/ /Edit: February 20, 2011 – Same thing as the prologue, I just added some stuff here and there. Thanks to KiGaMi for helping me come up with ideas ^^

Disclaimer: Hunter x Hunter and all characters and some dialogue and everything else I might be borrowing belong to Yoshihiro Togashi.

For various spellings of names:

Meteor City = The City of the Shooting Star

Kuroro = Chrollo

Phinks = Phinx = Finks = Finx

Feitan = Pheitan

Zaoldyeck = Zoldick = Zoldyck

Zeni = Jenny

The Spiders = Genei Ryodan = Phantom Troupe = Phantom Brigade

Coltopi = Corutopi = Koltopi = Korutopi

Etc.

Well you get the idea. It would be nice if the manga and the anime would be consistent, but they're not.

Killua x Japanese x the Fishing Boat

Apparently, there was this thing called "familial love".

"Killua!" his mother shrieked. "Killua! Where are you go—"

Without a second thought, he had stabbed her. His hand was drenched in his own mother's blood. He knew she wouldn't die from such a wound, but it would certainly stop her from pursuing him. Ignoring her yowls of pain (from her wound) and joy (he had managed to injure her and that was worthy of praise), he left.

Killua didn't believe in it.

Apparently, there was this thing called "friend love".

Once upon a time, there was a boy who had taught Killua to love chocolate, who had laughed with Killua, who treated him like he was a normal kid.

"You are incapable of seeing anyone as anything but a target. A son of the Zaoldyeck family doesn't need any 'friends'!" Illumi had said.

And so, without hesitating, Killua killed him.

Killua didn't believe in it.

Apparently, there was this thing called "romantic love".

That was supposedly the reason why people got married and had kids.

In the Zaoldyeck household, the reason you got married and had kids was to carry on the family line. To Killua, "romantic love" was the equivalent of "fulfilling your sexual desires", which was basically "sex".

And so, he didn't believe in that either.

Love had never existed for him; his job was just to kill others and destroy their love. Even so, he couldn't help but wonder what it was like to experience it. What was this "emotion" that caused people to go so far as, in some cases, dying for each other? Of course he had killed them for it, but he had seen people do it.

Everyone else got to know what "love" was, but since he was a Zaoldyeck, he didn't. He was a Zaoldyeck – an emotionless killer. He didn't have a heart… or, if he did, he had long since locked it away. How many locks had been put on it? He didn't know. But… what was it like to "love" someone, whether it was in the "familial", "friend", or "romantic" way?

And what would happen if he opened those locks?

People often said that love was one of the best things in life.

But if it could drive people to die for each other… would "love" be one of the best or one of the worst things in his life?

Sunshine seemed to be anything but scarce on the island of Iiawah, and it relentlessly beat down on the islands inhabitants. Although she was a visitor and not an inhabitant, Lucy was no exception. But unlike the islanders, she wasn't used to the heat. And so, she was currently of the opinion that jumping into an arctic ocean was a great idea, but, instead, had to make do with pouring bottles of ice water on her head.

Regardless of the scorching heat, the town was bustling with life. The islanders were eagerly selling popsicles, ice cream, and other cooled desserts to tourists, as well as a variety of fruits and vegetable products. The island was a popular tourist resort, known for its tropical climate, beautiful landscapes, and exotic wildlife. Just from her short visit to the island, Lucy had seen who-knows-how-many palm trees, multi-colored birds with huge beaks that could be heard screeching to one another from miles away, and mountains in every direction.

Little kids played games and ran in the streets. A little girl was pouting because none of her friends, all boys, would throw the ball to her. One of them almost ran into her and another fell to the ground and looked like he was about to cry. Lucy watched them, wondering what was so fun about throwing a ball around. It wasn't something she'd ever done. As a child, her life had revolved around training and stealing.

"Kuro-chan," the little girl asked, looking up at him, "what are those kids doing?"

The man she had spoken to wore his hair slicked back, his skin pale, eyes black and depthless. He was in his early twenties at the time, but he was far above the average man his age. He was incredibly powerful and knowledgeable – she couldn't help but admire him. One day, she wanted to be like him. Like him, and the rest of her family.

"They're playing games," the man answered. "But they're worthless games. There are no consequences for losing – in reality, there are always consequences."

"Consequences?" the girl asked.

"Yes. The strong live, and the weak die. In this game, nothing is lost, nor gained. It is worthless."

"Ohhh," the girl said, understanding what the man meant. "Am I strong?"

"Not yet."

Childhood – hers had been so different than many others'. She had played tag, like most other kids, but it was a different kind of tag. The one who was 'it' was the demon. She knew that if she was caught by the demon in real life that would mean that she had died. Those children lived in the safe little bubble that their parents had created for them, not knowing the truths of reality.

But that didn't mean she hadn't enjoyed her childhood. She just wasn't like those kids – naïve and ignorant of the world.

Wiping a mix of sweat and water off her forehead, Lucy continued to trudge down towards the harbor. Salesmen greeted her along the way, each offering her their products. She would glance towards them with a half-dead look and ignore them. They seemed to get the idea that she felt like she was in a toaster and didn't approach her any further.

Eventually, she began to feel the cool, salty ocean breeze gently caress her skin as she approached the harbor. The harbor was just as busy as the town – fishermen were lugging around buckets of fish, crewmen carrying large barrels of food and water for long voyages, and captains barking orders to those crewmen.

Other people mulled around as well, searching for the ship travelling to each of their destinations. The variety of ships was wide, with everything from barges to extravagant cruise ships to tiny passenger ships. Lucy wondered which of the many ships she would board to reach her own destination. She had been on a boat several times before but never anything particularly fancy. She couldn't help but imagine the ornate decorations and fancy cuisines on the cruisers.

But it most definitely wasn't the time to be drooling over food. She needed to find the bulletin board listing the times of departure and the destinations of all the ships in order to find one sailing to Dole Island. She didn't want to be running around in circles, searching around randomly with no clue of the location of what she was looking for though.

Besides, that was an incredibly stupid thing to do, and Lucy was absolutely positively sure that she would never do it. So, stopping for a moment to contemplate her options and observe her surroundings, she thought of what her brother would do. Shalnark would begin by analyzing the situation and then choosing the most probably option… which would be to visit the information center.

Much to her annoyance, when she had finally found the "information center", it was not air conditioned. Why? Because it was not indoors. She had been hoping to temporarily escape the heat while figuring out what ship she was going to take, but her hopes had been in vain. She now had to make do with the small amount of shade under the overhanging balcony above the bulletin board.

A silver-haired boy wearing a pale purple V-neck shirt over a maroon turtleneck was also staring at the bulletin board, particularly at the ship schedule. His hands were in the pockets of his black shorts, and tucked under his right arm was a green skateboard. Lucy looked at him curious and mildly wondered what the skateboard was for.

"Where are you going to?" she asked.

The boy barely took the time to even spare her a glance, but answered, "Dole Island."

"Really?"

"Yeah," he said indifferently.

"Hmm…" she said, scanning the list, but not finding any ship going there. Maybe she had missed it. "I'm going there too. What boat is it, and when does it leave?"

"I don't know," he said. Dang, this boy was so boring. His terse replies were nothing short of screaming that he didn't particularly care whether or not she was talking to him or not. He had long since returned his gaze to the ship schedule and didn't seem to be paying any more attention to than necessary. Honestly, he reminded her of an NPC in one of Ubou's video games. You'd talk to the NPC, it would say something boring to you, and then the conversation would end.

"What do you mean?" she asked, choosing to overlook her annoyance with the boy. It couldn't be that there was no listing for Dole…

"Well this thing says there are no boats to Dole," he said, confirming exactly what she had been thinking. "Do you know what this says?" he asked, actually bothering to take one of his hands out of his pocket and pointing to the bottom of the ship schedule.

"Nope," she said, looking where he was pointing. She found herself staring at an oddly elegant combination of complicated characters made up of various lines. They looked like they could have been some form of writing, but she didn't recognize them.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh," the boy said, grabbing his head in frustration. Maybe he was going to start pulling out that gray hair of his and speed up the balding process? "There was supposed to be a boat to Dole here! It said I should get on a boat to Dole on the instructions I got from the Exam Committee!"

"You're here for the Hunter Exam?" Lucy asked.

"Well, yeah," he said as if it was completely obvious and it was the only reason why he would ever be standing here staring at the ship schedule. "What about you?"

"Same," she said. After turning in her applications, she had received instructions to come to Iiawah Island and get on a boat to Dole… so how come there wasn't a boat? The strange writing probably had something to do with it.

"Pfft," the boy said, "I doubt a girl as weak-looking as you could ever pass the Hunter Exam."

…Why had she bothered to talk to this boy again? He was a jerk. It didn't take a genius to see that. And from what she could tell, his tenketsu were still closed… he couldn't use nen. How dare he say that to her. "Oh really now?" Lucy asked, taking out her cell phone. "Awfully conceited, aren't you?"

"Heh, just stating the facts. Don't blame me if you die… at least I took the time to warn you," he continued arrogantly and shrugged. Lucy glared at him for a second before turning back to her cell phone. He wasn't worth getting annoyed with. Then he was silent for a moment before looking over her shoulder. He was just slightly taller than her. "What are you doing?" he asked.

"Sending a picture of that weird writing to my brother," Lucy replied, taking a picture of it with her phone. "I'm going to ask him what it says." Whenever Shalnark was in a situation where he needed to know something, he would never hesitate to look it up. But since she didn't have time to do that, the next best thing to do would be to ask someone else. "By the way, what do you do with that skateboard?"

"Huh?" he asked, looking completely confused. "Where the heck did your brain take off to? You know it's a skateboard, but you don't know that you ride on it?"

"My brain is right in my head, thank you very much, and I'm sure it's doing better than yours," Lucy replied irritably, before asking incredulously, "You mean you don't kill people with it?" In her world, if people carried extra items, they usually used them to slaughter people. Kuroro had his book and Shizuku had her vacuum cleaner (those were materialized though). Pakunoda had her gun, Shalnark had his cell phone, Nobunaga had his sword, and Feitan had his umbrella. She knew that normal people didn't go around carrying the items she used to kill people, but this boy wanted to be a hunter. Therefore, he couldn't be one of those normal people.

"I don't need it for that," he replied simply. "For that, I have these," he continued, smirking, as he tensed his hand. Lucy watched in amazement as his nails grew into cat claws. "They're razor sharp."

"Show-off," Lucy replied curtly, not wanting to admit to him that his cat claws were kind of cool. Then her phone vibrated. She quickly checked her text messages and found a brief reply: "the writing is in japanese. It says that the boat to dole is at the east dock".

The boy, who was looking over her shoulder again (hadn't he ever heard of personal space?), looked annoyed. "But we're on the west said of the island," he complained.

"Well that's not my fault," Lucy told him. "I didn't even know there was an east dock."

"Yeah," the boy agreed. "What's your name?"

For a second, Lucy was surprised. She didn't normally talk to anyone other than Shalnark and the rest of the Spiders, so nobody had ever really asked her that before. It was kind of odd how, even though this boy had a serious attitude problem, she couldn't help but smile happily as she answered with the first name that came to mind, "Lucy."

Even though meeting this boy was kind of… nice, she still wouldn't give out her real name. She didn't need to – her only family was the Spiders.

No one else was as important to her as they were, and no one else would ever be.

"How 'bout you?" she continued.

"Killua."

After running to the east dock in a panic that they might miss the boat (since there hadn't been an exact time the boat would leave on the schedule, they couldn't be sure of anything), Lucy was gasping for breath, and Killua wasn't even breaking a sweat.

He had already called her a wimpy little girly girl several times. She should definitely have punched him for that.

But as it turned out, the east dock wasn't actually that far from the west dock. It wasn't on the other side of the island or anything, just, rather obviously, farther east than the west dock. Even so, Lucy was just about as in shape as you or I and was simply not made of the same material as Killua. It didn't matter that her brother was Shalnark and she had been raised by the Spiders, since they had managed to neglect the physical aspect of training. Instead, they had skipped to nen. And therefore, for Lucy, running a few kilometers at Killua's pace (which was probably quite a bit faster than the average adult's sprint), felt like she had just run a marathon, and never wanted to run anywhere again.

In great contrast to all the grand ships, perhaps even passenger ships, at the west dock, Lucy and Killua found themselves staring at a bunch of tiny fishing boats. The whole dock reeked of not only ocean salt, but also of fish. Fishermen walked around, discussing the day's catches with one another.

"Hey," a shaggy-looking fisherman greeted, just as the two of them were wondering where in the world the boat they were supposed to take was. "What's your business?"

Lucy and Killua looked at each other, feeling equally awkward. It wasn't every day that you read a bunch of weird characters that lead you to a fishing dock when you were supposed to be getting on a ship to another island. In fact, they felt a bit foolish, telling the fisherman that. Finally, Lucy, knowing that the fisherman didn't mean any harm, said, "Umm…Hunter Exam."

Both Lucy and Killua were relieved to see the fisherman's face light up in recognition at this statement. But then he frowned. "Two kids?" he asked skeptically. "Taking the Hunter Exam?"

"Yeah. So?" Killua demanded.

"I don't see what's wrong with it," Lucy added.

"Aren't you a bit young to be doing something so dangerous?"

"Nah," they said in unison.

"Your families won't worry?"

At this statement, Killua looked shocked that anyone could ask such an absurd thing, and Lucy just laughed. "Pfft," Killua said. "My family? They'd be more worried if I was afraid to take it."

"As for me," Lucy said, "They'd just laugh at me if I failed."

"Oh? If you say so," the fisherman said, surprised. "Follow me."

The fisherman took them around the dock to a canoe at the far end. "Small" was the perfect description for it, but if someone really wanted to describe it with a different word, it would be "cramped." There was barely enough space for three grown men, and there was already one man clad in strange black armor in it.

"Yo!" the weird man said. "What's with the kids?"

"They're taking the exam, too," the fisherman informed him.

"You should go back," the man warned. "This exam isn't for kids."

"Underestimating me isn't a good idea," Lucy replied, smirking confidently. Like Killua, this man couldn't use nen. How could he ever beat her?

I'm trying to piece the story together from what little detail the author gives. He's got an awful lot of plot holes and some inconsistency going on, so if you have any questions, comments, concerns, or anything else don't hesitate to review.

Also, on a side note, for those of you who have read Yu Yu Hakusho:

The Tale of the Sun and the Moon: Feitan's Explanation

One day Yoshihiro Togashi made Feitan read Yu Yu Hakusho. How he did that is beyond me. But anyways, on with the story.

Feitan: What this? Only I necessary. Who this Hiei? Why he copy me?

Togashi: Hiei was first.

Feitan: You mocking me. You hurt me. Now you hurt. You be burning. You be next sun, high, high, high in sky. This 'Hiei Clone' be moon. Rocks strike him till he die. I laugh. You both watch me live happy ever after. You realize you make big, big, BIG mistake. I original. You no mess with me.

Phinks: Guess we won't be seeing that Togashi dude again.

Yusuke (in back ground): Who smashed me together with that idiot Kuwabara and made him? *points at Phinks*

Phinks: What? Wanna fight?

*Crash, boom, bang, smash!*

Shalnark: *sigh* I apologize for any offense caused due to the author's (Cursed Bunny) mutated idea of Feitan. One day she and her sister got together and he ended up being pretty strange. She's not trying to make fun of people with accents, she's just making fun of Feitan. But no, sadly I cannot say Feitan is at fault for Yoshihiro Togashi's unending string of hiatuses.

(Again, I apologize to anyone who was offended. I'm not making fun of people with accents. I'm making fun of the way Feitan is just like Hiei and Phinks like a mix of Yusuke and Kuwabara... more Yusuke though. Shalnark reminds me of Kurama in a way...)