CAUSATUM
Genres: Romance, Drama
Summary: They are on an island. Perhaps, as they had trapped their targets, they had been made targets themselves. / Hisoka x Machi, interquel to Desideratum and Obelus
A/N: This is an interquel to Desideratum and a direct sequel to Obelus. I suggest reading both first, in that order, since this story directly builds on the one before it. The story takes place less than a year pre-canon. There will come a point in the story where you wonder where I am going with this...please trust me! I have long wanted to put my Ryodan conspiracy theory into words and wrap up the trilogy I started with Desideratum, and I hope you enjoy!
They go to a waterfront city where each building is painted a different bright color and spend the afternoon sightseeing like tourists. And then they kill eight people. Their mission complete, he offers her another invitation.
CAUSATUM
The airship lands early in the morning, falling through a cloud of mist that makes the city below look even more like a dream. The cream-colored buildings with red tiled roofs sprawl at odd angles and incongruent heights as they follow the slope of the land, taking up every available inch and nearly spilling into the canals and waterways that rope the island as a net holds a fish.
A belltower off in the distance chimes the hour. Machi has brought only a single, small bag, containing only the barest of essentials for travel. Anything else she needs, she plans to purchase in the town. The clothes here are said to be of an especially fine quality, she recalls, as are their shoes, which should please her partner.
The thought of Hisoka sours her mood, and as she departs the airport, her bag slung over one shoulder, she looks for him among those gathered outside the road—if it can be called that, narrow and paved to look as old as the city beyond it, and bordered with a metal fence to maintain a view of the water on the other side. The water is choppy, and darker than she expects, even in places where the sun glints upon it through the clouds.
"There you are!" His voice calls out to her, accompanied by a wave, and he joins her to stand by the railing, overlooking the water. "I've been waiting for you, Machi."
He's wearing sunglasses, and a jacket in an oversize, strangely youthful style, but even in his choice of colors he's made no concessions from his usual fashion. The two of them stand out, she notices with distaste—their mission calls for subtlety, for speed and the acute senses they're known for.
"Were you waiting long?"
"I got in yesterday. Things are all ready for us." He pauses. "I have not started to surveil our targets yet. I figured you wouldn't want me to start without you."
She casts a long, glowering glance in his direction. "Can I count on you to be helpful at all, or are you just going to enjoy yourself here?" It's a surprise to her that he would have beaten her to the city at all—usually, Hisoka is a flake at best and an absolute hindrance at worst, mucking up her plans and taking on no responsibilities beyond those associated with combat. He only listens to her when she gives him an incentive, and even his claims of having things ready for them are still likely to benefit him more than their joint mission.
"Come," he says, gesturing down the path. "There are boats, this way. We should charter one. Unless you'd prefer one of the public ferries?"
Machi wrinkles her nose. "Lead the way."
She falls into step beside him, adjusting her pack over her other shoulder. They make the quick walk in silence, and Hisoka offers one of the boat pilots a wad of cash to see them to their hotel.
The boat eases out onto the water, and Hisoka moves to stand with Machi at the back of the deck. The wind ruffles her hair, pulling a few more strands in the front out of her ponytail, and she glances at him with another scowl. He looks perfectly at home, his own posture relaxed, moreso than she's seen from him in a long time. She remembers the first mission they'd done for the Ryodan, and how inimical Hisoka had been, and how even she could not placate his anger after missing out on meeting—and subsequently fighting—their leader. Since then, they'd done a number of small missions, with a few others in their retinue, but none were given to just the two of them, until now.
"It's interesting, what I've read about this place." It's Hisoka, his voice low like the rolling waves, and Machi finds herself turning towards him. "Why they put the airport on a separate island. Did you know, they used to quarantine travelers here, many hundreds of years ago, when there was a pestilence. They sealed off the city, and because of that they all survived. So you see, the city has quite a storied identity—you'll find nothing modern here, and both the buildings and the people are this odd combination of seclusion and accessibility. You can walk anywhere, but there are no true roads. Isn't that fascinating?"
Machi inspects her nails. "Very."
Laughter bubbles up from within him, and when the boat takes a sudden sharp curve his arm brushes against hers. She moves away, but on the next wave he slides another step closer, not fighting the momentum as the boat curves yet again to give a ferry heading for the airport enough room to pass.
"It's been awhile, Machi." His voice is breathier now, with an undercurrent of hearts, and as the aged buildings of the city come into sharper focus she concentrates on them instead of on her partner, mapping out the many tiny canals she can see jutting off in all directions and trying to map out their journey in her mind. "You never answered any of my messages."
"I figured no answer was an answer in itself." Already she can see how if the mission is to have any trouble, it's in the labyrinthine nature of the paths and canals that zigzag the city with no discernable form or function. There are bridges, with no shortage of pedestrians crossing each or stopping to take photographs of the small boats traveling beneath them. Machi ducks her head as one snaps a picture.
As the boat turns she's faced with another long canal that looks almost identical to the one before it, save for the different colors on the buildings around them. And so low in the water, she is unable to see any of the city's landmarks to further orient herself—a belltower, or a larger ornamental bridge or open square. There is nothing but slim stone pathways and pitched tile roofs, buildings sloping with the grade of the land and dark tunnels leading further into the city's interior. There are windowboxes, filled with flowers, even on the windows that face the canal, where the sun slices across the painted stucco walls and dims the lowest levels in shadows.
A moment later they pull up next to a flat landing. A few buildings over Machi can see the sign for their hotel—Il Rosso—and they climb out of the boat on steady feet.
This has been planned for weeks, Kuroro has told her. Most of the Ryodan are similarly engaged, on missions to steal or to complete a hit. She does not know where the others are, and even their leader has maintained a radio silence since he'd sent her—and Hisoka both—the details for the mission.
The hotel is modest and small, tucked between two much larger apartment buildings, and Hisoka breezes past the empty reception desk and calls a slow, rattling elevator to take them to the fourth floor. Hisoka laughs as he traces the illuminated floor button with a finger.
The doors open, and he holds them open with an arm for Machi to exit first. "Ours is the last, on the right," he says, passing the key to her. "You'll like the view."
She ignores the particular color to his voice, striding into the room and tossing her bag on the bed. The room is inconsistently gaudy—the walls are white and bare save for an ornamental mirror in the entry, but the curtains are a rich red brocade, overelaborate with tassels and layered with white sheers, and a brass fixture in the middle of the ceiling drips with crystal prisms. There's a desk in the corner, with a single chair tucked under it, and the bed, dressed in white linens and matching brocade pillows. It's dated in a charming way, and certainly nicer than she had expected, but not by much.
"It will do," she says, tugging the curtains open a little wider and watching the way Hisoka beams.
"And the view? What did I tell you?"
She glances at him. Hisoka isn't looking at the window.
"We have work to do," she reminds him.
"Give me a task, and I'll do it," he says. His eyes never leave hers.
"You have the names. We need to establish that they're in the city. Text me if you feel any Nen signatures, from them or anyone else. The number is the same."
"And you?" he asks.
"I have errands to run. We'll meet up afterwards."
"For dinner?"
"Yes." Machi reaches for her bag, searches for some cash.
"Will you let me buy you dinner?" Hisoka, in a mimicry of her own earlier actions, starts emptying his pockets and arranging the contents across the battered desktop. A deck of cards follows a familiar-looking cell-phone, and Machi looks away
Her fingers still over a wad of jenni notes. "Why not?" It'll mean she has more to spend on herself, later.
He looks pleased, and puffs up his shoulders underneath the crisp sleeves of his jacket. "You look ridiculous, by the way," she says, tucking the money inside her belt.
"I thought you'd approve," he says, "since you didn't like the last color of my hair, I changed it again for you."
It's a deep red, which is an improvement on the purple, and doesn't clash with the smudged designs painted on his cheeks in contrasting yellow and blue.
"I remember." She heads to the door, then pauses to consider her response. "I like it. I think you should keep it this way."
His shoulders stiffen, the surprise on his face suddenly morphing into suspicion. Spades in his voice. "Do you really mean that?"
Something to occupy his thoughts, then. For someone so used to changing his appearance on a whim, she wonders how her comments will affect him. She knows how she affected him in the past. Things are different now, but he would tell her they do not have to be.
"Machi-? Machi?"
She closes the door on his voice, and presses her back to the white-painted wood for a moment. She wonders if he can hear her laughter.
It's her practice to travel light on missions, to buy whatever she needs new and leave it behind when she moves on. She has money, more than she could ever use in a lifetime, and no habits like her Danchou's obsession with rare books or Shalnark's penchant for gadgets and technology. It is nothing to her to drop several hundred jenni on new clothes—a jacket in a boxy style she'd seen on other tourists, in a pastel shade with a large hood, and basic layers that she can conceal weapons in. There are cargo pockets on the pants. She thinks them ugly, but the point isn't to look overly fashionable or made-up. It's a disguise—a natural part of a mission like this one, where so much of her work is done out in the public, for anyone to see if they only care to look.
She returns to her room, after, her arms swinging with shopping bags—the clothes are put away, the food, prepackaged stuff for stakeouts and a necessity with the unpredictable hours they keep, gets arranged on the desk. There are maps she picked up, too, from a tourist shop, and she studies them with a knitted brow, trying her best to commit the waterways and marked paths to memory. Normally, it is an easy matter, and one she excels at, but these maps are all but worthless, and nothing sticks in her head beyond a few directional markers. The largest squares, the largest bridges.
She wonders why she's putting in so much effort. The mission is small and simple, and she reaches for her phone, pulling up the information she's read and memorized at least a half-dozen times prior.
It's an assassination mission—eight targets, spread out across the city, businessmen of ill repute who are to have a meeting at an unspecified location the following day. They are to watch their targets and dispatch them without drawing attention to themselves. There should be nothing to trace it back to them, and Machi plans to leave nothing to chance.
She changes clothes; in the gaudy mirror in the entryway she studies their effect, pulling the hood up to hide her hair and stretching her feet inside new waterproof ankle boots. She barely looks like herself. She doesn't feel much like herself either, and she cannot name the time and the place that she first began to slip. Her abilities are stronger than they've ever been, and while she's never had a problem with confidence she finds herself unmoved by her progress, by her accomplishments.
Perhaps it is that she has not seen anyone else from the Ryodan in months, not since her last mission with Uvogin and Nobunaga. They have barely even spoken since—there was some concern her medical skills would have been needed after whatever mission Feitan and Phinx had been a part of, but in the end they did not require her assistance. Danchou had updated her on their success, and thanked her for the time she'd spent on-call in Yorknew, ready to head to them at a moment's notice. She would stay with him, with them all, if she could. But she has never asked, not in so many words.
A buzz from her phone alerts her to a text from Hisoka—finished early, join me?—followed by a picture of the city's main square. Her hand hovers over the screen for a moment before she texts back a simple response. Be there in ten.
He responds immediately with a heart emoji, and she turns the phone upside-down on the desk and turns to gathering up a few necessities—the room key, money in case his earlier promise of dinner falls through, one of the maps, folded into a square. The phone goes into her other pocket, and she leaves without any further pause.
She spots Hisoka easily among the crowds surrounding a belltower—easily hundreds, that afternoon, ring its edges, but he stands out both for his height and the ridiculous ensemble he wears. He's making a mimicry of the tourists around him, using one flat hand to shade his eyes from the sun and leaning to the side to get the best view of the carvings along one wall. Cherubs and vines dance above the columns, and when Machi steps beside him, as she'd done at the airport, they study the landscape together for a moment.
"Do you like it?" she asks after a moment; something about the square seems to have attracted his attention, but he draws his gaze away from the sea of tourists and the arched columns surrounding the square to glance down at her.
"You care to know?" There is no derision in his voice, only curiousity.
Machi shrugs. After a few minutes, she's seen enough of it to last her. It's not nearly impressive enough to give her cause to linger.
"It seems like your kind of place." There are shops, along one end of the square, and carts selling all kinds of tourist memorabilia. Masks are one common feature, all painted in different bright colors. She has noticed more than a few with designs on the cheeks, like Hisoka's own signature makeup. In her estimation, he'll either be pleased by it or insulted.
"Most places are," he says. "I can have fun anywhere."
Machi lets out an exasperated sigh. "We are not here for leisure," she says.
"But you must agree it makes for an excellent cover. Look around us—we look just like any other couple on vacation. I would not dissuade someone of that assumption. And why should we? People will believe what is easiest to believe. And here, who would pay attention to us when there is all this splendor? We are all but invisible."
"And here I thought you liked to be the center of attention."
"Only yours." He makes a pleased smile at her frustrated huff.
Machi supposes she had walked into that one. "You have to earn my attention. What can you tell me about our targets?"
He waves one hand. "There will be time for that later. Come, I thought we could walk this way for dinner. There are a few places I'd like to point out along the way."
"Fine. Lead the way."
As they walk, Hisoka moves ever closer to her. Their pace is slow, matched to the others around them, but the path he takes avoids any of the stalls or buskers selling flowers or flags or more masks with different, poignant expressions. There are tears, and grimaces, and bright, clownish smiles. Machi tears her eyes away from them.
"They say this is the city of romance." Hisoka accentuates the last word, staring at Machi out of the corner of his eye. She can see a few other couples gathered around the fringes of the square, taking photographs or merely walking hand in hand. Her hands are empty.
"I thought that was somewhere else." A city of lights, a few countries over. She'd heard of it, but never visited. This city, too, she had never seen before that morning. "This city is known for deceit, I thought."
"Mystery, then. We can settle on that. It's in the middle of the two, no?"
"I suppose." It is a mystery, what there is to gain from any of this. Their playing at romance, walking like this, when it serves no point to the mission, to their lives, to anything. She doesn't know why she does it. Hisoka doesn't need a reason for anything he does. No reason is reason enough. She's seen him fight, seen enough sides of him to know that much. It used to irritate her a lot more than it does now.
Then Hisoka's hand alights on her arm, and they duck down a path to the left, beneath a tunnel. When they emerge, it is to a narrow street bordered with small, tightly crammed shops completely covered in shade.
"All eight have been accounted for," he says, his voice low, his head tilted towards her to speak directly into her ear. "I have their hotels and the location of their meeting. None of them appear to have even the slightest awareness of Nen."
"When and where is the meeting?" They turn another corner; a large influx of people on a guided tour pass them by, and Hisoka steps closer to her, turning his body to give them both enough room to pass and to hide his face from their sight. Machi does the same, hiding her face against his shoulder, even as she can feel him shake with silent laughter beneath her.
"You'll be glad to know, the meeting has actually been moved to tonight." He speaks softly but quickly, and Machi can feel the bloodlust simmering below the surface of his Nen. Perhaps it is made worse by the enclosed space, by the dozens of people walking ever so slowly past them, or her own imminent presence.
"At seven on the dot, in a building near the train station. They have their own private boat landing. We won't be disturbed. It'll be so easy, we could accomplish it between courses."
"What are you talking about?" The tourists passed, she draws back.
"Of course this does not change our dinner plans. Eh, Machi?"
She will not let her stomach growl, not while he could hear it, but the thought of dinner is not unwelcome. Nor is the thought that they could finish their mission even earlier than anticipated.
"Whatever shall we do with all that extra time?" Hisoka continues, taking another step forward. "We could sleep in tomorrow, if you like. I can see you're not one for sightseeing."
The apparent ease of the mission is not lost on her. "It's a test," she says, below her breath. From the way Hisoka pauses beside her, she knows he heard. "We messed up last time, so Danchou's giving us something easy to see how we handle it. Almost fool-proof. I was wondering why he would have given this to us, instead of the new number eight and their partner. This would make a good introductory mission—there's no need for a medic, or for someone of your strength."
"I did not mess up." He almost sounds offended, and a smile tugs at Machi's mouth that out of her entire speech, that was the part that had affected him most.
"You abandoned a teammate, sustained an injury, and compromised yourself and the mission for the chance to fight Danchou."
He waves his hand again. "Our client attempted to kill us. And the boss still got his target, in the end."
They turn another corner. "So, a win for everyone but you."
"How cold." His voice sounds anything but. And the talk of their prior mission seems to have, to her surprise, further lightened his mood.
Suddenly, they emerge into another square, and around a building she can once more see the glittering blue of water. She takes faster steps, curious eyes seeking out every new detail, and when they finally arrive at the canal's edge she has to admit that it's really quite something.
The sun has come out, and with the canal so wide—easily more than twenty times the size of the skinny waterways, with commuter ferries and larger passenger boats easily cruising side by side. Seagulls crow loudly overhead, and the buildings on either side of the water look like a postcard—each one painted like a different bright jewel. But where postcards are distant, this is anything but.
A series of restaurant patios line the canal on both sides, and Hisoka waves her over to one, inquiring about a table to the proprietor in the same breath. A moment later they are seated, Hisoka cheerfully resting his elbows on the tablecloth and smiling at her over his linked hands.
"They eat very late here, I've been told," he says. "Must be why the meeting time is what it is—perhaps they are going out for dinner afterwards? No last meal for them." He laughs to himself before glancing down at the menu.
They order, and drink, and eat, and Hisoka fills her ears with more chatter about their targets and inane details about his travels in the time they'd spent apart. He does not set himself to training, not in the traditional sense as she does, but in-between courses he'd boasted about a few arduous battles he'd had, to take the edge off, until he could fight a truly strong opponent. He does not say Danchou's name, which she knows is for her benefit, but it goes unsaid that what he is truly preparing for, and what he has never forgotten about, is that future radiant opportunity.
"May I call you, in the future?" he asks, and she can feel his aura tense and pulse again. "If I require a medic. It would be so much more fun, to be able to go all out and not have to worry about injuries, or recovery time."
"You can pay for the privilege, just like anyone else," she snaps back quickly. "You have my number. If you need healing, use it. I won't come if I'm busy, of course. But your death would inconvenience the Ryodan, and I'm sure I'd be held responsible for it anyway, regardless if I was there to heal you or not."
He chuckles. "I'll do that, then."
They fall silent, and as the tables slowly start to fill up around them Machi watches Hisoka study the groups around them before he turns his attention back towards her.
"Isn't this pleasant?"
The worst thing is, she thinks, he just might actually mean it. "I suppose."
"Tell me how you really feel, Machi." He lingers over her name, and she's reminded of just how much she hates the way he says it.
"Something is strange," she says. "It's not quite intuition, but I've always trusted such feelings in the past." There is hesitation in her voice, like even telling him something like this is letting him in in a way she won't be able to undo later. "That there is something we're missing."
"You felt this on our last mission," Hisoka states. "Right?"
"Only that wasn't that something was missing. It was that someone was keeping secrets from me."
"You feel I am keeping secrets from you? I am an open book, Machi, ask me anything."
She frowns into her glass, takes a sip, then clears her throat. "I want nothing from you."
"Not from me, then. But someone else?" He pauses, shifts his weight. "No, I don't want to talk about him. Perhaps we should walk around."
"Perhaps you should pay for dinner."
A smile cracks his face. "I did promise."
He pulls a bill from somewhere in his sleeve, a hundred-jenni note, and sticks it beneath the salt shaker, despite the fact their bill was worth maybe half that. Machi hadn't paid attention to what Hisoka ordered. He stands, and extends to her his hand.
"I know what will make you feel better."
She thinks of the mission, and their targets, all but waiting for them. How easy it will be, and how good a weapon will feel in her hands. She thinks he might just be right.
The window shatters at her back, the result of a stray bullet, and she fires her own stolen gun at the forehead of the last remaining living target. At her side, Hisoka carries a single, bloodstained playing card between two fingers, like one holds a cigarette.
Both guns are tipped with silencers. So convenient, these businessmen. At the window, Hisoka tosses his card into the canal waters below before climbing out onto the ledge. He brushes some of the broken glass off with one boot, then his image blurs as he jumps away.
Machi follows him a moment later, pausing to toss her gun into the canal. She casts a single glance back into the room, at each target in turn. It's obvious which ones Hisoka had been responsible for. While hers were dispatched quickly and dispassionately, the black suits of his targets are stained with the blood from their cut throats, or their limbs stick out at unnatural angles.
She spots Hisoka for a moment three buildings over, before his form blurs again as he moves, leaping across a canal and heading across the city for their hotel. She follows, taking the same path, and stopping at each point as he does, noting his progress and his carelessness. A loose roof tile, where he lands too harshly. A bloody handprint, where he grips the top of a post. He's standing even now, his back to her some distance away, before he vanishes again in a leap. The fact that she can even still follow him with her eyes is a testament to the fact that he's waiting for her. That maybe he wants to be chased.
Her next leap is more powerful, and she clears the canal in a single bound, moving to his side and surpassing him in a second. It reminds her of their last mission, and their run through the Baskan mountains. That was a contest of sorts, but this, this is camaraderie. He stays with her now, looping around and above her, laughing beneath his breath with wide, dark eyes. Like two wolves in a pack. She curls her lip at the comparison, even as she acknowledges how apt it is.
"Well, shall we return?" They stand on the slanted roof of a building just beyond their hotel. She can see it, the pale blue of the paint and the twisted wrought-iron railings of the mock balconies. It's not yet late, but suddenly the thought of turning in is very appealing to her.
Once again, the meager lobby is empty, and as they make their way to their room her awareness of Hisoka's simmering aura is heightened by the darkness and their proximity.
She had forgotten to leave any of the lights on in their room. She doesn't reach for them now, and on habit toes off her shoes and kicks them into a corner.
In the gaudy, ornamental mirror in the entry, she catches her reflection—her hair is frizzed, from both exertion and humidity, but it's her eyes that still her. They look like Hisoka's.
She turns away, and wonders if he's noticed. Then, as if to relieve some of the heat in the room, she reaches up to pull on the zipper of her jacket and slides it off her shoulders.
Instead of hitting the floor, Hisoka pulls the jacket from her body, folding it in half and tossing it into the empty chair. And with the chair now occupied, Machi perches on the edge of the bed to study her phone, sending a quick text to Danchou to tell him that they'd successfully completed the mission.
"It's done," she says, and when Hisoka holds open his hand she places the phone into it; he transfers it to the desk, placing it screen-side down. Some part of her is holding her breath, hoping for a response from Danchou. That he could be waiting for her response, and only her response.
The bed dips as Hisoka sits beside her, and then he is reaching for her, his hands curling around her body as if he is very certain of his welcome. He kisses her, then pulls back to whisper hotly between them.
"Remember...my invitation is always open, Machi."
His mouth wraps its way around her name like it did the first time he spoke it, when he'd proven just how easily he could disrupt her every convention and how well they could work together, given the chance. And she considers, for a moment, whether or not to accept or reject him. She'd done both, before, and a moment later she realizes in the back of her mind that if she was going to reject him, if she really did not want him there with her, she would have done it already. So she leans in, ignoring the triumph stamped across his features, and presses her mouth to his.
She wants to see his tattoo again, but for now she settles for seeking it with her fingers as she slides her hands beneath the hem of his shirt. She's the same as him, in that moment, on a high from their recent fight, such as it was. She could have gone out into the city, but no one she could have met would have understood those feelings, that rush.
And Hisoka is very attentive. She can deal with the fall out in the morning.
Machi awakes to a strange feeling, a heaviness in the air. She rolls over, grabbing for her phone or a clock out of instinct. The space beside her is empty, but warm.
She blinks. Hisoka's body comes into focus. He's standing across the room, before that awful gold mirror, towel around his waist and cosmetic brush in hand. Slowly, he paints a thin teardrop under his left eye.
He looks up to meet her gaze in the mirror. "So you feel it too," he says. "Get up and get ready."
This feeling...she does not know how to place it. The aura is warm and insidious, wrapping around her from all sides, and so abhorrent to her own clear-cut aura that she wonders how she could have gone so long without noticing it. So she rises, steps in the shower and puts her old uniform back on, feeling more like herself with each new layer. By the time her gloves are on, and she ties her damp hair up high on her head, the reflection in the mirror is no longer foreign to her. The clock, when she finally looks at it, reads fifteen minutes to four.
When she emerges, Hisoka stands by the open window, shuffling a pack of cards in his hands. The rest of his makeup is crisp and perfect, and when he turns to regard her it is with a flicker of anticipation.
"What does your intuition tell you about this?" he asks.
"It says we should be careful."
"We?" The cards in his hands still. "You think we are the targets?"
"I think we are stuck." Machi recalls the maps, and the maze-like network of bridges and canals. They are on an island. Perhaps, as they had trapped their targets, they had been made targets themselves. "If there is something out there to confront, we need to confront it."
They leave out the window, leaving it open and alighting on a series of rooftops until they come to a larger, more private square tucked between buildings. The air is thick and heavy, like that of a summer's day after a heavy rain, and Machi has to wonder where she's felt something like it before.
Some Nen techniques are all-encompassing. Hers and Hisoka's are direct, but she's known Conjuration types who can do things that feel like this. She'd stepped into one of Koltopi's conjured buildings, once—even the air had felt different, stale and thick like it does now.
They turn their backs to one another, bodies tilted as they survey the empty space. There is no one around, and no noise at all, and she knows with every passing moment they will become more accustomed to the darkness, so if there is to be an attack it will be soon.
Something pings off of a brick to her right, around their feet, and Machi leaps and spins, threads tight between her hands, her eyes glowing with Gyo. She can see nothing.
"A bullet?"
"No," Hisoka says, spinning as she had. "It's a hunting technique, meant to flush us out. Get us moving. If we run, they will strike."
"We should make the first move. I tire of this." She flexes her fingers again.
He inclines his head towards her. "I follow where you lead."
"There is almost no one alive who could best the two of us working together," she says.
"Then that should narrow down the list."
She frowns, and another projectile makes contact at the stones around their feet. Machi leaps for the rooftops, for the vantage point afforded by higher ground, and when her feet touch down on the roof something collides with her right shoulder, knocking her down.
She rolls across the sloped edge of the roof, coming to her feet and spinning, threads at the ready to throw on her assailant, but in the darkness she can only see a blur of movement before it is gone. Below her, Hisoka moves in a series of combat poses, trying to strike out at the same quick blur, and then he is at Machi's side and the two of them are moving, traveling across another canal and stopping on a boat platform.
Hisoka looks reluctantly admiring. "She's fast."
"She?"
"You're telling me you didn't see her?"
"No. What does she look like?" Perhaps, when they meet again, Machi should look for her in the reflection of the water instead of trying to chase her mirage in the air.
"Blonde. And very fast."
There is no sign of her, and the only sound to her ears is Hisoka's labored breathing. "We need a different strategy."
"Then we split up," he says. "Identify which of us is the target. Try to fight in an enclosed space. Lead them in an arc, and meet up at it's head."
Instead of replying, Machi nearly nods, then pushes all her strength into her legs and darts off, dodging and spinning around the narrow alleys and tunnels and leaping above the taller bridges. As she weaves a path straight through the center of the city, she becomes aware of a sound at her back. Footfalls, made by agile feet in a light shoe. Not boots like Hisoka's, or waterproofed soft-soled shoes like hers. She stops and spins, launching out with one foot and throwing a threaded needle towards where she estimates the assailant will be.
She barely feels the touch on one arm. It's not a blow, there's no malice or intensity in it, just spidery fingers alighting on the exposed skin below her sleeve. Then they fade away, and she thinks for a single giddy moment that she's done it, she's outran them, when something explodes into the back of her head and her vision goes white from her Gyo-enhanced eyes. She's left with a feeling of slowly spreading warmth, down and across her body. She stumbles, spinning again, and when she glances at the buildings around her she realizes she has no idea where she is.
How did she get here? She was with Hisoka...they were fighting someone...how much time has passed? The sky is just as dark as it's always been, and she hurriedly weaves more threads, throwing them on the edges of each building, building a net to catch anything that might come after her again.
She swears she's known this Nen before. This aura. But she cannot remember it, no matter how familiar it might seem. A moment passes in silence, and her threads remain intact. Then, it occurs to her that she could not catch someone that was already inside her net, and that she could have just as easily trapped herself inside with them.
She spins, words on the tip of her tongue dying when she spots the figure walking out of the shadows. Her arms are outstretched, her manicured fingers flexed. Pakunoda.
"Paku!" At first it is impossible for her to consider that the woman before her and her assailant are one in the same. She wants to warn Pakunoda away, protect her from a mysterious character with power in her touch and a speed too quick to follow with the naked eye.
"Hold still, Machi," her friend says. "There's no reason for things to have gone this far."
When she speaks, it is louder than she intends. "Explain yourself!"
"I don't expect you to listen to me," Pakunoda says, her voice low and melodious. "I expect you to listen to him."
She turns, shocked, to see a black-suited figure standing on a balcony above their heads. He holds a book in his right hand, and calls to her with the chiding tone of a disapproving teacher.
"Your memories, Machi. Of the General you faced on your last mission, and his ability. I require them."
She has no intention of letting either of them take anything from her, but she cannot help how she stills at Danchou's presence, and how her every impulse is telling her to obey him. "And Hisoka? Will you take his too? Or is his ability your aim?"
"Your errant partner will be next." He pauses, tilting his head. "I wasn't aware you cared so much."
"I don't," she snarls, and tears her gaze away from Danchou to fix them firmly upon Pakunoda. She blinks, once, and then Pakunoda's hand is inches from her face, reaching for her, and Machi throws her head back, using a thread to keep her balance as she dips backwards. With nothing else to do, she spins on her heel and runs, as fast as she can.
Once more she hears the sound of Pakunoda's heels on the stone path. She knew Pakunoda's abilities tied in with memories—that she could read the memories of those she touched, and could impart her own memories through her bullets, but the knowledge that she could also remove those memories was new. And for her friends, the people she'd grown up with, to go to such lengths, meant either that their every interaction before now was a lie, or that she had seen something too valuable to them to let her keep that knowledge. Or perhaps both.
A sharp ninety-degree turn blocks her path, and as she spins she feels fingers brush across her cheek, right below her ear, and the world seems to shatter and disappear a moment later as that same warmth spreads through her again.
She stumbles, spinning again, and when she glances at the buildings around her she realizes she has no idea where she is. How did she get here? She was with Hisoka...they were fighting someone...how much time has passed? She stands in a tunnel, spinning around, trying to figure out through the moonlight which direction she needs to move in. Every building looks the same to her, and as she concentrates, seeking out Hisoka's aura, she springs into motion again, gliding through the shadows and wondering if their assailant has found him yet.
She freezes, her shoes skidding over the ground. A moment later, Hisoka appears over the top of a bridge, and is by her side in three paces. She has to face him, and the truth, the more she thinks about how the night has gone so far.
"I've been affected," she says, studying her hands as if they have the answers she seeks. "Their ability has something to do with memories. I know something is missing, but I'm not sure what."
"We do know someone who deals with memories."
She thinks of Pakunoda, and how she can read memories with a touch, and frowns. "Impossible."
"Not so." The voice comes from behind her, and Machi spins, catching sight of the other Spider with wide, disbelieving eyes.
"Pakunoda." Machi says her name as if to reaffirm her identity, as if saying it could dispel whatever doppleganger has taken her place and hidden behind a perfect copy of her face and that ruthless aura. "Why are you taking our memories? And how?"
"Certainly I am not the only one among us who has abilities they have kept secret from the others," Pakunoda says slowly. "This is only standard procedure. To protect the Danchou, and his abilities. You should never have even noticed. Well, after this, you won't notice the missing memories."
She is completely unruffled, and Machi has to wonder with a kind of rising uncertainty how many times she's had this conversation with other people. With herself.
A card flies through the air, burying itself into the building at Pakunoda's back. A second follows, and a third, and Pakunoda dodges them all with a huff of effort. One hand, at her side, clutches a gun, and Machi's eyes follow it as she dodges another volley of cards.
"I am surprised you have not left yet, to chase the boss. I thought that was what was important to you?" Pakunoda says it idly, spinning the chamber of her gun to load another bullet. "It doesn't matter. We have ways to split you up."
"Your speed compensates for your lack of strength," Hisoka says, fanning his remaining cards in both hands. "We are both far stronger individually than even the both of you put together, if one considers just your physical strength. All we need to do is make one solid hit."
Pakunoda's words finally catch up to her, and Machi reaches for Hisoka, her panic rising. "The ability Danchou stole! He's going to teleport us away!"
Hisoka blinks away before she can even finish her sentence, and her fingers swipe through nothing but air. And a moment later she can see the glow of another Nen bullet heading straight for her. She blinks, her vision flooding, and then all she sees is black—
Hisoka lands on a roof some distance away, locating his aura in his feet and sticking them to the tiles as he moves, as quick as he can, towards where he feels Pakunoda's aura. He can feel Kuroro's eyes on him, from somewhere up high—perhaps the belltower, where he'd have a good enough vantage point to teleport anyone, to any distance. But Hisoka knows everything there is to know about the ability that Kuroro stole. He has faced it before, wielded by the man who invented it. What Kuroro does is merely a shade of the original.
And with his sticky aura keeping his feet and hands connected to the world around him, he cannot be teleported. It has a limitation—only one thing or person can be teleported at a time, and only as far as the user can see. When they'd fought against the ability the first time, they'd held hands to keep from getting separated, and used their Nen strings and gum to keep themselves steady, even when everything around them was revolving and vanishing before their eyes.
In the square, Pakunoda stands over Machi's body, her Conjured gun in one hand.
He hopes she can feel the absolute vehement force of his En. "What have you done?"
"Merely erased every memory since the last time she fell asleep," Pakunoda says, straightening her back and turning to face him. "The same will happen to you. Do not fight it."
"You've done this before?" He adopts a relaxed posture, flicking his wrist and tightening his hold on the card that appears between his fingers as if by magic. "Just a guess."
"Many, many times," she says. "Each time Danchou steals an ability, everyone who knows about it, no matter who they are, has their memories erased. It's the most effective way to preserve—"
"But that's not all, is it?" His lip curls, the blue of the sky lightening in that place between night and daybreak. And still there are no people, no noise beyond their conversation. "You have been using this ability of yours on the members of the Ryodan for more than just this, I'd say."
She tosses her blonde head. "What exactly are you accusing me of?"
"Well. You are thieves. I just would have thought you would never have stooped to stealing from your own kind." He whistles, something low. "You've stolen more than just memories, the two of you. How many abilities has the boss stolen from the Ryodan? And how many memories have you erased? And he helps them, doesn't he? Grooms his Spiders for the perfect abilities. And they never know."
Suddenly, the barrel of her gun faces him, and even at that distance he stops, the laughter caught in his throat. "You don't want to do that," he continues.
"And why not?" She turns her hand, aiming the gun at him from the side, like a gangster from an old movie.
Hisoka exhales, his eyes covered with Gyo, and he watches her mirror the action. "See for yourself."
Her eyes light up, and she takes a step back, the hand holding the gun faltering.
"Touch me if you dare," he says. His sticky, pliable aura covers his entire body from head to toe. "But know that it will mean your life."
She takes a step back. "A stalemate, then."
"If you're worried I'll tell anyone the truth, you don't need to be. What proof do I have? I wouldn't shatter her trust in you like that." A predatory grin spreads across his face. "However, should the boss steal her ability, he and I will fight much sooner than he'd like. I do so like watching her work. Seeing it on Kuroro just wouldn't be the same."
"Very well." She inclines her head with another toss of her hair. "I'll be seeing you."
"Unlikely," he says to the air around him. She's already left, teleported away.
He walks up to Machi's body and looks down, watching her for a moment before reaching down and picking her up. He can still feel their eyes on him, from somewhere far away. With the new brightness in the sky, the buildings look familiar again—but that peaceful look on Machi's face, the one she wears in her sleep, he's never seen that one before. And he wants, more than anything, to see it there for real, and not the product of an incision in her mind.
And suddenly, he cannot bear to look at her anymore. His feet carry him back to the hotel and the open window. And then they carry him away.
She wakes up, alone, in her hotel room. It is empty, both of Hisoka and of the few things he'd brought with him. A playing card, the Queen of Hearts, rests on her pillow. She rises and tosses it into the trash.
All of her things are arranged neatly on the desk, exactly as she'd left them. She reaches first for her phone. There's a message from Danchou, a response to her earlier text annoucing her completion of their mission.
Received. Good work. Take a break—you deserve it.
And another from Hisoka, a photo with the view from an airship, crossing a series of snow-capped mountains. She doesn't know where to go or what to do. Thinking back to Hisoka's earlier words, she decides to spend the rest of the day in bed.
It's another year before she gets a message from Danchou, calling all members of the Ryodan to York New City...
END.
Notes:
1) Causatum is another term for the consequences or aftermath of an action.
2) This was inspired by the wording of Pakunoda's abilities in Chapter 105 of the manga ("If she touches an item, she can read their memories. When she shoots one of her bullets, created with materialization, containing the memory she absorbed, she transmits the memory to the one that receives the bullet. However, someone touched with a bullet containing his own memory loses it indefinitely"). It was the last part that intrigued me the most, since we never saw its application in canon, and it occurred to me that it's likely Kuroro sanctioned this ability's use on the Ryodan themselves. Taking that a step further, I wondered if Kuroro himself could be coaching members of the Ryodan into developing abilities and then stealing them himself and using Pakunoda's ability to erase all knowledge of the ability's existence from their minds. And since she (with Phinx) was able to follow Machi and Nobunaga in the Yorknew Arc without either of them realizing, and shoot her Nen bullets so quickly, I figured her speed and stealth were top-notch among the group. I realize this is highly unlikely in-canon, but it was an interesting thing to think about.
3) The city here is meant to be the Hunter-world equivalent of Venice.
4) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.
~Jess