I don't own HxH!

"...myself to the 42 candidates..."

Dammit, this was the Second Phase all over again but just way worse.

The moment Sora took a step on the airship, the blast of cold air soothed her so much she nearly stumbled in drowsiness during their walk to the meeting hall. She could barely keep her eyes open now. Her head lulled to the side until it came into contact with something warm that was pretty solid. She'd take anything to rest her head.

The Chairman wouldn't be mad if she dozed off for a second right?

"You're sleeping again?" She heard Killua mutter and she groggily opened her eyes, spotting the white shirt she was leaning on and mentally groaned.

Right, it wasn't the Chairman who was mad but the other naggy being in her life.

Why couldn't she just lean to the right where Gon was?

She didn't even have the energy to rebuke so she settled on mumbling a soft "...sorry" before raising her head back to focus on the Chairman's speech but she ended up tuning the rest of it anyway— she did hear the 8.00 AM tomorrow morning so she guessed she got the important piece— and the next thing that happened when she opened her eyes, the participants had begun filing out of the room.

"Sora, did you want to go rest with us? Gon and Killua said that they were going to explore the airship and didn't want to wake you up," Kurapika said the moment the girl blearily looked at the blond male.

"Sure, I guess." Sora nodded, covering her yawn while arching her back to stretch.

She shouldn't have done that because a sharp pain tore through her body and she crouched down in pain, cradling her chest. She had forgotten about the wound there.

Sora looked up to see Kurapika and Leorio fussing over her worriedly, giving them a shaky thumbs up to tell she's fine before standing back up.

"Leorio-san, do you perhaps have some medicine for bruises and some bandages?"

The girl heard part of his stories back when they were running and he had mentioned wanting to be a doctor.

"I do have them." Leorio rummaged through his bag and pulled out a bottle of ointment and a roll of bandages before frowning. "Do you want me to check up on your wounds? Where did you even get it anyway?"

Sora exchanged a look with Kurapika who shook his head. "It was when we were hunting for those pigs. I crashed into a tree and got injured for a bit."

Hey, at least it was a partial truth.

The girl took the bottle and bandages with her, giving the man a small smile. "Thank you and no, I can treat my injuries alone. Thank you for your concern, Leorio-san. You look tired already so I don't want to bother you."

"It's not a bother really. I still have some strength left," the older man replied while trying to stifle a yawn.

"...Good night, Leorio-san, Kurapika-san."

"Goodnight Sora, you know where the break room was, right?" Kurapika asked.

The girl gave him a nod—she doesn't— before bidding them goodbye once more and making her way to the nearest bathroom.

Once she was inside one, she locked the door to ensure her privacy before undressing quickly and winced at the sight of her battered chest.

A large purplish-red mark was splayed on her sternum that seemed to vaguely resemble the shape of a shoe with red dots, remnants of broken blood vessels, scattered around the rest of the skin.

Sora quickly but lightly applied the ointment all over her skin, making sure to put a bit more on the giant bruise, flinching ever so slightly when she pressed a bit too hard. After she was done, she tightly wrapped the bandages around her chest. That should constrict her movement for a while, not that she moved much to begin with.

She pressed her hand once more on her chest, glad that it felt less painful with the few extra layers added to protect it. Now that she's in the bathroom, might as well clean up for a bit. Lightly washing her hair with shampoo and the soap that was there, the grime around her nails and skin, and lastly, washing the Kurapika's handkerchief that has been dirtied by her blood. She needed to return it soon.

Her drowsiness still retained even with the cool water she splashed on her face though.

After leaving the bathroom, Sora wandered around aimlessly, trying to find a secluded corner or bench where she could rest. A few minutes of searching passed and she finally found a bench in a rather secluded corridor of the airship.

The girl sat on it and neatly face planted on the window's railing. She didn't really care if her position was uncomfortable or deemed weird by passing people as long as she could sleep.

On second thought.

The girl buried her face to her folded arms that were placed on the white windows, blocking out the rest of the world with the dark fabrics. Yeah, that was certainly much better.

That was the last thought she had before she drifted to a peaceful slumber.

Which was disturbed the next thirty minutes later.

"Sora! There you are!" A familiar loud voice said.

The girl opened her eyes and looked up from her folded arms, squinting to see who was approaching her with her sleep induced vision, seeing a mass of black and white blobs that soon came into the shape of Gon and Killua who each was carrying a piece of meat.

"Come on! Let's explore the airship together!" Gon asked eagerly.

She was honestly torn between two options. One, ignored them, fell back asleep and got pestered to no end. Two, sacrifice her sleep and join them in their little exploring. As much as she would love to choose the first option, a look at Gon's large honey eyes shattered her resolve.

And also weren't they the one who said they didn't want to invite her to explore because they didn't want to wake her up?

"...alright," Sora answered shortly after a few seconds of pondering and stood up from her seat, rubbing her eyes while approaching them.

"You really do sleep anywhere, huh," Killua commented while taking a bite out of his meat.

Sora shot him a weak glare before tugging her hood down.

"...I don't know where the break room is," she muttered softly, earning a bewildered look from the white haired boy.

"You could have asked like...anyone?"

"Too bothersome. I didn't spot any people," she retorted, now much more awake due to their bickering.

"Hey Killua, Sora, look at this!" Gon pointed and ran to one of the windows, once again cutting their childish squabbles any longer. "The ground looks like it was covered in jewels!"

"You're right!" Killua said enthusiastically.

Nearly all of Sora's sleepiness evaporated the moment her eyes laid on the breathtaking view. Enjoying this kind of view was very rare as she never travelled in any airship before. And she was surprised that she never noticed it, considering the fact that she was right beside the window, facing it even, for half an hour at the very least. Perhaps her exhaustion has dulled her senses drastically.

"It's beautiful," the girl said in awe, leaning closer until her nose was practically touching the cool glass.

She wondered the feeling of falling from this height, the feeling of air brushing her cheeks and overlooking an entire city with their twinkling lights akin to star shrouded sky. That must have been so much fun.

"Hey, Killua, Sora," Gon called them out, earning the rest of the two attention. "I was wondering, where are your mom and dad?"

The girl blinked at the unexpected question, switching her gaze back to the window. Parents...not people she really thought much to begin with. Sure she had both happy and sad memories with them but…

She narrowed her eyes at no particular spot.

Somehow, she couldn't think up any of it when usually she could immediately recite all the things they've done together. Now that the word has been brought to her mind, she belatedly realized she hasn't been thinking about them ever since Shax left her.

"Hmm, they're alive. Probably," Killua answered him easily, unaware of Sora's inner turmoil.

"What do they do?"

"They're assassins."

Not a surprising answer compared to all the least of things Sora has compiled to deduct just what the white haired boy was with his scarily silent gait and general sharp awareness of everything. Not to mention, someone who could sense a killer intent as easily as him probably dabbled a lot in it, like her. Adding their first conversation they both have in the tunnel into consideration, everything just seemed to fall into a place.

"Eh, both of them?" Gon looked shocked by Killua's unpredictable response and yet there's no trace of fear in his eyes, simply mild curiosity.

And Sora was struck with the sudden realization that Gon was either too pure or he's just that chill to look past other people's occupation if they didn't show any hostility to him. Truly a magnificent train of thoughts.

Which meant she has no real problem revealing her actual reason for joining the Hunter Exam to him.

"I'm pretty sure he meant both, Gon. It's assassin with an 's' at the back," Sora chose to butt in at that moment.

Killua stared for a beat before letting out a disbelief laughter.

"Is that your question? You guys really are interesting!" He said in between his laughter and sat down on the bench.

"Huh?" Gon's confusion was shown in his next word.

"You two are the first people who's ever responded seriously!" Killua continued as he laughed harder, grinning from ear to ear.

"But you're telling the truth, right?" Gon's firm answer caused Killua to stop laughing and his gaze sharpened, no traces of humor left in his face as he assessed the two people beside him.

"What makes you think of that?" The white haired asked calmly.

Gon shrugged. "Just a hunch."

"Who in their right mind would joke about that kind of stuff anyway?" Sora added her own thoughts, gingerly crossing her arms on her chest. "If you did, it's a terrible one."

Killua looked at the other two kids with a strange newfound respect.

"How odd," he mused before leaning his head to his arm. "Making people confused about what I said is one of my charms."

True, she could attest to that when he constantly picked a fight with her with no real malice behind it. Made her wonder if that's his way to talk with girls.

"Hmm…"

"My whole family are assassins. Every one of them. And I happen to be the one everyone thinks highly of," Killua explained while smiling bitterly. "But that's not what I want to do. To walk the path decided by others."

"I told my family that I wanted to control my own future. And they got mad at me," Killua started his rant, "My mom actually told me I was born to be an assassin and tried to persuade me with tears streaming down her face. My parents are so overbearing I can't stand it."

Gon laughed at his ridiculous expression while Sora looked at him in a faint surprise. In a very very broad sense, both of their goal was kind of similar, they only have a different route.

"In the end, we had a big fight. I cut my mom's face and my brother's stomach and left the house after that. They're probably fuming right now. I'd kick their asses if they showed up. Once I become a Hunter is to get rid of my family. I'm pretty sure there's a large bounty on their heads," Killua ended his rant with an almost dreamy look on his face while Gon laughed once more, unbothered.

Sora's eye nearly twitched at that because Gon, your friend just told you he hurt his mother and siblings and getting rid of them and you laughed at that as if you heard the best joke in your life? His innocence knew no bounds and she was a bit worried by that.

Morbid humor and large bounty thing was supposed to be her thing, dammit.

"How about you, Sora? Where are your parents?"

The hooded girl stared at that one particular spot once more. The one thing she remembered from her parents was…

"They're dead," she said simply, shrugging. "It was a fire accident but I was a kid so I don't really remember what exactly happened."

It's her doing really but they didn't need to know that when her memory was pretty much fuzzy right now.

"I have a...guardian of sort that I see as my older brother though but we parted ways two years ago," Sora quickly added before they could interject at her mentioning 'fire accident'.

"Oh! Was your brother the one Menchi-san mentioned?" Gon asked.

Her lips thinned as she recalled the unpleasant shock of her life. "Yeah, he is. He pretty much does anything behind my back so I wouldn't be surprised if all of a sudden knew the president of the country," she ended her explanation in a much lighter note, watching Gon chuckle while Killua narrow his eyes as if trying to spot any lies on her part. She put up a peace sign to assure him.

It didn't tame the boy enough but it made him relax just a bit.

Just then, a sudden blast of killing intent was directed on their way and Sora nearly recoiled in shock. Her eyes flickered to the direction it came from but it disappeared just as soon as it came.

"Something's wrong?" The Chairman asked them as he approached them from the other side of the corridor.

The girl straightened up. Of course, it's him. There's no one else who could move that fast after dropping the bomb and reappearing elsewhere the next second. Perfectly possible after his display of strength in the afternoon.

Killua seems to be considering this too as Sora could feel the boy tensed up beside her, openly glaring at the old man as tension filled the air slowly.

Gon, who's obviously the most oblivious person out of the people in that corridor, turned to ask the old man and pointed at the direction the killer intent appeared. "Ah, Netero-san...did you see someone coming from that side?"

"No," the older man lied calmly, shaking his head. The white haired boy beside Sora deepened his glare.

"You're pretty quick for your age," Killua commented.

"Are you talking about that? I just moved a bit," The Chairman said, lightly lifting his sleeves.

"What do you want?"

Next second after that, the Chairman proceeded to do a little interview section about the exam so far and what they thought about it, some teasing that were obviously being dropped to rile them up and so on. Sora had stayed quiet all that time, not even answering his question about their experience and simply chose to observe.

She was sure the man wouldn't do any harm to them though and let her guard drop a bit when they were prepared to leave.

"How would you like to play a game with me?"

"A game?" Gon asked curiously.

"If you win the game, I'll let you become a Hunter."

It was like an apple being dangled in front of her face and she knew that no matter what she did, she wouldn't get the apple despite doing everything in her willpower to at least get a bite. The idea was just too perfect and absolutely worth drooling for, a fast track to solve all of her problems, that there's no way it would be that easy.

Still, she's a simple human with greed, she'd try to take a bite out of that apple anyway.

The Chairman led them to a gym-like room then left to change into more comfortable clothes and came back with a ball balanced on his index finger for the 'game'.

"Now the rules are simple, the only thing you need to do is to take the ball away from me for you to win before the airship reaches its destination so you have nine hours to get the ball," he explained, twirling the ball on his finger. "I won't make any moves."

"Eh, isn't that too easy? There's no competition."

He should have been glad that the Chairman gave himself some handicapped. Sora didn't know what would happen if he went full force.

"Before you say that, you should try it first."

The first turn went to Killua and Sora waited with mild interest what he's planning to do. Her eyes went wide when clones and clones of himself appeared while he calmly strode around the room. Her vision swam with that amount of people and she closed her eyes a bit to settle the dizziness.

Not that surprising, his first attempt was a failure after a brief scuffle to get the ball that ended up with an injured leg as Killua limped to her side.

"A failure, huh?" She couldn't help but tease him as she took out the ointment for her bruises earlier that day from her bag before offering it to him. "Here."

"Shut up. I'd like to see you try, fish eyes," he shot back, eyeing the bottle warily before taking it from her. "Why do you have this?"

Sora mentally sweated. He really did want to know every single suspicious thing she did huh. But since he was not Leorio, there's no harm in telling him the real reason.

She turned her attention to Gon who hit his head on the ceiling. What an amazing jump power. "Just some medicine I asked from Leorio when I got injured by Hisoka during the First Phase."

Killua gawked. "You fight Hisoka? Of course you got injured, you dumb fish eyes," he said that but his brows were furrowed.

"Yes, I don't look like it, do I?" She sent him a smug smile. "Ask Gon if you want to know the details of the fight."

"Sora!" Gon called out as he held up a hand for her to high five with, cutting Killua's chance to answer as she stood up to give the male a high five.

After seeing the Chairman's performance, the girl doubted she could get the ball anyway. Her stamina hasn't been completely restored and there's these broken ribs that she has to be careful of.

But she did say she would try to bite the apple.

Sora placed her bag and took off her jacket, folded it before placing it to the side.

"Would I be allowed to use a weapon?" She nonchalantly asked while fixing the black arm warmer on her right arm.

There's no way she could get the ball without the help of her tonfa. Sparing herself from the pain of hitting those metal-like limbs and also gave her more options to play with was just some of the things.

"Sure, it wouldn't make any difference though." The Chairman laughed mockingly but it went past from one ear to another.

Without a warning, Sora jumped and dove toward the ball which was easily dodged by the Chairman at the same time chain shot out from the bottom of her tonfa which she twirled around the man's wrist which was gripping the ball as she landed with a front roll, ignoring the shot of pain along with Gon and Killua yelled of surprise.

The move managed to surprise the Chairman and she immediately dashed toward the other side to get his leg, turning on her heels as chains dropped from her other tonfa that she swung toward the man's ankle.

If you couldn't take down the giant…

The girl didn't stop to catch her breath, taking the small moments of the Chairman when he was caught off guard to dash to the other side and with all her strength, she flung her tonfa to one corner of the room as far as she could.

You use momentum for it.

It still didn't manage to take the Chairman down but enough to make his grip loosen a bit and the ball to fall from the sudden harsh pull, tumbling down from his grasp in a slow motion.

Her heart beat viciously inside her chest as she twisted around, pouring all of her energy for the dash that shot her halfway across the room just in seconds before resuming with a mad sprint, her fingers twitching to get the ball.

Only to trip on her own weapons.

The Chairman had easily used the chain around his ankle to sweep the girl off from her feet and due to the momentum, she neatly crashed into the wall.

Silence fell in the room as the ball strangely rolled back to the man who picked it up with no real urgency.

Killua was the first to break the silence in the room with a frustrated shout. "Are you serious, Sora? You nearly had the ball!"

The Chairman calmly pried off the chain wrapped around his wrist and ankle as Sora nursed her red forehead and nose while curling up into a ball of pain.

The crash had knocked the wind out of her and she had landed in an awkward position so her chest got the full force of the impact, sending a searing pain all over her body that sent her body to break out in cold sweat.

"That was a close one, almost got it if you had paid attention to your surroundings," the Chairman calmly explained while the maroon haired girl stood up shakily to appear normal.

Injuries are an ass she concluded.

"My mistake," Sora muttered as she bent down to grab her fallen weapons, muttering some soft apologies to it for being thrown again and now deliberately. A shake and the chain retracted back with a 'swish' and she strapped them back to her belt. Groaning lightly, she took a seat beside Gon, an impressed look on his face.

"It also came with spikes too."

At that, Gon seemed to visibly glow in excitement.

The girl chose to sit out the rest of the game after that. Her energy was all zapped out just from that one ruse she had done plus holding the pain in was not a good feeling at all.

Killua and Gon continued to take turns in getting the ball until the Chairman 'kindly' suggested they could attack him simultaneously. And for unknown reason, Sora was pulled along into the game again, despite her protest.

And now here she was, panting hard even after the unison attacks from three people. Her tonfas were thrown and neglected on the other side of the room the whole time and she didn't have the mental energy to apologize once more.

Dragging herself to the exit after taking her weapons, she distinctly heard Gon complimenting the Chairman for his skills before she closed the door behind her and sluggishly walked to a nearby corridor.

The two stubborn headed boys would probably continue to play but she'd stayed out of it for their convenience.

Sora draped her jacket all over her face as she laid down on the bench and immediately was knocked out cold.

A sudden wave of killing intent abruptly woke her up and her brain immediately went haywire, her eyes peeled for possible threat on her life. She was debating whether she should approach the source but that would be a dumb move on her part.

Once she spotted the origin of the bloodlust rounding up around the corner, she calmed down and immediately sat up. The source, however, froze the moment he laid his eyes on her.

"Sora…"

Her eyes flickered between the sharp, knives-like fingernails with throbbing veins, the neatly folded clothes tucked underneath his arms and the pissed off look on his face that was gradually being replaced by fear.

She sighed, not even bothering to wear her jacket properly, simply shoving her hands to the sleeves, letting the hood fall on her chest, and stood up.

"Where's the body?"

At her blunt statement, the white haired boy took a step back but she grabbed his wrist to prevent him from moving further.

"Now, before you asked me how I came to the conclusion why I think you killed someone. Those claws are a dead giveaway because they wouldn't appear for no reason, yes?" Sora calmly explained, looking at the boy's darkened blue eyes. "You're probably pissed after those fruitless fights and needed to vent out your anger."

"So now, where's the body?"

Her answer stunned the boy so much that Killua wordlessly took her back to the crime scene and the sight was pretty normal looking compared to what she had expected, the body count was just more that she assumed.

"Your killing is very clean, huh? I didn't even see a single drop of blood on your body or clothes," Sora muttered as she studied the neat slice on the throat of the bodies, careful not to step on the blood pooling, "As expected of the prodigy."

"...you are really weird, you know that."

"Oh so it's not fish eyes now? An improvement." Sora simply gave the male a glance before cleaning the area with a mop she got along the way, carefully disposing the corpse into deserted lockers. There's no real use in hiding the bodies anyway as she had spotted a couple of CCTV cameras around during her search for a bathroom earlier but at least she needed to do a proper clean up lest unsuspecting passerby would get the scare of their lives.

"You seemed used to doing this kind of thing?" Killua asked, still in a bit of a daze, now fully clad again, once the girl turned around to face him.

She shook her head. "On the contrary, no, I usually just let the bodies out in the open."

Because usually by the time the police came, she would have been gone from the place without a trace. They would only meet dozens of victims charred to the point it was no longer possible to recognize their face.

Killua's brain whirred at her casual remark. She watched as he knitted his eyebrows before his eyes narrowed once he came to an answer.

Sora let out a chuckle at that, though she had an inkling feeling he got the wrong conclusion.

"Took you long enough, you idiot."

"Which means that, Killua," the girl began, taking a step closer to the boy at the same time he took a step back once again, "I don't care what you did or what you've done because I've probably done the same thing or worse than you."

She nudged the boy with her elbow while sending him a smile as wide as she could possibly do. "Friends hide each other's dead bodies, am I right?"

The white haired boy let out a shaky exhale at that and opened his mouth to say something but Sora cut him off.

"Now as a compensation for waking me up for the…" The girl lifted up her hands, seemingly counting something under breath, "third time, I'll be borrowing your shoulder for a bit."

Without waiting for his answer, she dragged the male to a bench before forcing him to sit then laying her head on his shoulder in one quick succession.

"Good night," Sora simply said, pulling the hood to cover her face fully and drifting off to sleep, unaware of the troubled but thankful gaze Killua sent her way before he simply shook his head as if trying to erase any of his previous thoughts.

And with the extra weight on his shoulder and no way to shake her off, the boy chose to join the dreamless void.

Sora was basically the equivalent of "Put the corpse on ice, I'm on my way."

Rewritten version has omitted some scenes but added some new scenes.

And also, there's actually a reason why Sora got tired easily and the reason would only be explained in like the next two arcs which is the Heaven's Arena arc so if you're curious, stay tuned for that! (No it's definitely not a reason for me to gloss over the explanation-)

And yes, more Sora x Killua interaction but this time, Sora had enough of him waking her up so she just decided to have him as her pillow and be the good friend to lean on, told by her own cryptic words. The last scene kinda bleeds in into Killua's POV.

And (the last 'and' I swear) the chapter is shorter than my previous chapters, I'm sorry for that.

Thank you all so much for the favs and follows, I really appreciate them!

Awesomeness3013: Hi! Not remembering anything from back then is totally normal XD Thank you so much for still sticking around from back then 3

As usual, I would love to hear about your opinion!

Bye!