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An old man, a man we know only as 'Grandpa Isoshi' lives on an island just off the coast of Heavens Arena. On this island, he has a farm, a farm that is practically impossible to be found by outsiders, because he has hidden it from prying eyes. You see, this man is a retired Hunter, he’s a man almost as old as Isaac Netero himself ( almost, no one’s as old as Netero), and he’s powerful, a Specialist, it’s not difficult for him to hide himself. One day he decided that the life of a Hunter was just not for him, so he and his wife moved to this basically deserted island (there’s a family of Kiriko living there and some native fauna) and started a farm and a family.
This couldn’t last forever though because, eventually, everyone had to come out of the closet. Literally everyone. Grandpa and Grandma admitted to each other that they were both gay, and when they announed to their children that they would be separating and Grandma would be moving off the island, their two daughters decided that this was the perfect moment to also come out, and chose to leave with Grandma. Leaving Grandpa Isoshi and his son to run the farm, alone (with the occasional visit from a certain old man). They lived an alright life together, except his son wasn’t exactly interested in running the farm and more interested in creating whacky, bizarre inventions. So Grandpa Isoshi trained him to use just enough nen to add something extra to his inventions. Because of his, somewhat magic, inventions, it caught the attention of someone…an important someone, namely, the woman dating one of his sisters. And when his sister brought her girlfriend to the island so she could visit her father…well…
Tale as old as time… (The tale being a magic inventor lowkey stole his sister’s girlfriend.)
The two became an epic inventing pair, their mechanical concoctions being highly sought-after by every powerful group out there. Their peaceful inventing days couldn’t last forever though, not when Maxus came along. Maxus Isoshi, the eldest child, was a spitfire from the day they were born, constantly finding their way into the inventing room, exploding things and then hiding away like nothing ever happened. Grandpa Isoshi saw a lot of himself in Maxus, so he came to the decision of raising them to be a Hunter, and starting teaching them about nen use from an early age. Going hand in hand with their fiery personality, Maxus’ aura was also like fire, they were a natural Manipulator, being able to set anything they touched on fire, and trained to be an Emitter, so they could set basically anything on fire.
About 2 and a half years after Maxus’ abrupt arrival, Miri came along, a gentle little baby with a natural affinity with animals. After Grandpa’s Isoshi’s success at getting a toddler Maxus to use nen, he gets a little too enthusiastic about the prospect of his second grandchild also being a skilled nen user from an extremely young age. He’s a Specialist, so he can do dangerous things and because Maxus is so naturally good with fire, he thinks ‘What would be a good contrast to that?’ The answer he finds is, ‘The Earth’ (and he’s correct with his answer but boi). With the combination of his Specialist nen, being out in the land, and his…enthusiasm, he makes a mistake, not only imbuing the ACTUAL BABY with his powerful nen, but also connecting that nen to the island. Miri, as a baby, became a powerful nen user, but at what cost?
Miri grows up, intrinsically connected to the island (thanks Grandpa) and learning how to use that to the best of their abilities, even though it causes her to be extremely high strung all the time. Miri basically runs the farm, so that their parents and Maxus (who inherited their parents' talent for inventing) can focus on their preposterous creations, and it’s not like it’s a difficult task for Miri, running the farm that is, cultivating the land they are literally connected to. Eventually Miri seeks to use her nen in a useful way, to provide to the rest of the world like their parents and Maxus, and wants to figure out how to bring back extinct flora and fauna. Miri plans to clone and combine existing living things to try and recreate these extinct things. So, Miri knows they have to start with figuring out how to clone living things ( and she’s not stupid, she starts with plants not animals). One day, during one of these cloning attempts, Miri accidentally figures out how to communicate mentally with the animals on the island. This is a good skill to have, even if it was an accident (and as they later learn, this skill is not limited to just the animals on the island. It’s any animal Miri makes a connection with, including Magical Beasts). All these accidents have to be revealed to a certain someone at some point and there’s a visitor on the island, someone who hasn’t visited since before Maxus and Miri were born. Miri is alerted to the visitor first, feeling someone step onto the island, but the island knows this person, Miri can sense that, so instead of alerting everyone to a potential threat, Miri waits for their grandfather to introduce his guest. One Chairman Netero, Grandpa Isoshi’s…friend.
During his visit, Netero encourages Grandpa Isoshi to lightly push the extremely dangerous children into becoming hunters and Grandpa tells him, ‘... duh. ’ Netero does the ball challenge with the two of them (just like he did with Gon and Killua) and while they never manage to literally take the ball from him themselves, they do get it away from him (thanks to Miri’s ability to communicate with the animals). So, it counts. And when the two of them find out about the Hunters Association, and that Grandpa is a retired hunter, they are interested in the prospect of becoming Hunters themselves, Maxus for the money that comes with it, and Miri at the thought of going into basically illegal countries and researching the plants and animals they might have.
So Maxus and Miri trained so that they could take the Hunters Exam, and while their parents agreed to let them, they said the two of them had to wait until they were 15 and the siblings had no problem agreeing to this. They also agreed to take their first exam together, so Maxus would wait until Miri turned 15. And life goes on, relaxing for the most part (but no one is ever able to truly relax with Maxus around, creating all sorts of explosions), but it can’t stay that way forever.
One day, Miri feels a stranger step onto the island, and Miri can tell the difference between a stranger like Netero (who may have been a stranger to Miri, but was not a stranger to the land), a good stranger and a bad stranger. They always knew the country close to the island held some dangerous people (Heavens Arena is a little too close for comfort) but this is the first time any of them had actually come to the island…Illumi Zoldyck was sent to kill Grandpa Isoshi, and Grandpa Isoshi is caught completely off guard, genuinely not expecting anyone to come to the island. As soon as Miri is aware of the stranger and their awful, dangerous aura, Miri runs to where she knows her grandfather is, she runs too fast but it’s not fast enough. Miri watches her grandpa fall to the ground and Illumi Zoldyck succeeds in his mission. Miri screams and sobs, and the island responds to their distress, growing and growing until the flora of the island is thick and mangled together. And Maxus…in their rage, burns. They burn so much foliage on the island, doubling Miri’s pain. Miri will always blame herself for his death, because they couldn’t warn him fast enough. She ended up causing way too much overgrowth on the island in their despair and then suffered even more as Maxus had to burn it all away.
Maxus was 15. Miri was 12.