*HxH Disclaimer*

Author's Notes:I've watched the 1999 version and am now only beginning with the 2011 version; also I have but a mere synopsis of the most recent film Phantom Rouge as a guide for the fanfic so far, so most of my references will be from the 1999 version. However, I'll include a bit from what I know about Kurapica's past in Phantom Rouge.

And yea I know I know, there already are tons of fanfics out there on versions of how Kurapica's clan got wiped out by the Phantom Troupe, but my own version has somehow been sticking in my mind and it's got its place in the thick of things in my ficcie here (and tweaked a few things in the earlier chapters to accommodate some new idears). :P So after a LONG wait, here's the fourth chapter. ON WITH IT! (le whiplash)

The Bridge to Being
by: DW-chan

Four: And There Was Fire

The outside world is full of perils.

The adage had been taught to every younger generation of Kurutas as they came along; from the earliest childhood to their dying day, this belief remained ingrained to the core of their minds. The Rukuso region, while undoubtedly isolated, still had a vastness which would keep a man walking for days until he reached the outskirts, where, by sheer force of habit, he stopped to turn back, to return home, and never venture further.

But that did not stop the children from testing the limits of what they know of Rukuso. The outskirts have been heavily guarded by a monstrous river, ever flowing and roaring like a dark, gargantuan beast with an insatiable appetite. The waters were frothy and nearly black, like heavy smoke, and yet there they were—the Kuruta children, the bravest of the lot, turning the glade from where they can hear the river hiss and thunder into a playground.

While no grown-up guardian was in sight for the children, the river itself seemed the unlikely guardian, containing their curiosity within the bounds of Rukuso. Tales were told that if an unsuspecting soul would try and cross the river—miles wide and perhaps miles deep, more like the ocean than a river—leviathans and monsters would emerge from the deep, swallow you whole (perhaps nibble on a limb first, depending on who was telling the tale), and take you down into the depths, never to be heard of and seen from again. The children believed it. Looking at the river for many years, it was a tale easy to believe. But a few doubted the tale, or knew that the purpose of the tale was to scare the children into obedience, along with the adage their elders taught them.

Kurapica once ventured close to a ravine as a small child. He had been hardly eight years old but had the stubbornness of an oaken tree refusing to bend to a fierce calamity. He had been trying to prove to his friend, Pairo, that there were really no monsters. "They're just stories," he proclaimed. "Watch!"

Stubbornness won over intelligence at that one instant, and an incident came when Pairo had to save his friend from falling completely over the ravine and into the roaring depths below; Pairo himself had fallen instead, but not into the water, but onto stone. Pairo survived, but was rendered nearly crippled and blind. Even then, Pairo, Kurapica, and a handful of others—not a withering gale would send their foolhardy courage toppling onto the edge. At twelve years of age, they were the same curious young souls in search for some derring-do and adventure.

The elders knew that Kurapica was a child of no ordinary mindset. No secret was safe from him. Wide-eyed curiosity grew into silent perceptiveness, and while he still sometimes questioned rules and "stories," his sense of purpose of how he fit into the larger scheme of things in the Kuruta community was growing. He was catching on with the adult members with a hurriedness most children his age took for granted, or simply did not acknowledge as long as they were savoring the vestiges of childhood.

Once upon a time, one of the greatest mysteries Pairo had asked Kurapica when he was given permission to take a small step to the "outside world," a neighboring village, was: "How are you getting past the river?"

Kurapica's joking reply would be, "Fly." They had seen contraptions and machines which only operated outside the Rukuso region that could leave the ground and take onto the skies in books, but that's where the possibility of the existence of such mechanisms ended.

At that time, Kurapica only had less than a week to figure out how to cross the river in one piece. Only a selected few among their people knew how, but that was part of the test of being capable of venturing outside the region's bounds. This was a mystery Kurapica had not fathomed yet, so one afternoon, he found himself by the river's edge—far from the ravine, but close enough for him to contemplate the majesty of their region's formidable sentinel. But today was different; something was amiss. The river—the river was not as it should be, or as it had always been.

Pairo and five other young boys were with him, but stayed on the ground while Kurapica sat atop one of the tree's branches overhead. School was over for that day, and in the years of their childhood it had been more of a ritual to go to their old playground. It was in the peak of summer, but the heat was unusually unbearable that afternoon. Some of the boys have stripped to their undergarments. Kaela and Asheewa were practicing with their newly-earned tanto swords; Manu, Hato, and Mattiyo were getting ready to join Pairo, who, in his wavering eyesight and weak legs, struggled up the tree where his blond comrade pondered on.

"Kurapica! You've been up there for nearly an hour now. Me an' the others were starting to wonder if you've finally grown wings and flew off or something." Pairo blinked, and smiled, tentatively stepping on the same branch Kurapica was on.

"Pairo," Kurapica finally spoke, his eyes never leaving the river. "Can you hear that?"

"Huh?" Pairo's brows furrowed. Silence reigned for a moment, but what was there to pause and listen to? There were the rustling leaves. The sound of birds, their flapping wings, the sound of small beasts in their burrows. There was Asheewa and Kaela as they playfully sparred, tanto swords hitting each other in solid echoes. There were the voices of the three other boys. There was the wind.

It was then when Kurapica turned to Pairo, and their eyes met, a mutual understanding of a realization reached.

"I can't hear the river as much," Pairo confessed, a strain in his young voice. "It's always been the first thing we hear when we get here. But now—"

"We can barely hear it," Kurapica offered. There was an intermittent amount of shuffling as Hato jestingly hit Pairo's foot from where it dangled. "What's that?" the boy called. His smile faded into a confused frown as Kurapica descended from the higher branch until he was face to face with Hato. Kurapica's graven look had the severity of near-urgency. "I think the river's dying, Hato."

The elders had their pride, and we children paid for it…

His father had told him, in the gentlest but most austere manner, not to raise his voice at the clan elder. His mother watched on, her eyes ponderous; otherwise her expression was unreadable. The clan leader's frown signaled Kurapica a familiar protocol; the blond boy promptly held his tongue, and held his hand out, which the elder hit considerably with his staff, as a form of chastisement. At this point such "punishments" were petty for Kurapica, and while they no longer worked on him, it still served as a way to herd in the other boys.

Pairo flinched on how the elder had hit Kurapica's hand harder this time. A small welt began to form on the boy's palm. The other boys couldn't really voice out to confirm what they saw with Kurapica when they decided to check on the river. The roars were like trickles; rocks from the deep which never showed their faces before lay open and dry as bones as the water lazily lapped at their sides.

That night, Kurapica's father took him aside, and explained that the clan elder did send some watchers to investigate what the children had observed; the news was true, but the elders claimed it was nothing to worry about, and life must go on. "It is unusually hot this summer, son," Kurapica's father intoned. His father is mostly a gentle soul, but a paternal figure nonetheless; Kurapica wondered how Pairo fared so long without a father, who disappeared when Pairo was but a few months old. "It's just the course of nature when the levels of bodies of water diminish in this time of the year. Please, Kurapica, try to respect—no, respect our elder Antero as best as you could. You're now growing into manhood, and every man knows his bounds and where his honor lies. Disrespecting clan elders is a habit you should break."

"Yes, father."

The man smiled. "Have you figured out the last part of your test?"

Kurapica took a deep breath before he spoke. "Now that the river's dying, I can just simply swim over."

His father frowned and sighed. "Perhaps. However, don't bring up the matter of the river to Antero unless he brings it up first."

The sun was only setting, though it was already nearly deep into the night. Kurapica could get no sleep. He was restless, fidgety, and the heat was making it worse. He remembered the rocks jutting out their bellies into the full afternoon sun. Someone skilled enough would jump from one boulder to another, skipping upon them like stepping stones, even if the rocks were many feet apart. As he fell between sleep and wakefulness, he imagined the river simply parting before him as he took a step forward, feeling the damp earth; there were eyes of river monsters upon him, but they helplessly looked on as the river parted wider, and Kurapica walked on to the other side, sure-footed, and at the back of his mind he was thinking, Pairo, I'll get you the best doctor so you won't go completely blind and crippled. I'll tell you stories of the outside world. I promise.

It was dusk of the second day since Kurapica and the rest have warned—they would like to believe that they have warned the elders of their discovery—about the river, and routine took the better of everyone. As Antero said, life went on. There was work around the region for the adults, and there was school for the children. However, like an unspoken agreement, none of the usual brave souls met up at the glades by the river; Kurapica had promptly returned home, as with Pairo and the rest of their friends. It made Kurapica somehow strangely sick in the stomach just thinking of the once-great river wasting away while the best the elders could do was set up a nightly watch. There had always been a nightly watch, but this time, it appeared that the watchers were doubly armed. Antero had not admitted it, but he had taken Kurapica's words into consideration. With the river running low, their best line of defense from the outside world was at its most vulnerable. Kurapica sighed. Antero will never admit it. Pride is pride.

Kurapica thought the sun had set earlier that day, but when he looked out the window, he saw the skies turning into a horrid ashy color. He was simply putting his schoolwork away, only mildly concerned of how the sky seemed to be turning darker by the moment when Kurapica's father barged into his room without as much as a knock. Astonished and bewildered, Kurapica noted his father's gentle features turning as hard as stone.

"Grab your tanto," the man ordered in a manner Kurapica never saw his father use before. "And go get your mother."

"What's happeni—"

"The river has been breached. The worst has happened."

"What-!"

"GO NOW! OBEY ME!"

Taken aback, Kurapica almost swore that his father's eyes flashed crimson for a small while before returning to their sharp, grey hue.

Without another word of query or protest, Kurapica reached for his twin blades from under his mattress to fetch his mother, who was already grabbing her own set of blades as she hastily killed the fire which was cooking their dinner. His father had run off, and to where, Kurapica did not know. And to where he needed to run with his mother he did not know as well, but his mother somehow had knowledge of a drill in dire and pressing times like these.

"Kurapica, I thought this day wouldn't come. But it has. Remember the docks? We'll head there."

"But will father—"

"Women and children," his mother said, almost softly so Kurapica had to strain to catch her words. "Women and children go to the ships first."

And then he heard it. The alarm bells, a clanging chaos. That was the moment he realized that the sky had not turned dark because of clouds. It was smoke, and from where it hailed from, he also did not know. There was only confusion, and the sound of his heart pounding as his mother ushered him out of the house, carefully, swiftly.

They were running away from something, something which they had never expected until this day. They were armed—lightly, but armed nonetheless. Whatever they were running from was an apparent threat.

"Keep sharp, Kurapica."

"Yes, mother."

"They've already taken down the watchers by the river."

Kurapica could only hear his breathing. Where were Pairo and the others? Will his father be alright? Women and children, his mother had said. But he was no child. Not in a time like this. But his mother was there, beads of sweat falling from her brows. His mother, he had to protect his mother. It was getting harder to breathe. The oppressive clouds of smoke began to wash over their part of the village. From the corner of his eye he saw about seven or eight Kuruta men gallop past them on horseback. They were launching both an offense and defense, but more on the latter. Their eyes had not turned crimson yet. Whatever was happening now seemed to have taken everyone in shock, that no powerful, grating emotions were bearing upon them still.

"Kurapica!"

The boy turned to find Pairo running towards him. It was only when Pairo nearly fell to the ground had not Kurapica run to his aid and caught his friend when he realized that Pairo's eyes had turned into their scarlet hue. Pairo's face was smudged with soot.

"Pairo! Where's your mother?"

"Dead."

Kurapica's eyes widened and then it finally sunk. Whoever was after them, meant to do the greatest harm upon them. No wonder they had to flee while they still can. Everything was playing out too fast for even his precocious mind to comprehend.

"She was at the gate with my uncle, Kurapica. She didn't die without a fight—" Pairo breathed heavily, and it was certain that it took all the boy's strength, along with the rush of adrenalin, to take him where he was now in his near-incapacitated state. Kurapica took a moment to look up to find his mother. She was running. Kurapica was running, and Pairo was beginning to run with him. Was that something like a rapid series of explosions from far away? He couldn't tell. Older youths in their mid-teens were instructed to usher the women and children and they were barking orders, gathering very small children into their arms, lifting the elderly up if need be. Antero was not with any of the elderly, Kurapica noted. The old man was far from frail, and he supposed that the elder was among his father who formed ranks of defense to ensure their escape.

"Do you know who's after us? Who's doing all this-?"

Pairo tried to catch his breath; the boy blinked hard, his scarlet eyes ever visible. "There's a bunch of them. That's the news I was told. I didn't see them. I had to run to find you and your mother—"

Why do the docks have to be so far away? It was as if an eternity had passed as they made their way to the ships. During occasional trips to the docks, the way didn't seem to be too far, but that was when there was no danger, and he was then thinking clearly, without any traces of panic. But even as panic surely crept to the nooks of his consciousness, he knew he had to keep his senses intact.

Kurapica heard his mother exclaim something in their native tongue, a word of anger and desolation—and then he saw it. The ships were also under attack! One of them had already gone into flames. There were only five ships. He saw Kuruta men on horseback, but none of them was his father. He was trained to take note of swift-moving objects and beings, and he saw his own people darting about. But he could not make out the enemy they were facing. They were phantoms, shadows—whoever the enemy was. To the unskilled eye it seemed as though the Kuruta were battling amongst themselves. But Kurapica knew that that was not the case.

Suddenly everything grew a beating shade of red. Kurapica felt his being light up with the flames overhead, and he knew that his eyes have finally turned crimson as well. He never felt his senses heighten like this before. Every blade of grass, every grain of sand seemed to stand out, every footstep like a clanging war bell. He lost sight of his mother. He lost sight of Pairo. He was on his own. His heart was in his throat. Where were they? He needed to defend them! He unsheathed both his tanto blades. It was distortion and unrest everywhere.

Another explosion. Two ships have already begun to sail, but a second ship had burst into flames. There was one last ship waiting for them (he still counted Pairo and his mother with himself), and there were a good number defending that ship. The crimson of his vision noticed something in a heartbeat—a strip of movement so quick it rivaled the wind—move from one man to another. They were at the edge of the docks, but each man dodged whatever that darting force was, and then another swift wave of movement—dark, indeed very much like a shadow, and this time, one man was not lucky. Kurapica noted in horror as the man's head popped out of his shoulders like that of a doll's. The severed head dropped feet away from the body that melted lifelessly to the ground. The dead Kuruta's head was immediately snatched away, and with a glint of red disappearing with the force that took it; the man's eyes were a bleeding scarlet forever.

Massacred! They were being killed, each and every one!

"Kurapica! Watch out!" It was Pairo's voice which brought Kurapica to focus back to where his two feet stood. He looked up to see a blazing piece of debris from one of the ships sail towards him; his voice caught in his throat as he leapt out of its way, the heat not leaving him unscathed. His shoulder was throbbing from where part of the debris failed to miss. Sheets of flaming debris where everywhere, along with a ghastly roar from one of the burning ships, a roar drowned by the sound of the flames and the sea, and Kurapica somehow knew it was that roar that brought half of one ship to shreds and had sent fragments of it flying everywhere. Kurapica got to his feet quickly enough to push Pairo out of harm's way; debris was falling all around Pairo and now was falling all around him.

A firm grip brought both the boys back to their feet. Kurapica looked up to the bleeding face of his mother. Her eyes had turned scarlet as well. She was no longer holding her own twin blades.

"The last ship has started sailing, dear ones. Get to it! Get to it!" she yelled above the din of chaos. Kurapica could hear the screams of little children. He couldn't drown out the sound in that fraction of a moment he tried.

"What about you, mother—"

"Leave me and go! GO! Please go!"

A shadowed figure loomed above his mother. She leapt out of its way.

"Bitch, you are hard to kill," a mocking male voice quipped. Kurapica's heart tightened. No one called his mother like that. The red around him began to swirl as he found himself launching at the darkness, hoping that he could at least hit the source of that disgusting voice, but he only hit air, and then the ground, and further damaged his already hurt shoulder in the process. Dumbfounded and frustrated, he rolled himself to get back to his feet, and that was when he saw the attacker—a split second, nothing more: a lanky man dressed black, with long, dull silver hair, a face wrapped in the pleasure of what he was doing, and he raised his open hand, and Kurapica could not be wrong—there was something like a blot, a tattoo on the man's palm in the shape of a many-legged spider. There appeared to be a number within the spider-shaped blot as well, but he couldn't make it out for at that moment the hand fell, and there was red, red everywhere. His mother didn't utter a sound, not a scream, not a cry of pain.

Before the man could even raise his eyes from his fresh kill, Kurapica got to his feet, took Pairo and ran. He ran, half-carrying Pairo with him to the last ship, whose anchor was being lifted from beneath it. He couldn't even take one last look at his mother, but he thought, it was better that way. In his hearts of hearts he also knew that his father was also dead. He and Pairo—maybe Hato and Manu and Mattiyo, who could be dead already as well, for all he knew—they were orphans. As long as they lived, that is, and at that moment he didn't know for how long.

"Jump! Jump!" Kurapica couldn't even recognize his own voice has he bodily lifted Pairo off the ground to reach the rising plank of the ship as it sailed away. The ship had been protected until that very instant. This ship was going to make it. He and Pairo were going to survive!

He felt the heat of someone's blood hit his face as he landed onto the deck. Someone had risked his or her life so that he and Pairo could make it onto the ship. He felt hands reach for him and he cried out, thinking for the second that they were the hands of the enemy, but calmed when the familiar but haunting sight of faces with crimson eyes greeted him. Two were women. The other two were children no older than he was. His burnt shoulder ached; it felt like teeth were biting into his flesh. The smell of death seemed to spread as quickly as the wildfire that consumed the ships and his home. It was over for Rukuso.

"Thank you," Kurapica managed to say to his fellow Kuruta who held him up, and he realized that he had been sobbing. Blindly he took Pairo with him—the last person he had, a dear friend he cared for—and he ran to the inner parts of the deck and to where, he didn't know. There was nowhere else to run and they could only depend on how fast the ship could take them away from the reach of the phantoms that had managed to kill so much of them.

Suddenly, the ship rocked—and there it was, an immense shadow loomed over them that had the shape of a man, perhaps a monster, and then there was laughter that had a certain grating force to it that he and Pairo were surprisingly lifted off their feet, and before Kurapica knew it, he was clinging for dear life on ship's masthead. He cleared his head and his eyes from the tears and the sting of the flames to find Pairo seemingly unconscious on top of the masthead, several inches from where his hand gripped a portion of it. Summoning his strength, he lifted his other hand to grip the masthead as well and pull himself up when Pairo opened his eyes. Pairo turned his head back; the screams of children racked him to consciousness. The monster, the man, was on a delighted rampage, but he seemed to be taking his sweet time as the women took arms and charged.

Kurapica realized that he had lost his tanto somewhere in the fray, but he noted that Pairo had his own pair tucked in his dark crimson tunic now blackened from soot.

"Pairo—"

His friend turned to him.

The ship swayed. Kurapica nearly lost his grip and he clung as hard as he could.

"No, Kurapica! Just let go of the masthead!"

In an instant Kurapica knew what Pairo was trying to tell him. Jump into the water and swim away. Save yourself, Kurapica, were Pairo's silent words.

"Pairo, jump, jump too!" Kurapica called, and with a cry he gripped the edge of the masthead hard enough with one hand so he could use the other to take Pairo's arm. For a moment Pairo seemed to welcome the idea as well when the ship rocked again. Kurapica, upon reflex, let go of Pairo's arm and held unto the edge once more.

"What are you doing?" Pairo called out. He turned back. The monster of a man was heading their way. Pairo was taking out his tanto.

"Just jump with me, Pairo! Don't—"

To Kurapica's surprise, Pairo unsheathed both his tanto. In a split second, he threw one blade at the shadow's direction; the shadow uttered a cry of both surprise and amusement, but whoever that creature was, it was distracted for a moment.

"Kurapica, I've lost a leg. I'm not going to make it, so go!" Pairo's scarlet eyes were as bright as ever. The boy was clearly in pain. The blow of the monster's force-filled growl of laughter may have torn the limb apart as they were blown to the masthead.

"Don't be stupid—" Kurapica managed to say. "You can make it!"

Pairo cried in frustration and used both his hands to tear Kurapica's fingers from the edge of the masthead. No success. The monstrous creature shrugged off the momentary distraction, and will soon make its way towards the front of the ship. It—he—seemed to be bleeding all over, testament that the Kuruta were fierce warriors that could manage a hit even when thoroughly besieged.

"You're the stupid one, Kurapica! Just let go!" Pairo cried out. With his sole tanto blade, Pairo began hacking at the edge of the masthead.

"Pairo, stop it! Stupid, you're stupid too—just jump with me!"

Still Pairo hacked at the masthead. And then it broke.

"PAIRO—"

Kurapica lost sight of his friend as a wave of cold darkness washed over him. He had fallen into the depths of the sea. The sea was red. The sky above the sea was red. Kurapica floated under, deeper into the abyss. All thoughts, all emotions, were drained from his little body, and Kurapica thought that he had drowned, and that he was dead as well, and that Pairo gave his life for nothing, and for no one.

"—next station: Miragros. Please do not leave your belongings unattended."

Kurapica woke up to the sound of an automated female voice announcing their next stop as the train started slowly picking up speed again. He collected his bearings—he must have fallen asleep while Senritsu played one of her tunes again at the request of Leorio—that oaf, where was that oaf?

"Ey, awake already? We won't be getting off till nine stations away!"

Kurapica rolled his eyes at the voice which had finally earned the constant effect of irritating him so. With bleary eyes, he fixed a glare upon said source of vexation. Leorio had thankfully taken off those ridiculously bright-colored earmuffs. The oaf seemed to be enjoying himself, seemingly forgetting that Kurpaica had not yet forgiven him and Senritsu of the conspiracy they managed to make for his benefit—or so they thought.

Senritsu sat next to him, and the young woman wore a gaze of concern. She might have known from his breathing and heartbeat that he was on a verge of dream, or a nightmare. Perhaps a bit of both.

Senritsu was about to speak, when Kurapica sat fully straight, raised a hand and uttered, "I'm fine."

Senritsu shook her head and smiled. They may be dealing with an irascible young Kuruta until nine stations later or beyond, but it may never drown out the fact that there was still a long journey ahead of them, and that Kurapica wouldn't have to face it alone.

There was always more than what fate, they thought, seemed to bargain.

Author's Notes: My writing style obviously changed from the last chapters, but oh well, there's this bit of the story! Pairo and Original Spider no. 4 are Togashi's characters from Phantom Rouge. The rest are my creation, such as the names of the elder and the rest of Kurapica's friends.

As usual, comment away! ^^ Much obliged.

Cheers!

DW-chan:-)