Da-da-diary
Kuroro is a father. Wait… What?
A/N: Totally unbeta-ed, unrevised, unre-read... XD Dedicated to Soran Ibrahim! Enjoy! :D
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Eight swift figures zigzagged like shadows in the darkness of the forest. Every single one of them seemed to be determined to pursue a lone figure that had so far outran them for at least half a day now. It seems that the man did not intend to land a fight against anyone… yet.
"Now! Get him!" shouted someone from behind the thinner wall of foliage on the clearing ahead.
Another second later, he found himself barely dodging an arm of some sort from grabbing his ankles. He dove away from it and somersaulted before landing deftly on a nearby branch to grasp what had just transpired not a second ago.
A few yards roughly from his left, he saw a burly, bearded man who was holding out his arm in a snake-like pose. With Gyo, he saw that just above the bearded man was a Nen-form of a larger arm with long, dexterous-looking, skeletal fingers. It was not to be doubted. That was the arm that tried to grab him earlier.
"He's up there!" a voice shouted from somewhere below and he barely had time to evade an onslaught of metal rain.
Needles, real, quite sharp, long and pointy, streamed from his right side and he hastily jumped off the tree to cloak in the darkness but his way was blocked by a Nen-induced illusion of a tree. He stepped backwards once, not taking any chances on what danger the illusion may pose. He felt the presence of the needle-thrower closer than before and seeing that killing the idiots would be faster than running from them, he leapt away from the ground and towards the nearest rusty Zetsu he can sense.
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As expected, it did not even take more than a full three minutes before he was able to hunt down and kill his assailants. However, someone with far more advanced Zetsu had managed to skitter away while he was busy cutting off the pleas from someone else's throat. He was thinking of letting the soul go but his thoughts wandered to the last time he committed the mistake of letting one of his victims escape.
"Kuruta," he said, ending the act of the other altogether.
Another shadow emerged from the forest and landed soundlessly a few yards in front of the other man.
"Lucifer."
"How long have you been tailing me? An entire day now, no? Haven't you gotten tired of playing around yet, kid?"
"I don't have time for your games, Lucifer."
Lucifer, the ebony-haired man, dropped his last victim's severed head and dusted his clothes off nonchalantly at the statement. "Well, I had managed to evade you for a longer time. You are destined to die if we do things your way and I had been very humane and generous since you are such a bloom who had not reached its peak yet and—"
"I told you I got no time for your useless crap-talk, Kuroro Lucifer," the younger one, blonde and red-eyed, snapped, his aura flaring angrily around him. "Let's fight. Now or later, I will still have it my way and it is not my turn to die this time," he calmly stated as a grim smile graced his face.
Kuroro frowned. Here he was, being overly charitable to the young Kuruta whose existence he hated so much to end. After all, as Hisoka said before he left: the boy still has so much more to gain and to give. He will be a better and more formidable opponent someday… not to mention more beautiful.
Ruby eyes glazed with seemingly everlasting loathing stared fiercely against his blank obsidian ones. They promised imminent bodily harm and yet no matter how his rational thought prioritized self-preservation above all others, he could not help but gaze back, ostensibly mesmerized by the blazing fire of their depths.
"What are you staring at?" the blonde indignantly shrieked a few moments later. "I said, let's fight!"
"Ah, yes… Apparently, a pretty sight caught my eyes," Kuroro politely replied. A smug grin crept on his face as he added, "I apologize for my inattentiveness. Worry not, for I shall only gaze at you from—"
The sentence was cut off by an angry fist from a blushing Kuruta.
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"T-t-that man…" he panted. "I-it's impossible!"
He then slowly felt for his right rib where a long gash continued to pour out more blood every breathing moment. He knew that he will be dead soon. The moment that the man – or monster, whatever he is, finished killing the last of the hunters, he will surely look and kill his last victim, him, to clean off the slate.
"There's s-seven of us… h-he…" he muttered to himself. And just as he was preparing to meet his doom behind a huge boulder, he realized that the Master Thief had not come after him yet. Getting curious as to what might have caused the renowned mass murderer to cease from ending his piteous existence, he risked a glance over the boulder.
There was a blonde boy, just about fifteen to eighteen of age, conversing with Kuroro Lucifer. He blinked his eyes twice and realized that he is not hallucinating and the boy indeed has blood-red eyes. It does not matter that he does not have enough to summon his Gyo and live, he can still feel the angry aura of the boy whipping dangerously around the frail-looking body.
"A-a K-kuruta!" he gasped at the realization and then suppressed a scream at sudden pain that resulted from the gasp. "The last one…"
He crouched lower and grasped at his mortal wound which only seemed to worsen the flow of crimson life instead of slowing it down. He silently cursed and raised his remaining working hand as if to inspect his palm for any answers.
His family's prized Nen technique, handed down from generation to generation, is not a ruthless one. Rather, when he was still young, his kin always reminded him that people change as they grow and the technique was not meant to be a curse but a chance for the target to change over time. He had laughed at it many times before but had already mastered it long before his naïveté had been taken away by the harshness of real life. He had believed his father's – his master's, words until the older man's chase for righteousness had taken away his own life.
Until now, he had never used the technique. However, he still knew that he still have enough Nen to emit to complete the formidable curse. As he knew, the curse does not intend to kill anyone and it cannot. As a matter of fact, if looked upon by the victim correctly, it might even rectify old sins and straighten crooked paths. Time, after all, is the greatest healer, creator and destroyer of all.
However, of course he intended Kuroro Lucifer to die. His master died from his hand after being assigned to catch the elusive Master Thief. And now his comrades had left him on his own on the same manner. Surely, that should be enough reason to want the demise of the Bandit Prince.
"All b-bets on the K-kuruta then," he whispered to himself, spurting more blood from his mouth onto his already blood soaked shirt.
He knew about the Kuruta clan's extinction too. His own family lived nearby the forest that hid the Rukuso Region from the entire world. When the entire clan had been wiped out, they had heard of a single survivor but never seen him. Now, seeing the boy's flaming red eyes gleaming with insurmountable hatred towards the same man that he wanted dead, he might as well help the kid with his predicament by throwing his last card – the Nen curse, to the table.
He could only hope that once he threw the curse over, that the Kuruta will not take pity and instead, take the chance to end the man's life immediately.
If not… well… the "change over time" part better work out.
Using the last of his Nen, he summoned a small ball of light.
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Kuroro spat blood on the ground and chuckled lightly at his assailant who defensively took stance just a few paces before him. Of course he had seen the attack coming. However, he was wondering on what else he can draw from the Kuruta.
"Impressive hit there, my little Kuruta," he said as he gracefully pulled out a napkin from one of his pockets to wipe the blood off his lower lip. "A little more practice and you might be able to hurt me."
The boy merely gritted his teeth in annoyance. The next hit will not be so light.
"Maybe it wouldn't be too bad to dance with you after all."
"Shut up!" the boy screeched as he lunged at the black-haired man. His chains lashed on the side, promising a bone-breaking landing.
Kuroro only smirked at the sight. It was the right choice to follow the jester's words after all. His Kuruta had gained a few more levels since the last time they met. Although he is still far from his prime, he can be quite a force to reckon now. Also, the boy had gained some weight and though he remained effeminate – Kuroro guessed that that part is rather permanent, not that he minded though, his lithe form promised sleek and toned muscles underneath all those layers of clothing.
And finally, those eyes… From the very start he knew why the stranger has such a strange fascination for this fruit… he meant… youth. All of the Kurutas' eyes are amazingly scarlet, earning them their other name of "organic rubies" as each pair glows wondrously red against any background – like rubies set upon any metal. But the boy's eyes were the most breathtaking pair he had ever seen since the entire massacre. All of the Kurutas died with valor and with flames eternally burning upon their eyes but none ever captivated him as the pair before him.
That reason made him want to keep the boy alive for as long as he can. The kid trailing after him and challenging him once he had overtook him were just welcome bonuses in this little game of his.
He sidestepped leftwards once to evade the chains and again to avoid the secondary attack when the boy suddenly changed his direction and yanked the chains. However, as he evaded the weapon and the Chain Assassin himself, a blinding light filled his peripheral vision from the left. He immediately hopped away from the commotion as a safety precaution.
Once the light died out, which was just a few seconds later, he was quite surprised to see no Kuruta in sight. Also, the boy's Nen seemed to have disappeared along with him. He blinked for a few times before shrugging and sighing at the loss of such a beautiful specimen.
He turned his heel eastwards, quite eager to follow the sunrise despite how cliché it must be, when the breaking of dawn was broken by the sweet, tinkling, muffled, but still frantic cry of—
"A baby?" Kuroro incredulously whispered as he curiously followed the loud wails until he came to the end of the clearing – the same place where the Kuruta might have landed had he finished his attack without the blinding-light-incident.
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AUTHOR's NOTES: I honestly do not know what has gotten into me. My muse has returned and taken my sanity as hostage until I get this fic out of my system. Please read and review!
Happy Birthday to my partner, Soran Ibrahim! XD (10/01/10)