*HxH Disclaimer*

Author's Notes: Inspiration is both a blessing a curse, ain't it? ^^;;; Here I am with another story. GOSH DW-chan, you sure know how to focus! I frown at your ADHD. I also frown at how you address yourself in the second person. O.o

I'd like to thank Bai-Feng once more for this madness. xDD Our muses seem to be churning out one story after another, beginning a new one without first finishing the others. Eh, I welcome myself to the club of authors who work on several series fics simultaneously. I guess I'm right at home. :P I'd also like to thank her for making me FanArt for my story (which I used as my story cover image). :D She did the lineart, while I colored it manually with pencils. My skills in Photoshop are non-existent. O.o

Anyhow, I'll still prioritize my other stories and just have a look-see at how this one will be received by readers. Let me know! :D Reviews, remarks, etc. are welcome, of course. ^^

Warning: character death. Aw come on, it was at the summary. xD

Onward. ^^

Scarlet Symphony
By: DW-chan

One: Imminent

The Hunter Association called it the Transmuter Terrorist Wars.

It was a rough translation of what was really happening: unknown Nen Transmuters were targeting random areas of world continents, in the guise of seemingly harmless civilians, until they started acting. In a matter of seconds, they translated their aura to mimic the all-destructive force of a nuclear warhead, absorbing the energies in their proximity, and then finally detonating like the human bombs they were, destroying their own bodies, taking their own lives, and the lives of hundreds upon thousands in a nearly two-hundred mile radius.

That much power held by Transmuter individuals was unheard of, even if the notion of suicide bombers was not a new one. The origins of the said bombers remained unknown for the first few months, but the surmise had been Meteor City—and then it was confirmed. The motives were unknown save for extremist ideals of creating an anarchic society outside of Meteor City. The perpetrators were at large, and whether they were still alive or already dead, the suicide bombings haven't ceased for nearly two years.

The Hunter Association had to intervene.

They were no military force, and a large part of the Association remained fragmented, but a good number of the world's most powerful Nen users resided within the Association. Contracts were made. Defensive and Offensive Units were formed and dispatched. Disinterested and uninterested parties found themselves relenting to be part of the Units, especially when their homelands were threatened. A Hunter usually cuts himself or herself from their origins—but their humanity won over. About a thousand Hunters were participating in getting to the bottom of the Transmuter Wars, with Hunter Transmuters at the forefront.

Dystopia. Whether the Hunter Association admitted it or not, it was their worst nightmare. Their privilege of being free souls were slowly being revoked, especially when thousands of lives have already been taken needlessly, and for still cryptic reasons. Their individualistic existences were weaved into an almost organized force. Almost. The Hunter Assocation never entirely forced obligations, but this was an exception. They had wanted volunteers—until one by one, the volunteer Units, to the Association's mortification, horror, and surprise, were being wiped out.

Blacklist Hunter Kurapica, you are needed at the crime scenes. Report to the organization within forty-eight hours.

Kurapica received the urgent message both through his personal email and mobile phone one morning. He had been married to Senritsu for five years, and with two children, twins, barely past their toddler years. Once, the choice was simple. Now, he had a family. The Kurata lay back on his chair in his home study. So it has come to this.

His vendetta with the Genei Ryodan had ended upon his decision to carry on his bloodline through one of the people he had loved the most in his young lifetime, whom he had known for twelve years. Senritsu herself had nearly accomplished her goal with the Dark Sonata, having returned to her original form, losing her superhuman hearing, but gaining other faculties back in compensation. There was profound love in the marriage. However, as Kurapica gazed at the message from the Association before him, he knew that practical measures had to be done.

I will be reporting in twenty-four hours, Kurapica replied to the message. There was no time to hesitate. He turned his head, swiveled his chair a bit, to find his wife by the doorway of the study. Senritsu pored into his eyes for a while, as they have wordlessly communicated over the years. She finally held her gaze down. After long minutes of silence, and as Kurapica stood from his chair, Senritsu looked up at him again. She slowly nodded.

Cheadle, the acting Chairperson of the Association at the moment, averted her eyes from the twenty active screens which monitored twenty Units all at once, and turned to the waiting party before her: the Twenty-First Unit.

"Forensics, investigation, and combat," she stated firmly, addressing fifteen individuals before her. "They are the best known qualities of a Blacklist Hunter. Surprisingly, ten of you are Specialists, and five of you are Enhancers. The seventh Unit, mostly composed of Blacklist Hunters also, had traced about fifty-two radicals, some of whom may be would-be suicide Transmuters, from Meteor City. However, their target areas are still unknown. I want you to find out and make them known to us."

Kurapica kept his eyes straight, surreptitiously glancing at one the screens in front of them. It was monitoring the sixteenth unit; to his surprise, they happened to be on a chase with two target Transmuters.

"Sixteen to base, we have targets sighted."

Cheadle abruptly turned to the screen as those words were heard through audio wave surrounding the room. Cheadle motioned to one of the communicator stations at the left of the room, to which a young man, possibly a greenhorn Hunter, replied to the broadcast. "Copy that, Sixteen. Keep targets locked. We are sending reinforcements." He then, in turn, motioned to the communicator next to him, this time, a young woman. She immediately kept in touch with the eighteenth unit.

"Wow, you got this place running like some military shit place," one of the Hunters of the newly-christened Unit Twenty One remarked. "So what happened to the actual military?"

"Gone," was Cheadle's succinct reply. Her face was straight, matter-of-fact.

"Gone? Gone as in—"

"Dead. Disassembled. We can no longer rely on them."

"So the world turns to us now?"

Cheadle sighed, and stepped to meet the speaker, a man in his early thirties. "Hakkan," she addressed the man, "the Association made the choice, just when we thought we had none. It's been nearly two years. People continue to die, Hunters continue to disappear, and the world is in impending all-out chaos. The Hunter License you earned had always served a greater purpose than yourself. Take that chance." She returned to her position a distance away from them. "But I know you've done so, as you have answered to our summons."

The Hunter named Hakkan raised a brow, then shrugged. "Still not sure if we're getting a paycheck out of this. But what the hell. If those fuckers target Illumina City, I'll shove their extremist ideals down their throats."

Cheadle smiled inwardly. Whether they wanted to or not, Hunters would always return to their roots.

Another Hunter who was in line with Kurapica had also turned his gaze to the screen.

"All-out chaos, huh?" the man said quietly, but everyone, including Cheadle, heard.

"Sixteen to base. Eighteen has confirmed that the next target is Akaser City."

"GO!" Cheadle yelled. The communicators began to relay her message.

It happened quickly. The targets seemed to have been swallowed up by a Nen dragon-like creature, and then by an even larger Nen blast of white light; but suspects emerged, third degree burns on their bodies, but they drove on, and on, until they were in Akaser City.

"Sixteen to base. We failed to eliminate the targets. We can only contain the explosion. It's been an honor serving you—"

Cheadle's eyes were wide. Every person in the room held their breaths. Kurapica stood there, face straight, resolute.

The screen went blank. There was only static.

There was a momentary silence, until an audio wave transmission was heard again: a mournful voice of a woman. "Eighteen to base. Sixteen is gone."

Cheadle held her ground. "And the explosion?"

"Contained. Seventy-three casualties: fifteen Hunters, two targets, fifty-six civilians—"

"What could have been the estimated casualties had the explosion not been contained?" asked Cheadle in a voice that reverberated with expressed command.

"Three thousand."

Kurapica could see that Cheadle's hands were trembling. She clenched them in an attempt to steady them. The chairwoman's eyes, to Kurapica's light surprise, looked straight into his, even as she was addressing the team. She swallowed hard before proclaiming:

"And that, ladies and gentleman, is how you do your job."

It was Kurapica's turn to clench a fist.

Cheadle broke her gaze from him, spreading her gaze to the fourteen other faces before her. "Unit Twenty One, that is all. Dispatch."

Fifteen Hunters turned their heel to walk away and carry orders, and Kurapica was about to leave with the others when Cheadle lightly gripped his arm.

"Kurapica."

It was amazing how the Chairperson knew each Hunter by name. Then again, she had their files with her before any of them came to see her in person. Kurapica stopped on his tracks to respectfully regard the canine-like woman.

"Yes, Chairperson Cheadle?" He was transactional, but he couldn't hide his curiosity.

"Here."

Kurapica looked at what the woman handed to him. Earlier, somehow, he had been requested to momentarily surrender his Hunter License; Kurapica was not one to quickly trust such actions, but it appeared that the Association knew what it was doing, and he obliged.

What Cheadle held in her hand was his Hunter License, only this time, it had an engraved hologram in the shape of what unmistakably was a star: two triangles, one upright and one inverted, crossing together, across the two primary X's of a regular Hunter License. His License had been converted to that of a Single-Star Hunter's.

Kurapica did not expect this honor, not right now, and perhaps not even. "Chairperson Cheadle, what have I done to deserve this promotion?"

"It's not what you have done," Cheadle responded. "It's what you are about to do."

Kurapica's eyes narrowed; nevertheless, he took the License from her.

"What would that be?"

Cheadle, once more, looked at him straight in the eye, despite a huge height difference. Her mien did proclaim that she was a Chairperson who can garner the needed support when it arose. "I've heard what you've done, and what you're capable of doing. Kurapica, you will lead the Twenty-First Unit. Command them well."

With that, she turned around, her paw-like hands strung in front of her. "You are dismissed."

Kurapica entered the audio wave code and transmitted his message to the Hunter Headquarters, loudly and clearly. "Twenty-One to base. We have unearthed data on what could be the Transmuter Terrorists' next target. It is the entire Azian Continent. Do you read me? The entire Azian Continent. No exceptions. They decided that all cities will be devastated. Base, do you copy? Over."

"We copy, Twenty-One." The voice was unsteady and frightful. There was a pause. A new voice seemed to have taken over. "This is a big one, Twenty-One. Sending Units One to Ten to you right away. Copy that?"

"I copy." The discovery shook Kurapica as it had shaken the rest of the Unit. Seven among the Unit had families and homes in the Azian Continent. The attacks had been done in increments before this, one city at a time, and at most, five cities simultaneously, but in areas far apart from each other, and Units have been dispatched accordingly, if only to evacuate the targeted cities. Almost always, the Units perished with the bombers in attempts to contain the explosions. Sometimes, they succeeded; sometimes, they did not. Units were replaced, added, replaced—it had been a month. None of those who survived were sent home. Not yet.

It was Kurapica's Unit who had successfully caught one of the perpetrators—a tall, gaunt man born and raised in Meteor City. Despite the mad tales of lunatics starting and keeping the Wars alive, the man resonated the opposite. He was calm, carrying an air that was almost educated and erudite. Kurapica himself, together with a Crime Hunter, a man named Izo, had interrogated him.

"What did society do to deserve annihilation, Genro?" The man had a name, but like those of Meteor City, he had no records of his existence.

"Its bleeding imperfection," Genro had replied. His voice had a learned tone to it.

"So you claim to be the perfect human race in Meteor City?"

Genro smiled. "No."

"What then?" Kurapica crossed his arms. At twenty-nine years old, his boyishness, and almost feminine features had melted away into the face of a man: a prominent jaw, piercing dark eyes where he still wore contacts, and a face that harbored a level of maturity. He also had grown considerably tall, nearly as tall as Leorio himself.

"Persecution towards Meteor City had reached its height," Genro replied. "We keep to our business, but your society continuously probes to ours. Have you heard of the Seruvian Massacre?"

Kurapica did not reply, but Genro, in his intelligence, knew Kurapica and Izo, and perhaps many of the Hunters, did not know.

"Society had covered up the massacre of about two hundred residents of Meteor City who happened to be in one area at one particular time."

"Who massacred them?" It was Izo this time. Kurapica felt a chill creep in him. The very mention of the word "massacre" still sent his blood running cold.

But Genro, this time, did not reply. He began to foam in the mouth, and he convulsed violently, until his life faded away. Kurapica knew this tactic of self-destruction when they could not escape the trap of giving away information. Kurapica held his head down to look at the dead Genro in the eye.

So this is revenge, he conversed to the corpse silently. He relayed what he had acquired from Genro soon after to the heads of the Hunter Association. Revenge, a deadly sentiment.

Kurapica was harshly taken back to the present and away from his meanderings when a relentlessly blinding light hit his eyes. About a hundred miles away, a micro-nuclear explosion occurred. A great billowing pillar of dark smoke in the infamous shape of a mushroom filled the expanse before them. Gravity seemed to assault them as the impact shook the ground and atmosphere. Immediately, the Enhancers of Unit Twenty One filled the front lines and created a vibrating Nen dome around the team, which retracted the remnants of the blast.

"We just signed our fourth death sentence in two weeks, Kurapica," Hakkan told him, his face covered in sweat and dirt. "We're covered in radiation now, even if the guys keep shielding us."

Kurapica seemed to ignore him. "The Transmuters must have known that we know."

Hakkan's face darkened. "The Azian Continent. Will the ten units make it in time?"

Kurapica faced Hakkan with an unreadable expression. "They'll pull through. Then we follow."

"Always so damned sure," Hakkan muttered in wonder. "I still don't get it. Why don't they use real warheads? They're just wasting their miserable lives needlessly blowing themselves up like that."

"The Meteor City radicals believe in a cause they have to carry out themselves."

"So, they're no different from us, eh?" Hakkan's grimy features bore a hint of confusion.

"No different. Let's go."

Several portions of the Azian Continent were definite war zones. Micro-nuclear explosions—explosions not as damaging in a great scale but deadly nonetheless—ignited here and there, so that daylight was overrun with the furious, slicing brightness of the blasts. Kurapica knew that the "enemy" was tiring them out before they executed the final blast that would wipe the Azian Continent from the world map. He made certain that his Unit was put on reserve. Two Units have perished already.

Kurapica ran his tongue through his cracked and bleeding lips. He looked down to his left hand, where his wedding ring wrapped itself around his third finger. It was the only thing that gleamed nearly pristinely in his dirt and filth-covered body. He closed his fingers; he could feel the pulsating warmth of the ring around his finger. He felt Senritsu's Nen in the ring. He felt her life force emanate from such a tiny thing. When they exchanged vows, they used their wedding rings as indicators to know how the other was doing. The warmth and glow of the ring, which only he can feel and see, let him know that Senritsu was alive and well. He closed his eyes. Will Senritsu still feel the warmth in her own wedding ring a few hours from now?

"When the time comes," he told his Unit, who looked at him with grave eyes. In the short time they've been a Unit, and they had been one of the Units that had lasted the longest since being dispatched, they trusted Kurapica. And Kurapica trusted them. "When the time comes," Kurapica repeated, trying to fight the weariness in his voice, "we contain the explosion with Units Five and Six."

"Just us?"

"Just us."

Confidence and hesitation hovered above them.

"We can do this," Kurapica assured them.

"If it's the last thing we do," Hakkan's bright hazel eyes gleamed.

Kurapica took a deep breath.

"It is."

Cheadle saw the monstrous blast through the screens that monitored the activity of the eleven Units sent to defend the Azian Continent. Her own tiredness showed on her face, in her demeanor. A large amount of radical Transmuters have perished today.

So did a large amount of Hunters. The civilians had been evacuated in a nick of time.

For a moment, the entire command room was lit with a haze sharper than daylight as the blast was transmitted through the screens. She could almost feel the heat gnaw at her skin, the same infernal heat that had turned dozens of bodies today into nothing but ashes.

She was stupefied. She stared at the screens like a wide-eyed mannequin. She was at loss for words and could not say anything to ease the palpable fear among her companions in the room—until an audio wave transmission, partly drowned by static, filled the room. Her heart almost fell. It was Kurapica's voice.

"Twenty-One to base," came the transmission. "The explosion has been successfully contained." The voice was weak. "Twenty mile radius. Only forty-eight casualties. No civilians."

The static filled the pause that hung in the air. The voice spoke again, for the last time. "Twenty-One to base. It's been an honor."

Cheadle watched the screens which broadcasted only static just as soon as the audio wave transmission stopped. Her eyes were glistening with unshed tears. She had done this many times before that it became protocol, yet, this time, she felt a profound emptiness inside her when, after a long, reigning silence, she turned to one of the communicators.

"Mikel," she ordered one of them. "Inform headquarters. Twelve Units have perished today." She found her voice once more as she said, "Afterwards, inform their families."

The report arrived from the Sky Units, after the blast considerably cleared: only portions of the Azian Continent have been destroyed. The Continent remained intact. There had been no threats from Meteor City afterwards. Everything seemed to come to a standstill. The Hunter Association could breathe and recover for a small, precious moment. Whatever happened today marked something in history—that Hunters were still powerful, and their sense of nobility had not waned.

Cheadle nodded, seemingly only to herself. "It's been an honor," she whispered.

The twins were at the Nursery playing "house" when the messenger from the Hunter Association arrived. Senritsu could not even feel the snaking coldness that grappled at her body when the messenger handed something to her in near-reverence: Kurapica's Single-Star License. She tried so hard to hold her composure.

"Where is the body?" her voice was steady enough, but she was drowning in darkness.

"The radiation hadn't cleared from it," the messenger replied. "His body was surprisingly preserved. The rest, there was no trace. Ashes, all ashes." The messenger seemed uneasy, then he cleared his throat. "We will let you know when you can see the body, ma'am."

Senritsu nodded. Her wedding ring felt like a dead weight around her finger. Three days before, she had witnessed the ring lose its aural glow, little by little, until it was snuffed entirely, and there was only coldness that covered her entire left hand. She did not believe it then. She did not believe it now.

When the messenger left, she walked straight into the Nursery, but the five-year-old twins were too immersed in their play that they did not see her by the doorway. Aika, the older twin, had red cheeks and a blanket on her head, like a veil. She laughed a hearty child's laughter. Kotone, her little boy, had the spun-gold hair of his father, and he was upturning a small table with all his might, so that their house had a "roof."

Little ones' laughter, she mused, holding Kurapica's Hunter License close to her heart. They're too young to understand. Three days ago, they no longer had a father.

She no longer had a husband.

She won't believe it.

She heard her mobile phone ring in her pocket; automatically, she picked it up and placed it to her ear. She did not really care whom she talked to this time, after hearing the worst news.

"Senritsu?"

A constriction in her throat made her gasp and swallow hard. Don't cry, not in front of the children. "Leorio," she acknowledged the caller.

"I heard." His voice was low and gentle.

"He's gone, Leorio."

It took a long, pensive moment before Leorio spoke again. "Senritsu, you and Kurapica had always known that I'm here for you. Do you… need me there?" There was a crack in his voice. Perhaps he was shedding tears. Perhaps he was just weary from long hours of medical duty.

Senritsu stepped out of the nursery. She fumbled at her wedding ring absently, a habit she had acquired since she started wearing it. She could still remember Kurapica's hand slide the ring through her finger.

"Senritsu?"

She did not reply.

Leorio spoke again. "I'll be there. Hold on. I'll be there."

The line was dead.

Back at the nursery was the sound of children's laughter: raw, robust, trickling like the purest crystal.

She will tell the children. She had to. Soon.

A/N: Yes, I have OC's again in this one. The "Transmuter Wars" is only a sub-plot; I plan to focus on a family romance drama, if that can even make sense! ^^ Hope that doesn't deter you from reading more chapters from this story. Updating this may be a bit slower than my other stories, as I have mentioned earlier, I'll focus on them first (ack yea right, DW-chan O.O)

Again, let those reviews flow in! ^^

Cheers!

DW-chan :3