Hi! Yes, you're reading this right. I'm back, with a new chapter! I now present to you ...
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The X-Ray Goggles
The blaring sounds and the bright city hurt Killua's ears and eyes after such a prolonged stay in the silent canyons outside of Aiai. He blinked once, and when his eyes opened they were filled with his cold blue aura. Using Gyo in his eyes to survey the city, he sat in contemplation for a long while.
Absent-mindedly, he touched his fingers together and when they came apart there were currents of electricity running through the thin air between them. He had to concentrate to keep them there, but that concentration no longer took up all of his focus. His training had improved his ability significantly.
To the west was the restaurant district, full of couples and families with linked arms and held hands. It was a reasonably upscale place, with tastefully decorated streetlamps for the upcoming New Year festivities. Red lanterns and signs hung from doors and from windows, warding off bad luck and evil spirits. Killua's sharp ears couldn't hear what was going on, but he was sure that the sounds of pleasant laughter and chatter filled the air.
I don't belong in that sort of world, he felt instinctively. The electricity in between his fingers disappeared. The thought came out of nowhere, surprising him. Killua spent several wasted moments tracking down this train of thought. Maybe it had programmed in him from one of Illumi's needles, he thought, until he remembered that he no longer had those things stuck in his brain and his big brother no longer controlled him. Maybe it came from himself, maybe it was one of his core beliefs.
Killua had been slowly discovering more and more of his own beliefs lately. Away from his assassin family, where everything had been a cut-and-dried, black-and-white affair. There had been a hierarchy, a set of working relationships and rivalries of both the friendly and hateful sort.
This kind of belief, though…should he reject those bright lights and happy sounds so easily? Did he even deserve to think that he could reach that peace someday?
He was interrupted from his thoughts when Gon came up beside him, and took a seat next to him on the roof. "Find anything?" Gon asked.
Gon had returned earlier than Killua expected. About two hours ago he had left with Biscuit to do some scouting in the city based off of a hint from a friend. Killua had wanted to go along, but Biscuit had firmly directed him to the roof of a nearby building. "Find me all the kigurumi stores you can see," she had said.
"Why?" Killua shot back instantly, and was rewarded with an indignant glare. They bristled at each other like angry cats for a few moments, before Killua remembered the weight of her punches and quickly amended to "All right, fine. I'll do it."
He had made it all the way to the rooftop before he realized that Biscuit had basically given him an order. And he had obeyed.
Now, facing Gon, Killua spread his hands, "I don't know how Biscuit expects me to find every single kigurumi store in the city from all the way up here. I can't even see any of the store signs. Is this another one of her tricks? Or am I being punished for something arbitrarily?"
Before he could badmouth her any further, Biscuit had come up behind him too and smacked him on the head. "You stupid child, don't you know what to do by now?"
"I used Gyo," Killua argued back. "But it's not like I can do anything when the stores aren't facing me. I would have moved, but you told me to stay here and wait for you guys."
Biscuit looked like she wanted to facepalm, but settled for rolling her eyes. "I thought you were smarter than that, Killua."
Killua bit back a retort, remembering again the weight of her punches.
"Well, never mind that." Biscuit sat down and pointed at the restaurant district. "There, from that street. Show me all the kigurumi stores you found."
Gon helpfully passed him a map of the city, one of those tourist ones that you could pick up for free. He also gave Killua a sympathetic look, not really sure why Killua had been asked to do this and not Gon. It seemed to Gon that Biscuit was being a little unfair to Killua. The poor boy had been stuck up on the roof with a seemingly insurmountable task, while Gon and Biscuit had gone out to get a smoothie at a local café.
"What is the point of all this?" Killua grumbled, forgetting himself.
"You are a Transmuter type." Biscuit nudged him. "And even more importantly, you decided to express your aura as lightning. You come from an assasin's family. Be more creative."
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Killua sat on that rooftop until the sun went down, until the air had turned biting cold. But he refused to go inside, where Gon and Biscuit had long gone to sleep. Biscuit had ordered him not to come inside until he got it, and Killua had too much pride to defy one of her challenges like that.
The lights in the city began to flicker off one by one.
It hit him like a massive ton of bricks. He stood up, touched his fingers together, and brought out the largest arc of electricity he could muster. The brightness of it lit up the entire roof, and only then did he see what Biscuit had wanted him to see – the large tower of cables that provided all the power to this area of the city, only a few blocks away.
He was there in a flash, leaping across rooftops, climbing up the metal wall with his hands and feet. The cold wind grew stronger as he climbed higher, but he refused to let this deter him.
At the top of the electricity tower, he let his aura channel along the conductive wires and cables that surrounded him. In an instant, he was both nowhere and everywhere.
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"Do you get it now?" Biscuit asked him when he opened his eyes. When she had crept up behind him, he couldn't tell.
"It's a skill. To know what's on the inside by observing the outside," Killua grudgingly replied.
She tossed him the map that he had left behind on the roof.
"The location of the X-Ray goggles can be found in the kigurumi stores in Aiai," Biscuit quoted. "Now, the obvious way to do it would have been to walk around and search each store by itself. But there is a faster way."
"Find a high vantage point, observe all the kigurumi stores." Killua felt foolish for not realizing it earlier, now that the answer was right in front of his face. "Or, in my case, search the city for electronic signatures." Restaurants used a lot of electricity, for the lighting and the stoves. Clothing stores only used electricity for the lights and the lamps. Then there were kigurumi stores, which only drew a trickle of electricity from the grid, with their dim lighting.
"Which means…" Killua circled all the commercial districts on the city map, making note of each kigurumi store. When he was sure he had all of them, he pushed the paper towards Biscuit. "We need to go to this one."
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Later, when Gon was off exploring more of the city, Killua found Biscuit in one of her favorite haunts – a jewelry store in the primary shopping district in Aiai. She saw him come in through the front door, but pretended not to notice until he was right beside her.
"Biscuit," Killua said.
"Hmm?" Biscuit fingered a diamond pair of earrings, seeming to pay him little mind.
"Why did you ask me to find the X-Ray Goggles, and not Gon?"
"Are you accusing me of favoritism?"
Killua snorted. "I think we both know you don't have enough heart for such a thing. I'm asking because you left Gon completely out of this one." The point of collecting all these cards had been to develop skills that Hunters needed to be successful. Leaving Gon out of this gave Killua a bad taste in his mouth, as if Gon had been cheated out of learning something useful.
"Unlike Gon, you need situations such as these to develop and experiment the different uses for this ability. Don't always watch him and focus on attack-type techniques. You need to specialize more, or you'll lose ground."
Killua raised an eyebrow, and Biscuit amended. "I know, you think you're still far ahead of Gon. But there may come a day when he blows right past you, becomes somebody that even you would consider a monster."
"A monster? Gon?" Killua smiled at the thought, but Biscuit was dead serious.
"I've seen it in him – that aura is not something to be taken lightly. Don't slack off. I want you two to be able to stand together when that day comes."
Killua contemplated this for a long time before he could think of something to say. But by the time he opened his mouth, Biscuit had disappeared.
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A lot has changed. I am now attending college at MIT, so I'm old now :D I went through two heartbreaks and I sometimes wonder if I have become someone entirely different. You tell me, based on my writing. Am I someone different?
Anyway, I hope my precious readers have been well. I hope you guys don't hate me for this year-long break. I never really quite forgot about you, and that brought me back :)