Even though night had fallen a few hours before the ferry arrived in Zaban City, the main roads still rustled with movement and voices. This surprised Mito greatly, and then she was further surprised by her own surprise. Of course the cities were like this; Ging had told her the stories of how the people in the cities spent their nights outside, seeing shows and running from place to place since they still wouldn't be tired for hours yet. Indeed, the people she saw on the docks showed no signs of weariness. Sailors heaved hefty crates, couples walked by, pointing and laughing to one another, and men in neatly pressed suits spoke angrily into cell phones. They had a vitality about them, a boundless energy that only cities could impart.

Before she could work up the nerve to step off the dock, Mito noticed that the captain had come up beside her. "Good luck, kiddo." He gave a gruff nod. "By the way, you might want to look for a cedar tree outside the city. They'll help you become a Hunter."

"Who's 'they'?" she asked.

"Oh, the guides," he said. "They took your kid to the Hunter exam. They might still be in town, but you should get a move on."

Mito thanked him, even though she knew immediately that she had no intention of finding the guides. Hunters had not proven themselves reliable in the least, and she would depend on them no more than necessary. Regardless, the captain murmured an acknowledgement and made his way back into the ferry for the night. Leaving Mito alone and directionless. She felt a pang of wistfulness: she had appreciated the familiarity the captain had provided, even if only for a few hours, but without it, she could see clearly just how foreign this world was to her.

She forced herself to move away from the ferry and hurried to catch up with the crowd pouring out of the docks. Along the sidewalks, street vendors began to take notice of the influx of tourists and foreigners, and began flaunting their wares and blocking the paths of the more hapless out-of-towners. She recognized their techniques; she had even employed some of them herself during the busier months, although she had not been proud of it. So she stuck to the middle of the crowd and walked rapidly.

First, find an inn. Mito had initially planned to spend the night patrolling the streets for signs of Gon or anyone who knew him, but she had not accounted for how busy the main roads still were, and eventually conceded that such a plan was akin to finding a needle in a haystack, except the needles looked exactly like hay and were in too much of a hurry to talk to you. Not your best metaphor, she thought and resolved to do better next time.

In a half an hour, she had counted only four or five inns, although only by the loosest definition of the term. The majority of them were cottages that offered up their guest bedrooms in anticipation of the Hunter Exam, with signs haphazardly hung from window sills and doorways. And as wary as she was of sharing a home with strangers, even if only for a night, a quick rifle through her wallet was more than enough to convince her that staying in one would be the best (or the only) choice. She knocked on the door of one such cottage—it couldn't have been larger than three or four rooms, but its price was the best on the block, only 3,000 J—and heard slow shuffling towards the door.

The door swung open, and an old woman, even older than Grandmother, with a protruding overbite missing almost all the teeth meant to be there, stared up at Mito. "What is it?" she demanded.

"Are you still offering somewhere to stay the night?" Mito said.

"Oh, that," the woman chuckled. "I forgot that was still up."

A bad sign. Mito grew nervous that she was soon to be thrown back unceremoniously onto the street, but the old woman continued, "Anyway, you can stay if you like."

She turned away from Mito and tottered back to a worn recliner beside the wall. "You going straight to bed?" she asked. "Or I can make you a bit of dinner. That costs 300 Jenny extra, though."

Mito thought about it for a moment, and eventually decided that dinner would be the best course of action for now. 300 Jenny was still half as cheap as even the least expensive food carts she had spotted.

The woman lifted herself from her chair. "Now that you've agreed, I ought to tell you I'm a rubbish cook. Haven't done it properly in ages!" she said with a snort. Mito laughed politely, but offered to help her cook just in case she hadn't been joking.

They talked while they cooked, although Mito barely paid attention to what she said. The woman, however, had a gleam in her eye that disconcerted her, and Mito felt sure that this woman knew something she didn't, or had noticed something she hadn't.

"What's your name?" Mito asked.

"Oh? It's Fuma," she answered. However, the woman did not ask Mito's name in return, as she had expected. Instead, she asked, "So, you're here on vacation then?"

"No," Mito answered. "Maybe under other circumstances, I would be."

"A business trip then?"

"Also no," Mito laughed.

"I'm not getting any younger here," Fuma said, looking up from the cutting board to send her an annoyed glance. "You going to tell me why you're here or what?"

Mito was once again torn between desires for politeness and privacy; it was by no means a new sensation for her. Back home, she felt like this almost every day; everybody knew you, so they felt they all had a right to know you better. "Only if you tell me about yourself first," she answered.

Fuma huffed in indignation. "There's nothing much to tell, really. I'm retired, so now I just spend my time meeting new people and running the inn."

"And what did you do before you retired?" Mito asked.

"Maybe I'll tell you later. Now, I told you about myself, didn't I?"

"I thought that being old made you less worried about technicalities," Mito said, trying to imbue her voice with the carelessness of thinking aloud, but even to her own ears, it was unconvincing.

Fuma laughed hoarsely, only mollified by the taunt. "Maybe for most. But I'm not old yet, so I don't have to worry about that. So why are you here?"

"I'm looking for my nephew," she answered immediately, by some compulsion within her that bypassed thought. "He's gone missing."

The woman's expression softened, twisting into a thoughtful frown. "I'm sorry to hear that." She did not say anything else for a long time; instead, she gazed vacantly at the countertop. Finally, just as the silence began to chafe at Mito's nerves, she stared at Mito with hawkish, sharp eyes. "But I don't think you should be here. You may be better off going home."

"What do you mean?" Mito demanded immediately.

"Just what I said," Fuma said gravely. "If I'm right, your nephew is Gon Freecss. He took the Hunter Exam, and went missing."

A bolt of cold fear rushed through Mito. "How… could you know that?" she mumbled.

Fuma shook her head and turned off the stove, leaving the tomato broth simmering. "I got a tip from a colleague to look out for someone looking for a nephew," she said, and Mito silently cursed all Hunters past and present. Had it been the purple-haired one to turn her in? "And even if I hadn't, it wouldn't have taken genius to put it together, only observation. You're new at this, and there have only been two recent missing persons in Zaban."

"Fine," Mito said, trembling with fury and adrenaline. "You don't think I can do it. I'll add you to the list. I don't care what you or anyone else thinks I'm capable of. I care about getting Gon back."

Fuma leaned back slightly. "It's not that I don't think you can do it. I don't know if you can do it. You might. But do you have a plan?"

"Of course I do!" Mito retorted.

"What is it?"

Mito cursed her willingness to argue. There was no plan, and she knew it. But she persisted: "I planned to ask around town for leads and then figure out my next move from there."

"I think you know that won't be enough," Fuma said. "You need to be prepared for every possibility."

"What gives you the right to tell me what to do, anyway?" Mito snapped petulantly. Instantly, she felt childish, but she worked to maintain her impassive expression.

"You are mistaken. I don't intend to tell you what to do," she answered. "You asked what I did? I was a Hunter. A Blacklist Hunter. I hunted the most dangerous criminals in the world. And I believe that under the right circumstances, you could challenge them. But not as you are. When I asked what you were doing here, you told me immediately, but you should have lied to me. If you had, I would have known you were ready. But you are still unprepared. Tell me, what would you have done if I were Gon's kidnapper? And what would I have done if I were his kidnapper?"

The first answer that came to Mito was a furious I would kick your ass! But then, the details came into focus. "If you were his kidnapper, you would have killed me. Or sent me off to die some other way. Wait, you know he was kidnapped?" An instant suspicion overcame her better sense. "How do you know?" she hissed.

"I don't know; I only believe that it is overwhelmingly likely that he was. I mentioned that there are two missing persons. The other one is a man named Hisoka Morow. He is an incredibly talented and devious fighter, but unstable and obsessed with strength. He could easily have overpowered Gon. And according to my sources, Gon managed to impress Hisoka quite handily with his potential."

Mito allowed her suspicions to be reassured somewhat, but she continued to assess Fuma with a cool stare.

"Very good, dear. You should not trust me just because I offer a plausible explanation," Fuma said flatly. "I must ask a final question of you. Will you become a Hunter?"

She had considered this question. It had been one of the easier questions to answer, actually.

"If I have to," she answered immediately. "They can help me get strong enough to find Gon."

Fuma nodded approvingly. "Then why not let them find him?"

"They won't," Mito said. "They'll look for a few weeks—months, maybe, if he's lucky—and then they'll realize that they're losing money on him, so they'll throw up their hands and say they tried and that nobody will blame them."

If Fuma was offended by Mito's distrust in the Hunter Association, she didn't show it; in fact, she appeared even more approving. "Very well. Stay the night, and tomorrow, I'll teach you what you need to know."