Did you guys know specter and spectre are both correct spellings for the same word? It's a stupid difference between American and British English. I may be from the U.S, but spectre is a waaaay better spelling. But yeah, story, let's dive in.
What disturbed the silence wasn't a noise, but a feeling. Snake raised her head to stare at the ceiling. A massive presence of Nen suddenly, out of seemingly nowhere, swelled beyond it. It wasn't aggressive...per say. Rather...it swirled with harmful intent and, if she had to put a word to it, arrogance.
She stepped away from the light of the window to seek out a staircase. Perhaps to conserve power, the lighting in the staircase persisted only to the floors in use for the auction, which were far below her and the influx of Nen.
It was only a few floors up. The only light in the halls was the bluish light of night that filtered through windows in rooms, and spilled out of opened doors. Why they were open…
She followed the Nen to a room at the end of the hallway, then paused outside to listen. What she was listening for was talking, footsteps, or even the faint sound of breathing: anything to indicate if someone was close to the door. What she felt instead was a slight breeze escaping the doorway. And what she heard was a muted cacophony of gunfire, but it was too far away to be occuring in the room.
She stepped into the entrance.
There was exactly one person. Well, two, if you counted the mutilated body slumped against one of the walls. Above it a pen stuck into the plaster, and dark blood stained the area around it, as if to suggest it had pinned the corpse all by itself while the person had still been living. The other one was a man very much alive. He had slick black hair and wore a suit, and he stood in the space where a window should have been. A single slip of the foot and he'd plummet to the concrete, but he stood there without concern, the wind rustling his clothes. Although the mass of Nen had been reabsorbed, the remnants of it ghosted about his shape.
After a few seconds, he turned to face her. His eyes reflected like the orb earrings he wore.
He was not one who had been at the Phantom Troupe's base when she had been there. She'd seen eleven members. That still left open that he could be the twelfth.
"Are you Uvogin?" she asked. She'd coated her nails in alternating poison and venom as she walked down the hallway. Blow darts didn't do much good unless fired covertly.
His head tilted, his lips holding a calmly amused hint of a smile. "I am not."
No? But wasn't that the one that was missing from the group? Was he not a spider, then?
"Are you White Snake?"
She had been about to conclude that if he wasn't a spider, he was none of her business, but evidently that wasn't so true. "Do you have business with me?"
"In a way." He approached a chair, the one piece of furniture in the spacious room, and sat down facing her. His elbows he rested on his knees, his hands folded. "I'm willing to help you sort out the evil in your heart."
"How do you know about this?" It wasn't possible something of such detail could be portrayed on a face, even if she'd been someone expressive, and yet he was the second person to appear to know about her so intimately.
"You've met my subordinate Pakunoda. She has something of an ability to read minds."
Pakunoda...that woman who'd been called Paku. He was a member of the Phantom Troupe. The Boss she had referred to.
She started a step forward before pausing. She'd accepted a job to kill this man. Her integrity, her reputation was on the line. But he was offering to help her. He was likely even the head of the organization she'd surmised could help her.
"I'm being paid to kill any member of the Phantom Troupe I encounter."
"Do you truly care about money? One job, over clarifying the cloud of confusion that hangs about your very being?"
"...How could you help me?"
That small smile of his never wavered. "Tonight, my friends and I play a requiem for one we've lost. Join us."
The clang of gunshots from below still echoed with a hollow ringing throughout the open room. Before she could reply, however, he continued.
"You live in a way much like us. Society labels us as villains, but we are simply living as we please. We steal that which we want, but we also help those whom we want. We do not seek to antagonize, but to live in the only way we know how. Your confusion lies in your unwillingness to stray from the boundaries and labels that society has set. You hold onto them like a divine revelation. I am not saying holding something in such reverence is a bad way to live." He stood. "It is in such ideals that people file solace. That you find solace. Unfortunately, your nature is one that conflicts with the very mantra you hold in reverence. And therein exists your paradox. Without a salve to it, you will be unable to gain lasting solace."
She shifted aside when he walked to the door, and he passed her without taking his eyes from her. Standing in the middle of the hallway, he stopped.
"As the Spider is currently missing a leg, I am inclined to ask you to fully choose to join us. What you need is placement, a structure to justify your nature. That will be your salve, and I am confident that joining us would serve to be it. As unfortunate as it is, however, your placement has already chosen you. All you need is to accept it. So for tonight, I merely ask that you join us in our requiem." He finally looked away when he started down the dark hall. "All you need to do is go wild."
Snake thought about his words. She thought about his solution. She thought about the invitation he decided not to give. The invitation he did give. His explanation made sense. At the same time, she hadn't a clue what he meant.
And 'go wild'...what would she do if she just...went wild?
Normally, she wouldn't dare let herself go as simply as that. Actions required thoughtfulness, words care. Consequences always had to be considered. But that man had extended her the option as if a work proposal, or a dinner invitation. Simple, formal, thought out. And he thought it would be to her benefit.
She took the man's place at the edge of the room, and gazed down at the chaos below. Indeed all semblance of order had vanished. Even from above, it was difficult to pick out the Troupe members, as it was clear many of those on the ground struggled to tell friend from foe. It was just pure adrenaline.
Within the cage of her ribs, her heart began to pound.
She slipped her foot from the edge and jumped.
Concrete shattered like glass, a hail of pieces erupting from the point of impact and driving hard into the unlucky ones nearby before a shock of white bolted out from the dust.
The man with a tommy was still recovering from seeing the man next to him get smashed in the head with a large chunk of sidewalk when an arm wrung around his neck and threw him to the ground with such force that bones dug into his spine and he was sent into convulsions. The next second another man screamed as valley-deep claw marks burrowed into his chest, and a third passed out after hitting his head on the ground when the girl threw herself onto him. Ten holes were left in his shoulders when she launched off of him and at the next overwhelmed mafia guard.
Bullets finally began to find their way towards the pale spectre that had dropped from the sky, but a moment later those who had begun to fire couldn't help but to drop their guns as their hands dangled half cut off. The new screams differed vastly from those in the distance that yelled in anger. One of the men began to cry. A few of the slashed suddenly began to stumble, as if their legs had turned to jelly. Another man began to seize.
All around the Cemetery Building, in addition to those who were sliced, decapitated, and riddled with bullets courtesy of the twelve-legged spider, guard after guard began to lose control of their limbs and respiratory systems. The stench of vomit lingered beneath the smoking gunpowder.
She only came to a standstill when she found herself in a narrow alleyway, a single guard suffocating at her feet and not another soul to attack in sight. Then she watched the stages of discoloration in his face until the vibration of a heartbeat no longer shook his chest. It was the same type of venom that she'd witnessed kill a woman when she was little. If she had slipped up once in handling the snake that had done it, she would have suffered the same fate all those years ago. But she'd managed to milk it, and now, she used it as her own.
Her heart still pounded within her ribs as she began to come down from her high. She'd done it. She'd let herself go wild. And she'd be damned if she wasn't grinning ear to ear.
That man had been right about one thing: going wild had been a big help. But he was also wrong. She did fit into the boundaries of society. She was a psychopath that savored slow, intruding deaths. She'd tried to contain it, tried to carve her own story, but at heart she was simply a villain that would die as a hero trampled over her.
Her elation suddenly steeped itself in tar. She...didn't want to die like that. All those characters that struggled against the odds, who threw themselves in the face of evil for justice, and if they're lucky, triumphed, and if not...that still sounded perfect to her. She wanted to die tragic, dramatic and emotional.
Not like some bug that had long needed squashed.
She had thought she'd found it, a path to the life and death she'd wanted. Tied to an inscrutable evil, bound to the one she'd inevitably die at the hands of not because they hated her, or because she needed to be stopped, but because she was a nuisance, a danger to someone as powerful as them.
But rather than even a bug to be squashed, Illumi had pushed her aside and left her completely untouched, completely inconsequential.
Her eyes burned, but something cold dripped down her cheek. She raised her hand to touch it, fingers coming away wet. For some reason she couldn't stop herself from gasping. It happened again, and more wetness found its way onto her cheeks. She staunched the gasping, nails scratching red into her face. She grit her teeth as the wetness continued to come.
Note: As for the guy Chrollo killed in the chair he sits in in this chapter, I just assumed the Nen fish he used to kill the other guy ate his corpse. That's my excuse for him being absent, anyway. As always, comments, observations, and anything you guys have to say is ever so welcome. And also to everyone who's thanked me for writing, thank you guys so much for reading! And you're welcome, but moreso thank you! I do it for you! You have no idea how happy it makes me that you're all enjoying what I write! I'll always strive to live up to your expectations!