A/N: This story is rated M for adult themes. The opinions of the characters do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the author.

Thank you to all those who have read (and reviewed) this story!

I do not own Hunter X Hunter or any other mentioned literature/books in this story.


Gathering New Companions

The living quarters of the blimp were luxurious and messy, richly decorated and disorganized at the same time. Kuroro looked around at the couches with plush cushions, the exquisitely carved redwood tables and the gold-plated chandeliers, and had to suppress the urge to steal something. That was easily done; he simply reminded himself that there was no way he was carrying that beautiful statue of Venus off the blimp without Midoya noticing. Underneath his desire to walk off with some of the more priced decorative pieces, Kuroro was impressed with the state of disorganization on the blimp. It wasn't as messy as her York Shin penthouse (a pile of clothing lay in a corner with a box of make-up, and paper was scattered over the largest table), but Kuroro was willing to bet that after Midoya had been here for a few more hours, the cushions would be on the floor and books would be scattered everywhere.

"Have a seat. Just kick the books off the couch," Midoya was saying as she rummaged through one of the shelves. "Where on earth is my first-aid kit?" she added to herself.

Kuroro respectfully placed the books on the floor, sank gratefully into one of the velvet couches and watched her fumble through the shelves. He was very used to seeing Midoya during her idle moments. He had never seen her working before save the one time when he had tried to get her killed (it was a long story that involved a long series of truces, betrayals, misunderstandings and hidden identities; almost a soap opera really). Watching her move now, she looked more like a snake than a leopard as she darted from place to place rapidly, searching for her objective. Eventually she found the first-aid box in the dishwasher. "Well done," Kuroro told her wryly as she raised the white box triumphantly.

She beamed at him and put the box on the table before him, and started to pull out gauze and antiseptic. "Your face looks real bad, but it's not as bad as your nose," she commented. "Your nose is broken." Before Kuroro could comment, she reached out and yanked his nose back into place. Kuroro squeezed his eyes shut and clamped down on the pained cry that almost escaped his lips.

When he could breathe again, he opened his eyes and realized she was busy cleaning and taping up the cuts on his face. "Thank you," he mumbled in a hoarse voice.

"You're welcome," she replied warmly, pressing a cold compress onto his swollen cheeks. "Dear me, this Kurapika really did a number on your face. Look, your face is so swollen!" She poked one of the bumps with her finger and Kuroro winced again.

"I realized," he said, annoyed. It was an unusual reaction from him, but the past sixteen hours have been rather taxing on him. It certainly didn't help that Midoya was obviously highly amused by his current predicament.

Midoya smiled at his reaction and added, "You look bad with your hair slicked back. Why do you do it? You used to just leave your bangs down."

"People take me more seriously when I slick my hair back. Apparently I look too 'cute' with bangs," Kuroro replied (of course it had to be Hisoka who told him that). Then just because he didn't want to be the only one put on the spot, he asked, "Who is flying the blimp?"

"Auto-pilot."

"Is that safe?" Kuroro asked curiously. He had never had to pilot a blimp personally, and knew little about the actual practicalities of flying a blimp.

"My auto-pilot is a much better pilot than I am."

"Really? It is hard to imagine you as a terrible pilot."

"The last time I flew a blimp by myself, I unintentionally caused a war between two countries. It was all resolved eventually, but not before the mass extinction of the Junpies primates and the impregnation of a chamber maid by a prince."

"Oh." Kuroro thought about that for a while then decided not to worry about it too much. His life was already in danger anyway. That the most reliable pilot on the blimp was a computer wasn't really that high on his current list of things that could kill him in spectacularly messy ways. Idly, he wondered how it would feel like to be trapped in a burning blimp as it plummeted ten thousand feet to the grounds below. Quite warm, he supposed.

He watched Midoya for a moment as she fussed over his face and started to wonder if he had made the right choice calling her. It really depended on who he had summoned to his aid, he realized. Was this Midoya, the wonderfully complicated and unpredictable Midoya who had offered her couch to a strange man on a whim, or was this Blacklist Hunter Midoya, one of the most powerful hunters in the world? Would she fly him to safety or would she deliver him to the Hunter's Association for a huge bounty? Or was this June Kito standing before him, the rich heiress with strong connections to the mafia? Would he then end up being delivered to the mafia instead?

Kuroro snapped out of his thoughts suddenly when he realized she was looking at him with an odd look on her face.

"What?" he asked.

"You look like you don't trust me," she stated.

Kuroro looked at her. "No, I don't," he said honestly.

Midoya's smile widened. After living with her for slightly under a year, Kuroro had come to understand that Midoya was the type of person who smiled at everything: puppies, babies, flowers, mutilated, decaying corpses and so on. He had also come to recognize a number of her different smiles. The smile she gave him when she stated that he did not trust her was her 'amused and indulgent' smile. The smile she wore when she informed him about the capability of her autopilot in relation to hers was her 'oh well I know I'm not perfect but there's nothing to worry about because we invented an awesome machine that can be perfect for me' smile. The smile she was giving him now, however, was the one that he dreaded the most. It was her 'you just pissed me off somehow though you probably don't know why, but no matter, I am going to screw you over so hard you wouldn't be able to stand straight for a month' smile.

"It's not that I don't believe you are a highly talented Nen-master fully capable of protecting both you and I should the blimp crash," Kuroro said in a placating tone. "It is simply that having not kept in touch for two years…"

"Thirty billion zennis," Midoya said firmly, her arms crossed in front of her.

"Thirty… what?" Kuroro asked, bewildered by the sudden change in topic.

"That is my fee for helping you," Midoya said in a brisk, business-like tone. "Thirty billion zennis a week, not including extra expenditure."

Kuroro blinked. "That is a very… exorbitant price," he finally said. "Ten billion zennis a week, including extra expenditure."

Midoya's smile widened even more and Kuroro forced himself not to rub the bridge of his broken nose in frustration. That was her 'I know you need me more than I need you so let's stop beating around the bush and do things the way I want them' smile. "You are hiring a professional Two Star Blacklist Hunter, Kuroro Lucifer," she said smugly. "Thirty billion zennis a week, including extra expenditure."

Kuroro clasped his hands to his lips in thought as he eyed Midoya. "Twenty billion zennis a week, not including extra expenditure," he said finally.

"Deal," Midoya grinned and pumped his hand in a brisk handshake. "Hope we have a wonderful working relationship, Mr Lucifer. And just a reminder; don't try to backstab me or wriggle out of paying me. I will be forced to kill you. Nothing personal, mind, it's just good business."

"But of course," Kuroro agreed, still feeling bemused by her sudden change in attitude towards him.

"Good," Midoya said and turned to leave.

"Where are you going?" Kuroro asked.

"To check on the autopilot," Midoya replied cheerfully. Pausing at the door, she looked over her shoulder at him and smiled suddenly. It was, oddly enough, a smile he did not recognize. Without saying anything else, she stepped out of the door, leaving it to swing shut on its own.

Kuroro stared at the door for a moment then turned his gaze to his feet (covered with mud and his own blood). It seemed he had summoned Blacklist Hunter Midoya to his aid. How that was going to turn out, he really did not know. Well, even if he had made the wrong choice calling her, this was definitely still going to be a very entertaining working relationship.


Fifteen minutes later found them sitting in a companionable silence, Midoya had returned from the cockpit ("The autopilot is doing what autopilots do, and it is doing it particularly well without my intervention. Let's eat something.") and was currently nestling in the couch opposite him. Kuroro wondered why she hadn't joined him on the couch he was on. The blood, mud and perspiration on his clothes must be a lot more off-putting than he realized.

The silence was broken when Midoya shifted in her seat to look at him. "What are your plans?" she asked casually, sipping hot tea. "I assume we are not going to just keep flying around aimlessly?"

"No," Kuroro agreed. He leaned his elbows on his knees and clasped his hands together in thought. "My first priority," he finally said, "is getting my Nen back. My second, assuming my first fails, is to reestablish contact with the Genei Ryodan, but in a way that wouldn't violate the restrictions placed on me."

"Jyonen."

"Exactly. The prophecy I had, written by Neon Nostrad said that I will find new companions in the east. I believe that refers to someone who can release me from the Judgment Chain." Kuroro rubbed his chin then regretted it when he tore open a tiny cut on his face. "I just don't know where in the 'East' this Jyonen-user is."

"Mmmm," Midoya said in acknowledgement, handing him a piece of tissue. "How are you going to contact the Genei Ryodan if you can't find the Jyonen-user?"

Still blotting blood off his face, Kuroro frowned in thought. "It depends on what the restrictions include," he said slowly. "The restrictions placed on me stated that I must not have any verbal or physical communication with the Ryodan. However, to what extent do the restrictions cover? For example, if I ask you to call the Ryodan for me, is it considered verbal communication? It is safer to assume that a person is considered a medium of communication as much as a text message or email is. Hence, I can't tell someone to approach the Ryodan on my behalf."

"Agreed. So?"

"So, I need the Ryodan to approach someone who knows my intentions and who can direct the Ryodan on his or her own account without and instructions or communication from me," Kuroro concluded. "Therefore there is no communication between the Ryodan and me at all."

"Fascinating plan. Any idea how you're going to do that?"

Kuroro shook his head. "I don't have any idea of where I am going just yet. Contacting the Ryodan now would be pointless. I shall hunt for the Jyonen user first. If I can remove the restrictions without the Ryodan's help then the need to plan a meeting with the Ryodan becomes unnecessary."

"Hmm. Makes sense," Midoya agreed.

"What do you think?" Kuroro asked, turning to look at her. She looked back at him, her body languid and relaxed though her eyes were sharp and intense.

"I think you need more than my help," she said solemnly. Shifting in her seat, she clasped her hands around her knees and frowned. "Putting aside gaining contact with the Ryodan, you need two pieces of information to fulfill the first part of your plan. Firstly, you need a destination. Secondly, you need to find the Jyonen-user." She shifted position again and tilted her head in thought. Kuroro observed her with interest. He never knew the usually still and cool woman got so fidgety when on the job. "I think we should go back to York Shin first," she finally said. "Our first step is not action but information gathering. The young Nostrad's prophecies are unusually difficult to understand. I once paid her to do a prophecy for me out of curiosity. Only after the event did I realize that "do not chase the cat" literally meant "do not chase the cat" and was not a metaphor for something else, while "exercise regularly" was a metaphor for killing lots of people and not literal advice for good health. Anyway, that is beside the point. Closer to the date, we might find more clues regarding the destination. In the meantime, what we can do is search for information on Jyonen-users."

"How?" Kuroro asked curiously.

"Jyonen is a very unusual and highly priced ability," Midoya said, sipping tea. "The Hunter's Association always tries to keep tabs on people who develop such abilities, unofficially of course. Not all Jyonen-users become Hunters, and not all of them advertise their abilities openly. Many would take issue with the Hunter's Association keeping tabs on them so we do it through hearsay and hush-hush investigations. Consequently, I believe there is a working database on Jyonen-users."

"Oh." Kuroro thought about it for a while. "And you can access that database?"

Midoya smiled. "Officially, only Netero and a few select information-gatherers can," she said. "Unofficially…" She shrugged. "Anything is possible, and that's where we need someone who knows a hell lot more about technology and stuff than I do."

Kuroro smiled back. Midoya was worth the money he was paying her. "And that is a wonderful starting point for finding the destination," he said.

"Oh?"

"If Neon Nostrad's prophecy directed me towards the East, it means that the Jyonen-user best suited for my purposes, or perhaps most willing to assist me will be found in the East," Kuroro said. "If we can locate any Jyonen-users who practice East of York Shin…"

"We know where to go," Midoya finished his thoughts, a delighted smile on her face.

"Excellent." Kuroro leaned back into the couch, satisfied. "You said I need more than your help. I trust you have a candidate in mind?"

"But of course."

Out of the corner of his eye, Kuroro eyed the smile on Midoya's face. That was another smile he recognized. It was her 'I am going to do something that someone is really not going to like and it is going to be so fun' smile.

"Are you planning something evil, Midoya?" he asked, warily amused.

She looked at him, her eyes sparkling gleefully. "But of course, Kuroro. But of course."


"Oh no. No, no, no, no, no, no. Midoya-sensei, you can't be serious!"

Standing outside the surprisingly clean and homely apartment, Kuroro eyed the tall, tanned man at the doorway and concurred with his sentiments.

Half an hour ago, they had landed successfully (and safely) in York Shin Airport. A black car had been waiting for them, courtesy of Midoya's status as June Kito, rich and powerful heiress to a major financial empire funded by the ownership of large portions of the red-light district in York shin. There had been no chauffeur. Evidently, Midoya did not want anyone seeing them together.

Fifteen minutes after Midoya started the car, Kuroro had suggested with great vehemence that they stop the car immediately so Kuroro could do the driving. Midoya had then protested that she was a much better driver than she was a pilot so there was absolutely no need to switch drivers especially since they were already on the high way. Kuroro then pointed out that the problem was not Midoya's skills as a driver, since she was a fairly decent driver; the problem was her supreme disregard for all traffic rules, which in the busy streets of York Shin City meant a string of damaged cars, explosions and possibly dead people behind them. After a brief discussion, during which Kuroro pointed out that they would reach their destination (wherever it was) much faster if they didn't keep getting stopped by the police, Midoya had reluctantly handed the wheel over to him.

Kuroro, as he slid behind the wheel, mused idly that if he, Dancho of the Genei Ryodan, had to tell someone to obey the laws of society, something was very wrong.

Another fifteen minutes later, Kuroro found himself standing outside a beautiful block of apartments. The walls were painted a soft, creamy colour; the roof tiles were a pretty maroon colour; vines of some form of flower crept up walls and around balconies. It looked wonderfully cozy and peaceful, and gave Kuroro the sudden, almost irrepressible desire to vandalize the walls. He didn't, only because vandalizing property is a childish crime he hadn't indulged in since he hit puberty.

Midoya had led him to an apartment on the third floor and rang the doorbell. Instantly, the door had opened, bringing with it the waft of spices, meat and one Pepeka Timbal.

Pepeka Timbal (tall, tanned and handsome with bulging muscles and perfect teeth) was Midoya's apprentice, fan and secret admirer. For that reason, he disliked Kuroro immensely. Kuroro disliked him back. It only seemed polite.

The moment Pepeka Timbal had caught sight of Midoya, his eyes had lit up in delight. Then he had caught sight of Kuroro. That was when the tragic wail of, "No, no, no, no, no. Midoya-sensei, you can't be serious" had echoed through the apartment.

"Pepeka, nice to see you too," Midoya replied, obviously tickled by his reaction.

"Sensei!" Pepeka moaned, huge hands clutching at short, blonde hair agitatedly. "I thought you broke up with him already! What he is doing here?"

"He called me for help," Midoya said with a shrug.

"But sensei!" Pepeka whined. "He's the Dancho of the Genei Ryodan! And don't pretend he's not! His dead, bloody face was pasted all over the Net for a period of time! I recognized him even without a jaw!"

"Given that, you don't seem surprise to see me alive," Kuroro said wryly.

"Of course," Pepeka said sharply, glaring at Kuroro. "People in the blacklist hunting industry knew the corpses were fakes after a while. Bloody things vanished into thin air from the morgue. Poor mortician witnessed it and got the shock of his life. I mean, that guy's pushing ninety! That mean trick of yours almost put him in a coffin!"

"Right," Kuroro said, amused. "I apologize for failing to take into account the advanced age of the mortician when my Ryodan and I robbed the underground auctions."

"And your face still looks like shit."

"Pepeka," Midoya admonished.

Pepeka bristled with righteous indignation and turned back to Midoya. "Sensei! You can't seriously be helping him! He's evil! I mean… he kills people!"

"I also donate to charity," Kuroro pointed out.

"That's not the point!" Pepeka roared then lowered his voice embarrassedly when Midoya made shushing sounds. "That's not the point," he repeated in a much softer voice. "The point is, he's a criminal, sensei! What would the other Hunters think if they knew you were helping him?"

"Pepeka, the other Hunters are not supposed to know that I am helping him," Midoya said, smiling widely. "Besides, I am on the black list too." Kuroro raised an eyebrow. He hadn't known that.

"That's different!" Pepeka spluttered. "I mean… that guy! The president of BNE! I mean… do you know what he tried to do to Midoya-sensei?

"No," Kuroro said, though he could guess. The President of the BNE country was constantly being slammed (and acquitted, by virtue of a large bank account) with several charges of sexual harassment towards women.

Pepeka leaned closer, hostility temporarily forgotten in the face of a more abhorred foe. "He tried to marry Midoya-sensei," he hissed, his eyes wide with disbelief and disgust.

Kuroro blinked. "That… wasn't quite what I imagined happened," he confessed. "My imagination ran more along the lines of… rape, molest and general misogyny."

"You are correct," Midoya said dryly. "The dear President first tried to force me into a marriage with him. Failing that, he tried to rape me. I fear I took particular offence with his advances, not least because he is fat, balding and smells like a wet dog."

"And what did you do to him that put you on the black list?" Kuroro asked, curiously. Smiling, Midoya leaned closer and whispered into his ear. Kuroro blinked again. "Oh," he said and then because there were some things even the Ryodan found too horrifying to comprehend, "Ouch." A pause, and then he added, "I had heard that you are also next in line to succeed Netero."

"Yes," Midoya agreed. "Not necessarily next in line, but one of the potential candidates for succeeding Netero."

"Oh."

A pensive silence fell over the trio before Pepeka broke it by saying stubbornly, "I'm still not letting that criminal into my house."

"Pepeka."

"No sensei! This is my house!"

"Pepeka."

"I decide who gets to come in!"

"Pepeka."

"And he's not one of those!"

"Pepeka."

Pepeka finally looked at Midoya. She looked straight at Pepeka and smiled. She had dimples. Kuroro was certain she didn't have dimples naturally, but she had somehow produced them from nowhere.

Pepeka shook his head violently. Perspiration dripped down his face. "No! I'm not falling for that one again! You can't change my mind, sensei!" he shouted firmly. "I am not allowing him in and that is final!"


Kuroro sank back into the cream-coloured couch. It was amazingly comfortable, as comfortable as Midoya's orange couch, but infinitely more tasteful. A glass of something cold was thrust into his hands violently and Kuroro accepted it with a smile. "Thank you Pepeka," he said sunnily. "It was very kind of you to invite us into your house."

"I am only doing this for Midoya-sensei," Pepeka said in a tone of grievous injury.

"But of course," Kuroro agreed. He did not mind being polite to the young man. Not only had Midoya convinced him to let them into her apartment, she had gotten him to provide them with drinks and fresh clothing for Kuroro. She had done enough bullying for the both of them, he felt.

"Oh Pepeka!" Midoya called from the doorway of the kitchen. "I raided your fridge, hope you don't mind. And please wash Kuroro's clothing for him. I'm sure he appreciates the fresh clothing but it looks absolutely wrong on him."

Hmm. Guess she didn't feel the same way he did.

Pepeka made a sound somewhere in between a whine and a growl, but started for the laundry area without another word. Kuroro shook his head. He could see why Midoya had come to Pepeka for help. As useless and as annoying as he was, Pepeka was such a pushover she could get him to fight to the death for the lowest scum of the earth if she wanted to. This type of 'help' would be commonly referred to as 'gun fodder' he believed. It was just, at this point, they needed help that could deliver, not a meat shield.

"You are cruel," Kuroro told Midoya as he accepted an apple from her.

"It is a necessity. I can see down your shirt and it is extremely distracting." She smiled at him and wandered over to the window where she perched on the ledge.

Kuroro looked down at the clothing he was wearing. It wasn't that Pepeka's taste in clothing was horrid. It was a little on the plain side for Kuroro, but that hardly counted as a disaster. What was devastating, according to Midoya, was that they were about three sizes too big for Kuroro. It made for a breeze in very private places. Kuroro didn't mind; he never really liked wearing shirts anyway, horribly restricting things that they were.

"You could do the laundry yourself," he suggested tentatively. He wondered why she was sitting so far away (he was no longer covered with blood, mud and sweat…). As friendly and as, dare he say, flirty as she was being, there seemed to be a distance between them that hadn't existed before.

"Why would I take the trouble of training an apprentice if he's not going to do my laundry for me?" Midoya asked, her voice brimming with amusement.

"Aren't you shy about him shifting through your underwear?" Kuroro asked, peeling the apple with a small blade he kept for such purposes. (Once he confused it with his other blade. That made for some interesting time spent in the bathroom.)

"Hardly. Back then, I assumed Pepeka wasn't a virgin and was somewhat familiar with the mysteries of feminine underclothing." Midoya paused and rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "Turns out I was wrong, but by then the dear boy had already gotten used to it."

Kuroro smiled around a sip of what turned out to be a delightfully refreshing drink of lime and mint. "Cruel," he informed her. "Absolutely cruel."

The sound of the washing machine starting up stopped their conversation and Pepeka came stomping back, his face red and sweaty with fury. "Should be done in an hour or so," he said sulkily.

"Thank you, dear. You are such a sweetheart."

Pepeka's face flushed with pleasure and embarrassment. "Sensei," he whined as he snuck a look at Kuroro to gauge his reaction. Kuroro kept his face blank. It flustered Pepeka even more.

"Anyway," Pepeka said, trying to regain his composure. "I assume you didn't just turn up here so I can feed and clothe your… I mean… this… Spider?" He looked almost hopeful.

"Of course not," Midoya said.

"Oh goodie."

"I also want you to hack into the Hunter's Association secret database on Jyonen-users."

"WHAT?" Pepeka's eyes looked like they were going to bulge out of their sockets. "Sensei! The penalty for doing that is death! Are you insane?"

"Oh, don't be a wimp Pepeka," Midoya said dismissively. "We risk our lives every time we start on the trail of a bounty. You can't be telling me you're afraid of dying!"

"I'm not!" Pepeka exploded. "But this is different! You're asking me to go against Chairman Netero!"

"Oh." Midoya winced. "Yeah, I guess you have a point." Kuroro glanced at her questioningly and she replied, "Think of Zeno from the Zoldycks. You've met him, right? Well, imagine a man as powerful as Zeno but a lot more evil."

"Oh." It was Kuroro's turn to wince. "I see."

"But," Midoya went on, cheering up. "As long as Netero never finds out, it doesn't matter!"

"He will find out!" Pepeka wailed. "He has eyes everywhere! We're going to die, sensei! We're going to die because… because…" He trailed off confusedly. "Wait, why are we hacking into the database for anyway?"

"It's a long story," Midoya told him. "In summary, Kuroro killed a bunch of people because they had pretty eyes, and one of them who happily did not die is out to kill him. Things happened, people got robbed and murdered, not necessarily in that order either, and Kuroro ended up kidnapping two beautiful, luscious boys…"

"Goodness, Midoya," Kuroro said mildly. "They were in no way beautiful or luscious and I did not kidnap them. They were following us."

"And then you kidnapped them, you naughty boy you. Turns out, they were friends of the happy survivor so the happy survivor who turns out to not be so happy kidnapped Kuroro in revenge for the innocence he had so cruelly trampled on…"

"No, Midoya. He kidnapped me to get his friends back. He would never have killed me as long as his friends were in the hands of my Ryodan. If only Paku had realized…"

"The actual events are really terribly boring. My version is a lot better and who is to say it isn't as real as yours? I've always found 'reality' to be such a flexible concept. So, be quiet and let me finish it. Anyway, all you need to know really, Pepeka, is that Kuroro now can't use his Nen due to the unhappy survivor's Nen," Midoya finished.

Pepeka blinked. "He can't?" he asked, his eyes gleaming suddenly.

"Yes, he can't," Midoya confirmed. "And just so you know, Pepeka, Kuroro is paying me a lot of money to protect him so don't you start getting any ideas now. Last I checked, I am still a lot more powerful than you."

"I… I wasn't!" Pepeka stammered. "I wasn't thinking anything!"

"But of course," Kuroro said dryly. Being vulnerable to attacks from people like Pepeka Timbal was starting to get on his nerves. "Anyway, you understand now why it is imperative that I locate a Jyonen-user immediately."

"I dunno," Pepeka said doubtfully. "There's still Chairman Netero to deal with. I mean…"

"Okay, first things first," Kuroro said firmly. "What are the steps involved in hacking into the database? Pepeka?"

Taken aback by the authority in Kuroro's voice, Pepeka scratched his head in thought. "Well, first of all, we have to get into the Hunters' Association Building to hack the system," he said. "The system can't be accessed from anywhere else. That's the first problem. I mean, Midoya-sensei and I could probably walk in just fine, but that would also mean once they realized the system's been hacked, we would be in trouble because we would be pretty much the prime suspects."

"Okay, entry and exit would be a problem. How about the system itself?"

"The system itself can't be hacked. It can only be accessed using the password that only Chairman Netero and the head of the data-collection team, Two Star Information Hunter Krunn knows." Pepeka shook his head. "That's not so difficult, that part. I might have an idea about that. What is difficult is actually getting the information we need. I mean, if I'm not wrong, the system is also set up such that we can't download information from the database into an external hardware. Best I can do is pick a few names, memorize them and then hope I don't get the spelling wrong."

"Okay," Kuroro said thoughtfully. "And how do you know so much, Pepeka?"

Pepeka jerked in surprise and then looked at Midoya. "You didn't tell him?"

"It's your secret, not mine."

Pepeka sighed dramatically. "I interned on the data collection team for a while," he mumbled. "For a period of time, when I was a lot younger… I mean… I was really into computers and…"

"He was a computer nerd," Midoya said bluntly.

"Sensei!"

Understanding dawned on Kuroro and he looked at Midoya intently. She hadn't brought him to Pepeka because Pepeka was easily bullied into following her; she had brought him to Pepeka because this was potentially the only person they knew who could get them access to the database. He had to learn to stop underestimating Midoya. There was obviously method to her madness, as much as there was madness to her method, evidently.

"So," Kuroro said finally. "The point is, you know the system as much as anyone outside of the higher management does."

"Yeah," Pepeka said uncomfortably. "But dude, listen, I was only an intern. Even the full-time staff never had access to everything you know? What I know, I learnt by sneaking around and picking up bits of rumours and stuff like that."

"But when you left the database collection team, you left a backdoor in the system," Midoya said casually. "So that you can access the system again should you desire to."

For a moment, Kuroro was convinced the young man's eyes were going to explode out of his head in a burst of disturbing body fluids. "How did you know, sensei?" Pepeka screeched. "I never told anybody…"

"Because that's what I taught you," Midoya said, smiling. "Never let go of any source of information. And that database is one humongous source of information."

Pepeka looked utterly disturbed while Kuroro's mind leapt into action. "If we get you into the Hunters' Association, you can access the database," he stated.

"Yes, but just small sections of it."

"That's sufficient," Kuroro said. "We don't need to know every single Jyonen-user out there. While it would be nice to be able to choose from a pool of talent, really, I only need one person to help me."

"So, the only problem left," Midoya said over Pepeka's stuttered protests, "is getting Pepeka in without letting anyone know he is in the building. If they know he was in the building once they realize the system has been hacked, he will become the prime suspect. Unfortunately, that would lead them to me and Kuroro." There wasn't any doubt that they would successfully hack into the system, Kuroro noted. Her confidence was very appealing.

"Okay," Pepeka said finally. "You got a plan, sensei?" Apparently, Midoya's confidence was infectious.

"But of course," she said and looked at Kuroro, her eyes twinkling cheerfully. "With only the three of us, there's really only one plan we can use anyway."

Kuroro looked back at her thoughtfully. Then he got it.

"The Egg Cup," he said.

"Exactly," Midoya said and smiled brightly.

Midoya looked proud of herself. Kuroro looked thoughtful. Pepeka just looked scared. No one blamed him. He was the egg after all.


A/N: I am not very satisfied with this chapter, but I hope you, my dear reader, still enjoyed it. Constructive criticism on how I could have better written this chapter is very much welcomed.

Trivial: When Pepeka Timbal was sixteen, he was pale, skinny and very intelligent. He also wore black-rimmed glasses and sniffled a lot. After he developed a crush on Midoya, to impress her, he spent hours training under the sun, developing beautiful tanned skin and huge bulging muscles, and destroying every single intelligent thought he had ever had. Only after that did he realized that Midoya-sensei liked pale, shorter, intelligent men. It was all very sad.