Disclaimer: The characters and events of Hunter x Hunter belong to Yoshihiro Togashi.

"Grayscale" Chapter Thirty-Four

Fan-Fiction For: Hunter x Hunter / Killua Zaoldyeck.

Begin.

Karasu shifted uncomfortably from where she sat in between Gon and Killua in the back of a car. The man who sat on the other side of Gon scowled in her direction and she avoided his eyes.

On the other side of Killua was a familiar face in Pakunoda, the woman who'd helped her figure out the GPS on her phone. Karasu was avoiding looking at her, too, but she couldn't help glancing up when the woman wrapped her arm around Killua's shoulders and placed her hand on the back of Karasu's neck. She tried to suppress a shiver and failed.

"So," she began, and one of her fingers began to draw slow circles on Karasu's neck, eliciting another shiver. "Do either of you know a Nen user with chains?"

Killua scowled. "No."

"Chains?" Karasu asked, and Pakunoda's circles turned into figure eights.

"Chains," she repeated.

"No," Karasu answered slowly, her brows furrowing. She tilted her head in Gon's direction. "Did she already ask you?"

"Yeah," he mumbled.

Figure eights turned into stars.

Karasu nudged Killua with her elbow and leaned toward him. "How are your ankles?"

"Fine," he grunted.

Karasu heaved a sigh and rolled her eyes. "You two are grumpy."

Killua narrowed his eyes at her but before he could retort the Spiders were filling the car with the sound of muffled laughter.

"You're too relaxed," he snapped at her, clenching his fists in his lap.

She rolled her eyes at his response. "If they wanted us dead we'd be dead by now. There's not anything we can do right now."

The man on the other side of Gon snorted and smirked, still staring at her from the corner of his eye. It was starting to grate on her nerves.

She crossed her arms over her chest and huffed.

Pakunoda removed her hand from Karasu's neck as the car pulled up in front of an old, worn down building. The group filed out of the car and headed into the building, Pakunoda in the lead. She swung open a door with a blunt, "Welcome to our hide out."

There were seven people in the room, one of which was Hisoka. Karasu ignored him in favor of looking at the other six Spiders. They were an interesting bunch to say the least. Two of them had their faces completely obscured - one with bandages, the other with their hair, and another had their face partially hidden by the large collar of his shirt. One was a hulking figure of a man with scars on his face and his ear lobes stretched down to his collar bones. In contrast, the other two were so normal looking it was actually a little disappointing. There was nothing particularly remarkable about the young man with his hands on his hips, and the woman sitting beside Hisoka had her bespectacled nose shoved in a book.

"Hey!" Gon exclaimed when his eyes found Hisoka, and Karasu flinched and blatantly looked in the opposite direction.

The long-haired man that the group of three had tailed gave Gon a long look before asking him, "Recognize someone?"

Karasu couldn't help but glance in Pakunoda's direction. She met the woman's gaze, and a blush crawled up her neck when the older woman smiled at her.

"Oh! That girl!" Killua pointed at the woman beside Hisoka.

The other man that had escorted them into the building nodded his head in her direction. "Do you know them, Shizuku?"

"No," she answered immediately.

"Kid who arm wrestle," the one with his face half covered commented. He had an accent and slightly broken grammar, and Karasu thought that it was likely he wasn't speaking in his first language.

"What?" the woman asked.

The large man with scars pointed in Gon's direction and explained, "You arm wrestled him a couple days ago. You lost."

"Don't bother. Shizuku never remember something she forgot," the other man grumbled.

"No way," Shizuku cut in. "Even I wouldn't lose to a kid."

"You used your right hand," the large man told her.

"Huh? But I'm left-handed!"

The man stared at her in silence for a moment before relenting and saying, "My mistake."

"You beat Shizuku at arm wrestling?" the long-haired man asked Gon, his brows rising on his forehead.

"Yeah."

"I didn't know she was in the Troupe," Killua remarked.

Karasu shrugged and scanned the group again. "I wasn't there that night."

Killua's eyes widened for a moment as he remembered that Karasu was in fact not there that night. How he'd forgotten that, he wasn't entirely sure, but he supposed that the situation they were in had something to do with it.

"But I know Pakunoda," she said, her voice so quiet that Killua wasn't sure he'd heard her at first.

"Pakunoda?" he repeated, his voice at a normal level.

"Yes?" she asked, her face neutral.

Killua ignored her in favor of Karasu. His face contorted in confusion and his voice rose in volume as he asked, "How do you know her?"

All eyes fell on her, and she tried to make herself smaller while avoiding their stares.

"You know her?" the long-haired man asked.

"We met a few days ago," Pakunoda answered. "She needed help with her phone."

Killua slapped his hand to his forehead and groaned in exasperation. "The night you were late...?"

"I didn't know how to work the GPS," Karasu explained, her face burning with embarrassment.

The long-haired man chuckled to himself as he smoothed his hair back into a low ponytail.

"Let's arm wrestle," he stated, and moments later he and Gon were sitting across from each other at a table.

By Gon's third loss Pakunoda had come up to stand beside Karasu and Hisoka was standing behind Killua.

After the fifth round the long-haired man turned to his group and asked, "Hey, how do I rank in arm wrestling within the Troupe?"

"You're seventh or eighth," the large man stated.

"You're not weak but you're not one of the strongest, either," said the woman that'd been with the long-haired man in the square.

"Yeah... the strongest was a guy named Uvogin," the long-haired man said. "He was probably killed by the chain dude."

"We told you we don't know him!" Killua exclaimed, his fists clenching at his sides.

The long-haired man fixed him with a glare from the corner of his eye. "I'll kill you the next time you speak out of turn, kid."

Killua shuddered and Karasu reached out to hold his hand. He took a deep breath to steady himself and squeezed her hand wordlessly.

Gon lost the next round of arm wrestling as well.

"He was an enhancer," the long-haired man continued. "He loved fighting more than anything. He was a real stickler for time, though. He always used to slap Franklin and me around for being late."

The large man with the scars shifted and looked down at his hands. Karasu thought it was likely that he was Franklin.

"He always whupped me in fist fights. We've been together since before the Spiders were started. I know him better than anyone."

His lower lip began to tremble and Karasu watched with growing dread as tears began to spill down the man's cheeks. His voice was hoarse when he spoke again.

"Uvogin never would have lost in a fair fight. The chain dude must have used a dirty trick, and he won't get away with it. I won't let him. I'll find him.

Whoever the chain dude is he has a serious grudge against us. He's a recent hire with the mafia; with the Nostrade family. Maybe you don't know him personally, but maybe you've heard rumors. You'd better not be hiding anything."

"I dunno," Gon answered, his voice eerily calm. "But even if I did I wouldn't tell you people anything."

The long-haired man narrowed his eyes into a glare and Karasu felt a shift in the atmosphere. Goosebumps prickled up the exposed skin of her legs.

"I thought that you were cold-hearted people, but that's not the case. You shed tears for your friends." Gon's fist clenched around the long-haired man's and Nen began to flood the room. "Why couldn't you... share just a little of that empathy... with all the people you've killed?!"

Karasu watched him drive the man's hand into the table and the next second she couldn't see anything. Pakunoda had wrapped her arms around Karasu so that one arm covered her eyes and the other placed pressure on her neck. Karasu froze and sweat began to bead at her temples.

"Answer question," the man with the accent commanded. "You know chain dude or not."

"I already told you!" Gon snarled. "There's nothing to tell!"

"Feitan. Stop it." That was the long-haired man.

"Stop what?"

"What you're about to do."

"You know what I do?"

"You're going to break his arm."

"First his fingers. I rip nails off."

"Whatever it is just stop it."

"Why you give me order? I no need to obey."

Karasu jumped at a slamming sound and Pakunoda tightened her grip immediately. Malicious Nen caressed her skin and she pressed herself against Pakunoda's body without thinking about it.

"Hey." That was the voice of the large man, Franklin. "Cool it, Nobunaga."

Ah, so the long-haired man's name was Nobunaga?

"Remember the rules," came the voice of the woman they'd tailed.

"No actual fighting within the troupe." Shizuku.

"I know," Nobunaga replied, and there was a rustling sound. "We settle disputes with a coin toss."

There was a familiar pinging sound followed by a clap.

"Tail," Feitan stated.

"Heads," answered Nobunaga. After a pause he repeated, "Heads. Let him go, Feitan."

"So what are we going to do with them? You haven't gotten any information out of them, have you?" Shizuku asked.

"If they don't know anything we should just let them go," Franklin answered. "What do you think, Pakunoda?"

"I checked them out on the way here," she said, and Karasu could feel the rumble of her chest where it was pressed against her back. "They don't know anything."

"Really?" the woman they tailed asked, her voice incredulous.

"They have no memories of the chain dude."

"Well if they're not related to the chain dude then we can let them go," Franklin said, and a new voice answered with, "Yeah, no point in keeping them around."

Pakunoda moved her arms from around Karasu's head and settled her hands on the young girl's shoulders. Karasu took a deep breath and Pakunoda steadied her when she began to sway.

"We can't be sure they're unrelated. There's got to be someone pulling the strings." Karasu looked toward the speaker and found herself making eye contact with the other man from the car - the one who'd kept looking at her.

"They may not know him as the chain dude. Or maybe they've never seen him with his chains out. Either way shouldn't we keep them around until we figure out who their leader is?"

Karasu couldn't help but snort at his last statement and she regretted it immediately. Pakunoda's finger nails dug into her shoulders, the man's gaze on her intensified, and all around her every Spider raised their hackles at the sound of her laughter.

"What's so funny?" the man asked, shoving his hands into the pockets of his track pants as he sauntered in her direction.

"Nothing," Karasu whispered. She looked away from the man, only to see the fearful worry on Gon's and Killua's faces.

"So you're laughing at nothing then?" He reached out and grabbed her chin, forcing her to look up at him.

She clenched her jaw and his grip immediately tightened.

"What makes you think we have a leader?" she ground out, her voice distorted from the hold he had on her.

"She's right," the plain looking man said. "And even if they do have a leader it wouldn't be the chain dude. He'll be a loner."

"So you agree with Nobunaga?"

The man sighed and began to gesture with his hands as he explained, "The chain dude can get all the information he needs from the mafia network. He doesn't need to enlist the help of a few kids."

"That's true," Franklin agreed with a nod.

"Our focus should be on the chain dude. We can ignore everyone else," the plain man concluded.

"Hear that?" Feitan asked with a sideways glance in Gon's direction. "You go home to Mommy now."

Karasu inhaled a shaky breath and bit her lip before another chuckle could escape, but it didn't matter. Her face was still being held by the man in the track suit, and more than that he was studying her face.

"What now?" he asked in a low voice.

Karasu contemplated not answering him, but the look in his eye told her that wasn't a good option.

"Killua's the only one with a mom," she whispered.

The man's brow bone rose but he looked otherwise unimpressed.

"He ain't leaving," Nobunaga cut in. He looked up at Gon and offered, "Why don't you join the Spiders?"

"No, thanks," Gon replied, frowning.

"You could team up with me."

"I would rather die than join you."

Nobunaga chuckled. "Oh, I'm hurt. Aren't you an Enhancer?"

Gon scowled at the question. "So what if I am?"

"I knew it!" Nobunaga exclaimed and dissolved into laughter. When he calmed down he addressed the whole group. "I want to keep them here until Chrollo gets back. I'm gonna nominate him."

"You're kidding, right?" the man still holding Karasu's face remarked.

"Chrollo never go for it," Feitan mentioned.

Nobunaga snorted. "Oh? And you two don't have anything to say about that one?"

Karasu frowned at his words but said nothing.

"She's cute," Pakunoda stated. "It's a nice change of pace."

"I don't want her nominated," the man ground out. "But there's something familiar about her. Do you not see it?"

"Familiar?" Karasu muttered, brows furrowing. "I've never met you in my life."

At his words the Spiders all looked at her a little more closely.

"The eyes," Hisoka supplied. A smirk stretched on his lips as a murmur of realization went up in the group.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Karasu snapped, and she tore her face from the man's grip so she could glare in Hisoka's direction.

"She'll stay here until Chrollo gets back." The man's tone of voice left no room for argument. He turned toward Nobunaga to say, "I want them separated. Go babysit those two somewhere else."

Nobunaga snorted and grumbled but did not disagree.

"Wait- why are you-"

Karasu's complaint was cut off when the man reached out and grabbed hold of the front of her shirt. He pulled her forward, and Pakunoda let her go so the man could drag her over to the table that Nobunaga and Gon had been arm wrrestling on. She saw a glimpse of blood and then the man was hoisting her up and slamming her down onto the table.

"Hey!" Killua shouted, but Karasu barely heard him.

The man loomed above her, his nose brushing hers. She didn't want to meet his burning eyes but she was paralyzed.

"You're going to stay right here until Chrollo gets back," he growled. "If you move even an inch then I'm going to call Nobunaga and he's going to kill your little white-haired friend over there. Do you understand?"

Karasu shuddered and she gave him a shaky nod.

In one swift motion he lifted her an inch from the table and then slammed her back down, making her head ricochet off the table top.

"Do you understand?" he shouted.

"Yes!" she exclaimed. There were tears blurring her vision and she repeated much more quietly, "Yes, I understand."

"Good."

He let go of her shirt and stood to his full height.

"Let's go. We have a chain dude to find."

There was a bit of a clamor and the sound of struggle as Nobunaga herded Gon and Killua from the hideout. Killua called Karasu's name over his shoulder but she didn't react.

From where she was still laying on the table, a tear rolled from Karasu's eye into her ear.

A/N: I hope that this slightly longer chapter makes up for the wait! I feel so bad that in the last chapter I said the update shouldn't take too long and then proceeded to not put anything out for forever.

Thank you for reading and I hope you enjoyed this chapter!