OWC: 3,057
DISCLAIMER: Yoshihiro Togashi owns HxH
Chapter One
~Colliding~
"Crystal."
"Kuroro? It's you, after so long, no words at all."
"Should I apologize for my lack of contact?"
"Do you want to keep your dignity intact?"
A chuckle. "Of course. You haven't change, Crystal."
A dry snort. "I've already did. You were never there to notice."
"Maybe that's true."
A tired rolling of eyes. "What do you want, Lucifer?"
"I need a nen-remover."
"Excuse me?"
"Your nen is specialization, correct?" he asked. "It covers such. Nen removal. I need your help."
Narrowing of eyes, tenacity in her voice. "I'm not your Spider. Not yours."
"No, if you look at the facts, actually, you were the first."
She fingered the tattoo at the side of her neck. "Maybe."
"It's reasonable. No worry—no Spider contact will be availed of until you remove the nen restricting me so." A smile. "Remember, 'For the Spider'?"
"And that's just it? You need a nen-remover, and you've gone all the way here just for that?"
A devilish smirk. "Of course not."
"You are going to track my daughter down," Raito Nostrade said with an authoritative voice. Of course that was forced, because at that moment he felt anything but in control. The three bodyguards, meanwhile, did not make a sound, and just stood there waiting for further clarification. "Crystal Nostrad."
He watched the three trusted servants twitch in surprise at the name, especially the blond one. He continued to explain instead, ignoring their responses, but at that moment the best explanation he could give was a picture that he slid across his glass-topped desk toward the eyes of Neon's three credible bodyguards.
A girl, with sea-green eyes, a pretty face, and rosy cheeks, was in the picture, sitting underneath the spring sun by a Sakura tree. A gentle smile split her face, but it didn't seem to be genuine, almost trained to be fake. Across her neck was an almost perfectly hidden spider tattoo.
Wait a sec… Kurapika squinted his eyes and leaned closer to see. He thought he was merely dreaming—no, having nightmares while awake—and was imagining things, but he had to make sure.
He felt his eyes turn red, but since he didn't have contacts, he kept his head low. The terrifying realization was quick to come to his agile mind—he was about to clash weapons once more, merely 4 months after. And he thought he was back at peace with himself, but no. He didn't expect it to be that quick. How fate plays with him was a really funny thing.
The spider had 12 legs.
Darkly, the voice inside his head snickered and smiled in pleasure of his current situation. She's with the Ryodan.
"How is old she now, Raito, sir?" Senritsu asked, trying to break the tense silence as she listened sadly and worriedly at Kurapika's erratic heartbeats, his silent agitation. That rhythm in his heart was so terrifyingly familiar, and she didn't want to hear it anymore. But it was there, lingering in her ears like the most painful melody she'll ever hear.
"She would be around 20, or 21 now," Raito told them. With a solemn voice, he added, "She was 14 in that photo." Raito shook his head. "She was talented, I could tell that. Why she ran off is out of my bounds. I believe she would've changed her name. She would be on a different alias now, but I want you to hunt her down. She is still my daughter no matter what."
"Nostrade-san," Kurapika said, almost seethingly, through clenched teeth as he tried to put away once more his suppressed anger. "What about Neon?"
"You will search with her, Kurapika. All of you." Raito said, and Bashou sent a pitiful glance to the teenager, and inwardly, to himself as well, because Neon irritated him to no end. "Any other questions?"
"One last, sir," Kurapika said, still with the reining-his-anger tone. "What is her power?"
"She's somewhere within the bounds of specialization, and her power covers a lot, too vast that I hadn't managed to train her properly, actually," Raito informed them. "But the last I've known of her, she has been practicing nen-removal."
Fear and anger mixed up in Kurapika's eyes.
"Do I have to reassure you that this won't hurt?" Crystal said in a mocking tone as she prepared Kuroro—mentally and emotionally—for the next big thing that was going to happen to him..
"Crystal, I am not five," Kuroro said.
"Of course you aren't. You're fifty-five," she said, as she tying the ribbon she used to knot her hair up tightly. "Now stop moving and lay down straight," she ordered. "Now I want you to shut down all your nen systems, everything. Don't even try to think."
"That would not be possible, if I'm not dead," Kuroro said, but he shut up once he saw Crystal's glare.
This girl's always straight to the point, Kuroro thought to himself. He was, too, but this time, he wanted to play around. Mind over matter just disappeared into thin air. But in the end, he complied quietly to her request-order.
Crystal took three deep breaths. "I want you to remember who did this to you… and push him away from you. Try imagining the events without him being there… just you, and the people around you, but not the person who did this horrible thing with his drastically evil nen that I will not even start to explain how drastic. Just go and deny him of his right to exist in your mind, in your past, in your existence."
Kuroro did as she had said. Chain assasssin, Kurapika, the Scarlet Eyes—all gone, all faded from his mind like a fleeting evanescent memory. He felt himself drifting into unconsciousness as Crystal gripped his hand, where her flow of nen came in, pulling out the nen that constricted him. He always wanted to watch Crystal take away the nen and be a nen-remover—it was always entertaining for teachers to watch their students do what they had been taught—but since he's the one being 'cleaned', he was denied of the chance.
"Now just focus and I'm warning you this will hurt a bit."
When Kuroro felt the vortex suffocating him, he just narrowed his eyes and tried to deny the pain a place in his heart.
Just like what he did to Kurapika Kuruta.
There.
Kurapika felt it, from within the recesses of his soul, the place where his nen was stored, where he knew his life was there. Where his heart was beating, he felt that wherever he had left his nen, just wasn't there. And he felt it, ever so painfully so.
It's gone.
At first, he could not figure out what was gone, what was missing, but as soon as he started thinking about what kind of feeling disappeared, horror struck in his eyes and he was left speechless in a moment, dumbstruck, staring wide-eyed at the walls of the Nostrade mansion. His eyes turned scarlet for a very short fraction of a second, but he got them turned back to normal before anybody else noticed.
"Kurapika?"
He blinked, caught off guard again. He spun on his heel and faced Senritsu. To tell the truth in his heart, he really didn't want to involve the others into this mission—which he had set upon himself—anymore, not again, knowing how much it had hurt them the last time he attempted it.
So he tried to deadpan. "Senritsu. Is something the matter?"
Senritsu didn't smile as he hoped she would. "That's the question I was going to ask you, Kurapika. Is something wrong?"
"No, I'm okay; there's nothing to bother about."
"I can hear your heartbeat, Kurapika," Senritsu reminded him, and made waving movements in the air resembling a musical conductor. She closed her eyes as if engrossed to that sound. "You can't lie to me; you're worried."
He blinked, thoughts racing into his mind. What excuse now, Kurapika? He blinked once more and answered in a forced-deadpan, "Yes, I'm worried for Killua and Gon. They've been out of the game for a few months now, but I haven't gotten so much as a call or so, which is not typical of Gon…"
Senritsu narrowed her eyes, and Kurapika knew she wasn't giving up on this. "You're still lying."
He sighed. He couldn't win over this argument, he knew the chance didn't exist. Senritsu knew him well enough, in and out. There wasn't any getting away with her interrogating him about his emotions... and there was nothing worse.
With a tired sigh to force in the agitation, he said, "The nen restrictions are gone."
"You mean around the Spider head?" Senritsu said after a long pause, cautious of her words. She didn't want to say the words 'Kuroro' or 'Lucifer,' knowing it would provoke Kurapika.
"It's gone… or at least loosened," Kurapika said. "And I think I know which direction we're going to head in search for Crystal."
Surprised at the sudden subject change, Senritsu didn't manage to think over it. "Quick thinking. Where, then?"
"East…" Kurapika said, not bothering to clarify why or how he knew. He knew, though, and he was sure, that she had a link to the Spiders—how close or how so, he didn't know. He just knew. "I know. He's there. And I bet, she's there."
Kuroro felt his mind whirl. He was spinning, in his mind. In a world of black and white, memories came and passed by him like pictures caught from life. Ryuusei-gai, YorkShin. Memories he thought he'd buried long ago came up from their graves.
Rukuso Valley.
That memory stayed the longest, and he didn't know why he'd bother stare at it. The burning houses, the dead people. A sack of eyes, floating in containers, ready to be sold to the all-waiting mafia.
How the emotions started penetrating him, emanating from the memory, he didn't know. It was just there, attacking him like swords pushed up and down his skin, in his rational mind.
The Chain-Assassin, Uvogin, Pakunoda. Shalnark, Phinks, Nobunaga. Machi, Shizuku, Feitan. Franklin, Bonorenofu, Coltopi. Hisoka. Flickering memories, like a lighted candle outside on a breezy night. Barely there, almost like in flash forward, being skipped. Quickly. Ignored.
Kuroro was skimming through his memories, taking his time, not minding the pain that felt like was ripping his mind, ripping his heart. He felt it, but he still took his time.
Then suddenly, he saw the light.
"Have you located Crystal-nee-san?"
"Not yet, Neon-sama," Kurapika said as he scanned through the electronic pages of the Hunter site. "But I'm about to."
"Really? Lemme see, lemme see!" Neon said, jumping out her bed to go over Kurapika.
Well, bad momentum. She jumped over to Kurapika's chair, toppling him over, toppling the table over, and the computer was pulled off the switch as the monitor came crashing toward the floor, sending thousands of shards of glass onto the floor, wall, ceiling, up the air.
Kurapika tried to defend Neon, and immediately did what any bodyguard would do on a time like that—embrace. He embraced Neon, ignoring all the pain the glass was making on him. They rolled on the floor, and he placed Neon on the bed. She widened her eyes with the amount of blood coming out of the wounds.
He tried to pluck the shards out of his skin, and blood immediately ran out, staining his tribal garments. Neon crawled over to her bedside, took out the bandages, and sheepishly gave it to Kurapika.
"Sorry… I guess it's my fault again…" Neon said, head hanging low. "I'm such a klutz. I should avoid glass next time." Neon looked up at Kurapika, who was still looking wide-eyed at Neon, caught off guard once more, because Neon never said sorry. Neon smiled. "C'mon, I'll do that for you, if you don't mind." She pulled up Kurapika by his arm and peeled off his clothes even after hearing his protestant whines. She was still the master, and she enforced that. And with that done over, she started to wind the bandage around the wounds.
Neon tried her best not to look at his bare body. But no, she couldn't. She was human, after all—humans are easily tempted. She felt her face flush real hard and Kurapika was also flushing redder than anything that had ever existed.
Finally, after what seemed like forever, she ripped the bandage as she finished. Kurapika stood up and wore his torn clothes, promising himself he'll change later. He turned around to Neon, who was looking at her hands trying to remove the redness on her face. "Uh… t-till tomorrow N-neon-s-sama…" he stuttered and went out the door. He would never do that to himself anymore, he promised. As if.
Rolling in her bed, Neon fell asleep smiling.
"Good morning, sleepy head. You took longer than any other person I've ever done Removal on. What took you so long?"
What took me so long? He stared at the blank ceiling, the fan that turned slowly above him in the room. He sighed. "The memories made me linger on it for quite a while."
She rolled her eyes. "You? Lingering on memories? Oh please. You're the type who goes over everything he does, right or wrong. Nothing really matters."
"That doesn't really apply on everything," Kuroro sighed, finally sitting up.
Crystal was playing with a lollipop on her mouth. Raspberry. Playing irresistible, as always. "Say, how's Uvo-kun? The playful beast of a man doesn't come around as much anymore, these past few months since the auctions. I was there, but I got bored. Ended up in the flea market."
"Uvogin…" Kuroro muttered. "…he was killed."
"Killed?" Crystal's voice rose a pitch higher as she removed the lollipop from her mouth, half-eaten. She knew Uvogin, he was a big and burly man who wouldn't anybody bully her or himself. He was strong and he fought for what he wanted, no matter the cost.
He couldn't have been beaten by some little scum in the York Shin auction, now could he?
"Who?" Crystal asked, her voice a little panicky. She tried to keep a calm visage, but to no avail.
Kuroro raised an eyebrow at her. "Knowing you… And I thought you'd be prying with my memories."
"He's the one?" Crystal asked. "The one who put the nen chain on you?"
Kuroro nodded. "Yes. The Kuruta, a survivor we apparently missed to execute."
Usually Crystal would flinch or so with Kuroro's use of the word execute, but she just remained like that, sitting down, staring at the wall with a glare on her eyes. Kuroro couldn't read through it. He, instead, just called her attention. "Crystal."
Crystal was muttering to herself, knowing she'd seen that boy somewhere. He was young and only in his teen years, she knew, and for him to be able to beat someone as strong as Uvogin, he had to have some special trick in his nen, in which he draws his power.
That boy was a stick man! He was also small! How can he beat Uvo? There must be something wrong about this…
"Crystal," Kuroro called her attention once more, now with a little worry in his tone. Even if he could be a considered as cold, heartless, ruthless and merciless killer and thief, he was still human. Maybe his emotions were a little slow to show on his actions, but he still cared for his Spiders. They were like a little family.
And being like a family, he knew them well enough. She never freaked out to the point of murmuring to herself as he had seen; always, when they were together, she was almost as calm as him.
"I saw him, we talked… Last Christmas, at York Shin… he was alone, I—I didn't know he was… I didn't—I couldn't…" She was already muttering, still shocked to her bones. "...He wouldn't have recognized me because I had a wig on but he... he's..."
Kuroro just looked on at her, with blank eyes. It wasn't usual that she had breakdown moments, and he only counted once before in their time together. "He works for your father. He's your sister's bodyguard; the head of their league, even."
Crystal buried her face in her hands. She admired that kid, he was actually pretty fun to talk to. He wasn't the storyteller type, but he read books and had a charming smile. She felt like Neon, falling over for people again just because of their looks, their glances, their first show-attitude. She knew she had to be more rational than Neon, but what she had done was not worth it.
"Crystal, I need to go," Kuroro said, but she did not even look up at him. "I'll send down someone to come fetch you."
"Lucifer..." she murmured, so softly maybe he wasn't even supposed to hear, but he did. He heard tiny sobs escaping from her throat, but they were almost inaudible, like she was forcing them back in again. Words rattled out of her mouth seethingly as she tried to control the anger which she could not seem to bottle up. "No…Not before I find him again, and this time, it won't be that pleasant for him…"
Kuroro went over to Crystal crouched low in front of her, looking at her angry green eyes. He put a hand on her shoulder and whispered, "Crystal, recklessness is one of the factors that led to this. You know what I taught you."
She knew what Kuroro was talking about. When they were training he taught her, Don't do anything before thinking a dozen steps ahead. Remember that everything we do is dangerous and if we don't think it through-and-through, it might cause our deaths.
Even so, Crystal's tears continued to spill over. A tiny whine escaped her lips as she whispered, "But Kuroro…"
Kuroro removed his hand from her shoulder, not even offering the teeniest amount of comfort. Crystal looked into his dark eyes, trying to find the Kuroro she knew before, the Kuroro she could hug for comfort. But he wasn't there.
His unnervingly cold voice spoke to her coolly, and she calmed down with it.
"We will find him, and we will beat him, Crystal.
That's for sure."