize damage.

That aura wasn’t there, and when Killua tried to put it back, he found that he couldn’t even feel it, let alone control it.

What had Illumi done?

Killua flung open the door, storming down the hall to where his brother was sure to be.

He didn’t bother to keep his footsteps quiet-- his family knew he was here. Now they would know he was awake, and he was pissed. Killua’s fist slammed into Illumi’s door in a rude imitation of a knock. Even without his aura, the wood splintered under his hand. His brother did not come to the door. Disregarding the warnings of both common sense and experience, Killua kicked the lock and shoved the door open. When he got his nen back, he was going to do his very best to beat the shit out of his brother-- or, at the very least, prank him until he wished he was dead. He’d always been a nuisance like that.

A wolfish smile spread across his face as he strolled into Illumi’s room, only to drop when he realized that it was empty.

Quietly, Killua cursed and spun on his heel. He jammed his hands into his pockets, looking for the phone he normally kept on his person these days-- and of course, that was missing too.

Illumi must’ve known to clear out. His sense of self preservation had always been his strong suit.

Killua cursed again and kicked the wall, hard enough that the reinforced cement fractured.

“Killua, language!” A voice, shrill and sharp, shot bullet-like to Killua’s ears. His mother gathered her skirts and sped down the hall. How that woman moved in that many layers was beyond him, but she knew how to hustle-- luckily, so did Killua.

He was only a split second from activating his Godspeed before he remembered; something was inhibiting his nen. He’d have to make a run for it the good old fashioned way. Or better yet, he could face her down. She should know where Alluka was.

Worry about Alluka first, then Gon. Fix what you can before you worry about what you can’t.

“Mom, where the hell is Illumi? And where did Allu--” his words were choked by the blow of a iron-rodded fan smacking him upside the head.

“I said, language, Killua,” Kikyo chided. “You’re too young to be talking like that.”

“Sure.” Killua rolled his eyes. “Look, I don’t have a ton of time right now. How did I end up back here? What’s going on with Illumi? Where is Alluka?”

Kikyo’s visor flashed a confused pink. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talking about. Are you feeling alright?” She reached out a concerned hand to check his temperature, but he batted it away, in no mood for playing functional family right now.

“I’m fine. I’d be better if Illumi hadn’t screwed with my nen--”

He half expected his mother to chastise him again, but instead he watched the red line of her eyes draw into a slit. “What has gotten into you? Where have you been hearing things about nen?” She fanned herself rapidly, perhaps trying to stop her apparatus from overheating. “You and I are going to talk to your father, and when Illumi gets back, I’m going to give him a firm dressing down.”

She grabbed his arm before he had a chance to protest. Without his strength, he was in no place to resist her efforts. Besides, he’d been clumsy all day; he stood no chance of getting away from her without being in top form, like he had the day that he’d left for the hunter exam. That had taken meticulous planning and flawless execution-- all this time later, and he was still proud of it.

Fat lot of good it did him, dragged through his own home like a prisoner.

“I always knew that spending too much time outside would be bad for you,” Kikyo ranted. “You’re too young to be exposed to the world all on your own. We really should start sending someone with you on missions-- maybe Illumi.” She shook her head as soon as she’d said it. “No, he’s more well behaved than you, but I don’t want you picking up his habits.”

Overprotective in the strangest ways, his mother, and not nearly protective enough in others.

“Mom, where’s Alluka?” Killua ground out. Case in point.

“And why do you keep asking that?” Kikyo replied, unfaltering in her pace. “The child is exactly where it needs to be. It’s not like anything’s changed--” her steps froze as Killua dug his feet into the floor as hard as he could. “You’ll damage the rug, Killua. Let’s not be petulant.”

“Nothing’s changed?” Killua asked, eyebrows drawing together. “What do you mean, nothing’s changed?”

“Why would it have? Now come, Killua. Your father won’t be around for long."

“Why are you lying to me?” Killua shot back.

His mother placed an affronted hand on her chest. “I am most certainly not lying to you. You’re my son.”

“Like that’s ever stopped you before.”

“You’re so unkind to your mother,” Kikyo sighed. “I’ve raised ungrateful children. First Illumi going off on a job without telling the rest of us, now this--”

“How long will he be gone?” Killua didn’t have time for any of this. If Alluka had been returned to the vault below the manor, he’d have to start working on getting the codes immediately. He had no doubt that they’d changed all of them since he’d last gone down there. This wouldn’t be easy, especially with whatever strange zetsu-enforcing condition he was in now.

It felt like no zetsu that he’d ever encountered. Killua shook the thought off with a physical shake of his head. “How long?” He repeated.

Biting her lip, Kikyo fanned herself nervously. “I’m truly concerned about you, Killua. Your memory is absolutely fragmented . Illumi told you before he left, remember?” What was she talking about? “Two weeks, no more. If he’s gone any longer--” and now she assumed his voice, replicating the tone so well that an oily shiver traveled down Killua’s spine: “assume that I am dead, do not look for me no matter how tempting it may be.”

The words were familiar, and when Killua placed them, he couldn’t find any of his own.

Illumi had said those words to Killua-- but that had been years ago, the day Illumi left to take the Hunter exam.

What the fuck.  

His eyes flicked to the sides of the hallway-- and yes, there it was. He’d loved the dumbwaiters when he was a kid, the only member of the family who was both small enough and stupid enough to hide in the walls.

Tearing away, Killua flung open the dumbwaiter’s shutters and managed to wedge himself down the shaft before his mother could catch up to him. Bracing his hands and knees against the vertical chamber, he shimmied his way up until he was high enough that he was undetectable, cloaked in musty darkness.

He considered the fact, very briefly, that he should no longer have been able to fit up here, given how much he’s grown in the last year or two. Yet his arms had enough room to hold himself comfortably-- not even close to as tight as it should have been.  

He had no audience now, so he was free to freak out as much as he needed.

What the hell was going on? One second he’d been standing in the hospital room with Nanika and Gon, and the next he’d been here. Was this some strange by product of his wish? No-- this was no precedent for any of this; it wouldn’t make sense.

He’d wished for Gon to be healed. They’d walked in, and Nanika had taken Gon’s hand-- that much he remembered clearly. But when he tried to press further into memory, into the brief few moments where he’d made his wish, his head starting swimming and his arms trembled.

There was some sort of blockage there, obviously. Had there been fire? All he saw was a blur of color and pain, the feeling of constriction bearing down on his chest; whatever had been left on his mind, it felt foreign as ice against his skin.

Killua gazed down the shaft below and ran through his options.

Theory one was that Illumi had done something to take away his nen, and used his needles to manipulate his family into believing recent events hadn’t happened-- recent events, apparently, meaning the last two years.

Theory two: a hostile nen user had Killua trapped in his own memories, but through his actions he’d managed to twist them. It would be easy enough to create nen beasts that took on the personality traits of his family. If he had enough nen to fight, that would be an easy bubble to pop. Unfortunately . He looked at his hands. Not an option.

The final theory was the one Killua felt least likely to be true, and the one that he wished for most ardently; somehow, some way, he’d been sent back in time. Every fibre of him knew that it was impossible. Every fibre of him sang with wanting. It'd be too neat, too easy-- and if Killua had learned anything, it was that the universe was diametrically opposed to making things easy.

Unable to conclude what the ever-loving shit was going on, Killua was forced to move on to his next problem: what was he going to do about it?

The obvious answer was to play along with whatever fantasy had been drawn up until he could fill in the blanks about what had happened. If his timeline was correct, and he was almost sure it was, that meant taking the Hunter Exam.

He glanced at his clothes, now smudged with dirt but certainly distinguishable as the outfit he’d worn most during the exam. The date was obvious, then; he’d slept in these clothes because today was the day he made a run for it. Instead of getting dragged through half the house by his mother, he was supposed to have stabbed her.

So much for playing along.

Killua clambered down the dumbwaiter shaft until he reached an opening, ignoring the dissonance between his mind and his body. Fourteen year old him was taller and stronger than twelve year old him, and this diminished capacity would take some getting used to.

He was greeted by an empty hallway. Good.

Gon had learned zetsu during the Hunter Exam, and if Killua had learned anything, it was that competition brought out the best in him. It’d taken Gon, knowing nothing, several days. It had to take Killua less than one.

Moving with the silent grace of an assassin-- although a more imperfect one, now-- Killua sped to his room. At the foot of his bed lay his pack, the clothes shoved haphazardly inside and woefully crumpled already.

All that remained was to make his escape. This time he wouldn’t get caught.

7:54 AM; he’d give himself until noon.

---

Killua’s watch-alarm chirped, insisting that his time was up. He saw no reason to fight down his grin as he showed his airship ticket to the flight attendant and she let out an equally bright chirp to confirm his first class reservation.

If everything was this easy, he’d be in and out of the Hunter Exam even faster than last time-- this time he would have zetsu as well. All it had taken was a bout of meditation. He had the knowledge, just not the-- whatever it was that let him control nen. But zetsu was different from regular nen. Any animal could learn it. The only thing you needed was a reason, and his family had given him plenty of those. He had zetsu, sure, but he feared that the rest of nen would prove to be more of a problem.

But that was a problem for later him, Killua thought. He’d forgotten what it felt like to stretch out, luxuriate with only a minimal amount of tension. His eyes still swept the cabin from time to time and his left hand lingered, sharp as a razor, by his side, but he hadn’t been this relaxed in ages. Gone was the prickle of electricity under his skin, his constant companion these days. For once, he felt tired in a way that didn’t beg the skin off his bones.

It felt like indulgence. Gluttony.

Whatever illusion this was, he could let himself enjoy it, couldn’t he? But there had to be a reason for all of this, and the thought sat heavy on him. What if this was just a distraction?

He’d been able to cross off the idea that it was Illumi’s doing at the airport. Illumi was good, but not good enough to influence that many people at once-- everyone had perfect confidence in the day and year. If this was nen’s doing, then this whole world was a construction, and that would take serious time, skill, and ability. For that kind of price, there had to be a reason why , and he didn’t trust it to be benign.

If he was here, where was Alluka? Where was Gon?

Killua tensed. Was he wasting Gon’s last moments in an airship seat?

Even if I am, there’s nothing I can do about it. And it was true; Killua hadn’t found a single crack in the illusion. He had to bide his time until he had more information.

Or until this airship crashed. That should be happening soon, too.

Right on time, the captain’s voice came over the loudspeaker. “Ladies and gentlemen, the pilot would like to inform you that we’re having some minor technical difficulties. It should be nothing to worry about, so we’ll keep you updated as the flight proceeds. Just a reminder to please keep your seatbelts buckled, as we’re about to experience some turbulence.”

Killua wedged his feet under the seat in front of him as the airship hit what was the first of many buffeting winds. The seat belt buckles were all broken-- he knew that much, and those storm clouds ahead were looking meaner than he remembered.

Sliding a little lower in his seat, Killua flipped open a magazine and paged through until he found a section that interested him. He kept his bag wedged firmly between his knees.

The airship shook like it was coming apart-- and it was. If Killua remembered correctly, they’d make an emergency landing fifty kilometers from the actual exam site. He would be the only one pointed in the right direction.  

It was going to be a bumpy ride.

Killua bided the storm like the professional that he was-- and by that he meant that he abused the privilege of first class buffet and ate as much free cake as he could physically shove down his throat. The person next to him wretched into a paper bag and Killua surreptitiously reached over to snag their dessert. It wasn’t like they were going to eat it.

Looking around, Killua cocked an unimpressed eyebrow. Did these people really think that they were going to pass the Hunter Exam? And if they did, could any of them be delusional enough to think that they would make good hunters? Getting a license was only the first step. There were plenty of weak hunters out there, too.

Weak was relative, though. Until you were the strongest, you would always be weak to someone.

The overhead luggage compartment shuddered with the airship. On the far end of the cabin, a portion collapsed on a pair of panicked women as as series of bumps rumbled through the hull. The airship sputtered and dipped erratically. This is ridiculous. I should just bail now.

Not that he had ever jumped from this high before, but that wasn’t going to stop him from trying.

Killua’s body froze halfway out of his seat. He hadn’t done this the first time. How closely should he have been trying to stick to his original actions? What if he changed something irreparably? What if his actions here had repercussions? He wasn’t foolish enough to think that he could act however he liked and not alter the path that this world would take, even if it wasn’t real.

Could that be part of the trap?

Killua eased back into his seat. A blaring alarm screeched from the intercom. “This is your pilot-- the captain’s taken a hit to the head-- shit--” the signal cut off for a moment before coming back on, the pilot sounding winded. “We’d like to request that you stay calm as the airship makes an emergency landing--”

His voice was drowned out by the overwhelming chorus of complaints. Killua rolled his eyes.

“Emergency landing?” A man shouted, ruddy face practically bursting with angry flush. “We’ll be leagues from the exam site! How’re we supposed to get there on time?”

“I’m suing this company,” a woman muttered to her companion.

“I can’t walk that far!” Another.

Hate to tell you about the first exam, my friend.

The noise level rose and rose, voices pitching louder to be heard over the harrowing whine of the engine. This was why Killua didn’t spend time around normal people any more.

“We’re going to die!” Wailed a boy not much older than Killua. His friend leaned over and tried to comfort him, but Killua could see fear in his eyes, too. The image was too familiar, the panicked and the scared finding solace in each other, a calm in the eye of a typhoon. He could see Gon doing the same.

All the sound was suddenly too loud, the airships’s groans too grating. They were approaching the ground, but Killua couldn’t get out of here soon enough. He made a snap judgement. So what if it messed things up? Things were going to get fucked soon enough anyway.

Prying himself out of his seat, Killua paced down the aisle to the emergency exit.

“Sir, you really need to keep your seat,” A soft-eyed air attendant objected. “The flight’s almost over. If you’ll just sit for ten more minutes, sir.”

“I’m going,” Killua snapped, and it seemed that she sensed that if she didn’t get out of the way her heart was coming out of this airship with him. She scrambled back, pressing against the wall to get as far from him as possible. Smart.  

The locking mechanism was stuck. Fine. Killua hardened his hand and stabbed the metal of the door. It parted easily enough, made of the same cheap metal as the rest of this wreck. Ripping with all the strength that this body could offer him, Killua pried open a hole large enough for him to slip through.

“Sir…” started the flight attendant again weakly. He had to give it to her; she kept her feet well, especially with the hole sucking everything that wasn’t strapped down out into the storm. A flurry of papers tore by. He leaned back so that they wouldn’t hit him.

“What?”

She pointed a trembling finger. “Your bag is open, sir.”

Killua glanced over his shoulder, somehow calmed by the ripping air currents. “Oh. Thanks.” He tugged the zipper closed and held the straps with both hands. “See ya.” He waved.

“Uh, yeah.” She waved back in spite of herself. “Thanks for flying with us.”

Killua grinned as he tipped back out of the airship. It was only fifty feet or so-- he should be able to make that landing easily as long as he rolled off some of the momentum.

He fell back into open sky, and for a few long, precious moments, Killua felt weightless.

Chapter Text

He halted in the wind, and--what was that
Far in the maples, pale, but not a ghost?
He stood there bringing March against his thought,
And yet too ready to believe the most.

How is it, Killua thought, eyes narrowed. That I knew exactly where to go, and this guy still beats me here?

“Good morning!” Called a balding chef, leaning earnestly over his counter.

“Good morning.” The response came in a low, sinuous voice that Killua had gotten to know far too well. “A lovely little shop you’ve got here.”

Hisoka hadn’t changed at all.

Killua sat inside the restaurant he knew to be a front for the Hunter Exam, picking at a bowl of ramen without appetite. Killua knew that he was supposed to say something to gain access to the exam hall, some combination of phrases that guides either told the applicants or presented themselves. Yes, he recalled that the phrases existed perfectly clearly. He was a little...muddier on the details-- like what any of them were.

His memory was honed to an abnormal level of perfection, but even he had his limits.

The way he figured it, though, was that he knew who was heading to the Hunter Exam, so he could just listen to the exchanges they gave and copy them. He’d been waiting for Hisoka to finish his meal for half an hour, nerves haywire. He couldn’t shake the feeling that Hisoka would recognize him. Impossible. At this point, we’d never met.

“I’m finished with my meal,” Hisoka told the chef. “But I’m still not satisfied. Do you suppose I could get a steak lunch?”

An eyebrow raised, the chef gave Hisoka a conspiratorial look. “How do you want it?”

“Over low heat,” Hisoka recited. “Grilled slowly .”

Killua wrinkled his nose. Nasty fucker. 

“Gotcha. You can head right back.”

A smile curled over Hisoka’s lips as he sauntered to the elevator that Killua knew would take him down to the test site. “Thank you,” he sang.

Before he left, Hisoka pulled a card out of nowhere and it played over his fingers, rippling in and out of sight. A feeling of dread, immediate and inescapable, dripped down Killua’s spine. Hisoka’s gaze leveled his, and it was all Killua could do not to sprint then and there.

Hunger in the iris; frenzy in the pupil; violence in both and somewhere deeper, more encompassing than either.

Hisoka’s bloodlust smothered him, coating Killua's lungs until he was choking on it. The man was barely holding himself back. 

An almost invisible flick of the wrist and the card slid through the air, burying itself several inches deep into Killua’s table. Hisoka departed without a word.

Aware that the eyes of every customer in the shop were on him, Killua pried the card free. A short message looped in across the Joker.

“It’s rude to stare.”

The first time round, Hisoka had been a threat best avoided, skirted around like an awkward situation or an inopportune disagreement. He’d known that Hisoka was dangerous, maybe even been scared of him.

But he hadn’t been terrified, and what a dangerous mistake that had been.

Shivering, Killua dropped the card to the table and wrapped his arms around himself. He couldn’t force his breathing into a natural pace. His heart seemed to shudder in his chest, screaming with both a need to run and trapped in absolute paralysis.

Killua, hunched over his soup and tried desperately to forget the look in Hisoka’s eyes. He wanted to rip himself out of his skin. Fear tasted bitterly familiar, and Killua couldn’t stand it.

His nails dug into the skin on his arms until the pain whittled through the haze, the sharp grounding him. He’d had run-ins with as many vicious people as stitches in a tapestry, but without nen he felt naked. To Hisoka he was nothing more than a newborn in a lion’s den.

That settled it. Whatever the repercussions, Killua needed nen.  

He finished the ramen, ordered another, and tried to gather himself enough to face the exam hall.

A whole string of other applicants came through. Killua knew the script by heart. But the thought of being in a room without escape routes with Hisoka and Illumi sent another shiver through him. Maybe he’d have something warm first, something to settle his stomach. Killua pushed out his chair.

He’d been so caught up in the thought of Hisoka that he hadn’t even considered who else would inevitably be coming through the shop.

Stupid. Killua flung himself back into his seat, gaining some attention from a nearby couple. He disregarded them, trying to shrink back as much as possible from the group by the door.

Leorio, tall and angular in that ugly blue suit of his. Kurapika, softer, his face barely hinting at the iron and rust in his blood. And Gon. Of course his eyes lingered on Gon. They always did.

The group was preceded by their presumable guide. A magical creature , Killua noted dully. His thoughts were elsewhere, stolen by the boy in the green jacket. God, he still had the fishing pole. How long had it been since Killua had seen that thing?

There were other things that were achingly familiar about this image, but Killua couldn’t let himself linger on them. He couldn’t let himself think about how Kurapika’s shoulders relaxed as he smiled, so different than the hunched horizon they’d one day form. He couldn’t focus on Gon’s bouncing steps-- how he could hear them now, because Gon had not yet learned the sliding gait of a killer. And shit, when Gon turned to look around the room in awe, he certainly couldn’t fixate, obsessed, riveted, mesmerized, on the light in his eyes.

Killua’s heart beat slowly. Convenient. If it beat too quickly, he wouldn’t have felt it break half so well.

He was so stupid. How hadn’t he considered this? Of course Gon and the rest would be here. Somehow he’d reserved that part of his experience to the irreplicable, but it was stupid to think otherwise. He’d gotten so caught up in the thoughts of his Gon that he’d forgotten that one must exist in this world as well.

This Gon still knew what it was like to be sunlight.

Killua buried his head in his hands, feeling the heat of a rising blush. Was he going to have to go through the motions of their early friendship again? He didn’t know if he could; he was a different boy than he had been then, too. The boy that Gon had befriended had been the night sky, eager to find a favorite star. He was something else now, not quite so pure as before. Better, in some ways, but having paid a price for everything he’d gained. He was no longer the absolute dark of midnight; Killua had slipped to dawn, muted, swamped in possibility and doubt and pain. 

He’d already decided that he wasn’t sticking to a script. That made this easier. Until he figured out what was going on, he wouldn’t interact with anyone more than he had to. 

The group passed through, and Killua waited several long minutes before he rose.

Killua wove his way to the counter and placed the order. “Steak lunch, low heat, grilled slowly.”

“Well, alright then,” said the chef. He jerked his head towards the door. “You can head on back with the rest of them. Better hurry if you want to make it.”

Nodding stiffly, Killua proceeded to the elevator-- or rather, the room that would act as one.

“Right through here,” another chef gestured, this one smiling in a distinctly customer-service way. Killua ignored her and closed the door behind him.

The plain walls slid by as the floor dropped, and Killua wondered idly if the building had been built like this specifically for the Hunter Exam. He wouldn’t be surprised.

“You forgot something!” The warning from the customer-service chef almost came too late. She yanked open the door and chucked down his badge.

Killua barely managed to grab it before it hit his head. “Huh. Guess I did.” Killua tossed the badge between his hands, deciding to put it somewhere a little less visible this time-- he didn’t want whoever was targeting him in the fourth phase to remember who he was. He shoved it deep into his bag.  

The elevator rumbled to a stop, and Killua found himself walking into a crowded room. 

As if on cue, the door to the elevator slammed shut behind him. Going up for more applicants? Killua couldn’t remember who, if anyone, had come after Gon. They hadn’t really met until the first phase started.

Relieved that he could ignore that problem for now, Killua made his way to the front of the throng. All he had to do was avoid people--that’s not so hard. As long as I keep an eye out for Gon it should be easy.

“Hey! You’re a rookie, aren’t you?”

Kill me.

Tonpa, in all his potbellied glory, grinned at Killua like he wasn’t the slimiest bastard here. That nose of his would look better broken. With every second that Tonpa stood there, smiling and offering his hand for Killua to shake, that outcome became likelier and likelier.

“I should introduce myself,” Tonpa said, nonplussed by Killua’s lack of response. “Tonpa. I’ve taken this test thirty five times, so I know a new face when I see one.”

“I wouldn’t brag about your incompetence if I were you,” Killua said, glancing down at his nails. Were they worth bloodying on him? “Makes you look like an easier target.” His gaze snapped up to Tonpa’s and the older man paled. 

“Ah, well, I just like to make people feel welcome, you know? I’m kind of the welcome committee-- not part of the hunter committee but in an unofficial way-- just making sure that rookies, ah, can find their way around,” Tonpa stumbled. His eyes flicked to the side, searching for an exit.

“Gee, thanks,” Killua said.  

“It’s no problem at all! Say, do you want some refreshment? I have these drinks--”  

And no sense of self preservation, apparently.

Killua straightened his spine, wishing that he had the extra few inches his nascent growth spurt had given him. It was so much easier to intimidate when you were tall enough to meet their shoulders.  

Killua snatched the juice from Tonpas hand and downed it in one gulp. Then he took the can and smashed it against Tonpa’s forehead. “Next time you talk to me, I will personally shove this up your ass.” He tossed the scrunched remains of the can to Tonpa. “Here. Hang on to this for me until then.”

That was one nuisance taken care of; maybe Tonpa would stop bothering rookies for a while after the scare. Maybe it didn’t matter either way-- anyone who’d be caught out by Tonpa’s tricks at this point weren’t going to last until the next phase anyway.

“Just between us,” Hanzo declared, loud enough for the whole room to hear. “I’m a ninja.”

Killua’s eyes passed around the room, placing as many people as he could from his memories.

He definitely recognized the others who had passed. Killua hadn’t known all of them well during the exam, but they’d grown into something like a graduating class by the end of their trials. They swapped information, sometimes and some of them had asked after Gon when he was in the hospital.

It would be odd to be strangers again-- but that’s how things were.

A man jostled by and Killua hissed under his breath. He was headed straight for Hisoka, completely oblivious to the aura of animosity that swathed him.

Killua barely had enough time to begin his escape when another of Hisoka’s cards sliced by--and how had Hisoka even done that? The man was half buried in the wall, obviously in significant pain.

Hisoka could’ve killed him quietly without a thought, but he had to make a show out of it instead. Killua’s lip curled at the thought.

“Pl-please help me--” the man begged, as if anyone could at this point. “Please--”

“You ought to be careful,” Hisoka warned. “If you bump into someone, you have to apologize.”

Killua started to slink away.

“It doesn’t do to be rude ." Hisoka’s voice dropped, and Killua froze. “You never know who you may offend.”

Those words were meant for him.

He was saved a response by the sound of an alarm and the sight of a man descending from the ceiling. Tall naturally and even taller by merit of his tailored suit, Satotz quieted the alarm. He looked out onto the assembly with his customary expression--which was to say hardly an expression at all, his mouth obscured by curling mustachios.  

“The call for applicants is now closed,” Satotz announced. He folded his hands behind his back, raising his eyebrows until the whispers died down.

“I’m pleased to announce the beginning of the Hunter Exam. Please, all of you, come this way.”

Satotz started walking, and the group slowly stumbled after him. As they went, Satotz explained the various risks and rules of the exam. Few seemed to take it seriously, and Killua scoffed. Most of those who didn’t would die pathetically. The world of hunters offered no second chances. Or at least, he’d thought it didn’t.

Killua reached into his bag and started to pull out his skateboard, but thought better of it. He was weaker than he used to be; this run was a good chance to work a little basic conditioning in. It wasn’t Bisky, but he’d take what he could get.

Killua trotted up towards the front of the group, weaving in and out of people as quietly as possible. He received the occasional odd look, but nothing to concern himself over. Most applicants were a little hostile, a little mistrustful, but not so much that they’d try to start something if he brushed into them wrong.

On the other hand, Killua gave Hisoka a wide, wide berth.

The pace picked up, and then it picked up again.

It was a combination of distracted running, poor planning, and fate’s horrible sense of humor that in avoiding Hisoka, Killua almost walked into Gon.

“Where do you think we’re going?” Gon angled the question at Kurapika. Gon’s hands wrapped tight around his father’s fishing pole, betraying his mixture of excitement and anxiety.

“I don’t know. But I assume that’s part of the exam. The psychological stress of an unknown goal can be quite taxing, especially on a crowd where the sentiment can be echoed back and forth.” Kurapika nodded at a group just behind them, voices low with anger. “It’s already starting to wear on some.”

“All I’m saying is that I don’t see the point of running if you’re not running towards something,” Leorio cut in.

“That’s because you’re a cretin,” Kurapika replied cooly.

Killua couldn’t stifle his snicker.

“Hey, kid, you think you can laugh at me?” Leorio snapped, turning to angle his tough-guy glare at Killua.

Killua disguised the falter in his step with a skip, dancing in front of them. “It’s not like you’ve really got to be qualified for it.”

Leorio let out an undignified sqwawk, but the comment had gotten a chuckle out of Kurapika. God, it was good to see him laugh again.

He couldn’t get it out of his head that all of them looked so young. They were still soft, clay rather than stone. 

“He’s got a point,” Kurapika admitted.

“Kids don’t respect their elders these days,” Leorio sniffed.

“I do!” Gon protested. “The older someone is, the more respect they get, because they have a lot more experience."

Killua’s lips curled into a devious grin. “In that case, Leorio, you should receive plenty of respect. You’re what, forty? Fifty?”

There was no annoyed comeback to Killua’s quip. Instead, he was created by a charged silence and furrowed brows.

“How’d you know my name?”

Oops. Cover, Killua. “You guys aren’t exactly quiet.” Killua shrugged, playing it off as nonchalantly as possible. His lying skills were top notch, as always, but Kurapika still frowned at Killua’s response. Kurapika was too sharp for his own good, a sword’s edge of a mind-- given the chance, it would lance Killua to the bone.

Gon’s face scrunched in the way that it always did when he was trying to run a calculation. “I don’t know if I should introduce myself or not then,” he explained after a long moment. “Since you might already know my name like you knew Leorio’s.” He gave a dazzling grin. “But there’s no harm in trying! I’m Gon Freccs, and I’m twelve years old. What about you?”

Killua didn’t have it in him to respond in kind; he could barely bring himself to look Gon in the eyes. In fact, talking to these people at all had been a bad idea-- now they would remember him, might seek him out. It was just too easy to fall into his old patterns.

Friendliness had grown into quite the bad habit.

"Doesn't matter,” he said, all the cheer from his voice draining out with two words. “I’m going to go ahead.”

“I’ll come with you!” Gon offered.

“No,” Killua said. “I’d rather you not.”

The pace picked up and Killua took the momentary distraction to edge forwards, jostling and slipping by strangers until he was at the very front of the band. He could taste his heartbeat in his throat. Quiet shivers of panic racked through him, almost invisible under Killua's self control. But these days, that control was an imperfect, mercurial beast, and he was glad that the jostle of running disguised his shaking. 

Ahead, the examiner, Satotz, stretched his legs to a steady clip. It was easy enough to fall into the rhythm of it, breathing in as his left foot fell and breathing out two steps later. Killua loped along easily, using honest sweat to clean up the mess of his mind. 

The man behind Killua tripped and didn’t get back up again. 

Keeping tabs on the rest of the group was depressing as hell. Killua’d always been better than the majority of them, but even he wasn’t so cold as to be immune to their desperation. He wasn’t immune to most things, just tough enough to deal with them.

Breaking one of the unspoken rules of the exam, Killua increased his pace just enough to run at the examiner’s side.

Satotz gave Killua a curious look, finely arched eyebrows lifting but his pace unfaltering.

“Hi. I’m Killua. Nice to meet you, et cetera,” Killua recited, getting basic formalities out of the way. “How does the hunter committee choose examiners?”

“Satotz, and the same.” Satotz’s arms swept as twin pendulums, the oddest-- yet seemingly efficient-- style of movement that Killua had ever seen. “And that’s classified, I’m afraid. Exam procedures are need to know.”

“I see. Is it fair to say that there are procedures for selecting examiners, at least?”

Satotz inclined his head. “Of course.”

“So you’re qualified in some way, right?”

“I certainly hope so,” Satotz said. “Is this just simple curiosity?”

Killua shrugged, stuffing his hands in his pockets. He couldn’t get a gauge on this guy’s nen without being able to access his own, but his own impressions told him that Satotz certainly wasn’t weak, but wasn’t particularly strong either. If Killua had to categorize him, he’d guess that Satotz was more the investigative type of hunter than combative. “If I asked you to show me your ren, what would you say?”

The look Satotz gave him was sharper now. “I’d politely decline.”

“Fair enough.”

They ran in silence for a few minutes, Satotz focused on the path straight ahead. Killua knew that he wouldn’t miss the looks that Killua threw him every couple of seconds-- he wasn’t being anywhere near subtle.

“I assume that you have a reason for your interrogation,” Satotz eventually prompted.

Could Killua trust him? Did he have a choice not to?

“I have some questions about a hypothetical situation, and you seem like the best person to ask.” Killua’s eyes traced the ground in front of him. “It involves nen.”

“You seem rather knowledgeable about the subject yourself,” Satotz said mildly. “But if I can answer it, I suppose I see no reason not to-- especially since it appears that you don't appear able to wield it.”

I am abjectly aware of that fact, thanks.  

“I realize that this is kind of strange, but you’re the only nen user around here that seems safe to talk to,” Killua explained, more to himself than Satotz. “And as you said, I’m not exactly able to defend myself.”

His other options were Hisoka and Illumi, and no thanks to both of those.

“I understand completely.”

Great. Killua swallowed. “So, in regards to hatsu, are there any nen abilities that affect people’s minds?”

“Certainly,” Satotz said. “Though they’re rarer than physical abilities, because they tend to take a very different type of training.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well,” Satotz said, tilting his head up pensively. “You have to learn to manipulate another person’s aura rather than your own. Of course, if you totally fail to train your own aura, then you’re vulnerable to physical attacks, and it’s a heavily frowned upon. The ethical quandries, you understand--”

“So it’s a manipulator-type ability?” Killua cut him off; he didn’t care about the technicalities, he only cared about narrowing down the field of who could have done this.

It was highly unlikely that a nen user had created a whole world based off of Killua’s memories. To even think of such an undertaking made Killua’s head hurt-- yes, advanced nen users like Knov could make small, temporary spaces, but a whole world was pushing the limits of even superhuman capability. It was more likely that Killua had somehow been trapped inside his own mind.

“Manipulator or specialist, generally speaking,” Satotz replied, unruffled by Killua’s interjection.

He hadn’t made any manipulator-type enemies, not that he could remember. A phantom troupe member, then?

None of this makes sense. There are too many holes.

Fuck it-- he might as well come out and ask it. It was wishful thinking, but he needed to know if it were possible.  “Is there any way that a nen ability could cause someone to travel in time?”

This gave the examiner pause. “Let me think--” Satotz hummed to himself. “To be honest, I don’t know. There’s a lot that’s possible with nen. I have heard of some specialists that have abilities to do with time, but I’ve never explored the idea. It’s often said that nen users appear to be able to read their enemy’s minds, but that’s more psychology and the interpretation of body language than prediction. I assume working with the past is more easily achievable-- but this is just speculation, you understand.”

“Right. Thanks, Satotz.”

“Having shared with you the breadth of my knowledge, can I ask why you’ve fixed on this subject?”

Killua grinned up at Satotz. “School project.”

And with that he fell silent, legs pumping automatically as his mind ran over what he’d been told-- which, come to think of it, hadn’t been a whole lot. It all just added to the mess of questions that Killua found roaming and rambling free in his head.

If Killua took one thing out of the conversation, it was this; whatever was going on, his decisions from this point on mattered. It wasn’t likely that he’d run in against a time specialist, but he couldn’t take that chance.

Until I find any evidence otherwise, I have to assume that this is real.

Killua had just been winging most of his actions, reacting to the situation rather than planning things out. He may have already altered the future-- and if he was stuck here, he’d have to live with those repercussions for the rest of his life.

Pressure upon pressure stacked in Killua’s head. What could he change? What should he keep the same? How much of it was within his control? Were there any events that had to happen?

He was suddenly glad for the length of the run-- it’d give him time to get his thoughts straight, catalogue the events he remembered, and make a plan going forwards.

First, he would figure out a way to get his nen.

“Hey, Satotz,” Killua chimed. “Any possibility that you’d be willing to awaken my nen for me?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Alright, thanks anyways.”

Killua hadn’t expected anything different. Wing had told them that the procedure was rarely carried out due to its dangerous nature; Killua wasn’t sure he’d even trust Satotz to do it if the man had said yes.

He’d figure out something later. But then what? After he could defend himself, what did he want to do?

Gon’s body, prone on the ground, violent rivers of nen rushing out of him. Gon’s face, shriveled and unsightly, twisted by grief. Gon’s eyes, relentless, empty.

It wasn’t a matter of what Killua wanted to do. It was a matter of necessity. Whatever it took, Killua had to stop Gon from reaching the Chimera Ants. The only way to prevent him from giving into his grief was to never let him be there in the first place; if it were anyone else, Killua might’ve thought that he could talk to them, prepare them for what was going to happen, but this was Gon. No amount of consolation would fill the cavern that grief had scraped in him. In his world, Gon was irreparable.

But if he found the cracks early, stitched them up and stopped them from growing, then perhaps-- perhaps.

They’d gone straight from Greed Island to the Chimera Ants. They’d gone straight from York New to Greed Island-- they’d come practically straight from the Hunter Exam to York New. Killua felt like a member of a bomb squad, staring down an army of wires. Which one to cut? Which ones to save?

The best way to cure infection was to stop the wound from opening in the first place. The only way that he could save Gon was to stop the whole chain of events from ever happening; and if that meant changing everything, so be it.

Killua would tear a new world out of the beating heart of the old, whatever scars it would leave. He would take away the axis that his future turned around, and make this globe turn backwards. Gon would not find the Chimera Ants. Gon would not go to Greed Island. Gon wouldn’t even go to York New city-- not if he could change this.

Killua knew what he had to do.

Gon could not pass the Hunter Exam.

Chapter Text

Killua loped easily up the stairs, watching the pack fall away behind him. So weak, he thought. All of them are so weak. His own body was corded with sinewed iron, slicked with sweat. But so am I.

Not too far back, Leorio ripped off his shirt, and Kurapika tucked his tabard away in his satchel. Killua’s eyes narrowed. If those two were over there, where was the third?

“You’re really strong!” Killua started at Gon’s shout, coming only a few steps behind. When did he--?

“Thanks,” Killua replied evenly.

“You’ve been running up at the front the whole time,” Gon marveled. “Don’t you get tired?”

“Not really.”

Gon nodded sagely. “It’s not as bad as I thought it was going to be. It’s just running, you know?”

“Yeah,” Killua agreed. He cast his gaze upwards, trying to gauge how much further ahead he’d have to run to be out of earshot. “It’s pretty boring, I guess.”

“If you’re bored, you should come run with Kurapika and Leorio and me!”

Killua snorted. “And get stuck with Leorio’s running stench? No thanks.”

Behind, Leorio scowled. “You shouldn’t say things like that,” Gon said, but Killua could hear a giggle creeping up on his voice.

This wasn’t right; He was making Gon laugh when he wasn’t supposed to be talking to him at all-- how was Killua supposed to undermine Gon if they ended up friends again? No matter how impossibly right it would feel to follow that path, he couldn’t.

Self control, Killua. Like he’d ever had any when it came to Gon. Willpower.

“Hey,” Gon said, breaking Killua from his reverie. “Why’re you taking the exam?”

Killua shrugged. If he didn’t respond, maybe Gon would go away.

“I want to be a hunter so that I can find my dad, Ging Freccs,” Gon declared. “He left me and my Aunt Mito when I was just a baby, and I’ve wanted to find him ever since. Can you imagine what it’s like, being a hunter? What could possibly be so amazing that you’d leave your kid behind?” Gon shook his head, that determination that would eventually condemn him blazing in his eyes. “I don’t know, but all I want to do is find out.”

“Maybe he’s just a dick.” Shut him down.

“Maybe he is,” Gon said agreeably, “but I have to know, you know?”

“Yeah.”

Killua couldn’t keep his answers all less committal than that, but Gon could keep up a conversation with a brick wall.

“So you’re just here for the fun of it?” Gon prompted.“It’s pretty easy so far, but I can see how it could be fun.”

“I’m here to pass, okay?” Killua snapped. “Not to be pestered by kids.”

Killua could just barely make out Leorio’s grumble, a dark-- “What's’ this guy’s problem?”

He couldn’t explain it to any of them. They wouldn’t believe him, and even if they would, Killua couldn’t bear to place that burden on them. They didn’t understand that Gon’s connections would become entanglement, that his openness would be nothing but chinks in his armor, that the fierce determination that earned him his license would twist, would wrench. 

“Aren’t we the same age?” Gon asked, unperturbed by Killua’s snipiness.

Killua didn’t respond. He angled his shoulders and sped up.

“I get it if you’re not the chatty type. We can still be friends,” Gon offered.  

Shoulders higher, feet faster. His body could be a wall between him and Gon if only he could find the room. Gon kept apace, short legs stretching to accommodate.

“We don’t even have to talk if you don’t want,” Gon said.

“That’s the goal,” Killua shot back.

“D’ya want to race instead?”

“No.”

“You sure?” Gon asked.

“Yes.”

Killua worked his legs faster, putting on a burst of speed that put him ahead of Satotz. Gon was weaker now, there was no way that he could keep up--

“I’m going to race you, even if you’re not racing me!” Gon called. He drew even to Killua’s shoulder with a grin.

Shooting an annoyed glance at Gon, Killua bit his cheek and pushed himself even faster. His legs half blurred as he leapt up the steps, three at a time, muscles burning with each jump. Killua shot a look over his shoulder to see Gon panting just behind. In the second that he slowed down to look, Gon shot ahead-- and fuck if he was going to let that happen.

Killua’s lungs shook. His heart felt like it was going to shatter his ribs with its pounding, but he didn’t care. Winding words and twisting ideas slipped away beneath his feet, replaced by the sliding blur of stone.

Every couple of seconds Killua threw his gaze to Gon. Eyes bright, Gon let his mouth hang open to pant-- like a dog, Killua couldn’t help thinking-- but he never slowed. Come on. I’m better than this. Killua’s neck strained as he pushed himself harder, farther, faster.

Before either of them knew it, they were out, bright sunlight lancing their eyes. Gon let out a happy crow,“I win!”

“That’s a lie,” Killua countered. “You were a full second behind!”

Gon paused mid-celebratory strut. “So we were racing then?” Killua didn’t have time to splutter a response, Gon’s grin growing wider with each second. “Now I win twice! I crossed the finish line first, and you admitted that we were racing!”

Leorio and Kurapika stumbled out of the tunnel, Leorio’s face doing a concerning impression of an overripe tomato. “Congratulations, Gon,” Kurapika said.

“He didn’t win anything,” Killua muttered.

“I did so!”

“Actually, boys, I’d say it was an honest tie,” Satotz cut in.

Instead of protesting, Killua just shoved his hands in his pockets and paced away.

He’d let himself get caught up in Gon’s rhythm, lost his head in that easy beat. Gon had won that one, though it was a different battle than Gon’d thought he was fighting.

Shit shit shit, why couldn’t Killua keep his head straight? This wasn’t his Gon-- this Gon didn’t even know him. They hadn’t shared anything, hadn’t even had a real conversation. Gon had always been aggressively friendly, but this-- was this what the examiners had meant when they’d ranked his potential? Gon was magnetic in the worst way.

The rest of the group straggled up, most with far more pride in their eyes than their feat deserved.

The gates slammed shut, and Satotz regained the examinee’s attention. “Applicants,” Satotz announced to the odd two hundred remaining. “You’ve made it this far, and for that I commend you.”  

Aw, thanks.

“Before you lies the Milsy Wetlands.” Satotz gestured behind him. “We must pass through here in order to reach the site of Phase Two. But be warned,” Satotz said, holding out a cautionary finger. “The strange creatures here will resort to every trick to deceive people and turn them to fodder.”

A grumble rippled through the crowd, a susurration of dissent.

“That,” Satotz concluded. “Is why it’s called Swindler’s Swamp.”

Killua hated this place.

The ground was spongy, the air was thick, and the entire swamp was swathed with a malicious miasma. Satot cut a startling silhouette, sharp and angular against the curling marsh beyond. Every tendril, every hanging vine, crawled as far as inattention would let it grow; then, noticed, the treeline would shrink back, laying ever so slightly closer than before. If Killua didn’t know better, he’d say it was a trick of the light. But he’d been in Swindler’s Swamp before, and he knew its rule: if something looked like it was trying to eat you, it probably was. And if it didn't look like it, better be twice as careful.

The doorway they’d come out of clacked close. The muttering of the crowd grew louder.

“We’re stuck out here, for better or for worse,” Kurapika murmured.

Satotz cleared his throat. “You must follow me very carefully, ” he said. “If you get tricked, you will most likely die.”

“Strange thing to say.” Leorio started forward, his tension written across him far too obviously. Jaw set, Leorio crossed his arms. “We won’t fall for their tricks if we know they’re out to trick us,” he declared.

Killua’s eyes flicked to the side of the building a half second before everyone else; there it was.

“It’s a lie! He’s a fraud!”  

A tall ginger man stood as a testament of survival, bruised and beaten at the side of the clearing. One hand clutched a satchel like it was the only thing anchoring him to the ground, and the other pointed accusation towards Satotz. “He isn’t your proctor!” He shouted. “ I am! ”

Murmur grew to chatter grew to overwhelming discord; every applicant turned to their neighbor, exclamation quick to their lips.

“A fraud?” One woman said. “What does that mean?”

“Then who the hell is standing there?”

They’ll sort this out eventually.

Killua wandered to the edge of the clearing, ignoring the commotion as he crouched down to examine the ground. Firm enough, here, but it’d get softer as they went. He’d have to save energy for the second half of the trip, as they got deeper into the swamp. He hadn’t run this much the first time, and he was beginning to feel the exertion.

Killua’s head snapped to attention at a sudden pressure. Why?  

“A fraud?” Hanzo asked.

Leorio stood as intercessor, demanding proof from the fake proctor.

“This man looks just like the man faced apes,” the man presented, throwing a burlap sack to the ground. Water seeped through the open bag, filtering through the fur of a monkey that bore a startling resemblance to Satotz. “He’s one of them!”

Killua wasn’t concerned with any of that. The argument that went back and forth, tilting towards the fake proctor with every second. He hadn’t changed enough for there to be some sort of new attack, had he? The sense of threat only grew.

“It’ll kill all you applicants so that it can devour you!” The fake proctor claimed, and people were listening. Would the fake proctor attack? Was that what was setting Killua’s nerves on edge?

He wasn’t the only one; the whole group jostled restless, hissing to their neighbors and writhing like snakes in the sand. Mistrust spilled through the air, carried by heavy humidity and the group mentality of their trial.

Gon’s voice cut bright as song through that deadly whisper.

“Is this part of the exam?” Gon asked.

But that hadn’t been what Killua was concerned about. He shifted onto his toes, ready to make a run for it the second that the attack came-- with this much pent up aggression, there was no way it wasn’t coming.

Killua shifted backwards, away from the crowd, hoping that whatever was coming would target them first. As he slid past Hisoka, the realization slid like ice to his stomach. This aggression, this bloodlust, was so intense that it felt foreign-- but it was Hisoka, built to the point of near madness.

Domineering, Hisoka’s appetite beat like an animal caught inside a drum. All that separated him from destruction was a thin veneer of self control, cracking for every second he spent surrounded by fresh, easy blood. But he wasn’t focused on the crowd, the hundred he could kill by sheer presence alone-- his eyes were fixed on Satotz.

Killua racked his memory for an explanation. Killua’s instincts screamed that there would be blood soon.

The man faced ape; the fake proctor-- Killua remembered now.

Wild eyed, Killua whirled to face the examinees. When?

“A hunter would have a license to prove his status,” Kurapika explained to Gon.

Soon, Killua thought. It’ll be soon. He surreptitiously put himself as far out Hisoka’s way as he could.

“He stole my license!” The fake proctor proclaimed.

Killua flicked his eyes between Hisoka and Satotz. Hisoka pulled out his deck of cards; Killua traced the line of attack.

Killua didn’t know if it was because of his actions or some random variation in the timeline, but his stomach dropped. It made sense that even the smallest changes would affect this world in a thousand minute ways-- ripples and all of that. And it made sense in this harsh, exacting world, that the smallest change could mean life or death.

In this timeline, Gon stood right in the path of Hisoka’s card. Killua’s heart sounded in his ears, urging him to run, knowing that if he did it was Gon’s death sentence.

It would only take a nudge, and everything would be fine. But Killua was frozen.

What the hell?

His legs wouldn’t move. His heart wouldn’t start. His feet were light as always, but they could’ve been lead, swallowed by the ground.

Killua’s eyes skittered to the man going by the name of Gittakur. Illumi. The needle. He hadn’t taken it out in this timeline. No, I need to move. Please--”

Killua cursed. Gon’s ears pricked and the boy shot him a concerned look.

“Hm,” Kurapika said, focused on the proctors before him. “That makes the question of the license useless for determining which of you is the true tester.”

Hisoka flicked his wrist.

“Gon, my name’s Killua,” Killua burst out. Gon immediately perked up and turned to offer Killua his hand. Killua watched with heart in throat as Hisoka’s card slit through where Gon had just stood.

Gon’s friendliness had just saved his life.  

“I knew you’d come around!” Gon said. “And you’re twelve too, right?

Their conversation was cut predictably short as Hisoka’s cards sailed home, straight into the fake proctor’s skull. Satotz caught Hisoka’s attack towards him easily between two fingers.

“What the hell, man?” A particularly stupid examinee shouted. Oh, wait, that was Leorio. An exceptionally stupid examinee.

“I see, I see,” Hisoka mused, shuffling his deck back and forth. “This way is quicker, isn’t it?

Bastard, you just wanted an excuse to try to fight Satotz.

The ‘dead’ monkey jumped to life, making a run for it for all of five seconds. Another of Hisoka’s cards made the act much more realistic.

“I guess this one confirms that you’re the real one, doesn’t it?” Hisoka said to Satotz. Killua shivered; he could feel the challenge in Hisoka’s voice. “The hunter that we all so hope to become must be capable of dodging a mild attack like that.”

To his credit, Satotz was unperturbed. Killua wasn’t entirely sure that Satotz knew how to be perturbed, because if there was anything to be perturbed about, it was definitely this.

“I will take that as a compliment,” Satotz allowed. He flicked the card away. “But any further violence aimed at a proctor, under any circumstance, will be deemed as meriting immediate disqualification. Do I make myself clear?”

“I understand completely .”  

Kurapika turned to Gon. “A hunter wouldn’t be deceived by the likes of a man faced ape. It was obvious that man was a fake proctor the moment he said his license had been stolen,” he explained. “Hisoka must’ve known that, and he still chose to attack a proctor...” Kurapika shook his head, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Gon looked the same, but for a different reason. He’d never been scared enough of Hisoka for his own good. Gon’s eyes fixed on the ape.

“Don’t bother thinking about that thing,” Leorio shot. “It’s ugly and dead and knew what it was getting into.”

“Indeed,” Satotz said. “Entrapment is the bread and water of these wetlands. In the struggle to survive, not all things can win out. Survival of the fittest-- that is the rule of this swamp.”

“Don’t get so emotional about it, I can’t stand it,” Killua muttered. Survival of the fittest was a hard rule, harsh and false. In a world where adaptation was the only way to survive, the Chimera Ants were kings. When people helped each other rather than competed, where they worked together to grow stronger rather than force others to grow weaker-- perhaps a utopian idea, but way back he and Gon’d had it.

“Perhaps we should move forwards towards phase two,” Satotz led.

A swarm of vultures, more teeth than feathers, ripped apart the carcass of the man faced ape. Killua looked away. There was something wrong with watching this desecration. The monkey’s death stemmed from his partner’s failure, and their friendship had failed to save them.

Don’t be so morbid. 

Satotz started off again, picking up the pace right where he’d left off. Killua started forwards with the rest of them, breaking quickly back to the front of the pack.

As the fog set in, so did Killua’s fears.

“Don’t lose the proctor,” Killua told Gon. “If you do, you’ll never find your way out of here.” And stay far, far from Hisoka.

Also, stop talking to Gon.

Also, actually listen to yourself for once.

Gon nodded. “And that means we’ll get to run together.”

Killua just sighed.

“Kurapika, Leorio!” Gon called. “Killua said we better move to the front!”

Looking back at the pair, Killua could see that wasn’t going to happen any time soon. Then he couldn’t see much at all as the fog drew thicker, and he couldn’t worry about them anymore. They’d passed the first time, and Killua had every confidence in Kurapika’s strength. As for Leorio, well, he always managed to figure something out.

Right now, Killua had to focus on the path in front of him. Satotz was just a vaguely pointed shadow, and he couldn’t count on that to remain true.

“I can’t see Kurapika and Leorio,” Gon muttered.

“You can’t worry about them right now,” Killua snapped. “It’s not safe to go back.”

Killua should’ve known better than to tell Gon ‘no’. Hardly any sooner had he said it than Gon looked back again, determination printed on his brow. “Gon, if you go back, you’re out of the running. You’ll never find your way back without the proctor.” A cheap shot, but Gon cared more about becoming a hunter than anything. And when Gon’s goals and his morals came into conflict, Killua’d learned to count on the former.

“Avoid the lights,” Killua cautioned. “They’re just creatures trying to lure you in. And the moths,” he said, remembering as he spoke. “They’ll cause hallucinations with their dust. And if the ground changes color suddenly, it’s probably a land-fish trying to eat you.”

“You know a lot about this place, Killua,” Gon said, a tinge of awe in his voice.   

“I like to travel.”

“Is that what you do?” Gon asked. “When you’re not taking the hunter exam? Do you travel around places like this?”

“I--” Killua was getting dangerously close to disclosing personal information, to giving Gon the familiarity that he craved.

After visiting Whale Island, Killua understood something; however lonely Killua was, growing up surrounded by his family and his staff, Gon was the same. Whale Island wasn’t the Zoldyck manor, with its warm island sun instead of cold marble halls, but Gon had grown up around adults; he’d never had a playmate his age. He’d never had a regular friend.

Killua wished he could give that to Gon, but he couldn’t. Not this time.

“I’m just a regular kid,” Killua said.

Gon’s eyes sparkled. “What’s that like?”

Shit, what is that like? Killua hadn’t thought his answer through, just hoping to limit the conversation. “I, uh, go to school.” Killua was pretty sure kids did that. “Hang out with friends.” He shrugged. So far so good. “Go to the arcade and gamble, you know.”

“Ah, that sounds really nice,” Gon said. “I’m from Whale Island, which is a pretty small place in the middle of the--”

“I know where it is.”

“You do? That’s great! Have you ever been? Or do you learn geography in school? See, my school was just my aunt Mito, the woman who raised me, so I don’t know what regular kids learn in schools. What’re classes like? Do you ever get distracted by having so many people in class with you? Do you pass notes to talk? I’ve heard that’s a thing.”

Killua’s eyebrows drew together. He didn’t even know where to begin answering those questions.  

“Oh, sorry, I’m being too chatty again, aren’t I? I forget that not everyone likes that. If you want some space, that’s okay with me too,” Gon amended.

Killua shrugged and turned his eyes forwards. As long as they got to the second examination safely, Killua was sure that he could make Gon fail in a way that didn’t endanger his life--however he was doing that.

“I’m worried about Kurapika and Leorio,” Gon said after several long minutes. “They’re not following.”

“I’m sure they are. Come on.” Satotz’s figure receded as Gon slowed down. “They’ll catch up.”

“They’re not, ” Gon ground out. “Leorio’s scent is only getting fainter.”

“...His scent?”

“The wind’s blowing towards us. If Leorio were following, I’d be able to smell his cologne on it!”

Killua squinted at Gon. Leorio and Kurapika had made it to the second stage last time-- obviously-- but he had no idea how. Was this part of it?

“It’s up to them to keep up.”

Gon shook his head. “I’m going back.”

“Don’t be an idiot, Gon. It’s dangerous.”

“So?” Gon countered. “I know they’re not your friends, but they’re mine! I’m going back.”

“This doesn’t concern you,” Gon seethed, eyes dark and unreadable, and for the first time, Killua did not just fear for his friend. Killua feared him. Who was this? Who was this Gon, who made Killua so afraid? Neferpitou, Komugi, Gon-- Killua turned and ran from them all.

“Whatever,” Killua said, choking on memory.

Resolute, Gon spun on his heel and dashed the way he’d come.

“What an idiot,” Hanzo declared. “Running back to save the others, he’s just failed himself.”

“Yeah,” Killua agreed. “What a dumbass.”

He ran after Gon.

The moment that Killua broke with the group, he slipped into the shadows and let himself become part of them.  

Unless Gon’s in serious danger , Killua vowed to himself. I keep my hands out of this.

Killua trekked through the marsh, following Leorio’s bellowing voice and the sound of screams. Sweat beaded Killua’s brow at the fact that they came from the same location.

Though the fog had not yet dispersed, enough had-- though seeped seemed closer to the way that air moved in this swamp-- to render the clearing visible. Stage right, Gon, brown eyes fixing wolfish through the trees. Stage left, Leorio, Kurapika, and Pokkle, crouched low and ready. Center stage: Hisoka. Eyes narrow, skin pale, mouth drawn into a sickle-slice smile, Hisoka stole the spotlight, but Killua’s eyes couldn’t help but trace over the bodies scattered on the ground.

“They fail,” Hisoka half-sang. “All of them, they all fail. Only you three remain.”

“Damn you,” Kurapika grit, dropping into a fighting stance.

Hisoka’s smile just grew wider. “Shall I start--” he trailed off, cocking his head to the side. “With you?” The ground sank and squished under Hisoka’s feet as he stalked towards Leorio. Killua stiffened; if Hisoka reached Leorio, there was no telling what he would do. He’d come back to save Gon, but he couldn’t let any of them die out here.

“When I give you the cue,” Pokkle said, keeping his voice low. “We all run in different directions.”

“What?” Leorio balked.

“He’s strong,” Pokkle said.  “Every killer has a moment of hesitation when he’s about to kill someone.” Amateurs. “But he has none of that.” Because he’s like me.

“We have no chance of winning against him,” Kurapika admitted. “Even if we attacked in concert...”

So run.

“I assume you both have your own reasons to become hunters,” Pokkle said. “And I don’t like it either, but if you want to stand any chance, you have to run.”

Hisoka took a step forward.

In the split second between one second and the next, slim as a blade of grass, Pokkle, Kurapika, and Leorio shot off. Each ran in different directions-- as close to a good strategy as you got in this kind of situation.

Killua’s breath puffed out. They were safe, at least. Killua’s gaze shifted to Gon-- the boy hadn’t moved, and Killua couldn’t figure out why. If Kurapika and Leorio were making a run for it, surely he’d go after them?

Silent, Killua put his face in his hands. They’re idiots. My friends are actual, verifiable, suicidal idiots.

“I’ll give you ten seconds,” Hisoka called. “One, two, three--” his countdown was cut short as the hazy but dismayingly recognizable form of Leorio materialized at the edge of the clearing.

Hisoka’s voice slid low. “Oh, my.”

“I couldn’t do it after all,” Leorio said. “I guess I’m not a big enough man to take a beating without fighting back.” He let out a yell and rushed forwards, armed with nothing but a knife. Prideful bastard.

Killua’s hands clenched into fists as Hisoka sliced Leorio’s weapon in two. Light as air, Hisoka leapt into the air and landed just behind Leorio. Leorio barely had time to react. He swung around with a graceless swipe, but Hisoka was fast. Faster than this, surely-- dragging out the kill?

Leorio let out a grunt as Hisoka seized his face. Those hands had the power to crush his jaw. Smirking, Hisoka raised Leorio until the man’s toes just barely grazed the ground. A stuttering breath as Leorio met Hisoka’s gaze. There was a visible moment that Leorio registered what lurked wild in Hisoka’s yellow eyes. Run. Leorio’s face froze, half terror, half brazen determination. Run.

“Hm.” Hisoka turned Leorio from side to side as if he were a piece of art, needing to be examined from all angles.

Run.

“What a nice face,” Hisoka purred. “All that--” he shuddered. “Anger and fighting spirit, just starting to be clouded over by a momentary fear of death.” Leorio’s face flushed even redder. “It gives me a rush. Unfortunately, I think that’s all over now.”

Run.

Illumi’s face again, the pressure of overwhelming danger. Sweat dripped down Killua’s face and his hands dug tighter into fists, digging nailmarks into his palms. Run, Killua. His nails bit deeper, blood on his palms. Killua, run.

Red tore a wound in the sky, and Gon’s fishing line sailed into the clearing like a flying fury. The head of it slammed into Hisoka’s cheek. Leorio crumpled to the ground, breath rushing hard as water through a broken dam. 

He should’ve taken the needle out as soon as he’d remembered it was there. Fuck.

Killua fell to a knee, head pierced by harsh, bright, lancing, pain. Illumi reminded him of what he already knew-- this wasn’t just a matter of willpower. He couldn’t look. He couldn’t run. He couldn’t do anything but fold, collapsing into a tangled ball on the floor of the forest. There were sticks digging into his arms and burrs on his legs, and Killua focused on that. Good pain. Clean pain, nothing like the dark fire that burned his eyes for every moment he stayed.

Killua had known pain, but god, Illumi knew his limit .

Trembling, Killua forced his eyes open to watch the scene before him.

“You’re pretty good, kid,” Hisoka said. Gon panted on the outskirts of the clearing, looking no softer for the compliment; all was anger in his eyes. “A fishing rod, huh? An interesting weapon. Will you let me see it?” Hisoka started towards Gon. “May I?”

Killua rose to shaking hands and knees. He took a staggering crawl forwards, but his arms gave out from under him. Gon’s hands tightened on his fishing rod.

“Now then,” Hisoka said. Killua rose again. He didn’t even make it a step this time.

“I’m your opponent!” Leorio called, breaking into a run. Weaponless, weak, he thought to tackle Hisoka. The fist that knocked him to the edge of the glade was a mercy.

But Gon-- Killua pounded a fist against the ground. It always came down to this. It always came down to weakness . He pushed himself up on that fist, then the other, then raised himself, swaying, to his feet. His left hand crushed the trunk of a tree in a perversion of support.

Gon launched himself into the air and made as if to strike Hisoka across the face with his fishing rod. Half a second later Hisoka was gone, fading as the fog and reappearing as a ghost. He caught Gon around the neck.

Gon’s hands clawed, fruitless, at Hisoka’s.

Dark waves lapped at the edge of Killua’s vision. He could barely catch Hisoka’s words as he leaned in to Gon, considering him from far too close. “You came back to rescue your friend, didn’t you?” He murmured. “What a good kid.”

Visage murderous as night, Hisoka reached to prod at Gon’s face. He was polishing Gon like a piece of silver. Violent aura or no, Killua realized that Hisoka wouldn’t hurt him. This was some sort of...assessment. Hisoka was playing proctor.  

“Yep,” Hisoka chirped. “You pass!” Ignoring the confusion clear on Gon’s face, Hisoka angled his next statement towards Kurapika-- Killua, for all his sharp skills and senses, hadn’t even noticed him arrive in the clearing. “And you came back as well, did you? How wonderful. It’s so nice to have friends, isn’t it?”

They were all ready to die for each other so quickly, Killua thought. They barely know each other’s names, and yet they all came back.

I wouldn’t have done the same.

He hadn’t deserved the friends he’d made. He still didn’t-- for all the growth and willpower and strength that he’d gained, he was still unable to help his friends when it came down to it. He should’ve been able to push through, should’ve been able to think of something.

Hisoka’s smile grew treacherously wide. “Don’t worry, I didn’t kill him,” Hisoka said, scooping up Leorio over his shoulder. “Because he also passed the test.”

“What does that mean?” Gon exclaimed.

“Hm?”

Gon planted himself, setting up to fight. “Give Leorio back!”

Hisoka tossed a look over his shoulder, taunting, beckoning. “If you want him back, catch up with me.” With that he took off into the woods, fading almost immediately to nothing but fog.

Gon collapsed, hand on his heart and face blank as he-- Killu assumed-- came to terms with everything that’d just happened.

“Gon!” Kurapika called. “Gon, are you alright?”

A pause. Gon nodded. “...Yeah. I was just terrified. But it was kind of exciting,” he breathed. “Let’s go.”

The two reunited and started off the way that Hisoka had gone, Gon leading the way.

Somehow, they had all survived. The danger was gone. Killua’s burden lifted and his airway opened.

The second that he felt motion return to his limbs, he sharpened his hand and dug it straight into his scalp-- one needle, sharp and bright in his palm. Killua’s lip curled as he tossed it away. Next time he wouldn’t be caught so unawares.

But that just went to show-- even knowing to some extent what was going to happen, the future could easily spiral out of his control. These next few weeks were going to be careful going.   

“You’re bleeding, and I didn’t even attack you. ” Hisoka’s voice filtered through the muggy air and Killua shot up the nearest tree on instinct. “Goodness. You don’t have to hide up there. It’s not any safer.”

“Hisoka,” Killua hissed. “What do you want?”

Hisoka picked his way through the undergrowth with a grin. “Parlay.” He held his palms flat up, as if he couldn’t Killua with his bare hands.

Killua didn’t respond, just watched carefully from his perch in the tree.

“Oh, don’t be so guarded. We’re all friends here.”

“Where’s Leorio?”

“I dropped him off and came back to chat. I almost didn’t notice you, hiding in the woods, but I thought you might want to chat. I wouldn’t come back to fight you, so relax.”

Killua snorted, relaxing some despite himself. If Hisoka were going to attack him, he would’ve done so already.

“I can’t use lines like that on you, can I?” Hisoka mused. “You’re like me. A whimsical liar.”

Rolling his eyes, Killua leaned against the trunk of the tree. “A transmuter, but not the same kind as you.”

“Hm.”

If Killua were Hisoka, he knew what he’d be doing. “There’s no point in using gyo,” Killua informed Hisoka. “You’ve probably figured it out by now, but I’ve not trained my aura yet.”

“And I’m sure you have an excellent reason for that. Would you mind sharing it?”

“My reasons are my own.”

Hisoka’s eyes lit. “I’m rather private too-- how the similarities just pile up. Only, I don’t think I’m half as rude as you.”

“Whatever floats your boat. I should start to head to the exam site.”

Still smiling, Hisoka made a beckoning gesture and Killua felt himself yanked from the tree by his left hand. He landed as gracefully as he could, suddenly on high alert. He’d been careful to avoid even brushing Hisoka, but he’d failed to avoid this.

“Since you can’t use gyo, I suppose I should explain what I’ve just done. One of my abilities I like to call Bungee Gum,” Hisoka started. “A transmutation of my aura so that it--”

“Has the properties of both rubber and gum?”

That shut him up.

“How clever you are,’ Hisoka said, this time with a bit of edge to his voice. Good. Let him think that Killua was dangerous, too. “And more interesting by the moment.”

“My apologies for that. Can I go?”

Hisoka stalked over and Killua had to force his shoulders to stay slack. The hairs on the back of his neck raised, reacting to the crackle of Hisoka’s annoyance. Don’t push too far. You’ve no way to catch yourself.

“I’ve got a few questions first.” Hisoka prompted.

“And if I don’t want to answer them?” Killua shot back.

An apologetic smile. “If you want to go to the exam site, I’m sure you could find it in you to walk with me, and it’s a bit of a journey to do silent.” An unapologetic grin.

“I guess I don’t have much choice.”

“I’m afraid not,” Hisoka said.

Stuffing his hands in his pockets, Killua cocked his head and planted himself. “One condition. When we get there, you take this--” he waved his left hand. “Off.”

“If you insist.”

Killua sighed and started towards the site. “Well, come on then.” He put as much space between him and Hisoka as he could. With Hisoka’s bungee gum attached to him, there wasn’t much he could do. “Can I just ask, though, when you attached your aura?” He called back.

“The card in the cafe,” Hisoka replied. “Serves you right for staring.”

Ah, shit. Hisoka’s foresight was better than his, and Killua was from the future.

Killua increased his pace to an even jog, then to what a normal person would consider a sprint. Hisoka would keep up just fine.

Though Killua was content to run in silence, Hisoka had no such intentions.

“The boy back there, Gon, are you his friend?” Hisoka asked.

Reluctantly, Killua replied, “I just met him.”

“I wouldn’t have guessed.” Hisoka loped along a good fifteen feet behind-- Killua would’ve preferred a greater distance, but he’d take what he could get.

“Yeah, why’s that?”

“The way you watched him,” Hisoka murmured. “I would’ve thought-- but if you’ve not met him, I suppose that’s impossible.”  

“I didn’t try to save him,” Killua pointed out.  “His friends did.”

Hisoka shrugged. “Yet his friends didn’t emanate quite the same bloodlust towards me that you did. They like him enough, but I sensed it from the beginning. There’s something odd about you, strangely intense for a child your age and ability. Perhaps that’s what it was.” Killua could feel Hisoka’s eyes crawling over his skin. “A certain intensity to the way that you watched him. Pale, distant, you’re a bit of a guardian angel for the boy, aren’t you?”

“That’s a weird way to put it. I was just curious about what was going on.” The lie tasted oily, spilling flat and fake from his lips.

“Indeed. That doesn’t quite explain everything, but I’m sure it’ll come out eventually. I’ll be keeping an eye on you,” Hisoka purred. “You and Gon both.” Now he seemed to be talking to himself, fading to a murmur. Killua could see the second exam site ahead. “You and Gon both, lovely unripe fruit. Ah, but you’ve something of tomorrow about you, just a scent of later sweetness carried by the wind.”

What the fuck.

Killua was spared a response as they arrived in front of the warehouse that was to be the Phase Two site. Before they parted, Killua took a page from Gon’s book. His hand snapped out, wrapping tight around Hisoka’s wrist. “Your aura.”

Hisoka gave Killua an indulgent smile. “If you insist.” He gestured with his free hand. Killua felt no different, and without gyo it’d be impossible to tell if Hisoka’d actually done it, but somehow he was confident that the man would hold to his word.

Killua filed to the edge of the crowd just as a gong sounded.

“Phase One of the hunter exam is officially over!” Menchi’s voice rung out, imperious. Killua shrugged, attention elsewhere.

It sat in the back of his mind, dull, heavy, unshifting and dangerous as a half-dormant volcano. It’d sat in his hand half an hour ago, sharper then. There was only one person he could trust to awaken his nen-- and his experience with Hisoka had only reinforced just how much he’d need it-- no matter how little Killua wanted to go to him. There was only one person, who for all his downfalls, horrors, and toxic nature, bore Killua no ill will at all. Only one person who ‘loved’ him.  

Killua’s eyes skittered to the tallest man of the group, gray skin and thick shoulders marking him distinctively odd.

Gittakur, Killua thought. Illumi.

God help me.

Chapter Text

The west was getting out of gold,
The breath of air had died of cold,
When shoeing home across the white,
I thought I saw a bird alight.

In summer when I passed the place
I had to stop and lift my face;
A bird with an angelic gift
Was singing in it sweet and swift.

No bird was singing in it now.
A single leaf was on a bough,
And that was all there was to see
In going twice around the tree.

“My order is roast pig!” Buhara declared. “It may sound simple, but you may find pig to be a tall order in this forest.”

“That’s right,” Menchi added. “The only pork you’ll find around here is known as the Great Stamp.”

“The most dangerous pigs in the world.” Buhara nodded, a dreamy look glazing his eyes. “And the most delicious. Good luck!”

“The Great Stamp, huh? How’re we gonna find a couple of pigs in this whole forest?” Leorio gawked.

For a moment, Killua wondered if he’d forgotten about an earthquake. The earth trembled beneath a hundred pounding hooves. Applicants leaped to the sides, but some were too slow; the Great Stamp barreled through the clearing, their huge snouts tossing examinees aside like grains of rice. Leorio barely managed to tear out of the way in time.

A blinking moment later, the examinees overcame the initial shock of the stampede and sprinted after their prey, scrambling towards the forest with weapons brandished. Eventually, Killua followed after. He strolled into a small glade where one of the pigs lay, contentedly gnawing on the bones of some smaller beast.

Killua darted forwards. The pig didn’t even have time to realize it’d been hit before it was keeling over, knees buckling beneath its enormous weight. He’d just begun to turn the beast onto its back to carry it when a voice shot through the trees.

“That was quick,” Kurapika observed, picking his way past the thorns and branches until he was only ten or so feet away. Plenty of room to keep me comfortable. How considerate.

Killua only shrugged and continued what he’d been doing, trying to figure out a way to carry his pig back. It was encumberingly large, if not particularly heavy, and Killua was even smaller than he was used to being.

“Would you care to share how you did that?” Kurapika asked, carefully leaning against a tree in a contrivance to seem casual.

“I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

No flicker of emotion broke Kurapika’s calm veneer. “I’d be willing to do an exchange of information, if you wished. It makes more sense to trade information rather than experiment individually until we come to the same conclusion.”

Turning his back to Kurapika, Killua reached for a gnarled tree root in the ground. He dug his heels in and pulled, ripping up a length of root-- too short. “I don’t think you’ve got anything for me.”

Kurapika would be easier to drive off than Gon. Killua knew that he was polite, rational, calm as a frozen lake. Killua also happened to know that all of that was masquerade; that under it, Kurapika was writhing fire, a forge made to brand vengeance onto a trembling soul.

“I believe I could offer you something,” Kurapika objected. “Not, perhaps, immediately pertaining to the exam, but pertaining to the other examinees. I have information on them--”

“Not interested,” Killua cut him off, angling his eyes resolutely away.

“You don’t want to know about your competition?” Kurapika asked. “That seems like-- and forgive me for saying so-- a foolish choice.”

“Mine to make.”

Kurapika’s brow furrowed, and he pushed off the tree. “I ask because, well, Gon’s been talking about you.”

Killua stiffened. When he failed to reply, Kurapika continued.

“He says that you’re incredible, that you’re knowledgeable-- if you listened to him talk, you’d think that you walk on air.”

“And?” Killua cut. He yanked another root up, this one long enough for his purposes. He slid behind the pig, looping the rope around and knotting strategically to create a harness. The pig was a wall, the only wall he could put between himself and his friend. We’re not friends here. He has no idea who I am, what I could do. What I will do.

“Would it be wrong for me to admit that I’m curious?” Kurapika asked. “Gon’s painted a rather stunning image.”

“You want to vet me,” Killua stated pointedly. “Make sure that Gon’s not getting himself in too deep, especially with someone with the potential to be strong.”

“Gon’s judgment can be...questionable.”

Killua finished tying up the pig and started to the front, grasping the tail end of the root he’d left as a tow-rope.

“You have nothing to worry about,” Killua said. “Not as far as I’m concerned. I’ve asked him to leave me alone about a hundred times, and he doesn’t seem to get the message. I can’t control if he wants to hang out around me, but I have no part in it.”

Kurapika crossed his arms, frowning. “I suppose that what I’m really asking is this: are you a danger to Gon?”

A pregnant pause. I hope not. “I’m not a danger to anyone who isn’t a danger to me first. If people stay out of my way, we won’t have any problems. But if they insist on tangling in my business--” Killua looked up, eyes hardening as they met Kurapika’s. “I’ll kill them.”

Kurapika’s even exterior slipped, revealing a hint of the spikes he wore underneath. His knees bent, his muscles stiffened, his face dropped to a pursed frown. Yet, for all of it, Killua couldn’t help but hurt at the softness there, ache at the inevitable eventuality of Kurapika’s pain.

Gon could be stopped; if the right cards hit the table at the right times, Gon could be halted in his tracks. He had the potential to live a normal life, and enjoy all the light and love that buoyed his soul. Kurapika didn’t have that option. Even if all the stars aligned and Kurapika never went after the Phantom Troupe, what then? His scales of justice always would always swing lopsided.  

Killua’s eyes fell to the ground.

The exchange was obviously over. Now would be the natural time for Killua to turn round, drag the pig back to the test site, and get started on cooking it. But something lingered in the air, something dancing on words left unspoken, and Killua stayed.  

“My concerns about Gon were only part of why I came to talk to you,” Kurapika said stiffly. “I was going to invite you to join the alliance that Gon, Leorio, and I have formed. It seemed prudent to ask.”

How many chances would Killua get to go back to his old life, and how many times would he have the strength to say no?

“And after hearing how dangerous I am, your offer still stands?”

“We’re all fully capable of defending ourselves. And besides,” Kurapika said, pushing off the tree and edging closer to Killua. “However dangerous you may be, I don’t feel threatened by you. In fact, quite the opposite. There’s something about you that tells me that our paths...” he paused, appraising his words before he spoke, “I feel that our paths are meant to cross.”

Killua shivered. “Maybe you should feel threatened.” He took a step back, compensating for Kurapika’s step forwards.

“I can’t explain it, but I can sense that some of the examinees are strong and should be avoided. Hisoka, Gittakur, the ones that would be willing to do almost anything to pass.” Kurapika shook his head. “But that’s not a feeling I get from you.”

The grass didn’t even flutter as Killua swept forwards. Half a second and he was there, staring up at Kurapika’s drawn face with a hand at his throat. Sharp fingers rested lightly on the column of Kurapika’s neck, ready-- for what? Am I going to kill him? Killua’s heart beat fast. Like a trapped animal, he’d panicked, lashing out. Now he had no idea where to go.

Kurapika swallowed, the first notes of doubt clouding his eyes.

This could work, actually. Scare him off. Whatever it takes.

“Let me be clear,” Killua said, slipping into the persona he’d worn a thousand times. “My name is Killua Zoldyck. I am an assassin. I have killed so many people that I neither can nor would count, and I am more than capable of making those deaths messy. This is a warning; whatever sense you may have gotten, you were wrong. If you thought that I was friendly, you were wrong. If you thought that I am not a danger to you and the rest, you were wrong.”

Killua lowered his hand, cracking his fingers back into their normal positions. “I’m going to go now.” He turned and grabbed the rope. “Don’t follow me. I’m not here to make friends.”  

The air shivered into ice, Kurapika’s eyes freezing Killua’s back.

“Then what are you here for?” Kurapika called. Killua’s step faltered, head snapping back. “Because from what I’ve seen, you could care less about passing the Hunter Exam.”

“I’m here, aren’t I?” Killua snapped. “What part of mind your own business did you not get?”

Kurapika took his weapons, the two sheathed swords that he kept close as his own heart, and laid them on the ground. “Your eyes are kind, Killua. I respect your privacy, but there was no malice in your heart when you threatened me. I have no doubt that you have the ability to kill, but I also have no doubt that you are reluctant to. You are no monster.”

How dare he. How dare he come up to Killua and try to know him, pretend that he had any claim on Killua’s friendship in this world? How dare Kurapika come prodding into Killua’s business without the walls that Killua had watched, helpless, as he erected? How could he just stand here, so open and kind when he would one day harden to granite, walled up so well that he would suffocate himself?

Killua was angry. More than that, he was hurt, and wounded animals were the most vicious.

“I’m so glad you think that,” Killua bit, voice dripping venom. "You’d make a great judge of monsters.” Yes, Killua thought. This is where to dig. Don’t chisel, smash until there is nothing but blood and dust. Make him hate you. “ You may not know me,” Killua said. “but I know you, and there is so much about you that is monstrous.”

“You don’t know me.”

“Don’t I, Kurapika? ” He spat the name like a curse. “I know you better than you think, and let me tell you, we are both our own kind of monsters. We are everything that we despise, and everything that we swore not to be.”

Starting, Kurapika took a step backwards. His eyes flicked to his weapons, surely regretting his choice to discard them.

"You don’t know me,” Kurapika repeated. He didn’t sound as sure this time.

“I’m not so foolish as you thought,” Killua hissed. “Not foolish enough to fail to take interest in the other examinees.” He paused. There was a line, and he was about to cross it. God, this hurt, the words clawing up his throat and tearing at his chest. “How angry would I have to get you to see those scarlet eyes?”

“Who are you?” Kurapika breathed, eyes flashing red.  

“I’m just another examinee, one that knows better than to associate with people like you.” He pushed down welling nausea, replacing it with poison. “Dirty bloodlines, so weak that they couldn’t even defend themselves, that no one remembers they were even there, that they bury themselves in anger and let it consume them.”

“I’m going to give you one chance to take that back,” Kurapika shot.

“You can do what you like. Do you really want to fight me?” Killua leveled a glare at Kurapika, voice flat and dead. Revulsion seeped through his skin-- he wished he could scrub his words out of his skin, cleanse himself of the horror he’d seen flash in Kurapika’s eyes.

Trembling with rage, Kurapika picked up his weapons. But instead of wielding them, he sheathed them on his back turned, mechanical, and walked away. He knew better than to fight against someone like Killua.

The second Kurapika was out of sight, Killua’s breath came out in a heavy rush. What had he been thinking, confronting Kurapika like that? So much for flying under the radar. His own anger ebbed, replaced by the disgust of the necessary. It was a familiar feeling, the kind he used to get after missions. How appropriate; Killua felt as if he had committed an act of murder.

What a fucking success.

Well, Kurpika would almost surely leave him alone, now.

Killua grunted as he pulled at the pig. Strong as he was, the thing was huge and it kept getting caught on the sticks and shrubs that made up the forest floor. After much shuffling, he finally managed to maneuver it to the exam hall.

Killua shrugged his backpack onto the ground and reached into the box of tools he’d been provided with for the challenge. He’d had to feed himself enough times to be familiar with what it took to gut an animal, something that some of the more squeamish examinees weren’t looking too happy about doing themselves.

As he examined the knife he’d selected, Killua’s eyes flicked to Gon. The boy was elbows deep in the bowels of his pig and practically bouncing as he explained what he was doing to a skeptical Leorio.

Gross. Nose wrinkled, Killua’s eyes carried forwards to his examiners.

Buhara, large, loud, and (mostly) good natured, patted his stomach and grinned, gazing out over the examinees with benign hunger. Killua’d always wondered if he was naturally the size of a small house or if his nen ability had something to do with it. Buhara had always been a bit distant, even though he was evidently kinder than his...compatriot. And there was the rub. Menchi was everything that Buhara was not-- except for the loud, Killua thought as Menchi hollered at a group of trailing examinees.

She flung herself back into her couch, throwing one leg over the other and somehow, from all of five feet tall, managed to look down on the applicants. Killua rolled his eyes and broke his gaze away. She was annoyingly memorable-- in fact, Killua could recall practically everything she’d said to him that day with alarming detail.

Not that his failure at the cooking challenges haunted him or anything.

He’d show this pig just how much he was over it.

Killua brandished a long, sharp knife above his head. The blade caught a gleam of sun as he made a nick around the neck so that the blood would drain. He hung the pig by the roasting rack and set to work, slicing and slipping and yanking til it was ready for the fire.

Killua fell into the easy rhythm of spit-rotation. Menchi wagged a finger in his mind, launching into her lecture about how essential it was for good roast pig to be done evenly. Killua valued many of his memories. There were some that he desperately wished he could forget.

Safe and secure as he could hope to be, Killua couldn’t help his mind from wandering. He ran over Menchi’s words at first, but he increasingly slipped towards other memories, important and not, lazing in them like a cat in the sun. There were drawling memories, slow and sweet as honey-- days spent in quiet laughter, evenings of quiet smiles-- and neon memories, quick and sharp and bright.

He caught the eye of the pig as he turned its spit and frowned. A memory. Gon, laughing at Killua as Killua held an eel, giggling at how Killua had been disgusted by the eyes of his very first catch. Killua dismissed the memory; too much Gon. Killua moved onto the next one, passed by it as he was reminded that Gon was its center. Dropped another halfway through, his throat thick with his impasse. The good memories, the ones he relished, they all positively reeked of Gon.

Without Gon, who would he be? What would he do? Could he ever find that same laughter, that same light? Or would he be stuck in nothing but second-bests and sighs?

Killua turned the spit with more force.

Burnt on the outside, raw on the inside, huh? Not this time.

Intent on his own pig, Killua almost didn’t notice Gon running off to talk to Kurapika. He wasn’t even turning his spit-- god, he was going to burn it to a crisp. Killua looked around.

No one would notice.

Covertly, he slipped to Gon’s firepit and rotated the spit so that the pig’s other side would get some heat as well. Speaking of -- Killua crouched by the edge of the pit. Gentle heat slipped into the sky, but nothing like the temperatures it’d take to cook the pig in a reasonable amount of time. Killua surreptitiously piled coals from his own fire into Gon’s pit, praying that it wouldn’t ruin either pig.

Killua paused.

Gon was still gone, and well distracted by the look of him. If Killua wanted to ruin Gon’s cooking, no one would stop him. This could be his chance to take Gon out of the race in a quiet, safe way.

One of the examinees crowed victory, and Killua’s head turned just in time to see the leg of a Great Stamp disappear down Buhara’s gullet. It’d only been an hour-- that thing was practically raw-- But Buhara held up a passing ‘o’ sign. What the hell.

If that were the case, it’d be exceedingly difficult to ruin Gon’s pig. Killua wasn’t even sure he could come up with something that Buhara wouldn’t like. Pursing his lips, Killua returned to tend his own fire. Even if he wasn’t making Gon fail this time round, he shouldn’t be helping him.

He’d gotten so used to being Gon’s support that to let him fall seemed a sin.

A shiver passed through Killua, a sure sign of eyes on his back. His head whipped around to meet them. Yellow, aloof, amused-- Hisoka.

“A guardian angel never rests,” Hisoka mused.

Killua set his jaw and turned his back.

After hours of roasting, the pig finally smelled and tasted (according to Killua’s preliminary nibbles) good enough to eat. Carnivorous meat rarely tasted as good as herbivorous, in Killua’s experience, but the Great Stamp proved an exception. Warm, juicy, and hearty, Killua was confident that this pig was the pinnacle of fine cuisine.

Killua strutted towards the proctors. He slipped into a short line, seeing as most people had already burnt theirs, Leorio and Gon included. And for all my hard work, too.

Killua deposited the pig on the plate in front of him. On top, he arranged a few sprigs of rosemary that he’d plucked in the woods.

“Voila,” he said, presenting with all the pride of his new found chef-hood. “Roast pig seasoned with local herbs, cooked to a sizzling finish.”

Buhara’s eyes practically sparkled. Even Menchi’s eyebrows raised, and she picked up her fork and knife for the first time in about thirty applicants. That’s right, you picky monster. Eat it and weep.

Cutting with all the air of an culinary empress, Menchi popped a piece of pork into her mouth. She chewed slowly, purposefully, considering all the textures and flavors that Killua was sure his creation contained. She tilted her head to the side and put down her fork.

“I think it’s wonderful,” Buhara said, grabbing the pig by a haunch and dropping it serenely down his throat. “You pass!”

“Not bad, kid,” Menchi admitted. She dabbed at her lips with a napkin. “But I wouldn’t say it was particularly good, either.”

Killua’s eye twitched.

“The key,” Menchi said, holding up a condescending finger. “Is to make sure the spit is turned continually and evenly. And you have to--”

“Are you kidding me-- ”

“Don’t cut me off, kid,” Menchi started, face flushing in immediate anger. “As I was saying, you’ve got to spread the heat evenly so that no area is more cooked than the others--”

“I did exactly what you said-- I can’t fucking believe--”

Menchi leapt to her feet, knives already in hand. “You wanna fucking go? You’re so lucky that I’m not the examiner for this phase, cause I would’ve flunked your punk ass!”

“I did everything right!” Killua groaned. “Everything.”

“Obviously not, or it would’ve tasted better!”

Buhara placed a consoling hand on Menchi’s shoulder. “You’ll get a chance to fail him in your part. I’ve already said he passed.”

“I know, but we don’t have to put up with this insolent bullshit from a kid. You ever been in a kitchen, huh?” Buhara physically held Menchi back as she ranted at Killua. “You don’t even know how to hold a knife, let alone use one!”

Fighting down a rising tide of irritation, Killua let Buhara deal with Menchi.

“Hey, I thought your pig looked really good!” Gon called.

“Thanks,” Killua said, meandering back over to his own fire pit.

Strangely, Gon didn’t approach Killua. After his exclamation, Killua’d expected Gon to come bouncing up and start a conversation. Keeping his face low enough to hide his eyes, Killua’s gaze snapped to Gon.

Kurapika had Gon’s arm, and the older boy muttered something in a low tone. Too low for Killua to catch, but he could make out the idea; ‘that boy is trouble, don’t approach’. Gon’s face dropped and he frowned, but made no effort to break Kurapika’s hold or come over towards Killua. Casting one final, regretful look over at Killua, Gon trotted back to his own fire where Leorio waited. A few minutes later and all seemed to be forgotten, the group talking and joking like they always had.

They were doing just fine without him.

I was nonessential. Just ballast to balance the ship.

“Alright!” Menchi called, finally back to her normal chipper self. “That’s the first half of the challenge done! According to my fellow examiner, Buhara--”

“Seventy roast pigs, seventy passed applicants!” Buhara patted his belly. “I’m stuffed.”

“And you’re just going to pass all of them...” Menchi muttered. “What a gourmet hunter you are.” She shrugged and picked up a mallet. “Well, it’s your decision.” Resolute, she rang the gong that signaled the official end of Buhara’s jurisdiction.

Things were about to get a lot messier.

“I’ll be your examiner for the second half of Phase Two,” Menchi announced. “But be warned, I won’t be as easy to satisfy. I’ll hold you guys to a high standard, so I hope you’re ready to deliver.” She placed her hands on her hips and grinned. “My order is sushi!”

“Sue- what ?” A man shouted.

“Have you heard of that? I haven’t,” a woman said. “Does anyone know how to make it?”

Menchi held up a hand, silencing the mutters of the crowd. “I don’t blame you for being unfamiliar with it. Sushi is an ethnic cuisine of a small island nation, but I’ll give you a hint-- look inside here.” She gestured to the building where the cooking stations waited. “Best of luck!”

The second that enough applicants started moving to give him cover, Killua slipped away. There would be no pleasing Menchi. No matter what he made, she was absolutely insatiable. Irritating, too, and there was no way he was putting up with more of that nonsense today.

Instead, Killua wandered out into the forest and put himself in a good position to view the river. He recalled that sushi was a fish dish, and the person he needed to talk to would be forced to come out here eventually. After all, no one else knew that this test wasn’t worth doing.

Killua’s zetsu had been imperfect with Hisoka; this time, he couldn’t afford to slip up.

His brother would be watching.

Swallowing, Killua camouflage himself in the greenery, taking advantage of the canopy’s dappled shadows.

He didn’t have long to wait.  

Chattering his way down the hill, Killua’s first impression was that Gittakur walked alone. A moment later Hisoka drifted into view, trotting silently beside with a grin on his face. So, their strange partnership had started all the way back in the Hunter Exam. I don’t know why I’m surprised.

“I still have no idea what this ‘sushi’ is meant to be,” Hisoka complained. “I’m usually an excellent cook, too.”

Gittakur cocked his head to the side and rattled his jaw.

“Why do you have to be like that?” Hisoka sighed. “I know, but I’d much rather fight her than do any of this.”

Clacking.

“Eloquent as always. We’re quite alone, you know.”

It seemed Killua’s zetsu was holding up this time. Killua’s body tensed, still and silent, as Hisoka disappeared into the river.

Liquid, Killua slipped forwards. Gittakur waited at the banks, eyes scanning the water for any sign of movement. All it would take was the flicker of a fish and his needle would shoot out, pierce it right through the eye. Killua had seen Illumi work before, and his speed, his accuracy, his power-- they were unnerving. Killua didn’t stand a chance of overtaking Illumi by force alone; all he could do was catch him off guard. If the balance tilted in Killua’s favor, then he had a chance.

Here it was; the moment of tension before a strike, all attention forwards, all guard temporarily lowered. Gittakur’s hand flashed out, and Killua did the same, flying from his hiding place to land on his brother’s back. Quicker than possible for any normal person, Killua’s arm barred Gittakur’s throat and he held on for all he was worth as Gittakur snapped into action.

A gray arm wrapped around Killua’s wrist and wrenched , dislodging Killua and sending him barreling into the river.

Angry clacking met Killua as he rose, shivering and dripping, to find Hisoka staring him in the eye

Well, that could’ve gone better.

Without nen, without years of training, he was so much weaker than he used to be, and so much smaller. The Illumi of Killua’s time couldn’t have done something like that, not least so easily that it was almost offensive.

“What a strange, suicidal creature you are,” Hisoka murmured.

“This is none of your business,” Killua spat, doing his best to retain his dignity as he clambered to the bank, looking all for the world like a bedraggled kitten. “This is between Zoldycks.”

Hisoka exchanged a surprised look with Gittakur. Raising his hands in mock surrender, Hisoka waded downstream. “Then that’s my cue to leave. Give me a shout when you get--whatever this is, sorted out.” He winked. “I’ll be nearby.”

Shoulders squared, chin tilted up, water trailing down his temple, Killua met his brother’s eye.

“I want to talk to Illumi, not whoever this is.”

Pinned as Gittakur’s face was, there was no way for Killua to read his brother’s reaction. Nonetheless, Gittakur reached to his neck and yanked out the first pin. He went for another, on the other side, and slowly worked his way up his face. Killua’s nose wrinkled at the sight of Illumi’s transformation, the way his skin bulged and writhed back into place. It looked as if Illumi’s flesh was clay, pressed and prodded by an indecisive sculptor.

Finally, Illumi settled into his proper form. A curtain of black hair spilled over his shoulders, matched only by the impossible dark of his eyes. Tall and lean and murky, this was the brother that Killua knew.

“You’ve been misbehaving, little brother,” Illumi said.

Killua shrugged. “I’m here to take the Hunter Exam, same as you.”

“You’re too young. I heard you ran away from home for this.” Illumi bent to pick up the fish he’d caught, balancing it lightly on two hands. “You should go back.”

“Two things; one, I don’t want to, and two, having a hunter license would be useful for my next job.”

Illumi’s brow furrowed. “I wasn’t aware you had another job lined up.”

“I do.”

“Father hasn’t said anything to me about it.”

“He wouldn’t.” Killua moved into the sunlight in an attempt to dry himself off. “He’s decided that I need to start taking more high profile jobs, since I’m the family heir and all.” Technically, he had been told as much in his timeline; in this one, the Killua he’d been hadn’t known anything about that. Killua hoped that his knowledge would be enough evidence to satisfy.

“He also--” Killua said, carefully watching Illumi’s face. “Said that I would need something called nen for my next mission.”

Illumi’s arched eyebrows raised. “Really.”

“He told me the Hunter Exam would kill two birds with one stone. Told me that you’d be here, too, and that I should talk to you about it.”

“I’m glad that you’re finally acknowledging our brotherly relationship, Killua. Younger siblings should learn from their older siblings.” Illumi frowned. “But they shouldn’t lie to them.”

Killua took a step back, sensing the darkness gathering around Illumi to be aura. Had it been the needle that had compelled him to return last time, or just the pressure of Illumi’s nen? He couldn’t take that chance.

Face blank as always, Illumi beckoned Killua forwards. “Come here, little brother.”

“Why?”

“Would you rather I come to you?” Illumi asked. He stepped forwards and Killua jumped back, landing to create significant distance between them.

Illumi’s face slackened slightly, a sign of great surprise. Killua hated that he could read him so well.

“You’ve been exceptionally rebellious,” Illumi murmured. He touched his forehead lightly. “When did you take it out, for curiosity’s sake? My needle.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Killua said. “Will you help me get nen, or not?”

“You don’t think I’d believe that father told you to ask about nen without briefing me first,” Illumi stated.

Killua paled. Illumi had always been able to tell when he lied, one of the few that could. “I need it.” Better to go with an approximation of the truth.

“The family will tell you if and when you do. For now, you should go back and wait for me to return.”

Hold your ground, Killua. You have no reason to run.

“I’m not going back, not yet,” Killua said.

“You’re willing to stand by that?” Illumi returned. “Yet you’ve never once spoken about taking the Hunter Exam.”

“I have my own goals, and it’s none of your business what they are. If you don’t awaken my nen, I’ll be forced to go to someone else, and you know as well as I do how dangerous that is.”

“You really want it that badly,” Illumi observed. He ran an exasperated hand through his hair, his pale skin slicing like paper through ink. “Then do it. You’ll die.”

Killua snorted. “You wouldn’t let me try.”

“You’re right, of course,” Illumi said. “I’d stop you if I thought you were serious, and not just using that as a bargaining chip to get me to do what you want.”

Frustrated, Killua pinched the bridge of his nose. “You put a needle in my fucking head, Illumi. You owe me this.”

“I was protecting you. You don’t know how many times that needle probably saved your life.”

“It doesn’t matter if it--” Killua set his jaw. Arguing with Illumi is pointless. “I’m going to get nen, whether that’s now or in a few weeks once I meditate it out. I figured that you’d want to have a say in it, teach me some of the basics.” As if. But Illumi always had wanted to play the caring older brother, and Killua would pander as much as he needed.

“Really,” Illumi mused. “Well, if that’s the problem, then I’ll just have to knock you out and use my needles to make you forget about nen entirely.”

“Illumi--”

“But there’s no guarantee I won’t damage something else if I do it here on the fly.” Illumi pursed his lips, regarding Killua with cool consideration. “I suppose I’ll do it when we go home. I don’t much care whether you pass the hunter exam or not, as long as you’ll come home after and do as the family says.”

Killua flexed his hands, unclenching the fists he hadn’t realized he’d made.

“So that’s a no, then,” Killua said. “Figures.”

“I don’t appreciate the way that you’re talking to me today, Killua. Did something happen?” Illumi asked.

“Forget it.” Killua turned to walk away.

“Is it that Gon boy?” Illumi called.

Killua swallowed and tossed a cool look over his shoulder. “Who?”

“The boy that I saw you talking to in the first phase. About your age, freckles, carries a fishing pole,” Illumi explained.

“Oh, yeah. Him. What about him?”

Nonchalant nonchalant nonchalant.

“I was worried that you might be acting strangely because you’d made a friend.” Illumi’s mouth turned down infinitesimally, indicating displeasure.

Killua forced a laugh into his voice as he turned to face his brother once more. “What gave you that impression? I’ve been doing my best to get him to leave me alone.”

“Good,” Illumi said. “I’m glad, little brother. Because, you know, killers like you don’t need friends.”

“I know,” Killua echoed emptily. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“I’ll always worry about you, Killua.” Illumi tipped his head to the side. “That’s why I try so hard to protect you. You’re too soft, too impulsive, too emotional.”

Illumi’s attention felt like oil, leaving Killua covered in a slick, unwashable film. It left him feeling unclean.

The sound of whirring blades filtered through the leaves. The chairman’s airship. Killua started off. “I’ve got to get back.”

“Here,” Illumi said. “I like to look out for you.” He tossed the fish he’d caught, pale and bloated, to Killua’s feet.

Hiding his grimace, Killua picked it up. “Thanks,” he muttered.

Without another word, Killua left the river and started back towards the test site.

Illumi wouldn’t interfere with Killua’s taking the Hunter Exam this time, but he wouldn’t help, either. It wasn’t that Killua needed nen to pass the exam, but to look after Gon he would take everything he could get.

Is this real? Is this a nen ability? Killua shook his head. He couldn’t know, and he probably wouldn’t for a long time. Things felt so visceral, so real, that he had trouble thinking of it as anything but.

Killua arrived to the Second Phase site and wandered over to his work area, bloated fish in hand. So as not to stick out, Killua mechanically prepared his fish. His mind wandered, even as his hands worked.

He didn’t doubt that he could awaken his nen given enough time. It just took meditation and concentration-- though he didn’t really have time for either of those things right now. With the exam’s hectic schedule, he couldn’t count on learning nen for at least another few weeks, and even then...

“Why didn’t you teach us the real nen the first time?” Gon asked, brow furrowed.

Wing glanced uncomfortably out the window. “Nen is a dangerous weapon. You can take everyday items or ideas and make them inconceivably dangerous. For instance,” He said, pulling a page from a nearby book. “Watch.” He concentrated on the paper and suddenly shot it out, slicing a soda can in two. “You can’t teach it to just anyone.” Killua didn’t miss the way that Wing’s eyes lingered on him. There was so much doubt in him, as a teacher, as a person, as a bush amongst oak saplings; taller, for now, but so much less than Killua and Gon could grow to be.

“It’s too late to take it back,” Killua said. “Either you can teach us or we’ll find someone else, but we will learn.”

Wing probably wouldn’t teach Killua if he showed up alone. Sometimes Gon’s light did enough to burn the shadows out of Killua, but Killua supposed that was a thing of the past.

Closing his eyes, Killua tried to focus on the aura he knew surrounded him. His chest moved gently up and down, the pulse in his fingers tapped a calm beat, his clothes rustled against his skin. Nothing. He waited a bit longer, til he could feel the heat coming off his skin. Still nothing.

Dammit. Killua’s grip on his knife grew tight.

“That could’ve gone better,” Hisoka said.

Killua started. “Where do you keep coming from?”

“I’ve been next to you this entire time,” Hisoka said, amusement dancing on the turn of his lips. “It’s not my fault if you don’t notice these things.”

“What do you want, Hisoka?”

Hisoka picked up a knife, balanced it on his finger. “You know that I find you interesting,” he half-purred, and Killua instinctively moved his knife in front of him. “I’m quite invested in looking out for you and all that now.”

“Really.” Killua’s voice came out flat.

“And so,” Hisoka said, flipping the knife into the air. “I have an offer for you. You may not like it, but I think you’ll find that it’s the best you’re going to get.”

“I’m not interested.”

“I think you are.”

“Yeah?” Killua asked. “What is it that I’m so fascinated by?”

Hisoka’s eyes narrowed. He stepped towards Killua conspiratorially, lowered his voice so as not to be overheard. “Nen.”

Killua’s eyebrows drew together. “What about it?”

“I have, you want, we could work something out.”

“You’d be willing to--” Killua’s mind raced through the possibilities, the probabilities. “You’d kill me if you tried.”

“Only if I had ill will towards you, which I’m glad to inform you that I do not. I think you’re positively fascinating, and much more worthy of an opponent if you’ve got nen to fight with as well. I’m tired of having to restrain myself around these people.”

Killua frowned. There could be merit in Hisoka’s offer, but nothing came free with this man. Killua crossed his arms. “And why won’t I like it?”

‘Because I have a condition,” Hisoka said. Killua followed his line of sight and started before he could help himself.

“Leave him alone,” Killua shot.

“I intend to,” Hisoka assured him. “But you, on the other hand-- well, I see the potential for a beautiful friendship. Think of the heights you’ll drive each other to.”

“What do you want with him?”

Hisoka’s eyes wandered back to Killua. “I’ll awaken your nen on one condition: you must convince Gon to do the same.”

“To learn nen?”

“Indeed.”

Killua froze, his jaw working. That was...could he? Was it worth it? The sooner he figured out what was going on with this whole time travel thing the better, but it would undermine everything. It would lead them down the same path.

Once more, Killua cursed his future for being so set on happening. Could he destroy the future in the name of fixing the past?

“I’ll...think about it,” Killua choked out.

Hisoka shook his head. “So inexplicably conflicted. I look forward to hearing your response.” Hisoka picked up his plate of sushi and started towards Menchi. “My offer expires at the end of-- shall we say the third phase?”

“Yeah,” Killua said. He ran a hand through his hair, eyes blank and mouth drawn. “Yeah.”

“I’ll leave you to it.”

Menchi tossed an entire plate of sushi into the trash. “Next!”  

Chapter Text

I end not far from my going forth
By picking the faded blue
Of the last remaining aster flower
To carry again to you. 

Killua tapped his head against the airship window, letting the vibrations rumble through him as he thought. 

First priority: make Gon fail. 

Plan to execute: sabotage when safe-- the best bet being Trick Tower, where they’d barely made it the first time. 

Tools needed: ideally, nen. 

How to acquire: befriend Gon and convince him to have his nen awakened as well-- just a life-or-death decision involving trusting a homicidal freak clown. Easy. 

Gon wasn’t going to do it without a good reason. But. Gon would do anything for his friends. 

“Gotta be a  double agent,” Killua murmured. “Gotta be friends with my friends, but not really friends-- and it’s just, you know-- the ones I’ve been pushing away this entire time.” He hit his head against the window harder. “Shit.” 

“You okay, Killua?” Gon’s voice interrupted Killua’s planning-slash-overthinking session. 

“Yeah. Just-- tired, is all,” Killua returned. 

“You should eat something! The airship has a cafeteria, I think. I haven’t really had a chance to look around yet, but I can smell it!” After a few beats of silence, Gon glanced away from Killua, his eyebrows drawn together. “If you don’t want to, it’s okay, though--” 

“No,” Killua cut in. “No, let’s go. We can...hang out.” If he was going to do this, he had to commit. 

Gon brightened immediately. “Great! This way!” With all the confidence of a bloodhound, Gon was off-- and a bit to Killua’s surprise, he found himself following. It wouldn’t be hard to be Gon’s friend, and that was the hard part-- he had to keep himself out of it. This wasn’t about him. 

When they arrived at the cafeteria, Killua siddled over to the kettle and made a cup of tea. Despite the afternoon’s exertions, he couldn’t stomach anything solid right now. Gon returned with a plate heaped with food-- most of it, to Killua’s disgust, vegetables. 

“You really eat that stuff?” Killua asked. 

Gon squinted over his plate. “What stuff?” 

“You know-- the…” Killua gestured vaguely. “Peppers and onions and all of that. There’s no one here to make you.” 

“Mito always said that they’re the most important part of a meal-- plus, they don’t taste that bad. You should try them, Killua!” 

Killua’s scrunched noise was answer enough.

Gon pointed at Killua with his fork. “What do you eat, then? Rice? Eggs?” 

Killua couldn’t help an incredulous chuckle. “Is that all you think there is to cuisine?” Gon, shrugged. Shaking his head, Killua gestured over to the desserts section. “ That is where the fine things in life are found.” 

“That stuff’s all just sugar.” Gon pursed his lips. 

“Just sugar?” Killua leaned back, affront written upon his entire being. “ Just sugar? You clearly haven’t experienced the heights of culinary ecstasy that follow the word ‘sugar’. To start, there’s chocorobots, blue dazzlers, raspbears--” 

“Oh, I love raspberries!” Gon interjected. “In the summer I’d go out into the woods and come back with baskets full of them. Mito used to make a really good jam!” 

“Raspbears only taste like raspberries, my dear hillbilly. They’re actually bear shaped gummies. And if you buy the limited edition ones, you can get them to be the size of a bear, too.” 

Gon smiled, but Killua could tell the idea had sailed right over his head. “You’re a little weird, Killua.” 

“Hey! You’re the weird one.” 

“Maybe we’re both weird. I like it, though.” 

Killua smiles back, soft. There’s none of the wolfish grin that he had shown Gon the first time round. 

“I want to apologize, Gon.” 

“What for?” Head turned to the side, eyes brown and trusting and focused as ever on Killua. 

Where to start? Killua’s throat closed around his words. He was supposed to be the older one here, the responsible one-- he should be able to act , for God’s sake. He didn’t need to be honest. 

But Gon always dragged the truth out of him, one way or another. Made him feel it, even if he didn’t say it-- Killua had been lied to since the day he’d been born, but there was no one better at deceiving him than himself. Gon cut through it all. 

Killua’s shoulders crawled up, but he forced himself to clear his throat. “I just-- I’ve been rude to you. I haven’t helped you as much as I should have.” 

“I’m fine. It’s not as bad as you think.” Killua’s hands do not burn-- there are no hands at all in his pockets, only living fires, eating away at his skin and the muscle beneath. 

Someone reaches and grabs Killua’s arm, jolting his a hand into the hot gymnasium air. Even the slight friction is enough to make Killua’s whole arm clench. “You probably can’t feel anything but pain right now, can you?” A voice asks. Hazy, Killua does not remember which one. 

“I can do it.” He yanks his arm away. He steadies himself; it’s not so bad. He’s had worse. He tells himself this. “I can handle one more shot. Gon, let me do this.” A plea. 

Gon waved off  his apology, speaking between bites of food. “I get it-- I know lots of shy people. I’m happy that we’re friends now, though!” 

“I think we’re going to land soon.” Killua pushed himself away from the table, his tea untouched. “I’m going to find a bathroom before we do.” 

“Cool! See you--” 

Before Gon had the chance to finish, Killua was gone. His arms swung heavy at his sides as he propelled himself out of the cafeteria-- out of anywhere he can mess things up again. This Gon didn’t know anything. It was too little, too much.  

He had no idea how much Killua had failed, how much he’d run away. And even more infuriatingly, he had no idea of what he could do, wrapped so tightly in his own stubbornness that he was blind to the suffering he caused, the pain in the people who couldn’t help but love him along the way.  

Killua was back at the window again, hurting and frustrated and altogether wishing that he could write any of this off as a dream. Things were real here in a way that they hadn’t been for weeks. The chairman election-- the Chimera ants-- all of it had the touch of unreality, like it had been some second creature piloting him through tragedy after tragedy. Few of the choices made there had been his own. 

The last time things had felt like this, vivid and tangible, had been on Greed Island. Things had gotten bad there, but Gon had never strayed the way that he had after. Gon had always grounded him. When his anchor shifted, Killua had felt himself a seagull tossed on the storm.

But he wouldn’t this time. He would fix it. 

He met his reflection’s eyes. Even if he did change the past, he’d never be able to forget it. Would he ever be able to look this Gon in the eyes after all of this, or would he always see the crimes that he had never committed? Would the past fade to feel like a bad dream, or would it remain like this, sharp and metallic and growing jagged in him like rust? 

The airship started its descent. 

-----

Menchi stuck her arms out to either side, took a deep breath, and threw herself into the ravine.

“Is she alright?” An examinee called. 

Netero-- alive, sprightly as ever-- turned to face the crowd. “She’s off to find the egg of the Spider Eagle, a creature which lives here in this Split Mountain.” A few brave examinees teetered up to the edge.

 Killua knew those with the guts to look down would see first almost endless rock rock, split flat and easy, as if the mountains had simply decided to walk away from one another-- no hard feelings. Then they would see the river below. They’d hear it too, as it chewed away at the mountain and flushed the sediment to sea. And finally, those still standing at the edge would see the gossamer of Spider Eagle web, stretched in single strands across the chasm. Eggs hung on the ropes. 

As Netero explained the task, Killua came up with something like a plan. The idea slunk to his sternum and lodged there, dripping guilt. He wasn’t hurting anyone-- and yet somehow he felt worse than when he did. 

Menchi reappeared, one speckled gray egg in hand. “You are to make a boiled egg with this! But be careful-- the river’s current is swift. If you fall in, you’ll be at sea before you know it.” 

One applicant scoffed. “No one in their right mind would make a jump like that.” 

Did someone say no one in their right might? As if cued, Gon stepped forward. “I’ve been waiting for something like this!” 

Leorio muttered a word of agreement and stepped nonchalantly over the edge-- the first, Killua noted absently. He was more focused on getting to the ravine before Gon. 

Just a step in front of his friend, Killua watched for the second Gon jumped. At that moment, Killua pushed off, hard. The first result was that Killua launched into the ravine, a headfirst swandive; the second, that the ground crumbled underneath Gon’s feet. Instead of a clear take off, Gon stumbled, sprawling rather than leaping into the whistling abyss below.  

Killua’s heart sang in his ears as they plummeted, whips of web flashing by. At what felt like the last second, Killua shot out a hand and grabbed onto the nearest web, his shoulder protesting his weight. His other hand snapped out to Gon-- catching the boy he’d sent off balance.

Make him grateful. Make him trust you. 

Risking Gon’s life, just a little, to save it. 

“You alright?” Killua asked. His hand, sweaty but firm, was all that kept Gon from the river below. 

Gon’s eyes shined in the murk on the ravine. “Thanks for catching me!” 

“No problem.” 

With only the slightest hitch in his breath, Gon swung his legs and propelled himself up, coming to dangle on the web beside Killua. 

Killua felt eyes burn into his back. Kurapika’s, watching, scowling from above. Killua rolled his eyes so obviously he was sure that Kurapika saw. “So much for focusing on the task at hand,” he muttered. 

“Got it!” Gon pocketed an egg, and Killua made sure to do the same. Grabbed an extra, just in case. 

“Let’s get out of here,” Killua said. 

The sound of furious wings jerked Killua’s head to the side. Forgot about these fuckers. “The Spider Eagles,” he muttered. With more urgency, he grabbed Gon’s hand. “Let’s go!” 

The birds were on them before they had the chance. Killua was forced to grip the line with both hands, silently praying that Gon would be able to do the same. The world was a bustle of beaks and claws, feathers in his mouth, blinding him-- he could take it, he just couldn’t see.  

“Hold on!” Gon called.

It wasn’t hard-- both of them were far stronger than the obstacle these birds posed. 

Unfortunately, the same wasn’t true for all the applicants. Around them, bodies fell like pebbles, clicking and slipping down a drain. Killua couldn’t hear them hit the river over the birds, but there was no doubt that those who couldn’t keep their grip were unlikely to end anywhere else. Only a lucky few managed to grab on to another web. A few managed to grasp, desperate, onto the very line where Killua and Gon held. 

Killua frowned, as if the power of his glare could scare away the birds and newcomers both. Nothing to do but wait. 

Then he felt it. 

A tremor through the cord, different from undulation in the wind, or the sudden weight of a new person; this was a loosening. A stretch. 

Too much weight and anything would break-- even the iron rope of the Spider Eagle. Killua jumped ship before it did. 

He threw himself off of it and careened towards the wall. Shit! I’m short! There was nothing to push off of, no way to gain momentum. It wouldn’t be that hard to get up from the bottom of the ravine if it were dry, but deep, fast water like this was dangerous. Acrid fear bloomed in his mouth. If he got hurt, he couldn’t protect Gon. 

“Killua!“ Gon called. One second he was dangling on sagging web, and the next he was plumetting with Killua, faster even, with a stupid grin on his stupid, suicidal face. 

Without a word, Gon whipped around and cast his father’s fishing rod at one of the webs still in-tact. He reached out his hand, and Killua, eyes wide, held on tight. 

The air seemed to turn to butter as the sun flitted into the ravine, lighting Gon’s grin in all the color it deserved. The two of them rode the momentum of the swing right up and out of the canyon, landing in a tumbled, half-feathered heap. 

Killua couldn’t help it. He laughed. He let out a breathy chuckle that turned to full, uncontrollable laughter as he lay flat on his back beside Gon, who was caught in something of the same. It was the laughter of ridiculous odds and relief and fear. And it was laughter shared, lit golden under the sun. 

“Oh, god,” Killua muttered. “Did you see the look on those birds’ faces? Like, ‘we got you!’ and then ‘oh shit, no we didn’t!’” 

Leorio and Kurapika made their way over, keeping careful distance from Killua. 

Right before they arrived, Gon’s laughter trailed off.

“Everything okay over here?” Leorio asked. “You guys cut it close.” 

“The trick with your fishing pole was clever, Gon. I don’t think I would’ve thought of it,” Kurapika said. When the praise seemed to have no effect on him, Kurapika tried again. “I’m glad you made it out safe.” 

“It was for nothing.” Gon’s voice fell. “My egg-- it must’ve fallen out at some point. 

Here was a chance for Gon to fail-- could it really be that easy? 

Kurapika put a hand on Gon’s shoulder. He had seemed so much older than them the first time around. Now he looked young, only a few years older than Killua had been-- well within the reach of understanding. No wonder he was such a mess. “It’s not all forfeit yet,” Kurapika said. 

He looked up, gaze honing in on Killua. “I happened to notice that Killua grabbed a second egg. I’m sure he’d be willing to lend it to you-- as a thanks.” 

Gon’s eyes snapped to Killua. “Really?” 

“I--” Killua considered lying. It would be easier. He could chuck the other egg off the cliff right now and Gon would go home. Or one of his friends would give theirs up for him, and they’d go home instead. “Yeah-- yeah, here.” 

Killua dug into his pocket and came out with an egg, handed to Gon. He tried to ignore the way his gut wrenched at his smile. 

This was so much harder than he thought. 

While the eggs were cooking, Killua sat at the edge of the canyon, legs dangling into the emptiness below. He felt bad for the Spider Eagles, as they preened and plucked and took account of what they had lost. A bunch of strangers had just rolled up and stolen their one-day children-- punished grievously for no reason, no sin. The Spider Eagle was used to being the top hunter. So much for that. 

The Chimera Ants had taught Killua a lot about what it felt like to be an animal; to be feral, prey backed against a wall. They had taught him a lot about death, and tied to it, the ferocity of the instinct to stay alive. 

They taught him that danger came when you lost control. 

Back there, plunging towards the roaring river-- that was what losing control looked like. 

His hands dug into the ground at either side of him, first the dirt, and then the rock. He needed something to hold on to. Changing the smallest things was enough to send him flying; what would happen if it happened again? Could he stop it from happening again? 

The Hunter Exam had been easy. But then-- he’d only cared about himself. 

He was startled out of his thoughts by the coming of a shadow. To his left, Leorio, still looking a little worse for the wear. 

“Listen,” Leorio said. “Kurapika’s told all of us to watch out for you. Won’t go into the details, but says you made it very clear that you’re not interested in friends.” 

“It’s complicated.” 

“Sounds it.” Leorio shrugged, looking over the ravine and at the mountain beyond. “I just came over to say that-- what you did for Gon today was good. He wants to be your friend, and I think you want to be his as well.” 

Killua scrunched his nose. “What are you, my camp counselor?” 

“I’m just saying. Whatever you’ve got against getting close to people, I get it. I don’t think you take the Hunter exam if you don’t have issues.” He leaned back. “But I think you and Gon would be good for each other. Plus--” he said, conspiratorial as ever. “I have the feeling Gon’s got too much energy for his own good, and me and Kurapika have got to get some sleep tonight. Having a friend might distract him long enough for us to catch some z’s, you get me?” He flashed a wide, Leorio smile. 

“I suppose.”

“Anyhow, don’t worry about the thing with Kurapika. You can’t help but piss that guy off when you first meet him. I know I did.” 

Killua looked up at him; he’d heard that the two had met on the same ship as Gon, but he’d never heard this. “What’d you do?” 

“Assuming that I did something, are you?” Leorio raised an eyebrow. “Well, you’re right. I basically insulted his bloodline and his very dead family-- you can imagine how that went.” 

A flash of red. Kurapika’s sheathed blades. “Yeah, I think I can.” 

“He comes off pretty strong, but he really is a softy,” Leorio explained. “If you apologize to him, whatever you did, he’ll probably forgive you.” 

“Maybe. I don’t know.” I don’t know if I want him to. I don’t know if I’m ready for that.  

“Well, I do. And that’s that.” Leorio stood and brushed himself off-- a ridiculous affection, considering the mud and murk absolutely beaten into his suit at this point. He held out his hand for Killua. “I hope you make it, kid.”

Killua hovered for a second. Whether it was idiocy or softness or some sort of misplaced strength, he took Leorio’s hand and let Leorio pull him up. 

“You’re not as weak as you look, old man.” 

Leorio spluttered something in protest, before a look of alarm came over his face. 

“Oh shit, my egg!” 

Killua chuckled at him as he turned to run for the pot. His eyes grew wide. “Oh shit-- my egg!”  Killua dashed after him.

Chapter Text

A voice said, Look me in the stars
And tell me truly, men of earth,
If all the soul-and-body scars
Were not too much to pay for birth. 

The airship lazed across the sky, city after city nibbled away by the shifting horizon. There was nothing to do but wait. Which was fine. Not like Killua had issues with sitting with his thoughts. 

Luckily-- maybe -- the quiet never lasted. 

Gon sprung to Killua’s side, eyes bright and already half-way through an exclamation.  “Killua!” He said, with a fresh edge of excitement to his voice, because it’s still new to him, this whole thing. “I’ve been looking everywhere for you!” 

“You’ve found me.” Killua gave a watery smile.

“Have you had a chance to look around yet?” 

Killua shook his head. “I’ve seen all I really want to see here. I’ve been on loads of airships before.” 

“Really? I’m kind of jealous.” 

“Nothing to be jealous of. It’s just another way to get around.” Killua frowned at the city below. “But I do like to look out the window. I never did when I was a kid-- always too busy with whatever I’d brought to entertain me on the ride, I guess.” 

“You’re still a kid, Killua!” Gon strode to Killua’s side. “It’s really pretty.” He placed his elbows on the window ledge and put his head on his hands. “See, I was the opposite. I loved to do things like this, stare for hours at anything that moved.” 

Killua gave Gon a look out of the corner of his eye. “What was so interesting?” 

“Whatever was around, you know-- like frogs, bats. I’d just watch the world move around me. Sometimes, if I sat still enough, the animals would forget I was there and treat me like a tree or a bush.” 

“And what, shit on you?”

“They’d come sniff at my hands or my face, look me in the eyes-- they felt safe enough to be curious.” 

Killua remembered, for a second, what that was like. And then he remembered that it wasn’t allowed. “Sounds like a good way to hunt.” 

“What do you mean?” 

“You make the rabbit feel safe enough that it comes to you-- and then you barely have to do any of the work.” Killua looked down at his hands. “Killing is the easy bit. It’s getting the bite that’s hard.” 

Gon shrugged. “I guess so. It’s not like I didn’t do any hunting, but it’s like-- a snare was fair game; if they tangled themselves up, that was just dinner. That was just following the rules. But going out and-- I don’t know, tricking them like that...it would’ve felt wrong.”

“Same result.” Killua shrugged, but he understood. There were always rules. 

Gon pursed his lips, evidently caught in some moral quandary. 

After a silence, Gon resurfaced, his eyes clear of doubt once more. “You’re right. It would be a good way to hunt,” Gon said. “Once.” At Killua’s look, he continued. “It’s about trust. That’s the rule-- once you break that trust, you can never have it back.” 

“I don’t know. I don’t think trust is a one time gig.” Killua fought to keep the tension out of his jaw, where he knew Gon would notice it. “I think-- I mean, I hope it’s not.” 

Gon shrugged. “Maybe not with people, but animals are different.” 

“I wouldn’t really know. I didn’t spend much time with animals growing up, except Mike.” 

“Mike? Is that a dog?” 

Killua thought back to the great beast who roamed his property. He thought about how you could never see him whole-- he was so much you saw him only in parts. A slavering jaw; a crushing paw; and the eyes, as big as your head, darkness beyond intelligence or mercy. 

“Sort of,” Killua said. He frowned. “Not really.” 

“So where did you live? Are you a city kid? Did you live by the sea?” 

“I--” Killua felt eyes on his back. Kurapika? No-- the hatred there was deeper, more personal. He didn’t know how he knew it, but it was different. Maybe it had something to do with nen-- everything did, these days. 

Turning back to Gon, Killua found himself on the receiving end of a concerned look. “You okay?”

“Yeah, fine-- I just--” And there it was again. “I’ll be right back. Stay here, alright?” Whatever it was, he didn’t want Gon getting tied up in it. 

Killua darted towards the place he thought the look was coming from-- but he’d been too slow or too obvious or both, because whoever had been there wasn’t anymore. 

“Weird.” A glimmer caught his eye. An earring, three dangling wires suspended on a central disc. It looked familiar to him, but not enough to jog a memory. 

He pocketed it.

What did he remember about this flight, the first time round? Not that much, if he was being honest. He and Gon had spent the night trying to get that stupid ball from Netero, because he promised that they’d both be made hunters right away. Killua had realized the futility early, but he’d tried nonetheless. He’d gotten...worked up about it. He remembered that. 

Whatever conflict Killua had felt about that before was gone now; he knew that he was no assassin. Death would always come easier to him than it might to others, but he was different. 

Whatever this was, he’d find out soon enough. 

“Sorry about that,” Killua said, returning to Gon’s side. “I just saw this and thought someone should pick it up.” He took out the earring. “Return it to its original owner, you know? Do you know whose this is?” 

Gon shook his head. “Sorry. We can look together, if you want?” 

“Why not?” 

“But only if you answer my questions as we go!” Gon’s grin stretched wide, evidently pleased with himself at the bargain he’d struck. 

Killua shrugged. “No promises, but I’ll do my best. Let’s start with the cafeteria.” 

--- 

“Okay, first question,” Gon proposed. “Your school-- what was it like? I figure that’s where you probably spent the most time.”

Killua paused over his coffee. He’d forgotten about that. What had he told Gon already, and what was he keeping secret? 

“It was…” Killua trailed. “Intense.”

The more truth in it, the better. Harder to trip myself up that way. 

“It was a small school, so my teachers and I knew each other personally.” You could call it that. “They taught me all sorts of things-- everything they thought I’d need in order to excel. Sometimes they could be harsh. Like, really harsh.” He didn’t know how to follow that up.

“Did you have any friends?” Gon wasn’t phased. 

“I-- eventually, yeah. I had one when I was younger named Canary, but she...moved. So we couldn’t be friends any more.” Killua laced his fingers together. He kept his gaze lifted towards the passing faces of the cafeteria; the search had the added bonus of letting him avoid eye contact. “And after that I made a couple friends. But--” 

“Who were they?” 

Killua stood up. “I don’t see anyone here missing an earring. We should move on.” 

Gon followed suit, leaving his half finished tea without a second thought. Ready to follow Killua anywhere, probably. Idiot. Killua felt a swell of affection; he pushed it down. 

The halls sped by in a streak of linoleum and harsh light as they made their way to passenger quarters.  

“So-- your friends?” Gon didn’t let up. The kid had a nose like a shark for things Killua didn’t want to talk about. But fuck it, if he wanted to hear it, fine. 

“Well,” Killua said, looking straight ahead. “I had three friends. One of them was tall and older, and a bit of a fool sometimes, but he was ultimately a nice guy. The other two were idiots.” 

He didn’t give Gon a chance to respond. “See, the first one was on a revenge schtick, because--” he paused. “One of the teachers had, uh, confiscated all of his red pens. And then lost them, so he could never have them back. He held that grudge so deep that we saw him less and less, and he’d do just-- stupid things to try and get back at the teacher.” 

“Like what?” Gon asked. 

“Well, one time he pulled a prank so extreme that the teacher...took a sick day. And he felt so guilty about it he got sick. And we had to show up and take care of him, rather than go to school ourselves!” 

“Didn’t he have his parents to help?” 

“No.” Killua didn’t have time to think of an excuse. “They died.” 

“Oh. Huh. Okay.” Gon took his word for it. “What about the other one?” 

“He’s...difficult to describe.” Killua pushed open the door to the passenger’s quarters, the animation gone from his voice. “He’s dead now. Good as, anyway.” 

Gon went quiet. Killua wondered, for one panicked second, if he had somehow figured out that Killua was talking about him. “I’m sorry,” he said. And it was just what people said, but Killua let out a breath; now it was more than exasperation filling his words. 

“You know, that was the one thing that I never heard him say,” Killua murmured. He let the tension in his body make itself known. At least he had an excuse now. “He was just as bad as the other one when it came to going after what he wanted, and he didn’t care what he did or who he hurt along the way. And he never, even after it, said sorry.” Killua’s eyes burned. “He wasn’t sorry.” 

“Sounds like you cared about him a lot,” Gon said, laying a hand on Killua’s arm. “Losing someone you love isn’t easy. I know it’s not the same, but my Mom--”

Killua tore his arm away. “If you know it’s not the same, then why say it?” He turned away from Gon, hid his flushing face. “I had to watch him destroy himself when he realized that what he was trying to do was impossible. He couldn’t accept that he had failed.” 

Someone shushed them from the corner and Killua suppressed the momentary urge to shut them up himself.

“School sounds way more intense than I thought.” 

“It wasn’t a normal school. Whatever.” 

Killua paused to scan the room. If the owner of the earring didn’t show up soon, Killua would have to change tack. 

Humming, Gon made his way further into the makeshift passengers quarters. Examinees slumped, some gently snoring-- others, like Tonpa, less gently-- on every surface in the room. It brought a small smile to Killua’s face to see Kurapika leaning on Leorio, both of them fast asleep. 

It was never going to have stayed this way for long. Killua just wanted to bask in it-- but now that he knew what it meant, he didn’t have the chance. Irony’s got it out for me.  

“We should split up to cover more ground. Do you remember what it looks like?” Killua asked. 

“I think we should stick together! Not because it’s dangerous or anything-- I just want to get to know you some more, and I can’t do that if you’re on the other side of the room.” Gon cast a look at the sleeping passengers. “Well, I could, but I don’t think people would like it.” 

“Let’s get moving, then. I want to get some sleep tonight as well.” 

The two of them scoured the decks; they checked out every weird, cramped kitchen and ancient half-stuffed sofa. They found a gym, a badminton court, and a honest-to-god fully equipped aquarium with some mean looking fish inside. Gon stuck his hand in a tank and received a lobster-turtle pinch for his troubles. Killua felt no sympathy. He’d warned him less than a minute before. 

Whoever the owner of the earring was, they were a good hider. Killua would give them that. 

Fine. Plan B. Right after he took a nap. 

“Hey, Killua?” Gon said, leaning against the wall. “Can I ask you something?” 

“I literally cannot stop you.” 

“What did your friend want so badly? The one that’s dead?” 

Tipping his head back, Killua looked for the answer in the ceiling. “He wanted everyone to be okay. He wanted to be the one that made everything okay.” There was no wisdom in the tiles. “And he couldn’t accept that wanting something isn’t the same as getting it.”

“It must’ve been really hard to go through something like that. I’m gonna promise you something,” he said. Even in the darkness Killua could make out the glimmer in his eyes. “I’ll never do that to you.” 

There was nothing to do but laugh-- it was either that or cry. “You can’t promise something like that,” he said. 

“Well, I can.” 

“How?” 

“You said your friend got hurt because he messed up. Because he failed, right?” Gon held out his thumb, his eyebrows drawn into two lines of determination. “I won’t.” 

“That’s not--” 

“There’s no struggle that you can’t win if you fight hard enough.” Gon stated. “I won’t give up on what I want, and so you’ll never have to see me fail.”

Killua had been tired before, but now he felt it, pressing on him like winter’s worth of snow. “I’m going to sleep.” 

Gon shook his head. “I need to promise you!” He gestured to the held up thumb. Killua mirrored the gesture, feeling like he was dragging a house behind him. They pressed their thumbs together. “Sealed with a kiss!” 

Killua turned to face the other way. Whatever sleep he got tonight, it wasn’t going to come easy. 

---

A half-ghost with a case of insomnia and nothing better to do, Killua paced the halls.

It felt good to move after the strain of the last few days. Beyond the physical stress of many miles, Killua had spent the whole time scrambling for explanation or excuse. It was nice to just wal

Besides. If someone did have it out for him, this would be the best way to draw them out. Safest, too. 

A set of muffled footsteps sounded down the hallway. 

Bing.  

He kept his shoulders slack, his eyes forward. 

When she attacked, she had no idea that Killua was expecting her. 

A blade arced towards Killua’s throat, sharp and clumsy. This was no professional; Killua knew this from the first. As he dodged, he had the time to take in a few more things. 

The person attacking him was young-- probably 16 or 17. Her dark hair was tied up into twin ponytails, brushing her face as she swiped again. Her hands, Killua noticed, were soft. They gripped the blade like it would turn on her if she gave it the chance.

And only one earring. 

Killua ducked again, his hands tucked neatly into his pockets. “Can I help you?” He stepped back as he asked.

“Yeah,” she hissed. “You can die.” She lunged to fill the gap. 

“That doesn’t really work for me.” 

The girl let out a snarl, her face twisting as her hand slashed down. She didn’t have the grace of a trained killer, but she was strong. Shame she doesn’t stand a chance.

Killua weaved out of her way, resting on the balls of his feet and keeping a lazy eye on her patterns of her attack. First up high; and yes, he could just duck for that. A thrust to the stomach could be sidestepped, and then he would slip around her as she carved an arc in the air-- 

“Fight back, asshole!”

Killua gave her a what-can-you do shrug. “Don’t wanna.” 

All he got in response was an infuriated cry. He could knock her out with a simple chop to the spine, but he didn’t want that. 

He remembered her, now. He remembered her grudge, and her anger, and the fact that in a few hours, she would be escorted off of this airship for failing the previous exam. 

That meant that he could say whatever he wanted. And he could talk to someone he had absolutely no ties to, no complicated muck to shift through. 

“Let me know when you’re tired,” Killua said. He yawned. 

The girl kept it up for longer than Killua expected. He had to give credit where it was due-- anger could keep you moving for a while. But eventually her attacks slowed, and her grip on the knife loosened, and it seemed like all she could do to stay on her feet. 

She stopped, chest heaving, looking at Killua as if her eyes would succeed where her knife had failed. “Why won’t you fight me?” 

“I told you. I don’t want to.”

“Fine. Whatever. I’ll kill you some other time.” 

“God, but wouldn’t it be less trouble for both of us if you didn’t?” 

She snorted. “It’s not that simple.” She turned to go. 

“Let’s get breakfast,” Killua suggested. “We can talk there.” 

“This isn’t over, Zoldyck,” the girl snarled. “I’m going to--” 

“Right, but you aren’t in any condition to...” Killua gestured at the knife, “...any of that right now. So why not have some pancakes in the meantime? Get to know my weaknesses.” 

He started off. He didn’t look back-- if he did, the girl would’ve seen his smirk when he heard her footsteps behind, and that would’ve just started shit all over again. 

“So, what’s your name?” Killua asked. “I forgot.” 

A pause. “Anita.” 

“Of course! I knew it started with an ‘a’.” 

Her voice wavered. “I would remember if we had met.” 

“I can explain, if you want, and sound batshit, or you can take my word that I know more about you than you do about me.” He started counting on his fingers as he walked. “Your father was a spice trader. You think he’s the bee’s knees. Somebody hired one of my family members to kill him, and you’re still up in arms about it. Now you’re here to kill me, yeah?”

“I-- yeah. But how do you--?”

“Let’s just say I’ve been around this block before. Speaking of,” Killua said, pushing open the door to the cafeteria. “After you.” 

As she went by, her hand flashed out, scoring the air where Killua had been just a second before. He arched away from it, keeping the same complacent smile on his face the whole time. “A valiant effort.” 

All he got in return was a huff. 

Killua piled his plate high with breakfast-- his favorite meal, if you didn’t count dessert. Bacon and eggs and pancakes drenched in syrup. The pile wobbled dangerously as he returned to their booth, where, inexplicably, Anita remained. 

“You’re not hungry?” Killua asked. 

“No.” 

“Suit yourself.” He shrugged and dug in, feeling her eyes remain trained on him. “So. You want to hear my unlikely story? It all started a few days ago, when I woke up in my bed, except it wasn’t my bed--” 

Anita put her head on her hand and looked away. “I don’t care.” 

“Right. Fine. That’s probably for the best. I’m not sure how I would explain everything, anyway.” 

“Why are we here?” Anita asked. 

Killua pointed, mouth full, at his plate. “Pancakes,” he garbled. 

“No,” she said. “You know what I mean. This is weird-- you don’t normally invite the person trying to kill you to breakfast.” 

“When’s the last time you ate?”

“I don’t know-- I’ve been kind of distracted lately, with the whole--” she gestured at him. 

“There, then that’s reason enough.” 

After a long silence, Anita rose and grabbed herself a piece of fruit. She peeled the orange and popped a segment into her mouth. 

“So, you want to talk?” Killua asked. 

Anita shrugged. “You seem to have a pretty good handle on things, for whatever reason. There’s nothing I can say to you that you don’t seem to already know.” 

“Fine, then let me start. I’m sorry that someone killed your dad.” 

“ Someone?” Anita muttered. “Try again. Start with your mother.” 

Killua held up his hands. “You’re right. I’m sorry one of my family members killed one of yours. And I get why you’re upset about it still, despite what he did-- it’s hard, sometimes, not to care about the people that you know you should.” 

“What are you talking about?” Anita’s fingers paused. “My father was a good man.” 

“He was a spice trader.” 

“He was kind .” 

“Does that change anything?” Killua asked. 

Anita dug her nails into the orange peel, eyes forward in challenge. “You’re in no place to criticize him-- you didn’t even know him!” 

“Spice is addictive, Anita-- life ruining. He put a product in the world that killed people--”

“And you kill people for money! My father loved me.” 

Killua held up his fork. “Hey, past tense on the kill, buddy. And for the record, assassins can be nice to their children too.” 

Shaking her head, Anita dissected her fruit rather than respond. The orange segments, once so neat, split in her hands, juice spilling onto the table. 

“I remember how my father used to tell us stories,” Killua said. “Usually about this set of daring heroes who used their wits and their skills and always won the fight. There was always some lesson to be gained, a moral or a technique-- but those moments at my father’s knee, with my sister on the carpet next to me and my grandfather snoring in his chair; those felt real to me.” He put down his fork, his plate empty. “Does that change the fact that they made their livings in murder? Of course not.”

“It’s different,” she insisted, but more weakly now. 

“How old were you when your father died?” Killua asked. 

“Six.” 

“If you had asked six year old me if my father loved me,” Killua said. “I would’ve said yes.”

“So you’re saying, what?” Anita asked. “I should learn to hate him now that he’s dead? Go home and spend my days atoning for his sins?” 

Killua shrugged. “I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m not going to tell you that my family doesn’t deserve everything that knife could give them.” He sighed. “Family’s always hard.” 

“No kidding,” Anita said. “So my father was--complicated. And I still love him. And I still want to avenge him-- doesn’t he deserve that, at least? Even if he wasn’t good?” 

“All I’m saying is...train more, first. Become a Hunter. See the world. If you fight them now, you’ll die.” Killua gave a small smile. “And that’d be a lame way to go.” 

Anita’s hands clenched into fists on the table. “I’ll be back next year.” 

“I hope you make it,” Killua said, and he meant it. "And I hope it gets easier." He paused. "Do you-- will you tell me about your father?"

"He loved me. That's all I knew about him for years. I wish I had never learned anything else. It was easier."

Anita described her father in bits, worked in between small bites of her orange. She talked about his dinner parties and his loud voice and his generous hands when it came to people he loved. She told him about the fights that she would overhear between him and her mother, the nights he couldn't play because the numbers weren't adding up and someone was always to blame. She told Killua about how her father had brought her back gifts from his business trips. She told him that she had gone once to the spice mines, and what she had seen lived on the back of her eyelids at night.

In the spaces in between, Killua spoke about family dinners at a long table; about Kalluto's origami, quiet and inauspicious and even that weaponized in the end, and the days of playing tag with butlers and maids. He didn't say much, but it was enough. She knew; he knew. it was hard.

When she finished her fruit Anita stood up to leave. “I’m going to go talk to the Chairman.”

"Good luck."

She turned and left without another word. 

Only then did Killua realize that the discomfort he’d felt during their conversation was from more than Anita; he felt another set of eyes prickling on his neck. Killua looked around, casual as he could be. Two tables down, wearing an expression that Killua could only describe as assessing, Kurapika sat, gripping his coffee in both hands. 

The airship intercom announced its descent.

Chapter Text

“Look,” Leorio said. “There are five wristbands. Four of us.”

Kurapika frowned. “Does that mean we’re stuck in here until another person joins us?” 

It wasn’t hard to follow Gon into Trick Tower. What Killua didn’t count on was that, apparently, he had scared Tonpa off for good. 

A figure dropped catlike from the rotating stone blocks of the ceiling. The room went silent, broken only by the sound of soft footsteps and a low, almost sing-song voice. 

 “Now, what have we here?” Hisoka dangled a wristband from a single finger, the corners of his lips drawn in a shadow of a smile. 

Killua kept his mouth shut and his eyes down. That, at least, he’d learned. But try as he might to avoid catching anyone’s eyes, he could feel them on his back. Hisoka’s, dangerous and slippery, dripping with something just short of malice. Gon’s, bright, open, disarming. And Kurapika-- Killua felt his gaze most keenly. It had nothing of the lazy interest of Hisoka’s, or the blind trust of Gon’s; it was calculating, sharp. Killua didn’t just feel seen. He felt observed.  

What had he heard ?  

“Please vote on whether or not to proceed. Press ‘x’ for yes,” came the crackling voice of the examiner. “Or ‘O’ for no.” 

“What a stupid decision,” Leorio mumbled. “Of course we want to go forward.” 

Killua keyed in his answer. 

The scoreboard showed the totals. 

X: 4

O: 1 

Leorio whipped around. “Who--?” 

Smiling shallowly, Hisoka raised his hand. “Sorry,” he said. “My hand slipped. It’s such an easy mistake to make, if you’re not looking out for it.”

“Make sure you don’t do it again,” Leorio grumbled.

“You have my word. This path is about cooperation, after all.” In the second it took Leorio to face forward again, Hisoka’s eyes flashed to Killua. He raised an eyebrow. Killua started walking. 

“We should hurry,” Kurapika called back. “Seventy hours to go.”

“Transmuters,” was all Hisoka said, giving a shrug. “A whimsical lot.” 

It wasn’t long before they came to their first real decision. 

 “Which way?” Kurapika asked. The hallway split in two before them, nothing but darkness to greet the eye on either side. 

“I don’t see a point in discussing it,” Hisoka mused. “One way or the other, it doesn’t matter.” 

“So which way are you voting?” Leorio turned to face him, irritation creeping into his voice. 

“I don’t know. Which way are you?” 

“Left.” 

“Then I’ll vote right.” 

Leorio flushed. “What the hell are you playing at?

“Leorio,” Kurapika cautioned. Some of the tension in Leorio’s shoulders slipped away, but his frustration played clear upon his face. He had never learned to hide his emotions.

“As much as I hate to say it, I agree with Hisoka,” Kurapika said. “Not to spite you, but because I think it’s the stronger decision.” 

“This guy just said that it didn’t matter!” 

Kurapika explained his reasoning. “People in unfamiliar situations tend to choose to go left, for whatever reason. The examiners probably prepared a more difficult route for those who naively chose to follow their instincts.” He paused. “Though perhaps the opposite is true.” 

“There’s no way to know,” Hisoka said. “I just know that I suddenly feel like going right.” 

A single ‘O’ lit up on the screen, followed by another. Leorio’s defiant ‘X’ popped up beside it. 

“You guys know what I mean, right? I just don’t feel comfortable going right in this kind of situation!” Leorio turned to Gon and Killua. 

Gon shrugged. “They feel the same for me. I don’t want to choose one of my friends over the other, so I think I’m just going to follow my instincts here.” 

X: 2 

O: 2 

“Killua?” Leorio prompted. 

“I don’t care,” Killua said. But the reasoning Kurapika had listed rang familiar. “I’ll just close my eyes and press one.” He squeezed his eyes shut and pressed ‘O’ 

The door to the right slid open. 

Leorio’s face dropped, but he followed the group as they started down the corridor. “Guess us simple minded folk have to stick together, right, Gon?” 

Casting a look behind him, Gon nodded. 

“I think it makes sense for us to make all of our decisions like this-- talk it out before we vote,” Killua said. 

“Do you think we have time for that?” Gon asked. 

“It makes sense to me. If we want to make decisions as a group, every voice’s reasoning should be heard, even if it’s just instinct,” Kurapika said, casting a sympathetic glance at Leorio, but it did nothing to budge his frown. 

“Sounds marvelous,” Hisoka chimed in. “I can’t wait to listen in.” After an uncomfortable silence, he shrugged and lengthened his stride. As Hisoka pulled in front of the group, no one made an effort to catch up. 

They walked in silence for a few minutes-- all of them waiting, if Killua had to venture a guess, until Hisoka was out of earshot-- before Leorio spoke. 

“I can’t believe we got that creep as our fifth.” 

“At least he’s strong,” Gon said. “He’s one of the better people we could’ve gotten.” 

Kurapika shook his head. “Actually,” he murmured. “I think he’s one of the worst.” Kurapika let out a heavy breath. “This path is about consensus, and as far as I can tell, Hisoka’s favorite pastime is sowing dissent. It’s like- like he feeds on it.” 

“Maybe self preservation will kick in. We all want to make it to the bottom of the tower,” Leorio pointed out. 

“I wonder if that’s enough. Let’s just hope the trip down is boring.” 

If Killua had anything to say about it, it would be.

The first obstacles were easy to overcome, by Hunter standards; feats of agility, instinct, strength-- these were all things that any of them could do. But the decisions? The arguments? Killua could almost feel the tension setting in, wrapping round his shoulders like and pulling them tight, like a spider weaving around and around until they couldn’t move at all. 

Leorio had the worst of it. 

Trick Tower had been difficult for him. The things that he made him a good Hunter meant nothing in the claustrophobic hallways of the tower. And the things that brought him trouble-- his impatience, his over-commitment, his tendency not to think things through-- were all that was left. Killua watched his shoulders tick higher and his voice grow quieter as he turned in on himself-- and, of course, on the others. 

Perfect. Killua’s stomach roiled at the thought. It’s what it needs to be. Leorio is the key.  

“We should go right!” Gon suggested. “We went left the last two times. I don’t want to end up going in a circle.” 

“Although we are moving downwards,” Kurapika pointed out. “So we won’t go back to where we came from.” 

An ‘O’ appeared on the screen. 

“Who pressed that?” Leorio growled. “It was you, wasn’t it?” He stalked up to Hisoka. Killua’s eyes widened in witness. That close, he wouldn’t be able to do anything at all if Hisoka decided to end him. 

For the first time since the exam started, though, Killua didn’t sense any particular bloodlust coming off of Hisoka-- instead it felt like...curiosity? Once again, Hisoka tried to meet his eyes. Once again, Killua looked away.  

“I just made my decision. Don’t worry about it,” Hisoka said. “I’m not interfering with your ability to make yours.” 

“We all have to make them together --” Leorio fumed. “That’s the point! That’s the whole fucking point!” 

Hisoka held up his hands. “I beg to differ. It’s too late now, anyhow.” 

Eyebrows drawn into one unrelenting line, Leorio turned on his heel. “Fine. Fine! Let’s just do whatever, and we’ll end up dead in a pile of rocks.” He jammed his finger onto the button. “Who gives a shit!” 

You, obviously.  

“So,” Gon said. “Are we not talking about it? I’m happy just to just decide.”

This time, they pressed their buttons in silence; no one noticed that Killua’s made no noise. 

The door slid open. Inside was a scene that Killua remembered, but only just, blurry at the edges-- walking inside was like wandering into a dream and finding it sharp instead of sleep-hazy. Disorienting . 

The chamber was symmetrical, made of the same yellow stone as the entire tower. A walkway jutted from either end of the room, disconnected from but leading towards the platform in the center. Torches stood guard at each corner. Everything else gaped in open emptiness, a pit that fell to every side. Even Killua, with his cat-sharp eyes, couldn’t tell how deep it went. 

A wind whistled up the sides to pull at his hair. 

“What is this?” Leorio breathed. 

“Look,” Killua said. He nodded towards the opposite side of the room. 

It was easy to miss them, the five figures in the flickering light, caught in shadow and draped in gray cloth that rippled as they moved. Some stood, some sat; it didn’t matter. Killua knew who he was looking for. 

One of the figures stepped forward and cast aside his robe, revealing a muscled man with prominent veins and cold eyes. 

“We,” he announced. “Are examiners.” 

“They’re not,” Gon murmured. “He’s lying.” 

“Well, we’ve been hired to test you, anyway!” The man amended, chuckling to himself. “Your job is to fight the five of us here. If you win, you move on. If you lose, you stay with us. That clear enough for you?” 

Leorio took a step back. “It’s not too late to go left.” 

“Yes, it is. Let it go, Leorio.” Kurapika’s voice sizzled with tension. 

“The fights are one on one,” the man continued. You only fight once; three wins is a victory for all of you.” He grinned. “And three losses-- you get the idea.” He folded his arms across his chest, and the muscles there bulged. Gross. “You can fight however you want-- but there are no draws. Use your wristbands to vote on whether or not to take this challenge.” 

For once, the vote was unanimous. 

“Don’t mess this up for us,” Leorio hissed at Hisoka. “We need as many wins as we can get.” 

“I’ll be going first,” the man announced. “Who’s against me?” 

Before Killua had a chance to say anything, Kurapika stepped up. “I’ll go first.” 

This wasn’t how things had happened before. Killua was sure of it; he didn’t remember much of the fights, but he remembered Kurapika going against the man with the fake phantom troupe tattoo. So things are different now. Fine. I can work with this. As long as Leorio falls in line. 

“You can’t just go up there,” Leorio exclaimed. “We have to talk about it first!” 

Kurapika shook his head. “I’m the most logical choice here. That man is dangerous, but not overwhelmingly deadly. Gon and Killua would be at a disadvantage because of their size,” he said. Not to mention the fact that you don’t trust me. “We should save Hisoka for a more difficult enemy, and you Leorio--” he shrugged. “I think we should find you a less serious opponent.” 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Leorio’s eyes clouded. 

A pathway issued forth, connecting the doorways to the central arena. “I’ll fight him,” Kurapika said. “And I’ll kill him, if I have to.” 

He turned to start towards the center, only to freeze. Hisoka stood on the central platform, a deck of cards rippling between his hands.

“Hello!” Hisoka chirped. “Shall we fight to the death?” 

“If it’s fine with you, it’s fine with me,” the man grunted. 

“When--?” Kurapika shook his head as if trying to clear it. “This is fine. It gets a wild card element out of the way. Not the ideal outcome, but…” 

“Can we talk for a second about what the fuck you said back there, Kurapika? What did you mean, an easier opponent?” 

Kurapika turned to Leorio and tried to rest a calming hand on Leorio’s arm once more, but this time the man shrugged it off. Kurapika turned his head to the side. “You’re not a killer, Leorio. That man is. That sort of fight would not end well for you.” 

The counter above the door ticked to one. A stunned silence filled the room; in the few seconds of the exchange, Hisoka had won his fight. Killua looked away. 

“Holy shit.” Leorio breathed. “Holy shit.” He scrambled back a few steps as Hisoka returned, pushing past them to sit in the hallway. He flicked a card between his fingers, smiling faintly as he did. 

“And so we pass the dice,” Hisoka mused. 

A slim figure shuffled across the pathway on the other side of the room. Whoever it was under there, they made quick work of pushing what was left of their compatriot off the side of the platform. However deep it was, it certainly had a bottom-- Leorio winced at the wet squish of the impact below. 

The slim figure remained on the central arena. “I’ll be going next.” His handcuffs slid rather than popped off his wrists. As he pulled off his robe and shook out his hair, Killua was confronted with an unintimidating man-- at least compared to the last one. Soft brown hair and softer eyes, a few days of unshaved mustache giving him the look of a teen, the man hardly looked the criminal. 

“Me next!” Gon sprung up, as disconcertingly unbothered as ever. 

No one protested; Leorio looked like he had forgotten how to say anything other than a quiet string of curses. Killua had seen worse than what Hisoka had done to that man. The others hadn’t. 

The game was over quickly-- another victory for their side. Gon came back with his head held high. 

“Never thought I’d see you win a game of wits,” Leorio commented, a shake still lingering in his laugh. 

“Only one more win!” Gon returned. “We’ve got this!” 

“I’m fighting next,” Leorio announced. He seemed to gather himself up, his eyes drawing clear with determination. But there was something stiff about him, angry, as he strode towards the center. Killua caught the words muttered under his breath. “A less serious opponent,” he said to himself. “Show you a less serious opponent .” 

“Leorio--” Killua called, but the man shook his head and kept walking. This couldn’t happen-- it would throw everything off-- 

“Don’t try to stop me,” Leorio growled. “This is a matter of pride.” 

His adversary stepped up as well, bulky even under the layers of his cloak. 

The moment he revealed himself, Leorio took a step back. Gray skin; swollen eyes-- with all the metal in his body, he looked more corpse than man. But the power in his limbs-- to someone like Leorio, it would seem undeniable. 

“They call me Majitani, the destroyer!” Majitani declared, he stepped forward, one earth shaking foot at a time. “You want to know why?”

Leorio straightened out his spine and took back the step that he had lost. “I don’t care.”

Majitani smiled. “You will when you hear this.” He pointed to the blue hearts tattooed on his chest-- clumsily done, making up four uneven rows. “Nineteen hearts. Nineteen kills.” He cracked his neck from side to side. “And I’m hoping to make it twenty.” 

“Look, man, I just said-- ” Leorio sighed. He shrugged off his suit jacket, loosened his tie, and placed his briefcase on the ground. He popped it open, and after a moment he stood,  a serrated knife in hand. “So how are we going to play this?” 

“It’s life or death situations only for me-- it’s the blood that really gets me going. The feeling of my enemy’s heart in my hands-- I love it. Let’s do a deathmatch, until one of us gives up or dies-- but don’t think I’m going to stop just because you surrender. ” 

“That’s fine with me.” Leorio kept the shake in his voice to a quaver and cast a look back at Kurapika, as if to say, see?  

“Oh, you’re playing it cool, are you?” Majitani took a step forward and Leorio fell into a fighting stance. Not bad . “Let me show you what you’re up against.” 

With that he took a running start; Leorio steeled himself, muscles tensing in his legs. Majitani leapt into the air and brought his fist down, hard, where Leorio had been standing just a second before. 

The floor splintered under Majitani’s fist, sending razor sharp shards of stone flying in every direction. Killua let out a low whistle. Without nen to reinforce the punch, that sort of thing had to hurt. 

“Now do you understand?” 

“I told you, buddy!” Leorio said, wiping the dust from his face. “I don’t care what kind of weapon you got.” Leorio grinned. “Because either way, I’m gonna kick your ass!” 

Majitani let out a surprised yelp as Leorio rushed toward him, managing only just barely to leap out of the arc of Leorio’s knife. A cut appeared across his left arm-- shallow, but welling jewels of blood all the same.  “Looks like first blood goes to me.” 

“Last chance,” Majitani said. “Let me make clear who I am.” 

And to that, Leorio had no response. 

Majitani turned around, showing, for the first time, the tattoo splayed across his back: an eight legged spider, printed dark blue and venomous. 

“What’s the matter?” Majitani crowed. “Too stunned to speak? I’m one of the four divas of the Phantom Troupe. That first blow was a warning!” 

Leorio’s mouth snapped shut, only to open again a few seconds later with the start of a sentence. “I surr-” 

The gap between the platform and the doors was too far for a person to cross, a moat that loomed endless beneath them. 

Kurapika, his eyes a crimson that could only be described as ablaze , was hardly a person any more. He was a spirit carried on the wind of his own fury, and as he leapt across that gap Killua saw it in his eyes in a way that he never had before. 

Whoever this was, this was not Kurapika. This was grief  jutting jagged from the earth, sharp and raw and senseless. Killua had lost himself in violence before, but he had always known that underneath it all, something of him remained. He would come back. Watching the arc of Kurapika’s body as he slammed Majitani’s head into the ground with one powerful kick, Killua wondered if the same could be said of him. 

It made sense now. 

“That’s interference,” came a high, clear voice from the other side of the room. “And I’m afraid that’s not allowed.” The score counter on their opponents’ side ticked up. “The young man who interfered has automatically lost his round.”

Leorio paused, his eyes torn between Majitani’s crumpled form and the speaking inmate. “What about me?” He finally managed. 

“Well,” she said. “Neither of the terms of your match have been completed. Majitani has neither yielded nor died, so I’m afraid your match is still on.” 

“He’s still alive?” Gon asked. 

Killua shrugged. “I guess so.” 

“Let me confirm that.” Leorio strode to Majitani. To get there, he had to pass Kurapika, who stood, arms hanging limp at his sides, just staring at the body he had slammed into the stone. Leorio, in a gentle mirror of Kurapika’s earlier attempts to calm him down, placed a hand on his shoulder. 

Kurapika looked up. He stood there for a long moment, and even Killua couldn’t guess what was going through his mind. But eventually he stepped back. His gaze was fixed not on Majitani now, but Leorio, as he bent to check Majitani’s pulse. 

“Still alive,” Leorio confirmed. He snapped in front of Majitani’s open eyes. “And unconscious. Shit.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Kurapika breathed. 

The voice at the other end of the room rang out again. “We’d like to inspect him too, if that’s alright with you.” 

“Course.” Leorio stepped aside as the pathways extended between the platforms. Kurapika turned and crossed back to his own side, and Killua had trouble equating this slumping thing to the electric creature who had leapt across the gap only moments ago. 

Kurapika fell to the ground with a weak thud, his arms forming a bar across his knees for his head to rest upon. 

“Unconscious,” the high voice confirmed. “We’ll have to suspend your match until he can fight-- unless, that is, you’d like to end him here, and save yourself the trouble?” 

Leorio swallowed. “I’m going back to my side to think about it.” 

“Take your time. What is it, sixty-four hours to go? I hope the next bits are easier.” 

Jaw set, Leorio made his way back over and propped himself against the wall.  

“So are you going to kill him?” Hisoka’s voice trickled over from the hallway. “It seems the only way forward.” 

“I don’t-- I just said I need to think about it.” 

“Well, if you need someone to do it for you,” Hisoka flicked a card into the wall. It stuck there, embedded an inch deep in the solid rock. “Do let me know. I wouldn’t mind at all.” 

“That’s the problem,” Killua muttered. 

Leorio ran a hand through his hair. “Alright-- alright-- as I see it, this isn’t just my decision. It’s everyone’s, right? We’re on the path of majority rules. So-- let’s talk it out, and then we’ll have a vote, the way we’ve done it so far.” 

Hisoka cast another card at the wall; it landed parallel to the first, a Queen of Hearts with axes raised. “You know my vote.” 

“So that’s one for yes,” Gon said. “I say no.” He cast a look at Majitani. “He doesn’t seem like that bad a guy. I mean, he’s not great, but-- he doesn’t actually hurt people. I don’t get chills when I look at him. If he doesn’t hurt other people, it’s wrong for you to hurt him.” He concluded. 

“What do you mean, he doesn’t hurt people?” Leorio exclaimed. “He’s a member of the Phantom Troupe .” 

“No, he’s not.” It was the first thing that Kurapika had said since he returned. 

“But the spider--” 

“A true Troupe member has their number tattooed in the center of the spider,” Kurapika said. “He is far too weak to be a Troupe member. And--” his voice caught. “The Phantom Troupe doesn’t bother to count the people that they’ve killed.” 

“Do you?” Killua narrowed his eyes. 

 Kurapika looked up with a start. “I do not take a life easily; but when it comes to the Phantom Troupe, I will count them as I hunt them down. Just thinking of the number will help me sleep.”  His eyebrows furrowed. "But I knew he was harmless. And I still tried to kill him."

“Jesus,” Leorio said. “Okay. So one yes, one no-- Kurapika, are you okay?” 

Kurapika stared blankly at the wall ahead, not bothering to move the hair that fell in front of his eyes. “I could’ve killed him. If I had, this would be over. But he couldn't fight back-- I don't--”  he swallowed. "I'm sorry," he repeated. 

“I think not murdering a random stranger is a point in your favor,” Leorio said. 

“But now you have to, instead. At least I have my anger.” Kurapika looked down at his hands. “You have to-- stand here, and decide. I’m so sorry. I can’t influence your decision any further. Majority rules is off.” 

Leorio shook his head. “It can’t be--” 

“It has to be, Leorio!” Kurapika snapped. “You can’t rely on other people to tell you whose lives you have to end. You have to make peace with it yourself, or you’ll carry its weight forever. Or--” he said, soft. “Worse. You’ll blame it on the rest of us, and never lose a moment of sleep, tell yourself that you were acting for the benefit of the group. I won’t play a part in that sort of charade.” 

“You know that’s not what I was trying to do.” 

“Then decide,” Hisoka said. “The anticipation is absolutely lethal .” 

Gon piped up. “Killua hasn’t said anything!” 

Hands buried in his pockets, Killua pursed his lips. “Kurapika’s right. It should be your decision. For what it’s worth-- I’d kill him. But it’s different for me.” He shrugged. 

“Very helpful, thanks.” 

Leorio sighed. “Let’s give him a few hours. Can we agree to spare-- maybe three? Most people who have fainted from injuries have either woken up by then, or they fall into a more serious coma. If that’s the case, I don’t see what choice I have.” 

“That seems fair,” Killua said. Three hours less that Killua had to stall. If Gon failed in Trick Tower, he’d never have to make Hisoka’s deal. It’d be easy. 

He’d been counting on Leorio going against the gambling woman, the one who had taken so many of their hours the first time around. But not if Leorio won-- if they passed here, then it was over; they’d pass the exam. 

“Killing’s not that hard, you know,” Killua said. “I’m sure that as a doctor, you’ll lose patients-- this isn’t that different.” He shrugged. “Good luck.” 

“As a doctor,” Leorio echoed. “Thanks, kid.” His words rang empty. His mind was elsewhere. 

Killua sat down and prepared to wait.

--- 

“His time is almost up,” Hisoka mused. “What do you think he’ll do?” 

Killua shrugged. “I don’t know. It’s none of my business.” 

“Isn’t it?” Hisoka asked. “I think we should have a chat.” 

“I don’t.” 

“Then you know what I’m going to say?” 

“I’ve got an idea.” Killua was distinctly aware of their lack of privacy here. Kurapika still seemed distracted, but Killua wasn’t going to give him any more reason to be suspicious than he already was. 

Hisoka smiled. “Good. I hope you’re giving my offer serious consideration.” 

“I’m thinking about it,” Killua said. 

“And are your thoughts leaning? One way or the other?” 

“You said after the third phase. I’ll give you my answer then.” 

“So prickly!” Hisoka chimed. “If that’s how you want to be, then I won’t stop you. But know that such a generous offer won’t be made twice. And it is, of course, predicated on us making it out of this phase. Which not all of us seem equally committed to.”  

Before Killua had a chance to reply, Leorio stood. “That’s three hours.” He said. His voice came out low and heavy, burdened. “I’m going to go check on him.” 

Kurapika scrambled up as well. “Do you want me to--” 

“This is my fight.” Leorio shook his head. He crossed to the central platform. 

In a minute he had returned. 

“The good news,” he started. “Is that he’s awake.” 

Gon made an exclamation of joy. “That means you continue the fight!” 

“Why isn’t he up, then?” Kurapika asked slowly. 

“That’s the bad news,” Leorio said, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s my fault. I thought--” he let out a heavy breath and kneeled to pop open his briefcase once more. Inside lay a number of normal things-- a spare set of clothes, his weapon-- and a series of small, brightly colored vials labeled in tiny handwriting. “I was hoping that the shallow cut wasn’t enough. But it was. I poisoned my knife.” 

“What sort of poison?” Killua asked, his curiosity piqued. 

“This.” He held up a vial of a clear, viscous liquid. “It’s a toxin derived from the venom of the Riller snake.” 

“The Golden Basilisk,” Kurapika muttered. “Known for its paralytic venom--some people say it’s strong enough to kill on sight.” 

Leorio nodded. “In dilution, it produces a toxin that shuts down the body bit by bit in an incredibly painful process. For whatever reason, it tends to reach the head last. I was hoping that I could get him to surrender-- from the pain, you know.” 

Killua eyed it. It was nasty stuff, harder than he would’ve pegged Leorio as carrying. “But there’s an antidote. And you have it.” There was no uncertainty in his voice. 

“Of course I carry the antidote!” Leorio snapped. “I just--” 

“How long?” Gon asked. 

“A few hours. But he’s lost all mobility-- if he wanted to surrender, I don’t know if he could at this point.” 

“Then all you have to do is wait,” Hisoka said. “Easiest thing in the world, to let someone die. You don’t even have to do anything.” 

“Inaction is an action in itself,” Kurapika responded. 

Killua looked at Leorio. “If you give him the antidote, will he recover enough to surrender?” 

A bark of laughter escaped. “Are you kidding? If it’s reached his speech faculties, it’ll take him weeks before he’s talking again.” 

Killua bent down and retrieved the briefcase. “Then it seems to me you only have one option.” 

“This is what they meant-- the two question quiz,” Kurapika murmured. “Being put into an impossible situation. Kill an enemy who cannot fight back, or allow him to die through inaction?” 

Leorio swallowed. “Only one way to win,” he said. 

Killua handed him the briefcase. 

God, he hoped Leorio was the kind of person he remembered.

The wind in the pit played a low melody as Leorio made his way to Majitani’s limp body. The wind did not so much whistle as groan, low and dreadful: a dirge to carry Majitani to sleep. 

Killua held his breath as Leorio kneeled. This was it. He took something out of his briefcase. Leorio’s body hid his actions.

But even the wind stilled to let him speak. His words rang out clear. 

“I surrender.” 

With a grunt, Leorio slung Majitani over a shoulder and carried him to the other side. He deposited the man amongst his fellows. “He should wake up in a few hours, but he’s going to need a lot of help these next few weeks.” Leorio listed off a regimen of care. “Please take care of him.” 

Leorio crossed back to his side without a word. He picked up his suit jacket as he went and shrugged it back on, armor against the eyes of his team. 

“You saved him,” Kurapika said. He paused. “Why?”

“If I’m going to be a doctor after all of this-- “ Leorio started. “Then I guess I can’t justify taking a life. Not from someone like that-- someone helpless.”

The slant to Leorio’s shoulders only became more extreme as he slid to the ground. “I’m going to sleep. Tell me if we win.” 

“If we do,” Hisoka mused. “It’ll be no thanks to you. It’s all up to Killua now.” 

Kurapika’s head jerked up at that. “Killua?” He breathed. 

“Given the situation,” came the high voice from across the room. “It seems that you’ll have your choice of opponent.” 

Killua strode to the end of the platform. “I don’t care much. How about you and me?” He called. 

This is what it has to be now. This should be easy.  

All he had to do was lose. If he fought Jonas, there would be no losing. He’d end it the same as last time, with a beating heart in his hand and horror on the faces of his friends. There could be no surrender there. 

The woman, though-- he could lose to her. 

“Sure,” she said, casting off her cloak. 

Bright hair, sharp eyes-- the slim woman standing on the platform had the softness of freshly fallen leaves and the bite of the snake hiding within.

She smiled. “Let’s make a bet.”

Chapter Text

But whate’er you do to-night, 
Bathe my window, make it flow, 
Melt it as the ice will go; 
Melt the glass and leave the sticks 
Like a hermit’s crucifix; 

The world narrowed to stone, screen, and flickering shadows. Killua did not look back; betrayal would be easier if he didn’t have to see it on their faces.

“My name’s Leroute,” the woman said, offering her hand a bright smile. There was no reason that Killua shouldn’t trust either thing-- her eyes crinkled just right at the corners and she was clearly unarmed-- but the muscles in his legs tensed with the urge to retreat.

“I’m Killua,” he said. He pressed down his instincts and shook her hand. 

“Hello, Killua. Do you like games?” 

“Sometimes.” 

“Fantastic! I’m sure you’ll love this little game I’ve thought up, then. It’s a gambling game-- do your parents let you gamble?” 

Killua shrugged. “You want to make a bet? I'll pick the first, since you picked the game.” 

Confusion flickered across her face, so quickly anyone else would’ve missed it. Killua saw it all, though, as Leroute schooled her expression back into neutral positivity. 

“Shall we set some rules before we begin?” She asked.

Killua remembered little about the matches his friends had fought in Trick Tower. He remembered Jonas, of course, the slide of his face from dread to desperation as Killua held his heart in his hand-- how it had given, soft as an innocent's, as he crushed it. 

But Killua remembered Leroute. He’d been glad for Jonas when he saw the way that she dissected Leorio, beating and bleeding on the table of her bets, as neatly as Killua had ever learned to do. If that had been him-- Killua would’ve killed her before she could say anything. Better that than be so publicly known. 

This time he would lose to her, but he would not lose himself. The key to that was silence; the less he revealed about himself, the less she could do to him. I’m strong, Killua thought. And I can lie.

“I have fifty hours, you have fifty hours,” Killua said cooly. “Let’s bet with them. The penalty for you is years on your sentence. Penalty for us is hours to wait. First person to zero loses. Game?” 

“My thoughts exactly,” She murmured. “Quite exactly.”

The screen in the center of the ring whirred to life, showing two stacks of five, the hours tracked above. All Killua had to do was change the balance, let his hours slide into hers. Killua just needed to lose. 

“So, Killua, what's your bet?” Leroute asked.

“How about pain?” Killua said. “I’ll put ten hours that I can hold my hand in a fire for longer than you.” Scope the field. Never strike blind.  

“Harsh bargain. But I’m sure you know what you’re doing-- you like to know what you’re getting into, don’t you?”  

Killua shrugged. He only had only suggested the challenge because he could throw it easily. 

“Sure. On three?” He strode over to the braziers at the corner of the ring and held his hand just over the licking flames. She did the same. Killua ran a series of calculations in his head-- she was no fighter, but the steel in her eyes warned of will. She could probably bear at least five seconds of concentrated fire exposure before her body gave up-- so Killua would wait three and throw. Respectable, but not nearly his limit. Killua had held a cannon in these hands-- this was nothing more than a candle in comparison.

“One,” Killua said. “Two, three--” and the pair thrust their hands into the flame. His skin singing with the acrid agony of burns, Killua started counting. 

Almost the second the fire began to lick her skin, Leroute yanked her hand back and cradled it against her chest. Though her skin glowed red, her eyes were bright, her expression impenetrable. 

Killua, frowning, shoved his hand in his pocket with a little more force than the task merited. 

“First win to you!” She chirped. 

The numbers on the screen ticked up; forty-sixty, in Killua’s favor. 

“My turn,” Leroute sang. 

She’d thrown that. He was sure of it-- but why? To set him off guard? If anything, it had done the opposite. The hairs on the back of his neck stood, but he kept his face carefully blank. What was she cooking up in there?

“I bet forty hours that I can guess how old you are,” She offered.  

“Go for it.” One that she couldn’t help but win. It should’ve been a gimme for someone like her.

 Course-- it was a strange question, come to think of it. His body was twelve, all stubby and skinny, a stranger to the grace he’d one day take for granted. But in terms of experience, of memory--? Killua frowned.

“That’s a bold bet to take,” Leroute mused. “If it had been me, I’d have refused. It’s different for adults, you know-- the only reason women get away with lying about their age is often that you can’t really tell.” She waved a hand at Killua. “But with kids, that’s far less true. You can guess to at least a couple years on appearance alone. First instinct says you’re awfully naive to make that kind of bet. And to bet so much.” 

“Do you have an answer?” Killua returned. 

“Not yet. Let me explain my process-- it’s all part of the journey, you know. May I come closer?” 

Killua shrugged. “Fine with me. But you can’t touch me.” 

“I wouldn’t just go barging into your personal space like that,” Leroute promised. “After all, you seem like a very private person. Lots to keep to yourself.” 

“Is that what you think?” 

“Oh, yes.” Leroute stepped forwards, crossing the distance and coming to pace a circle around Killua, silent for only a few blessed moments. “I think that you keep a lot to yourself, with a poker face like that. Raised in secrets, I’d say. Steeped in them too long, like bitter tea. And not nearly so naive.”

Killua said nothing. She continued regardless, like she had expected just that. “I think you made that bet-- on some subconscious level, perhaps-- because your age is more complicated than it would seem. And you want to know what I see.” 

Leroute came to a still before him, eyes never wandering from his face. “On the one hand, you’re a child. But you haven’t lived the life that a child ought to live. With a pain tolerance like yours, the distance with which you hold yourself, your readiness to commit to extremes, I’m guessing you were raised in an exceptionally high stress situation where violence was the norm. Many children are-- but unusually, you also have no fear of suffering. It is not your enemy, but a companion. Sometimes you forget to hate it. Tell me if I’m wrong.”  

“You’re wrong,” Killua deadpanned. 

“I don’t think I am.” Leroute smiled, a perfectly white grin. “I think you are, in many ways, much older than your body. Perhaps you’d like to talk about it?” 

Killua set his jaw, and her eyes lit at the gesture. “You talk too much. What’s your answer?” 

“Oh, that? Twelve, without a doubt.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” 

The numbers on the panel ticked up. 80:20, Leroute’s favor. 

“Seems like this’ll be over soon,” Leroute said. “Isn’t that a shame?” 

“Maybe.”

“Maybe it’ll be over, or maybe it’ll be a shame?” 

“The first.” 

“Of course. Because what kind of person would throw a match like this? Who would admit to their age without insistence on proof in this situation?”

Killua forced his eyes to stay trained on the point between her eyes, not cast a look back at his friends. They could hear her-- the very fact of that made his skin crawl in itself. What would she say? Could she know enough to give him away? 

“You seem bored,” Leroute commented. “Is this game not fun enough for you?” 

“It’s fine.” Killua grit out. 

“You sure? You look downright uncomfortable to me. If you let me make the next bet, I’ll make it the last one.” 

Killua narrowed his eyes. Whatever she was up to, he was sure he wouldn’t like it-- but if he could just throw this, then he could be done. No more eyes on him, no more questions or observations or murmured exposure. If it came down to it, he could just kill her. 

“Fine.” 

Leroute clasped her hands together, the sound of it echoing down the cavern below. “Excellent! Here’s my bet-- truth or dare!” 

“Truth or dare,” Killua deadpanned. 

“Truth or dare! Mostly. I’ll explain the rules, as I play it-- that is, if you want me to bet all my hours now.”

“I know how to play truth or dare,” Killua said. Greed Island had been exhausting, but before things had gotten crazy, it’d been fun. A sleepover every night, all the space and open sky they had wanted, and none of the eyes. 

Unlike here. Killua’s skin crawled. He was a creature of the shadows, never meant to be seen. 

“Maybe you do. But I’ll explain them just in case.” 

The first alarm went off in Killua’s head. 

“The game of truth or dare consists of three stages; the choice between truth or dare, the issuing of the challenge, and its completion. In this game, once a challenge has been accepted, you must complete it-- so long as it does not involve a task that the challenged is incapable of doing or harm to themself,” Leroute said. Her voice took on a strange, incantatory rhythm. This wasn’t the first time she had explained this. “Nor can a person be asked for information they do not know. You may not lie in response to a truth challenge.”

Leroute ticked the conditions off on her fingers as she went. She paused for a long second, meeting Killua’s eyes. “And you may not harm the other player.” 

“How do I win?” Killua asked. 

“The other player surrenders. Which they can do at any time.” 

This caught Killua’s attention. 

“Let’s do it,” he said. 

“Glad to see you so raring to go-- then I’ll make my bet.” Leroute gave a grin, sly and cold. “I bet 80 hours that I will be the first to surrender.”  

Gon’s voice across the gap as he whispered to Kurapika. “Why would she do that? Does she want to lose?” 

Kurapika didn’t respond, but Killua could feel those eyes on his back-- no longer red, but no less piercing. 

“I don’t agree to that bet.” 

“That’s a shame! I’m afraid you already did when you accepted the game.” 

Well, shit. 

If Killua surrendered first, he would--ironically-- win the match. And get all her hours. And they’d pass. 

Dread settled even heavier on his shoulders as Leroute spoke. “You start.” And not just because of the game. Because when he tried to speak, the words slipped around his mouth like greased marbles. The only thing he could say-- the only thing he was able to -- was the phrase that blazed in his mind.  

Killua spat it out. “Truth or dare?” His stomach twisted. He knew this feeling. He knew these rules. He knew what he would see if he were himself. 

Leroute was a nen user, and he had just fulfilled her conditions. 

So they would play truth or dare. And he could not surrender. 

“Dare.” Leroute grinned. 

To topple a mountain, start at the base. Set your opponent off their balance.  

“I dare you to cut off your hair.” Physical disorientation. A feeling of insecurity-- he could do this. He could play this game. 

Leroute didn’t move. 

“Well?” Killua called. 

“The hair is part of the body. Since your dare involves harm to the self, it’s invalid.”

“Oh.” Killua fought to still the sinking feeling in his stomach. His first step and he was already stumbling. 

“But I’ll tell you what,” Leroute said. “I’ll do it anyway. I’m a good sport.” She winked and pulled out a knife from the pocket of her tunic. Without further flourish, she sawed at the hair of her right ponytail, then her left. When she was done, she shook it out so that it fell around her face-- and somehow its ragged edges made her look only more wild, more in control.

The hair she cast to the ground lay grim and bright between them. 

“My turn!” Leroute chimed. “Truth or dare?” 

Again Killua was gripped with the python-compulsion of her nen. “Truth,” He murmured. Harder for him to mess up. 

“Delightful. My question for you, Killua, is this: what are you most guilty of?” 

He tried to speak, but apparently whatever was on its way out was too close to a lie, since the words died in his throat. 

He tried again. 

“Almost anything you can imagine.” If he couldn’t lie, he would stand his ground. He would look her in the eye. “But nothing I did alone. When I killed, I was not alone. When I ran, it was not just me. When I failed-- maybe that’s it. I am most guilty of failing to be alone.”

“Interesting.” 

“No, it’s not,” the edge to Killua’s voice leaked through. “Making the same mistake again and again is more boring than you can believe. Truth or dare?”

“Truth.” 

When in doubt, tread familiar paths. Trust violence.  

“Do you fear death, Leroute?” Killua asked. “Because the game only lasts so long.”

“I fear pain. I only fear death insofar as it may be empty. I’m an extrovert, after all.” 

She had heard the threat in his question and ignored it. Killua’s jaw ticked-- was she really willing to put her life on the line to hurt him? To what end? 

“Truth or dare?” She offered. 

“Dare.” 

“I dare you to give me a hug. Nothing untoward, just a simple hug.” 

“Fine.” 

He strode over and gave her the briefest hug he thought possible-- bu as her arms came to rest on his back, the harsh lock of nen kept him from pulling away. 

“Don’t be so hasty,” Leroute murmured into his ear. They were almost the same height. “When was the last time you let another person hold you-- even touch you, when they didn’t mean you harm? Has it ever happened?” She pulled back, her hands lingering on his arms, but Killua still couldn’t move. Maybe he could. He didn’t. 

Her eyes swept over him-- gone was the calculation, the cunning. He found only soft pity there. “You carry so many scars. Maybe it’s because you were made to hurt,” she murmured. “You’re good at it-- at aching in the dark.” 

She cast a look past Killua, to the team behind him. “Those people who walk with you, you know they only do it because you’re so good at keeping quiet? You must know that. That if they saw you, understood you, like I do, they wouldn’t be able to bear it.” She paused to meet his eyes. “Let alone love you.” 

Killua felt an objection rise in his throat, but when it came time to turn it to words, he found nothing. And not because of the nen this time. Because the cold that lived under his ribs was uncoiling like the snake it was, and he knew, in the part of him that he had so often failed to keep quiet, that she was right. It wasn’t just that he didn’t want to be seen; it was that the consequences would be too much to bear. 

Leroute took a step back, taking the warmth of her hands with her. Leaving Killua stranded and even more alone. 

“Even I find you sickening, and I’m a monster,” Leroute murmured, smiling gently. “What does that make you?”

“Truth or dare,” he grit out. 

“Dare.” 

He needed this over. Desperation. “I dare you to surrender.” 

“I think you may be one of the strangest creatures I’ve ever met. Wrong, in a way that no one else seems to be. And so full of pain, so full of love-- that only makes it worse, you know.” 

“The dare,” Killua insisted. Leroute let out a high, chiming laugh.

“Oh, that? I’ve already done it.” She wagged a finger. “Surrendered some information. And you can be certain of its truth. Now, truth or dare?” 

Which would be worse? Which could possibly hurt the least? Killua’s breath shook in his chest. He couldn’t win this. He couldn’t afford to lose. 

And he felt like he always did. He felt like a deer backed against a road, the scream of metal monsters and the flash of wolf teeth on either side, and his legs gripped with the impossible decision to freeze. This was the kind of fear that only the hunted could feel. The flashing wide eyes, the huffed snorting breath, like anything so long as it wasn’t human-- wild. 

There are things about him that no one could know. That if he said aloud, would rip him in two. 

“Dare,” he said. 

And then he regretted it. 

With a curling smile, Leroute gestured at his friends. “I dare you to tell them who you are. All of it.” 

Killua caught Gon’s eye. 

Throat parched, he shook his head. He was still shaking it when he said, “I surrender.” 

The screen ticked up. He had all her hours-- he had won. Leroute gave a light shrug, her smile unbudged. "Oh well! Thanks for a good game." She held out her hand to shake. This time, Killua did not take it.

"Leroute," Killua managed. "A hundred years to your sentence-- why would you play to lose?"

"Because, Killua," she said. "I knew you would give me exactly what I want. And that-- you, and all your sweet vulnerability-- is better than freedom. Besides," she said nodding at her co-prisoners. "I've still got a couple of eggs to crack around here." She left without another word.     

Killua barely heard Gon's rejoicing as they joined him on the platform.

They were going to make it through.

Fuck. They were going to make it through. Fuck. 

Killua’s thoughts faded into a haze of unreality. He could feel himself moving further away, to that place where he had gone as a child when things got to be too much. Where he still went sometimes when there was pain-- above and outside himself, letting his body run itself. He would do well enough. 

 It was in this silent place that he made his way down Trick Tower. They cleared the long path down without the heat of time at their back, gliding through what they had never had the chance to be challenged by before. 

They made it down with more than a day to spare. 

Ignoring inquisitive looks and bright chatter, Killua went to sleep. 

--- 

Killua never slept too deep. It had been trained out of him at a young age, those poisonous three things that an assassin must never allow themself-- deep sleep, inebriation, and love. Three states of vulnerability, three things that one must live without. 

So when Leorio’s voice drifted to him from nearby, Killua registered it, even if he didn’t stir. He tried to ignore it, just as he was ignoring the rock digging into his hip. 

The words drifted in and out. 

“Dangerous…not sure…” Kurapika murmured.

Leorio’s voice. “Trying to be...tell Gon?” 

At this, Killua shot straight up. Leorio started back, but Kurapika stayed where he was. “Killua,” he said. “I’m glad you’re awake.” 

“You are?” Killua’s voice sounded hollow and cautious even to him. 

“We need to talk.” 

“You don’t have anything to say to me. I know.” Everything that mattered, anyway. “What were you talking about?”

“You. Though I suspect you knew that.” 

“You said something about Gon.” 

Leorio and Kurapika exchanged glances. Whatever this conversation was, it wasn’t the first one. 

“We did,” Leorio said. “It’s-- um-- “ 

“You have been acting extraordinarily strangely,” Kurapika finished. “Especially when it comes to Gon. You act like you’ve known him his whole life one second, and then pretend that you’re strangers the next.” 

“You’ve helped him. More than once,” Leorio led.  

“But you’ve also sabotaged us. Nobody could have missed what you were doing to destabilize the group in voting.” 

Leorio shot him a look. “Wait, what?” 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Killua said, his skin crawling. “Hisoka was trying to sabotage us. Not me.” 

“He took the fall, but he was following your lead.” Kurapika levelled a long look at him. “Are you allied with Hisoka?” 

Killua let out a hoarse bark of laughter. “No. God, no.”

“Then why has he been trying to get your attention the whole time we’ve been here? That conversation you had earlier--” Leorio started. 

“Was private.” 

 “Not in majority rules. Leorio and I want to know what’s going on.” 

Killua shook his head. “I can’t do that.” What reason was there to keep up the false ignorance? It didn’t matter. It was growing increasingly difficult to believe that any of what he did here mattered-- maybe all of this was just fate. But it had to matter. 

Leorio’s voice came softer than he had anticipated. “Are you in trouble?” He asked. “We can help you.” 

“If you need to keep some secrets, we understand that. But we cannot allow you to place us in danger as a result.” 

Killua felt his resolve snap like a twig in a storm. He looked between the two of them, feeling the wolf wind of exhaustion howl in his veins. “You wouldn’t believe me. Just-- just, I don’t understand. I’ve done everything --” Killua broke off. “You don’t want to leave it alone? Fine. Yell at me about it. Hate me.”  

He jumped to his feet, the abruptness of his movement sending Kurapika and Leorio skittering up as well. “In fact, why don’t you just fight me? Get it over with?” 

Closing the gap between them, he dropped his shoulders, held his palms out flat to either side. No guard. “Come on. I’ll let you have the first one free.” 

“Killua--” Leorio said. 

“What?” Killua shot back. “Are you too weak to fight me, too? Couldn’t take on the prisoners, now can’t take on a kid?” 

They were drawing eyes. Killua didn’t care. He stalked up to Kurapika, grabbed him by the front of his tunic and pulled him forward. “What about you, Kurta? Have you forgotten how to hate? Because I can remind you-- let me remind you how it feels to burn .” 

Kurapika stilled in Killua’s grip, but he made no move towards him. Killua shoved him, hard. 

“What’s wrong with you two?” Killua snarled. “Haven’t I given you plenty of reasons? You’re right, you know-- I was sabotaging you.” 

He was met with nothing but steely silence. 

Without a moment to think, Killua flexed his fingers into knives. He was a weapon himself. If they wouldn’t let him bleed, then he would make them. 

“Killua,” Leorio hissed. “Gon’s watching.” 

The words were like a blow to his stomach, but he forced himself past them. “Why should I care?” 

“He’ll think--” Kurapika started. 

“I don’t care what he thinks. If he needs me monstrous, then that’s what I’ll be.” 

“So it is about Gon,” Kurapika murmured. 

“What isn’t?” Killua laughed. And then he didn’t. And his hands went loose and soft as the first sob racked through him. 

He stumbled back until he hit the wall. One side safe. 

Killua’s hands threaded through his hair as he curled against the wall. “I can’t-- not right now. I--” his eyes darted from side the side. So many eyes.

What was wrong with him? What was so deeply, always wrong with him?

His hands shook with memories of how it felt to be electric. He felt like he could reach out and swallow the static in the air, hold it in himself like used to, trembling but always so real. What had always felt clean and sharp now felt ragged, like the chipped edge of a tooth. 

Kurapika and Leorio sat on either side. Killua flinched when he felt Leorio’s arm around his shoulders, but he couldn’t bring himself to shove it off. Weak. He almost couldn’t believe it when he felt Kurapika’s tunic settle like a blanket across his lap-- it was cold down here. He hadn’t realized. 

“You’re okay,” Leorio said. “You’re okay.” 

And when the sobs finally passed and all that was left was a seasalt stinging in his eyes, an emptiness in his chest, Killua told them the truth. What he could, with his voice rasping in his throat. 

“I’ve done this before. Lived it. And it didn’t end well,” he concluded. “But you can’t tell Gon. I mean it-- if he finds out-- I don’t know. You can’t tell him.” 

Leorio blinked rapidly. “You really...this is for real?” He looked to Kurapika, lost. 

“It explains a lot. How he seems to know everything before it happens, how he knows things we’ve never told him-- and I always felt that there was something odd about him.” He nodded at Killua, eyes grave. “I believe you.” 

“Then I do too. What the hell.” 

Killua barely noticed the smile he gave at that, small and soft and tired. “Thank you.”

It was only a few minutes after this that Killua drifted off. And with the quiet chatter of his friends passing back and forth beside him, for the first time in his life, slept deep. 

Chapter Text

Florescent bulbs make quarry of the night, flushing it out and washing the world flat. The people here barely seemed to cast shadows. 

Killua knows these people. One is Alluka. One is what he hates to recognize as Gon. And another-- so strangely, because he can see him-- is Killua. 

He accepts it, though, in the way of dreams, and simply watches as the scene plays out before him. Dream-Killua isn’t doing a very good job of hiding his grief. The way his hands clench at his sides, the sheen to his eyes-- it’s all a dead giveaway for anyone with the sense to see it. 

But no one comments, even as Killua leads Alluka over to the bed and asks her, voice taut with tears, if she can fix this. Wishes for it. 

And this is where it ends, Killua knows--  he will be wrapped up in smothering heat and then he will be in his bed, and perhaps he will watch this all play out, another layer between him and whatever he’s decided to call this reality of his. He could get used to this, just watching. Can’t mess up what you never do. 

But it doesn’t stop, this time. 

Alluka’s-- Nanika’s-- arms unwrap from Killua’s shoulders and she steps back, grinning with that same empty-eyed smile she’d always shown Killua. 

This time, Killua turns towards the bed, jaw working, breath caught in the vice grip of his lungs. 

This time, Nanika touches Gon’s hand, and there is a flash of light so blinding dream-Killua staggers back 

This time, Gon wakes up. 

“Killua?” Gon says, and he’s not sure what does it-- the way that Gon’s voice rasps in his throat, unsteady from use, or the soft light in his eyes, or maybe just the fact that, after going to the end of the world and back, after toeing the shores of death and taking one foul, fatal sip, the first thing that comes out of Gon’s mouth is Killua’s name-- but Killua watches himself cry. 

Maybe this is where it’ll end, instead-- where it should end-- where he should wake up and find it real. The two of them would walk out into the clean air together. And they would never have to talk about what might’ve happened in that hospital room, or with the Chimera Ants, or any of it-- they’d sit together and Gon would show Killua another secret way to love the world. 

But Killua still dreams. 

Gon’s eyes burn in a way that is far too familiar. Gon’s body breaks in a way that is all the more so-- more intimate, more desolating. Killua should not recognize the sound that his best friend makes when his bones crack, but he does. And the trembling of his hands as he stands back up, cries defiance at an invisible enemy, a shadow of a beast, shaking not with terror but with a determination so big it cannot be contained in this body-- Killua knows that too. 

Killua is at Gon’s bedside. Gon is well. 

Killua fights at Gon’s side. He loves a comet, and watches him burn up in the sky. 

The scenes start to blur into one another. His tears start to taste less like regret than they used to. There’s something bitter to them now, and he hates that about himself. He comes to expect the unacceptable, because there is nothing that will stop it. He sees himself become cold. 

It still hurts. 

“You’ve got to go, Killua. You know that it was never you. You’ve got to go.”

Echoes of artillery resound across the featureless dreamscape. It’s just him and Gon now, sitting with their knees touching in a vast white. Even with all this space, they cannot help but drift together. “You can’t stay here. You’ve got to go.” 

--- 

Gon’s voice rocketed through the door, punctuated with sharp rapping knocks. “Killua, it’s time for the test! We’ve got to go!” 

Gathering himself, Killua glanced at the window. Right. He was here, and it was now. 

It took more than a good shake of his head to get Killua feeling like himself again, but the fresh air and sharp sunlight helped him feel, if not ready to jump back into things, at least human . Not a ghost. He’s not the one that almost died-- so why did he feel like he’d left half of himself in his dream? 

All that training, and now all it takes is a nightmare? 

He shuffled out to join Gon, and the two filed into a larger stream of badge-wearing examinees. They were herded as a group, wary and whispering, to the deck of a ship half buried in a cliff. Killua’d seen better, but the island wasn’t bad as far as vacation spots went, verdant and pretty and warm. The only thing that detracted from it all was-- 

“It’s like a graveyard,” Kurapika murmured. 

Leorio’s face scrunched against the sun. “You’d think people’d see the other shipwrecks and sail the other way.” 

The water was a forest of broken masts and waterlogged canvas, planks of half rotted wood jutting like broken bone from the waves. No sign of what had caused it, no reef or rocks. Just the quiet, a lingering reminder that this place was never far from death. 

“How strange.” Kurapika. “Killua, what do you think?”  

“Not now,” Killua said, with a shrug. He’d have to get used to this, the questions. Now that people knew. 

“You can almost see all the way to the bottom!” Gon exclaimed, leaning over the edge of the deck to try and get a better look at the waters below. Killua was saved having to fish him out as an elderly couple emerged from the captain’s quarters, customer service smiles on full flashing display. 

“Welcome to our little island!” The old woman said. “You’ve all worked hard on the test so far, so please enjoy the next three days as our guests and relax!”

Leorio chuckled, broke into a grin of his own. “And just when I was ready to get started on the next test-- don’t mind if I do-- ” The old man’s caught Leorio’s arm before he could get any further. 

“Of course, we can’t afford charity . There’s an awful lot of you for that,” The old man clarified.  

“We’ll have to charge you all our regular rate. Ten million Jenny per person,” His wife finished. 

“That’s no problem,” Killua said, loud enough to be heard over the sputter of protests from the other examinees. “There’s probably a ton of treasure in these shipwrecks, right? We can pay in kind.” 

“We’d be happy to accept that! If you’d be so kind as to bring your finds here, my husband and I can assess them and give you a room key to match their value.” 

As the group scattered in a prismatic refraction of greed, Gon turned to Killua, eyes gleaming. “This is way better than just being given the room! Where do you want to start looking?” 

“Figures you’d rather have to work for it.” Killua rolled his eyes. “Why don’t you start over there, and I’ll guard anything you find from the other applicants?”

“Deal!” 

 Gon was just a splash in the water by the time Killua started telling him to be careful, which just about checked out. 

 A hand flopped down on Killua’s head and ruffled his hair before Killua could jerk out of the way. Leorio grinned down at him, absolutely unrepentant.  

“What the hell, Leorio?” Killua huffed. 

“Just stopping by for a little friendly chat. You know, between friends,” Leorio leaned forward-- and down. Was Killua ever going to get used to being in this body? He’d never been as tall as Leorio, but, Jesus. “So just between you and me, you’ve gotta know where the good stuff is, right?” 

“Sounds an awful lot like you’re trying to cheat, old man.” 

Leorio sputtered at that. “You question my honor?” A hand placed on his chest, all indignance. 

“I wouldn’t,” Kurapika piped in. Leorio looked gratefully-- and surprisedly-- over at him until he finished his sentence, “--I already know the answer to that one.”

“I am attacked! I thought we were cool!” 

“Do you want to know where the pirate treasure is, or not?” Killua said.  

Leorio dropped the affronted act. “Spill the beans.” 

“Try the water.” 

 Before Leorio could decide whether he wanted to follow through on the murderous thoughts surely parading about his psyche, Gon burst out of the water, something gleaming and golden in his hands. 

“Killua!” Gon called. “You gotta get in! There’s a whole bunch of stuff down here-- I think this was a real pirate ship!” 

“Huh,” Killua said. “Looks like I was right. Why don’t you bring it up, and I’ll start a pile?” He called to Gon. 

Gon shook his head, paddling in place. “You’ve got to see this!” 

Killua eyed the water distastefully. “I’m good.” 

“Can’t believe you’re passing on treasure,” Leorio shot, already making distressing progress into stripping down to swim. “You keep an eye on these, won’t you?” Leorio tucked his socks into his shoes and handed them to Kurapika. “Real leather, these things. Don’t want to get them wet.” 

Without further ado, Leorio threw himself into the sea. He surfaced for air only a moment after, eyes gleaming and hair slicked back. “Gon’s right, the water’s great!

Killua and Kurapika exchanged dubious looks. At least he had an ally in this. 

Legs churning through the clear water, Gon paddled to the dock and deposited his findings. Killua was no expert, but they sure did look like gold. 

“Killua, I think you’ll be able to see it from the edge of the dock. At least come look,” Gon whined. Rolling his eyes, Killua acquiesced. 

He didn’t know how to communicate to Gon any more strongly that he was not getting in there. It was hot on the dock, but at least he wasn’t uncomfortable and damp. Getting salt out of his hair was such a task, too--

“Gotcha!” Gon cried, his hand snapping up whip-fast to grab Killua’s ankle and try to drag him into the water. 

Killua’s instincts threw him out of the way before he even registered that he was moving. “Too slow!” Killua shot back. “I’m staying right up here, thank you very m--” 

A shove from behind and he was flying, clumsy and flailing through the air and into the stupid, irredeemable, ridiculously nice water below. 

He resurfaced to see Gon flashing a huge smile at Kurapika. 

“You scheming motherfuckers.” 

He barely had time to suck down a spare breath before Gon was diving towards him, moving shockingly quickly through the gentle sway of the waves-- but of course, Gon had grown up on an island and this was probably second nature to him. Killua had no such luck, and Gon seemed to delight in the ease with which he could dunk him. 

See how he liked it. Killua, sputtering and blinking salt out of his eyes, lunged back and managed to propel Gon down several feet with the ferocity of his riposte. 

“You kids have fun,” Leorio called over his shoulder. “I’m going to get my hands on something shiny!” 

Kurapika, legs dangling off the side of the dock, watched it all with a quiet fondness that Killua had no time to notice. He was extremely busy ensuring that Gon understood the scale of his error in declaring this particular war. 

---

The bow of a red ship hung over the water. Its hull rippled below, and timbers turned hazy, a pool of blood in a crystal sea. 

 ---

    The thing was, right-- they couldn’t fail this phase. And as much as Killua hated to admit it, that was a huge relief.  

    It meant that he was allowed to sit on the deck of the hotel-ship with Gon and fish as the sun crept lower and lower into the sky. It meant that when Hisoka caught his eye, he was free to look away. He didn’t have to try to figure out a way to hurt his friends without harming them, for once . And what a freedom that was. 

    Later, as he was making his way back to his room, Kurapika intercepted him. It took one look at Kurapika for Killua’s jaw to set. 

“You look like shit,” Killua said without further preamble. 

“You didn’t tell me.” A statement, not an accusation-- yet. 

“I don’t know what this is about, but is this a conversation you want to have in public?”  

Kurapika frowned, glancing around the empty hallway like he was noticing it for the first time. “We can go back to my room.” 

The two walked there in silence, the only sound alongside their footsteps the faint groan of shifting metal. Atmospheric pressure at work, if Killua had to guess. A big enough storm coming and you could feel it days away. 

    Kurapika shouldered open the door to the sight of Leorio sprawled across the too-small armchair with a book laid over his face. Killua didn’t bother to hold back a snicker. “Must’ve been a good story.” 

  “Leorio,” Kurapika called.

  “Huh?” Pages fluttering, the book fell to the ground as Leorio jolted upright all at once. “Oh, it’s just you guys.” 

“I need you to leave,” Kurapika said.

Leorio gathered himself, collecting his limbs into something more resembling human form rather than the impressionistic jumble of lines he’d fallen asleep in. “I’m not clearing out of my own room without a reason!” 

“Leorio. Please.”  

It was the way he said it that really did it-- no fire in his voice, just a murmured word. Whatever emotion it conveyed-- and Killua wasn’t sure, couldn’t place it, the word took the fight out of Leorio all at once. He sagged into the chair for one stunned moment before he propelled himself to his feet. 

“Well. I’m going to go take a walk. It’ll probably be a long one-- lots to poke around on this ship,” Leorio said. “Maybe talk to a few of the female applicants while I’m out there.” 

“Good luck with that,” Killua said. “Try not to be yourself.”

L eorio flicked the finger at him as he left. 

“You too, old man!” Killua called after him. 

 Kurapika swayed for a few shallow moments before he moved, like his legs were locked and he had to try a whole ring of keys until he found the one that worked. He ended up on his bed, elbows on his knees, shoulders sharpening the lines of his back. 

“Tell me what you know about this place,” Kurapika said. “Everything.” 

Killua propped himself in the chair Leorio had so recently vacated, mirroring Kurapika’s position. Set him at ease. He’d learned it as an interrogation technique, but this would work just as well. 

“You’ve probably already figured it out,” Killua started. “But this isn’t a vacation. It’s still a part of the exam. The next few days are going to involve some huge storms, and our job is to survive them, then make our way to Zevil Island.” 

He racked his brain for more. “Pretty much everything we need is on this ship. The engines still work, I remember that, but it’s not exactly seaworthy--” 

“So you don’t know anything about this?” 

A golden pendant dangled from Kurapika’s clenched fist. The clink of chain sliding against itself was louder than it should have been, caught in the silence between breaths.  

Killua fixed it with a long look. “Afraid not.” 

“Okay.” A long exhale, an uncoiling. “You don’t have any reason that I know of to lie to me, and I suppose I am secretive by nature. Or perhaps I didn’t even find it last time around.” 

“Hard to say, yeah. I had other things going on at the time.” 

“I see.” 

Killua didn’t ask. Kurapika had said it himself-- secretive by nature, and Killua wouldn’t push where he wasn’t wanted there. Not after Trick Tower. 

“I assume I’ve told you a significant amount about-- my people,” Kurapika said. “Given our earlier encounter.” 

How angry would I have to get you to see those scarlet eyes? Killua flinched at the memory. He’d meant the words to hurt. 

“It wasn’t you,” Killua managed. “I mean it was, but-- you’re not him.” 

“Up until this point, our lives had largely been the same, if I understand the situation. If it was not exactly me, it was a conceivable version of me. I assume we’re much the same.” 

You better fucking not be-- but Killua doesn’t let himself say it. “Yeah, you told me the basics. And for the record, I’m-- what I said. I’m sorry.”

Kurapika held the pendant on his open palms. Killua got a better look at it now, saw the way the red gems set in the pendant’s gold flicked familiar and burning in Kurapika’s hands. 

“I’m sure you’ve guessed from my line of questioning that this pendant belonged to the Kurta.” Kurapika’s voice was cool, neutral, but he wasn’t letting Killua see his eyes. “It was a charm for protection. It didn’t do much good against the storms-- I assume that’s where the shipwrecks came from.”  

Killua nodded. 

“But nonetheless. To hold something like this in my hands is…it’s like holding memory itself. You must understand what that’s like more than anyone.” 

The warm leather of the seat curved under Killua’s fists. The feeling of Gon’s hair brushing against his skin as the two of them looped and dodged through the water, the smell of salt and the solid ache of laughter-- Killua did not answer, but he didn’t need to. 

“I don’t want to interfere too much with how things are meant to go. I do not believe in tangling the strings of fate if I can avoid it, but-- Killua, I need to know.” Kurapika’s fingers curled around the amulet. “As far as you have lived, have I succeeded? Do I avenge my people? Or are we all still lost like this, unburied in waters far from home?” 

“You don’t want that answer from me.” 

“You won’t tell me?” 

“Better just keep your amulet and go to bed. It’ll be a long day tomorrow, and the days won’t get shorter.” 

Kurapika’s eyes snapped up to meet his. “Just because you’re the one that’s been sent back doesn’t mean that you have any more right to the future than the rest of us.”

“You want this?” Killua shot back, a sudden snake of anger spitting through him. “Because I don’t . I don’t want to be here, witnessing the best year of my life from a mile away-- because I know what happens when things get bad, so I’m not allowed to enjoy them while they’re good. If you want that too, you’re fucking welcome to it.” 

“I need to know,” Kurapika insisted. 

“Sure. Why not. I’ll tell you what happens. You chase the Troupe down and they kill you. First fight, and you go down like a kid. Is that what you wanted to hear?” 

Kurapika flinched like the words were a blow. “Is that true?” 

“Does it matter?”

“Yes.” 

“I could tell you anything. I could tell you that Leorio becomes president of the Hunter Association, that I learn to play the harp, that we meet an ant that almost takes over the world--  the third of which is true, by the way-- and you’d have to believe me.” 

“Then I guess I’m trusting you,” Kurapika said, low and softer than Killua had been expecting. It just made him set his jaw. 

“With what? How could that knowledge possibly help?”

“I would know if I’m on the right path. If I’m not, I could learn from my mistakes--” 

“You won’t.” 

Kurapika frowned at that. “How do you know?” 

“I just do.” And Killua wants to leave it at that. He wants to go back to his room and sit under the flickering lights playing cards with Gon and not think about the future for a bit. Just a little while to not have to plan-- to not have to remember. 

 But Kurapika was never going to let him do that. 

“I don’t understand why you’re being so obstinate about this,” Kurapika hissed. “If you have information that could help me to confront the Troupe-- you know why it’s so important that I do this, so how can you say that you won’t help me?” At Killua’s silence, he changed tack. “If you think it won’t change, then telling me can’t hurt.” 

“I’m sorry,” Killua said. 

“An apology is useless if it isn’t followed by changed behavior.” 

Killua just shook his head. “Please, Kurapika. We just started being able to be friends again, and this--” he looked away. “I’ve missed you too much to do this so soon.”

“Telling me my future is enough to ruin our friendship-- so it’s bad. I hurt you, or you hurt me. Maybe a betrayal?” Kurapika mused. “It’s okay if that’s what happened-- surely we can avoid it if we plan--” 

“I wish we could. I wish,” Killua said, “so badly, that anything I could say would change how things are going to end for you. But--” 

“Then help me! ” Kurapika shot. 

 Biting his lip, Killua tried to do what he had always done-- say just enough, play it off, make it out without a scratch-- but Kurapika’s eyes cut into his skin and left it burning with guilt.

“I can’t,” Killua said weakly. “I can’t.”

Low, quivering, angry . “ Why ?” 

“Because I can’t change you,” Killua murmured. “The only way things go better is if you are someone else altogether. If you pursue the Troupe, all of us lose you-- but you will, and you did, and there’s nothing I can say that’s going to stop you.” He gave a quiet, humorless laugh. “Believe me, I tried.” 

Kurapika’s fist clenched around the chain. “This path is mine to walk. If it leads me off a cliff, or into the fire, or right into the storm-- that’s my decision to make. You’ve never known me without this rage inside me, Killua, because I cannot be without it. It is all that I am, and I am nothing without it.”

“Do you know how stupid that sounds?” 

The shock that flickered across Kurapika’s face only made Killua’s blood pump faster. It rushed in his ears and he raised his voice over it, launching himself to his feet. 

“God, you’re both so stupid , you and Gon! Do you hear yourself? Talking about yourself like you’re some sort of vengeful spirit? I can’t change you because you don’t want to change-- you keep telling yourself this shit about being a hollow husk of rage because it’s-- it’s easier not to be a person, right?”

“Careful, Killua.” 

“I’m good, thanks,” he snapped. “I’m so sick of being the only person around here with any fucking sense. Just-- have fun! I’m not going to waste my time trying to stop you from doing something stupid, because I’m tired. ”

“No one is making you do anything.” 

“No, you’re right, trying to save the lives of the people I care about is so stupid of me-- no one’s making me care whether you live or die, so I guess I shouldn’t, huh?” Killua shot. “You don’t get to live in some isolated little world where no one cares about each other, Kurapika, and I’m sick of you acting like you do.” He knew how he was starting to sound, how his voice was creeping up into something closer and closer to hysteria. How his nails dug into his palms as he struggled to keep them by his sides. But he couldn’t stop. 

“I’ve spent the last year of my life trying to keep my idiot friends from self-destructing and it’s done jackshit, so maybe I should just stop, right? Maybe I want to do something stupid myself and make people worry about me for a change-- but I’m not allowed, Kurapika, so I’ve just got to keep calling you an idiot and hope that something, somewhere, snaps and you remember how smart you are.” 

Kurapika drew back, his spine straight and his gaze cool-- but his eyes belied it all. Placidly furious, quietly burning-- scarlet as the sunset storm. His voice shook with it. 

“You think Gon and I are the same. So why do you think you can save him, and not me?” Kurapika narrowed his eyes. “Let me rephrase. If you think you cannot save me, why do you think you can save him?” 

Killua didn’t have an answer for that. 

Kurapika closed his hand around the pendant and tucked it into a pocket. “Get out.” 

Killua was only too happy to comply.