~ Chapter 31 ~

The only thing on Gon's mind these last few hours were his cantankerous ruminations. The last three days, everything around him only echoed what he already knew: that he was selfish, weak, and ignorant of the world, thinking he could face Killua's family and come to a favorable conclusion on his own. Seeing Killua deal with Kalluto, reject his offers for help, he knew he had only been a burden.

"Have you eaten anything yet today?" comes Killua's voice. Walking beside him in the night air, holding hands, Gon takes the lead as he mulls over all that had happened.

"…No."

Classic Gon, fixated so utterly on one goal that he neglected everything else around him to his own detriment. Killua would snort at him if not for the exhaustion he felt from that day – talking to Kalluto, his grandfather, then losing and searching for Gon. Even the humorous aura surrounding Killua due to Gon's thick-mindedness is ignored by Gon.

"C'mon, let's get some food," says Killua. He pulls Gon in the direction of a diner. Its white sign shines singularly in the dark street of closed buildings near the hotel. A neon light reading "Open 24 Hours" blinks in Hunter script.

They sit down in the warm yellow light as the waiter hands them a menu. Gon peeks at Killua above his.

"Do you know what you want?" Killua asks, not looking up.

Slapping the menu lightly against the table with a sigh, Gon answers. "Yeah. Hotcakes."

"Okay. We'll have two orders of the hot cakes with hash browns and eggs," Killua tells the waiter. They hand off the menus, and then they're left in the booth alone inside one of the diner's inner wall. Clusters of families, friends, and couples are seated sparsely around them.

Killua already forgave me for offering myself to Illumi, Gon thinks – until he remembers the details of what happened after he was rescued from the Zoldyck Estate. Killua's coldness toward him, accusing him of going it alone again in their motel room, saying this was the last straw until Gon broke down crying, and then he… Inwardly, Gon blushes. What he felt the last few days, seeing Killua deal with everything on his own, drawing an invisible wall between Gon and himself despite their physical closeness…

"Killua, uh…" Unsure where to begin, Gon twiddles his fingers on the table.

The waiter returns with the iced tea Killua requested. Ice crinkles against glass, bubbles and cracks as swirling brown leaf juice cascades over the cubes. Gon is entranced by the display, since it distracts him from his thoughts. When the waiter leaves the pitcher of iced tea on the table and walks away, Killua lifts the cup to his lips and sips slowly, before he decides it needs more sweetener.

"Take your time, Gon," he says as he tears open a small pink packet of cane sugar.

When Killua sips and sets down his glass of iced tea again, Gon's hand falls on top of his. "I love you, Killua, but sometimes, I have no idea what you're thinking."

Even though Gon said it, exasperated, devoid of light, Killua's face and body feel hot from the heartfelt melody of Gon's words.

"I…"

With diffident countenance, Gon looks Killua in the face. He still feels like the topic of Killua's family is too personal – especially after all he'd seen and experienced at the estate a few days ago… He thought going to Killua's home would elucidate things, make him more confident to know how to help Killua, perhaps even stop Killua's family – but it only led to more pain and strife for both in the end.

"We've been closer these last few days," Gon says apprehensively, "but somehow, I feel like you've been… farther away."

At first, Killua doesn't understand what he's referring to. Seeing Gon's shyness, the blush in his cheeks, Killua gets it. "Oh, you mean when we're having sex."

Gon's face jolts upward in embarrassment, uncharacteristic of him. Normally, it was the other way around when it came to such topics. "Yes, but, not only then – I mean in general, too…" Trying to relax, Gon sits up taller, knowing they're more fully on the same page. "Ever since you… killed Illumi –" he says it in a cautiously low tone for both their sakes – "it seems like you've… wanted my help even less… And I get it, Kalluto is your brother, and you know how to deal with your family better than anyone else, except maybe Alluka – but I still…"

Killua waits for Gon to finish his thought, but he never does. "Feel left out?"

Pressing his lips together, slowly, Gon nods. His silence weighs on Killua after his chattering. Killua understands there's more he isn't saying.

Killua's tone is fond, if tired as he speaks again, leaning his forehead into one hand. "Knowing you, I'm sure you're blaming yourself for not being able to solve my problems, eh?"

Caught red-handed by Killua's deductive abilities, Gon bites his lip. The hilariously strained position of Gon's eyebrows, the fearful stiffness of his shoulders – Killua chuckles at him. Taking hold of the pitcher of iced tea between them, Killua pours himself more and takes a sip.

"…You know, for the longest time, I thought you could solve all my problems too, Gon." Now it is Killua whose tone is dilatory, and Gon's mouth loosens at his friend's sincerity. "I thought, by inhabiting just a little of the light around you, I could change myself into a better person overnight. Actually, I used to fantasize about having conversations like these with you all the time when we were kids. But I was so scared of telling you how I felt that I pretended my feelings didn't exist, and hoped just being near you would fix everything.

"But it was wrong of me to think that way," Killua acknowledges, looking Gon in the face. "I thought the same with Alluka, with my family – I thought if I stayed away from them long enough, maybe I would stop killing people… but I was wrong." As Killua looks down at his hands, the lights overhead dance on the tea water a few inches above, swirling reddish-brown. He easily recalls the sensation of blood covering his fingers, the tremble of his sharp hands as he sliced through thousands. The ghostly face of his older brother beneath him, a trickle of blood running down the corner of his mouth and pale chin as he fell limp, dead. It's something that will never leave him, these images and sensations, nor should they. During the most important years of his life, he was nothing but a murderer. That wouldn't change no matter how much time had passed –

"Killua," Gon's warm intonation brings him back to the present. His dark hands cross the table, clasping around the tea glass and over Killua's hands, interrupting his deathly vision. "I know you get angry when I tell you that it isn't your fault, but I want you to know… I've never felt you were dangerous to me. I've only been worried when I saw you kill other people. These abilities that you rely on so much, they aren't used solely to torment other people – they're to protect yourself from getting hurt, from the wrath of your family or outsiders who don't understand because of the attitude you've been taught to wear. I know you think that what happened with your family isn't an excuse, and it isn't – killing is bad. But your family… they aren't normal." Knowing what he feels after having a needle stuck in his head, from being abducted by Illumi and taken to the Zoldyck Estate, running away from them with Killua these last few months, Gon chokes up a little as he says it. Gon knows this is hardly a fraction of what Killua has dealt with his entire life. Not now, he berates himself as his breaths increase, but it's no use. "I can only imagine… I will never understand it," he concludes, the tears hot and heavy as they roll down his face, though there are only a few.

"I thought I could help you understand that what happened while you were with the Zoldyck Family wasn't your fault," he'd said a few days ago as they walked back to the hotel.

"You can't… some things can't be fixed simply by talking about it. And there's nothing you can do to change that, Gon."

"I see now, what you meant," Gon says, wiping his cheeks, hiding his eyes. "Even if I thought I could eventually come to a point of understanding and be able to help you better… I can't."

Months ago, Gon was convinced he could help and understand Killua simply by asking him about his past… and Killua, unsure what to do or say since he had never been faced with that possibility before, hadn't known how to react. There was nothing either of them could do to understand that blockage before it happened. With their tight-lipped relationship resulting in their separation three years ago, when they reunited, they'd tried the opposite approach, only to run into a different trouble along the way: Killua still had difficulty talking, and Gon didn't know what was appropriate to ask. So Gon attempted to understand through independent action, which only ended worse. What could he do to help Killua, then? Nothing?

Cries of terror fade from Killua's mind, replaced by the warm light of the diner as he listens to Gon's words. "It's something I've realized over the last few years too, I think," Killua says. Having let go of the glass of iced tea, his upturned hands are still covered by Gon's on the table, and he clutches him tighter. "As much as I wish I could help you understand that you shouldn't blame yourself for what happened to me, or being unable to help me – for all the times you've thought that you needed to pay some kind of price for being ignorant or weak… I don't think I can."

Hearing that, Gon expects Killua to let go of his hands. He waits for Killua to tell him they aren't good for each other after all. That even after all they had been through together the last six months since they reunited – or the last six years since they met, dealing with their hidden feelings and traumas, with Illumi and the Zoldyck Family, learning to trust others and themselves – that Killua has learned and decided that a relationship with Gon isn't worth the stress after all. Gon wouldn't blame him. It would be expected, after Gon decided to go it alone once again, and put himself in such a dangerous situation where Killua was the only one who could save him.

The others helped too, Gon's inner voice adds. They all helped save me from my own stupidity… again.

If only they had been able to do so when he was younger, before these harmful habits were so set in stone…

Gon anticipates Killua's words of refusal and farewell, feeling just being with him for the last three days was a peculation. Just being with Killua for that long…

Their food arrives before Killua says anything. When they finally let go of each other's hands, receiving a queer look from the waiter, the only thing that comes out of Killua's mouth is about the food.

"Whoaa, it looks delicious!"

The words never come.

Three hotcakes are stacked over two inches high in front of each of them, topped with crispy hash browns and bacon that pops from being freshly removed from the grill. Individual containers of syrup are placed at their plates' sides.

Killua digs into the food almost immediately, using his fork and knife to cut into the spongy hotcake and bring a huge, syrupy piece into his mouth. When he sees Gon is a bit more subdued in his eating, lost in thought, Killua asks, "Mmh? What's wrong?"

Gon just smiles.

"It's good," he says calmly, unable to stop the quiet blush spreading across his cheeks. So this is what it feels like.

His answer causes Killua to raise an eyebrow, but he's enjoying the food too much to press. They both are.

. . .

With friends and mentors like Bisky, Palm, Ikalgo, and Canary, Gon and Killua have no reason to fret leaning on each other. The next day, the company of Hunters, Zoldycks, butlers, and Ikalgo decides to move toward the eastern side of the continent, where the border of the Mimbo Republic meets the Republic of Padokea to gain distance between themselves and Kukuroo Mountain. Despite Zeno's words of warning at their meeting the day before, Killua doesn't argue. He doesn't want to linger any more than the others.

Days pass as they travel by train, a well-deserved lull in the action that allows everyone a breather in light of the battle that was sure to come. Just as him and Gon continued to share a room, Alluka and Kalluto elected to have their own room, and Killua noticed they stuck rather close to each other throughout the rest of their journey as well. He often caught his younger siblings spending time alone, whispering to each other, exchanging glances when someone else was talking. He was relieved, if not also a little unnerved. How had the two become so close in a matter of days? A part of Killua was still wary of Kalluto, and perhaps that's why it would take a lot longer for the two to ever get on equal ground, while Alluka was completely unguarded around him.

Killua feels pity for his youngest sibling. Poor Kalluto had no one else to spend time with growing up… At least I had Alluka for a time before she was locked away – and even if it was bad attention, Illumi was constantly hovering over me, along with the entire family – Irked by his own desire to see good in the situation he'd had with his brother, Killua cuts off his thoughts there.

The others, jaded from all the family drama of the days before and knowledgeable of the challenge that lay ahead, avoid mentioning the construction of a plan to take down the Zoldyck Family once and for all. No one has a good idea about how to bring down Silva Zoldyck, the most powerful assassin in the known world. Even if they have his prized son and gifted daughter on their side, the experienced Hunter Biscuit Krueger can only blow air out her cheeks whenever she is faced with the dilemma that they simply don't have enough people or strength on their side to be able to defeat him. She isn't accustomed to putting this much effort into notoriously difficult tasks – it's why she left Gon and Killua to deal with a homicidal Palm and the Chimera Ant War, though rash she recognizes those decisions to be now. Other than Gon, Killua, Palm, and Ikalgo, no one else has been a part of a large operation to take down some inhumanly powerful entity. Truth is, even Killua hardly knows anything about his father's abilities, having never seen him in action himself.

I don't think killing me is his goal, anyway, Killua thinks. In his mind, he continuously circles back to his conversation with Zeno.

"…You've unleashed something within Silva that even I cannot quell."

The old man hadn't specified what he meant at the time, but based on what Gon has told him about his time in the Zoldyck Manor, it seems Silva was planning to use Gon against Killua. Rather than creating a simple hostage situation, however, by reawakening Gon's Nen, Silva's plan pointed toward using Gon's power in Nen to aid in Silva's plan…

What that plan could have been, or perhaps still could be, Killua cannot fathom.

"Uhg, I wish gramps wouldn't have showed up just to confuse me!" Killua cried out in frustration. He sat in a private suite on the train with Gon, discussing their next move.

"…Are you sure he just meant to confuse you?" Gon asks carefully.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean… When I was in the dungeons, before Silva tortured me your grandfather came in, and I got this weird feeling… Like he went along with Silva's plan, but he didn't agree with it. I don't know, it's just a feeling I got." Gon shrugs.

Killua recalls the way his grandfather disappeared like leaves in the wind the other day, how serene his aura had been the entire time they were talking. He hadn't seemed to be making up the emptiness and hurt in his voice as he asked Killua to come home. "…Maybe you're right."

Still, he doesn't agree with me either, Killua knows. The rejection of Zeno's hand raise eats away at his heart, like maggots that were implanted there. The lack of support from one of the only family members Killua trusted ebbs at him more than he thought it would after all these years. Even if him, Gon, and everyone else live through this, some family members would never be swayed, nor could they reconcile the relationship they had before.

With this in mind, Killua and Gon turn their heads upward as the train engineer speaks over the loudspeaker. "We will be arriving on the border of the Republic of Padokea for a border check in five minutes. Please stay seated while the authorities check the vehicles. Thank you."

"Well," Gon says, standing. "I'm gonna check what's up with everyone else at the front. Wanna come with?"

"Nah, I'll stay here. Tell me what you find when you get back."

Gon nods and the train door shuts behind him. He's only been away for a few moments when Killua feels something rattling in his head, too proprioceptive to be a normal headache. A hand rises to his forehead, and he wonders if it's the residue effect of the needle again, though he hadn't felt it in a little while – but the feeling is gone just as easily as it came. Strange.

A few hours later, everyone unloads their luggage onto the train platform. They head toward a residence not far from the station. The town they find themselves in is quaint – the perfect place for remaining off the radar. Cottages of white wood dot the landscape, a few shops here and there. Otherwise, open landscape expands before them until the mountains about ten miles in the distance. Scant, tall yellow grass surrounds them on all sides, and the air hangs drily around them. Everything is caked in orange dirt, which is crumbly beneath their shoes, like sand. The only sounds are the occasional murmurs of voices carried on the breeze, or a bird flitting overhead from one spaced-out tree to the next. The area is dead silent apart from that.

After dinner, the stillness begins to make Killua feel paranoid, so Gon suggests they take a walk.

"We'll be back in thirty minutes," Gon tells Alluka, Kalluto, Canary, and Amane in the living room of their rented cottage. Everyone else is upstairs trying to get some sleep. "If we don't come back before then, look for us."

As Gon and Killua walk in the soundless countryside, Killua can hardly take it.

"It's just so eerie. Why did we decide to come down here, again?"

"Everyone else thought it would be a good place to hide out?" Gon queries.

"Remind me never to trust Bisky's judgement about that again."

They walk until they come to a glade surrounded by trees. The sky is nearly as orange as the dirt beneath their shoes in the late afternoon heat, and the area is dotted by black rocks. They hear running water, and Gon walks ahead of Killua to find it. Killua feels that dull throb in the back of his skull again before he can follow Gon, like a remnant of what he felt right before Illumi attacked the airship, or on the train –

It's too late.

Killua yanks the needle shot into his neck the moment it hits his skin – but already his knees are atremble, about to give way. Sensing the tremor in Killua's aura, Gon turns around to see Killua sweating profusely as he clutches his neck, scanning the perimeter of the trees with a look that Gon knows is the assassin in him, not the Hunter. Calling upon his Nen, Gon surrounds his body in Ren so ferocious that it shakes the pebbles and dust at their feet, makes the leaves stir in the trees even in the dead silent air. Feeling Killua's focus and consciousness fall, Gon's aura awareness snakes around the tree trunks with the speed of a great tidal wave crashing through a valley.

When Gon finds nothing, he turns his attention upward, to the branches of the trees, though few there are, and nearly misses the darting figure. It's so fast he can hardly see it.

"Show yourself!" Gon shouts, moving closer to Killua, whose Ren has begun to flip-flop between Ten as he grasps the spot on his neck. Veins bloom out from the needle puncture where a dark liquid was injected, an inky tattoo crawling underneath his skin.

What the hell?! Killua screams internally, feeling the poison attack his insides and motor functions one-by-one, spreading from his neck to his left arm.

A mocking voice emerges from the trees of front of them. "'I should be immune to all poisons?!' That's probably what you're thinking now, aren't you, Killu?"

Revealing herself willingly after Gon's barrage of Ren, dressed in purple assassin's garb, Kikyo Zoldyck comes forward. Her hair is wound in a high ponytail, her gait confident and beguiling. Her tall figure emits aura nowhere near the strength of Gon's, but it slowly overcomes Killua's fading Ten due to the poison that invades his system. Her Nen is chaotic yet contained, similar to Illumi's in its overwhelming manipulation, twisted and smothering love – except Kikyo has dropped all pretense of restraint. This was the woman who taught Illumi everything he knew about manipulation and torture, after all.

Seeing Gon's and Killua's nasty stares directed at her, her eyes narrow at their puerility – one scarred and blind, the other rose-colored and demure. She says quietly, "You murdered my son. For that, you must pay."

Without warning, she rushes forward and knocks Gon ten feet back. Caught off-guard by her eccentric and zigzagging movements, her attack wasn't anything like Killua's direct and precise approach during their sparring sessions.

Shuriken dagger in hand, Kikyo drives it toward Killua's head, who stops her inches from his face. Trembling in strain, he glares at her with his icy blue gaze, one that makes Kikyo gasp from the remembrance of hers and Silva's past, their first encounter.

"You… you demon child!"

Even with her arm in his grasp, she steps back just enough to spin and kick one of her legs toward the arm Killua holds her with. Given her strength and speed, she will shatter his elbow. Killua jumps back from his mother with bent knees, ready to fight, when he stutters, holding his side. The poison has spread from his left arm and neck to his left abdomen and face now. It isn't enough to kill him, but his senses are completely shot – unable to move as quickly and nimbly as normal. She knew exactly what to do to get me in this position, he realizes, feeling his dread grow. He had trained with Illumi, even received advice on his fighting from Silva and Zeno – yet he had never faced his mother before. He always thought she must be unskilled, but now he realizes most of the genius of the Zoldyck's tactics in training – it had always come from her.

Gon crosses in front of Killua before Kikyo can strike again, and they exchange a blow that sends Kikyo back. She grits her teeth.

"How dare you defy a mother's right to punish her child, you wretch!"

Gon stands his ground, ready to deflect whatever she might throw at them. "As far as I'm concerned, you're no longer his parent! You never have been!"

"Killua, listen to him," she sings with such savoir faire, waving her shuriken around wildly as she speaks, her eyes alight with hysteria. "How can you revel in such lies? You'll always be a Zoldyck whether you want to be or not! An outsider simply can't understand the life we lead –!"

"A Zoldyck can't kill a Zoldyck," Killua chokes out in defiance.

"Yes, but you forfeited that protection when you killed my son!" Kikyo yells, becoming increasingly shrill. Tears enter her mismatched eyes.

Though he's in pain from the poison creeping through his body, Killua recognizes the hurt and anguish she's trying to hold back. He remembers her wails of mourning resonating throughout the Zoldyck dungeons, the sound of a woman who regretted all she had done – or failed to do.

Behind Gon, Killua mumbles, "I wish I didn't have to."

Gon turns his head a quarter back to try to get a glance of his friend's expression. Despite Killua's sorrowful words, Kikyo uses the opportunity to attack. Leaping over Gon to get behind them, she is about to drive her shuriken into Killua's shoulder when Gon blocks her at the wrist. Tears burst into the air around her eyes as the arm Gon hadn't caught sends another shuriken flying past Gon's neck, barely nicking him in the process. The weapon embeds itself into Killua's chest.

"ATONE FOR YOUR SIN THROUGH YOUR DEATH!"

"KILLUA!"

Once again, it feels like it's been ages since I wrote this fic. Shout out to mirycactusito on Tumblr, who drew my concept for Kikyo from previous chapters as she mourned Illumi! The fanart can be found under mirycactusito's tag "miryart" on her blog. Also, in the time that has passed, I was able to write and release the final chapter of the short KilluGon robot AU that I wrote called Human – I hope you'll check it out!

Many thanks to the Reviewer on Chapter 30 – and of course Tiburmeme and CactusRights whomst I've already responded to on other platforms ;P. I'm happy to hear that the writing style has been to your liking! After writing a story for this long, I constantly wonder if my descriptions are lacking, aaahhh…! I'm not sure what you mean by "will Gon ever find out when Killua removes the needle"? Do you mean Killua's needle or Gon's? In either case, both of their needles have been removed! Though both of them still feel residue effects because, from what I gather in canon, the needle doesn't dictate your thoughts, but works from what insecurities already exist in one's mind to bend one to Illumi's will. Of course, there are anomalies with this explanation, like Alluka being completely wiped from Killua's memory – but I think when it's something easily targetable, that's why that function is also possible with Illumi's small control needles. I am also glad to hear that you agree any platform should be used for a social issue like BLM. It is true, we need these statements everywhere that they can be, and I worried some readers would feel "attacked" by me stating a "political" opinion, but the ability to run from this movement is something only those with privilege have the option to do, and awareness must be raised, changes made, if Black lives are to truly receive equal treatment in social opportunities and under the law.

I don't have many other thoughts on this chapter other than I hope it was enjoyable. Right now, I'm guessing there are about four or five chapters of the story left. I finally made an actual outline for the ending, though you can be assured my plans often go awry even when I do make them, haha. I hope you'll leave your thoughts on this chapter below!