Frequently, it was cold.

It was something he should've been used to by now, yet here he was, teeth chattering uncontrollably, curled up beneath a thin blanket. Despite his attempts to keep himself covered, the wind kept dislodging things and exposing his feet to the air. Everything below the shin was just numb; his recent growth spurt had seen him outgrow his socks and pants, so his skinny ankles were entirely bare. And the hole in his left shoe certainly didn't help anything.

What Kite wouldn't do for another blanket.

And of course he couldn't even start a fire; apparently, this area was home to a species of basilisk that hunted by thermal radiation, so any flame would immediately paint a target on his back. Ging had been adamant that he flee if he ever encountered one, and given that they usually had fun with the beasties that wanted to kill them, this species must've seriously been one he didn't want to mess with.

Ging was not with him often.

He had better things to do than babysit Kite, in the end. Kite, who was more of a burden than a help. Who could only get things out of Ging if he constantly hounded him for it. Who didn't even know how to read.

It was with this bitterness that he pulled up the book within his cocoon and opened it to the first page. The name of it was still just "the book," given that he had yet to figure out what the title was. Tales of the _ _ _ _: fill in the blank. Sure, he could parse the phonetic elements of the missing word, but the sound just… had no meaning. It was white noise.

Sometimes he came to Ging with language questions, but only when he thought it was a really insightful one, which almost never happened. Kite wondered if the man even knew the full extent of his education—or lack thereof.

If only he could read. If he could read, then he could learn on his own without being a pest. He wouldn't have to stammer through every conversation without knowing what was going on. And then maybe Ging would… would like him a bit more.

But reality didn't work with what-ifs. It worked with facts, and it worked with people, and nobody can ever do anything about it. If I Could Read was but the twilight of conjecture, the no-man's-land of wishful thinking. This was one truth Kite could understand on his own.

"Jesus, I'm starving," came a voice from outside.

Ging was back?

"Light a damn fire, already," he grumbled. "I had you bring a matchbox for a reason."

"But… the basilisks…"

"Eh? We moved past that area ages ago," Ging said.

"… Oh," was Kite's only reply.

"I'll start the fire," Ging sighed and left the sanctuary of their tattered tent with no thought to his current shirtlessness. He'd gone the whole frigid day like that, wholly unperturbed by the elements. The fire was for him to cook the lizard slung over his back, not to build a warm space.

Ging never got cold. That particular weakness was Kite's alone.

"So… I've been looking for the, uh, stratification…"

"Hm?" Ging chewed. "Speak up."

"That thing you mentioned…"

"You're not actually talking any louder."

Kite hated to talk.

"The tel," he said. "Tel Abrim. I'm talking about Tel Abrim."

"Oh, you found it?"

"Well, no…" Kite mumbled, vaguely ashamed.

Ging shook his head and bit off another strip of muscle. "Gotta look harder. It's here."

And who was he to argue? Kite knew nothing, after all, so if Ging said there was a good reason to stay in this awful wasteland, then there had to be one.

"I, on the other hand, found the Vault," Ging triumphantly declared. It was the other half of their mission in the Azian highlands: to unearth the Vault of Hatshepsut II, said to contain the lost idols of Novatraham.

"That's great," Kite tried to say with conviction. Now Ging would be waiting on him to locate the tel, and then Kite still wouldn't be able to find it, and then Ging would probably manage to track it down in a few hours. It would probably be so easy for him.

Ging got up and tossed the lizard bones on the dying fire. "Come on. I'll show you."

So Kite disassembled the tent, packed everything up, and stood at attention before Ging's critical eye. And then they just… stood there. Kite promptly grew nervous, looking over his shoulder to see if he forgot something.

He didn't, but maybe he did. But maybe he didn't.

"Are… are we going?"

"Yeah, yeah. This way," Ging drawled.

And after twenty minutes of walking, they found the tunnel Ging had cut, which opened up into remnants of ancient stone scaffolding. And then Kite saw what lay beyond the entrance: a staircase that spiraled down farther than his flashlight could shine. Ging nodded for him to descend, so Kite forged onward toward the first step—

—and promptly hit his head on the ceiling.

"Careful," Ging snickered.

A hand on his forehead—and God, it fucking hurt—he made sure to duck on the next step down. At the tender age of sixteen(?), he was already head and shoulders taller than Ging, so he was the only one especially cramped. These days more than ever, Kite was uncomfortable with his height, unsure of how to pilot the lengthy sprawl of his limbs. His gangliness made him a particularly graceless teenager, and it showed in every movement.

Imagine how tall he could've been if he hadn't spent his childhood starving. Really, Kite should thank his malnutrition for sparing him from his true height.

"This is it," Ging announced at the bottom of the staircase. "I've already disabled all the traps."

The room was dozens of meters long in all dimensions, supported by rows of gigantic pillars. Its walls were lined by ruined balconies—a vertical labyrinth of stone—and the air was sharp with the pungent smell of earth. It was as dilapidated as it was not, somehow still an intact room in spite of everything. Kite was not always so taken with their archaeological spoils, but this felt like something—a steepness, a silence, the weight of ages. A new cold suddenly gripped him.

"The idols are missing, but I did find something else," Ging said.

And in the center of the room stood an obsidian monolith covered with strange hieroglyphics.

"The Hatshepsut Stele," he explained as he approached the monument. "It details the achievements of her reign."

Of course Ging could read it.

"Hatshepsut got the throne by killing her five brothers," he recounted. "She built some cities, conquered some land, enslaved some races—typical ruler stuff. But it's her fall from power that's the most interesting part. You won't find anything about that written here, though."

"About her fall from power?"

"Yeah. She met a famously beautiful woman named Ahset on one of her campaigns; there are few busts of her in here, I think. Anyways, Ahset came from a family Hatshepsut had wrongly sentenced to years of torture. She was the only survivor, and Hatshepsut felt bad about it after the real troublemakers were found, so she took her in as a concubine. Ahset soon became her favorite in the palace, strangely enough, but the woman started having violent, delusional fits on account of her trauma. Long story short, shit was going bad all over the kingdom, but Hatshepsut let herself get wrapped up in trying to help this Ahset chick instead of properly ruling. And guess whose kingdom broke apart?"

"Was… was it Hatshepsut's?"

"Yup," he confirmed. "You've got the same problem as her: a weakness to feeling guilty."

Kite would say he was far weaker to shame than guilt, but if Ging said it was like this, then it had to be.

"Falling into a guilt complex is easy, especially when you think it's helping people. But trust me: it'll probably do more harm than good. Guilt and pity—they're good for informing decisions, not deciding them."

"Okay…?"

"I didn't bring you along because I felt bad for you," Ging lectured. "I did it because you were wasting your life, and I could see that your life would be a shame to waste."

He made it sound as though he'd been happy to take him as a student, like Kite hadn't been begging on his hands and knees.

"I'm serious!" he insisted, sensing Kite's skepticism. "Let me just say that your life is worth more than you'll ever think it is. Don't sacrifice yourself for anybody, and I mean anybody, okay? I don't care if it's your own son; you have to remember to value yourself. Otherwise, the world is gonna chew you up."

The world had already done a fair bit of chewing, and he couldn't recall ever being as selfless as Ging suggested he was. But it was nice that Ging was trying to help him, for once. He just wished it was about something he could get more concrete results from.

"… How old are you, Kite?"

He didn't know, but he didn't want to disappoint, so he took a guess. "Sixteen."

Ging nodded but didn't respond, and Kite wondered what it meant.

"I can go look for the tel again," Kite offered a few moments later, trying to be useful.

"Nah," Ging declined. "Later."

What… did it mean?

"You wanna be a Hunter?"

Kite startled at the question. "Y-yeah?"

"What do you know about the job?"

"Well… you hunt for something?"

Ging gave a thumbs-down. "A little more detail, please." The please was sarcastic.

Someone who hunts. Who walks with the fabulous and unknown. Who speaks every dialect of every language. Who can see things no one else can see and touch things no one else can touch. Who doesn't mind living in the Azian tundra and crossing miles of basilisk nests. Who lets sewer kids tag along on their grand adventures and then abandons them for months on end in an unfamiliar place. Who doesn't care about anybody, not really. Who doesn't have time to care.

Kite was not good at articulating himself.

"Alright," Ging sighed. "Most people live their lives in line with their likes and dislikes, seeking pleasure and avoiding pain. They get a job that makes them money, start a family, collect a few hobbies, get old, and die. And all the while, they never truly end up wanting anything. Hunters are different because we have an actual goal—something that we want, something bigger than ourselves."

Kite didn't know anything about 'most' people, but it sounded like a plausible life.

Ging seemed to be mulling something over. "Well, there's one exception," he recanted. "Contract Hunters. They don't really count, in my book."

"Contract Hunters don't count as Hunters…?"

"Yeah. Like the name implies, they 'hunt' for employment by various contractors, for someone to assign them any random chore. Basically, they're just people who look to fill up their time—a little despicable, if you ask me. To be a Contract Hunter is to admit that you don't know what to do with your life, in which case you shouldn't be in the Hunter business to begin with. It should be a prerequisite to have your own agenda," he scoffed.

Ging took a sidelong glance at Kite's blank expression and drew another heavy sigh.

"A Hunter has something that they want."

Yeah…?

"And Contract Hunters don't know what they want."

It seemed like important information, so he repeated the words to himself as they ascended the staircase back to the surface. To want or not to want. To hunt for your game or to hunt for a purpose.

Kite's eyes flew open.

"Gon—!"

He stood up too quickly and immediately buckled over; the surge of nausea had his face turning green. And then the headache—oh, God.

But Gon. He… was he still gone? Looking around, and yes, the kitchen was deserted but for a very ill Kite, as was the rest of the inn. Yes, still gone.

Taking no time to rest, he fought through his hangover toward the door. It was already midday (going by the position of the sun), and people were bustling about on the streets, and it was so loud that everything went white for a moment—

Gon. Where was Gon?

He had to stop. Stop and think. Where would he be? How could he find him?

Kite grit his teeth and forced out his En. Should he stop to throw up? Did he have time to throw up?

Stop and think. It hadn't seemed like Gon was still contemplating charging into NGL when Kite had left. Maybe he left to find Kite. Maybe he was on his way back. Bisky might've been on her way back—

Or what if someone took him? Broke into their room and walked out with Gon slung over their shoulder? He didn't have Nen, so he couldn't defend himself—

Stop. That was unlikely. There were no known threats in the area. And Gon's rate of recovery was nigh inhuman, so he'd probably sobered up pretty quickly. He was fine. He was… definitely alive.

(The parallels made his heart pound even harder.)

Still, Kite had to find him. He jumped on top of the inn and traveled the village rooftop to rooftop; there were twelve hundred and seven people going about their days, but none of them were a spiky-haired little boy.

Then, a woman shrieked on the outskirts of the surrounding forest, and he dashed toward the noise only to come upon what had to be a murder scene. A closer look revealed the woman as a creature with shoulder-length blonde hair and a pink hat, resembling a normal girl but for the saturated yellow of its skin. It was one of the chimera ants that had followed the lion, he recalled—the lion he'd tracked back to the nest so long ago. It raised a disturbing question: what was a chimera ant doing out of NGL?

It tripped onto its back as another figure emerged from the treeline. A spiky-haired little boy.

"Please, I'm sorry—I'm sorry—!"

Gon approached the fallen ant and placed his foot in the center of its chest. And he was covered with a little too much blood; there was blood everywhere, actually, splashed over torn up earth and broken trees. And most of it was blue.

"Again," he said. "Where did you get it?"

"I don't know!" the thing wailed.

Gon kicked it hard across the face and slammed the toe of his boot into its mouth. The crunch of broken teeth could be heard beneath its muffled screaming, hands clawing uselessly at Gon's unyielding shin. As the ant struggled, it became obvious that its legs were twisted the wrong way.

How had Gon managed this without any Nen?

"Try to remember," the boy said, lifting his foot out of the ant's mouth (a few teeth stuck between his blood-soaked laces). "Did you get it off a human? What did he look like?"

"All… you humans… look the same…!"

Kite chose that moment to very carefully step forward. "Gon?"

"Wait, Kite," he slowly answered. "I'm not finished."

They stood firm against each other as the ant squirmed about, both staid with entirely different types of calm.

"Yes, you are," Kite stated. "Step away."

A million different micro-expressions flashed across Gon's face, and then the calm was back. Without preamble, he thrust one gory hand above his head—and glinting between his fingers was a silver ring set with a green jewel. "This is the ring that Killua wore to Greed Island," he said. "And this thing was wearing it."

Kite shook off his doubt. He shook off his dread. He shook off the natural conclusion.

Defuse the situation, is what he was thinking.

"I just liked the way it looked," the ant sobbed.

"And I'm asking where you got it," Gon replied, lifting it up by its ragged collar.

"I—I just… please," the ant whimpered.

Gon pulled his fist back to strike, but Kite was there to catch it. "It doesn't know anything about Killua. You know this," he said. "Step away, Gon. I'm not going to tell you again."

They held eye contact for a long moment.

"Fine."

And then Gon tore out the ant's throat.

"The way we see it," Knov said, "is that the contest was meant to determine who went to NGL, but since we're now going into East Gorteau, you're all free to come with us."

The King had been born and moved to the Republic of East Gorteau along with its Royal Guard, deposing the current dictator. Pouf's brainwashed imperial soldiers were currently administering the Selection, in which the nation's five million citizens had their Nen pores shocked open and the survivors were surgically transformed into chimera ants. Meanwhile, the other soldier ants had scattered upon the death of the Queen, staking their claims on the rest of the world. This was what Colt had told them, anyways.

Now with the target in East Gorteau, Knov apparently felt comfortable enough in stretching the rules to have Gon and Kite join them. It was a predictable outcome, perhaps. They'd wanted Kite on the team from the beginning, and Gon had fought well enough in the match for Knuckle and Shoot to vouch for him.

Kite had made them confirm that that was the case. He didn't want them letting Gon on the team just to get Kite to come along.

"Although I do have some concerns about Gon's mental state," Shoot admitted.

Gon lay in another train compartment, sleeping quietly while Knuckle snored nearby, Illumi lurking somewhere else and Palm stalking them from afar.

Kite stared out the window of the speeding train, wondering what it would take to fix things.

"What, that he's a little crazy?" Morel asked, breaking into a large grin. "That's a good thing. All it means is that when he faces his enemy, he'll unleash everything he has."

Yeah, everything and then some, till there was less than nothing left. Kite seemed to be the only one who thought this was a problem.

"Anyways, what does the old man have to say about all this?"

"He sent an email a week ago, but there's been no contact since," Knov revealed. "If we don't hear from him by today, we're supposed to assume he's been taken out."

Right on time, a phone then buzzed in his suit pocket. "Speak of the devil," he remarked.

"The geezer's got some sharp ears," Morel said as Knov held out the phone for all to see.

Divide into three groups and draw the Royal Guard away from the King.

From: the sharp-eared geezer

"… That guy scares me sometimes," the large man muttered.

"Wait… There's an attachment for you, Kite."

He took the phone from Knov's outstretched hand.

Kite,

Don't try to hold Gon back. Your focus should be on the mission.

And Kite wondered, then, how exactly it was that Gon's insanity had become a prerequisite to these people. Like the mission couldn't succeed without sacrificing him to his reckless abandonment. Like there was no way to preserve both humanity and Gon, and it was wrong to even try.

Knov looked surprised when he immediately offered the phone back. "You read it already?"

"I'm a fast reader," Kite mumbled and left it at that.

"That's a weird trait to see in a field guy like yourself," Morel observed. "You're a Contract Hunter, right?"

Yes, he was. Kite didn't know how it came to be, but one day, he realized that he didn't have any particular goal in mind when he took jobs from other people, not really caring what he ended up doing. He was one of those people just looking to fill time. Without a "want." A little despicable. A Contract Hunter. Those were the words, weren't they?

Ging certainly could be a hard master.

"What of it?" he asked after a pause, half-expecting a fight.

"Eh? Nothing! All I'm saying is that you're not some Association dog."

"Don't be offensive," Knov tiredly chided.

"Alright, just who am I offending, huh? Like Pariston's got his eye on the goddamn train—"

"In any case, who should go after which Royal Guard?" Knov interjected. "Shoot and Knuckle work well together. Same with myself and Morel."

"Gon and I will take Pouf," Kite said.

He didn't even need to think about it. This was the only way it could go.

The others, however, were less quick to reach a conclusion. "Be rational," came a disembodied voice—Illumi, leaning against the doorframe. "As a combat specialist, you're much better suited to face Pitou."

"Gon won't accept anyone but Pouf," Kite was quick to remind.

"Oh, he can still face Pouf. All I'm saying is that you should take Pitou."

Kite crushed his animosity into a tiny ball and imagined tossing it out the window. "And who do you plan on fighting, might I ask?"

"Pouf, of course. As a Manipulator, I can better identify those of us compromised by its mind control and counteract the effect."

Oh, now there was a spine-chilling thought. "So you and Gon fight Pouf, and if you decide that Gon is 'compromised,' you… take over his body? Treat him like an enemy? And discard him when you're done?" Kite questioned.

He'd known plenty of Manipulators in his day. The ones that wielded people tended not to care what became of them during or after use. They pushed their puppets till they broke, then left them to find another.

"… It shouldn't matter what happens after we're done."

And that was definitely not the right answer.

"Hell no," he flatly refused. "No way am I leaving Gon with you. No way am I—"

"Wait, Kite," Knov cut him off. "It's not as though they'd be alone together; Morel and I are best suited to face Pouf, as well. After all, Morel has the lung capacity to avoid Pouf's poison without Ren, and if he uses Smokey Jail, then I would be best paired with him, since my Hatsu can provide us an escape route." He then paused for a moment. "Although… maybe that's not the best idea. There are three Royal Guards to deal with, here; it seems foolish to dedicate half our numbers to just one. And if Pouf manages to get his mind control on me, he could potentially escape using Hide and Seek as well."

There was a larger message underpinning the look Knov shot him: We can't be distrusting each other, now. A house divided cannot stand.

If only Illumi were someone he could honestly trust. The way the man would look at Gon sometimes, brimming with cold animosity…

Knov sent Kite an even harder look. Let it go, man.

"So just Morel, Illumi, and Gon face Pouf, and… I fight Pitou with you?" Kite slowly asked.

"Well, no. I was thinking of having Palm fight Pitou, too."

Palm gave a little squeal from the adjacent train compartment.

"You see, we'd been planning to have Palm infiltrate the palace, but that would require her to be in peak physical form, and the chance to sneak in already passed before her injuries from the match could heal. Thus, she's available to join the invasion," Knov said.

Sure enough, Palm still had the remnants of a black eye from where Kite had punched her.

"And I, er, understand if you have reservations about fighting alongside her," Knov added with an air of confidentiality. "But if I'm there, then I promise she'll be well-behaved."

"So that leaves Knuckle and I to take on Youpi," Shoot surmised. "I have no problem with the match-ups."

"Same," Morel agreed.

But none of this changed the fact that Kite couldn't leave Gon's side. He couldn't. Not after everyone else had left him, too.

"Looks like you've been outvoted," Illumi observed. "If you have a problem with it, you can just drop out. Gon would surely stay on the team, though, so you'd end up leaving him behind either way."

Morel thrust his fist to his chest. "I'll do what I can to look after the kid."

There was no other way.

"… Fine."

It felt sick. It felt like betrayal.

"Gon's Nen will return tomorrow, won't it?" Knov asked, glad to change the subject. "We'll set out then. Let's get some sleep in the meantime."

Once they went their separate ways, Kite didn't spare his assigned quarters a second glance as he marched straight to Gon's compartment. The door slid open, and there he was: wide awake and awash in moonlight, wearing Killua's ring on his left index finger.

"Hey," Kite whispered as he took a seat at the faux-leather booth.

Gon's eyes drifted back to the window.

"You should be asleep. There are still a few hours till dawn."

"… I miss him, Kite."

A redundant confession, like labeling the sun with the day and death with decay. Of course he missed him. Of course he was falling apart. They were as helpless as they were predictable, like water to the tide and trees to the turn of the season—a lonely man to an attractive smile.

"I know," Kite said, breathing in deeply. "I know."

"I feel so lonely, all the time."

And for all his animalistic, apathetic tenacity, there were certain chinks in the armor of the human condition that could not so easily be filled with rage.

"The ring—Killua didn't have it with him," Kite said. "Before we entered NGL, we had to leave behind everything manufactured, remember? So he must've left it at the border with his clothes and other stuff."

To his surprise, however, Gon's face didn't change. "I already knew that," he said. "I was thinking that maybe he went back to get it."

Did you ever think about that, Kite? the silence accused. Did you ever think that he could've gone back to get it? Or did you think that he wasn't someone who could go places or do things, frozen stiff, like a corpse—

But none of this was asked of him in the seconds that followed, and Kite supposed it no longer mattered to Gon what Kite thought about things.

"I had a dream about Bisky, last night," Gon then murmured. Kite took a harder look at the boy's face, but there were no tears to be found.

"Yeah?"

"She had a baby with her."

"A baby?"

He didn't answer.

"Gon?"

"… Yeah," Gon said. "A baby."

The hitches of emptiness were getting bigger and more frequent, spreading into longer and longer periods of disassociation, like he was simply zoning out. Like he was someone full of holes.

"Go back to sleep," he whispered. Gon eventually did, head resting against his arm.

And what kept Kite awake that night was not his ever-present guilt or concern over Gon's well-being. It wasn't his meditation on the battle to come. It wasn't his fear or doubt or apprehension.

No, what kept him up was the realization that when he'd fucked Spinner, he hadn't used a condom.

Author's Note:

For those of you who don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the CA arc, the ant that Gon killed is called Hina. Just look up "HxH Hina" to get a picture of her; I would post a link, but this website likes to destroy any links to external sites... for some reason

(also, the flashback at the beginning of this chapter does have some relevance to the story, btw)