A/N: Guysss, thank you so much for favouriting, following, and most of all, reviewing! I know that there are a lot of KilluaxOC stories out there, so thanks for giving this a chance. :D
Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter X Hunter.
Chapter 2: Weirdo
"Are you up for a challenge?"
Tearing my eyes away from the flashy buttons of the elevator that I have taken a sudden interest in for the past few minutes, I turned to face my brother with an eyebrow raised and curiosity dancing in my orbs. Shaking off the hood of my red sweater that was clearly one size too big for me, I let my light brown hair flow out as I waited for him to elaborate, an eyebrow raised in undeniable curiosity.
"I was thinking, since father said people who take the Hunter Exam usually don't know Nen, we could refrain from using our Nen. We'll stick to hand-to-hand combat and whatever weapons we happen to pick up and you can only use your Nen for communication. Just to make things a little more interesting," he explained, smirking. "What do you think?"
Now that piqued my interest. It wasn't everyday that I got challenged and Hiroki and I were pretty evenly matched, so I was kind of curious to see who the victor would be. But... not using Nen meant that there was more of a possibility we could die. For real.
In the end, I couldn't help but return my brother's grin and nod excitedly. Because what was a bet without a danger aspect to it? There was no way was I going to lose.
And so it was settled.
Both of us wouldn't use Nen at all during the length of the exam, even if we were about to die. Our egos were too big for us to run away from the challenge; our pride too strong for us to let the other witness our failure. And the prize? Because there had to be some kind of motivation behind all of this. And let me tell you, it was the most satisfying thing out there: bragging rights.
That's right: the two of us were going to put our lives in danger for a chance to gloat about our victory. It sounded absurd, it was undeniably immature of us, it was kind of crazy—but it would be fun and that was all I could really ask for.
The ding of the elevator indicated that we had arrived at the designated place. Sucking in a deep breath, I dusted my blue shorts and picked up my backpack, swinging it across my shoulder and positioned it comfortably on my back, but not before taking out the numbered pin that we had been given earlier and sticking it on the outside of my sweater. It was official: I was now a soon-to-be hunter.
The doors opened and the two of us stepped out together, taking the first step in unison. The exam building was exactly how you'd imagine an old, ancient building with some fancy decorations stuck onto it like it was done by architectures who couldn't quite make up their minds on how they wanted everything to look—completely weird, hard to take in, and more than a little out-of-place.
But above all that, this place was a freaking castle.
All the doors and windows had this cool, curved, spiral design that looped around them like everything was a fancy picture frame. To our right, there was a set of spiral stairs that led you up glamorously to the next floor, as if only celebrities were allowed to walk there. The building itself gave off the vibe that it was so strong, yet so fragile at the same time.
Glancing around the room we were currently in, I noticed that it was packed with other examinees and, in a matter of seconds, Hiroki and I successfully determined that, just like father said, none of these people knew how to use Nen in the slightest. A smirk made its way across my face and a boast of confidence flooded through me. They should just hand over the hunter licence and tell everyone to leave because this might as well be a piece of—
Hiroki and I both froze at the same time and exchanged looks.
—Whoa.
Near the back of the room stood a petite girl with long, pink hair tied back into two messy pigtails. She jumped onto a large cardboard box, and boy, did she give out a strong aura. She dressed so casually—shorts, a T-shirt, and no shoes for some reason—that I would've never guessed that she was this strong if we hadn't done a check on everyone here. This girl was a classic example of "don't judge people by their appearance."
The girl cleared her voice. "Alright guys!" When no one paid any attention to her, she tried again, this time speaking louder. "Everyone!" She frowned and clenched her hands into fists when she realized that she had been ignored yet again. She stomped her feet on the box, causing the ground to shake. "WILL YOU ALL SHUT UP AND LISTEN?!"
It worked. The chatter in the room halted. Eyes shifted in her direction. But everyone was looking at her in frustration and in a matter seconds, the crowd erupted with cries anger.
"Shut up, kid!"
"Don't boss us around!"
"Who the hell are you, Shorty?"
It was evident that the last comment ticked her off. (Though I had to admit, she was kind of short... especially if she had to stand on a cardboard box to be on level with everyone else.) She glared at the person who spoke and jumped off the box she had been standing on, landing a direct kick on his stomach with her foot. The man was thrown back all the way to the wall and everyone backed away, immediately shutting their mouths when they saw her strength.
"Who are you calling short? My name is Gemmei Tateno, not Shorty!"
The man narrowed his eyes at her—or tried to—but it wasn't very effective since he started coughing up blood after and groaned from the pain. I could tell that he wanted to talk back, but he restrained himself and made the right choice, knowing that he was in no condition to say anything unless he wanted to get beat up again.
However, he slowly started to gather his strength and got up to charge at her—a rather stupid decision on his part—but with lightning speed, Gemmei was in front of him with her foot at his chest. His eyes widened in surprise and his legs gave out, resulting in him stumbling back and landing on his bottom. Gemmei kept her foot there until he gave up and admitted defeat after cursing colourfully.
Such a strong kick could only be done with the help of Nen.
But to do something like that upon meeting someone for the first time had to mean that she was completely and utterly nuts. Crazy. Whacko.
Beside me, I heard my brother let out a soft whistle, clearly impressed. "I really hope we don't have someone like her as our examiner..." Hiroki leaned over and whispered to me, running a hand though his shaggy brown hair. I nodded courtly back in response.
Everyone's attention turned back to Gemmei as she walked back to the front of the crowd and faced us once again, wiping the dust off her pants as if she had just touched something filthy. Sighing, she spoke again and this time, no one dared to interrupt her.
"For those of you who didn't know," she jerked her chin up and placed her hands on her hips, looking prideful, "I'm your examiner for the first phase of the Hunter Exam."
Silence filled the room. It took a few minutes for us to let all that sink in. Everyone was surprised, but no one accused her of lying in fear of what would become of them if they even breathed wrongly.
Hiroki jinxed it. He totally jinxed it.
I sighed and stuffed my hands into my pockets. We have a crazy, hot-headed examiner who didn't even hesitate to beat up a stranger for the first phase... Great.
She continued, "For your first test, you are to escape this building."
Murmurs erupted throughout the crowd with people asking, Isn't that too easy? Hiroki glanced at me, confusion in his eyes as well. I shrugged and placed a finger to my lips just as he was about to voice his opinion, motioning for him to be quite as Gemmei went on explaining in further detail.
"The elevator that you took to get up here will be shut down. You're allowed to use any method you want as long as you get out. The only thing you will be given is a map of the building and you only have five hours; if you take longer than five hours, you'll automatically be eliminated and, well, come back next year." When she was done handing out the maps to everyone, she got on the elevator. Just as the doors closed, she said, "I'll be waiting for you at the bottom. Good luck, everyone!"
Everyone stood there puzzled for a while before the crowd slowly dispersed. I blinked. Wait, what? The exam had started already? I thought that we'd have time to just sit down and relax, you know, drink some tea and maybe even take a nap. This—this was too abrupt!
Eventually, Hiroki and I decided to leave as well. We took a step in a random direction and—
"Hey, you guys are rookies, right?" A man walked up to us and asked with a smile. The first thing I noticed about him was that he had a rather... large nose. A large, square nose. It was almost as if he had a boxing match and got punched right in the middle of his face, flattening his nose. "Do you want to go together as a group? It will be safer this way, and I can tell you a little bit about our opponents if you want. I've done the Hunter Exam multiple times already so I could at least inform you about the returning examinees."
... Well, I guess that was a good skill to have, in its own way. Knowledge was always important, though I was kind of sceptical of him when he said that he had gone through the exam several times and still didn't pass. However, teaming up did seem like a good idea.
"Sure!" Hiroki agreed immediately. I nodded to show that I welcomed him as well.
The box-nosed man grinned and shook our hands vigorously, really relieved that we accepted. "What are you names? I'm Tonpa." He jabbed a thumb towards himself.
"Hiroki," my brother returned the smile. "And this is my sister, Hiyori." Tonpa smiled at me and shook my hand, a kind gesture, and despite his square nose, I concluded that he wasn't a bad person.
As we started walking around the building in a random direction, I noticed that all the walls and rooms were built exactly the same, probably to confuse us. And it was working. In a matter of minutes, we were completely lost. It felt like we had gone nowhere, even though we probably walked through the entire first floor.
To the right of us, a group of people were trying to break through the wall with an axe and some other weapons, but to no avail; they didn't even manage to make a dent. I sighed. If only it was that easy.
On the map that we were handed, some rooms had a red X marked on them, which probably meant that there was something bad in them or we weren't allowed to go in. I thought about this and wondered if Gemmei was actually nice enough to just freely give out this information to us. I mean, wasn't the whole point to test our abilities? Which then led to the question: how trustworthy was she really?
"I think we should make sure if this map is accurate," Hiroki stopped and said the words right out of my mouth; this whole twin-telepathy thing even seemed creepy to me sometimes. Tonpa agreed eagerly and we headed towards the closest room marked with an X, which was up the stairs and on the third floor.
From the outside, the room was definitely nothing different: same door, same design, even the doorknob looked identical to the other ones. For the most part, it seemed safe, we had concluded. So, reluctantly, after exchanged nervous glances with each other, Hiroki reached out a hand and placed it on the doorknob. Hesitating, he took a deep breath and turned it, opening the door and walked in—
"Hold on!" Tonpa pulled my brother back just as he was about to take a step into the room. And, okay, I know it was a little mean to think of this towards someone I quite literally just met a few minutes ago, but what was he doing? This was our chance to gather information!
When I turned to question him, I saw that he was pointing to the bottom of the room. Or lack of a bottom, I should say, because there was actually no floor; it was just a giant, open pit that was who knows how deep. Hiroki quickly jumped back and retreated his foot, clinging onto his savoir.
"Thank you, Tonpa! I would've been a goner!" My brother sounded really relieved.
And oh my god, this square-nosed man just saved our lives.
I had been wrong. Tonpa just was looking out for us—I had been so, so wrong. I caught his eye as we walked back the way we came from, sending a smile his way to know that I was grateful for what he did. He reacted to my gesture of kindness with a surprised expression before grinning back and I thought I might've just made my first ever friend. It was a good feeling.
We started making our way down the hall in another direction, seeing we got to a dead end and confirmed that the map was accurate. My head was down, examining the map further trying to find a clue on how to get out, when—
"Ouch! Watch where you're going!"
I looked up to see a boy around my age with spiky silver hair and aqua blue eyes, rubbing his arm and glaring at me as if bumping into him was a crime and he expected me to be on my knees begging for forgiveness. When I gave him an apologetic smile, he simply scoffed.
I arched an eyebrow. What was wrong with him?
His friends walked up from behind and apologized for his rude behaviour. I bid them goodbye before walking away and going to join up with my brother and Tonpa. I could feel the silver-haired boy's stare on my back all the way until I reach the end of the hallway. Finally, he turned and started walked away in the other direction, but not before muttering one word that was loud enough for me to hear:
"Weirdo."
A/N: And... Killua has been introduced! (Rather anti-climatically, but introduced nonetheless.)
Okay, information time: Tonpa will be the only person, aside from Gon's group, who will be appearing at the Hunter Exam. That means no Hisoka, Illumi, or anyone else. Think of this as a completely different exam on a completely different year with completely different examinees and examiners. (Because, quite frankly, I'm tired of reading a whole bunch of HXH stories where authors basically just rewrite what happened in the anime.)
And also, not every OC is going to be wary of Tonpa from the moment they step into the exam. Not every OC is going to be able to sniff out that he's secretly plotting against them. Not every OC is going to hate Tonpa upon their first meeting. Especially not Hiyori because she's been locked up inside her house her whole life and she wants to make friends. So yeah.
Once again, thank you to Reeyachan for beta-ing this. :D And leave a review! (Because you all love reviewing, right?)
NEXT CHAPTER: In which Kurapika talks about an underground civilization, a giant pile of pillows is found, and Killua calls Hiyori weird about five more times.
~Madin456.
