I just have enough time to slide this chapter in really quickly. I should be studying right now but... well, who needs a better life anyway? Much love!

Chapter 25

I woke up thinking about death. My death or Ichihiro's - I wasn't exactly sure which.

You're awake. I blinked, morning light seeping past the curtains, creating a hazy sort of glaze to the room. It was the nicest place I'd ever been - all fancy oak and clean carpets. My brothers would have had a field day.

Sharp hot pain lanced through my skull, my throat tightening at the thought - the image of them grinning. Blinking back hot, unforgiving tears, I rolled to the side, meeting Minoru's snuffling nose as he drew a bit closer on the bed. It was hard for me to think about how much had changed - how much had evaporated within the span of a day. Those black, beady eyes of his bore into me, taking in the frankly brutalized cast of my body. I must have looked like a nightmare - I felt like one. My face felt battered, raw, and scraped to hell. It was nearly impossible to draw in a single breath without feeling like tiny needles had been in the air. My legs were limp - a dead weight underneath the fancy covers.

The creepy clown has been in and out since his match ended, Minoru whispered to me, his eyes moving over every inch of my body again and again. Even laying beside him, I knew that he had been like this the whole time I had been out. Odd. My heart gave another uncomfortable twist, trying desperately to fight against the fact that the creature beside me wasn't real - was more parasite than companion. And how that didn't seem to entirely matter anymore in the grand scheme of things. They're saying that you'll need at least a full two months to fully recover.

I didn't want to say what I was thinking: I need to kill Ichihiro before I can start that nice, little vacation.

Instead, I glanced away, staring up at the lacy frills that adorned my four-poster bed. Where am I?

Just another wing of the arena from the exams, Minoru replied, a bit too eagerly. There was a glimmer of hope in his eyes - something akin to longing but with a particularly sharp edge of desperation. His giant head tipped to the side, his muzzle snuffing at my hair. They came in a bit ago to check on you… And give you your hunter's license.

His head tipped hesitantly toward a small black binder resting just beside my pillow. Biting down on my urge to cry, I turned and flipped it open, my body screaming in protest. My breath was still choppy, the bandages around my ribs doing little more than causing me more pain. A popped lung back home meant that you were better to be left in the gutters but apparently here, in this world, it was nothing more than an inconvenience.

It was little more than a plastic card, two Xs connected with a large swath of red coloring the space between them. A jumble of lines and dots clustered in a column at the bottom. I threw it to the side in disgust, watching it flutter down to the clean carpet floor.

Minoru scooted a bit closer, his voice hesitantly quiet. Want me to read it to you?

The very thought made me bitter, my own weaknesses raw and glaring in the light shining through from the small cracks in the curtained-off windows. I had never particularly thought of my illiteracy as a weakness. With my brothers, it was the norm. Sure Amori and Imori could read but they were the oldest. Umori and I couldn't. That had always been fine. I gulped, heat prickling the backs of my eyes. It had always been fine because we had always been together. You couldn't hurt us if we just stayed together because we stuck up for each other. Whatever weakness one of us had, the others would fill.

It's okay to miss them, Minoru whispered. I didn't want to talk about it. I rolled, grunting as searing pain shot up my side, pressing the air from my lungs. It was harder to breathe sitting upright. We don't know for sure if all of them-

They wouldn't have left each other, I cut him off, fingers shaking around the nightstand as I forced myself to my feet. The room blurred for a moment before I swallowed and forced whatever emotions I had down. I couldn't cry now. The only way that scum got his hands on Amori's hat was going through all three of them.

Minoru's silence was heavy, his eyes even heavier as they followed my slow, painful progress around the room to where my tank top and hoodie rested neatly on a chair. They had cleaned the blood and gore from both, leaving me in my shorts and socks, bandages, tightening my chest, acting like a wrap to keep my torso in one piece. I must have looked like a carcass after they pulled me from that arena.

Where are you going?

I tossed the torn scraps of my tank top to the side, fighting back a scream as I forced my arms up and into the hoodie. My left side was a playground of torn skin and barely closed tendons. I could feel the stitches from the dagger wounds yanking at every moment, fighting with me to keep my skin in place. My bones were barely together, grotesque purples and blues mixed with the rawer masses of red along my cracked ribs. Every movement begged for a reprieve.

Minoru sat up in bed, rolling back to his haunches as he eyed me warily. The doctor said two months.

I didn't bother dignifying that with a response, my eyes searching the room for my converse. And finding nothing. I ducked, grunting as I tried to get a better view of the rest of the room. Nothing. My teeth gnashed together, my face throbbing against the small movement. I could tell that it was swollen on the side that Ichihiro had punched me earlier. I would need to get an ice pack later to help with that.

Where are my shoes?

Minoru shifted uncomfortable, looking sullen. They took them with the rest of your clothes to get clean. His eyes drifted to meet mine, imploring. You need to rest.

I don't have time for that. I shook my head, dragging myself to the door and wincing as my fingers curled around the handle. They were rebandaged and I could tell that the skin there had been sewn up but my fingers looked like sausages beneath the gauze, enflamed and overused. It would take a while for them to be at 100%. Where are they?

Sweat was starting to collect at my nape, dripping down my back as the pain in my side and lunges intensified. I needed to move but my body was physically rebelling. Not that that mattered. I gritted out a curse, leaning heavily on the hallway wall as I pushed myself to take a step at a time.

Something cool and wet pressed at my arm, nudging followed by the feeling of fur. Come on, Minoru whispered, craning down so that he could be low enough to help me onto his back. I didn't even think about rejecting the offer, sinking into the downy fur of his back in a heap of exhaustion and shame. You don't even know where they are.

Beneath me, the packed muscles of Minoru moved in slow, deliberate steps, his gait earth-eating. Not for the first time, I tried to digest the fact that he wasn't real. That he had been born from whatever hellish pact my mother had created. Nausea tightened my muscles. That he was feeding off of me.

But maybe...maybe I had forgotten the other part of that. Because in this twisted way he was also bound to me. His whole world existed around me with no desire or motive other than the ones I gave him. How sad was that? How...how could he feel so real, so alive beneath me and yet… and yet be nothing but a shell filled with whatever scraps I gave him?

Thank you. I said it before I could think, the words spoken silently but I could feel them ripple through him like a wave cresting the shore. I wasn't entirely sure what I was thanking him for - maybe for the knowledge that he would always remain with me. That when I wasted away, he would as well.

He was a monster but I had started to think that maybe I was too.

I wanted… His ears flattened, a breath shuttering out of him as we took a turn to walk through an open courtyard. I wanted to tell you. So many times. I wanted to… But you...you wanted to believe that she had died in her sleep. And I knew that if you found out...you would hate me. The sun was unforgiving, staring down at me from between the arms of the trees like a vengeful lover. I wilted under it's insistence, turning my face into Minrou's neck as he took another shuttering breath. I couldn't do anything about any of it. I wanted to tell you but I didn't want to. I wanted to protect you but by protecting you I was letting you live in something that wasn't real. I wanted you to forget because if you forgot then I thought maybe I might as well.

I shut my eyes, emotions ebbing in flowing beneath my skin with an urgency that reminded me of crying babes and drowning sailors. I wanted to be mad. I wanted to rage and scream and make him hurt and beg for forgiveness… But maybe that was all an illusion. The one I really wanted to decimate was already gone.

Minoru and I had been twisted up into this foul story, bound together by blood and death. He was just as much a victim as I was.

Do you remember it? I asked instead, feeling suddenly tired. The night you were...created? Do you remember it?

There was a long, harsh pause. One filled with too many answers to be called anything but a response to my questions. I remember you. My first memory is always of you.

A hot shiver of understanding pulsed through me. My first memory was of my mother. Bile stung my throat. Mother, sister, prey and predator - they were all tangled up between us, our relationship so wretched and twisted that we had become everything to the other. That was what my mother had created when she started this - that's what she had left me to.

We're here. I forced myself up, pushing away the cluster of horrid accusations in my head. Surprisingly enough, the set of double doors were already pushed open, the purple haired examiner from our first trial standing just inside, his eyes only slightly wide with alarm as they took in my appearance. Just past his shoulder, I could see a series of long, wooden desks, all descending further into the room.

"Miss Amori." His voice was pleasant, neither challenging nor coddling. "You're supposed to be in bed-"

"I know," I said simply, gritting back a flurry of swear words as I slid from Minoru's back, his worried gaze following me. I needed to walk in on my own two feet if the other contestants were still in there. Sure, I had gotten my hunter's license but what did that mean besides an invitation into a bigger shark tank? The exams were an initiation - what came next was sure to be a different type of grueling.

I took one last breath, squeezing my eyes shut as my body throbbed. God, I just wanted to go to sleep again. My hands clenched, sending another thick jet of pain up my arms. I needed to find where Ichihiro had gone. His injuries were as severe as my own - worse even. He should be in one of these rooms. It took every bit of steel I had to straighten my spine and walk into that room, my whole body going clammy from even that small act.

Inside the room, the air was tense, heavy in the way that arguments seemed to be. I eyed the twelve sets of eyes that swiveled to meet mine with varying degrees of shock. At the very base of the stairs, green-bean has his arm wrapped up in a cast, his other hand squeezing down on a long-haired man's forearm. My eyes narrowed, vaguely recognizing the outfit but not at all remembering the face. My gaze jumped from face to face for a moment, taking in the fact that two of the green-bean's friends had made it and that a boy in purple and the monk as well.

Honey eyes trapped me, a silent moment of recognition zinging between us as he tipped back in his chair, his shoulders rolling invitingly. Hisoka wasn't smiling, I noticed. No, he eyes were running over me with a rapidness and tenseness that...was confusing. My jaw hardened as his gaze zeroed in on where I was leaning heavily against one of the tables, my hip digging into the wooden side like an anchor at the ocean's depth.

I tore my eyes away, refusing to get captured in that look. I was here for one reason. The chairman stood just at the bottom, positioned fittingly behind a large oak desk in front of a chalk board. Off to the side, three other examiners stood looking grander than ever, their backs straight, smiles firmly in place. They looked like an advertisement for some eccentric cult.

"Mori," green-bean breathed, whatever moment he was having with the ebony haired man broken for a second as he took me in with wonder and...horror. I didn't entirely blame him. I probably looked liked someone had just rudely interrupted a chariot from rolling over me a second time.

The scrawny boy in purple gave a short whistle, looking mildly sick.

A smooth voice caressed along my ears, the hair on my arms rising at the familiar tone. Hisoka's eyes were burning as they caught mine, his words slick and honeyed even as they gaze held fire. "Aren't you supposed to be catching up on your beauty sleep?"

Was that concern or sarcasm - I couldn't tell. I gave him a bland smile. "Places to be, people to murder, darling."

The flash of teeth was so startling and swift that I barely knew if I had been seeing things or if Hisoka had actually slipped and smiled. I blinked, dazed. I didn't have time to think about that. I tore my eyes away from the handsome red-head and took another wobbling step down toward the chairman. His eyes followed me sharply, a hint of wariness or worry (I couldn't entirely tell) in his frown.

"I came-" I started, tiring quickly and falling a bit ungracefully against the corner of a desk. The monk gave me an arched brow, clearly unimpressed by my obvious pain.

"To inquire about the whereabouts of your previous competitor," the chairman finished for me, his gaze almost as sharp as Hisoka's as it took in my rapidly paling complexion. The pain of standing upright had started to make me a bit dizzy. The chairman's lips tightened for a moment, his gaze flicking to where his other examiners stood. Whatever silent conversation they had, made him obviously unhappy, his beard twitching as he finally turned to meet my gaze. "Unfortunately… Mr. Ichihiro's room was found to be empty only an hour ago. We are unsure-"

"What?" Color's popped behind my eyes. In the back of my head, I thought I heard a low screaming, like a whistling going off in a tunnel. There couldn't - I searched the chairman's eyes, hoping to find the hint of humor - some sign that he was lying.

My stomach dropped, my whole body feeling suddenly hollow as he kept my gaze.

He wasn't lying.

Ichihiro… was gone.

A low, mournful wail broke from Minoru, his whole body curling with the action. The other contestants flinched, recoiling from the action on instinct. Even one of the examiner's bulked, her lips tipping down in silent distaste.

My voice was raw when I finally spoke, trying desperately to work through what to do next. How to feel. How to prioritize. How to make this right. "You know what he did?"

That beard twitched again, the crow's feet beside the chairman's kind eyes crinkling in obvious distress. "We understand the severity-"

Fuck this guy and his kind eyes. I bared my teeth, my whole body coiling with the urge to leap across this space and put my hands on him. "You understand that he butchered my three brothers?"

The blonde-haired boy drew in a sharp breath, his eyes glimmering with some emotion that made me uncomfortable.

"Shit," the monk whispered sharply.

I hated them all. I hated how sympathy seemed to jar all of the examiners into seeing me as a small, damaged girl who had lost everything in this filthy, dirty game. I hated that all of the other contestants had gone ram-rod still, their eyes widening with pity. I hated how my skin crawled with every single emotion that they were suddenly trying to show me. When it was too late. When everything that made me even a sliver human had been massacred.

Unwanted, Minoru's words kept back to me. They could still be - I brutally tried to shut that hope down, the very thought making me weak. I wanted it so bad. I wanted it all to be lies so bad that it made me physically sick. All the chairman had to do was tell me that they were hurt - hurt but alive. That they would be scarred but able to get up in a month or two. That I could talk to them again.

My eyes latched onto his. Begging.

He took a deep breath. And then another. "I understand that you've lost-"

Minoru's roar was earth-shattering. The whole room grayed beneath it, his canine's glistening in the sunlight seeping in from the windows. One of the contestants whimpered, paling. My whole body shook with the well of rage and loss that was threatening to overtake me. I wanted to watch this place burn.

A low, humorless chuckle cut from the back row.

My finger shook, jabbing at the line of pithy examiners. I hated them all. I despised them to their very cores. For what they represented. For the things that they had aided in taking away from me. My next words were pure venom. "Fuck you and fuck your understanding." I would burn you all if I could. I stared the chairman in the eyes, forcing that into every single word that I spat at him. "Tell me where he's gone."

"He didn't leave an address." My whole body went cold at the words, whatever fire dying at the obvious outcome of his words. How would I be able to find him? My guts twisted. Where would I even start? The chairman bowed his head slightly, speaking evenly in the face of my devastation. "All we can give you are his full name and the first town that he was picked from and…" The world dimmed at the metallic jingle, the slide of a container being pressed across wood. Numbness seeped into my body, offering a shattering reprieve from the pain coursing through my body.

Make this a joke. My eyes searched desperately for another pair of converse. The dorky inverted triangles that we had all tattooed onto our cheeks. I can't live this reality anymore. The other contestants were murmuring to each other again but I couldn't make out any words.

All there was were those three metal urns, all lined up neatly side-by-side.

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