As Misaki closed the door behind her, stepping out in to the seemingly endless stretch of hallway, her rational self obstinately fought against her decision to follow through. The arguments were tempting, but still the girl, as if on autopilot, flicked open her cellular phone and scrolled through the contact list until she located the entry titled "Illumi Z.". Though she hesitated slightly, her thumb did eventually press down on the select button as if it knew better all on its own.
'This is ridiculous!' she mentally scolded herself as she drew the receiver up to her ear. 'You have no obligation to warn him about anything! You knew when you started this that that wasn't what this was about…'
There was a light tremor in her wrist that was almost distracting as the robotic hum of the line echoed in her head; once, twice, three times. Perhaps she was over-stepping her bounds…
"You've done it then?"
His voice was as devoid of emotion as it had ever been. Still, the suddenness of his words startled her some as she had not expected such a response to interrupt the battle of her onward raging inner conflict.
Nearly forgetting the topic of his inquiry, Misaki first half-puckered her lips as if to say, 'What?' and then shook her head before verbally admitting, "No… not exactly."
Silence claimed the line, but the girl could not bring herself to tell him what she had intended to about Kukuru Mountain. Of course, she had not even suspected that the Zoldycks lived in such a place before Killua had confirmed it. Apparently it was even a tourist attraction, according to the boy, but Misaki had never bothered to search for personal details about Illumi. He was simply an acquaintance whom she reaped mutual, physical benefits from… in her opinion at least.
"I'm working. What is it that you want?" he asked hollowly.
'What do I want?' she mused hopelessly.
"I… There… has been a minor set back," she stumbled, trying her hardest to keep her voice steady. "Once it's dealt with… I'll complete your contract right away."
This time, the silence on the line held the implication of suspicion. She wasn't particularly certain whether it should have been possible for her to be convinced of such a thing merely through the quiet over a telephone connection, but somehow she was positive of it.
"See to it that you do."
Without warning, the dial tone sounded a long, low droning sound in her ear following a light click. The thought that she might have angered him actually bothered her some. While her chest felt tight with mild apprehension, a rush of excitement pumped through to her arteries quickly enough to dizzy her for a moment.
"Sleep with one eye open…"
A chill trickled down her skin from the inside out, leaving in its wake a trail of tiny, erect hairs. It had been so long since… and yet, didn't she feel that she owed it to him? Wasn't that the basis of it all?
Referring to thirteen year old Misaki Tanoh as a "small scale" Contract Hunter at the time was an acute overstatement. Her cliental consisted primarily of little more than a handful of regulars, with the occasional offer to pay generously for assassination services from men who dropped no name as far as where or from whom they had discovered her. She was fairly skeptical about accepting a hit on another person, though she had managed to separate from that mortal coil that had once pained her with guilt. In truth, she remembered the ebony haired boy who had threatened her that one eve, and she feared the vague but distinct sentiment of his words.
In the same instant, there was something dreadfully exciting about the prospect of meeting with him again, even if it did have the possibility to arouse a deadly anger in him. She tried to rationalize this feeling with all the naïve experience of a young teenager, chalking it up to the rarity of finding another working assassin who was also quite young, but the truth was that Misaki had acquired a small taste of real danger directed toward her person and she was very much intrigued by it. To kill her he would have no choice but to confront her and it was because of this that she did in fact always recklessly accept every single contract of assassination no matter the conditions.
It was springtime when she finally re-encountered the boy with the dark liquored eyes, and ironically it was amidst a simple escort contract. Misaki had never been a female escort before, and suffice to say never would be at any other point again in her future, either. However, on the night in question, the girl with the plum, pixie-styled haircut had blissfully thrown caution to the wind in order to earn a hefty reward worth three and a half times the amount of her last contract.
The employer, who referred to himself only as "Murata", was apparently known for his impartial attitude towards age by friends and lawmen alike. Still, Misaki had hardly so much as glanced over such details, reasoning that she had often been sought out as a hiree for non-law-abiding citizens of the underground repeatedly in the past. Without a worry beyond the challenge of applying a convincing layer of cosmetics to mature the years in her face to keep up legal appearances, the girl approached her job headlong.
The evening was nothing particularly spectacular, despite it having been Misaki's first debut at a prominently adult, high status party. A red carpet greeted them at the door of a fifty story building and in to a massive, golden-hued ballroom; a view that the girl never forgot. Yet, other than the feeling of astonishment at the interactive peek in to a world which she had never before been close enough to truly touch, everything further was only sub-par. The people were well-dressed and boring, the music was unfamiliar and redundant, and the client Misaki was expected to link arms with for a good three or four hours had foul breath that managed to detract from everything else that might have been even the slightest bit awe-inspiring.
The clock on the wall read one forty-two when Murata finally ushered the girl towards the shining steel elevator doors. The sensation of rising suddenly caused her heart to palpitate erratically for a few moments until they had reached the correct floor: the twenty-first.
"Twenty one is legal, get it?" Murata laughed drunkenly as he guided her down the hallway with a hand on the small of her back.
Misaki flashed a fragile smile and nodded politely to feign understanding, though in truth she did not get the joke at all. Not that it mattered; she was fortunately not being paid to solve the Rubik's Cube of a puzzle that was known as implicit humor.
As Murata finally slipped a card key in to the slot on a door marked "2107" (after a few useless tries with alcohol-decreased motor skills), Misaki smoothly strode over to the dining table, which thankfully was directly in her line of sight. She seated herself and reached for a pad of paper and a pen and began hastily scribbling down simple mathematical equations to represent hours and rate of service. As usual, she worked with due diligence, never wishing to overcharge a client through mere carelessness of calculation, and so it was not until she felt a pair of rough hands massaging pleadingly at her shoulder blades that she looked up from her ground-work.
She turned enough to view his eyes fully, though she could not form the words to explain her discomfort at this advance. Instead she simply hoped he would understand her silent protest and stop once he realized that she was not enjoying it or willing to reciprocate. With a sideways grin, he struggled to point with a wavering finger at the piece of paper with the inked characters scrawled across it.
"You forgot the bonus," he teased, slurring noticeably when he spoke.
"Bonus?" she managed to repeat with an excessively dry mouth, completely understanding what was happening now.
The hand that remained on her upper back made an attempt to scoop the thin strap of her recently rented, emerald green evening gown down and off her shoulder. Fortunately, Misaki had been seen the possibility of this coming now, and spun on to her feet to face her client. She wished that her face had been scowling and cruel, but in reality she knew that her expression was as dumbfounded as she felt. Her heart prepared the adrenaline for her.
"I'm thirteen..." she said quite a lot less firmly than she had intended.
Shrugging, he declared, "It's okay, darlin'; I'm the only one here that'll enforce bed time."
He cackled for a moment at his own joke. This gave Misaki the opportunity she needed to prepare her aura for Ten. She simply hoped that he was not well practiced in Hatsu, or else…
…Honestly, she could not even bring herself to fully acknowledge the specifics of the situation; only the reactions to the implications.
Murata drew one step nearer. He too shrouded his body with Ten.
Misaki retreated one step back. She clenched her fists and began to focus aura in to her dominant knuckles.
One step forward. He smiled and manipulated his aura in a seventy-thirty split between his left arm and the remainder of his body.
One step back. She braced herself, knowing full well that her next receding step would position her too near to the wall to execute either a respectable offensive or defensive maneuver.
One step forward. He eyed her with a fire that threw off her center for just a moment.
In an instant, Murata threw himself forth in an attempt to take advantage of the girl's momentary vulnerability. Much to Misaki's surprise however, he never did make contact. The body slumped against the floor, eyes wide and staring and petrified. It wasn't for a few more seconds that she noticed the generous array of needles which pierced the back of the skull.
'That boy from before…'
Immediately Misaki fell in to a defensive fighter stance, fists blocking her vitals, as she had not opted to pack her weapon for this contract. It was a mistake that the girl vowed never to repeat.
As if he did not see her at all, the boy stepped forth from the shadows, his midnight hair swaying a good three inches above the elbows, and carelessly kicked over the body with his boot.
"He's dead," Misaki confirmed, though she was unsure herself whether she had actually said it for his benefit.
He strolled toward the window, his footfalls stunningly inaudible to her. It took her a moment to register the scene unfolding before her eyes as he leapt on to the window sill with animal grace; he was leaving.
"Thank you!" she called to his back slightly louder than necessary, the desperation interwoven with small, silken strands in to her voice.
He turned, arms folded neatly across his chest and posture erect.
Tilting his head curiously as his black gaze absorbed the sight of her; he asked blankly, "What for?"
She was at a loss for words, having really only spoken in the first place in order to stall him. This made her feel incredibly foolish, especially considering that she could not piece together a viable reason to want to hinder his leaving in the first place. Hadn't he threatened her life during their last meeting?
Misaki simply opted for the simplest response, which was: "For saving me."
His expression remained frozen, and after a moment he monotonously replied, "That's presumptuous."
She knew he had not in fact saved her, and had assumed from the moment she had recognized his presence that the boy must have acquired Murata as a target. Still, his blatant honesty played on her nerves somehow as he disappeared yet again through the window. Finding herself exhausted from the events of her evening, Misaki turned to the door to leave her frustrations in the dust where they belonged.
"By the way…" his empty voice announced unexpectedly enough to make her jolt at the sound.
She spun to face the direction of the sound, and was legitimately amazed to be greeted by the sight of him squatted haphazardly upon the dining table she had been seated at earlier, which was a good fifteen feet from the window he had just launched himself out of.
'He's fast,' she thought, astonished, staring from the window he had exited seconds prior to his current post.
She watched him pull a small, cellular phone from his inside coat pocket.
"This is yours," he said flatly as he tossed it in her direction.
Misaki needed both hands to catch it, though when she glanced up again, he was gone. She was too surprised to even question how he'd managed to obtain it in the first place.
The delay on the phone kept the blue back-light glowing, indicating that the device had just been opened or used within the last twenty seconds. Hesitantly, she flipped it open and scanned through the settings. Eventually she found the only thing that had altered; an additional contact listing.
'Is this your name?' she pondered in awe while studying the new entry, making a point of stepping a few feet around the corpse of her assailant as she made her way to the exit.
"Illumi…" she murmured curiously as the door weighted itself closed behind her.
Over a month had past, and the first Illumi had heard from Misaki since their last encounter was this disappointing phone call. Something about it was not quite right. She was not the type to offer a myriad of excuses in the way of completing a contract, which was why he had chosen her for the task initially. Additionally, he had been so very confident that he had molded her back in to shape the last he had seen and consequently ravished her. She'd seemed so honestly committed to obeying the conditions of his contract back then.
Yet, her tone of voice had been unsettling when she had spoken to him, and he had immediately picked up on the difference from her usual, professional tone. She was startled, and he knew the sound of fear better than most anyone else. Thus he was able to conclude that Misaki had not been lying when she had insisted that a set back had occurred… but what in the world was the cause of that set back?
The neutral expression on his lips gave way to a small, rare frown. This was no good. He needed to set things right again, or else Gon would never be eliminated and Killua would not return home again. Rising to his feet, Illumi headed toward his father's room to request that his jobs be suspended for a brief period of time.
'I'll have to go there and solve this myself,' he decided.
A/N: Just wanted to take an opportunity to thank everyone for the reviews, as well as those who have favorited and/or are following. I really do appreciate it! :D
Also, I wanted to let you guys know that I'm going camping for a week, so I won't be able to update until I get back.
