Hunter x Hime: Chapter 6

Escape the Trick Tower

...

"I would have had to kill you!" Himeko was being dead serious, no more jokes. For Killua, this was quite an unusual sight to see. She was starting to show her true colours, and she was definitely not the misunderstood twelve year old everyone thought she was. Himeko was seeking vengeance, that was the reason she wanted a license so badly, and it was definitely not to read a library full of off-limit books. Whatever it was though, the kill being mentioned made Killua's murderous lust come back, and he had to control his urge to rip something apart by digging his claws deep into the chair. But this time around, his blood lust didn't last too long. He knew his own family too well, and just the thought of Himeko coming after them made him scoff. She wouldn't even stand a change against their watchmen, so her wanting to kill him and his family was just amusing to him. However, he was the only one who found this whole situation funny, but Himeko wasn't too impressed. "You weren't involved, so just forget about what I asked you," she said, before getting off the windowsill she was sitting on.

Seeing how she was getting ready to leave, Killua too stood up from the bench he was sitting on. "It's my turn to ask the questions now," he stated before Himeko got an opportunity to leave.

"You aren't entitled to know anything," Himeko replied, "neither is there a need for me to tell you anything."

"Then answer at least one question. The survivor of the Inoues, that is you, right?"

"If you know the answer to your own question, then is there really a point in asking?" She questioned him, sighing at the fact that he was keeping her there for longer, "I gave this one away already, so I won't lie about it. I'm from the main branch of the Inoue clan. My full name is Himeko Inoue."

"And you're doing the Hunter exam so you can find the murderers?" Killua knew the answer to his own question, yet he chose to ask her again. But this time around, Himeko just remained silent, not wanting to give him an answer he already knew. He went on to try and summarise the little information Himeko already knew about the murderers. "You don't know who killed them, but you think that someone could have hired assassins to do the job for them?" She gave that one away already, so once again she didn't feel the need to answer."You know, for someone to hire assassins someone must have hated your folks."

"I know!" She snapped at him, clenching her fists in frustration. As far as she remembered, her clan was pretty peaceful. If they were part of the mafia, she would have understood why someone would have wanted to assassinate them, but there was nothing like that. The Inoues remained to themselves, and pretty much the only arguments where amongst clan members. But thinking about it, Killua could be right. From a young age, she was told to excel in her studies, but she grew up knowing little about the real world. She was naive and ignorant to anything that happened around her, but she was very young back then so she didn't exactly want to blame herself for that either. The possibility of her clan members doing something unacceptable behind her back still remained open, and seeing how her father was always working made her doubt what he was doing all those years.

Killua saw her deep in thoughts, and it was a sign that he got his message across. "At least you know."

"Are you going to keep asking questions?" She raised a brow, "If that's all you wanted to say, I'll be on my way."

"You don't trust me, do you?" Killua asked before she could leave.

Himeko glanced back, "At least you know," she said, "I don't trust a lot of people, so don't worry, you are still part of the majority." For now, Killua was off her suspect list but that wasn't enough to relieve her. She still had to find the criminals that did, and besides, she still didn't know Killua's motives to join the Hunter exam. Meanwhile, Gon who was still up against the Chairman managed to make him use his right hand and collapsed on the floor right after. With that, the whole airship was finally asleep and waited for the long night to come to an end.

When it was eight am, and the airship finally safely at its destination. Upon further inspection, the airship dropped them off on top of a tall tower. Forty examinees exited the airship and there was an announcement made about two of them being found dead, and the cause was unknown. After the announcement, there was a moment of panic amongst the remaining candidates as they all wondered what the cause was. To avoid further panic, Beans made sure to not mention the fact that both men were indeed murdered, but that didn't stop people from suspecting Hisoka who had been in the spotlight since the start of the exam. Himeko on the other hand found herself staring at Killua, wondering whether that was the blood he had on his hands last night. But the fact that he looked like nothing happened made her doubt herself. She was disturbed looking at how calm he was after committing two perfect murders, but that brought up the fact that he used to do these kinds of things for a living.

Once the crowd had managed to calm down, the next challenge was explained. "You have seventy-two hours to get down this tower." But that was all they were told. Gon and the others decided to walk towards the edge of the tower to check how far up they really were. They came to a safe conclusion that jumping down was out of the question, and so was climbing down, unless you had a death wish of course. That being said, they watched one of the fellow examinees try his luck and climbing down. Though he mentioned being a professional rock climber, it didn't prevent him from being caught by a couple of giant birds and taken away. The tower wasn't just very high up, they also had potential predators lurking around, waiting for a human to lower their guard.

The five soon decided to split up, and went around to try and find a way to get down. After examining each and every corner of the tower, Leorio, Kurapika and Himeko met up to discuss their findings.

"Have you two noticed, the number of contestants left has decreased," Kurapika pointed out, and not having noticed it before, the other two looked around and quickly did a head count to see how many of the candidates actually remained. There were forty people at the beginning including them, but now there weren't that many left, so Kurapika was right. They figured that they couldn't have just jumped down or tried to climb down, after seeing how pointless that really was.

"I gave it some thought," Himeko started off, "Seventy-two hours, that's the time they gave us to get down. Even if climbing down was an option, I doubt it would take anyone this long. There must be some internal way to get down." Though they decided to split up and search around the area, Himeko ended up thinking more than she searched. She didn't have evidence to back her theory up, but in her eyes that was the most logical explanation here. Not just that, now that Kurapika mentioned the sudden disappearance of so many candidates, she thought that her theory might even be true.

"You mean like a hidden passage?" Leorio asked, looking around the area once more. He did another head count, and the number of examinees had decreased yet again.

"Precisely!"

"I was thinking the same thing," Kurapika ended up agreeing with her theory. While the trio was busy thinking of possible locations for their so called hidden passage theory, Gon interrupted their conversation as he run up to them. Behind him, Killua was walking at a much slower speed.

"Hey guys, over here!" Gon called the them over, before leading the way to a spot "Watch this," he said before putting pressure on a few tiles, leading to a small passage to open and then shut of immediately with metal bars. Gon and Killua seemed to have found one of the secret passage Himeko, Kurapika and Leorio were talking about.

"So, only one person per passage, huh," Kurapika thought, seeing how there was no way for anyone else to enter the passage after it was closed off. "That makes things more clear now, but now we have to go looking for more."

"We found more around here," Killua added as soon as Kurapika finished, "Five to be exact." They didn't exactly know whether they should be considered lucky, so far things were moving pretty smoothly. Gon and Killua walked over to the spot Killua mentioned, and they pointed at five different spots. They split up and moved in front of one of the five passages each.

"They are all so close together," Leorio pointed out, now that everyone was positioned in front of a flap, "What if some of them are traps?"

"Then we just can't bear hard feelings," Kurapika said keeping a level head. But majority of them hoped that they wouldn't be the ones jumping down the trap doors. Gon on the other hand hoped that all five of them would end up going through the right passage. "We can just try again next year if we don't get through this time," Kurapika pointed out with a smile. There was nothing else they could do after all, if they didn't make it then it was just bad luck. They'll have to suck it up and try again the following year. The group took their positions before looking at each other and saying their farewells. "Let's see each other again at the bottom of the tower."

All five simultaneously jumped into the passageways and fell down into an empty room. But when everyone looked up, they realised they were still together.

"Well, that was a short farewell!" Kurapika pointed out, seeing how everyone managed to make it.

"Isn't that great?" Gon beamed, "We'll all make it that means!"

Once they were settled down, they shortly roamed around the room only to find six watches neatly laid out in a circle along with a note next to it. 'Majority votes. The game will start once there are 6 members,' it read. Not having any other choice left, they each put a watch on before securing it. All they could do now is wait for someone to miraculously fall down so they could start. A couple of hours passed and the five were sitting around trying to pass time. While Killua and Gon found ways to preoccupy themselves with, the other three just sat in each corner, waiting for something to happen. They wondered whether someone would actually find their way down eventually, and how much time they would have left afterwards to actually complete the task ahead.

"It's been really long. Whoever is still up there must be really stupid," Killua complained, as he too was starting to grow tired of waiting. Just as he finished his sentence, they could hear noises from above, as if someone found a way down. It was a faint knocking noise, and whoever it was must have come to the conclusion that there must be something underneath the floor based on how hollow the knocks were. The knocking continued, while the five waited for the last person to finally decide to jump down the trap door. Only moments later, a figure fell down. They decided to get closer, to see who joined their group only to be disappointed. It was Tonpa.

"Oh great, it's this guy," everyone except for Gon thought. Nonetheless, they just sighed and explained the rules to him. After handing him the left over watch, he put it on and the first question appeared on the screen.

'Do you want to proceed?'

The group of six looked at each other, wondering whether they really needed to answer such an obvious question. But not wanting to waste any more time, they turned to their watches and chose a response. Once all six of them chose an answer, the results appeared on the screen.

5 x O

1 x X

The door opened.

Although the door opened for them, they found an issue with whoever decided to press the wrong response. "Who pressed X?" Leorio asked furiously, his eyes automatically turning to Tonpa as he would be the only one to pull such a stunt off.

"Oops, sorry. I pressed the wrong button," Tonpa smirked, not being sorry at all. Kurapika proceeded to walk through the door not wanting to waste his breath on Tonpa, and Gon followed. He didn't find an issue with it, after all the door did end up opening. Leorio stomped through the door, still ranting about having someone like Tonpa in his group, much to his amusement. Tonpa was doing this to get on their nerves, and it was obviously working with Leorio.

"Tsk," Himeko clicked her tongue, "idiot," she muttered under her breath before joining the others on the other side of the door. Her response once again satisfied Tonpa, knowing that he managed to get on her nerves. But when he turned to see who remained with him, his body stiffened. He remembered running into Killua three times before, but that was back in the waiting area of the tunnel, and after the impression he got from Killua, he didn't dare to go near him again.

"It better be an accident, if this happens again then-" Killua stopped right there and smirked, knowing that Tonpa would have got his point. Once he walked past the door, Tonpa was the only one remaining behind still having the image of Killua in his head.

"This kid is dangerous," Tonpa gulped. While all six of them continued through the maze, Tonpa continued to press the wrong answers. Although majority shrugged it off as nothing, and Killua kept giving him warnings, he still continued. At one point, Leorio couldn't hold back his anger in anymore.

"Stop trying to piss us off!" He screamed at Tonpa, who just snickered at him in return. Tonpa found this situation truly amusing, and in a way it was payback for seeing through his trick at the start of the exam. But at one point felt glad that Gon saw through his juice trick and that they all managed to come this far. Nothing is worse than failing after coming so far after all, so if he managed to at least rile them up, make them fight so they all end up failing, that was more than enough for him.

"Ignore him, Leorio!" Kurapika tried to calm the elder teen down.

"How can I?" Leorio questioned him angrily, "He is intentionally messing with us."

"Even if he is messing with us, there are still 5 of us who can push the right button and it won't make a difference," Killua explained.

"He's right!" Himeko ended up agreeing with Killua's response, "we'll make it out sooner if we complain less, and the sooner we make it out of here the less time we have to deal with him. Just think of it like this, focus now so we don't have to see this pig again."

"Pig?"

"Oh, right. Pardon me, I accidentally offended pigs in the process." She was giving Tonpa a taste of his own medicine by trying to rile him up, but he managed to see through that and calmed down. Instead, he was expecting Leorio to make a comeback, but seeing the frustrated Leorio continue walking with no other words, Tonpa just stuck his tongue out at him. Eventually, no one cared about what Tonpa did anymore and all they did was continue trying to find their way out while trying to keep Leorio calm. But then, the ended up at a dead end and couldn't go any further. They came across a platform in the middle of what seemed like an endless abyss. One the other side were six masked people. One of them took his mask off to reveal his face before stepping forward.

"We've been hired to test you applicants," the bald man announced. Based off his looks, the man looked pretty strong. His tall, muscular had some scars on it, telling them that he was an experienced fighter. He continued to explain their task, "To get past here, you have to fight the six of us. These fights are one to one and you can only fight once. To win, four of you must win your individual matches. I'll be the first one to fight so pick someone from your side."

"Oh man, I told you we should have taken the left turn instead," Leorio complained.

"That path might have been harder than this," Himeko pointed out, before they all started thinking. There was no other way around, and going back would be a waste of time. Knowing that at least some of them had some experience in fighting, they decided to proceed. Everyone except Tonpa got together to discuss the order. Gon volunteered to go first, but Leorio pointed out the obvious difference in size between Gon and the muscular man. Kurapika would be at a disadvantage if he had his weapons taken away from him. Since Himeko herself didn't have any weapons on her, Leorio suggested that she should remain behind too just to be safe. In the end, Killua volunteered to go before Tonpa stopped him.

"I'll go first," Tonpa volunteered suddenly, throwing everyone around him off guard. They all looked at him, dumbfounded. Tonpa caused nothing but trouble on the way, so they wondered whether he was actually trying to help them this time around.

"You?" Himeko was the first one to raise her brow in suspicion. She didn't want to buy it, especially since he made it his mission to get them to fail. Whatever his true intentions were, she didn't want to just stand back and let Tonpa ruin her chances to pass the Hunter exam this year, and she was sure that everyone else agreed with her.

"Why not?" Tonpa asked her in response, "I'll act as a guinea pig for you all. If you observe how this works, you'll have a better chance to win. Consider it as an apology for everything I've done until now."

"He's got a point," Kurapika pointed out. Although Himeko didn't believe his last point, she ended up backing down. Tonpa was the most useless one out of them indeed, so she'd rather have him go first and mess up than anyone else. Gon, Killua and Kurapika were valuable fighters, and only four of them had to win in order to continue. If she were to include herself, that would make four. Leorio too was surprisingly smart when it came to certain things, so he could be useful too depending on the task.

"Then it's decided!" Tonpa stated before making his way towards the platform in the middle.

"Are you sure it's going to be fine?" Leorio asked the rest, still having doubts in Tonpa.

"Even if he gets killed, at least he won't get in the way anymore." Killua shrugged, only to get told off by Gon for thinking so negatively.

On the platform the man and Tonpa got ready to fight. He was called Bendot, a prisoner who received a 199 years sentence for murder and robbery. Each of the challenges would be chosen by the prisoners, so that at least told them that not everyone would choose hand to hand combat. But in this case, Bendot decided on hand to hand combat, something he specialised in. Trick tower wasn't just a long, never ending maze; it was also a prison. The prisoners were promised to get years off their sentences according to how long they could hold the examinees off, which explained why they willingly obeyed the words of the Hunter Association and got involved in the exam. Once he finished explaining the rules, Bendot prepared to attack while Tonpa surprisingly just stood there not trying to defend himself. Bendot approached Tonpa ready to throw a punch, when suddenly he fell on his knees.

"I surrender!" Tonpa started begging on his knees, confusing everyone with his actions. Bendot stared, but he eventually started to back off since Tonpa surrendered and he had won the fight. He returned to the opposite end while Tonpa returned to five examinees who were staring daggers at him. He didn't look apologetic at all, he seemed rather proud of his actions.

"So you were tricking us after all!" Leorio yelled, grabbing him by the collar.

"Guys, we shouldn't be fighting right now!" Gon tried to calm him down.

"I'm glad he surrendered," Kurapika interjected, confusing Gon, Leorio and Tonpa.

"What do you mean?" They all asked.

"That guy looks strong. Based on appearances I'm guessing he was part of the military once," Killua said while observing Bendot. "Not only that, his attack was aimed at his throat. Do you know what that means?"

"Their job isn't to beat us, they are here to hold us off. He would have crushed his throat first before slowly torturing him to waste time. He wouldn't even had a chance to surrender, so we would have seen you getting tortured for the remaining hours we had left." Himeko continued from where Killua left off.

Tonpa gulped and Leorio finally let him go, "I guess you're right." That reality check made Tonpa quieten down, while the others came up with the next person to go next. Before they managed to decide on the next challenger, the opposing team already send up their competitor. When the petite man took off his mask, it revealed his slim face with long brown hair that covered one of his eyes. He introduced himself as Sedokan, having received a 149 year sentence for being involved in serial bombing. Gon decided to go next, making his way towards the platform to hear his challenge.

"All we have to do is light these candles and wait to see which one goes out first. The person whose candle goes out first loses," Sedokan explained as he took out two candles. But to their surprise, one of them was significantly longer than the other, "Pretty simple right?" Gon nodded in response. "So, do you want the shorter candle or the longer candle?"

Gon eyed both the candles before turning to get a second opinion from his team members, "Which one should I choose guys?"

"Naturally you would choose the longer candle, right?" Leorio asked the others.

"Yeah, but what if they tampered with the longer candle?" Killua pointed out, not the trusting criminals. They were serving sentences for a good damn reason after all.

"They could have tampered with the short candle instead, thinking we'd choose the short candle believing that the longer candle was tampered with," Himeko proposed that this could all just be a simple trick to put them all off.

"But then again, we'd end back with choosing the long candle," Kurapika added. "We can go in circles like this all day!"

"Argh, all this reverse psychology is making my head hurt!" Himeko groaned, frustrated. "There could also be the possibility of neither of them being tampered with, and he just wants us to doubt ourselves."

While everyone else was still pondering on which candle to choose, Kurapika decided to trust Gon's instincts. His instincts did get them all this far after all. "Gon, you should trust your instincts and pick one," he told Gon, putting all his trust in him.

"Okay, I'll choose the longer one," Gon said as his team looked at him waiting for a logical reason. But this being Gon, there was no logical reason behind his choice, "It's longer so it should burn longer, right?"

Hearing this, Kurapika was the first to face-palm at his response, "This might be the first time his instincts might fail us..."

Sedokan threw the longer candle to Gon and they both lit them at the same time to start the match. At first, Gon had the upper hand but then halfway through the match, Gon's candle started burning faster as the flame suddenly grew bigger. Gon started to panic, seeing how there was little to no time left until his candle would burn out, and his team mates just worried hoping that Gon would soon find a way to turn things around.

"So the long candle had been tampered with after all," Leorio too started to panic, seeing how Gon had no clue on what to do next. They watched the hot wax melting away at a fast rate, and Gon trying to hold onto the candle without burning his fingers.

"No, both of them were probably tampered with," Kurapika concluded that there must have been a trick they didn't manage to catch, "he probably had another set of candles with him so he exchanged his one with one that wasn't tampered with." But knowing this now was pretty pointless. At the end of the day, Gon would have been in the same situation with both candles, so choosing the longer candle was indeed much smarter. Gon tried to slow the burning process down with no success but he then thought of an idea. He placed his own candle on the floor, and after seeing that the wind had no effect on it he ran towards his opponent and blew his candle out.

"If the flame is stronger, then it means it's less likely to blow out because of the wind," Gon beamed before leaving the platform victoriously, leaving his opponent awestruck. There was no rule against blowing out the opponents flame, especially since the match wasn't fair to begin with. But their celebration was cut short as the next opponent replaced the previous one. His large, bulky blue body was rather worrying, but Kurapika just calmly walked to the platform. The opponent took of his mask, revealing a frightening and distorted face. He introduced himself as Majitani, having received a 108 years sentence due to fraud and blackmail.

Majitani pointed at the ninety-nine hearts on his chest, "these are the number of people I've killed so far in my life. You will be my hundredth victim." Kurapika wasn't particularly interested in the history behind the tattoos and continued to prepare for the fight. Before they started to fight, Kurapika was told to throw away his weapons. He removed his blue tabard along with his weapons and they started to fight. Though his opponent was very muscular compared to Kurapika slim build, he was rather slow and not as strong as he made himself sound. However, at some point throughout the fight Kurapika noticed a large spider tattoo on the back of his opponent. His heart immediately started to race, staring at the black tattoo on Mijitani's blue body. Kurapika's blue eyes flashed a shade of scarlet red as his head started to feel light and all he could focus on was that spider tattoo on the prisoners back.

Kurapika's took slow, careful steps towards his opponent who was backing down seeing Kurapika's change in expressions. Kurapika looked possessed by something, his empty, scarlet eyes were staring at his opponent. He grabbed the big guy by the collar before giving him a punch that knocked him down to the floor. "I will tell you three things before I leave. One, to prove that you belong to the Phantom Troupe means you should have a number tattooed inside the spider. Two, they don't bother to keep up with the number of people they've killed. Three, don't speak of the Phantom troupe again, or I will kill you." His opponent was still out cold from the punch and Kurapika made his way back to the team who were all surprised the amount of strength hidden inside that petite body of his.

"Say Kurapika, is it safe for us to be around you?" Leorio asked before cautiously approaching Kurapika. Kurapika walked past him and sat down on the floor against the wall, trying to cool his head. This wasn't like him, he wasn't the type to lose his temper so quickly. He managed to surprise himself with his sudden breakdown.

"I'm sorry about that," he apologised, seeing how everyone around him was worried. Gon and Himeko went to check up on him, and the pair knelt down on either side to see Kurapika's sweaty forehead. His opponent was surprisingly weak, yet Kurapika still ended up sweating thinking about the real Phantom Troupe.

"Are you okay?" Himeko asked him as he was still in deep thoughts. He gave her a small nod, while Gon took out a water bottle from his bag and insisted that he should take a sip or two to help him calm down.

"I knew he was a fake but I just couldn't control myself when I saw the tattoo on his back," Kurapika sighed in utter embarrassment, "Sometimes I get like that when I see real spiders too."

"Maybe we should keep him away from any spiders," Leorio whispered to Gon and Himeko to which they could only nod in agreement. Since Kurapika didn't kill his opponent, the victory wasn't granted to them yet. They had to wait for the opponent to surrender, however he was still unconscious. They tried waiting for a couple of hours before checking up on him. Leorio went ahead and checked the movement of his pupils, trying to check whether he was truly unconscious or just pretending. The next opponent stepped forward and they chose to start betting using the remaining hours they had left. Leorio betted that Mijitani was not unconscious, while his opponent betted that he was. Leorio was positive that Mijitani was still conscious after checking his eye movement and carried him over to the edge of the platform, threatening to drop him. It didn't take long for Mijitani to open his eyes and cowardly surrender before running back to the rest of his team.

Leorio's opponent decided to pull of the mask, and much to their surprise, she turned out to be a fairly attractive woman. She had magenta eyes and her long, pink hair was tied up into two big pigtails with yellow ribbons. Leroute was sentenced for 112 years for illegal gambling, and she proposed to gamble for their match. Leorio happily agreed having gambled quite a number of times in his life before, and Leroute proceeded to place her second bet. "Let's bet on whether I'm a woman or a man," she suggested.

"But she's obviously a girl," everyone thought, once again examining her feminine body and soft facial features.

"Even if you claim to be a woman," Leorio pointed out, "there's no way to be sure."

A sly smile appeared on Leroute's face, "Well, you can search me until you're satisfied."

Knowing Leorio all too well, Kurapika just gave up any hope he had left in winning this round. "He's going to bet that she's a male," he commented.

"Yep!" Killua agreed immediately.

"Definitely!" Himeko sighed, doubting that they would be able to win this round.

"Huh? Why?" Gon asked.

Leorio thought about it, "I'll bet 10 hours on male."

"Just as I thought," Kurapika sighed.

"Perverted old man…" Killua added.

Himeko clenched her fist, "You're an enemy of all women!" she screamed. "Come back here and I'll teach you a lesson, lech!" She pumped her fist in the air while shouting before Killua covered her mouth.

"It's better to stop you now before something bad happens," Killua sighed while she was still struggling.

"How were you guys so sure about it?" Gon asked once again before Killua tried to explain it to him as simply as he could.

"Unfortunately for you, I'm actually a woman," she had a smug smile on her face.

Hearing that he was wrong, Leorio couldn't help but let out a lecherous smile, "Oh, darn it!"

"Why does he look so happy about it…" Kurapika, Himeko, Tonpa and Killua thought.

"Huh? You're a girl?" Leorio faked a surprised look on his face, "I'll have to check myself to be sure!"

"You want to see for yourself?"

"Oh boy, this is turning into an adult movie..." Himeko sighed. Tonpa covered Gon's eyes just in time while Himeko just kept shouting. She turned to look at her teammates. "Besides, why are you perverts watching this?" She shouted, before giving them all a good beating on the head.

"Why are you overreacting?" Killua asked, still caressing that large bump on his head, "It's not like you're the one who's actually naked."

"Me? Why do you think I'm overreacting? I might fail the exam because a pervert is too busy examining a naked woman's body." She proceeded to shout at Leorio's opponent who just ended up ignoring her. "Don't you have any shame?" But that brought back the whole idea of her being in prison for a reason. Of course she must have been a piece of scum if she found herself inside Trick Tower.

"If we knew that this was a woman, we would've sent you instead. Or at least someone with a little more self control," Kurapika tried to calm her down. "Could you check whether they are done yet?" Once Leroute got dressed again, Himeko told everyone when it's alright to look again. After that whole scenario, they had a match of rock paper scissors. Eventually, Leorio's opponent won this round and he came back to his team, who was giving him dirty looks for dragging them all down.

"What's up with you?" Leorio asked Himeko who was hiding behind Kurapika.

"Don't play dumb, I have to take precautions around some of you now."

The current score was 2-2 and only two matches were left to go and Leorio looked at the two children who had to go up next. "Oh no, I should have won the previous match. With these two brats up next we'll definitely lose," Leorio frowned, comparing the sizes of Himeko and Killua with the remaining opponents.

"I certainly don't want to hear that from you!" Himeko yelled at him, reminding him that he was the reason they tied with their opponents.

"Perverted old man," Killua added, giving Leorio a judging look.

"Who is going to go first?" Kurapika asked, and Himeko and Killua looked at each other to decide who goes up next. They didn't exactly seem to mind as both had to go up eventually but to decide on the order fair and square they decided on a game of rock, paper, scissors.

"Rock, paper, scissors!" They said in-sync, before they both looked at the results in anticipation. Himeko chose scissors, while Killua had paper.

"Scissor cuts paper. I win!" She beamed before walking towards the platform.

"I'll reserve the best for last then," Killua shrugged, before he went to sit back down. Himeko's opponent also made his way to the platform and took off his mask. Compared to the men who went up previously, he was quite good looking. He had strong features, dark brows and his black hair was swept to one side. But as for fighting ability, he didn't seem like the type that could fight. He went with the codename Dos, and it was revealed that he received 156 years of jail sentencing for being involved in human trafficking.

"How disappointing, I must fight you young lady," he started off, by carefully analysing her features. "Black hair, dark blue eyes, a petite build, you could be sold for a heck load of money. Finding people with black hair and your shade of blue eyes is quite rare these days. Two children, no you would sell for the price of several children your age," his analogy was starting to creep the team out, but Himeko just remained silent. "Not just you, the boy with the blond hair, I noticed his beautiful scarlet eyes. Just one of those eyes would sell for a whole lot. The little boy who fought earlier seems quite skilled too. Some people tend to pay for skills over looks."

"That guy is giving me the creeps," Leorio cringed at his analogy. Himeko was still quite young, so hearing her opponent's sleazy statements gave him a bad taste in his mouth, despite him acting sleazy himself not so long ago. Nonetheless, he felt uncomfortable sending her up against someone like that. "Hey, Kou! If you don't feel comfortable fighting that creep, you can surrender. We can always try again next year, don't force yourself to fight him if you don't want to."

"He sounds more perverted than you, old man!" Killua commented, triggering an argument between him and Leorio.

"He is more dangerous than he looks," Kurapika told them, "We should hope this turns out right."

"Don't worry, Kou is really strong!" Gon reassured them with a smile, knowing how capable she truly was after that game with Chairman Netero. Although Gon looked confident with himself, Kurapika couldn't help but worry about her, Knowing neither Himeko's abilities nor Dos' abilities.

"What a shame indeed," Dos repeated once again with a frown, "Having to find such a pretty young girl while I'm in jail. You would have made me tons of money."

"Kou, Leorio is right," Kurapika heard enough from her opponent. He couldn't tell whether she was uncomfortable as her back was turned towards them, but Dos' words gave him a bad feeling. "If you don't want to fight him, then just come back. We won't be mad at you."

Hearing how concerned her team members were, she turned back to reassure them that her opponent didn't have much of an effect on her. "It's alright, I can manage to fight him." She then turned back to her opponent, "If you are just trying to waste time, it won't work on me," she pointed out.

"I'm not, I simply like to get to know my victims before getting started," he shrugged her accusation off, although it was pretty obvious that he was indeed just wasting everyone's time, "Go on, what's your name? You can call me Dos."

"I'm not obligated to tell you my name," she simply refused to tell a stranger her personal details.

"You may be wondering why I'm analysing you now. I always analyse humans when I encounter then for the first time," he began to explain, "I estimate how much they are worth before going after them, it turned into a habit now."

Himeko had figured that much out already and remained quiet as her face darkened, "what do you want me to do?" she asked as her patience was starting to get tested.

"Two minutes," he stated, showing her two fingers, "we each get two minutes to make our opponents surrender. Once two minutes are up, it's the other persons turn. We can use any method we like."

Himeko agreed with his method, "that's fine!"

But before he started the match, he decided to make the game more interesting for himself. "How about we increase the stakes? If I win, your fate will be decided by me." In other words, Dos was planning to continue his human trafficking business after getting out of jail. He was using this opportunity to lower his sentence and get out of prison just to continue his crimes.

"Huh?" Everyone else was starting to lose patience with him. His newest proposal just seemed utterly ridiculous to them, but before any of them could interrupt and convince Himeko to turn down the match, she already agreed with his terms. The fact that she hasn't already snapped at Dos' proposal surprised her team, and they couldn't tell whether she was out of her mind. Except for Gon and Killua, no one else had even seen her fight, and seeing that she is just a petite twelve year old with a very slim build worried everyone else.

"We'll decide the order by flipping a coin," Dos said, taking a coin out of his pocket. But before he could flip the coin to decide the order, Himeko stopped him.

"There is no need," she told him before sitting down on the floor, "You can start. Your two minutes start now!" Once again, Leorio and Tonpa were left wondering whether she was out of his mind. If she were to go first, she would have had two whole minutes to try and make her opponent surrender. All Dos could have done was try to defend himself, but instead she chose to sit two minutes out and wait for him to make the first move. "He's a human trafficker," Himeko thought calmly, "he won't risk spoiling his goods." She was fairly confident that Dos wasn't going to do anything to cause her injuries if he was planning to sell her out on the market later on, so she was sure that he wasn't going to use violence. Kurapika and Killua seemed to have figured that much out too, and just anticipated the method Dos was going to use against her.

The clock started to tick, and all Dos did was take out a small, silver, pocket watch. He held onto the metal chain, as the round watch started to swing side to side at a constant speed. "Focus on the watch," he instructed in a quiet, calming voice, seeing how Himeko's eyes eventually focused on his pocket watch just as he told her to. "In three seconds, you will be under my control," he continued before starting his countdown, "Three... two... one," On one, he suddenly stopped the watched from swinging around and watched Himeko's eyes blank out, just as he expected.

"Kou!" Leorio was the first one to yell out her name, hoping that she didn't actually fall for his trick. However, Himeko remained unresponsive. "Damn it!" He cursed.

"Looks like we didn't just fail the exam, the brat has also sold herself to him," Tonpa couldn't help but find this situation amusing, especially since Gon had so much faith in her. "She's ruined!"

"Why you!" Leorio was just about to punch him, only to be held back by Kurapika and Gon.

"Kou will be fine," Gon still hadn't lost faith in her and tried his best to convince the others to believe in her too, "she's smarter than that!"

"I hope you are right," Kurapika sighed, looking back at her sitting still on the platform.

"My name is Dos," Himeko's opponent introduced himself once again, "could you tell me yours?"

"H-himeko," she mumbled out loud. The fact that she looked so absentminded could only worry her teammates who were hoping that she was fine.

"He hypnotised her!" Leorio announced as he was finally starting to lose hopes in them winning this round, or at least Himeko safely returning home.

"Himeko, is it?" Dos continued to question her, "Now Himeko, why would a young lady such as yourself want to join the Hunter's exam. It's dangerous out here, wouldn't you rather be safely at home with your parents?"

"I don't have a home," Himeko answered in the same absentminded state, "my parents are dead. I have no home to return to. I want to find someone after becoming a Hunter."

"Is that so, Himeko?" He asked, seeing as she was starting to become more obedient, "why don't you join me?" He suggested, slowly walking towards her trying not to snap her out of her hypnotised state, "I will look after you, I will help you find whoever you are looking for. You don't have to go through the troubles of becoming a Hunter to do that. I am your friend, you can trust me. I will help you."

"Really?"

"Yes," Dos knelt down in front of her, "but I need your help too. In order for me to help you find whoever you are looking for, you have to surrender this match. You will do that for me, right? I am your friend, aren't I?"

"You are my friend?"

"Yes," he nodded, "Just say 'I surrender', and I will help you with whatever you want. You can rely on me, I will take care of you." He waited patiently for her to say those two words, and he reached for his pocket taking out a small needle. "Come on, say it." He held the needle between his fingers, waiting for her to surrender before he could attack her with it.

"Don't do it, Kou!" She heard Gon shout out from the side lines. Her team was anxiously waiting for the said two minutes to run out, hoping that she doesn't surrender before that.

"I su-," before Himeko could even finish her sentence, Dos wasted no time and went on to strike with the needle. However, before he could pierce the needle into her arm, she stopped him. "Time's up, my turn!" Her grip was tight, and she didn't plan to let go any time soon. Once Dos' time was up, her two minutes began. Due to her strong grip, Dos ended up letting go of the needle covered in some sort of sleeping drug.

"How did you-" Dos couldn't finish his sentence before Himeko slammed his face into the brick ground and continued pushing it down, not letting go. Incoherent mumbles could be heard from him as he was possibly trying to surrender, but as those were just mumbles the match was still in progress. While his head was still in the ground, she used her other hand to twist one of his arms before stepping on it. She could hear a shattering sound coming from his bones, and his muffled scream confirmed that she had managed to break his arm. She moved on to the other arm and one of his legs and repeated the process, making him scream in agony again.

"You've been sent to jail to repent for your sins out them, not to brag about them!" She said in disgust. "You destroyed the lives of so many people and you're bragging about it?" Not only did he ruin the lifes of so many children, he was also bragging about it in prison. Just the thought of it angered her. People like Dos didn't value human life at all, in contrast they treat abandoned children lower than animals. She lifted his head back up by his hair, and briefly looked at his shattered nose before pushing it back down with more force. She then let go so he could stand back down with the little energy he had left. His nose was broken, blood rushing down from it. His forehead was scrapped and his lips were bruised. She also noticed some missing teeth that must have been crushed. "People like you value your eyes so much, you won't be able to do anything with them."

Dos noticed how dangerously close her fingers moved towards his eyes, "please don't," he started to beg. She was being dead serious, he knew that she would gauge out his eyes if he didn't do something. "Please, I surren-" Himeko covered his mouth with her hand.

"I still have forty seconds left," she informed him, telling him that she had more than enough time to gauge out both of his eye balls before he could surrender. "Do you know how many times I was stepped on? Can you imagine the amount of times I was dragged up by my hair? Do you even know how much it hurt having an metal rod burn a permanent mark into your skin? I was only eight, or maybe nine, but people like you didn't care. You only cared about the money you received from me." Dos' eyes widened in fear, seeing her expression darken. "I've finally found one of your kind, why would I be nice enough to let you surrender when I have so long left."

"Kou, please stop this!" It was Gon. "He's willing to surrender, you have won the match." That's when she finally realised, she completely forgot that there were people still watching her. She let go halfheartedly and the match came to a conclusion after Dos was able to surrender. Once the match was over, she proceeded to carry her opponent who couldn't walk anymore over to his own side so Killua could start his match.

"How did you manage to snap out of the hypnosis?" He asked with the little energy he had left.

"I wasn't hypnotised by you in the first place," she answered, "you told me to focus on the watch, but I never did. You just assumed I did. Instead I was too busy counting down the two minutes in my head and focusing on the stain on your shirt." But when she was nearly over by his side, she dropped his body onto the ground. "Here, I was nice enough to pick up the shit that was lying around on the field," she told his fellow prisoners before walking back to her side of the field.

Meanwhile, Leorio and Gon were slightly confused on how she managed to snap out of her hypnotised state as they didn't hear Himeko's explanation, so Kurapika decided to explain it. "Hypnosis relies on many factors, some being trust, willingness and the main one being concentration," he started off, "Kou doesn't trust many people, her opponent being a prisoner made him a lot less trustable. That explains why Dos tried to gain her trust during his two minutes. The second factor is willingness to be hypnotises, and again she didn't want to be hypnotised by him. The main one is concentration-"

But before Kurapika could finish his explanation, Himeko decided to explain it herself, "I'm not stupid to actually focus on the pocket watch when he told me to. I made it look like I did, but I actually focused on a stain on his shirt while counting down the remaining time in my head. I pretended to be hypnotised to waste his time." Her head still hung low, knowing that her own rage would have ended up slowly killing her opponent if Gon hadn't stop her. Her mind was clouded and she couldn't think straight, it made her feel ashamed of herself. She completely forgot people were watching, and now she couldn't imagine what they would think of her. "Great, they will think I'm some kind of monster too now," she scolded herself, seeing how Leorio and Tonpa remained in a safe distance.

"Are you even human? You're a monster!" Tonpa started calling her names, and she shot him a glare hoping he wouldn't add more oil to the fire. "Are you going to kill me too, look at you glaring a me like that."

"Stop it, she's not a monster!" Gon defended her, immediately rushing to her side to check up on her, "Are you okay Kou?"

"You're sweating pretty badly, you should sit down for a while," Kurapika told her. He helped her sit down at the back while the others prepared to watch Killua's match. Killua cooly walked to the platform while his opponent seemed more than ready to fight him. His opponent was Johness the Dissector. He was given a 968 year sentence and even his fellow inmates seemed afraid of him as he walked up towards the platform. He was a serial killer who had over a hundred victims, all of them murdered with his own bare hands and ripped into shreds.

"So, what's the challenge?" Killua asked, seeing his opponent preparing to fight.

"Challenge?" Johness questioned in confusion, "I think you are misunderstanding this boy. This won't be a match but a one sided, brutal murder." Killua just let out a sigh and in a flash, he ripped out his heart. It was so quick, it looked so surreal. "... my heart, give it back!" He said before dropping dead. Killua placed the heart back into his hand before walking back. That concluded the matches, Gon's team won with four victories. Tonpa was on guard seeing Killua walk back. He knew something was off about him, and his match just confirmed his suspicion.

"You did it, Killua!" Gon cheered, seeing his friend come back in victory.

"Of course, I'm a professional," Killua started to brag proudly, "Compared to us, he's still an amateur."

"Oh, you guys don't know right?" Seeing everyone else look at Killua in confusion, Gon started to clear things up for them. "Killua is from an assassin family."

"Assassin?" Leorio screamed, before looking at Killua who started to explain how he ripped out his opponents heart. His fingernails adjusted into sharp claws that looked sharper than knives.

"See," he showed them, "My old man is much better than me though. He doesn't leave any blood behind when he does it."

After they won, a door opened. The team made their way back with Himeko and Kurapika right at the back. He was walking slowly since he wanted to ask her something. "Is there something on your mind, Kou?"

"Mhm..." She replied with a mumble, knowing that Kurapika would just judge her like everyone else did if he were to find out.

"It would take quite a few years to master such strength," he watched her walk quietly without giving him a proper answer. "I promise to keep it a secret!" He reassured her, "You got really angry back there. Did something happen to you in the past?" Seeing that he wasn't going to drop the topic any time soon, she decided to tell him why she got so angry when she was up against Dos. She felt like Kurapika had told her so much after trusting her, it just felt natural for her to tell him. Kurapika just listened to her talk, and he felt grateful when she finally managed to open up to him. He couldn't judge her for what had happened to her, it wasn't her fault after all. "Thanks for telling me, Kou," he thanked her.

She shook her head, "I should be thanking you for listening," she corrected him, "Thank you!"

"If there is anything on your mind, just remember that I'm here to listen," he informed her before looking ahead at Gon, "I'm sure Gon and the others feel the same way."

"To be honest, I'm too scared to tell anybody," she continued to speak, "I've never told anyone about this before and my heart is racing while telling you about it. I'm scared that people will stay away from me if I tell them."

"Don't worry, you can always count on me for help," he patted her head lightly, reassuring that he will be there if she ever needed him.

"Hey, you two. Hurry up!" Leorio called the two slow walkers. Now that they were done with the matches, the six had to spend the fifty hours Leorio gambled away in a room before they could continue.


Note: Some of you might wonder how majority votes would work out with 6 people since it's an even number. There is a greater chance for them all to come to an agreement than there is for it to turn out 3:3, so I figured it would work. Even if one of the voting results turned out as 3:3, I would have just made the characters re-vote after coming up with a choice they all agreed on. Many of the passageways and the prisoners were distractions in this challenge, and these were supposed to waste the candidates' time. Re-voting would have acted as a way to waste their time too.