I'm testing the waters. xD How many of you will still read a few more chapters of this story? How many would still be vocal after all this time? I need to know, especially since I've forgotten much of my plans for this story. Luckily, I saved a couple of outlines but yeah…
Anyway, I have reread my Two River series (yes I did) and I'm seriously considering giving Kurapika more chances. Shall I? I mean Gon is unlikely to sway normally but this is Kurapika after all. *wiggles eyebrows* What do u think?
Anyway, I hope you enjoy and I do hope to hear from you!
Disclaimer: I wish I own HxH.
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CHAPTER 6: PREPARATIONS
PADIOKA CITY
Gon Freecs woke up in an unfamiliar bed and an unfamiliar sensation of… stillness.
She then remembers they were now living—not on their boat—but on an actual house! She stretched her arms and wiped the lethargy off her eyes before going down the bed to the rather steady wooden floor. Too steady a floor, now that she thought about it.
She realizes she missed the rocking of the boat already.
Well whatever she feels she soon readies herself for the day and as she arranges herself, her movement stops, as her mind reels back to the previous night, back when she got home after that very interesting meeting with a certain silver-head.
She has arrived an hour or so before Kurapika has, which is fortunate—but she can't help but feel very curious regardless. Wherever has he gone to, anyway? She wants to ask but he seems rather busy with his own thoughts she hasn't been able to do so the previous night.
'Maybe this breakfast', she decides.
In any case her mind (in what felt to be something inevitable) moves further back into the day and recalls the mysterious stranger she met in the woods. The odd boy with that lustrous silver hair, albino-like skin, and striking cerulean eyes, and—
Gon is not blind. She knew he is very handsome—however, what truly struck her is the sheer grace he moves. There is a way he carries himself that is very different. In a dignified manner that is similar to Kurapika's, yet still different, even with him holding back so much (which makes her wonder how much more beautiful he is if hestops being so conscious).
Further, with her sight and eye for details—the ability to see the most miniscule movements and expressions—he is, without a doubt, a mesmerizing person.
She hopes to see him again.
She opens her window and the clearer view of the sky outside and the cold breeze entering her room wakes her up completely. It is still fairly dark, just before sunrise, and she knows it is because she isn't in a familiar place so she has a little trouble going to deep sleep. She shrugs in the end and goes down to help with making breakfast.
Kiriko is already there, and they make breakfast together. Or rather, Gon just did some chopping and watches Kiriko do the rest since the ingredients there are very unfamiliar. She listens carefully to Kiriko's teachings and remembers them well. Gon likes to eat, but she likes cooking more. It is a fact that brings Mito great joy. That at least her niece has one feminine thing as past time. Cooking is one of the very few things Gon could easily comprehend.
Kurapika wakes up soon after, followed shortly by Kaito. The two discusses the plans further while the other two cooks, and after that breakfast is like usual. Well, as usual as the new stable ground to walk on and a number of faces no longer with them could get, that is.
"Gon." Kurapika calls her after eating. "Would you like to train for next week's exams?"
"Sure." She says, albeit not quite sure why they needed to. And as she took care of the dishes with him, she decides to open up the question she's been meaning to ask all morning. "So… where'd you disappear to yesterday?"
His movements pauses for a long second before he resumes, pretending it never happened. "I followed a man who seemed strong. And he was—apparently he was a servant in the castle." He tells her, rather robotically. "He is one of the few who goes out much more often than the others."
"And?" She asks, and her gut tells her it has to do with Kurapika's sudden hurry to train.
"He kind of got me to look after his son during the exams…"
He tells her the man's name is Seaquant, who has somehow sensed Kurapika. This is worrisome as Kurapika has been confident of his abilities, but above that he is the type who would definitely take precautions if they are possible. This Seaquant is strong for a reason. Stronger than he has thought, and Kurapika is rarely the one to underestimate people.
His crimson eyes showed during their short scuffle and a deal was struck.
And then Kurapika was asked to keep his young son alive.
"So… I need you to be ready, that there may be times I will be unable to watch your back."
"Ah, it's not like I expected that." She says and looks at him. "Although… isn't he a servant already? Why not do it himself?"
"That's not allowed you know. And we're only asked to keep him alive—the exams are deadly, especially for a child."He pauses. "He didn't seem to have had a choice in this, so I guess it's morally good to help."Gon looks at him and his gut falls, knowing that she can see he has been trying to rationalize his decision even more.
"That's all?" She asks, with a thin-lipped smile. She might not be a good liar, but she knows him well enough to know when he is lying.
Kurapika looks at her guiltily, but his tense shoulders soon soften in defeat. He heaves out a sigh before speaking. "He said a pair of scarlet eyes is inside the palace. It was a treasure long forgotten, however, so no one would care if it was stolen. So long as it was someone well known within the palace."
"I see…" Gon says, unsurprised. "So you made a deal then?"
"Yeah." He replies with a shrug and looks behind her to the window. "Now… time to figure out where we can train…"
But then she beams.
"Oh, that's easy!"
…
Kurapika does not know what to say about this peculiar house. His brain has formed mental images of what this place has been, once, before it's owners have been forced to sea. It must have been lively, as the ship is, and he can't help but see the tiny little Gon he sees in photographs running around and picking flowers and being her hyper-self, making Mito all stressed out.
In any case, he doesn't quite go in the house. He has that inkling feeling of urgency and he knows going into the house at the moment, as much as he wants to, would be an unnecessary delay. Besides, considering Seaquant can go in and out so easily, he muses that he'll have a lot of chances to explore Gon's old home.
Gon notices he's in a more serious mode than usual and immediately calms her hyperactivity down. (Mentally, he scorns himself for forcing her to do so, but he pushes it away). He turns to face her, body straight and stern. "Shall we?" He asks, and she gives him a firm nod as a response.
They stand some 5 meters away from each other at the clearing beside the house. He closes his eyes and conjures Chain pieces for her emission practice. She has already reached quite a level of power, which is pretty much the easiest to achieve (relatively) for a reinforcement type. Her accuracy and her boosting rate, however, needs improvement.
For warm-up he places them equidistantly around her but with different heights. The next one he moves them as far as eight meters, and in both times she hits them all quickly and accurately. But when he reaches the tens, along with different elevations, the conjured chains suddenly has a much higher chance of survival.
It had been a while since Gon actually trained her emission, simply because her reinforcement has had such booming potential they have ended up focusing there. But they never know when emission-type abilities would be useful.
It takes her a little longer to hit them all, and this time she misses one.
Gon sees Kurapika's eyes are narrowed towards her hands and she could tell he's calculation something. She walks closer to him and she holds up her hand. He lifts his hand and held hers, making her flinch a little, but then he arranges it so her palms and fingers are flushed together. He conjures a rope and ties them in place.
"I want you to try with your hands minimally under your control. If you master this, overall control should be easier."
"I see…" She says, sweat-dropping a little. She can feel how constrained her muscles are, and she can see how many failures would happen. Still, she can do this! And if Kurapika says she'll improve greatly after this, then do it she shall!
For hours on end she misses majority of her targets, and it eats up almost half the day and when the finished, it is near dusk. They do it again a few more times until she has perfected it, and by the time she has she is already sweating.
Kurapika eyes her, blue orbs habitually taking each detail, just before he buries his hand in his pocket to get a handkerchief. She stills as she sees the cloth approaching her face. "Good job, Gon." He says with a smile, wiping her sweat for her.
As one of his hand holds the cloth, the other one waves over her hands to free it from its constraints. He allows her to get the handkerchief as he examines the tight marks the rope has made in her arms. "Sorry."
"It doesn't really hurt." She says, reassuring him. "Plus it's kinda necessary, no?"
He chuckles and pats her head, and it is peaceful and warm for a moment. Until Kurapika opens his mouth again. "Now it's time to make them move."
The fluff surrounding Gon disappears.
"EHHHHHH!?"
…
At the beginning, it hasn't been a problem. She may have missed one or two, but she's doing pretty well.
Until they starts moving as Kurapika would have (which is seriously fast) and begins to disappear and reappear—ready to strike.
She gulps, but not because she is scared and nervous. Quite the opposite, really.
She grins, and she goes for the attack.
…
Slash!
In another country another sparring session is being held. A normal person's eyes could see only fast blurs, shifting from place to place in the large training hall. Eventually however these blurs would smudge and they would be very much visible to the eyes.
One of them is a well-built man in his 40s, greenish hair spiked up with strands of white hair beginning to show. The other one, his opponent, had hair composed only of white strands. The latter is a lot smaller in height, attributed to his age mostly, and is with his characteristic ponytail and long beard.
"It's unexpected, what you did—and we all know how capricious you could get, so that's saying something! Ho-ho." The older man chirps in his own old devil-may-care way, before shifting to a more teasing stance: The one usually accompanied by friendly elbowing with most friends, only a lot more painful and happen to be using a fist.
"To send your own daughter in quite the lethal mission…" The attack is dodged and the old man pauses. "You're showing surprising loyalty, Ging."
Ging doesn't answer with words rather he replies with a high kick. The two engages in a faster pace before occasionally slowing down as they return to their chinwag. It is almost as if they aren't aiming to land hits that would definitely be lethal to practically everyone else.
"I wanted my daughter to see how loyal her father is to his friends—banning them from their own country, notwithstanding." He grins and marvels at how automatically formal he speaks when it comes to Antikoba's former monarch.
Now, though, he is pretty much Ging's spar partner.
"Even at the risk of her own life?"
"She won't die. She's a Freecs old man! You wound me." He says, arching his whole body backwards and then jumping sideways to avoid consecutive attacks. "Besides, I have a feeling I will be rewarded for this—many will be. And not just in the way you think."
"Intriguing…" Netero said with a laugh.
Then they shrug, grin, and continue their spar.
…
Two hours pass before she finally managed to hit all chain pieces. With a huff, and using the back of her hand to wipe her dripping sweat off her face, she looks at the sky—now lined with stars.
Gon still has no idea what Kurapika could've set as a condition to gain so much power. It hurts that he doesn't trust her with that secret but she couldn't really blame him. In the world where supernatural abilities exist, the less people who knows of one's weakness the better.
But she ends up asking anyway. "What's the condition? Of your ability?"
Kurapika visibly tenses up at this. And she frowns because she can almost hear the massive gears in his head formulating a lie. "And you can't lie."
There is a heavy silence that surrounds them for a while, before he turns to her and takes a step closer. She tilts her head up a little so she can clearly see his bright blue eyes. "You are no doubt the most important person alive to me right now." He tells her, though with a slightly rueful tone. "But there are simply some things I cannot say—even to you. I'm sorry." And he gestures to walk away.
She stops him from moving by holding his arm. "You're not—"
He pats her cheek and gives her a reassuring smile. "It's nothing stupid, don't worry."
She stares at him with eyebrows fully furrowed. "Hmnn…"
"Just trust me, okay?"
"But—"
"Please."
Gon's pleading face turns to one of disappointment, her head tilting down to the grass as her emotions are similarly down. "Fine." She says, just before whipping her head back up, making him flinch at the proximity. "But I won't forgive you if you hurt yourself on purpose!" She yells, just before walking/stomping away.
Kurapika watches her go with that all-too familiar queasy feeling in his stomach every time he thinks of what she would say if she found out. She'll be disappointed, but most of all she'll be sad, guilty, and troubled. Kurapika doesn't want to do that to her.
He remembers the times where he is still beginning to learn nen a few years back. He is a conjurer, which has been partly disappointing, but then his eyes turns red and he turns into a specialist. Ging however refuses to teach him hatsu, so Gon learns the technique first.
And he would realize later on that Ging has refused to teach him because inside his heart there was still had that small—but nevertheless strong—urge for vengeance.
But that is of the past and when he found a new purpose, Ging finally taught him the technique.
For… other than finding his what his comrades has lost—their eyes—there is easily another purpose this family gave him. He still had people to protect.
And he would willingly give his life for that.
…
Meanwhile, some hundred meters above sea level, the country's prince stands at the balcony that connects directly to the grand hall. He is watching the town far below, so far that they can't even see him, and his eyes always goes to that part of the forest where he approximates he met the most peculiar girl he has ever met.
He smiles at the fact he might be seeing her soon.
If she passes the exams.
In retrospect he doesn't really know how strong she is!
She has caught his attack meaning she is quite skilled, but he hasn't particularly given effort. The attackis meant only to a lower animal after all. So in the end he finds himself worrying. He shouldn't even be worrying.
It won't occur to him that his fears are more than just the fear of losing one of the already few interesting people in the world.
So, when Gotoh goes to his room, Killua practically teleports in front of him. "Can I watch the exams?"
Gotoh stills even more than usual and raises an eyebrow. "Why the sudden interest?"
Killua unconsciously scratches his cheek, making Gotoh look at him warily. "I thought… hoped…that this year would be more interesting." He lies and obviously Gotoh isn't really buying it but what choice would he have? Killua knew that h, the notorious prince, would need some calming down.
So he gives out a confident smirk, much of which he tries to hide. "I dunno," he says with a pseudo-shrug. "I just needed something different to occupy my time."
Gotoh narrows his eyes.
"Can you please stop looking at me like that?"
"You know after you're little stunt, your highness, it will be difficult not to."
"Can I join the exams?"
Gotoh opens his mouth, about to utter something unintelligible, but he closes it again, allowing for a moment of thought. "I'm very curious how this conversation shifted to that."
"I'm curious. I'm of age now, I want to know the loyalties of my future servants." No one really knows of the royal families' appearances, but there are always rumors about his silver hair. "I will dye my hair to be sure."
Gotoh glares at him and he winces. "You will not disrespect the color."
"Okay, Okay—I'll… pretend I'm cosplaying as myself then!" He says, looking as unshakable as humanly possible. "Besides, this will definitely satisfy my boredom. At least you'd be sure I wouldn't be hatching escape plans anytime soon, yes?"
Still, Gotoh's eyes narrows to slits. Killua's eyes twitches.
"Stop looking at me suspiciously."
"…"
"…"
And finally, Gotoh heaves out a sigh. "Very well, young master." He says and Killua looks at him expectantly. "I shall speak with His Highness."
"Yes! Gotoh you're the best."
The butler shakes his head, then, thinking that this boy is going to be the death of him.
.
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END OF ENTWINED: INTRODUCTIONS
Coming Soon:
ENTWINED: THE ROYAL SERVICE
REPLIES TO ANGELS
THANK YOU EVERYONE WHO SUPPORTED THE STORY! And as always SPECIAL THANKS to those who gave me more of their time by reviewing, commenting, or critiquing the story! *HUGS* It is all thanks to you that this story will even get a few new chapters. :D
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Thanks for reading!
And don't hesitate to tell me your thoughts!
