'No!' screamed Neon, hurling a gilt cosmetic mirror across the room. It struck the wall and sank to the carpet in glittering pieces. 'I want to go!'
Dalzollene cringed and cowered behind a table. He had just told her that she would not be attending the Underground Auction. The effect was… well, I am hiding too. First, there was the outrage. She had stormed up to Dalzollene and demanded change. See, now, that makes her sound like a strong upstanding woman, doesn't it? The historical truth was that she threw a tantrum that included foot stomping. When that did not work, Neon turned on me. She brought me down to eyelevel by grabbing my collar in both hands. 'Please do something, Sayuri!' she screamed. I shook my head. And she shook me.
Then, the hurricane. Everything within reach was flung across the room with smashing force. I ducked as a lampshade whizzed over my head like a discus. It cost, to my knowledge, a week's salary. The broken string of pearls on the carpet cost several month's. Not to mention the designer jewellery, handwoven scarves and leatherbound diaries her father bought her to compensate for actual parenting. The eye of the storm bawled and screamed bloody murder. I crossed my arms tightly to refrain from putting them over my ears. That would, of course, be unprofessional.
At last, Neon resigned herself to sobbing desolately like her lover had perished at sea. There was something about crying, no matter how undeserving the crier was or how ridiculous the reason, that made me want to cry too. I pinched the bridge of my nose and took a deep breath. Eventually, the sobs became sniffles, and the sniffles became silence.
Dalzollene called Light Nostrade to give a status report. He was sitting on the floor behind an overturned desk chair, having had to find new cover when that table was breached, sporting two angry lumps on his forehead. 'Yes, her tantrum – that is – her crying exhausted her and now she's asleep,' he said politely (also see: ass-kissingly).
The maids crept from their hiding places and began picking up the debris.
I looked out the window.
Nine hours 'til the Underground Auction. Eight and a half hours until Dalzollene and I were joined by Squalda to serve as her bodyguards (also see: jailers) during the ordeal. Ivlenkov, Baise and Tocino will attend the auction. The rear entrance was to be watched by Basho and Lissen because nobody really trusts anybody else despite the popular sentiment that the event was built on trust. The front entrance was to be overseen by Melody and… Kurapika.
Almost subconsciously, I bit the inside of my cheek. It had been chilly last night, but it was nothing compared to Kurapika's attitude towards me. I had stood on the balcony looking out at the sparkling city below. The wind picked up my hair, danced with it. Inside, Kurapika stood with his body facing the room door, as if he expected me to be gone any minute and someone needed to shut the door behind my cartoon cloud of dust.
'Who are you?'
I watched his face change. The already incredulous expression at once became guarded. His mouth thinned and his eyes grew cold. He marched down the room.
'Get out,' he said.
To be completely honest with you, I should have expected that, but I insisted, 'Tell me who you are first.'
Kurapika grumbled with irritation, arms crossed. 'Do you have any idea what time it is?'
'It's not that late,' I said protested.
He stepped closer to me. 'It is very late,' he said. His voice was soft.
Another step. His voice had become even softer. 'You have a lot of nerve, barging into my room at two in the morning.'
I backed up a step, and my heel hit the balcony railing. 'You weren't even asleep,' I said, sounding as if I was defending my case, which I was not – I was here to interrogate.
'Would you have gone away if I had been?' Kurapika asked.
'Sure, I'm not a monster,' I said, knowing full well that I would have beaten his door concave. Stuffing this down, I raised my face and said, cockily, 'You answered on the first knock. You couldn't have been expecting me, could you?'
Kurapika stepped closer. I could smell his scent on the air between us: soap, coffee and that soft smell of his skin. 'That is a fine question for a young woman to ask.' His voice was barely above a whisper.
I shrugged expectantly. He was too close. My eyes darted to the side, but the balcony was smaller than I thought. The railing was rusty in my hands.
Then, abruptly, as if remembering something, Kurapika turned back into the room. I followed him inside. His bed was hardly slept in, a half-empty glass of water stood on his bedside table. On the desk was a huge pile of papers. Was he going to show me something from there? It was with surprise that I found myself beside the door.
'Good night,' he said.
I opened my mouth to protest, but he was already pushing the small of my back out the door which he had opened without me noticing. I tripped into the hallway, dazed with swiftness.
But he had shown me something, just not something he had intended to show, for as the door slid shut, I glimpsed a case beside his water glass. A case composed of two round compartments. Contact lenses. My eyebrows shot up, but then the sliver closed and all I could see was polished wood. On the other side, the lock clicked shut.
~oOo~
On September 1st, we lost Ivlenkov, Baise and Tocino.
Dalzollene's phone rang abruptly only minutes after the auction started. I heard Kurapika's voice on the other end, but could not make out what he was saying. Whatever it was, it was urgent.
The next thing I knew, Dalzollene, Squalda and I were hustling into a car and screeching down the road. Squalda took the wheel. Dalzollene said, 'Hurry, they're headed for the Gordeau desert.' I relayed this to Basho's team which had caught up behind us. Two silver Mercedes squealed out of town.
The narrow road cut through rock and opened up onto a dusty, windswept disk of brown sand. It was sunken into the ground, as if a giant had stamped his seal of disapproval into it. We climbed out of the car and stood at a distance, watching. Dust blew in our faces. I shielded my nose and mouth with the back of my hand.
'It appears the enemy can use nen,' Kurapika murmured, binoculars pressed to his eyes. 'And he's ridiculously strong. The advance force has been obliterated.'
I narrowed my eyes, making out a man with a mane of grizzly hair laying waste to a mob of assorted mafia personnel in henchmen suits. One of them had a bazooka. It was snapped in two.
Dalzollene groaned in disbelief.
'He's tearing people like scraps of paper and we're supposed to capture him?' Squalda said in outrage, squinting through a telescope. 'I want no part of it!'
Basho and I agreed.
Dalzollene agreed too, but he said, 'We cannot abandon our mission.'
Squalda was about to throw hands when Melody said, 'I suddenly hear an additional heartbeat.'
My guard was up at once. We tensed like springs. There was a scuffling sound and when we turned around, a creature appeared to be tunnelling just below the earth. It stopped before us, and emerged. It was grotesque, a liquorice Majin Boo.
'I am Worm; a Shadow Beast,' it said. 'Which group do you belong to?'
It leered at us. Foul breath wafted over our faces; I refrained from wrinkling my nose.
'We are bodyguards for the Nostrade family,' Dalzollene answered formally.
In a matter of seconds, three more Shadow Beasts emerged before us. Rabid Dog. Leech. Porcupine stuttered as he introduced himself. All four were very confident as they told us to stand back and let them take care of the situation.
Worm was the first to die. From this distance, I saw the man with the fists get knocked around then dragged onto the ground. The next thing I knew, the ground beneath us was shaking and a tremendous roar broke the still air as if the earth was in pain. When the dust cleared, a gigantic crater marred the land like a sunken pudding cup.
As the dust cleared, I could see that the maned man's clothes had been singed by the force of his own fist. His back was to us. And the white shirt fell away in tatters.
A spider tattoo. The number eleven.
My heart squeezed.
So, I thought, you have come to me.
I had to remind myself to breathe. My breath came out in a gasp, and when I sucked in a fresh one, it sounded shaky, raw.
The remaining shadow beats fought… well, I wouldn't say 'valiantly'. It was disgusting, actually, from what I could see through Squalda's tiny telescope. Porcupine stopped the man's punch by piercing his fist with his body hair and hanging on. Rabid Dog tore off strips of his flesh with his teeth. Leech attached himself to the wound at his neck and appeared to drink. I cringed with disgust. The scene froze. Part of Leech's head disappeared, and the man was chewing.
My stomach heaved.
The man opened his mouth wide, and shot a projectile at Rabid dog. It was white. It pierced the hand he held up to defend himself, it entered his head between his eyes, brain, and left the back of his head. Only one remained. The man opened his mouth again. A terrible scream tore through the air. I dropped the telescope, clamping my hands to my ears. I couldn't hear it clatter to the ground. I couldn't see it, either, because I screwed my eyes shut and tried to block out with my whole body the horrible, almost supersonic sound of triumph.
At last, it ended.
I slowly peeled my hands away. In my ears remained a dull, persistent ringing.
'Kurapika, what are you doing?' Dalzollene said.
Still shaken, I glanced up. Kurapika was stalking towards the crater, his back rigidly straight.
'Shouldn't it be obvious?' he said, his voice oddly calm. 'I'm going to capture him.'
I shook my head rapidly as if to clear the cotton from my ears.
Squalda gasped. 'It's impossible! You've seen what he's capable of,' he said. 'You'll get yourself killed!'
'It's okay,' I broke in, my voice still sounding tinny, because it was my chance, after almost ten years, to take a stand. 'I'll go with him.'
Dalzollene started to pull us back, but Kurapika shook him off. There was a horrible tension bleeding into the space around him. He snarled, 'I don't care.'
'No, you should,' I said. 'Going into this head on is too dangerous.'
Kurapika glared at me. His pupils were the size of golf balls. 'This is none of your business.'
'None of my business?' I repeated.
I glared him down, suddenly fighting a surge of anger. 'And who are you, Blondie, to tell me what my business is?'
'You're getting in my way,' he snapped.
I sneered, 'And you have a death wish.'
'Death is nothing,' Kurapika minced.
His fists were clenched so tightly that they were bone white and trembling. When he next spoke, he almost shouted, 'The Spiders killed my clan!'
'Yeah?' I jeered. 'You're not special.'
Boiling over, I shoved past him and broke into a run for the tiny footpath which wound through rock around the desert circle. Then, suddenly, I was not stranded on rock but in a green meadow.
The sound of lilting, serene flutes filled our space, seeming to transform the bleak, putrid landscape into a lush meadow soft with falling sakura petals. I blinked, and the music faded away. A feeling of deep peace permeated and drove the tension from my skin.
'Wildflower,' said Melody, 'the perfect song to relax you.'
She looked around at the group, all looking like fish that had been wacked over the head with a mallet.
'Has everyone calmed down?' she said. 'Let's cool our heads and devise a plan together.'
Taking a deep breath, I stepped away from Kurapika and felt him lower his arms.
'Y-yeah,' I said.
Dalzollene said, gently business-like, 'What kind of abilities do the other members have? I bet they're all ridiculously strong.'
'Melody,' said Kurapika, walking over. 'Thank you, I've cooled down now. However, I must still capture him.'
He turned to the group.
'Leader,' he called to Dalzollene. 'Please let me go – I have a plan.'
~oOo~
The plan, as all plans do, relied on opportunity.
We waited until the Phantom Troupe had let their guard down, all whilst circling to a better vantage point, in order to strike.
When the strike stroke, it was Kurapika's doing. A thick nen chain snaked from the back of his hand, across the desert, and wrapped itself around and around the torso of the maned man who was sitting chatting with his fellow criminals. The chains glowed golden as they tightened taught. The man was reeled in through the air.
~oOo~
The captive talked a lot. Mostly dares.
'If you don't kill me now you'll regret it later.'
'Are you stupid?'
'This is a golden opportunity.'
'Stop wasting time and just –'
'Shut your mouth!' yelled Kurapika, turning his blazing eyes on our captive.
The car swerved violently. I cussed as I grabbed his steering wheel and rightened it. The light flicked from yellow to red but Kurapika showed no signs of slowing down. In fact, he was still facing the backseat. The chain tightened so much that the captive grunted in pain.
I unclicked my seatbelt and swung my lower body over the centre console, and stretched painstakingly to press down on the brake pedal. The car came to a stop inches away from rear-ending some poor Mini. I put it into park.
Kurapika was breathing heavily, pupils dilated beyond belief, knuckles turning white on the steering wheel.
Awkwardly, I maneuvered back into my own seat and shook my head. No, I thought, this cannot go on.
'I'm driving,' I said, opening the passenger-side door and hurrying around the hood. It was raining. I yanked opened Kurapika's door and gave him a shove over the centre console. Then, wiping the rain from my eyes, I put the car into drive as, already, someone behind us started honking.
The man chuckled from the backseat. 'It seems the lady wears the pants,' he jeered.
I ignored him.
'Floor it, Kurapika.' Dalzollene's voice crackled over the phone speaker. 'We have a tail!'
My teeth clenched together. I merged lanes without indicating, narrowly missing a lone taxi, and fed nen into the engine until it whined high-pitched through a set of red lights.
Kurapika turned around with gyo. 'There's a thread!' he exclaimed.
'In his left thigh,' Melody gasped.
Squalda, who was sitting on his left side, plucked it and threw it out the window with a disgusted grunt.
~oOo~
Hi, I'm sorry for the late update. And the short update. Thank you for reading this (even though it's not great), it makes me really happy. Thank you also for leaving comments, and follows, and views, I really appreciate it.
The next chapter may take some time coming because the academic year is gearing up again. I looked at my assessment schedule and it might be the one to finally do me in. Good luck to everyone still in school!
