"I hope you know what you're doing," Esu says from a point a few feet behind her and to the side.

It's the next day. Esu had agreed to help her find Illumi, but as of yet, he hasn't helped much. All he's given her are a few vague guesses based on his knowledge of Illumi's favorite haunts. Si had thus taken her research to a library computer and the Hunter website.

Si doesn't look up from the computer, eyes flicking between walls of text and fingers skimming across keys. "Fuck you."

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees him start. The abrupt viciousness of her tone must've caught him off-guard. Understandable; it caught her off-guard, too. She doesn't quite know what it is with Esu, but being around him is unsettling, confusing, nerve-wracking, and it makes her angry for reasons she can't fathom.

"The cat's got claws, hasn't she?" Esu remarks. "Relax; I'm not questioning your skills. Far from it, in fact. You've shown yourself quite capable."

For once, he doesn't sound creepy for making the observations, just thoughtful. It's unusual enough that Si glances away from the screen to look at him. His eyes, like always, startle her on sight. She can't shake the feeling that there's something familiar about them-

Ow.

She looks back to the screen. Gold eyes like Esu's are extraordinarily rare. She's only ever seen one other person with eyes like that-

Ow.

"You know," she starts, not really wanting to talk to Esu but not wanting to continue her train of thought either, "for someone who's supposedly such good friends with Illumi, shouldn't you have a better idea of his whereabouts?"

"I wouldn't say we're friends, really. Could wild beasts be called friends, or anything more than the loosest of allies? We have a few common interests. That's all."

Si rolls her eyes and clicks on a promising-looking link. She scans the text for a few seconds, concentrating on the information before remembering to reply. "Why the weird-ass metaphors? Wild beasts? Illumi's hardly a beast. A robot, more like. Utterly soulless."

She can sense Esu's gaze burning into her. Surprisingly, it doesn't feel hostile, just curious. Even more surprisingly, it doesn't make her wary.

"A robot? Hm...I must disagree. Illumi has a few things he cares for, even to the point of interfering with my toys."

"Chill out with calling Gon a toy," Si snaps. She turns her head from the screen to glare at him. "He's a child. He has toys. Or he should, anyway." Gon probably hadn't played with toys in years.

Esu laughs, the sound soft and sensual. "Oh, but Si darling, I wasn't simply speaking of Gon. I was talking about you."

Si's face heats up against her will. She scoffs anyway. "Because calling me a toy is so much better."

She senses Esu moving closer; her Ren flares in warning. Esu stops moving and gives an amused huff. "You're just the same as you've always been, aren't you?"

Her hands pause, hovering over the keyboard. "What?"

Esu's aura does something strange, something Si only senses due to her Specialist powers. It contracts, mellows, then flickers back to its usual aggression and sadistic amusement. "We've known each other for almost a year now, haven't we? You've grown immensely more powerful just in these few months."

He savors the last sentence on his tongue and it comes out filthy. Si tries her best to ignore it.

"But," he continues, "it seems that you have not changed. Strange, really. Being thrust into this world of Nen and power often does strange things to one's psyche. So far, however, you seem to have been spared from that."

There's something melancholy in his tone, almost sad. It's the first time she's heard anything approaching vulnerability from him. Si goes to respond, then stops. She still hasn't found Illumi, and finding him is far more important than whatever strange mood Esu's in. She refocuses her attention on her computer and gets back to work.

A few minutes later, as Si's waiting on a download, she decides to dig a little. Esu's a creep, sure, but there's no denying he's powerful and intelligent, both things Si respects. She's curious, more than anything, about exactly what Esu was referring to.

"You think Nen takes people's sanity?"

Speaking after such a long silence must've surprised Esu, but his aura gives no sign of it. "Not necessarily. Nen is simply an expression of its user's life force; enhancing and refining one's Nen connects one more to one's own self. It purifies the soul, allowing you to become your undiluted self. If that self is fundamentally stable, then it will remain that way. But if not, that instability will become insanity."

"You've thought about this more than I was expecting."

"Continually underestimating your opponents, dear Si, is bound to get you killed. Do try to stop; there's nothing I hate more than an easy win."

The download had finished while they were talking. Si turns back to the screen. "In terms of what personality traits your journey through Nen magnified, I'd say it's definitely the crazy ones."

"I won't deny that, but you can't deny you find them fascinating, either."

Si hasn't gotten such a clear sense on when to stop a conversation possibly ever. She hurriedly clicks through a few links. "I found where Illumi is!"

There's a short silence. She gets the impression Esu's annoyed. Let him be - he's the one who couldn't keep his mouth shut.

Indeed, he lets out a long-suffering sigh. "And where, exactly, do you think he is?"

She turns to glare at him. "I don't think anything. I know. I'm leaving to go there now, so either you can sit back here and be bored out of your mind without any potential murder victims to harass, or - actually, I think I'd prefer that."

She stands up, slinging her cross-body bag over her shoulder. Not the best thing to be taking to a fight, but it's not like she can just leave her phone, wallet, and ID laying around in a public place. Leaving it with Esu sounds like an even worse idea, and she checked out of her hotel room this morning.

"Not so fast." Esu stands smoothly - so much more smoothly than she, whose motion was much more akin to a jerk. "I have to protect my investment, after all."

"I am the farthest thing from a Fortune 500 stock you're ever going to lay eyes on."

He raises an eyebrow in amusement. "I never said you were a good investment."

Si's head gives an excruciating jolt and she thinks he thinks he's so funny, but his sense of humor's the same as it was in high school-

Why on earth would she think that?

One specific spot on the top of her skull is boring into her brain like a drill; she tries to think past it but can't. The pain is agonizing, worse than any training session, worse than any fight. Si tries and tries and gives up within the span of several seconds.

She looks back at Esu. He's closer than she remembers, close enough he could take one step and reach out and snap her neck. His eyes aren't pinched in the narrow, calculating gaze she's used to. They're focused and intense, and if it had been ten years ago, she would've said they were concerned.

Her left calf twinges as she steps backwards. She'd pulled it sometime several days ago when they were running from the Phantom Troupe and it's still not healed. Distractedly, she hopes it won't be a problem against Illumi. She can't risk letting it heal and potentially losing Illumi's trail.

Esu's eyes drift down to that damnable calf. How he'd figured out the problem from one step, she has no idea. "Do you not know how to heal using Nen?"

"Of course I do," Si says, annoyed. "I had an entire Hatsu for it."

"A Hatsu dedicated to healing is a waste of memory. You can heal through your basic techniques." Esu's mouth flattens into a straight line. "You do know your basic techniques, yes?"

"I'm not an imbecile," she snaps. "Of course I know my- wait. You're just trying to get information out of me for our future duel, aren't you?"

Esu's mouth curves up. "Perhaps. But be certain of this: I wish for you to walk out of your fight with Illumi Zoldyck, ill-fated as it may be, alive. He is not an opponent with whom you have room for error. Any aid I give you now is only given in light of that."

She rolls her eyes. "Dude, you've been pretty clear about your desire to murder me. I think I've gotten it by now."

"I don't wish for your death, Si." He enunciates the words so clearly and emphatically that it's a bit weird. Then his tongue flicks out and runs along his bottom lip. "I only wish for a fight...one which I'm certain will, with you, be exquisite."

"Right." Her arms are crossed over her chest; she uncrosses one and rubs her shoulder. "Could you get on with the whole 'how to heal with Nen' tutorial, please?"

"Well, since you asked so nicely..."

Y/N gives Satoshi an incredulous stare. "Are you fucking kidding me."

He stays put. "You said you'd do whatever it takes."

"But not-!"

She stops. Her whisper had gotten too loud; their captors are looking over their way. She curses internally as one of them breaks off from the group and starts towards them. "Is there a problem?"

Satoshi gives her a look. "Now or never," he mutters, and takes off his glasses.

Y/N braces herself for what will probably be the most humiliating thing she's ever done in her life, and starts wailing.

That manages to stop the man in his tracks. His gun wavers uselessly at his side and he just stares at her.

Y/N keeps going. She takes a few steps towards her parents' destroyed car before sinking down to the ground in a fit of five-year-old-tantrum-worthy sobs. "I-I can't take this! I-I'm gonna d-d-d, I'm g-gonna d-d-die!"

She breaks down into more tears. As stressed as she is, they aren't even fake.

"Woah, hey! No one said anything about dying!" The man is panicking, clearly never having had to deal with a crying girl in his life. "Hey, Ichika! Get over here!"

The one female in the entire group rolls her eyes but puts down her rifle and starts over. The rest of them look like they'd like to be anywhere but here. Y/N counts it as a victory; at least they aren't trying to guard Satoshi. He's gone completely unnoticed in the commotion.

"N-No!" she shrieks. She starts crawling backwards towards the car. "Get away from me! I hate you! I hate all of you! You just w-want me, you just want-!"

The male captor grabs her, trying to subdue her. She thrashes around, kicking and screaming and biting. Ichika steps in to help. Y/N hears the rest of them coming to do the same.

Perfect.

She manages to look around the captors' figures long enough to see Satoshi bent over the stream of fuel dribbling along the ground. He's angling his glasses back and forth in the sunlight, face tense in concentration.

A fist catches her in the head. She cries out. She won't be able to struggle for much longer.

Satoshi looks up at the cry, eyes wide. He's just a kid - as brave as he'd tried to be for her, he's wholly unused to this. The two of them make eye contact.

One guard grabs her hair, another her hands. A third puts her in a chokehold and starts to slowly suffocate her. She shrieks and screams and cries, but it's no use. Her vision starts to go black.

There's a sparking sound.

With the last vestiges of consciousness, she looks at Satoshi.

He mouths two words at her. Good luck.

Then the world is lost in flames.

The world is soft and warm and fuzzy. In her head is that muzzy feeling that comes after a late night party and a too-early morning. There's a weight to her bones, and a comforting drowsiness over her consciousness. There's a warm coziness around her for a while - an immeasurable length of time - and she might have drifted off once more to sweet nothingness were it not for one thing.

Beep. Beep. Beep.

At first it is so faint she barely notices it. But once known, her brain latches onto it until it is all she can focus on: a high, shrill, continuous noise. As her mind wakes in stages, at first all she can muster is a vague sense of annoyance. Then half a thought: "What?" Then, a stage before full consciousness: "Can someone fucking turn that off?"

Her mind surfaces at last, firmly above the sea of subconsciousness. Sensations trickle in as gradually as the rest of the process had gone, yet more confusing. They don't catalogue themselves neatly; instead they fly in in a confusing swarm.

Something warm, yet flimsy, like a thick sheet instead of a blanket, covers her from neck to toe; in the air drifts the sharp, stinging smell of disinfectant; and that infernal beeping has only grown louder, quicker, more prominent. Footsteps echo nearby, striding past and fading. No one stops near her, wherever she happens to be.

Although, now that she's awake, she has a pretty good idea where she is.

She opens her eyes - wrenches them open, rather, as they're crusty with sleep and weighted down just like her bones. Her first glance confirms her guess: cheerful, baby-blue walls plastered with cheesy posters about doctors and patients contrasting with the plain, metallic IV stand and heart monitor. The door is half-open, allowing a glance out into a hallway plastered in that same blue.

A flicker of movement causes her to take her eyes off the door and look to her left. She blinks, scrubs at her eyes with a hand that doesn't hurt but ribs that really do, and blinks again.

"Hisoka?"

The boy in question looks up from the book he'd been reading, longs limbs splayed in the uncomfortable-looking hospital chair. He sets the book down on the stand next to the bed. His hair is mussed and his clothes are wrinkled.

"Y/N," he says, and tries for his usual smirk but doesn't quite make it. "Took you long enough to wake up."

She goes for a shrug and winces. "Ow. Before you keep insulting me, would you mind telling me what's wrong with me?"

"Do you not remember?"

"And for that matter," she continues, ignoring the question, "why are you here? Where are my parents? Hell, what hospital even in this?" she pauses, then her eyes grow wide. "Oh my God, and what day is it!? I have a test on Friday!"

Hisoka winces a little. "Had. It's Saturday."

She gapes. Then groans. "Oh my God I'm going to fail Chinese. And history! I have a five page paper due in history on Monday and I've barely finished the outline, fuck-"

She cuts off, because Hisoka is staring at her, looking both amused and incredulous. "What?"

"You're in a hospital," he says, quite obviously, "and you're worried about summer school?"

"I'm a straight A student!"

"I looked at your grades last week and I saw a B."

"I'm allowed to have an off semester!"

"It's summer, that's not even a normal semester."

"All the more reason for it to be an off one! You aren't even taking summer classes!"

"I have better things to do with my time," Hisoka says, looking more and more done every second.

A flash of memory comes just in time for her to pointedly say, "Oh, like getting caught by psychos who wanted to use me and your brother as hostages?"

Hisoka visibly flinches and she feels a stir of satisfaction. For once, she's caught him off-guard. "Look, that wasn't - that was not intentional."

"You put me and your brother in danger! I had to destroy my parents' car! Hisoka, at least tell me there was a good reason for all of this."

Hisoka's lips pinch and he shifts in the chair. "I didn't do anything wrong, if that's what you're asking."

"What does wrong mean?" she presses. "Wrong as in you didn't kill anybody? Or steal anything? Wrong as in-"

"They were going to hurt him."

Hisoka's tone is low and serious. Y/N snaps her mouth shut and forces every bit of her bleary-eyed, doped-up-on-pain-meds concentration to focus on him. He's so rarely serious, so rarely honest, that she knows this is important.

"It was..." Hisoka sighs and closes his eyes for a long moment. He opens them again and looks at her. They're bloodshot. A scab curves around his right eye and runs up his forehead, losing itself in his hair. "You know I work at a circus."

Yes. For whatever reason, Hisoka and Satoshi's parents were out of the picture. From what Hisoka and Satoshi had implied, Y/N had gathered that they'd dropped their two children off at an orphanage when Satoshi was just a baby and Hisoka not much older. Hisoka had to work to pay the bills. "What's that have to do with those guys?"

"Some of them aren't the nicest," Hisoka says guardedly.

She makes a wild deductive leap. "Those were your coworkers!?"

When he doesn't immediately respond, she knows she's right. "What the fuck? What kind of messed up circus do you work at?"

"One that pays the bills," Hisoka snaps. "I knew it was dangerous when I agreed to work there, but I need the money. Satoshi..."

Satoshi goes to private school, she remembers. Hisoka had once said that he was too smart to go to public school. Y/N had been offended at that, just a bit, because he was definitely implying that she wasn't very smart. But Hisoka was willing to work in such a dangerous environment just for his brother's education.

"Hisoka," she says. She tries to be soft, gentle, but her voice is still hoarse. She fumbles for the water cup by her bedside and sips at it. "Hisoka, that's not right."

What she'd meant was that no seventeen-year-old boy should be putting his life at risk for the education of his little brother, but Hisoka bristles. "You want to know what's not right? That they'd hurt children."

"What?"

Hisoka clenches his jaw and looks up at the ceiling. "There's another kid who works there - not part of my act, but I know him well enough. He's a contortionist, a fucking good one too, especially for a boy. Male contortionists are pretty rare. He draws attention, even among the other workers. Bad attention. Normally I wouldn't care - if he can't protect himself, he deserves it, you know?"

"No, I don't know," Y/N interrupts harshly. "If people get hurt, they don't deserve it simply because they were vulnerable enough to be hurt, what the fuck, Hisoka?"

He blinks at her, surprised. "Well, that's a new perspective. Intriguing...just like everything else about you."

She flushes, covering her cheeks when he adds a wink. His flirting hasn't stopped - if anything it's only grown worse - and although Y/N doesn't encourage it, she's starting to discourage it less. It's not so much that she's being worn down by his persistence as that she's starting to believe it's simply part of his personality.

"Continue, please."

"Oh? Well, I also find the care you hold for your parents, especially your sick mother, fascinating. Your steadfast determination to be good at what you do and your persistence is similarly interesting; something I can respect, definitely. Not to mention-"

"Not with that!" she says in a voice that's too high-pitched. "With your story! About the kid!"

Hisoka's smirking again, that smug smirk she's all-too accustomed too and very annoyed by. And maybe a little attracted to, but physical attraction is hardly the same thing as emotional attraction, so Y/N's not too bothered by the idea.

"And your blushing is also quite...intriguing."

"Hisoka, I will get out of this bed and beat you up myself if you don't-"

He laughs, causing her words to fade into silence. He has a beautiful laugh. "Alright, calm down. Where was I? Oh, yes. Normally I wouldn't care about someone else getting beat up, but...they weren't planning on just beating him up."

There are two ways this story could be going. She doesn't like either of them.

"Killing's one thing," he says flippantly. "The way I was raised, if you aren't strong enough to survive, it's your fault when you die. I wouldn't say I'd be happy seeing a kid that young get killed - I'd probably have roughed them up a bit for it, just as a warning - but they wanted to..."

Revulsion crosses his face. It is the first time she's ever seen him disgusted by something on a moral level.

"Well, you don't need the details," he says after a few seconds. "I wasn't going to let them do that, especially not to a child. I told one of my friends at the circus about it and enlisted his help. We were going to ambush them when they met up, but my "friend" sold me out. I got ambushed instead."

Hisoka glares at his hands. The nails are jagged, she realizes suddenly, like he'd clawed at someone with them. "They threatened to do to Satoshi what they'd wanted to do to Ayase. Then they beat me up so I wouldn't be able to follow them. That's when I called you."

"Holy shit," she breathes out. "Are you okay? Did you get treated? Please at least tell me you got checked out."

He looks at her quickly, like she'd said something unexpected. "No, I've dealt with this stuff enough to treat myself. I'm fine now."

She's not convinced, but Hisoka's stubborn as hell, and his sheer unaffectedness bothers her more than his actual injuries, existent or nonexistent as they might be. "Hisoka, that's what they did was awful. I'm so sorry."

He looks at her quickly, quirks his head a bit and searches her expression. "It...was, I suppose. Still, it was unavoidable given how weak I am. It's more of a wake-up call to me; I need to become stronger so that they can't-"

"No." Y/N shakes her head slowly. The drugs are starting to tug at her system, trying to pull her under again. She hasn't been awake much longer than fifteen minutes; whatever happened to her must've been pretty hard on her body.

"No?"

"No, don't - don't act like this was your fault."

"Of course it wasn't my fault." Hisoka looks at her, half confused, half contemptuous. "I just said it was the fault of those child-molesting dicks. If I'd been stronger, though, this whole thing could've been avoided, so I need to get stronger to avoid similar situations in the future."

What he says isn't wrong, exactly, but what he'd said originally rubs her the wrong way. She thinks for a moment, trying to discern what it was. "This sort of thing isn't supposed to happen, Hisoka. It's - those men are horrible people. That was an awful thing they did because it's not a normal thing. If bad things like that were a normal occurrence, like you're implying, then they wouldn't be called bad. They'd just be called normal."

"They're normal enough for me," Hisoka says flatly. "Which is why I didn't think of it as bad until you said so."

"But it shouldn't be."

"And why not?" He moves closer, close enough she can make out faint scabs crisscrossing his cheekbones and jaw. "Why shouldn't I think of them as normal, when these things you call bad are what is normal to me?"

"Because your perspective does not define morality for the entirety of existence!" Y/N says sharply, then winces and clutches at her head. "Owww...but my point still stands! How self-centered are you, to think that your singular outlook on life should mean anything in comparison with the whole world?"

"I could ask the same of you," Hisoka says. "Telling me my experiences are bad is the same as me saying they are average."

That shuts her up for a bit, trying to think of how to respond to that. He does have a point. Finally, she says, "But there is a difference. What I'm saying is that something that is bad should be called bad no matter who experiences it. Raping a child is bad no matter the rapist, no matter the child, no matter the witnesses. What if the-" she blanches "-what if, for the child, that was normal to them? Would that mean that it wasn't bad to rape them then?"

"I would rather think that the child must be weak, to have that happen to them repeatedly," Hisoka says blandly. "And in order for it to not happen again, they must get stronger."

She stares at him. How can this be the same guy who treats Satoshi with such care, who works his ass off for his brother, who apparently risked his life for another?

Probably seeing her look, Hisoka amends sincerely, "I do concede the point, though. I would still think it horrific."

"At least you're not entirely amoral," she mutters, to Hisoka's laughter.

"We should have these discussions more often," he says after a beat. She looks up and decides she does not like the look in his eyes. "I do find the fire in your eyes quite compelling."

She shoves at him, wishing she wasn't so easily flustered. "Shut up! I don't want you changing your mind just because you- because of that anyway!"

The moment she sees his smirk she knows she fucked up. "Because of that, you say? What's that?"

"Your- your stupid flirting thing!"

He raises his eyebrows, still smirking, and Y/N feels her doom approaching. "My what?"

"You know what! You insist on flirting with me even after I told you to stop making my mom think we were a couple. Actually..." she reels back, eyes wide. "That's why they left you alone with me here, didn't they?"

He grins. "Maybe."

"You've got to stop that, Hisoka." She groans and runs her fingers through her hair.

"I do? Why?"

"Because we're not a couple, you idiot! I don't like lying!"

He tilts his head, and she really wants to slap the smug look off his face. "I don't believe you've ever lied, darling."

"You have!"

"Have I?" He considers. "I suppose I have, but not in what you think. In any case, we have kissed. I'd say that makes us something, does it not?"

She freezes. It's been weeks since the kiss and neither of them had mentioned it again other than in fleeting implications. Sometimes she catches Hisoka staring at her in a way that should make her uncomfortable but only electrifies her blood. She tries to forget it each time it happens and never succeeds.

"You know how I feel about dating in high school," she says weakly. "And I'm not dating someone I don't like."

"Don't like?" rather than the theatrical hysterics she'd expected, Hisoka's calm, a wisp of a smirk still on his stupid face. Does he ever stop smiling? "That's not what I got from that moment."

"That does not mean I actually want to date you," she grumbles. "You know I'm not interested in short-term relationships."

He watches her for a long few seconds. She senses he's calculating something; she just doesn't know what.

Finally, he speaks. "What makes you think it would only be short-term?"

One healed calf and several minutes later, the two of them are running side-by-side (reluctantly, on Si's part) to where Si's intel told her Illumi would be. She had, after some prodding on Esu's part, told him where they were going. As she runs, she wonders if she's going to regret it later.

Probably.

"You do have a plan for this, yes?"

Si doesn't bother glaring at him, hoping her tone will do the glaring for her. "Why do you keep questioning me? I'm not stupid."

"Like I've said before, I am far from questioning your skills, dearest Si-"

"Stop calling me that."

"-I simply am interested in ensuring my favorite toy remains in one piece. There's little fun in playing with broken things."

"I'm your favorite now?" Si asks dryly. "Wow, thanks."

Esu ignores that. They keep running, leaping over the rooftops. Si reaches out with her En to see if she can sense Illumi nearby. She can't, so they keep moving.

"I'm surprise you haven't asked why I'm helping you yet," Esu comments a few minutes later. "As cautious as you are, I would've thought you'd want to know."

Si stops, looking around. They're in a deserted looking section of Yorknew City now - the perfect place for a fight. Rows of abandoned houses in varying states of repair dominate the view. There's still no Illumi to be sensed, which is odd because her intel had said otherwise.

Si opens her mouth, then shuts it. She is hardly about to tell him the truth: that despite her love for Gon and the rest of her friends, she's still willing to do whatever it takes to bring Illumi down. Whatever Esu wants, whatever his motive, it doesn't matter as long as Illumi is brought to justice. She yearns for it, for things to be made right once more. Her friends can never be brought back, but their murderer can be silenced forever.

Does that make her a hypocrite? She'd told Kurapika off for doing much the same thing. But she is planning to help Gon and Killua once she is done with Illumi; it isn't like she's planning to throw her life away. As much as Esu is a creep, she's fairly confident of his interest in keeping her alive.

"I figured it would be something along the lines of 'I need to keep my toy safe.'"

Esu laughs lowly. "And did you factor in that Illumi and I are allies, and perhaps I told him exactly what you're doing and exactly where you'd be?"

Si stills. Turns. Looks at him.

"Don't act so surprised. I've never pretended to be your ally, much less your friend."

Si can't think properly. She doesn't know why his betrayal - which in hindsight seems obvious - blindsided her. She haltingly manages, "I thought favors meant something to you."

Esu's aura flickers and something in his jaw ticks. He recovers a moment later with a light laugh. "Really, Si, where do you get these ideas? You're a toy, nothing else; although I don't like sharing, I can make exceptions on occasion."

Now Si can sense it, a new aura heading their way. It's faint enough that if she hadn't had her Specialist Nen senses, she'd never have noticed it. She might not have anyway, if Esu hadn't made her wary enough to actively search for Illumi's Nen.

She wracks her brain, tries to make sense of it. If he wanted to help Illumi, shouldn't he have waited to tell her until after Illumi had ambushed her? Or better yet, shouldn't he have just knocked her out or otherwise incapacitated her?

Then again, Esu is someone who likes a good fight. Maybe he thought it wouldn't be sporting of him.

But then, why go to the trouble of teaching her how to heal herself?

"You aren't making sense," Si says bluntly.

Esu draws out his cards. They fwoosh between his fingers. "Shouldn't you be getting ready to do whatever it is you want to do to him? I'm certain you can tell he's close."

She says nothing, trying to puzzle it out. When she looks back at Esu, he has one eye slitted open, watching her. As soon as they make eye contact, he looks away again.

"Really, now. I'd much prefer not having to lose my precious things to such inane things as carelessness and a lack of attention on your part. You do realize I won't be helping you now."

Implying he'd been helping her before. Still, Si senses he's being honest - or as honest as Esu ever gets - when he says he won't be helping her fight Illumi. That's fine; she wouldn't have accepted his help anyway.

"So why are you still here, then? You've done your part. Unless..." A sudden thought occurs to her; her heart thuds. "Surely Illumi's not such a coward as to ask you to fight me, too?"

To her great relief, Esu only scoffs. "I have no interest in cheap victories. No, when we fight, we will be alone."

Si takes note of the surety with which he speaks. Clearly, he doesn't expect Illumi to kill her. Whether that's because he believes her capable of winning the fight or because he believes Illumi will spare her, she has no clue.

Not that it matters. Si focuses on her En once more; Illumi's getting close. She straightens and pulls in her aura. Esu can think whatever he wants. What Si knows for certain is that she won't lose. Not this time.

A tall figure lands on the roof of the building next to the one she and Esu are standing on. "Y/N. It seems you remember me."

Si meets the cold, emotionless gaze of the man she hates more than anything. "Illumi."

A/N: I'm pretty sure there's a typo in here somewhere just because there are ALWAYS typos I miss while editing, so if y'all see one, please tell me! Any misspellings and punctuation, typographical, or grammatical errors don't belong in here, so if something looks wrong to you, speak up! I know my punctuation and grammar aren't perfect and I'm always looking to improve. This goes for any of my chapters; please, please, tell me if there's a mistake or an improvement to be made.

I hope you all enjoyed!
(p.s. I almost posted this with a typo in the note itself and honestly almost kept it just for the sheer irony)