Chapter Text
While Kalluto isn’t expecting a gentle hand (has never expected a gentle hand) he’s not prepared for the terrifyingly hard blow Feitan lands. His arm surpasses breaking; it splinters. Tiny fragments falling loose amongst flesh and muscle alike so that he gives a short trill of pain before he can steel himself.
Feitan’s umbrella whistles through the air once more and Kalluto has more than enough sense to put everything he has, and more, into dodging this time. Tendons threaten to rupture under the strain, and the sudden jolt has his broken arm twisting in an agonizing way, but the speed in which he moves acts as a deployment for his paper pieces, fan snapping open in his good hand. A tremendous thrill shoots up his spine as Feitan lunges again, barely within a speed that Kalluto can perceive, and he doesn’t know if it’s from fear or exhilaration.
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“Do you think before you do stupid things, or does action without thought come so naturally to you?” The words on their own are scathing, made all the more so by Machi's clipped, uninterested tone. She's none too gentle, too, as she lifts Kalluto’s broken arm to observe the damage. It takes quite a bit to suffer the rough handling in silence but Kalluto, of course, manages.
Kalluto looks nervously to Feitan, wondering if the insult is as light as Machi is making it out to be, but the older man shows no emotion and his only answer is a brittle sigh as he closes his eyes.
“If you weren’t here I would have held back. No breaking.”
“But because I am it means you can try to squander my free time off as a favor.” She drops Kalluto’s wrist so she can cross her arms over her chest, the picture of unamused. When she doesn’t receive an answer she clucks her tongue. “You like breaking things too much for your own good. Come along, little thing, I can have your arm working again by the end of the hour.”
Wordlessly, Kalluto follows. When he had been unfortunate enough to hold conversation with Hisoka, back on Greed Island, Kalluto had been told of Machi's power. There had been a sliver of a barely-there scar circling Hisoka's arms, one that even Kalluto's keen eye would have looked over if Hisoka hadn't traced it with his nail. He had gotten the impression that Hisoka's arm had been completely severed from his body.
Having seen this, he’s not skeptical that she has the power to heal his own arm, but of the time she claims she can do it in. A clean amputation was an easier fix than the mess he was stuck with.
Feitan trails after them into Machi's room, something that almost causes Kalluto to pause. He trusts his safety is secured, as much as one can around people like these, but Feitan’s unknown purpose during this healing process puts him ill at ease.
“Put your arm here.” Machi’s personal room is immaculately clean with two large windows throwing in ample light to work under. A single chair, one with straps that remind Kalluto of his torture sessions, is nearest to a singular lamp that gets switched on.
He does as he’s told, climbing up into the chair and gingerly pulling his long sleeve up to his shoulder before putting his injured arm along the wide armrest. Machi is nothing but efficient as she secures belts around his upper arm and wrist, pulling them tight enough Kalluto can already feel the tingling sensation in his fingertips that comes with the loss of circulation.
“Open up his arm so I can get to work. And you owe me one, this isn’t a favor.” Feitan shrugs a shoulder as Kalluto’s eyes track quickly between the two, suddenly overly wary and on high alert, something that only worsens when Feitan shakes his sleeve so a flaying knife falls easily into his palm.
Kalluto remembers Killua telling him what training in pain tolerance would do for him, or, more accurately, what it was about. What should be taken away from it. He said that you can bear the pain, but that doesn’t mean you get used to it, that it isn’t there, hurting you. It’s a tidbit Kalluto has kept near and dear to his heart through his conditioning. It made him feel less worthless and vulnerable every time he had cried out.
In his current company it only helps him feel even more childish in comparison when he gasps sharply as Feitan lays his inner arm open all the way to its decimated bone.
Kalluto hasn’t managed to draw in another breath before Feitan makes small, but deep, incisions to either end of the initial stroke. Like this Machi has an easier time pulling his skin back to see the bone in its entirety. Kalluto is still having trouble drawing in a breath when he realizes Feitan is watching him with an unreadable, but disturbing, expression.
“You don’t want to miss this.” Feitan nods to Kalluto’s arm, as if he could ignore it with the bright, searing pain it's in.
Kalluto finally manages a shuddering breath just as Machi’s pupils contract and grow brighter with a flood of aura. She stares for several moments at the wound, blinking slowly, before she takes a deep breath of her own. On her exhale her hands are moving with a speed that makes her arms appear to multiply, a dozen hands handling threads so numerous that air is thick and glowing with them.
Small, delayed pricks of her needle reach Kalluto. They're far too numerous to feel individually and eventually bleed into the background. It's an awe-inspiring experience. In his current state of mind, frayed by pain, Kalluto finds himself thinking of this many-armed Machi a literal spider, cold and more capable of spinning a web around him than healing. The bizarre thought is interrupted as Machi suddenly has but two hands again, dragging the one with the needle in it up as high as she can reach.
In that one movement all the threads are neatly pulled taunt at once. Reconstructing his bone, realigning his gashed veins and arteries, and sealing the wound in such a way it looks as if it was never injured.
“Move your fingers,” she snips. Kalluto does as he’s told, twitching his pointer finger cautiously before making a fist. The pain subsided so suddenly he feels a little dazed, flexing his hand open and closed. It takes raising his other hand and touching where he had just been laid open, pink and bloodied, to fully digest that it is indeed whole again. No imperfections could be sensed with touch, though the shine of the Nen thread could be seen just beneath the skin if Kalluto squinted hard enough with Gyo. Kalluto's mouth falls open in silent awe. He's never seen Nen used as a tool for healing before, and he's unsure if or when he does in the future the process will be half as impressive.
“Why ask him to test it out, we both know when you’re done it’s fixed.” A cheeriness has crept into Feitan’s voice, knife slashing through the air to belatedly dispel Kalluto’s blood onto the floor and off its blade.
Machi’s face sours at that, but turns away to undo Kalluto’s bonds silently.
“Remember, you owe me one now. And next time you need to debauch something with the idea of me fixing it; don’t.” Her dismissal is clear and leaves Kalluto at having just been referred to as an ‘it’. He slides out of the chair, thanks caught in his throat as Machi turns on heel and exits the room with an air of impenetrable coldness. Kalluto leaves the room more slowly, rubbing his arm absently as he makes sure to go in the opposite directions as Machi.
Feitan follows him, keeping by his side, strides matched in the ghostly quiet. Out of all the Phantom Troupe something about Machi had always seemed to make her the most deeply devoted member, idolizing both what the group stood for as well as Chrollo himself. Since Kalluto's appearance she's remained aloof towards him, bordering on unkind.
Kalluto, however, remains unperturbed. Were someone to suddenly enter the Zoldyck household, aiming for a place among them, he feels his reaction to them would be the same until they had proven themselves. The idea has him thinking abstractly about who could possibly be brought into the family through marriage, her purpose lying solidly in furthering the Zoldyck bloodline.
“She didn’t tell me when I could use it again.” Kalluto glances at Feitan, suddenly worried about the closed wound bursting open at its seams.
“I would guess a week. From personal experience, would have to exert yourself very strongly to break her stitches.”
“Like what?”
“Sparring with me again, maybe.” Feitan's eyes are barely visible over the collar of his coat, but the way they taper at the ends lets Kalluto know he’s grinning, enjoying the thought.
“I won’t be doing that.” Kalluto’s nose lifts minutely into the air, turning to look straight ahead with a bored expression. “My curiosity has already been sated in the matter. I’m no masochist; I prefer being the one to do the breaking.” Not to mention the lingering frustration that Kalluto is still so far away from the rest in terms of ability. It may have only been a few short months since his trip to Meteor City to confront the Chimera Ant, Zazan, but Kalluto felt his progress in becoming stronger was slow.
“You do have that look.” Perhaps for Kalluto’s benefit Feitan puts the small grin into his voice this time. Questions niggle at the back of Kalluto’s throat, hands disappearing into his wide sleeves to prevent fidgeting. He’s heard hints from the other group members about what Feitan not only does to interrogate, but what he enjoys.
Kalluto wants to be told about it in greater detail. From Feitan, if he had a choice in the matter, but until he has the Spider branded onto his body Kalluto has kept persistently tight-lipped about any questions directed towards himself. Whether those be about his powers, or his ambitions, or even his training. Because of this it’d be undignified to act on his curiosity towards the rest of them while denying them at the same time. Hypocrisy isn't something Kalluto enjoys.
Even so, a shiver passes down his spine picturing the two of them talking at length over the thrills and satisfaction at hearing the groveling and pleading of victims, overlaid by the wet sound of blood slapping on the floor, or filling the victims' throat to cut off more desperate pleas into an undecipherable gurgling, or--
Feitan turns off suddenly from the main hall, making a shooing motion when Kalluto turns as if to follow him.
“The Boss asked to see you earlier. I might have. . .delayed you with fight.” Feitan looks to be smiling again, leaving Kalluto no choice but to scowl openly for how unapologetic he is regarding his obvious selfishness. Kalluto grabs a fistful of the front of his kimono so he can move as fast as he can towards the center of the aging building.
If it’s one thing he knew applied to every group situation, it was the one in charge doesn’t like to be kept waiting.