Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter X Hunter nor all the characters pertaining to it, except my OCs Merula and Art, and the rest of other characters not pertaining to the Hunter X Hunter anime/manga.

Warning: Referring Kurapika here as female. Some OOCness (but it's inevitable right? ;P ) Some gory cursing…Set in AU.

Note: [Please review….Sorry for some grammar, typo, and spelling errors if there are still any ^^']

Chapter 20:

Revelation:The Siblings

"Truth is like the sun, you can shut it out for a time but it ain't going away."

-Daybreakers

Art was beginning to reek of beer and Kurapika could smell it. The Kuruta was flabbergasted seeing a man cried in front of her and this was probably the first time she experienced it. She was practically frozen in her sitting position and the least thing she could do was to occasionally cast down her eyes; she did not know what to do. Why did Art cry suddenly anyway? Should Kurapika reach out a handkerchief to the agent? A tissue maybe? But she had neither of them unfortunately.

The blonde hunter heard Art sniffing and coughing. Kurapika looked up and saw the agent taking a couple of gulps of beer.

"Merula was…" Art began in a rather raspy voice as he examined the bottle of beer in his hand; measured how much liquor was still left inside through its reddish brown, translucent glass, "…was probably the strongest girl I've ever met. Not in a physical sense….No." He shook his head a little, then fully emptied the bottle in one gulp and put it down on the table with a thud.

"Kurapika, I hope you don't mind me asking…" Art continued "…How many were you back then…I mean the Kuruta members… in total…that you remember before the massacre occurred 6 years ago(1)?"

(1)A/N: In this fanfic, it's been 6 years ago when the Kuruta massacre occurred. That means, it's been 2 years since Kurapika took the hunter's exam. So, Kurapika is 18 years old here since base on Hunter's Wiki, it was mentioned that Kurapika was 12 when the massacre happened.

Kurapika made a face. The agent assumed that if the Kuruta wasn't wearing black contact lenses, her eyes must be burning with scarlet colour already before she cast her eyes down to the table. Her head bent down a bit; her blonde fringe veiled the upper half of her face and concealed her eyes.

The blonde hunter trembled slightly as she recalled every face of her people; of her family when they were still alive.

"There were 37 of us," Kurapika answered in a grave voice. "36 pairs of scarlet eyes of my people are now scattered in different continents. I have resolved to retrieve all of them no matter what, even if it costs my life."

"Merula has the same resolve," Art announced rather unsympathetically with a sigh. Probably this was the kind of reaction a slightly intoxicated man would make. "Well, almost."

Kurapika lifted her head and revealed her face that was almost close to snapping.

"But why!"Kurapika banged her hands on the table and made the bottles of beer shudder and produce clinking sounds. She stood up and bent over the table as she glared down demandingly at the agent. "What does Merula need the scarlet eyes for? I don't think she seeks them for money. I know there is by far more crucial reason than that."

The agent did not look up at the Kuruta's angry face. Rather, he acted like he did not hear anything nor was he aware of the irate person in front of him. Art grabbed the last bottle of beer and snapped open its metal cap with his teeth and spat the said piece of metal to the floor.

Finally, the agent answered apathetically."Of course. If she knew from the beginning that you're alive, she could have been doing it for revenge."

Kurapika was taken aback. Suddenly, the word 'revenge' struck her mind like a hammer.

"Revenge? To whom?" Kurapika scowled. Examining Art's statement, the phrases 'revenge' and 'if you (Kurapika) were alive', the vengeance apparently would be against Kurapika. She could have asked the agent, 'is it revenge against me? Against my people? Why? What did we ever do to her?'

Before she could even put the questions into words, Art spoke up."Please take a seat."

Kurapika obeyed reluctantly.

The blonde hunter watched the agent impatiently as he took another gulp of his beer. Art then proceeded to put the half-empty bottle down next to the two fully-empty ones.

Kurapika squinted when she saw the agent pulling something from the back pocket of his jeans – an old brown leather wallet. He took out something from it. At first, Kurapika thought it was just a small piece of white paper, but it turned out to be an old photograph when Art flipped it and slid it over the table towards her. The agent left the photograph on the part of the table where it was close enough for the blonde hunter to see what was in it.

The edge of the photograph was yellowish, which implied that it was indeed an old one, although the middle was still somewhat in good condition. There was a slanting white line at the lower part of it which implied that the photograph had been folded in that area.

In the photo, there were three people - a man in his early twenties and two children standing next to one another and smiling at the camera except the boy in the middle. The said man was standing in the left, wearing a lab coat and making a peace sign and beaming with enthusiasm.

The girl on the right, who was probably around 8 or 9 years old, was clinging onto the arm of the boy in the middle. She was wearing a seemingly black summer dress with purple hems. Her long, curly, black hair hung loose around her shoulders and ended below her waist. She was smiling, too. Her eyes were mismatched in colour though. Her left orb was silver.

The boy in the middle was wearing a Kuruta wardrobe. He was probably around 14 years old. He was looking at the camera rather suspiciously. He has a pair of round amethyst orbs and a curly black hair; almost the same with the girl beside him, but his was shorter and tied together at the back of his head. A pair of curly locks framed his angelic, but grave countenance.

"Do you recognize… or somehow remember who are in the picture?" The agent asked as he grabbed the bottle of beer and took another gulp again.

"It's you, isn't it?"

The agent raised his eyebrows, relaxed on his chair and grinned.

"I see you have recognized the handsome me eight years ago. But how about the other two?"

"Is this photo real?" Kurapika asked suspiciously.

"I take that answer as a 'No'." Art sighed. "And yes, it's REAL. You can bet my life that Photoshop hadn't existed yet during the time that photo was taken. So then, it seems you don't remember Miruki."

"Miruki?"

"Merula's older brother. He's not one of the last 36 Kuruta members you remember before the massacre, is he?"

Kurapika examined the photo closer and obviously, the agent was talking about the boy in the middle. She stared at Miruki's eyes and remembered that their colour looks exactly the same with Merula's present left eye. Then, the Kuruta recalled the time when they were in the cave a few days ago when Merula mentioned that her left scarlet eyes was given to her by her Kuruta brother. But Merula said he was already…

"I'm afraid I don't remember him," Kurapika announced in a tone that implied that she was not pleased with this cruel joke.

"Of course you don't!" Art announced as he looked at the blonde hunter accusingly. "He'd already been dead for more than a year before…" The agent stopped, turned his head away and breathed deeply before he completed the sentence, ". . .before the massacre occurred."

The agent gazed at the distance over the wooden railings. Art downed another several ounces of beer and wiped his mouth. He looked really bummed suddenly as if he was going to cry soon.

"I might still be able to remember him, IF he really did exist during that time," Kurapika commented while tilting her head a little to look over at the agent who stared sadly and blankly at a distance; to examine if this behaviour of his was just pretence. But she noted that Art was rather drunk already and usually when a person is drunk, he tends to spill out a lot of information and most of those information are facts.

Art turned and look at the blonde hunter with a frown.

"You callin' me a liar?" Art asked, he sounded a little annoyed. "I ain't going to force you to believe me, but nail me if I'm lying right now. No. I haven't been lying to you ever since I woke up today and I ain't gonna do it tonight and probably not going to do it to you ever again. But - "

The agent stopped for a moment and looked at Kurapika whose face seemed to imply that she was not sure if she has to listen to a drunken person.

The blonde hunter, noticing this, took a deep breath and then said, "Okay, I'll listen."

"Maybe it's true. The Elders of your clan screwed up your memory after that bloodbath almost 8 years ago."

"WHAT?" The blonde hunter exclaimed incredulously. It was like Art's latter statement was a bucket of cold water splashed onto her. "What are you talking about?"

"Your Grandfather, King Khamisi ordered it."

The mention of Kurapika'sgrandfather's name made the blonde hunter's hair rose. She was starting to get convinced that the agent indeed knew something very genuine related to the history of the Kuruta clan.

"How did you -"

"I told you already, didn't I? I was there." The agent pressed with a flourish.

A/N: From this part starts the flashback.

The paragraphs in bold letters means the characters who were talking were in present time of the story, in other words, not part of the flashback and apparently most of it would be Art narrating the story in his POV. The ones in italic are the flashback itself told in 3rd person POV. I wish I could just start narrating everything in Art's POV, but I'm afraid that Art would either be way too OOC or if the story will be narrated in his POV, some important details might get lost, since I believe Art is not the kind of character who can narrate the story in details which includes emotions and etc...Well, anyhow, I hope you understand what I mean. ^^

"I was just 22, a student in Genetics when my professor asked me to assist him in a project." Art continued."It was 9 years ago when I first set foot in Rukuso Region with Professor Han. We were planning to camp and conduct a project there about a certain group of people with an unusual eye colour. You know already whom I'm talking about, right?

"It wasn't easy though. They were somewhat severe and reclusive. I mean…we were there for just a day and a half and we met some of them pointing their weapons at us."

True. The next morning after Art and Professor Han arrived at the coast of Rukuso Region, when Art got out of their tent built in the woods, he met 5 Kurutas on horses pointing swords and spears at him and he was frozen for a moment in a crouching position in his inner shirt and pajama with both hands raised in the air. Feeling nervous, he called the professor.

When Professor Han got out, he immediately imitated Art's gesture and said the words loud and clear, "We have come in peace."

Art felt like they were aliens from another planet when he heard his professor spoke the words in his oriental accent.

Art and Professor Han heard one of the Kurutas; the one who was ridingon a black horse and who seemed to be the leader, replied in a foreign language with a solid tone, as if implying a command. Nonetheless, they could not understand what exactly it meant.

"We are people of science and medicine. We mean you no harm. We are here just to conduct some studies." Art announced humbly. What he said could be a lie though.

The Kuruta on a black horse put down his sword and when he stirred his horse to the side, Art noted that he was just a kid – a boy around 14 years old with a black curly hair and angelic face, and a pair of big amethyst orbs. Nonetheless, he was giving off an aura of a brave warrior.

"From whose fiefdom are you?" The Kuruta boy with the amethyst eyes demanded. The accent reflected his original language.

Art and Professor Han looked at each other, confused, and then they looked back up at the boy.

"Are you talking about our country's president?" Art inquired hesitantly. The boy frowned, the kind of frown indicating he did not understand the question.

"You shall not bring about damage to the natural resources of this Kingdom and you shall not go near around the walls. Otherwise, there shall be harmful consequences for the both of you." The boy warned as he stirred his horse, ready to set off.

"Like what?" Art said jokingly but when he met the boy's glare again, he regretted it immediately. Art noted that he saw the boy's eyes flickered with red colour in a brief moment which sent some shivers in his spine.

"DEATH."The boy announced firmly and pointed his sword at him again. The tip of his sword was just a foot away from Art's forehead, "Next time we meet, it will not be a mere warning anymore." The boy drew his sword. "Leave now, strangers!"

Then,the boy gave his horse a mild kick on its flank while yelling 'Hyaa!' and galloped away with the other Kurutas, leaving Art trembling for a moment with his professor.

Art hooted with laughter at the memory as he set down the third empty bottle of beer on the table. He rested his head over his folded arm at the edge of the said furniture as he continued to laugh.

"And that was the day I met Merula's brother for the first time." The agent guffawed. "Hahahaha! He was such a little snob I tell 'ya! A cute one though."

Kurapika was beginning to suspect the agent's mentality. At first, he was crying, now he was laughing so hard and she did not even find such thing to be funny.

"Did you see that, Professor?" Art inquired while he stirred a ladle into a pot of boiling soup he was cooking for breakfast. The fire beneath it was almost gone though.

"You mean the red eyes?" Professor Han answered.

"You mean, those savages are our subjects of the study?" It was more like an incredulously exclaimed statement than a question.

"How dare you call us savages!" Kurapika complained angrily with a scowl.

"Look, sorry. That was just my personal outburst because of Miruki, okay? I didn't mean it."

"They don't look like savages to me," Professor Han commented as he took a spoonful of soup into his mouth, "Did you see their clothes? The way they speak. Not to mention they look really clean. They look well-civilized."

"Even if they look damn well-civilized, it doesn't mean they're gonna welcome us with arms wide open like other countries do to some tourists." Art replied bitterly. "It's more like they're going to butcher us if they ever lay their eyes on us again. And now that I mentioned it, how exactly are we going to conduct our studies about them?"

There was a silence that took almost half a minute.

"Maybe a strand of hair from one of them or a small sample of blood is enough." Professor Han answered finally.

"Do you think we can determine how their red eyes work by just taking specimens from them other than an actual eyeball? I mean if one of them would be willing to donate an eyeball, that'll make our work easier but NO! Apparently, that's quite impossible! And hello? Are you kidding me? It's our blood that's goin' to be spilled if we attempt getting even a single damn strand of hair from one of them, let alone a fucking blood sample! I don't wanna die yet. My wife and baby daughter still need me! Sorry for the cuss word professor."

Professor Han gave Art a sad smile. "Fair enough."

"So I guess, we're gonna head back soon eh?"

"Giving up already?"

"Apparently. How about you? Don't tell me…"

"Let's stay here for a week. We can try talking our way to them."

"Heck! We can just go gansta' on them if we CAN. The thing is…we CAN'T. Talk our way? That would be an awesome idea IF they haven't slit our throat yet before we even try to."

"Don't be such a pessimist. I have so much hope on you. That's why I chose you to come with me." The professor patted Art's back.

"…Hey wait, Professor Han, what do you mean by that?"

Abruptly, Professor Han's cell phone rang and he excused himself to answer it. He walked several meters away from Art and started talking in a low voice.

Art on the other hand suddenly turned his head sharply to the side when he suddenly got a feeling that someone was secretly watching them. He looked around but there was no one else there except him and the professor. He tried to listen more carefully but all he could hear were forest animal noises. Art hoped that there were no wild and fierce animals that would come to their camp and attack them and cause them trouble, but that seemed unlikely.

Fortunately, no such event occurred on that day.

"Using binoculars, we learned about the wall that Miruki was talking about. The wall he warned us to stay away from. The entire tribe of Kuruta was enclosed in a stone wall at the base of the Rukuso mountain range. We saw a pyramid from over the edge of that wall which we would later learn that that was where the royal family lives.

"On our fourth day of our stay, that fateful late afternoon, that's when I met his little sister."

Art was out hunting for food – fruits and wild berries ( or so his instinct told him) were safe enough to eat. He was about 200 meters away from the camp where he was picking something that looked like blue berries, when someone spoke to him from somewhere nearby in foreign language. He recognized it as the voice of a girl. Base on its tone, the voice sounded like it was asking a question.

He craned over his shoulder but found no one around.

"Hello?" Art inquired suspiciously. "Is anyone out there?"

He heard the voice again in the same tone with the same words in foreign language.

Suddenly, a fruit peeling dropped from above. Art looked up and saw a girl in black summer dress sitting on a tree branch above him. She has a long, black wavy hair that ends below her waist. She was probably about 8 or 9 years of age and she was eating some kind of yellow fruit.

Art stood up warily without taking his eyes away from the girl.

"Hello there," Art greeted with a smile.

The girl smiled back briefly at him, and then continued to eat her fruit. Some yellowish stuff was smudged around her mouth.

"I'm Art. What's your name?"

The girl took another bite from the fruit, munched it and swallowed it before answering.

"Merula."

"Merula, is that your name?"

The girl nodded.

"Then, can you understand me?"

"Little."

"How did you get up there?"

"Me climb tree."

"Ah, of course." Art suddenly got the urge to smack himself for asking such a stupid question. But if he think about it, for a little girl like Merula in her age with such a small body to be able to climb a tree was rather unbelievable.

"You kill yourself?"

"What?"

"You get that berries, you killing yourself?"

"Huh? No, no!"

"But you pick them, if you eat them, you are dead."

Art looked down at the purple berries accumulated on a huge leaf he held on his arm, and then looked back up again at the girl who was wiping her mouth clean. She was done eating the fruit.

"You mean these are poisonous berries?" Art asked in an alarmed tone. The girl simply nodded.

Art dropped the leaf to the ground. The berries scattered about next to his feet, "Woah! Shit! That was close!"

The next thing Art saw, the girl was swinging onto the tree branch by her petite arms. Then, she released her hold and dropped to the ground and landed on her feet. Art could not help but to be impressed.

He noticed something about the girl's face though. Her eyes were mismatched in colour. Her right orb was as black as her hair while the other one was silver or light grey.

Her countenance looked familiar, too. Soon, it dawned on him that the girl's face somehow had a resemblance to the black-haired Kuruta boy they encountered 2 days ago.

The girl noted that Art was looking at her in a funny way so she began to retreat.

"Wait! Merula?"

The girl stopped, turned her head and looked at Art inquiringly with her mouth nibbling on her curved finger. This innocent image of her somehow touched Art's heart. How vulnerable she looked.

"Erm…Are you a Kuruta?"

The girl shook her head. "Brother."

"Brother?"

"My Brother. There." Merula pointed at the direction of the walled kingdom.

"Then you live there, too, right?"

Merula shook her head again and pointed at the opposite direction.

"There."

"You live there?" Art frowned at the direction where Merula was pointing her finger to. All he could see were thick shrubs and trees, but then he assumed that probably, there was another tribe living behind those greeneries.

"And I was right. We found another tribe living at the borders of Rukuso region by the river at the very heart of the forest. The Hematites - there were probably about 50 or 60 of them. We learned that Merula's mother was a pure Hematite. Daughter of the Hematites' Chieftain in fact. And I gotta admit she was one HOT mother!"

Art could discern from the corner of his eyes that Kurapika had raised an eyebrow at his latter sentence. The agent cleared his throat nervously and proceeded with his tale.

"So, because of the turn of events, our stay in Rukuso was prolonged. The Hematites weren't as severe as the Kurutas though, but not as civilized as them. They didn't even have horses.

"We were able to talk to some of them easily and learned that they used to be Nomads until their chieftain's daughter met the love of her life – Merula's father. He was a Kuruta."

"But that couldn't be," Kurapika broke in. Her expression seemed to imply that she could not accept a certain piece of fact. "Our law forbids us to have close relationship with outsiders."

Art leaned forward to Kurapika with a narrow, scrutinizing eyes.

"Kurapika, have you ever fallen in love so deeply before?"

The blonde hunter flinched and blushed.

"Some people do crazy things when they're in love, do you know that? Even me." Art grinned. The Kuruta could not answer. She remembered Art's Uncle saying the same thing during that time the agent was still unconscious and fighting for his life after he had saved her from Merula's deadly attack.

"But – "

"Anyway," Art continued, interrupting Kurapika. "We had confirmed it. It was Merula's brother alright. He was that black-haired boy who pointed a sword at me together with 4 more Kurutas during our second day in Rukuso. I learned about his name from Merula herself."

Merula's knees were folded under her chin as she sat beside Art on a dried trunk of a fallen tree near the camp, sobbing. She had told him that her Kuruta father left together with her older brother for the walled kingdom and had started living there since she was 5. The Kuruta tribe, mainly because of Merula's father's request, let the Hematite tribe stayed at the borders of the Kingdom as much as they wanted, provided that they would conform to the given conditions. Merula hardly saw or talked to her father ever since then. She did not mention about her communication with her brother, but nonetheless she hated the fact that they could not be together as a complete family ever again. That thought was what always made her cry.

"Nawww….." Art told Merula reassuringly as he patted her back gently. "You can at least visit them, can't you?"

"No, no, no!" Merula squeaked between sobs, "Grandfather get mad! Father get mad!"

"I can't imagine a parent getting mad for no reason if he sees his kid come just because his kid wants to see him," Art said irately.

"Me no Kuruta. Me should not go to the walled tribe. Me don't have red eyes. Only brother and father. Me wish have red eyes, too. But I don't."

"Geez, that's just blatant discrimination! Somehow it makes me mad!" Art pulled a cigarette from the chest pocket of his lab coat and was about to light it when he noticed Merula looking at the stick in his mouth curiously.

"Sorry. I shouldn't do this. It's not a good example for kids." Art announced and banished the cigarette back into his chest pocket, "Stay here, I'll be back a.s.a.p."

Merula nodded and obeyed what she was told.

Art came back with a colourful children's storybook with the title 'Rapunzel'. It was the book he was planning to take home for her baby daughter Lina, who would be celebrating her first birthday in two months. He did hope that he would be home by that time then.

He learned that Merula could read somehow, but not in Roman characters. He decided to read a story for Merula to cheer her up. Well, he succeeded in some way.

Soon, Merula was imitating Art on how he had told the stories to her with feelings, gesture and voice acting. Art also watched the girl spin on her heels gracefully; her skirt swaying back and forth as she did so as she tried to imitate a princess dancing with a prince. She was such a darling, Art thought.

Merula was smiling then and that made Art smile, too. He thought maybe Lina would be like her when she grew up. What a joy that would be!

"Maybe she is a Rapunzel," Merula suddenly announced when she stopped and stared at the top of the pyramid that was poking out over the walls of the Kuruta tribe from the distance. Art glanced briefly to where she was staring.

"Who?"

"The princess. She is there," Merula pointed at the top of the pyramid which looked like a temple if one would examine it, she began to dance again playfully. "A Rapunzel is there. Brother always look after her."

"Oh? How did you know?" Art smiled rather mischievously, "Did you sneak in and saw her?"

Merula looked surprised suddenly, the kind of surprise like she was caught doing something bad. She leaned forward and put a finger over her mouth.

"Sssssssshh," and she nodded, "Don't tell others."

"Okay. I promise." Art whispered with a smile and raised a handon shoulder level – an emphasis that he was making a promise, "I won't tell anyone. So what does the Princess look like?"

"She is like Rapunzel!" Merula announced cheerfully with arms spread open and she began to dance playfully again around Art, "She has long, long, looooooooonnnngggg, yellow hair! And…and blue eyes. She is beautiful!"

While Merula recalled an image of a golden-haired girl the same age as her, Art imagined a blonde hot babe who was probably close to his wife's image (a little younger though) who was wearing a provocative royal Kuruta gown.

Suddenly, sadness invaded Merula's countenance.

"I wish my hair is yellow, too, and my eyes blue, so I'll be beautiful."

Art suddenly snapped to reality."But Merula, you ARE beautiful." He prompted.

"No, I'm NOT!" Merula pouted, "My hair is black and my eyes are not blue and they don't become red."

Art heaved a long sigh. He felt sorry for the girl.

"I wish I am like Princess Kurapika. Then my brother will look after me, too."

….to be continued.

Author's Note:

First, I wanna thank Runandra/Funchan for helping me out with the proof-reading of this chapter. I wasn't feeling well when I wrote this so I need some help. And for some reasons, since it's been so long since I last updated it, I felt that it's about time that I do.

It's finally the start of the damn REVELATION! Yay! From here on, a lot of questions will be answered, which includes Merula's origin, Merula's relation to the Kurapika/Kuruta tribe, etc...

Before, I was so looking forward to reach this part. I was so excited to write the revelation but ironically when I'm finally here, I always feel lazy updating it LOL. ^^' (nervous laugh) But fortunately, now I managed to update it again, so here it is.

I also like to thank everyone who reviewed this fanfic (whether here itself or through PMs or through FB PMs LOL) I really appreciate it and I hope you keep them coming.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy this chapter. =D