Prologue
"You should enjoy the little detours to the fullest. Because that's where you'll find the things more important than what you want."
― Ging Freecss
The sea slackened after the storm.
Gon had been instructed by two of the burliest crewmembers that he was to see the captain in his quarters. Kurapika and Leorio were told to stay behind. Initially they looked ready to disobey that order—Leorio's fists were already clenched and Kurapika was stroking his wooden swords, a measured look in his eyes—but Gon assured them that it would be fine. The captain hadn't seemed like the sort of man who would suddenly try to hurt him, even if it was odd that he was so insistent on Gon coming alone.
The captain's quarters were in the bowels of the ship. One of the sailors led the way. He seemed unbothered by the rolling and rocking of the ship as it crested and fell across the ocean.
Gon tried to emulate his walk; there was a fraction of a second after each foot came down where the sailor tested his balance and the security of his footing, before a sudden planting of the heel, to make sure he wouldn't be thrown by an unexpected wave. It didn't work. He supposed it was something he would need to practice.
The sailor left him in the front of the captain's quarters. He knocked and entered. The room wasn't as he had expected. There was a small desk, riveted to the ship's boards, which was covered by neatly organized array of bottles. Each bottle was a variation on the one that came before, in fact. Filgram's Finest Rum, the bottles read. The designs all differed, some in small ways and others in greater, but they were unmistakably the same.
It was an odd sort of things to collect, but the captain did have an unmistakable fondness for drink (just one of the many character flaws that Aunt Mito had warned him about). The bottles came in various shapes and sizes, from short fat canisters to willowy decanters, with colors varying from light green and muddy brown to abject black and perfect transparency. Those near the back of the desk showed signs of age, with dust settling on the inside, the label peeling, and the colors fading out, while those nearer the front could have been sitting on a store shelf somewhere.
"Like my collection, do you boy?" the captain asked. He took a sip from a new bottle of Filgram's Finest he was pawing in one hand. There was a matching one near the front of the desk.
"You must drink a lot to have so many bottles," Gon said.
For whatever reason, that captain found that greatly amusing. He let out a shattering laugh that made Gon's head ache and hair stand up on end.
"I need drink like a warrior needs his sword," the captain said. "But I didn't call you down here to talk about that. There's something even more important than a good drink. I wanted to talk to you about Ging Freecs."
Gon slammed his palms on the captain's desk, ignoring the dangerous rattling of the bottles and the captain's taken-aback expression. "That's right! You said you knew Ging."
"Knew might be stretching things just a little. He took passage on this ship to the Hunter Exam and I've heard a thing or two about him since. Just rumors, but the rumors I hear tend to be more reliable than the rumors most people hear."
"Tell me about him," Gon said. His heels rocked up and down, slapping like fins against the musty wooden floorboards.
The captain took another pull from his bottle, this one much deeper. The ache in Gon's head intensified, making thinking more difficult, and his sense of being watched by a predator increased, but his excitement made that easy to ignore.
"You want to know about Ging…hmmm. That's a shame. Now that I think about it, I don't really have any reason to tell you. I'm already doing you enough of a favor dropping you off near the Hunter Exam." The captain examined the label of his bottle. He made irritating hmming and hah noises as he looked it over, like it was some kind of priceless antique.
"What? You're the one who called me down here. You have to tell me!" Gon said.
The captain's bottle smacked onto the table. The sound was unnaturally loud, setting Gon's ears ringing. "I don't have to do anything. If you were to help me with something the story would be different."
"Like a chore?"
"You could call it that."
"Fine! Anything! What is it?"
"I want you to stay with this ship for a couple of months, learn the ropes of the trade. I'm willing to take you on as an apprentice. You've already proved you can sniff out a storm and handle some rough weather. This is the perfect business for you, boy. You'd be useful to us."
"I can't do that. The Hunter Exam is starting soon," Gon said, shaking his head immediately.
The captain laughed. The fuzziness in Gon's head increased. When the captain spoke again, it was like his words only made it partway through his ears; all of the individual pieces were there but it was hard to pick out the general meaning or plan a response.
"I know why you want to be a Hunter and I'll tell you this much—you're being naïve."
"Naïve?"
"Of course you're naïve," the captain said. "You think that if you become a Hunter you'll get Ging's attention, but you're wrong. Ging Freecss cares about the whims of Ging Freecss. That's it. The last thing Ging cares about is being a Hunter."
"You're wrong," Gon said, shaking his head as if that would clear away the fuzziness. "He left Whale Island so that he could become a Hunter."
More laughter and more ringing. "I can't say any more than that, but I promise you, a captain's pledge, you won't impress Ging, or even understand him, by becoming a Hunter."
Gon's fingers tightened around his shoulder where his fishing rod usually rested. He couldn't remember Ging, couldn't be said to owe the man anything, but to hear the captain badmouthing him made Gon tremble with frustration.
The captain went on as if he didn't notice Gon approaching a breaking point. "It's only natural that you want to know about Ging so I'll make you a generous deal."
"Aunt Mito told me not to trust strangers," Gon said, which only served to make the captain laugh once more.
"Your aunt is a smart woman. This is a deal too good to turn down, even for the Hunter Exam. I'll help you find out more about Ging, help you find Ging, and help you get strong enough to understand Ging. All you have to do is stay with the ship until we can track him down."
"I'm going to be a Hunter," Gon said. It was a fact as immutable as the ocean being blue or the sun rising every morning.
Another laugh, another swig of the bottle. "That's fine. I can help you with that too. I know that you want to follow in Ging's footsteps, to understand him, but I swear to you that I was telling you the truth when I said he doesn't care about being a Hunter. He may be important to the organization but he's never considered it important to him. You won't impress him by running off and becoming a Hunter."
"If I pass the Hunter exam then I'll prove that I'm strong. And if I'm strong enough to become a Hunter then I'll be able to find Ging myself."
"Wrong and wrong," the captain said.
Gon's patience with the captain's drunken ramblings came to an end. "How would you even know? What makes you think you understand anything about Ging?" he shouted.
The captain tossed back the rest of the rum and something started to crush the air, making Gon feel like he was drowning, like all of the air had been sucked out of the room. Needles started to prick his skin, somewhere in-between unpleasant and painful. Gon tried to move, to get away from the sensations that were plaguing him, but he found that he had been paralyzed; his body wouldn't respond to any command he made, from his arms to his toes. It was all he could do to move his eyes and continue breathing.
"I know this because I'm a Hunter," the captain said. There was no more cheer in his voice, no sign of the jovial drunk that Gon had seen throughout the trip. A sense of dread, and impending doom, began to fill Gon. He prepared himself for one final attempt, a burst of willpower to break through this uncontainable power that had imprisoned him and that was trying to destroy him.
Then, with the same suddenness that it had struck, the feeling was gone. There was a brief moment of weightlessness, as if he was caught in void, and then Gon felt normal again. He could think clearly, his limbs responded to his commands, and his nose could pick up on the smell of the ocean and the stench of rum.
"A Hunter…" Gon said.
"That's the least of what any self-respecting Hunter can do. You won't learn that from trying the Hunter Exam. I'll teach it to you, along with plenty of other things you never even imagined. And you don't even need to pass a test."
For the first time, Gon felt the touch of indecision. If the captain was telling the truth, and that power was something all Hunters had, then he didn't stand a chance against any of them. Maybe not even against other people taking the exam.
Everything had seemed so simple only an hour ago. He would go to the Hunter Exam, pass it, become a Hunter, and then track down Ging once he finally understood what it meant to be a Hunter. What was so great about it. And the captain claimed that all of that was nonsense.
There was no doubt in his mind that the captain was a genuine Hunter. He could see the truth in every line of the man's body; an unconcealed power and even brutality that were straining around his body like living presences of their own. Despite knowing that he was outmatched, despite knowing that the captain wasn't an enemy, despite knowing that the captain had information about Ging that he wanted, Gon's urge to fight him grew and grew.
It was the first time this feeling had ever struck him. Something like a need to prove himself, but more primal than that. The urge to become stronger. To defeat a great opponent in a battle where they both risked everything to win.
As if he could sense Gon's rising will to fight, the captain's dopey grin started to spread again, and the roiling aura that had been so overpowering now was inhibited and could do nothing but skim along the edges of the captain's body. Gon couldn't quite see it, but now he was aware of its existence, like something out of the corner of his eye, never quite coming into focus.
"I could learn how to do that?" Gon asked.
"It's one of the first things you would learn," the captain said.
"You'll tell me about Ging. You'll help me find Ging. And you'll make me strong," Gon repeated.
"I swear it, on my pride as captain of the Nami," the captain said. His aura was unsheathed for a second, just long enough for Gon to feel it flare against his body, see it rush beyond the captain's frame, as if in a promise given form, before it was submerged once more deep into the ocean of the captain's self.
"Can you see that?" the captain asked, noticing Gon's expression.
"Uh huh," Gon said.
Surprise, and then calculation blossomed; the kind of look that Gon had seen on the faces of the traders that came to Whale Island. It wasn't a malicious look, but a reflex that he knew had been honed over decades at sea. The captain probably couldn't help that reaction any more than someone could prevent themself from getting seasick.
"Are we agreed?"
A moment's hesitation. Gon had the impression he was turning away from a light so bright he had to squint in its direction, only to turn down an unlit path. "Uh-huh."
"We have a deal then, boy. You'll follow my commands, and I'll have responsibilities toward you in turn. Once we drop off your friends for the Hunter Exam I'm going to put you to work. Enjoy the time you have left with them to say your goodbyes."
Gon knew that someone else might be concerned about the decision that they had just made. It would seem rash and unconsidered. But after having gotten a glimpse at the captain's power, at what made him him, Gon felt like he was putting himself into safe hands. He couldn't say that he understood the man, or knew what he wanted, but the sense of trust and security he felt around the captain had to have sprung from somewhere.
"Now get out of here. I've got some work to do," the captain said. He drew another bottle of Filgram's from beneath his desk and uncorked it.
Gon left the captain's quarters to find Leorio and Kurapika. They wouldn't understand, but that was alright. Together the two of them would pass the Hunter Exam. He just knew it.