A/N: Happy new year!
Replies to guest reviews:
Guest: I don't know if you'll read this, but thank you for the reviews! Your compliments and especially your praise about Hana lifts my heart. Thank you, and I hope you're liking the fic :D
KitKat: Hi there! Thank you for reviewing! Tbh I'm impressed that you suspected Arashi ;D Thank you for the praise and I hope you'll enjoy this chapter :D
Chapter 36: Toxic
One hour had passed since Hana left.
An entire hour of improbable catastrophes rewinding in his head while he frenetically checked his phone for any call from her. Sixty minutes of his heart squeezing into itself at every tragic end of every tragic scenario that leeched to his brain. Three thousand and six hundred seconds that each weighed on him—they pressed onto his chest like he was the hourglass they were pouring into.
Yeah. For some obscure reason, Killua was freaking out.
Pull yourself together.
It wasn't the first time Hana handled something potentially dangerous on her own. Each time that happened, he would get his fit of anxious nail-biting, but it was never that bad. What he could usually brush off with a simple "she'll be fine, and if she's not, I'll be there" was now twisting his stomach less-than-agreeable tight knots and he had no idea how to make it stop. The foreboding was just there, sitting on his chest, and he couldn't tell if he had to take it seriously or if he was being unreasonable.
Chances were he was being unreasonable. Or at least, he prayed all the gods he didn't believe in that he was.
"To think Faem of all people would be behind this," he heard Arashi say and briefly glanced at her. She was talking to Lynd, both women exchanging information about the infamous golden boy. "He was a friend of ours. We talked about Greek Mythology for hours. We exchanged books, and he and Eugene would discuss classical paintings together. How did he hide it so well?"
For a—very— brief time, Killua forgot his worries and thought of Erik Faem's dead friends—Eugene Priman, Ziam Torana. Both close friends of Faem—both killed by this man with a mask of smoke. It bore the same pattern. And when Killua thought of Faem in mourning—the eulogy he had written for Ziam Torana, the playground he had named after him, the long days in mourning wearing black after Eugene Priman's death, long after the due time—, he couldn't help wondering if Faem wasn't both victim and executioner. The grief felt too real to be faked, and Killua was a master at detecting repressed emotions and fake ones.
He would know, he was currently letting his anxiety pile at the base of his throat without coming close to show a glimpse of it.
Killua glanced at the women. "I don't think he was lying the whole time," he started, catching their attention—and glad for the distraction. He buried the macabre scenarios his mind has concocted and focused on the golden boy. "Faem isn't the only one to blame. He may be responsible for all this mess, but I wonder if he's the one pulling the strings."
Arashi frowned. "How so?"
"I think his friend, the smoke guy, is behind this. Not sure why, but everything leads to believe that," he said.
"The guy Hana calls Smokey, right?" Penelope asked.
Killua's heart missed a beat at the mention of Hana's name. The anxiety whirled back in, seizing him at the throat. He looked at Penelope from the corner of his eyes. "Yeah. That would be him." He swallowed, willing his anxiety to quiet down. "Smokey doesn't always do what Faem wants. It feels more like Faem is the one doing what Smokey wants."
"Explain?" Lynd requested.
Killua happily complied. "Remember the HCDS party? The absolute mayhem? All Smokey's doing. He killed a bunch of people, set the ballroom on fire… a lovely mess. Now, the thing is, Faem's wife was stuck in that fire. I found her before she died, but if it weren't for me, she'd be dead. You see where I'm getting?"
"Faem's friend endangered Olivia's life," Arashi guessed. "From what I remember, Erik seems very much in love with Olivia. But I can't tell what is real and what is pretense anymore."
"Trust me, his fear was real when she was stuck inside," Killua recounted. "He was about to rush in himself—two men were needed to hold him back."
"Does sound pretty real," Penelope chimed in.
Lynd nodded. "So Faem basically handles what Smokey wants."
"And Smokey is a finicky asshole," Killua added. It took him a second to realize they were all calling Faem's friend 'Smokey'. Hana would be proud of her nickname being used as a default. It sure didn't make the asshole sound as intimidating. He smiled a little at the thought—but the relief was short-lived. Worry pooled back in his chest, oozing through the cracks in his composure. He didn't know where this panic came from—or if it was justified. But it was heavy, and there, and it clutched to his heart—a foreboding like a noose around his neck.
As Lynd and Arashi got engrossed into a debate about Faem's intentions, Killua got up, ambling in the room—pretending he needed to move his legs. He briefly saw Penelope eyeing him with curiosity while he feigned to check the books on Arashi's bookshelf. It was little distraction—but it was still something. A lot of those books were unique transcripts, ancient ones, or, even better, original manuscripts. While the terrible omen was still poking into his head, the thick leather-bound books offered a safe bubble for a short instant.
"You okay?"
He turned toward the deep voice, too tired to glamour his worry. Penelope was standing there, leaning against the desk next to the bookshelf. "I make do."
She looked at the ceiling, silent. While she wasn't looking, he peeked at a tattoo of a cat strolling on one of her scars, on her arm. "You're worried about Hana?"
He didn't reply, and it was enough of an answer as it was. Instead, he asked Penelope about her tattoos. He didn't care, really, but he liked her voice. It was calming.
He wasn't sure she had understood, but she didn't insist. She told him about the cat on her scars—it was a replica of her cat Reaper, but she said it was out-of-character because all Reaper did was sleep. When she raised her arm to show him another tattoo of Reaper—this time sleeping on another scar in the inside of her arm—he noticed a bracelet around her wrist. It was a knitted bracelet with pink, white, and grey weaved together.
"Is this a pride flag?" he asked, gaze switching from the pretty bracelet to Penelope's eyes.
"Oh, yeah." She smiled. "It's the demigirl flag. Pretty neat, right?"
"For sure. It looks cool." He looked at her then. "... Have I been misgendering you all this time?"
She smiled. "I do partially identify as a woman. A non-binary woman. And now you know."
"Okay. So what are your pronouns? If it's okay to ask."
"I go by she/her so you're fine. Thanks for asking, actually."
He shrugged. "Just wanted to be sure," he mumbled.
Penelope eyed him curiously, as though she wanted to ask something but didn't know how. "I'm curious about how you recognized the flag."
"I've seen quite a lot of flags." He shrugged. "Let's just say I'm very much not straight."
She chuckled. "Look at that, one thing we have in common."
"We have a lot more in common," he noted. His thoughts drifted toward Hana. He forced himself to stay calm.
Penelope crossed her arms. "She'll be fine, Killua. And if she isn't, she'll call you. You trust yourself to help her in case of a problem, right?"
"I do," he said after a short hesitation.
"Then in the worst possible case, she's covered. Voilà."
He smiled. "Voilà," he repeated, surprised by how easily she had kept him grounded. For sure the anxiety was still prowling, but there was air in his lungs and the alarms had dulled to whispering voices. "Thanks."
The corner of her lips tipped up. "She's quite a catch, you know. If I didn't have my eyes on someone else, I'd have tried to steal her away."
There was perhaps a little bit of jealousy in Killua's expression, but when he rolled his eyes, it was all good-hearted playfulness. "You have no idea how many people have told me this."
Penelope laughed. "She's coveted, I see. Treasure her, then."
"I do."
They walked away from the bookshelf after a few unrelated questions—"So, does she have a lot of books like these?" "Oh boy, you're not ready for this conversation."— and though Killua still felt nervous, he was a lot lighter.
If he repeated it enough, he could convince himself that everything would be fine.
Hana would be okay.
Friday, June 5th
1:12 A.M.
Red was all she could see. Smeared on her clothes, on her hands clutching her hipbone, on the grass where she had collapsed. Some of it hers, some of it not. Her hand weighed tons when she rose it, turned it, and examined it through her blurry sight. Dark, oily, glistening. It was all red.
Noise was all she could hear. The ringing in her ears; obsessing, loud, sharp. Her breathing; ragged, hot, feverish. Her heart; beating, beating, beating. She heard it from underwater, from inside the headache pounding in her skull, lurching at it like a stormy sea engulfing a ship.
Rust was all she could taste. Metal on her tongue. Acrid and unpleasant. It made her nauseous.
Sour was all she could smell. Acidic and intoxicating. It filled her nose, filled her head.
Pain was all she could feel. It smarted. It pulsed. It begged. Her entire body was numb except for this pain radiating like the core of a star, a stake plunged near her hipbone.
She felt all, and then she felt nothing.
How had it even happened?
0:12 A.M.
Death reeked in every single corner of the morgue. It seized her by the throat, sickening and suffocating, thick as a fog and twice as heavy. Not even the aseptic cleanliness could mask the decay oozing from every crack in the walls. This place welcomed no living soul and it made a bold statement of it.
Hana shuddered. Even the cemetery that teemed with corpses wasn't half as eerie as the morgue. In the dark, the corridors seemed to narrow down on her, swallowing her in their endlessness. She could never get used to the sensation, the immense helplessness whenever she crossed those corridors. Sometimes it felt like she was traveling in the bowels of a monster.
Oookay. Think of bunnies, Hana. Bunnies. Puppies. Kittens. Killua.
You never knew what might be lurking in the dark corners of the morgue. It was easy to turn the shadows of the forking tree branches cast on the walls into lonesome creatures with bony clawed hands—those same clawed hands that grated against the windows, desperate to tear through her body, right? And though Hana was convinced that in a horror movie, she would be the survivor—there was no way someone as beautiful as she would succumb so soon—, there were never too many precautions to take to avoid legions of undead hunting for her brain.
Although to be fair, that wasn't nearly the scariest thing that could happen to her.
Way to go, Hana. So much for the relief.
She managed a little sigh—as loud as she allowed herself to be. It was bad enough that she was alone with a bunch of frozen corpses in a giant death facility, she didn't have to make it worse.
…
Well, not being alone was no better, in this particular case. Better alone than in bad company, right? And by bad company, she imagined something like a spectral monster hungry for her young maiden flesh, or a lone corpse rising from the freezer where it was stuck to seek her, or a serial-killer—
Wait, no, not that. She caught serial killers. Serial killers feared her, not the other way around. Now that was an empowering thought!
Come hither, you disgusting monsters, zombies, and other oddities! She thought. Serial-killer-catching Hana is not scared of your blood-lusting asses!
A loud grating noise resounded in the dark, followed by what resembled strangely the lovely sound of claws scratching the floor. Hana froze, eyes wide in the dark, checking that a flesh-eating wraith—or, worse, a rat—wasn't following her.
Okay, maybe, don't come. I'm good. Let's be friends. I don't taste good anyway.
It was a good thing that she would get to her destination soon enough—after long minutes of replaying those haunting long-dark-creepy-corridor-scenes in all the horror movies she had seen, where the protagonist had to run from whatever was pursuing them (usually not something pretty) in a long, dark, creepy corridor (kudos if there's an elevator at the end and it won't freaking open) (it's always the elevators). If she remembered well, the morgue was comprised in all its immensity in mainly three rooms—not counting the small storage rooms, personal offices, and reception desks. There was the cold room, where corpses were stored before their final fate—either to be buried or burnt or 'gifted' to the local medical university, if no one claimed them. In a hidden corner of the morgue, there was the incineration room where corpses were burnt.
And finally, at the end of the long corridor she was crossing, the examination room where all autopsies were made, and all the key elements of a corpse were stored during its examination.
The corridor ended.
Using an old badge she had made months ago to breach into the morgue, she opened the code-locked door. The cold in the room hit her face first, forcing her to nearly close her eyes. A shiver crawled its way up her back, and she hugged herself for warmth and comfort before promptly closing the door behind her. The examination room was as cold as a fridge. She almost felt the chill of the metallic furniture in the cold.
She scrunched her nose. The morgue smelled both like hospitals and cemeteries, with the additional earthy smell of something that had been dug up from the ground—something that used to be a someone.
Then only, after shaking off the nauseous scent, she looked at the room. The disposition was the same as she remembered. A single examination table in the center, wheeled metal cabinets filled with instruments near it, an irrelevant desk that was always empty, a fridge in the back of the room—where notable organs were stored for further examination, as well as DNA extracts and, sometimes, miscellaneous objects. The one change was a whiteboard filled with notes that replaced the blackboard and chalk that used to be there.
And on the table, a corpse. The size of a man, although thin and decrepit—as decrepit as a corpse in decomposition. The body was resting under a big white bag closed with a zipper. His name was written near his feet.
Hana grimaced upon the realization that she was currently with Eugene Priman.
Great.
Hana sidestepped slowly around the examination table. Her curiosity nudged her to open the zipped bag and see the face of the dead man, but she wasn't sure she could stomach it. Not the corpse in itself—she had seen her fair share—but the knowledge of what Eugene had become.
All because of a comb.
Nevertheless, after one small sigh, Hana summoned Sae, pushing aside the sentimentality. She scanned the corpse, then the room, corner by corner, checking for traces of nen. No doubt that if she found anything major, she would probably freak out, to say the least. But at least it would guide her.
"You're as silent as a corpse," Hana murmured to Sae, then smiled to herself. "Ha, get it? I'm so fucking hilarious."
Sae obviously didn't reply—not vocally at least. Because on the screen, a certain notation showed up, which made Hana flinch both in surprise and uncertainty.
Aura detected.
Rate too low to be calculated.
Uh-oh.
Without waiting, Hana switched to a smaller scale and analyzed each cabinet independently until she found the one that contained the aura-filled object. She opened it, fishing inside—though with precaution, lest she touched something… she would rather not touch. Never mind that she was wearing gloves, some things were untouchable.
Using Sae's screen as her only source of light, she wasn't as fast or discreet as she would have liked to be. It took her painstaking moments of snooping inside that cabinet, scrunching her nose in faint disgust, and repressing the skin-crawling feelings she got whenever she brushed anything unidentifiable, but at last, she found it. The object that emitted the aura.
It was a small golden chain bracelet.
"Bingo," she whispered, taking between her fingers the little zipped plastic bag that enclosed it. Quickly, she checked the reference written on the plastic bag was the same as the one written on Eugene's record on the examination table.
It matched.
That was the object Eugene had swallowed. And it was the object that emitted aura.
Something told her it was no good coincidence.
She closed the cabinet. In her hand was the next unique hint to their case, the bracelet Eugene had swallowed for whatever reason.
She had it.
Curiosity got the best of her. Without opening the bag—ew—she stared at the little jewel, examining it under new angles. It was small and thin, too small for an adult's wrist. It reminded her of the little bracelets some parents fastened around their toddlers' wrist. Some cultures—like hers—associated superstitions to those bracelets. The bracelet was supposed to relieve the little one when they were teething, or to help them grow up healthy and balanced. She herself used to have a tiny bracelet like this one—a rose gold little artifact with her name written on it.
Now, as to why a baby's bracelet would be in a dead man's stomach… That was a hard one. Maybe Eugene had swallowed it on purpose, to make himself sick—and thus in need of a hospital. Or maybe that was a hint about whoever had done that to him—the man with the toxic smoke. Maybe it had been force-fed to him—as some sort of torture? Who knew. It was too early to emit any prognostic—at least without Elias to read it.
Suddenly, a detail struck Hana. She frowned, narrowed her eyes. On the other side of the bracelet, there was a thin plate connected to the tiny chains of the bracelet. And there was something written on the plate, in loopy cursive letters. The baby's name. She squinted, trying to read the name in the dark.
Malzi.
Her head jerked back in confusion. Malzi?
A crack interrupted her thoughts. Her blood froze, all questions about this baby forgotten. She slipped the little bag with the bracelet in her pocket, instantly setting up a zetsu and hiding behind the door.
Then she focused.
She heard steps. Regular, confident. Steady. They were approaching. Louder and louder, as loud as her heart when the intruder's terrifying aura reached her. An aura so loud it was deafening, yet quiet as a poison and twice as toxic. Like the quiet grip of smoke when it smothered, and crushed, and killed in its weightless embrace.
A beep resounded.
The door opened.
His hand was the first thing that passed through the door. And it didn't matter that it was pitch black, that she was hidden behind a door, or that she couldn't see without Sae by her side.
Because one thing was sure.
Hana hadn't imagined the smoke wafting over the man's hand.
Her first reflex was to shut off her aura. Close her canals, tuck all her energy away to hide it from his keen senses. She watched him like a ghost hidden in the dark, her mind whirring with a thousand calls for panic. Her instincts took over, driving her numb body to safety.
The smoke nen user was here. He was right in front of her, and it was a matter of seconds for him to get used to the dark and see her.
If he hadn't already.
There was no way she could open the door without being noticed; she had to localize all the windows nearby. She swept the room with a frantic gaze. Each wall she brushed was yet another punch in her throat—there was no window. None. At all. She was trapped in the examination room of an ice-cold morgue with both a corpse and its killer, and the only way out was the door she had first crossed—the same code-locked door firmly shut behind her.
Two seconds had passed since the man had entered the room. Two seconds of full Zetsu and breath held to herself while he sauntered in the room, a tall, lean figure blending in the darkness.
But once those two seconds had passed, the man froze.
And Hana let her third, and loudest thought take over: she ran.
With a burst of aura, she broke through the door, running through the long corridor as far as her legs could take her. She didn't think, or hear, or feel anything besides the urgency to leave this place and get away from the man. Not the dust of the impact or the drop of temperature or the sweat beading on her face. Nothing except the necessary. Fear to fuel her, to trigger her survival instinct. Anger to fight back. Hope to run on.
That was all she needed. Everything else—the crippling anxiety, the panic, the overwhelming need for fresh air, the sensation of falling head first into her grave… She ignored them.
And she let that alone guide her through the black maze.
The corridor forked at the end. To avoid losing her momentum or wasting time with the curve, she jumped and positioned herself parallelly to the wall next to her. Then, she pushed on her feet, throwing herself forward and landing near the door. An ounce of hope tickled her then—if she could get through that door and barricade it, she could earn a few seconds. That was all she needed to get away from—
A wall of smoke irrupted from the floor, wafting slowly, taunting her with their black sinuous tendrils. She abruptly stopped, jerked back, then quickly charged aura into her fist to ram it into the wall—if there was no exit, she would make one herself.
Or so she had intended.
The man grabbed her arm, keeping her in his iron grip. For a quick instant, she glanced at his face and shuddered at the sight. Smoke—pitch black, slow waves—all over his face; two piercing blue eyes alone emerged from the sea of smoke, boring into her soul. Their gazes had only crossed for a split second, and yet in that instant, Hana felt as though she had stared into her grave.
She kneed the man in the groin, then took advantage of a moment of inattention as he gasped in pain to yank her hand out of his grip. Immediately, she flung her foot into the wall, bracing herself for the impact as her muscles tore through the concrete. Rubble collapsed from the fragilized wall, but she didn't care. She let it collapse, filling the hole through which she had jumped—closing the gate she had opened.
And she ran. So fast she barely heard her pounding heart and heaving breath. So fast she didn't recognize the rooms she was running through—was that an office? A freezer? A waiting room? She had no idea. She had no time to check.
She had to get away.
There was one corridor she did recognize. It led to the front desk, the one that would give her the deliverance she sought. Her escape. She heaved a sigh, dashing through the corridor. She longed to feel the fresh air, to hide away from this murderous bastard. Hope already bubbled in her chest—she was so close to her goal.
She burst through the door, inhaling deep.
And there, the man was waiting. Sitting casually on the reception desk, his legs crossed as though he was having tea, hands folded on his lap.
The hunter had found his prey.
And for the second time in her life, Hana had become the prey.
Icicles were thrust in her veins. A wave of heat subdued her. She was heady with hot anger and the very familiar cold dread pulsing through her.
He didn't budge. Observing her as though she were a funny specimen, his head tilted like that of a bird. He was almost graceful, an eerie wraith ready to reap her soul.
"Impressive," he simply said. A cold shiver shook through her—his voice was rough as a grave, gravelly and menacing and everything her young self had imagined monster voices to be. It chilled her to the bone—this inhumane sound coming from a human.
He hopped off the desk. Without a word, he ambled toward her—a cat on the prowl. It could have been seconds or hours since this madness had started—it felt like centuries to her heart. But now more than ever, she felt each second weigh on her—cement her feet to the ground, as though she were a part of it.
He rose his hand. Palm facing her way—a ball of smoke sat there, waiting to combust her lungs, and yet she barely saw it.
All she saw was his hand nearing her face. Closer and closer, fingers sprawling with each centimeter.
Her ears rang. Her hands quivered. Her eyes widened.
Memories roiled in when she needed it the least. Dark memories of another man who had destroyed her life. A man whose hands had torn through her with agony, with a single flower and a deadly curse.
But there was a difference, though.
And it was that there was no flower on the smoke man's hands.
So Hana, fueled by this new reassurance, summoned her gun in her hand. She had been through hell and back. She had been the exception to a dark curse's pattern. She wouldn't let this wraith, dangerous as he may be, claim her. Not when she had survived hell. Not when she had stared into Death's eyes and said, 'not today'.
A Wraith was nothing next to Death itself.
She shot.
He dodged.
She shot again. Once, twice, thrice in a rapid burst of fire, an arc that followed his graceful movements. He abruptly stopped—a split second later, a chair was flying toward her.
In her mind, it was clear, what he was trying to do. Distract her, blur her reactions, crop her field of vision. Then, he would throw his little bubble toward her, right when she couldn't see. But he hadn't counted on her renewed fire. He hadn't seen this little spark kindled by the memory of her survival, the knowledge of her scar on her stomach—once a disgrace, now a cuirass.
She ducked. Rushed on his right to flank him, force him out of his position, force him to twist to see while she aimed for the soft parts under his arm. It didn't matter that he would dodge her shots—of course he would, he was a gifted fighter in ways she couldn't begin to imagine—but it had been enough to suppress the power imbalance.
She wasn't the prey anymore. He wasn't the hunter anymore.
They were two fighters. Equals—or almost. Both armed with their wits and their wills. Both experienced in the use of nen.
Both aiming for each other's throats.
Sometimes the best defense was a fierce attack. One that sent the clear message that he was risking his life as much as she was.
The man grew exasperated by her sudden gain of confidence. He threw the bubble of smoke toward her. She didn't think when she swept her hand in the air, painting a transparent blue screen that deflected the bubble. She didn't think either when she did that again, and again, using Sae like she never had, with vigor and calm and almost pleasure at this suddenly found ability—until he tired and took his gun out of its holster.
Hana resisted the urge to smile. A gun was something she could deal with. He would shoot, and she would dodge. He would aim, and she would duck. Occasionally, he would try to launch a new bubble at her—always smaller, lacking in the terror it used to adorn. And every time he did, she would do the same gesture—a swipe, and a blue screen would stop the bubble.
She had a counter to all his attacks.
And he was losing patience.
It worked until it didn't anymore.
She didn't feel the second it all switched. The moment the balance tipped back in his favor again.
Or at least, she didn't feel it come.
Because she definitely felt it happen.
He had feinted. She had fallen for it.
She had flanked him. He had caught her.
He violently kicked her in the stomach. She flew back, the air knocked out of her lungs, and hit the ground with a brutal thud. She held her sides as she doubled over. Her mouth tasted like copper.
A split second later, he had hurled her body up, slammed her against the wall, thrown her gun away, and tightened his hand around her neck in a steel grip. Her stomach was still screaming in pain, her legs so weak they barely supported her, and blood trickled through her mouth, her scalp, her nape—sticky, wet, gross.
She gritted her teeth, gasping for air. Her head pulsed with a radiating pain—as though her skull would explode. It spread through the back of her head, delving into her stiff neck.
Without thinking, she threw her fist at him—he caught it midair. Her other hand scratched at his arm, her nails digging in his skin until blood trickled from it.
The man groaned, pulled her toward him, then slammed her body against the wall once more. He hoisted her body up, his hand still tight around her throat, watching her choke and sputter with complete and utter disinterest. It was only when stars danced in her glassy eyes that he let her down and released slightly his hold on her throat, letting her gulp the precious air. Why he had changed his mind, why he had decided to spare her life just then, she didn't know. But she would make him regret.
His eyes narrowed—Hana could almost feel his smirk. Anger simmered in the back of her head—it pulsed along the pain.
"It was quite a show you made here. I didn't expect that."
She didn't reply. Instead, she mustered as much disdain as her hazy mind could produce in her gaze.
He simply laughed. His face, guarded by his mask of smoke, was unreadable to her. But his eyes were laughing, too.
The asshole was mocking her.
"Not so proud without your boyfriend to save you, hm?" he whispered, his spectral voice brushing her as it escaped the grave of smoke. His gaze was fraught with arrogance—the arrogance of a man who thought he had subdued her, a man who was certain he had won the fight.
That arrogance would be his downfall.
She conjured her other gun in her free hand. Aimed for his side—a soft spot next to the stomach. "I don't fucking need saving."
She pulled the trigger.
The man grunted in pain—then doubled over as she kicked him full force between his legs, slipping away from his grasp. She rolled on the floor, grabbing her gun, and pushed her body to stand and run… only to fall headfirst on the ground.
Oof!
Hana raised herself on her elbow, wriggling out of the man's hands. The bastard had caught her ankles, and though he was bleeding and quivering, he was far from weak. So she kicked him on the head—once, twice, watching her foot eerily enter the mask and escape it unscathed. She kicked harder when he stopped covering his wound to throw a smoke bubble across the room—but this time, it was different. By reflex, she closed her eyes and stopped breathing as the bubble turned to a black fog—the same one he had thrown over the HCDS ballroom. Without any sense to guide her, she launched her En through the room, using it to map the area. And her opponent.
He was tiring, but he wasn't giving up. He wrestled with her until her lungs screamed for air, rolling with her on the blood—covering her with his blood. But she didn't feel his breath on her—which meant one thing: he couldn't breathe his own curse either.
And he had been shot.
Her confidence renewed, Hana landed a punch on the man's right cheek, then, again, as he gathered himself, she kneed him in the groin—and almost winced in pain at the deafened sound he made. As he lost his balance, she pushed him away, sat up, and used her leg to kick him away from her.
She was about to stand when she heard a gun cocked toward her. Had she been in a good shape, it would have been no trouble to dodge it. But in the darkness, with her senses still askew after being strangled, kicked, punched, drained of her nen, and repeatedly attacked by this dangerous man, Hana's reflexes were not to be trusted.
It was a matter of a split second—perhaps one more second of oxygen in her system—and she could have dodged it.
But time was a scarce resource. She didn't have that split second.
And now, she had a bullet in her body.
1:28 A.M.
The meeting with Arashi had ended way too late for Killua's liking. Being anxious for no reason was tiring enough, but being anxious for no reason around a bunch of people who could neither feel it nor help him? Absolute hell.
At least with the cold air in his lungs, he could think more clearly. Hana was still in his thoughts—and his panicked thoughts were still harassing him—but at least he could stop pretending. That was not a luxury he could have afforded in Arashi's office, spacious as it may be.
He looked quietly at the sky, wondering what Hana was doing. A part of him was still imagining the worst—the foreboding, the bad omen, the scavengers waiting for an instant of weakness to lunge at him with their bloody thoughts. But he tried—he really did—to imagine her sauntering home after a successful mission, staring at the same sky he was staring at, already thinking of the lyrics to the hymn she'd write to her own greatness.
After all, the Soledad was bright that night.
His phone rang, interrupting his thoughts. His heart hiccupped when he saw the caller, and he picked it up. He wasn't sure whether the pressure in his heart was anxiety or relief. "Hana? What's up? You done?"
On the other side, he heard nothing. Then, a sound. Slow, weak. Breathing. "Hey…"
His heart stopped. He froze. Listened to the way she was breathing—weakly, heavily, like something was crushing her 'chest.
And all hell broke loose in his head. "Hana, what's wrong? Where are you?"
"I… might have gotten in trouble," she managed, though her voice was light, exhausted. "I got shot."
Panic seized him. His throat, his chest, his stomach. It filled him with toxic fear. It possessed him. It owned him. That anxiety he had been through the entire evening—it was a shadow next to the terror gripping him. That terror had a feel to it, a presence to it. It squeezed his heart shut, wrung his mind out of its clarity—until all that was left of him was a numb autopilot. "I'm coming to find you. Where are you?" he asked as he examined his surroundings; he was on the same lone road they had taken to come to Arashi's place. There were no cars—he could travel through the entire city in a few minutes with Godspeed. Wherever she was, he could get to her.
Hang on, Hana.
She coughed. "Small forest near the morgue… I couldn't go farther. He might still be there."
He summoned Godspeed, letting the electricity flow through him. "I won't let him touch you," he said. His voice growled, a blade grating against stone. "I'm coming. Don't move. I'll be there soon." Then, softly: "Okay?"
She exhaled, the sound enhanced by the phone. "I love you, Killua."
He shut his eyes closed. "Wait for me."
He started running. The wind slapped his face and lightning cracked all around him, but he heard none of it, felt none of it.
All he could feel was pain.
There were only three things Killua could think about at this moment.
First, Hana was wounded, and he had to help her.
Second, he was scared shitless and wasn't sure how his body was still moving.
Third, he needed Leorio's help.
Killua was already tending to the first thought. It was currently his number one priority, above breathing or even feeling.
For the second thought, well, he would do with it. He swallowed the fear, and he endured it. He knew what the toll would be—the crushing exhaustion, the desperation, the delayed grief that would flood him. He knew he would probably break down when it was all over. Until then, he could do with it.
Now, between the two minutes that separated him from the morgue, Killua had time to tend to the third thought.
He had already composed Leorio's number.
"Killua?"
Killua sighed of relief. Only a few seconds had passed, but they felt like centuries. "Leorio, I need your help," he immediately said, not bothering to hide the desperation in his voice. Leorio would hear it anyway—it was no use trying to mask it.
The atmosphere shifted around Leorio. Though Killua didn't see him, he felt it. "Where? What do I bring?"
"Hana's place. She was shot."
"Gotcha. I'll be there in five minutes."
Leorio hung up. Killua slipped his phone into his pocket, a huge weight already lifted off his shoulders. Hana would survive if he managed to bring her in time to Leorio. Killua was sure of that.
After one last jump across the forking streets of a narrow, silent neighborhood called the Styx—a fitting name—, Killua finally saw the morgue away from the cozy little houses. He rushed toward the small forest behind it, praying that whoever had shot Hana wasn't in the vicinity. Once he was there, he projected his En as far around him as he could to localize Hana. She couldn't have gone too far while wounded—but he had to be fast, find her before any potential pursuer.
Surprisingly, he only felt a presence—and only one— after delving deep into the small forest. It was weak—fading. Again, that same pang of both reassurance and fear struck him. He dashed toward the presence, snapping branches on his way and burning the grass with his lightning.
And he found her.
At that moment, Killua thought he would break down. She was lying on the grass, her back against the trunk of a tree. One of her hands was on the floor, fingers still holding her phone. The other was clasped on her bleeding wound.
"Hana," he whispered, falling to his knees, checking her breathing and her body temperature—she was cold but alive. He was no doctor but he knew that her life wasn't endangered—not if he brought her soon enough to Leorio to have that gun wound treated. What worried him more was the accumulation of what she had lived—it showed in her pained frown, panting breath, pale face.
She slowly opened her eyes—and, through her pain that he knew had to be awful, she smiled. No other sight in the world could both tear him apart and soothe him at once. "Hello," she murmured. "You come here often, handsome?"
"Hopefully not," he breathed. Without waiting, he gently slipped his right arm beneath her knees, supporting her back with the left one, and he lifted her off the floor. "I'll take you to Leorio, okay? He'll know what to do."
"Okay."
Lightning shrieked once again around his feet. He dashed away from the little forest with her in his arms, holding on to her weight in his arms as he would to a buoy.
As though she felt it, she lay a hand on his chest, stroking it slowly. "I'll be fine. I stopped it before it punctured my stomach."
"Did you?"
"Mhm. I'm a strong mama. When I saw him shoot, I fortified my abs with nen," she weakly explained. "I don't think death would want me anyway. I'm too fabulous for her."
He found the strength to smile. "You're right. Besides," he tightened his grip on her, "she'll take you over my dead body. I promise you."
She chuckled. "No death tonight. I'll survive. No big deal."
He pursed his lips, speechless. "You were shot," he said between two jumps on the branches. "Yes big deal."
It took her a moment to reply—a dreadful moment during which he frantically checked her eyes weren't vacant. "It hurts like a bitch. But I'm just exhausted. Because of everything that happened before."
"Everything?"
This time, she did fall silent for good. He felt her breath against his neck—feverish and hot, sometimes irregular—and though he feared for her wellbeing, it was enough reassurance to keep going.
She was alive. She was breathing against him and gripping his shirt.
He would hold on to that thought, no matter the voice that poisoned his mind.
Hana was alive.
1:49 A.M.
In all their years of friendship, there was one thing that Killua and Leorio had realized: they could always count on each other. Whenever one of them needed something, they could always be sure the other would do whatever he could to help.
It was in moments like these that Killua was thankful for that unconditional trust they had in each other. Because it was also in moments like these that he didn't trust himself the most—his decisions, his thoughts, his actions; they were all tampered by his fear, and if there was one thing Killua hated, it was to lose control over himself.
That was why, when he saw Leorio standing in front of the door of his apartment, for the first time since Hana had called him, Killua felt like he was breathing again.
Leorio reacted quick. "Tell me everything," he demanded as Killua carried Hana in the room. He lay down sanitary towels on the bed, then placed a chair near the bed and put his mallet on it.
Meanwhile, Killua gently let Hana down on the bed. "She had a mission to complete. She was struck by someone-most likely our enemy. He shot her—once. But I think she used a lot of nen during her fight—and took a lot of blows."
Leorio quietly nodded, taking the necessary equipment out of his briefcase. "I'll examine her," he said, slipping latex gloves on his hands after wearing his white coat. He gestured for Killua to move aside with a little wave of his hand, focusing on his work.
First, Leorio checked her breathing. "She's not hyperventilating, so there's that," he said to Killua. "She's breathing a little fast but that's due to the pain. Can't blame her for that." He took a pair of scissors and cut through Hana's top, starting from the bottom to the top. Then, he got rid of the textile, freeing the wound.
A little transparent bag fell from a hidden pocket in her shirt as Leorio removed her top. He took it between two fingers, eyeing the little jewel inside it. "Take that," he asked Killua. "That's probably why she took a gunshot."
A thought flashed in Killua's mind: that was the jewel found in Eugene's stomach. Hana had succeeded—but at what cost. He took the bag and threw it into the first drawer he found, rushing back to Leorio's side. "How's her wound?"
Leorio frowned at the sight, brushing the gun wound with his thumb. "It's superficial. Bloody as hell, but not dangerous. I'll still check for internal bleeding—I don't think she has any punctured organ, but it's better to check. You still with me?"
Killua nodded weakly. "What if she needs an IV? Did you bring one?" he asked, his voice so calm it sounded nothing like him, nothing like the turmoil in his head.
"That doesn't make much sense. Let me first assess her state," Leorio answered, projecting his nen through her and focusing on the response. He lay one hand flat on her abdomen and the other tapping the first, sending his aura in small but precise waves in her body. "Okay, no punctured organ. She has a few broken ribs but that's manageable. No internal bleeding either."
"What about the blood loss? Leorio, she's still losing blood, she—"
"I can see that as much as you do," Leorio interrupted, his voice precise and certain. "Now, you let me do my job or else I throw you out. I'm the doctor."
Killua shut his mouth, nodding in resignation. He was boiling to ask Leorio what he was seeing, what his doctor eyes saw that Killua didn't see. Because all Killua saw was blood oozing from her wound, rivulets and rivulets, and his own pale reflection in the mirror.
He did ask himself how it had all happened. How a day that had started with waffles and jam had ended in blood and gunshots. Mostly, he asked himself why he hadn't listened to the disquiet in himself, why he had let her go alone, why he hadn't even envisaged that their enemies had the same privileges Lynd did within the police. Had he dropped his guard? Had he been too reckless? Could he have prevented it?
What if the smoke man had won?
His jaw clenched. His chest tightened. He balled his fist, his nails digging into his palms. Pricks of pain shot through him—and he wanted to feel it. He wanted it to obscure the dark thoughts that swallowed him. He wanted to feel anything but this void in himself—this guilt, this uncertainty, this misery in knowing the girl he loved could have died that night the same way many had before her. Charred to the bone, a smoking mess of burnt limbs and decrepit skin. A lifeless corpse.
She could have been that.
She could have died.
Panic submerged Killua. It welled up in his throat, suffocating him. Pictures of Gon's charred hand, so small and bony in his own, resurfaced from the abyss where he had buried them. For a moment, he was plunged back in that time—useless, helpless, unable to help a dying friend.
For a moment, he was fourteen again.
"She'll be fine."
Leorio's voice, deep and quiet, dispersed the black clouds in his head. Killua rose timid eyes toward the young doctor, staring at his sharp profile. "She will?"
"She will. Whatever she did to stop the bullet, it worked. She didn't lose enough blood to require an IV—she was probably just exhausted from her fight and the blood loss was the last straw she could take—that's why she fainted. But she'll be fine. Let me take care of her, remove the bullet and clean the wound, and she'll be safe from any infection." He gently wiped the blood, then took clean pliers and removed the bullet like it was nothing. He dropped it on a metallic plate, the clattering echoing in Killua's foggy head.
Then, he started cleaning the wound, slowly, patiently. With expert movements, he disinfected it and covered it with layers of clean, thin white gauze. "She'll need to minimize movements and stay in bed for a few days," Leorio announced. "I'm not quite sure what's her healing rate—it varies from one person to another depending on their nen. But judging from what I've seen and what my nen found, I think a nen therapy would work well for her. Within two weeks, she'll be back on feet."
"Two weeks?" Killua repeated with hope. "That little?"
"I might be overestimating the time," Leorio corrected. "Nen therapies speed boost healing rates, so it's hard to tell how fast she'd recover, but it seems to me that she'll be fast enough. Maybe not as fast as your monster body, but much, much faster than the average patient." He smirked. "Perks of being a nen user, hm?"
A little smile brushed Killua's lips—the first in that mad night. And though Killua could barely think of anything else but Hana's safety, Leorio's calm was like a cold breeze on a sore burn. He who had been melting with panic just a few minutes ago was now breathing again, and though the anxiety still prowled, the burden on his shoulders had lifted.
So, Killua listened quietly to Leorio describing his work. He didn't say a word, but he let Leorio's voice soothe him, working on his breathing until it was regular again, like Leorio had taught him. "Hold on to my voice," Leorio had once told him after a bad panic attack. "Listen to me. Breathe. Breathe with me, come on."
And just like in the past, Killua breathed along Leorio's words, watching his hands work and his eyes focus.
In a way, Killua wondered who Leorio had really healed that night.
A/N: You guys ought to read the Winner's Curse, by Marie Rutkoski, it's amazing. That being said, I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Tell me about your thoughts, I'd be glad to hear them.
Now 2018 is the year to read more, catch up on my favorite fics, and write, and learn how to play Widowmaker. It'll happen, eventually.
Until next time, have a great holiday!