Gokigenyou.

First of all, I shall thank everyone who're read, reviewed, faved, followed and WAITED. I'm so sorry for the extremely long wait. By now I've realized that I'm an one hell of bastard author that barely update after giving a cliffhanger. I won't give any excuse. I sincerely apologize for my inactivity, my easily distracted mind, my writer blocks and my laziness. m(_ _)m

Important note: I'm making some changes here. Previously I said I would follow the 1999 designs, but lately I'm getting used to the 2011 one. That's why I'm going to use the 2011 designs from now on, except for Kurapika's eyes. Her eyes are still blue, not gray. I hope this won't confuse you.

Disclaimer: Hunter x Hunter and its characters belongs to Togashi-sensei. Have you seen the latest beach-themed trading cards? Kurapika has boobs there.

Standard warning on grammatical mistakes and typos applies. I'm trying my best not to make many mistakes, but I still have to apologize in advance for being an imperfect writer.

Eeto, where were we before? Kurapika's meeting not-so-dead-anymore Pakunoda, wasn't it?

II

To Start a Journey

If people wished strong enough, that wish would eventually come true. That was what people often said. However, no matter what, there should be a fine line between the possible and the impossible. Wishing for the impossible was stupid. No matter how much one wished for it, they couldn't resurrect the dead ones. Kurapika knew that. She understood that much. That was why she hadn't wished for her dead people to come back from the afterlife.

She was sure she hadn't made a wish for such a thing, but why was the exact opposite happening to her? On the top of everything, the one who was brought back to life wasn't her clansmen. It was the one she killed. It was the one who had been haunting her until some moments ago.

Why did this happen? Could it be that she have made a mistake during the procession? Did it mean she had lost the chance to save her clan from the massacre?

Or perhaps…

Could it be that this place didn't hold the power to grant wishes but a power to return the life to any ghost around that place using someone's nen on the first place? Could it be that it was a trap? Could it be that Pakunoda had tricked her? No, she hoped it wasn't the case. It might sound stupid, but she felt like trusting Pakunoda.

Kurapika clenched her fists as she left the stone pavilion and walked toward Pakunoda. She stopped when their distance was only about one meter away and looked straight at the other woman. Pakunoda looked back at her. It was faint, but Kurapika could see there was a sign of confusion in Pakunoda's cold face. Perhaps Pakunoda was astonished as well by the resurrection thing that had just happened to her.

"You..," Pakunoda began. She sounded hesitant. "Do you know me?"

Kurapika widened her eyes as she heard the question. "What do you mean?"

"You called my name just now, didn't you? How do you know my name? Do you know me? I don't know you at all though." Pakunoda said.

Kurapika stared at Pakunoda unbelievingly. What did the other woman mean? Did Pakunoda not recognize her? How come? Had Pakunoda forgotten about her? Was it even possible? Everything had become crazier and crazier. First this woman came back to life and now she acted as if she didn't recognize Kurapika at all. Just what was happening here? She was lost.

Pakunoda crossed her arms. She was waiting for an answer but it seemed like she wouldn't get any. "Do know me?" She asked again.

Kurapika didn't say anything in reply and looked away. Honestly, she didn't know what to say.

"I see," Pakunoda said. "It must be just my imagination. Pardon me." She then left Kurapika and walked toward the stone pavilion.

Kurapika watched Pakunoda's back as the latter walked away. Now that there was some distance between them, she started to realize that Pakunoda looked different. There was something off about that woman. Kurapika narrowed her eyes, trying to figure out what it was but she couldn't.

'It must be my imagination.' Kurapika thought as she shook her head. Of course Pakunoda would look different. That woman wasn't semi translucent anymore. Kurapika was thinking too much. She must be thinking too much. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She had to stay calm; otherwise she wouldn't be able to analyze the situation properly. After she cleared her mind, she opened her eyes and looked up. She focused her gaze on Pakunoda, trying to gather as many information as she could regarding their current situation from how the latter acted.

Pakunoda was taking her time admiring the pavilion. That woman looked very calm. It seemed as if she perfectly knew where she was and what she was doing. Did it mean Pakunoda still remember about how she got there? Had she only forgotten about Kurapika? To what extent had Pakunoda lost her memory? What about her death? What about the incident in Yorkshin City?

After a while, Pakunoda finally left the pavilion. She walked straight toward the entrance of the hall and stopped there. She then suddenly turned at Kurapika, causing the latter to be slightly taken aback. She stared at Kurapika and spoke up. "You… How long do you plan to stay here? The secret passage closes itself after an hour. If you stay here too long, you will end up locked up here until someone open the passage again from the outside."

"Is that so?" Kurapika blinked in bewilderment. She didn't know that. It would have been bad if she was trapped there for only-God-knew-how-long.

Kurapika hurriedly walked toward Pakunoda. Pakunoda turned on her heel and walked into the tunnel. Kurapika followed, she walked a meter away behind the other woman. Neither of them uttered a word. The sound of their footsteps echoed in the narrow tunnel as they walked in fast pace. The tunnel became darker when they get farther away from the hall. At some point everything turned black. They walked and walked in darkness until they finally saw a faint light ahead. It was the end of the tunnel. Kurapika heard Pakunoda exhaled deeply. Probably Pakunoda was relieved seeing that the entrance wasn't closed yet. Pakunoda might have been worried that she had lost track of the time.

They arrived at the entrance shortly. Pakunoda climbed the wall first. Kurapika followed behind. Fresh air greeted her as she crawled out the hole. She looked up. The sun was high up in the sky. It was probably noon.

'Strange.' Kurapika thought as she looked at the blue sky. It was midnight when she entered the cave. If Pakunoda was right about the entrance closing after an hour, then it should have been still dark outside, not in the middle of the day like this.

Kurapika glanced at Pakunoda. At first she meant to check out Pakunoda's reaction toward the missing timeline, but then she noticed something that was even weirder happening on Pakunoda. Earlier Kurapika had felt that Pakunoda had been different. Now she felt it again, and this time she knew what was wrong with that woman.

Pakunoda's appearance had changed: her hairstyle, her clothes and even her face. She didn't wear any make up and her hair was parted on the side. Instead of the dark purple suit that revealed her cleavage, she was now wearing a white blouse over a black skirt. On the top of everything, she looked… younger.

"What?" Pakunoda asked as she realized that Kurapika had been staring at her.

"N- No. Nothing." Kurapika replied as she turned her face away.

'Just what's going on?' Kurapika felt her head was about to explode. Normally, she would have been able to keep her composure and analyze the situation thoroughly, but her current situation was far from being normal. Everything was beyond logical. First there was a ghost who had introduced her to a suspicious magical power called wish-granting. Instead of having her wish granted, the ghost had suddenly turned back to life, lost part of her memory and became younger.

Oh, how Kurapika wished someone could explain why all of this happened to her. Was it a punishment from God for her sins? If that so, why it was only her? Why didn't the Spider get the same -if not worse- punishment?

"Paku."

An unfamiliar voice called out and it broke Kurapika's chain of thought. Kurapika quickly turned to see the owner of the voice. It was a young woman around Kurapika's age. She had short pink hair that flicked outward around her neck. She wore white martial arts shirt with matching short.

"Machi." Pakunoda said in acknowledge.

As soon as Kurapika heard the name, she realized that the new girl was a Spider. The appearance was different and the hair was shorter, but Kurapika was positive this Machi girl was one of them.

Kurapika tensed up and clenched her fists. Meeting the Spider was the least thing she ever wanted to do. It was even worse that one of them had seen Pakunoda who was supposed to be dead. What should she do? Should she fight? Or should she run?

"You're here again," Machi began. "As expected."

"It can't be help. This place is just simply fascinating."Pakunoda replied.

"There's nothing but ruins down there. I don't get which part of it is fascinating." Machi shrugged.

Pakunoda let out a chuckle. "You just don't see it yet."

Kurapika watched the two spiders chatted. 'It's strange,' she mentally noted. 'They acted as if nothing was wrong… as if Pakunoda never died on the first place.'

Machi looked at Kurapika. She stared her for a while before turning back to Pakunoda. "Your acquaintance?" She asked the older blonde.

Machi's words surprised Kurapika. Did the pinkhead not recognize her? How come? Hadn't the Spider found out her identity already? Indeed she wasn't wearing her tribal clothes, but the Spider wouldn't be that stupid to not recognize her because of that.

Pakunoda slightly shook her head. "No. We just met down there."

"I see," Machi murmured as she looked closely at Kurapika's face, which made the latter feel more uncomfortable. "I've never seen you before. A newcomer?"

'Newcomer? What does she mean by newcomer?' Kurapika thought. She didn't really get what Machi was saying so she preferred to say nothing in reply.

Machi frowned at the silent girl, but she didn't try to probe anymore information. She turned to Pakunoda and said, "Chrollo asked us to meet up."

"Is it time already?" Pakunoda looked at an old watch on her right wrist. "That's faster than I thought. Well then, we'll take our leave." She said to Kurapika with a thin smile.

Kurapika tried to smile back at Pakunoda, but the muscles on her face felt numb. Her heart raced after she had heard that the head of the Spider had made contact with the limbs. What did it mean? Had the chain that bound his heart got removed already? How could that have happened without her noticing it?

Had her wish released Chrollo from her judgment chain?

Everything became weirder and weirder. A lot of thing had changed ever since she had made the wish. Just how much her wish changed the reality? She carved to find out the truth. She was also curious about what the Spider was planning to do next. However, it would be dangerous if she stayed there too long. Ryuuseigai was the enemy's lair. Chrollo Lucilfer was there, and probably the rest of the Spider as well. There was no guarantee that the other members of the Spider wouldn't recognize her. She wouldn't have a chance of winning if she were to fight all of them at once.

It would be much wiser if she stayed away from this place. She had to get to a save place, then she had to tell her friends that the Spider had reunited with its head. That way they could prepare their selves for the worst case. However, it might take too much time. By the time she was ready to fight, the Spider might have disappeared from Ryuuseigai without a trace. If that happened, t would be hard to track them and she wouldn't be able to make a move. All she could do was to wait and wait, until they launched an ambush attack to her.

What should she do? Both options had their own disadvantages.

Should she stay or leave?

In the end, Kurapika gave in to her reckless side. She wanted to know the truth. She wanted to know how the other spiders reacted when they saw Pakunoda. She wanted to know what the Spider was up to. On the top of everything, she wanted to confirm with her very eyes whether Chrollo was really there or not.

She went to Zetsu state and followed Pakunoda and Machi. She walked around fifty meters away from the two spiders. So far they didn't seem to notice her, or, at least, even if they knew she was there, they didn't seem to think of her as a threat. They might be thinking that she only happened to walk to the same direction as them. Nevertheless she shouldn't let her guard down. They might turn and attack her at anytime. There was also a chance that their accomplice was double-tailing her.

Once in a while, Kurapika took a quick glance on her surroundings. The city was like one big slum. The houses and buildings were in misery condition; badly damaged and covered in filth. The air was stinking; it was like a mixture of garbage, stale food, smoke, urea and any other smelly substances she couldn't tell anymore. She winced as queasiness start building up in her stomach. She felt like she would puke at anytime, but no one else beside her looked disturbed by the smell. They walked, talked, worked, played, even sit back and do nothing without giving a damn to the awful surroundings. It seemed like people of Ryuuseigai had already been used to the grieving condition of this city.

Pakunoda and Machi walked past the downtown and went to the east. They walked and walked until they arrived at the outskirt of the city. There wasn't any housing at that place. That place was a landfill; a very big one. Trashes piled up everywhere, forming hills and mountains. The two spiders made their way through the garbage field to the deeper part of that place. Kurapika had a hard time following them. The piles of trash created many blind spots. She had to maintain the distance without losing the two from her sight.

After a long walk, Pakunoda and Machi reached a place where the inhabitants of the city kept large wastes. The two started climbing one of the trash hills that was made of timbers and wooden boxes. They passed the peak and disappeared to the other side.

As soon as the two were out of Kurapika's, she heard voices coming from the other side of the hill. Kurapika made her was around the hill. She crawled up slowly while hiding behind the boxes. She took a peek and saw the two female spiders were meeting up with some people. There were a big man; a muscular afro with tanned skin; a thin and rather short guy; a man with top knot, and a blond kid around ten years old. Kurapika immediately recognized some of them and concluded that they were members of Phantom Troupe. However, just like Pakunoda and Machi, they looked different from the last time she had seen them in Yorkshin City. The big man didn't have scars on his face and his ears were in completely normal shape. The top-knoted guy looked much younger without moustache or beard. Kurapika didn't really remember the short guy's face, but she guessed he was the masked man because of the height. As for the rest: the afro and the kid, she couldn't recall anyone that looked like them. The afro might be a new member, but would the Spider even recruit a kid like that?

Wait! If she recalled correctly…

There hadn't been a kid back then, but there was a blonde guy who did look similar to that kid…

No, no. It was impossible. There was no way a human being shrunk like that. They must be siblings or something. Kurapika tried to shove away the crazy idea about the two being the same person. However, the more she thought about it, the more she questioned about which ones actually made sense and which didn't. Was it really impossible? A lot of crazy things had happened around her so what made it impossible at this point?

Coming back to life, looking younger and actually getting smaller…

Why did it seem like the Spider's time had turned backward? It was as if they had returned to the past, when Pakunoda had been still alive. No, farther than that; it was like as if they had been in several years before the Yorkshin incident.

They? Was it really them who returned to the past? What about her? What if it was actually her who returned to the past?

Kurapika closed her eyes and tried to think everything thoroughly. She didn't have any evidence of her theory, but it seemed legit enough (albeit crazy). After all, her wish was to stop the Spider from massacring her clansmen. The only way to do it was perhaps by confronting them before they laid their hand to the Kuruta clan.

What should she do now? How would she prove her theory? Should she just jumped in and see whether anyone would recognize her? No, definitely no. It was too reckless and stupid. She would be so dead if she turned out to be wrong.

Then how?

What was the safest way to confirm that she had time-traveled to the past?

Kurapika took a deep breath. She had to calm down otherwise she wouldn't be able to think properly. She decided to clear her mind and listened to the Spider's conversation. She might get a clue by doing so.

"… isn't it too complicated?" It was a male voice, but Kurapika couldn't tell whose it was.

"Right, wouldn't it easier to just focus yourself on physical power?" said the other. It was also a man voice but different from the first one.

"But I'm not an enhancer like you, Uvo!" This time it was a high pitched voice. It wasn't Pakunoda's or Machi's, so it must be the kid's.

'Uvo? Uvogin's there too?' Kurapika inhaled sharply. Her chest tightened as she recalled the face of the man she had killed with her own hands. Why hadn't she realized it sooner? The man with afro hair was none other than Uvogin! This meant that not only Pakunoda, but Uvogin was alive as well.

"Besides, it will be fun if I can have my own toys." The kid continued. It seemed like they were talking about his ability.

"But doesn't it mean that you'll always need your phone?" said Pakunoda.

Phone?

That was right. Kurapika still had her phone. Duh, why hadn't she thought about it before? She fished her phone out of her pocket and swiped the screen. The date displayed there hadn't changed. She was a little disappointed when she saw it but she hadn't lost her hope yet. She was still able to verify her theory by making a phone call. She and her friends had exchanged they phone numbers several months before they met up in Yorkshin. If their phone didn't recognize her numbers, then she had gone, at least, to some time before the exchange. Whom shall she call first? Gon? Leorio? Killua? Or perhaps her workmate Senritsu?

First she called Gon. He and had just gotten his phone in Yorkshin so timeline wise, it would be the closest one. She set the volume to the lowest level, pressed the call button and raised the phone to her ear. Instead of hearing the usual waiting tone, she heard a single beep and the line instantly got disconnected. She tried to call Leorio, KIllua and Senritsu, but she couldn't reach them as well.

'Is it because the phone is out of reach?' She wondered. She checked the signal bar, but it was full. There shouldn't be any problem. She then decided to call her boss, Nostrade. His phone should be reachable anytime-anywhere-anyhow. Nevertheless, the same thing happened again. The call ended right away. She didn't even get to hear the voice massage that was usually played whenever the network was error. Did it mean that the problem was on her phone? Could it be that her number wasn't registered yet? In that case, just how many years she had skipped back? It was even harder to make a guess. She could only ask some people what year it was or look for a calendar.

…

…

Ba-Thump!

Her heart skipped a beat when she suddenly felt a presence right behind her back.

'Since when?' She mentally questioned. Her body stiffened as she felt an intimidating aura. For her to not be able to detect his presence until he was this close….The person behind her was no doubt a skillful Nen user with perfect Zetsu.

'Who? Who is it?'

Her question was then indirectly answered as that person spoke up.

"What are you doing here?"

That baritone voice. She knew it. She remembered that voice well. It belonged to a person she hated with all her heart and soul.

She turned around, looked up and glared at the black haired man. If it wasn't for the black contact lenses she wore, her eyes would have been visibly red.

"Chrollo… Lucilfer."

Finally Chrollo appeared *insert dramatic BGM here* and it's to be continued! *nervous laughs* Sorry, I just love to end a chapter with cliffhangers. It makes the chapter feels like manga.

I'm sorry if this chapter was full of questions. It's just not easy for Kurapika to make a conclusion that she had just time traveled to the past. She's a bright girl, but the idea is just too crazy and absurd and illogical and impossible!

I hope you liked the chapter. Please kindly leave a review in the box bellow so that I'll know how you feel about this chapter. Concrits, suggestions and corrections are always welcome!

Thank you for your time! :)