Disclaimer: Again, the most tragic thing about fanfic: HunterxHunter is essentially not mine.
Story so far: An amnesiac Kurapika Kurapika had finally encountered Kuroro Lucifer and it obviously did not end up well. However, at the very least they found out where to start with 'get Kurapika's memories back' operation.
Part 2
CRISIS
"B, b, ba, ba—Bara—" He tried to speak but his teeth kept clattering noisily. It was not due to some colds or anything; it was because the ride was really really rough—that was to put it mildly. 'Wild' was perhaps more suitable. "S, s, s, she—she's—s, st, still—"
Quit talking, boy, or you'll bite your tongue to death, Bara told him unthinkingly, and it really got the boy to zip his mouth shut. Even without you telling me, I still know that the creepy blasted old hag is still after our guts. Hang on, kids.
Bara had wisely chosen to run in the forest, since on air there was a flying creature to be avoided, and it belonged to that creepy old witch. Said witch was trekking—or rather, skipping after them like demon possessed—the forest but the presence of the trees hindered her movements slightly. Bara was counting on the trees to help him shake off this spooky pursuer, but apparently the old witch's dictionary knew no words like 'give up'.
Meta and Bia ducked low while sitting on Bara's back; Meta practically meshing his body onto Bara's while hugging his neck as if it was his only lifeline, and Bia clutching Bara's mane as firmly as her hands could. Occasionally she would send electromagnetic waves to the old woman to distract her, but it made only small difference. Sure, she would stagger from the shock, but she would continue pursuing them with gusto like before. Not to mention that her cackling, high-pitched laughter scared the wits out of her. Hatsubaba sometimes laughed like that, but this old woman's laugh was completely life-threateningly nerve-wracking!
"Wait for me, sweeties~~ Granny wants to talk with you~~" The old woman still ran after them relentlessly.
You're evil and creepy! Who'd want to wait for you? Meta screamed in his head; he could feel her evil aura seeping out of her until it was almost tangible for him.
The crickets were having the night of their lives; singing their orchestra, when suddenly four persons appeared out of thin air and fell to the soft ground. Two landed on the ground rather ungracefully, while one remained standing on his feet with the other one still safe in his arms. The two; who were unfortunate to kiss the ground first thing first after their first experience of teleportation ever, grumbled under their breath as they rubbed their sore body parts and got up to their feet.
Kuroro looked around and surveyed the dark forest. There was no sign of humans at all; the forest was still largely pristine and virgin.
"Well? I don't see or hear any of them."
Relax, bossman. The unicorn is running as if his ass is on fire. It's pointless to teleport to where they are since they keep moving anyway. So I take the liberty of moving you to where they're heading right now. Deifri said with chin up and nostrils flaring.
"Is that so?" Kuroro muttered as he kept scanning the darkness around him.
Suddenly, he felt movement in his arms and when he looked down he saw Kurapika waking up. Kuroro dismissed Deifri and the Ifrit happily obliged with the order—it would bring Hell to have Kurapika see an Ifrit hovering above her. Kuroro remained still until she opened her eyes, and she blinked several times dazedly before her eyes finally caught his.
"How's your sleep, sleeping beauty?"
"W—what?" She exclaimed furiously but her face flushed nonetheless.
"Hey! She finally wakes up!" Yorn ran towards the pair but was stopped by Lucian as he held on to the tail of her chestnut brown hair. "OW! That hurts, you dimwit!"
"You idiot, you're going to scare the day out of her if you suddenly approach her like that. She lost her memories, remember?" Lucian scolded her as he pulled her back.
"Ouch! Fine, fine, I understand! But you don't have to manhandle me, you brute!" Yorn yelled at him as she extricated her poor hair from the vampire's grip.
"W—who? What—where?" She stuttered as she tried to wriggle herself out of Kuroro's arms rather frantically.
"Relax, Kurapika. One by one." Kuroro put her down as Kurapika looked around—after leaping away from Kuroro with unnecessary gusto—with wild eyes and apparent panic. "First of all, these people aren't enemies."
"You could've told her that we're her friends, Lucifer." Lucian protested flatly; which was beautifully ignored by Kuroro.
"F, friends?"
"Although I know that she won't remember me, it still hurts." Lucian said to Yorn dramatically as he put a hand on his chest.
"You inveterate drama queen." Yorn scoffed at him.
"Tomboy."
"Sissy."
While it was entertaining to see the two of them hurling insults and mean words to each other, Kurapika decided that it was not a productive activity and so she turned to Kuroro and gave him a hard look.
"What? I'm not kidnapping you." Kuroro raised his hands in surrendering gesture.
"Like I'll believe you." Kurapika snapped.
"That's not the way to talk to the person who helped you gather all the Scarlet Eyes, Kurapika." Kuroro said in a rather taunting manner.
Kurapika's eyes flashed scarlet in an instant, but it was enough time for Kuroro to admire those eyes. It had been a long time since he last saw those mesmerising pair of eyes and he would not pass the opportunity to see them again; though the situation was too unpleasant to his liking.
"That is a very insulting lie, Kuroro Lucifer." She hissed belligerently at him.
"I never lie to you, Kurapika." Kuroro flashed him a crooked smile.
"What rubbish! You are the leader of the Genei Ryodan, a criminal! Who'd believe that you don't lie—"
"True that I'm a criminal. But it's only to you that I've never lied." Kuroro said airily.
Kurapika was speechless. It was not his play of words that struck her silent, but it was more of his eyes; they were painfully honest to her, wary and suspecting as she might be towards him. It was something that she could not deny.
"He's right, Kurapika. He's never lied to you, not a single time! That's how devoted he is to you!" Lucian told her from a distant, amidst his sily I-know-more-mean-vocabularies-than-you-do competition with Yorn.
"B—but it doesn't make sense…I—I killed one of your Spiders! So why—" Kurapika looked around the dark, empty forest with panic-filled eyes.
"Actually, you killed two." Kuroro said easily. "Paku died by your Judgement Chain."
Kurapika froze.
"So…she really…"
"Oi, oi. Should you really be telling her all those?" Lucian walked towards Kuroro with a look of exasperation in his voice, when suddenly he felt a violent tug at his silky hair. "Yorn! The hell was that for—"
"LOOK THERE! IT'S THAT WITCH! IT'S THAT DAMN WITCH!" Yorn yelled as she pointed at certain direction of the forest.
It earned her the attention of the other people present there. Kuroro looked up and indeed he saw a vague silhouette of a hunching old woman at distance and a kind of bird perching on her shoulder, but that was all that he could see. Lucian, on the other hand, could see as if it was daylight for humans.
"Oh, wow. She's just like you described, Yorn. Pretty spooky appearance. And the bird…Jeez, it's really a bird with human arms for its legs."
"W—what?" Kurapika chocked—on her saliva perhaps—when she heard this.
"After her!" Yorn shrieked in what might sound like a battle cry—alerting the old woman and her bird and so they ran away—and dashed towards the old woman head-on. The thing was she dragged Lucian along…by his hair.
"De ce mă glisarea de-a lungul, tu femeie nebună? (why are you dragging me along, you crazy woman)" Lucian yelled in pain, but nevertheless ran after the fleeing old woman with creepy bird.
Kuroro and Kurapika were left on their own in that dark forest; Kurapika looking absolutely at loss and Kuroro looking at the spot where those three had disappeared into the darkness of the forest with slight amusement in his face.
"What…is this all about? What's happening?" She finally asked him with small voice.
"According to Yorn, that old woman was the one who stole your memories using that bird."
"B—but he said a bird with human arms as its…legs?"
"Apparently so. My guess is it was created using Nen." Kuroro shrugged, as that fact was of no significant to him. Instead, he glanced at the young woman standing slightly in front of him.
"So they're going after the old woman…to get my memories back?"
"Need you state the obvious?" He chuckled while taking a few strands of her golden hair and twirled them in his fingers. "I say that we just need for them to come back."
Suddenly, there was a shrill voice coming from another direction of the forest.
"Oh. And wait until the children and Bara are here."
"Children?" Kurapika stared at him with her eyes at their maximum sizes. Her brain suddenly turned frizzed—Kuroro Lucifer with children? What the—
"Ah, here they come."
Soon enough, there was a thunderous sound of hoofs beating against the ground. Kurapika's heart almost stopped when she saw a horned black horse galloping towards her at breakneck speed. Out of reflex, she summoned her Nen chain but Kuroro grabbed her wrist to prevent her from doing anything rash—as he knew that she sometimes did when panicked and disoriented.
Seeing the two of them, Bara's ruby eyes brightened.
Good timing, Kuroro-boy! Please take care of that creepy old hag who's after our blood behind us! As he said so, Bara made a strong leapt and practically jumped over the standing couple.
Kurapika stared at the black horse in disbelief; she had never seen a horse doing that kind of feat! When the black horse landed on the ground, it did not stop and simply kept running straight ahead. Kurapika saw two small passengers on the horse's back. One was a girl with odd white hair, and the other…
"Mom! Dad!" The boy squealed, but he soon disappeared into the darkness of the forest as the horse mercilessly continued galloping.
Wh—what—
"D, did he just say—" Kurapika pointed at the spot where the horse and its passengers had disappeared into. She still could not believe her hearing.
Kuroro was not listening to her. He was staring to the spot where Bara had just emerged from. He felt a presence coming in fast, and he had a bad feeling about it. Suddenly, the air from that spot vibrated and out of instinct Kuroro shoved Kurapika—who was still standing dazedly—from in front of him slightly to his left, to his far right side.
Kurapika had hardly let out a gasp or surprise when she heard the swishing sound of the air being cleaved by a kind of vacuum blade. She did not stumble unceremoniously to the ground and quickly regained her balance by bracing her legs far apart. She spun around and had opened her mouth with intention of yelling at Kuroro Lucifer for shoving her roughly aside, but no words came out of her mouth when she saw him and his condition.
He had a look of mute shock on his face, and his right arm was still in the position when he had shoved her aside. She had never imagined to see that kind of expression on the Spider Head's face—she never knew he was capable of that kind look of pure, unbridled shock—but her eyes caught sight of something disturbingly red dripping from his left side. Before she could see his left side, she was distracted by yet another sound.
The dull sound of something solid hitting the soft, grassy ground.
She looked at the direction where that muffled sound had come from, and was jaw-slacked when she saw a piece of arm lying there.
"Who would've thought…" Kuroro hissed as he quickly used his Nen to blanket the open, grotesque wound on what remained of his left shoulder. The bleeding instantly stopped, but nonetheless he had lost quite a lot amount of blood.
He had only felt a breeze passing him, and the next thing he knew a part of his left shoulder had been chopped off and his left arm had been flying away from his body. Now he knew how it felt to have a limb cut off.
"Y—your arm—" Kurapika started dumbly. Suddenly a new wave of nausea assaulted her and she doubled up. Fortunately there was nothing left inside her stomach to be vomited out. She did make some gross noises but that was all.
"In front, Kurapika. Focus." Kuroro took out his pins from God-knows-where-he-hides-them, and readied himself for a battle despite his 'amputation'.
Kurapika glanced fleetingly at the arm lying prone on the grassy ground, before she summoned her Nen chain and prepared herself for whatever was coming their way.
"Ooh~~? Look who do we have here~"
Kuroro narrowed his eyes when he heard that voice. It sounded like the voice of an old woman.
When the old woman emerged from the darkness of the forest ahead of them; still immaculate and not breathing hard at all, she was giggling as if she was an escapee from an asylum for the mentally ill…or worse. Like Yorn's description, she wore a kind of gypsy attire, with a cane on her wrinkled arm.
"Hmm~~ My pretty bird is still after those cutie pie kids. They are with a unicorn, you know~? A black unicorn, no less~ Interesting, no? I wonder what kind of memories and information they have in those little pretty heads of theirs. Must be delicious, rii~~ght?" The old woman licked her shrivelled lips hungrily.
Kurapika cringed.
"Ugh…She reminds me of Hisoka…" She muttered in disgust.
"An old woman version of him. I can't disagree." Kuroro said with a thin smile.
However, he was bothered with a question: why was the old woman here when Lucian and Yorn had been chasing after her? Besides, from Bara's tone it seemed that she had been after them for quite a while. Was one of them an illusion? If that was so, then this one had to be the real one since the attack just now was too real to be an illusion. Or were they twins? That was possible as well.
"How about you two~? You make lovely couple, my darlings~ What do you have in those handsome and pretty heads of yours? Hihihihi~~"
As she giggled so, the old woman leapt from where she was standing high to the sky and swung her cane. This time, Kuroro could see what was happening. The moment she swung the stick, the air reverberated and he could feel the pressure on the air; the strength and the speed that the old woman used when swinging the cane created a kind of vacuum blades. What a scary old woman.
Kuroro and Kurapika ducked the vacuum blade—he was glad that she was still combat-ready even when she was distraught and disoriented as she was right at the moment. Perhaps he had to give credits to her Hunter instinct?
He threw his pins to her direction, but she swatted those pins aside easily with her cane. Kuroro vaguely wondered what kind of material the cane was made of. It had to be a kind of metal of some sort. Kuroro took out his Skill Hunter book and the pages quickly flipped. The moment it opened to the desired page, Kuroro disappeared; only to reappear right above the old woman. He delivered an especially strong kick at the old woman's back, never minding the rather loud cracking sound coming from her back—fractured bones, at the very least—because, despite his indifferent look, he was quite irritated by him missing an arm. The phantom limbs effect was starting to get to him—though he could drown out that sensation, it was still annoying. Besides, this was the first time he ever lost a limb in a fight and so he wanted to at least get even with the 'offender'.
Not that he regretted the cause of his 'amputation', though. Had he not shoved a distracted Kurapika aside, she would have been split into two and that would be impossible to fix. His arms could still be fixed, so he guessed that it was worth the effort.
When the old 'witch' landed on the ground with a loud thud, she started scrambling to her feet and was screeching something in indignation at Kuroro. She got up rather sluggishly, as if the damage on her back done by Kuroro was quite extensive. Kuroro was still airborne when the old woman raised her cane in attempt to deliver another one of her vacuum blades. She thought that he would not be able to dodge when mid-air, but she obviously forgot his Teleportation skill. She was just about to swing down her cane when suddenly it felt as if her cane was stuck somewhere solid. She tugged at her cane violently for several times, before she finally realised that it was not only her cane. Her whole body was paralyzed.
"Got you." Kurapika said triumphantly as she walked close to the old lady. Soon enough, her Nen chain that she had concealed with In revealed itself wrapping the old woman's body. It was the same technique she had used with Uvogin.
"You little wench!" The old lady screamed at her; her face the very representation of 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'.
Suddenly there was a shrill cry coming from above. Kurapika only had the time to look up when she felt something feathery colliding with her head and started clawing at her. It was the old woman's bird. Distracted, her Nen chain slacked and the old woman wasted no time to escape from it. She had just turned to Kurapika and swung down her cane a few degrees; not enough to manifest any vacuum blades yet, when her wrist was ensnared with a deathly grip.
Before she even had the time to look back (in fury) at the one who locked her wrist, she felt a foot slamming to her back and sent her crashing to the ground beneath her. With the grip maintained around her wrist, suffice to say that there was a sickening cracking sound coming from her shoulder joint. Whether she had merely sprained it or dislocated it; or if the bones had been broken inside, the perpetrator clearly did not give a damn about it.
"Heh. For an old woman you are surely very lively." Kuroro said while maintaining his punishing foot on the old woman's back.
The old woman squirmed violently, trying to get rid of that foot on her back, but it was to no avail. She only managed to look like a worm that had been showered with salt. That said, she resorted to throwing insults at the man but of course it had no effect on him at all. There was a death-inspired squeak coming from the direction where Kurapika and the bird had been wrestling. Kurapika had finally won the contest and had wrapped the infernal bird neatly (like a package containing TNT) with her Nen chain. She scowled heavily as there were some scratches on her face and her hair was an absolute mess. The bird was still alive, though.
Still the same Kurapika. She doesn't even have the heart to kill a bird. Or perhaps evidently that is just how she is since the beginning, Kuroro fleetingly thought, before he focused back to the old woman under his foot. She was still struggling desperately. Kuroro pulled at her wrist and it elicited a cry of pain from the old woman, along with a string of colourful combinations of curses that followed soon after.
"An eye for an eye," Kuroro smirked down at her dangerously, "a limb for a limb."
Without further ado, Kuroro pulled hard at the said wrist. REALLY hard. The pull was strong enough to rip the entire arm off the old woman's shoulder. He figured that it would be way more painful to have one's arm literally ripped off like that instead of cut off clean like his. Sometimes; when he felt like it, he would return the damage he received manifolds towards the attacker. This time, he really felt particularly evil.
The old woman let out a scream agony as if Judgment Day had finally come. She trashed wildly and continued screaming, scaring the residents of the forest. Some birds flew from their comfy nests up among the branches of trees.
"Kuroro!" Kurapika exclaimed in protest that was mixed with shock and disbelief.
"I'm just returning the favour. Now, down to business…" He bent down to the old woman; who had finally ceased her ear-splitting screams. "Did you steal her memories?"
Instead of answering, the old woman spat at him and threw more insults to his face. Kuroro's eyes turned glacial and he narrowed his eyes. He was not feeling magnanimous or patient at the moment. Not at all.
In a draw of breath, he took out a pin and threw it down to the old woman's head. It practically impaled the old woman's head to the ground. Silence then came back to the forest. The wind blew coldly, carrying the repugnant stench of blood with it and spreading it everywhere else.
"You…didn't have to do that." Kurapika stated shakily. Suddenly, a new wave of nausea came back and she started retching violently. Despite so, she still maintained her Nen chain around the bird.
"I feel otherwise." Kuroro said deadpanned as he walked towards Kurapika. He felt unbalanced with a whole arm missing.
Suddenly, his cell phone rang and he answered it without even bothering to look at the Caller ID. It would be either from Shalnark or Lucian, anyway.
[Yo, frater (brother). We've finished with business here.] Lucian said in a sing-song manner.
"And?"
[The old hag put up one helluva resistance. She freaked the undead out of me, I'm telling you. It feels like I'm facing that insane clown again, old woman version!]
"Ditto."
[Oh? You mean you've fought another one of this creep?]
Kuroro raised an eyebrow at this statement. Lucian sounded as if he had somewhat anticipated it.
"What did you find out, Lucian?"
[Well…I tasted her blood and all. Smells and tastes like sewer, for the love of God! Anyway, from what I manage to gather, this old hag is not operating alone. There are more of them.]
"How many exactly?"
[It seems like they're working for an organization, information brokers or something like that. Just like you predicted. The creeps here—oh, they are Nen users, by the way—are the ones responsible for information and memories gathering. The thing is…]
Lucian paused as he was actually trying to believe what he was going to say. He himself had a hard time digesting it.
"The thing is?" Kuroro repeated impatiently.
[They are quadruplets.]
Hardly a second had passed since Lucian's last word when Kuroro's instinct screamed at him to duck. He followed his instinct, and by doing so he managed to elude the chance of getting some holes on his head. He whirled around and raised his good hand that was still holding his cell phone, shielding his face. He felt some jabs on his arm and one on his chest, and when he looked at his arm and chest he was not surprised to see some needles protruding from them. The needles that had just whirled past his head were embedded on a tree trunk near Kurapika.
[Lucifer? Lucifer? What's going on there?]
"Seems like the other sister is here for revenge. I'll call you back again later." Kuroro said curtly as he quickly hung up and shoved his cell phone into his pocket.
Just as he took out his pins and held them in his fingers, he felt his arm going numb. His fingers then turned slack and the pins fell from his fingers. Kuroro narrowed his eyes at this.
Paralyzing poisons? Lethal dose, on top of it, he mused in annoyance.
Kuroro looked up and stared at the old woman standing at another corner of the forest. She had a look of fury on her wrinkly face, but she had not canes with her. It seemed that her weapon of choice is needles. Her bird, he vaguely noted, was nowhere to be seen—if all four of the quadruplets had similar birds, that is.
The old woman shrieked in uncontained anger and hurled more needles at him. At the same time, a cry could be heard from the sky and a bird swooped down towards him. Kuroro bent his knees in preparation for a jump, but his legs turned weak and he could only stagger. Just as he cursed inwardly, he heard the diving bird giving out a cry of death and the clinging noise of metal against metal. He also heard the graceful swish of chains that sounded very familiar to his ears.
Kurapika had used her Nen chain to ward off the onslaught of needles towards Kuroro. While her one hand was busy controlling the Nen chain, she used her other hand to pluck out the needles embedded on the tree trunk and hurl them at the birds. They hit both birds' bodies and the avian quickly succumbed to the lethal poison. They dropped to the ground and twitched several times before finally they lay motionless.
She had composed herself enough to engage properly in battle. She had concluded quickly that the needles were poisonous, judging from the way Kuroro inadvertently dropped the pins from his fingers. She might hate him for all she knew at the moment, but she would not let him die in the hands of some deranged old women. If he was to die, it would be by her hands.
"YOU LITTLE—!" The old woman shrieked as she produced more needles from the folds of her gypsy outfit.
She threw them at Kurapika and once again she perfectly deflected them. Kuroro observed her as he plucked out the needles on his arm with his teeth; his right arm had been rendered useless by the poison. He had decided to fall back for the time being and leave the rest of the fight to Kurapika.
Kurapika kept deflecting those coming needles as she grabbed Kuroro's discarded pins from the ground. With a precise flick of her wrist—she was surprised by this trained move of her wrist—she sent those pins towards the old woman. As she predicted, the old woman jumped and Kurapika took this golden opportunity to hurl the last needles that she had procured from the tree trunk towards the creepy witch.
For a moment she had thought that the old woman was going to deflect them by using the extension clothe of her gypsy attire, but suddenly there were sparks in the air and the old woman looked as if she was electrocuted for a fraction of second. It was all that it took for the needles to make their way right to her body.
The old woman dropped to the ground and twitched for several seconds until she finally ceased moving at all. Kurapika assumed that she might be dead, and did not bother to check. Somehow, she did not feel that bad for killing that old woman. She wondered why.
All those aside, she also began to wonder as the 'persistent presence' inside her chest had started to grow weaker. It did not feel as if it was disappearing; it was more like it was being clawed and shredded slowly and torturously. It was not pleasant at all, worse than ever, actually.
There were faints of hoof-beats from distant as Bara ran back to them with his passengers safe and sound on his back. Kuroro knew that the credit went to Bia for distracting the old woman, and it appealed him to know that she had a good sense of a kind in her mind. She seemed quite attuned to fighting condition.
"Very well done, Kurapika." Kuroro said cheerfully, and he would have clapped his hands if only he had them intact and functional.
However, as situation required it, he had to sit reclining against the tree with least movement possible and with his arm supported with his propped knee at the level of his heart to prevent the poison from spreading further and wreaking further unwanted havoc in his body system.
"She's your first kill after so long."
Kurapika flinched at his words, and he saw it.
"What do you mean, 'so long'?" She turned and scowled at him.
"You've killed people, Kurapika. You know it." Kuroro said airily as if they were discussing the weather. He knew that he was not supposed to be taunting her, but he could not help it.
"I only killed your Spiders." She said defensively.
"Not so." Kuroro smiled at her, and it sent shivers of dread down her spine. "You've killed a man in our travel before."
Though she paled at the mention of her killing people, she heaved a secretive sigh of relief when he said 'a man'. So anxious she was about the prospect of her killing people that she missed the 'our travel' part.
"Only one, right?" She walked towards him warily.
"One." Kuroro nodded, and added slightly sinisterly, "But that's only you doing the killing. You haven't counted the number of people who died because of you." He had the Mammon in his mind when he said that.
Kurapika widened her eyes in disbelief.
"What do you—"
"MOM! DAD!" A shrill, childish voice intercepted both Kurapika's words and her train of thoughts.
Bara decelerated to a saunter and finally stopped near Kuroro; who by then was already sitting on the ground and leaning against the tree trunk rather wearily. His right arm hung uselessly by his side, and a needle was still on his chest. Meta and Bia jumped off Bara's back and they ran towards the duo. Meta rammed his body right to Kurapika's legs while Bia looked somewhat contemplatively between Kurapika and Kuroro back and forth. It seemed; as Kuroro noted, that she was observing the situation and making a sense out of it.
"Mom! Did you really lose your memories? Do you remember me?" Meta bombarded her quite mercilessly.
Kurapika blinked her eyes several times and Kuroro sighed. The boy was only making things more difficult.
"I, I—" Kurapika looked at Kuroro and found him staring at her with a kind of emotion in those obsidian eyes.
"You don't remember…?" Meta's shoulders sagged in disappointment. He then turned to Kuroro and froze when he saw him. "Dad! Your arm!"
"Quite slow, aren't you?" Kuroro chuckled darkly at him, and turned to Bia when he saw her extending her hand to the needle on his chest. "No, Bia. Don't touch the needle with your bare hands. It's poisonous."
Bia pouted but nevertheless she obeyed him as she used her outer skirt to pull the needle off Kuroro's chest. Meta looked at Kuroro's torn left shoulder with dread. His eyes turned ablaze in scarlet then, and Kurapika noticed its glow in the darkness of the forest. She took the boy's face in her hands and lifted up his face so that she could take a better look at his face.
"Scarlet Eyes."
"I get it from you…" Meta said in blatant disappointment, and he began sniffling. "But…why's Dad like that? Mom?" Meta tugged at Kurapika's sleeve, but the latter was too distracted to answer the boy's question.
Kurapika's brains felt frozen. It was as if all the gears and wheels inside her brain had been clogged and turned off forcedly; a very obvious information over-loading. The boy kept spouting the words "Mom" and "Dad" constantly between her and Kuroro, and it was as if she had turned as dumb as a newborn infant. It was so hard to put two and two together at the moment.
Finally, Meta seemed to give up as he ran to Kuroro and buried his face in his good shoulder.
"It can't be helped." Kuroro told him with low, tired voice. "You know the situation, don't you?"
The boy said nothing as he hid his face and faint sobs could be heard from him. Kurapika's shoulders slumped. She did not know what to do, or what to say, or what to even think.
Oh my, Bara's out-of-place cheerful voice broke the tension for a moment, Kuroro-boy, is this your arm over here that's bleeding river?
"Oh." He completely forgot about it. "Bia, help me get my cell phone in my pocket."
Kuroro told her to search for Shalnark's name in the name list and she did just so. She dialled the number and pressed the speaker to Kuroro's ears.
[Danchou! I was just about to give you a call. I did the research you told me and I've got some interesting findings.]
"Find a group with quadruplets in it." Kuroro said flatly. It was not actually his reason of calling Shalnark, but nevermind that. A little digression would not hurt.
[Oh? Well, that's the one I've highlighted. Four Nen-users with specialty of stealing people's memories and extracting information from them. Three are in charge of gathering the memories, one stay behind in the headquarters to sift through the memories.]
"Where's their headquarters?"
[They usually operate per location in certain duration of time. Since the attack on Kurapika is just a few days ago, I think they're still around that area.]
"Any way to get those memories back?"
[So they're really the ones who steal Kurapika's memories? Gosh…] There was a sound of fingers tapping furiously on the keyboards. [Nope. Unfortunately, there's no information about that. Nobody has ever recovered their memories once stolen by those quadruplets, so far as I manage to find.]
"I see." Well, in that case this would be the first and last time that someone was getting her memories back from those four. "I'll handle them. Shalnark, you get the coordination of my position now, don't you?"
[Yep. No problem with that.] Shalnark said proudly. He had installed a kind of tracking device on all Spiders' cell phones so that it would be easier to send reinforcement to anyone when needed—especially when some Spiders just had plain BAD sense of direction.
"Good. Send Machi to my place. Tell her that I need her sewing expertise." Kuroro said with dark humour in his voice.
[Uh, okay…I'll contact her right away.]
"Is it possible for her to reach my place in less than four hours?"
From what limited medical knowledge he had, amputated body parts would start decaying after four hours when they were not cooled. If things got desperate, perhaps he could use his last remaining strength to use the Solomon Ring and teleported Machi right to his place. Though that would be only for the very last resort; Kuroro really disliked using the Solomon Ring at all. The said ring dangled coldly on a chain around his necklace, well hidden underneath his white shirt.
[Mmm… I think so.]
"Tell her to hurry."
[Roger that.]
The call was ended just like that, and Bia put the cell phone back in Kuroro's pocket. Kuroro then regarded the girl again.
"Bia, has Heen taught you how to stop bleeding with Nen?"
She nodded and stared into Kuroro's eyes intently.
"Good. After you've stopped the bleeding, wrap the wound with a piece of clean clothe to prevent any possibility of infection. Don't bother to clean it in any way, and don't get water on it since it will reduce the chance of reattaching it. Understand?"
Bia nodded her head vigorously, her white hair bouncing up and down energetically. She had just half-turned when she stopped and turned to him again. She wrote:
'Do you want me to take Meta with me?'
Kuroro raised an eyebrow at this question.
How very thoughtful of her, he mused. He nodded at her, and Bia quickly dragged a whimpering, whiny Meta away from Kuroro. Meta started muttering gibberish amidst his sobs and sniffs, and Kuroro did not bother to listen closely to him. He turned his attention to a very confused Kuruta—who happened to have closed her eyes with a mixture of feelings on her face. He could not really pin point the exact emotions, but anyway he did not give a damn about it at the moment.
"Pull yourself together, Kurapika." He said, his tone rather scolding.
Kurapika's eyes snapped open and she looked at Kuroro with something that was akin to…determination? Kuroro was not sure.
Wordlessly, Kurapika walked to his side and touched his pretty much useless arm lightly. She stared at it for a while, and Kuroro observed her silently. She seemed to be thinking hard.
Her eyes had been fixed to the silver ring that was encircling his ring finger. The aquamarine blue was glowing red, and so was her silver-onyx one. Curious as she was about the nature of those rings, she decided not to think about it for the moment. There was something more urgent to attend at the moment.
"They are poisonous, right? The needles…"
"Evidently so."
The frown on her forehead deepened. She noticed the 'persistent presence' kept going weaker slowly. Was it telling her something?
"Take off your suit."
While Kuroro raised a questioning eyebrow at this sudden commanding tone, he did it nonetheless. He was curious to see what she wanted to pull off. Kurapika, surprisingly gently, took what remained of the black suit off him and put it on the ground by her side. Next she unbuttoned the cuff and; with one strong pull, ripped the sleeve all the way until the elbow. She also took off his ring and kept it in her pocket. She did them to eliminate the possibility of the clothing getting in the way in case the arm swelled due to the poison.
All the while, Kuroro kept observing her working with so much focus and concentration. It was endearing to see her work that hard for him, especially knowing that she had no recollection of what had happened between them for the past eight years. To be honest, he had this twisted pleasure in seeing her getting so confused and trying to adjust to the situation since at least she was not rejecting everything. At least she was trying to ascertain the truth before simply refusing to acknowledge them. It was most obvious when she saw Meta, though…
Kurapika took the piece of sleeve from his shirt and it into make-shift bandage. She tied it around Kuroro's wrist and up to his elbows tightly; enough to stop the poison from spreading beyond his arm and towards his heart; if it had not already done so, but loose enough to allow arterial blood flow (away from the heart).
She then looked around in search of any wooden stick that was sturdy enough to make a splint out of it. To her dismay, there was none nearby.
"And we don't have water." Her voice sounded annoyed enough.
"It's fine. This poison won't make too much damage on me, much less kill me." Kuroro said calmly, and even with slight tone of amusement in his voice.
"How come?" Kurapika eyed him in disbelief and suspicion.
"It's just my body." He shrugged faintly. He could not go on telling her about Ishtar's blood, could he? If he did so, she would start claiming that the poison was getting to his head.
"Like a monster." Kurapika scoffed.
Kuroro snorted in amusement at this. If only she knew that she shared the same 'monstrous' blood in her body, but the present amnesiac Kurapika would faint with white froth in her mouth if she was to be told so without preparation. The Kuruta huffed; disgruntled by his lack of reaction, but she picked up Kuroro's suit and used it as a make-shift bandage to cover the exposed flesh and bones of his left shoulder. She made sure that the 'bandage' was secure as she tied the knot around his torso below his right armpit.
There were soft muffed sounds of footstep and hoof-beats approaching them, and Bia emerged holding Kuroro's arm in her thin arms as if she was holding an exceedingly fragile glass trophy, with Meta following her like an extension of her body, and with Bara sauntering behind them. The black unicorn looked very towering and intimidating compared to the small children. The stump of the 'amputated' arm was neatly dressed—neater than Kuroro had expected out of her—and it was perfectly blanketed in her Nen to prevent blood loss. Meta was half-hiding behind her and was still sniffing. He refused to look at Kurapika, and Kurapika found herself feeling disturbed by this.
Your girlie here really knows how to do her stuffs. Man, it creeps the sanity out of me,Bara commented.
"Good job." Kuroro told Bia with a thin smile. "The forest is cold at night, so I guess that will prolong the shell life of my arm. Put it on the ground, the soil will help cool it further."
Bia nodded and put it gently by Kuroro's side. Kuroro then blanketed the said arm with his Nen to stop the bleeding since Bia had let go of it. Meta tugged at her skirt from behind, and Bia frowned at him over her shoulder, as if scolding him non-verbally. He tugged harder, and Bia rolled her eyes. She turned to Kuroro and wrote:
'Meta has a question.'
"Which is?" Inside, Kuroro was more than weary. The boy just knew how to ask the hardest questions.
Kurapika was staring at her; she was obviously taken to see such unconventional method of communication—though she was actually the one responsible for teaching Bia how to write in the first place. Bia hesitated for a while, and her next writing came slowly and uncertainly.
'Did you really kill Mommy's people?'
Ouch… Bara cringed.
Both Kurapika and Kuroro froze.
"How—"
"He has empathic ability. You've been repeating those lines in your heads since the beginning, right?" There was no accusation in Kuroro's voice; it was merely a statement of the truth and Kurapika could not refute him. "I guess he took a glimpse of those thoughts in your head when he was holding you earlier. And your negative feelings that come with it."
'He asks if it was a mistake.' Bia said again with a frown. She herself was not very happy with that revelation, and was wondering if it was true or not. She had never heard of it from anyone before.
Bara looked at the couple with very much interested eyes despite the awkwardness of the situation. For him, this was an added bonus of entertainment. Kurapika was gaping like a goldfish that was lacking oxygen, but Kuroro beat her to giving an answer.
"Unfortunately, it was not, Meta. I didn't make a mistake. I planned it, I executed it." He turned to look at his firstborn; who was peeking from Bia's back. "I don't regret it."
With wide teary eyes, he looked at his father while wedging his body tight to Bia. The white-haired girl frowned at Kuroro's choice of words. Kurapika had visibly stiffened and had averted her eyes to the ground; there was eerie red glows coming from beneath her black contact lenses.
"Plans are made, actions are executed. There will always consequences out of those." Kuroro continued. "The last thing to do—the only one we can do—is to face those consequences."
He felt a tug on his shirt, and turned to look into Bia's intense hazel eyes. She raised a finger and wrote:
'Are we…one of those consequences…?'
Kuroro was not surprised to see these words coming from Bia; he knew that it was her question, not Meta's. Her body might be that of a teenage girl, but her mind was developing far more rapidly than her body was. It was as if her mind was catching up with the years that had passed when she had been confined in the tank of Bensalem.
The pale man could only offer her a small smile; but Bia found it strangely comforting though perhaps to other people it would look far from that. Perhaps subconsciously she remembered that her being rescued from a certain hell-hole was actually part of the consequences of the massacre of the Kuruta clan…in the long term.
"Yes." He said softly.
Bia smiled broadly at him.
Suddenly, there were a lot of noises coming from one corner of the forest. The children tensed up, and so did Kurapika, but Kuroro kept composure. From the sounds of it, he could tell that two particularly noisy people were coming back.
Author's Note: Another cliffy end. By all means guess what news the two will be bringing to Kuroro and Kurapika. Good news or bad news? Speculate all you want XD Oh yeah, if you still haven't noticed by now, the 'persistent presence' inside Kurapika is Kuroro's Nen.
HAH! So now Meta and Bia knows about their (literally) bloody past. Pfft XD
Most importantly: reviews! XD No review, no update! *bulldozer-ed for threatening*
