Twisted
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What happened was only between the two of them, yet fate had different plans. To hate the monster that killed her whole family was the acceptable thing. But to undeniably fall for him was nothing short of traitorous. It's twisted.
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chapter ten
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Phinks sat bored under a tree. He tried to count the stars to occupy his time, he could not reach past twenty before he had the urge to stand up and look at the direction where their Danchou had gone off too.
Franklin had silently stayed on a comfortable looking patch of grass, but Phinks knew that his comrade would take no non-sense from him and even in his half-asleep, half-awake state he would have no second thoughts stopping him from rampaging the woods to the general direction of their boss.
Phinks sighed, days like this made him wish he and Feitan were the ones working together. Feitan would have gladly come with him too. Phinks thought. Ever since that other brat came, he had become a second shadow and somehow, Phinks haven't figured it out yet, Fei had stopped hanging out with him. Phinks snickered again. Feitan ditched him for that Zoldyck brat.
There are many things that aren't going the way he was used to.
"It's funny how things turn out like this." He said sourly.
"She did kill Uvogin."
"And again, their people killed one of us is what Danchou would have said." Phinks grumbled. His mind wondered to the hush whispers and stories about their Danchou's childhood. They all knew it was against their common courtesy to talk about their boss' or any body's past. It was simply none of their business. Phinks only met the lanky boy named Menma once or twice, but Phinks could say he liked the boy enough not to pound him. And that was saying something.
"I don't think Danchou would say that."
"No, but he's thinking it." Phinks stood up and and paced, cracking his knuckles every now and then. He was anxious and itching for some action. He had tagged along with a steaming Nobunaga a while back. It was not a pretty sight. Nobunaga always almost kills everybody before before even thinking about giving Phinks a chance to lay a hand on them. It was unfair.
Franklin, snapped an eye open and looked at his friend. "They'll be fine."
He answers Phinks' unvoiced question. The night is still young, and the duo had more than enough time to do everything. When Phinks had calmed down, Franklin finally had his piece of mind and let sixty five percent of his mind sleep and the other percent awake to stop whatever outburst Phinks throws.
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Kurapika opened the nearest window she saw. Kuroro locked the door of the room but did not bother to barricade it. The men after them were not nen-users, as majority of the wielders had already been taken cared of while he searched for the library. The security cameras had all been busted down too. The papers were tucked in his coat, he had skimmed through them earlier and were now sealed in a tight-air lock plastic. When he was content with his handiwork, he went over the window with her to discuss their current situation. They couldn't use their nen again. Kuroro had explained to her about that ability and so far, their opponents could use theirs. Kurapika saw the glint in his eyes that told her he wanted that ability for himself. The ability was rare and Kurapika had to admit, it was the first of its kind she had ever heard and it would be very useful for a man who had his line of work.
And it would be a plus since she would know that ability and any weakness of it.
Another upside of it was she was assured he wouldn't go on killing everybody, she thought.
"There's no way out except through this window." Kurapika told him. Kuroro approached her and stood too close. She took a step back as he looked down below and saw rushing tides of a sea. The gears of his mind turned, this sea would be the biggest ordeal they'd have to face. If worse comes to worst, Phinks and Franklin would assist them. But Kuroro frowned, they wouldn't give a damn about the nen he found interesting, and even if they did it would already be too late since the nen user would be dead and the ability would be out of his reach. That would be the very last resort, both of them could finish the mission and it was not to his taste to depend on the spiders who were not part of the mission but merely an audience.
He lived without nen for a long, long time. One night wouldn't hurt and it would be a good opportunity to at least test his fighting compatibility with Kurapika. In terms of perspective and life choices, they did not suit but with her potential and his guidance, he could hone her abilities to the benefit of the spider. And if her abilities were already formed then he'd guide it to their path. He hoped to at least gouge her physical abilities.
"We'll jump down." Kurapika was hesitant about doing so. After all, she was still wearing the gown, she took a generous look around the room and found none of the things she searched for. She should have grabbed the clothes of the men they took down earlier. And Kurapika mentally noted, she would learn and master how to conjure clothes so that she could conjure a shirt and a pair of pants in emergency situations like this. So far the room only had furniture sets without any cabinets. And with the window open, she could feel the wind hit her back, it was really cold.
Kurapika felt something warm touch the exposed part of her shoulder, when she looked at it, it was Kuroro's formal evening coat. The instinct of turning it down with a nasty retort almost slid past her tongue, but the cold was biting and she figured it wouldn't hurt. Not taking it would hurt and cause her illness. "Thanks."
It was the first thank you he had gotten from her and Kuroro was caught off guard. He ignored her thanks and thought her thanks was either half-hearted or not meant. When he started to remove his jacket earlier, he chanced a look at the Kuruta and figured her attire would slow their progress down. She looked cold and he offered up his coat since he would be ditching it anyway. She looked at it warily but gingerly pulled the cloth our of his hand and wore the material.
The sleeves were too long and it was overall big for her. Kurapika made do with what was given and folded the sleeves three times before dubbing it comfortable enough. Kurapika looked at the pool of cloth at the bottom of her feet and scowled. Kuroro read her mind too, when he crouched down and grabbed fistfuls of the cloth and hi-jacked it up to her thigh.
"What are you... ?! What do you think you're DOING?!" Kurapika tried to yank the cloth off of his grasp. Kuroro stared at her coolly and gripped the cloth tighter and used it to yank her closer to him. At the force, Kurapika's head hit his shoulder and she did not dare look up. She knew she'd meet his jaw and it would take a lot of self-control not to bite the life out of it, between getting emotionally black mailed into wearing a dress and his current assault she knew she'd lose it. Instead Kurapika pulled her head back and pulled back the cloth to cover the most of her legs. Then she hissed, "Let go!"
"You'd drown if you keep all this unnecessary weight." Kuroro pulled out his knife and started to 'trim' the dress with his Benz knife. He was careful not to let the poisoned knife touch her skin, he didn't need to carry any additional weight. When her muscles started to twitch, he grabbed her right leg along with some cloth while his free hand maneuverer the knife away from her skin. But the girl put up a lot of resistance from him and tried to wrestle the knife from his grasp.
"I can do that myself." Kurapika protested through her gritted teeth, so far, he had removed a good sixty percent length of the gown. He should have cut more lower, probably past her knees. Or better yet, left the trimming and leg touching to her and kept his hands to himself. "And let go of my leg!"
Kuroro gave her a sly smirk before pulling himself up and handing his knife to her, "Good luck doing the back."
If looks could kill, he'd be dead and rotting and burning into the deepest pits of hell right now.
Kurapika took the knife gingerly, the knife was numbered seven. A very, very expensive one at that. Very heavy too. True to his word, cutting the back was hard. Kurapika somehow felt he had planned this all along...well, she'll show him. Kurapika cursed the dress for having to many petticoats and bedazzled jewels on it. She counted at least six petticoats and they were all hard to cut. Kurapika was done with the side and what remained was a portion at the back.
She thought of ways to cut it without making herself look stupid. After a few twists, she was done and she handed the knife back to the waiting Kuroro. Her face wore a triumphant expression that spoke volumes of what she really thought. She kicked the discarded cloth to the side and followed Kuroro who was already walking out the window. The roof tiles were very slippery from the rain, and she had the good judgment earlier to wear her flats rather than the stiletto.
Kurapika was glad for the coat, it was good protection against the night air. The smell of the sea was strong and from that point, the sea did not look too far down. The monsoon continued to howl their way and the screeches of it was terrifying.
"Do we go down at the count of three?" They can hear the faint footsteps of their prosecutors. They were getting nearer and nearer, checking every room and from the sounds of it, there was at least one nen-user with them in a group of fifteen. Kuroro and Kurapika did not bother with the thought so much, if the person was indeed strong, they would have found out about them right away.
"We do." Kurapika closed her eyes and only opened them when they were about to jump. Kuroro ditched their masks. Their body fell with the aid of gravity and the feeling of jumping down head first made Kurapika remember about her Hunter exam days. Their arms were spread wide open and hit the water with a thud. The water stung at the initial contact and the water was biting cold. The first to go up was Kurapika, when she surfaced she immediately gulped for air and she felt her heart pound in her chest from the adrenaline. She could heart her heart pounding in her ears too. The rain blurred her vision but she could see her skirt floating above her and her hair was plastered all over her face, she could also see no sign from him, She pushed her hair back and when she had a moment to compose herself, she looked around the water for Kuroro. He surfaced some moments later and did not waste time into pushing her back to a stone wall and gripping the rocks behind her head for support.
He was looking up into where they jumped from, a couple of things flew down past them. Grenades.
Kuroro shielded her body with his. He pressed her body close to his. From the contact, Kurapika could feel his heartbeat. It was almost beating as fast as hers. The grenades continued to rain down at them. Their enemies had bad aim, none of it hit them, only in close proximity. They were hidden well by the rocks. But with the water, every impact created a vacuum that was painful to them both. The pain was bearable but it made them both uncomfortable. And with every grenade, the sea developed waves that rocked their bodies back and forth. Kurapika was sandwiched between Kuroro's body and the cliff side. Her back started to feel the scrapes of the hard rock and she was swallowing more and more water with a tint of gun powder.
Kuroro heard her cough, he could taste the gun powder in the water too. But unlike her resistance to it, his were more developed and stronger. From his childhood, he had eaten things that would normally kill an ordinary human. A little gun powder was more like an unpleasant candy to him, the type that got exposed to the sun too much and and its flavor was forever ruined. Kurapika did not vomit yet and he took it as a good sign that her body had more or less developed an immunity to it. But still... He was not taking chances on this one. Poisoning might take a while to show itself, and it would not do well if he experiments on her resistance now. He'll check on it later when they were on dry land and vomiting would not make too much of a mess. There he could test all types of her resistance. He pushed her up by her waist and placed her head at the crook of his neck, were somehow she would get a lesser chance of drinking the sea water. Her body fit snugly with his so it did not make too much of a problem positioning her that way.
Kurapika gripped his shirt and saw the grenades rain down on them. It had been going on for at least three minutes now, she counted the time to occupy her mind and keep it out of thoughts she did not want to dwell on. She ignored the proximity of his body to hers and how her grandfather, mother, father and elders ingrained in her system the intimacy of relationships and how their current …'position'... was something every Kuruta would have frowned upon. She could imagine her kind-hearted, soft-spoken father, bless his heart, would have an apoplectic fit when he sees his eldest child in multiple compromising positions.
The files they risked their necks for started to float away from Kuroro and Kurapika gripped it in her hands. She glared at it.
A few more minutes later, the grenades stopped.
"It's over now." Kurapika informed him. She waited a few more minutes until she was sure there were no more grenades before telling him so. She pushed him away from her were he floated and looked at the mess around them. The nearest island, and part of his escape plan included a ten minute swimming exercise until they reached dry land. From there it would be easy to go back to their starting point, meet up with Phinks and Franklin. From the dark sky, they at least had five more hours before the sun would rise.
Both of them swam to the nearest land. They were very careful not to let anybody see them. Kuroro pulled himself out of the water first and walked into the nearest tree. Kurapika followed closely behind him. The weather was still pouring lightly above their heads. They walked more away from the mansion and when they were about fifty meters from it, Kuroro and Kurapika could feel their nen accessible again.
"I can feel people coming that way." Kurapika jerked her head towards her east.
"Only four people are coming in that direction," Kuroro paused and faced his south, "I can't feel any nen that way."
"I can't either, but it seems suspicious going in there. I advise against it." Kurapika wrung the hem of her dripping skirt. Her hair was dripping as well and she conjured a towel and used it wipe herself off. The towel was very dry and warm. She was thankful for one of Mizuken's training exercise. To conjure simple things like towels and spoons. She looked at her dripping companion and found him still standing soaking wet. She had expected him to have something dry by then, maybe something from his fun fun cloth, she observed him for a few more moments before deciding. Kurapika gripped her now slightly wet towel. She remembered the coat he gave her earlier. No matter what reason he had for giving it o her, it kept her warm and covered.
Plus, she did not want to be in debt to him in any way. Kurapika sighed.
Kuroro felt something warm land on his head. When he turned around, he saw the girl's back turned from him, toweling her short blond hair dry. He looked at the thing obscuring his vision and grabbed it with his hand. It was a clean white towelette.
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Drip Tap Tip Tip Tap
Drip Tap Tip Tip Tap
Drip Tap Tip Tip Tap
By that time, Kurapika was wearing an extra shirt tucked in Kuroro's fun fun cloth and a pair of pants poorly tied with the towel as an improvised belt around her waist. She didn't bother ask who it belonged to. Last time she wore men's clothing that wasn't her size was Leorio's. She looked like a pre-adolescent boy with all the folded pants and sleeves. Her friend had long limbs and clothes that made him older than he was.
Kuroro wore an old thin blue shirt. He looked comfortable in the cold and didn't mind that his pants were soaking wet.
They didn't light up a fire since it would give away their position, although Kurapika would have appreciated the warmth it would have provided them. They sat under a tree and let the rain pass by. Walking around in the rain and mud in enemy territory was not a good strategy.
Drip Tap Tip Tip Tap
"You did well today." Kurapika ignored him, he wasn't one for sarcasm as well as praise. "At least for the latter part of the night."
Drip Tap Tip Tip Tap
"It's good you didn't get affected by the mercury." Kuroro expected silence from her, she looked like she was sleeping with her head rested on a trunk and all.
"I've lived homeless for five years, of course I've learned a lot about surviving." Kurapika mumbled. Flashes of her memories scavenging and working her back off for scraps of food and water and survival entered her mind. She had practically ordered her body to improve its immunity and stomach diseases, money had been very hard to come by. And instead of buying things like medicine, she's rather use it to buy food and water. Those were five long tedious years. The hardest she'll ever face and now that she's through with the initial pain, the rage left within her was enough fuel to boost her in life.
Drip Tap Tip Tip Tap
"I can see." Among all the spiders that participated in the massacre, he was probably the one who would never forget those red-eyed creatures. He could remember her tribesmen well. The Kurutans are a group of tough fighters for a group that thrived on 'peace'. And here was one a survivor through and through sitting not so far away from him. If somehow fate took a slightly different fate and it did not spare her life, Kuroro would have remembered her face amongst the many he killed. Kuroro was feeling positive that they were able to hold a conversation this long without disagreeing too much and shouting. He can't see her face too clearly since she buried her face in her hands with her knees tucked close to her. But he guessed, she would be glaring at him for his comment. "Usually, we share whatever earnings we get."
"I'm not interested with money, if that's what you're on about." Kurapika bit out the words. She lifted her head a little and gave him a hard glare before burying her face again.
"No, you're not." Kuroro agreed with her, "And neither are we."
Kurapika raised her head again and this time gave him an incredulous look, not at all believing him and looked at him like he sprouted another head. And she'd have an easier time believing if somebody told her that violets were actually roses and Alexander the Great was straight. "Oh?"
Kuroro ignored her comment and proceeded in talking, giving her a light smirk in the process. "I was about to offer you your phone back."
Kurapika perked up at the thought of being able to contact her friends. Then her eyes narrowed when she realized he would want something from her to compensate for it. He had a way with sugar coating words to make somebody jump at the offer straightaway and later on, halfway through the offer the compensation would make that somebody regret agreeing. Her library 'privileges' were covered by wearing a dress, and when she refused... you know what happened.
"Consider it your fee for tonight." The offer sounded really nice and Kurapika looked expectantly at him for her phone, "I left it in my room. I'll give it to you later."
Kurapika scowled at him.
"I want an agreement on it that you won't ever take it away from me ever again or have any peek or look at my messages and calls." Kuroro gave her a dry look. He wasn't one on prying on messages that didn't concern the spiders. From the look of her phone, he wouldn't get anything from it even if he tried. While the spiders sometimes wired communication via Shalnark, they had a protocol about respecting their comrade's privacy, phone included of course. And in his whole career as the spider's Danchou, Shalnark's phone was the only one he saw since the young spider often have his phone on his hand tinkering with it. "I want your word on it."
Kuroro's phone rang and he picked it up, leaving Kurapika hanging for his word.
"Phinks." Kuroro greeted the other man on the line.
'Danchou, we can sense a group of men head our way.' Phinks tried to make his voice sound innocent but it came out wrong. He sounded very eager for some action. At this point, Phinks was only trying to be polite and ask permission from him to do what he wanted. Franklin was not able to control their new wrestling champion.
"How many?" Kuroro lowered his voice by a few decibels. He made sure that Kurapika would only hear their muffled voices and not all the whole conversation. Their condition, only extended in the vicinity of the mountain, and since the other party were the ones who started the pathetic hunt, Kuroro did not see anything wrong with allowing Phinks and Franklin to move on their own. But the girl would, of course, never see it his way.
'Just about eighth or ten. They look like they are in a man hunt.' Phinks informed him casually. From the sounds Kuroro heard from the back, Phinks had already headed on and he heard a snapping sound. 'Oops. They're down to seven now.'
Kuroro heard a few more snapping bones and gritting flesh and it sounded like Franklin was carving meat with his bullets.
"Just be careful with a nen user who can nullify other nen. I want him alive." Kuroro could hear more snapping sounds and a Phinks cursing.
'The rest?'
"You have my permission to do what you want."
'Rodger that!' Phinks said excitedly.
Kuroro ended the phone call and pocketed his own phone. He could see Kurapika jealously eye his own phone who had luckily survived their quick swim. It had been a long time since she had seen her own device. Four months to the date, since she last touched a communication device. The girl was not able to listen to what they had just talked about which was good. Kuroro did his mental math. There were about seventy-five people looking for them and from Phinks' phone call they were down to sixty. About twenty percent of them were skilled nen-users. They could start moving now and reach their point before the sun even starts to rise.
Kuroro and Kurapika started walking. When they felt somebody's nen flicker in the woods, they didn't stop. They were being followed by at least a strong nen-user. Kurapika's chain was already materialized by her side.
In a blink of an eye, Kurapika and Kuroro jumped away from their general direction. Kurapika moved behind their attacker while Kuroro jumped high above into a tree trunk. Kurapika had chained their attacker and momentarily stunned... it from moving.
"It's a chimera ant." Kuroro drawled.
The creature looked out-dated from the picture Shalnark had shown him. Kurapika had the thing wrapped around, its tail swished and slashed. Some of his limbs were gone. Its right arm looked like it was bitten off, with all the jagged lines and it looked very fresh too. But its whole appearance was a hybrid between a spider and a monkey.
"I think it can talk." Kurapika delivered a quick kick to its joint where the connection was weak and unprotected. Gon and Killua had written to her about their adventure just after obtaining and playing Greed Island. They said something about them being killer humanoids. Her anger escalated quickly when she saw its head. She kicked the joint again and again.
"It can." Kuroro landed down the ground and moved closer the now the tamed beast. "Its head moved in recognition when we talked."
"If you talk this will be less painful." Kuroro knew how to interrogate people to talk, but the group often left Feitan for the task since he took a lot of pleasure in it. And Feitan held the record for how fast he can break a strong person and how much superficial damage he can inflict. Kuroro then decided it was a good time to try out again his interrogation skills, the last he had tortured were some six years ago. His indoor fish would have done the trick if they were in a closed space. He pulled out an ordinary looking knife and stabbed it to the joint where Kurapika had just kicked it.
It wiggled in pain and Kurapika had to tighten her hold on it to stop it from jerking around.
"Can you do this fast?" Kurapika snapped at him. She turned her head in disgust how people can find sadistic glee in torturing people or in this case insects, that was the minority of her mind speaking. She actually wanted the spider-monkey hybrid dead already. It looked disgusting. When it tried to move again and slash its tail towards her, Kurapika had had enough. She yanked the insect forward and stomped on the monkey tail, squashing and squishing everything with her enhanced strength. The limp thing made the insect howl in pain and he started jerking again. It added fuel to the fire when it bared its spider head at her. Kurapika finally grabbed the tail by her free hand and yanked it off. Kuroro was not able to do anything at the near-murder in front of him. She threw the now mutilated tail aside and growled, "If you don't talk now, you're head is going next."
The insect stopped showing signs of understanding them as it bared its teeth. They could see laxatives drip down its fangs.
Kurapika started to see red, she lifted her arm in an attempt to make her promise come true. Kuroro held her wrist in place, "I can assure you she's not lying. She can decapitate you no matter how thick you think your body might be."
"Let go." Kurapika nudged her arm forwards. The insect showed no sign of talking anytime soon and Kurapika was really itching to kill it.
"Suit yourself." Kuroro told the ant. He let go of Kurapika's wrist and before her knuckles could hit the head and splatter it to pieces, the insect bit its arm of and self mutilated itself. Kurapika let the insect go from her chain before wiping her face with the end of her sleeves. The smell was horrid and the gooey substance stuck on her sleeves were thick.
Kuroro backed away from the carcass and looked at her. He wondered if she looked like that when she killed Uvogin. The thoughts faded as quickly as it came, when they saw four more beasts headed in their direction. None of them looked as disgusting the one Kurapika just killed. Kuroro wondered then were all these monsters came from, when his inside resources and informants told him that the chimera ants were all exterminated with a exemption of few who had 'changed' and had connections with the hunter association.
He knew some of them, the most notable was Gyro. Or the insect reincarnate of the NGL's fallen leader.
"Only leave one alive, preferably the most human-looking." Kurapika looked the insects and found them child-looking. They were small and if they were actual kids, deformed would be the best suited word to describe them. The one Kuroro was referring to perked up and looked anxious and tried to hide behind the body of a turtle-child ant. "These aren't protected by the H.A so you don't need to worry."
No, please no...
Kurapika looked questioningly at Kuroro, who raised a brow at her. Kurapika nodded, she heard the voices too. They did not want to bargain with this things for their lives. From what she'd heard, chimera ants have the ability to evolve too much and kill the human populace. She lost her whole tribe, the pain would more than intensify if the whole race was gone.
Kill us...
"I'll make this swift." Kuroro pulled out his knife and started to kill the hybrids. None of them put up a fight when they were down to two, the bigger of the ants approached Kuroro and presented its neck, the weakest part of its body to him. As Kuroro slashed the neck, it whispered, Leave... no... one...aliiiiiiiiive...please
…..mercy...mercy...mercy...death...death...
Kurapika looked at the remaining ant as Kuroro approached it. The remaining ant continued to plead for them to kill it. Kuroro talked to the insect and addressed it as a human being, "If you answer me truthfully, I'll give you Death."
The ants human face looked beady at them both, it moved its head in understanding. "Are you the guards of this place?"
Yes.
"What is your nen?"
I stop people from using their nen.
Kuroro frowned. So much for the ability he coveted. He looked at the insects arms and found the sockets to be empty. Even if he did allow this thing to survive, he wouldn't be able to steal that ability. Kuroro walked towards the insect and crouched down to its level. "Are there more like you?"
yes...
"Were you like us?" Kurapika asked. The insect tore its gaze away from Kuroro to look at her and the insect smiled at her and nodded. After a few moments at looking at her happily, both of them could hear a painful wheezing. The ant sounded like it was crying.
I want to be human again.
With Kurapika's question, Kuroro's memories were probed from the first mission they did with Kurapika. The missing children, abducted and sold. From the list he saw, many were still unaccounted for.
"Where are you from?"
Me... Mete... Meteor... City
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A/N. Thank you so much for reading! :D
This was supposed to be updated earlier, but our internet connection was not good. :( But now its doing better. :D
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