(Author's Note: Please read the first Speed Hunter story, or things won't make a lot of sense- this is a direct sequel. Also, as for some odd reason this site won't accept asterisks, words/phrases between two dashes -like this- are supposed to be either sound effects or thoughts.)
Leorio let the huge textbook slide shut through his fingers with a dispirited sort of -PTHHFWAP- noise, pushing his ever-present dark glasses back up his nose with his other hand. He switched the desk lamp off, leaving the library lit only by the dim glow of the streetlights shining through the window, and slumped back in his chair, sighing. He rubbed the bridge of his nose and glared at the stack of books. A long moment, then in one quick movement, he stood up, sweeping the books into a bottom drawer he had yanked open with his toe, then spinning on his heel to snag his suit jacket from the back of the chair, kicking the drawer shut by way of finishing the motion. Then he stalked out, frowning.
-If I don't do something more interesting than staring at pictures of people's pancreas soon, I think I'm gonna lose my mind.- he thought irritably. -Going straight from the Hunter Exam to the craziness at the York Shin auction to THIS...- He shrugged to himself, ignoring the fact that the streets he was wandering down led to a rather rough section of Landinium. -Still... this is something I have to do.-
His thoughts were rudely interrupted by a youthful voice commenting "Nice night for a walk, neh? Although you really should be more careful where you wander." Leorio whirled, his switchblade in his hand and his jacket rolled around his other arm as an impromptu shield. There was no-one there. "Not bad," the voice commented. "Guess I didn't need to worry about you after all." Leorio frowned, starting to get angry. "Show yourself!" he demanded, raising his knife into attack position. "Oh, put that away." the boyish voice snapped peevishly. "You're more likely to hurt yourself than me with it, anyways." A brief pause. "And I'm HARDLY hiding. You're just not looking."
Leorio hesitated, lowering the knife a bit and glancing around again... then, reluctantly, looking up. He raised an eyebrow, as, upside-down, a kid... -Looks to be about twelve or thirteen... maybe fourteen.- Leorio thought with some surprise... returned the skeptical look (only upside-down) as he hung from a streetlamp. "I'm starting to think that Killua was more right than Gon, in this case..." the kid commented.
The premed student did a doubletake, but before he could comment, the kid untwined his feet from his ankles and dropped, grabbing the lamppost with one hand to right himself, then twirling around it once or twice, landing lightly next to Leorio. -Hrm. Spiky brown hair, kind of a pointy face, short and skinny, but already built like a distance runner... and glowing with Nen- some part of Leorio's brain informed him, now that the kid was out of the hazy glow of the streetlamp and more clearly visible. His own Ten responded automatically, sheathing him in the protective energies of Nen, and the kid gave him a lopsided half-grin.
"Nah, no worries. I'm not here to hurt you." the kid commented with a one-shouldered shrug. "You're Leorio, right?" "Leorio-san." Leorio corrected automatically, then looked at him. "You've met Gon and Killua?" he asked, then blinked as the kid (who had yet to introduce himself) doubled over laughing. After he had recovered a little, he managed to splutter "Hahaha... ooh... haha... I couldn't BELIEVE it when Gon told me that one... and it's TRUE..! Mate, you're... what, four years older than me, maybe five? Seriously, 'gramps', get over yourself." the kid grinned, straightening back up. Then the grin widened, and he made a florid formal bow, sliding past sarcasm into open mockery. "Ryozha Tenryu, the Speed Hunter, at your service."
The kid, now introduced as Ryozha, straightened up, the grin sliding off his face. "Actually, I'm hoping you'll be at mine, too... I was coming to look for you, because I remember Killua saying that you were studying at the Royal College of Physicians here." he said, then hesitated at the skeptical look on Leorio's face. "Lemme guess. 'How do I know you really know my friends'?" he commented. "Sheesh... where IS the trust these days, I ask you?" he mock-lamented. "M'kay... Gon- 'bout a year younger than me, spiky hair that looks kinda greenish-black, big brown eyes, usually carries a weird fishing pole with him, looking for his dad, WAY too trusting but with some serious wild-child skills to fall back on. And Killua..." he stopped when Leorio waved a hand. "Alright, alright, I believe you. But what do you need me for?" the older hunter asked.
Ryozha grumbled a bit, then fished his Hunter's License out of his back pocket, spinning it around his fingers a couple of times. "These things..." he grumped, waving the card, "are hardly the door-openers that they promised us in that silly orientation." The hunter license vanished with a speed that suggested sleight-of-hand, although Leorio caught a brief flash of Nen that hinted otherwise, and Ryozha continued "I need to get into the artifact rooms of the Imperial Museum of Arts and Antiquities, but they've been stonewalling me for nearly a week... always some different excuse. So..." he trailed off, and looked hopefully at Leorio, abruptly looking his age. "Well... I was hoping, since you've been here longer, you might know someone who could help me."
Leorio looked at the kid oddly, then grinned. "I DO know someone who can help you, in fact." he paused. "Me." Ryozha gave him a flat look. "... you." he said. "Watch and learn, kid; watch and learn." Leorio told him with a smirk.
Less than ten minutes later, the two of them were standing in the back rooms of the Imperial Museum, Leorio preening and Ryozha glaring at the guard's parting words of "Wow… ne'er thought I'd be meetin' a Hunter, much less two o' 'em on the same night… and so YOUNG, too!"
After he was safely out of earshot, Ryozha looked sidelong at Leorio. "Gotta admit, I'm impressed." he commented. "You don't look like much, but you got us inside in less than five minutes." Leorio frowned at him for a second, then shrugged and grinned. "So, what now, kid? If your head's half as smart as your mouth, we should be alright." "Oh, ha-bloody-ha." Ryozha snarked back at him, but there was a spark of mischief in his eyes and a faint grin hovering around the corner of his mouth.
Ryozha considered his newfound companion for a moment, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. "… wellp, Gon trusts you… even Killua said you're useful to have around sometimes, which is high praise, coming from him. He told ME… after helping me finish my OWN hunt… that I 'wasn't entirely useless.' So that's a pretty good recommendation, I guess." He shifted from one foot to another, then, in a blurred flicker, yanked one of the dusty crates out from its cubbyhole and perched on it. Leorio started violently, his eyebrows climbing, and started to say something, but Ryozha waved him off. "Just my hatsu, don't worry about it… at least not right now, if you want to hear what I'm doing here."
Leorio grumbled a bit, but subsided. Ryozha sat back a little, then frowned… "Ergh, where to start." He rubbed the back of his neck and fiddled with his ever-present headphones. After a moment, he sighed. "Part of the problem is I don't really understand all the stuff that's going on myself. Short form is, I've been hired to find something called the "Codex Obscurata"… or some thingS, more to the point... supposed to be a massive ancient library of some sort. Massive trove of ancient 'wisdom' and knowledge, yada yada yada… pretty much the usual sort of thing."
Ryozha shifted a bit on his makeshift 'seat', drawing up his legs and hugging his knees to his chest. "Only problem is, there's some weird crap happening in the background. I got the commission off the 'net- nothing too strange about that- but when I checked back to see if I could figure out a little about my would-be employer… nada. Not a trace- the e-mail account was a dummy, only thing that had ever been sent from it was the request and then the confirmation- ditto the bank account that the money had been wired from; it had been created that day, and then never used again. I went to the Hunter website after that." He hugged his knees a little tighter. "That's when I found out I wasn't the only one looking for the Codex Obscurata."
--
In another part of Landinium, a mismatched pair lurked in an alleyway, watching the busy streets impassively. After a while, the smaller of the two turned to his larger companion. "So why WE the ones ending up doing this?" he demanded. Sharp eyes glared out from under a ragged fringe of dark, almost greenish hair, the rest of his face hidden by a scarf patterned with a skull design over where his mouth would be. Despite being almost doll-like next to his hulking companion, his voice was sharp and impatient. The larger of the pair glanced down at him, nearly eight feet tall and so broad at the shoulders that he looked vaguely square, and sighed, a brief shake of his scarred head making incredibly long earlobes tipped with metal and rounded jewels flap for a moment.
"This was YOUR idea, Feitan." the Frankenstein-ish apparition reminded the Genei Ryodan's diminutive interim leader. "What, Franklin?!" the little bandit now identified as Feitan glared up at his huge companion. Franklin sighed again. "We found that Nen-remover on Greed Island. You decided he looked like an idiot, and when you beat that ant-queen-thing and became our deputy leader until we get Kuroro back, you told Shalnark to find another way, in case he WAS an idiot. Then you decided that this Codex Obscurata was our best bet and hauled me out to Landinium, since that's where all the clues pointed to." "Was a stupid plan." Feitan grumbled. "But we here anyways. Who we kill to get information we need?"
--
Ryozha shook his head uneasily. "I wasn't even able to get a hint as to who the others looking for the Codex were… or even whether or not there were was one person, a group, or even several groups." Leorio shrugged. "It's probably not important." he said casually. "Long as you're ahead, it shouldn't matter." Ryozha grinned lopsidedly at him. "Me being ahead isn't usually an issue." he murmured a little cryptically. "Anyways, we should get outta this storeroom before any of the other guards wander in here. What I need is probably on private display in one of the study rooms around here."
The two split up, and Ryozha searched at speed, whipping from one room to the next at speeds that would be considered excessive by just about any standard. Then he ran into a room full of ancient weapons… and was driven to his knees by a crippling wave of nausea. He crawled to his feet, staggering, and barely managed to contain a fit of dry retching. His head pounding, he stifled his first impulse (to run as far away as he could, as fast as he could… which was very), and managed to clear his head enough to identify the source of the feeling- hostile, basically undirected Nen of immense power… and possessed of a user that did NOT like him. Opening his Shouko wider, he slid into Ken, the golden glow around him intensifying and hardening as Nen poured out of him.
-Phew…- he thought weakly. Tracing the source of the Nen waves wasn't hard… they were radiating like miniature explosions of anger from… -A mace..?- he wondered. He looked a little closer, and blanched as memory washed over him… memory all but blotted out under a red haze of berserk fury.
A tiny cell… Gon, battered and near death under the questioning of a madman… Killua and himself, chained to a wall. Nen swirling around the room… gathering… chains shattering… and a fearsome Morningstar running and melting like hot wax under the kinetic fires of his hatsu. He trembled uncontrollably, terror warring with rage pinning him to the spot like a deer in headlights. With a growl, he swung his arm blindly, a Mach two swat spinning the mace away to embed it two feet deep in the wall. With the thing sunk to the 'hilt'... if Ryozha had looked closer, he would have seen that the 'mace' was actually an armbone sunk partway into the head of what used to be a morningstar, forming a fearsome-looking weapon... in the wall, the emanations of nen diminished somewhat, enough that he could think (and move) again. The boy shuddered, stepping away after a cursory glance told him what he sought wasn't here either.
--
Jack 'Cutter' Graves started to breathe again. Hidden in the shadows of the Ancient Weapons' Study Room, the petty thief had nearly had a heart attack when the boy appeared, apparently out of nowhere, in the doorway, then stalked forwards towards him. He had nearly passed out when the boy suddenly… twitched… and there was a thunderous bang and a cloud of powdered stone as one of the weapons was embedded in the wall without any apparent intervening movement. Then the boy was gone again.
Swearing at the kid, whoever he was, and wishing he had some way to pay him back for what felt like a near-fatal shock to his system, Cutter drifted over to the weapon, drawn oddly to it by what felt like little more than simple curiousity. He poked it briefly, and felt a tingle. Grabbing it, he gave an experimental tug, and found it slid out of the stone wall quite easily- a shocking display of strength that was orders of magnitude beyond anything he normally should have been able to muster, but somehow, now, seemed… right. He shrugged and shouldered the silvery weapon. It was as good a piece as any, and it wasn't likely he'd be able to get into one of the rooms with more valuable gear with that bloody kid charging around. Grumbling silently to himself about the brat that had ruined his haul that night, Cutter slid out the door and towards an exit he knew to be unguarded.
--
Ryozha was so badly shaken by his encounter with the malevolent Nen that he nearly missed the object of his search- the document archives. Jogging back to the door he had flicked open and then left after a quick glance in, he slid it open and shifted noiselessly through the opening. A quick glance around revealed the room to be empty, and he rang Leorio's phone, letting it ring twice before snapping his phone shut, the pre-arranged signal that he had found what he was looking for. A few fast button-presses, and his GPS coordinates were loaded across, letting the older Hunter home in on him with ease.
Ryozha was briefly thankful that the building was very nearly empty when Leorio simply strolled down the hallway, booted the door open, then banged it shut. "So, what've you got?" he asked cheerfully. Ryozha gave him a look, then gave a one-shouldered shrug. "Not a lot, at this point. But if the Imperial Museum has anything related to what I need, this is where it is." He waved a hand vaguely. "If you want to help me look, I'm looking for info on the Codex Obscurata." Leorio nodded. This had potential to be… interesting. He grinned, and flipped open a filing cabinet. The grin faded abruptly when the filing cabinet failed to open and instead nearly tipped over on top of him. He flailed at it for a moment, managing to right it once again, choking in the cloud of dust he had just raised. Ryozha, who had riffled through three exhibits in the time it had taken Leorio to nearly squash himself, glanced back. The older Hunter irritably blew off the pile of dust that had settled onto the bridge of his nose and glared at Ryozha, daring him to say anything.
The Speed Hunter shook his head. "… yeah, reeeeeally starting to think Killua was more right." Another shrug. "Then again, you found a locked filing cabinet, which might be useful." Pushing past Leorio for a moment, he lay his hand, palm flat, against the top drawer. Then he jiggled it a bit and concentrated. Taking the 'jiggle' momentum, he shifted it into the lock mechanism and twisted, poking and prodding until there was a sharp -CLICK-. Then, sweating, he repeated it with the other two drawers. Once he'd finished, he sank back, sprawling full length on the floor. "Sorry." he gasped. "Thatkindofdelicateworkisdraining. I'llbeokayinalittlewhile… checkforstuff'bouttheCodex... please?" Leorio looked at him for a moment, then bent down and checked his pulse. The premed student's eyes went wide as Ryozha's pulse hammered under his fingers so fast that it felt as if his veins were vibrating. Ryozha jerked his hand away and glared weakly at him. "Partofmyhatsu,leaveitalone,pleaselook?" he spat out, the words jumbling together. The older hunter looked at him dubiously for a moment, then shrugged and turned to the file cabinet, keeping half an eye on his young companion.
Leorio riffled through the files quickly, finding little, as the files were all labeled in an obscure near-code series of abbreviations. He sorted through more carefully, all the while keeping a sharp eye on Ryozha, who was flat on his back, gasping like a fish out of water. The Speed Hunter sat up, wincing a little, as Leorio turned to him with a handful of files. "You sure you're okay?" he asked cautiously, giving Ryozha another look. Ryozha nodded. "It'snotusually a bigdeal…Ijust have troublecontrollingmy speed sometimes if I workittoohard." He paused, thumping himself over the earhole in an apparent attempt to clear his head. "AlthoughI'vegot to say that doing fineworklike that is badly drainingstill…" He hopped to his feet in a move so fast that it wasn't even blurred… just, one instant he was sitting on the ground with his arms around his knees, the next he was standing up and reaching for the folders Leorio had.
He took the folders, snagging them out of Leorio's hands so fast that the premed student nearly got friction burns. A brief, blurred riffle of the pages, and he nodded. "Whaffu ga?" Leorio demanded, sucking his half-scorched fingers. Ryozha had already riffled back and forth through the folios five times before the sentence had finished, and he shrugged helplessly. "I'm really not sure- the folders you snagged have the right titles, but they're all in some ancient language… or multiple ancient languages, dunno… and I can't make heads of tails of it." He thought for a moment, then pulled out a digital camera. There was a flash of peach-coloured Nen around it as he started snapping pictures of each page as fast as he could flip them over… which was VERY.
Five minutes later, he had digital copies of everything Leorio had been able to find regarding the Codex Obscurata. Then he vanished. Leorio blinked, just standing there for a moment. Then Ryozha reappeared, rubbing the back of his neck and looking embarrassed. "Er… sorry about that. I've been running solo for the last few months, ever since Gon, Killua and I tracked down the Grand Treasure of the Ophirate. So… uh, I tend to forget that most people can't really keep up when I do that." He paused. "Uh… or even really see me, for that matter." Leorio held up a hand. "Let's get out of here first… and then you're GOING to explain that."
They left via the same door they came in. "Leaving already?" the guard questioned. "Most folk spend the better part of a month just figuring out the filing system. You find what you were looking for?" Ryozha just nodded. "Remarkable." The guard commented. "'Remarkable' tends to happen when Hunters are around." Leorio commented offhandedly. "Kind of goes with the job." Then he and Ryozha ambled contentedly off into the night. Once they had rounded a corner, Leorio… well, he didn't relax, exactly, but he seemed to shift gears a little, going from the affable not-quite-loser that had charmed his way past the guard to a much more focused persona. He gave Ryozha a serious look. "Alright, now it's time for you to explain. Do you even know what that 'hatsu' of yours is doing to your body?" he demanded, continuing to walk. Even a city as safe as Landinium still had its problems, and standing around after dark could attract all the wrong kinds of attention.
Ryozha kept pace, concentrating hard to keep himself at a more normal speed. "S'called Superspeed, Leorio. Not that tough a concept." Leorio gave him a dirty look, and Ryozha shrugged. "I don't really like explaining my hatsu, especially not wandering around an unfamiliar town." Leorio didn't comment, just kept looking at him. Eventually, Ryozha tossed his hands in the air. "Fine. Stop by my hotel room, and I'll see if I can explain things to your satisfaction." he grumbled. "And while we're walking, do you know anyone who can translate ancient languages? At a guess, these documents are in at least three different languages, and I don't know any of them." The younger hunter was frowning at the display of his digital camera, which was flickering fast enough to look vaguely seizure-inducing. "That's probably not very good for you, y'know." Leorio commented offhandedly. "Shush." was the irritable response.
A short walk brought them to a small, cheap hotel, and Leorio raised an eyebrow. "I thought you said that you had found some huge treasure with Gon and Killua." "The Grand Treasure of the Ophirate, yeah." Ryozha responded. "So?" "So why… this?" Leorio questioned, gesturing vaguely at the sad little hotel. "It's cheap, and near where I wanted to be. S'not like I'm planning on setting up permanent residence or anything." Ryozha told him. "Anyways… my hatsu. It doesn't actually put that much strain on my body… normally, anyways… because I'm using my Nen to move myself, rather than my muscles." he paused. "Er, sorta." The boy cast around for a way to explain things. Eventually he gave a one-shouldered shrug. "I'm actually Manipulation type; my specific hatsu lets me mess with kinetic energy." A brief twitch and his door was unlocked, far faster than Leorio's eye could follow. Ryozha caught the look- about halfway between amazement and exasperation- on Leorio's face, and dragged his hand over his own face. "Ergh, sorry… when I'm concentrating hard on something else, my control isn't very good." He shoved the door open and went inside, not bothering to hold it open for Leorio.
Perching on the edge of the sagging little bed as Leorio leaned against the wall, watching him. "Okay, one last try- my Nen lets me mess with kinetic energy; I can amplify it to go faster, dampen it to go slower, and redirect it. All that means that my speed isn't putting any more strain on my body than normal running would. And I've kept in training for that." -My Nen ALSO lets me store and release kinetic energy for whenever I need it, but I think I'll keep that to myself for now, Gon's friend or not.- he added silently to himself. Leorio just nodded. "So… now that you've got all that, what are you going to…" he started, before being cut off by an explosion outside.
Leorio lunged for the window, moving at an impressive clip. The Speed Hunter had (naturally) beaten him there- Ryozha had been at the window before the echo got there. On the street in front of the cheap hotel, a car was upside down and burning. "That's actually not a bad trick, you know." Ryozha commented offhandedly. "Assuming that was done with a standard bullet and not an RPG or something, it's a lot harder than the movies make it look to get a car's gas tank to blow up." Leorio gave him an odd look, but only muttered "And you complain about ME wandering in a bad section of town…" while pulling out his heavy beetle-shaped celphone. He flipped it open and hit a few keys, tuning in to the police band with the shortwave function. A brief crackle, and then the dispatcher's voice came through. "Elements of the Devil Hooligans and the Nostrad Family are clashing on One Hundred and Eighty-First Street, in the Seven Hundreds block… automatic weapons fire has been reported…" crackled from the small speaker before Leorio cut it off, startled. "Nostrad Family?" he repeated. "I didn't know they had any dealings here… wonder what's going on?"
Ryozha was back on the bed, crosslegged with his laptop on his lap, pounding away as he brought up the Hunters' Website. He glanced up at Leorio's comment. "You know the Nostrad clan?" he asked, sounding almost as startled as Leorio had. "Aren't they a pretty big Mafia family?" Leorio shook his head. "Not exactly- they've got some power, but they're still small- they rose fast, but Kurapika never really told me what was behind it, although I'd be willing to bet that he knows." Ryozha tilted his head, birdlike, and gave Leorio a curious look. "Ah… right." Leorio added, turning away from the window. "Kurapika is a friend of mine… and Gon's, for that matter- we took the Hunter Exam together. Kurapika works for the Nostrad family now as a bodyguard… has something to do with a longstanding hunt of his." he finished, a little evasively. Ryozha just nodded.
Then he hopped up from his research. "Alright… nothing much on the Hunter Site about the Devil Hooligans- they seem to be a small-time street gang, mostly, without any real interests beyond football, drinking, and defending their 'turf'- they don't even seem to have any drug connections. But the Nostrads are here on 'official' business- a lot of body smugglers pass through here, and they're looking for a cut of that action." Leorio shuddered discreetly, but declined comment… and then noticed that Ryozha was gone. The missing Hunter poked his head back around the doorframe, inquiring testily "Coming? Three of the Nostrad goons and one of the Devil Hooligans have active bounties- that's all I wanted to check- we can't really leave them shooting up the neighbourhood anyhow." "Uh… right." Leorio riposted, following him out the door.
The two paused in the dimly let stairwell of one of the basement entrances of the hotel. "The Nostrad have taken up positions in the alley across the way- I think they're going to use the second story of that pub to take the high ground and pin the Hooligans down." Leorio started. Ryozha nodded. "You take the Hooligans, I'll get the Goombas." "Wait, shouldn't we…" Leorio started, holding up a hand, but Ryozha was already gone. "plan." He finished, dropping his hand to his side. He shrugged irritably, pulled out his switchblade and flipped it open. "Oh well. Here goes."
Leorio waded into the battle, a shadow in a mediocre suit. The Hooligans were brawlers, mostly- armed with improvised weapons, big, and strong, but with little technique. Undeniably fighters, though… but still no match for a Nen-empowered licensed Hunter, even one without much training, like Leorio. A flying kick rolled into a sweep, then a quick toe-kick to the temple, and two Devil Hooligans were down… quickly followed by a third as a shallow slash disarmed one of his cricket bat, followed by a quick rabbit punch to the breadbasket laying him out, while the fourth was kicked in the head at the same time.
A hard shove rocked a car sideways, skidding a few feet and catapulting the three Hooligans using it as cover into the wall behind them, stunning them, then Leorio hopped behind the car himself as rifle fire chewed up the ashphalt near him. Then he flinched and leapt clear, running hard as the bullets punched cleanly through the vehicle. He risked a glance around as he sprinted.
The Devil Hooligans were winning.
The Nostrad Mafiosi had nearly twice as many men, advanced, maybe military weaponry, the high ground, snipers, and, by the looks of things, the advantage of surprise.
The Devil Hooligans were winning.
The Devil Hooligans had improvised weapons, almost no firearms, and no combat training.
And they were winning.
Black-suited Mafiosi littered the ground, outnumbering the Devil Hooligan casualties by nearly three to one. Leorio managed to get behind a heavy stone planter, chips flying off as frantic fire chewed at the front of it. -This doesn't make any sense.- the premed student thought grimly. He lay still behind the planter, and the fire (at least in his direction) slowly tapered off. -It just doesn't work this way. Half-drunken thugs pinned under a crossfire from above by superiour weaponry don't make comebacks. Unless…- he paused, then scrabbled for his phone… and then paused. -There's something else at work here. And I have no way of warning the kid... he never gave me his number. He's in TROUBLE.-
Ryozha, meanwhile, was in his element. Heavily armed though they might be, the Nostrad goons had little chance against someone… even a fourteen-year-old someone… who was moving faster than their bullets. A blurred whisper was all that anyone ever saw of him.
Until he ran into an almost-solid wall of enraged Nen.
(Author's note again... Ain't I a stinker? Updates will hopefully follow soon-ish, although I don't have any set schedule for this)