Chapter 19
Cat calmly sat behind the three people, his sleek black tail idly swishing from side to side as he allowed them to register their shock. Alluka numbly reached over to tickle his chin.
"Cat?"
"Well, that's what Illumi calls me these days. But no son, my name is not Cat."
Echlan furiously studied the bit of paper and glanced at the back. He gaped at the fading signature. "Renald Romanov Kalinnan? THE Kalinnan?"
"Yes," Cat continued in the velvet smooth voice. "I am the Official Guardian, being the founder of this Dynasty. I've been looking after the Forbidden Palace for about six hundred years already, in different forms and manifestations of course."
"Why a cat this time?" Zeno asked flatly, unimpressed.
Renald shrugged a bit, if a cat could shrug, but its expressions were entirely human. "It's inconspicuous. Wherever there are rats, there are cats. I can go places and no one would spare me a second glance. It means I've been doing espionage and covert operations in order to gather vital information."
"Back track, back track. Who made you Official Guardian?" Alluka asked, cautiously withdrawing his hand. Cat purred a bit in thought.
"I did, I made myself the Guardian because I was the first Kalinnan, that's why. When I died, my dying wish was to protect the generations to come, so my nen was incorporated into the mainstream of the nen around us, taking shape and form whenever it was necessary and danger loomed over the Forbidden Palace. I swore on my deathbed that if the Kalinnans to come remained in the Palace, no harm can touch them, but only minutes before I died, I had a terrible vision. I saw the Palace under attack, and I was helpless to prevent it. So I wrote down what I saw, in my feverish state and conditioned my nen and will to live on until that day finally came."
"Does that mean that when this vision has passed." Echlan left it hanging, a great mourning and sadness stirring in his heart, and pride for the long dead Emperor who lived on to protect his family no matter how corrupt and despicable they had become.
"Yes, it means that my mission's finally over and I can rest in peace. There will be a new guardian to take my place of course, and I take it that Berenger is still around?"
"Yes sire, loyal to the family even after all these years and what they have done."
Cat sighed, a little sadly. "Yes, that's good. He was my best friend, and his sons thereafter became my children's protector." He shook his small black furry head vigorously. "No, we must talk business. I remember seeing enormous explosions rocking the very foundations of this Palace. There were no weapons around in my time capable of doing something like this. Could you guess what it could be?"
Zeno shivered slightly. "Whenever someone talks about explosions, I think of Millu trying to talk to me about his theories and new inventions."
"You mean bombs?" Alluka sat up alert and glanced around him, his sharp eyes darting. His mind immediately leaped out to scour every square inch of the Forbidden Palace grounds, passing through the grand halls, the hidden passages, the empty silent courtyards, and he struck jackpot. Scattered all around the Palace grounds were large explosives, capable of blasting apart the thick and impregnable walls. Without second thought, he defused them and with his mind, ripped them apart so that they shattered into a million fragments.
Zeno looked worriedly into his grandson's once again, blank and slack face, and almost jumped back in fright when Alluka scowled in menace.
"Bombs and explosives were planted everywhere. I've deactivated them now, well, destroyed them to be more precise, so whoever put them there is going to have a nasty surprise."
"Did you just say bombs EVERYWHERE?" Echlan's already high pitched voice raised another few tones in horror.
"Yes, enough to shatter the Palace Walls and possibly set the nearest courtyards and rooms alight with blazing fire."
"I must take this information and alert the Generals and place the Emperor under maximum security." Echlan stood up, his face held fierce determination and strength.
Alluka quickly reread the mad prophecy over and over again, then stared flatly at Renald. The Cat was looking at him funny.
"You must be the white devil.yes.I think I can finally remember your face. You must excuse me, but back in my time, I don't think I ever came across one so young with hair so white already. Your grandpa I can understand, but no.I truly thought that you were another creature from another world when I saw you in my visions six hundred years ago."
"I'm an albino! Get it! There may not be plenty of people like us, but we're BORN with this hair!" Alluka shrieked, offended. Cat laughed easily and hopped into Echlan's arms. They all ran at a breakneck pace towards Kastro Court, but the conversation continued.
"This 'Dark Executioner' plays an important part." Alluka began, running those eerie last phrases in his head. "Do you remember what he looked like?"
"Am I seriously expected to remember with crystal clear clarity something that I saw six hundred years ago whilst I was dying with a bloody high fever too!? I may have been a powerful natural nen user in my time you know, but I'm not a freaking god, though I wish I was sometimes. But there is something that has haunted me all these years, and that is who this Dark Executioner? He was but a black and forbidding shape in my last visions, ominous, threatening, a being of great and immense power. Perhaps it was the true face of god, or something damn close to it, because he wouldn't let me look into his face." Cat made a dreamy expression, one of worship and adulation.
"Your theory however, contradicts everything that our Emperor believes in, for you profess to have seen into the future. Yet Rudy believes that the Future is what we make it to be, rather than what something greater has preordained for us." Echlan muttered. "It means that there is no one future, and that it is but an endless infinite tree of possibilities, each branch a consequence of our actions and what it leads to."
"Ah." Cat purred, swishing his tail again. "But destiny works to bring us together. You must accept that coincidence does play a role in our lives, and I do believe there are bigger forces at play. How else do you explain, say, the sudden reappearance of an Arcadian Princess, Kikyou, who was thought to have been murdered nearly forty years ago?"
"Chance." Echlan replied flatly.
"And how about Illumi, who reminded General Kamus immediately of his other dead sister? AND the fact that he hired him at the same time the rebel Liam was in the Capital, hmm?"
"Point taken, but that does not explain Rudy's abilities."
Cat frowned slightly, and Alluka thought that it was the cutest thing he ever saw - a cat frowning. Fancy that.
"The Vision is more about imputations of possibilities and calculations of people's actions. It is not so much a true vision as it is a mathematical machine. Think about it this way. Rudy's Vision could not have seen Alluka defuse those bombs, like I did six hundred years ago. I SAW this boy's face, six hundred years before he was born, before he even came into existence. Now that is truly staring down the tunnel of time. Rudy on the other hand, is focused more on calculating all the possibilities and consequences in her mind, then seeing the most appropriate course of action. It is rather short term, and does not allow for the introduction of new variants, which would otherwise involve an entirely new calculation of a whole new infinite tree of possibilities. Get it?"
There was a general series of grunts and shaking of heads.
"This is too slow. It's eleven o'clock already. Lets see.three hours past midnight would mean three o'clock. That gives us four hours to put up some defence before we all go to hell." Zeno grunted, only seeing abandoned courtyard after courtyard. Alluka shouted them to a halt and urged them to touch him.
"You must all have had an urge to cut through time and space at one time or another right?" Alluka grinned viciously. Without waiting for a reply, they all disappeared in a flash of blinding blue lightening and clap of thunder.
==========
Kikyou cheerlessly wandered back over to Kastro Court to see Silva with Killua and his friend, Gon, trying on Arcadian clothes, giggling and laughing at each other as they tried to fix on the sashes and the right buttons to the right holes after Alluka ruined Killu's only shirt which fit. Milluki was ferociously attacking the keys of his laptop whilst Karuto sat near him on the table, quietly playing with the ugly doll. She looked at her children and then suddenly wondered what they thought of her. Illumi was wrong! She loved all of them, even if they were rebellious, slightly mad, or was as quiet as a mouse.
"Kikyou, are you all right?" Silva approached her, then remembered that his wife could see with perfect clarity now without the aid of the visor now. She stared blankly at him for a moment, then briefly nodded and wiped something quickly from her cheek. "Have you been crying?" her concerned husband hovered around her and felt anger slowly burning when he saw his wife's eyes, red from the tears.
After much coaxing, she finally blurted out what happened in the little confrontation an hour earlier with her eldest son. "He thinks I hate him!" she cried, the fabric on Silva's shoulder already wet form all her tears. Gon handed her a tissue box, and she gratefully accepted, blowing her nose thoroughly on the tissue.
"Ni-chan is nice to me." Karuto spoke up for once. She padded silently over to the sofa where her parents sat and present them the doll that she had been carrying recently. It was a rag doll with ebony black hair, but the face was missing, leaving only a wide, smiling crimson mouth which resembled more of a gaping wound. The very inhumanity of the doll caused the toughest assassin to shiver at its horrific undertones, but the youngest Zoldick seemed unaffected. "See, ni-chan made this for me. He said he was going to give her another dress for my birthday."
"Karuto-chan, please remove that disgusting and offending object from your mother's sight." Silva said harshly, but his daughter actually frowned, a small crease to her flawless features.
"It's got very good craftsmanship. And the dress she's got on is very pretty already. See the stitching." It was perhaps the longest sentence that she had ever said to her parents, and she held up the intricate embroidery on the otherwise very plain brown dress which the doll wore. Kikyou gently plucked the doll, careful to avoid the head and looked at the work on the dress. It compelled her to look closer.
"What is it Kikyou?" Silva leaned over, but he didn't know what to look for.
"It's just the stitching..it's damn familiar.but Karuto is right. It's a very pretty dress indeed."
"And I can access the Hunter Website now." Milluki announced proudly.
"Oh? How so fat pig? Last I heard, you couldn't even run for two hundred meters." Killua mocked his elder brother. Milluki on the other hand, didn't raise to the bait, being far too mature for that kind of thing. He withdrew from his wallet a bloodstained hunter licence card.
"See this! Aniki gave me this in return for looking after Alluka. Now I can gather the most reliable information in the world without even having to hack in and incur the Hunter Association's wrath!"
"Where'd he get it?" Killua examined the card in Milluki's hand, but Milluki couldn't trust his brother to let him touch it. He grunted slightly.
"Who cares Killu." Milluki shrugged, carefully placing the card back inside his bulging wallet. "Probably killed another Hunter and grabbed his card. That's how I explain the bloodstains. So you see mama, aniki looks after us all. He just probably said those nasty things because he was angry."
Kikyou's fingers traced around the glittering stones on her bracelet and turned to Killua, presenting it to her son.
"Killu, you did give this to mama last Christmas didn't you?"
"Um.mother, I was with Gon trapped inside the Greed Island game during Christmas. I've never given you guys presents before."
"What about the dozen Benz knives that you got for my birthday?" Silva asked. Again, Killua could only shake his head in response.
"What gave you such ridiculous ideas? If I had any money, I'd blow it all on candy."
"He sure would!" Gon broke in. "You should have seen our room when we were fighting at the Celestial Fighting Tower! Killua spent his entire reward on boxes and boxes of chocolate balls and wanted to take mine to buy some more. Ouch Killua! What'd you do that for?" Gon rubbed the sore back of his head where his friend had just hit him, his fist still shaking.
"Kindly don't blurt out my most embarrassing behaviour, especially in front of my brothers and sisters Gon."
"Oh, oops.sorry." Gon stuck his tongue out, but almost bit it off when he was startled by what he thought was lightening crashing into the middle of the Kastro living room.
"Dear lords! Don't ever drag me through that again!" Echlan shrieked with complete lack of composure and dignity that the person with highest authority in the Forbidden Palace should have, waving his arms like a madman and venting out every bit of anger and frustration on the cowering child.
Zeno grabbed both shoulders of the eunuch and shook him hard. "Echlan. Calm down and remember what we have to do."
Echlan took in a few deep breaths regulating his heartbeat and finally felt his mind clear. He fumbled for his cellphone and quickly dialed a number.
"Koran, code red, but don't alert the Emperor. Contact the Palace Guardian, tell him bombs have been defused around the Forbidden Palace and set every single guard available on emergency footing - armed to the teeth, those are my exact words. Don't ask any questions, the Forbidden Palace will become a battlefield. There will be more instructions later. Over." Echlan slammed the phone shut and immediately went to find General Kamus.
Cat looked amused at the entire Zoldick family cozily gathered in a miscellaneous living room in the large Kastro Court. His tail swished like it had a mind of its own, twisting and writhing like a live snake. He padded over softly to Silva and sniffed curiously.
"You don't seem old. Why do you have white hair?" his infuriatingly calm and smooth bass voice came out unnaturally loud from such a small mouth. Kikyou, sitting beside her husband was positively horrified, but Silva leaned more towards being offended rather than amazed at the large cat.
Alluka gathered the animal in his arms and feigned an innocent and apologetic laugh.
"Oh, I get it, he's got that albino condition that you have, hmm, son?" Cat easily twisted in the grip and with large feline green eyes stared deeply into Alluka's pale blue ones.
"It's not a condition." Alluka whispered testily into Renard's ear, annoying the cat's sensitive ears. "Just born that way damnit! Keep your voice down and act like a cat!"
"It matters not" Renard arrogantly held his pinkish nose high up in the air. "I have business to attend to now, and in the meantime, could you ponder on how to stop friends and family from tearing out each other's throats?"
"Huh? What's the Cat talking about Allu? And how on earth does a cat talk?" Millu leaned forward.
"I am not a mere cat." Renard said as a matter of factly. "I am a nen construct which has been sustained by my dying vow in the last six hundred years. I only manifest when my family is in danger, and of course, I can choose any shape or form I want."
Gon snapped his fingers brightly. "Killua! That's it! He's a ghost! I knew I'd see one.but.I certainly didn't expect something so." Gon's enthusiasm died a bit as he thought about the correct word.
"Ordinary?" Killua suggested.
"Yeah, I suppose. I was expecting perhaps a headless body with the head floating around or something ethereal, silently haunting the Palace grounds. Cat just seems a little too.friendly in my opinion."
"Lets just contain your curiosity for a second please." Alluka rubbed the sides of his temples furiously. "Exactly WHY would people start fighting each other? And I'm supposed to do something when there are SEVEN suns in the sky? You must have been raving mad when you wrote down your stupid prophecy."
"As a matter of fact, I was." Cat cut in indignantly.
Alluka did his best not to stare in absolute disbelief and hurriedly continued. "Now if you don't explain it to me clearly, exactly what I have to do, I am just going to walk away, right this instant so that I won't have to shoulder any responsibilities. That, or I'll rip out those visions from your mind so I can share the delusions you had in your dying moments."
Cat hissed so coldly that everyone in the room froze and dared not move. "In case you are wondering child, I have the power to prevent you from leaving this Palace, even if I have to summon four generations of the Kalinnan emperors to do it. Now why don't you run through those words a few more times in your head and perhaps discuss it with your family so you can get some inspiration. I have to listen in on what the Generals plan so I won't be swept away by the confusion when it all begins. The eunuch will probably brief you later." Renard stalked away, easily picking up Echlan's perfume trail which led to where Kamus was frantically coming up with the last line of defence before hell decided to pay them an unkindly visit.
Silva tousled Alluka's hair and regarded him intently. "What prophecy are we talking about?"
So Alluka told his entire family everything that happened, from the moment he found the old slip of paper and Cat appearing, speaking in a naturally human voice, claiming to represent the will of the first Kalinnan Emperor - Renard Romanov.
~ To prevent explosions, seek the white devil ~
"You see, because this was supposed to have been written six hundred years ago, Cat didn't know about the existence of bombs, so he just put down explosions. I guess he didn't have much time to be descriptive, because he was dying, but when Grandpa thought about explosions, he immediately connected it to Millu's numerous inventions."
"And so were there bombs?" Gon shivered slightly.
"Yes. All around the city walls. I defused them and tore them apart, don't ask how, I'll explain when this is all over. But it says that at three o'clock, possibly tonight, something bad is going to happen."
~ Three hours past midnight, we all go to hell ~
"Hell connects to bloody infernos, lakes of lava, a demon king.damn, it's not making sense." Killua rubbed his chin in thought, his mind racing through every channel of possibility.
"Sounds like a full scale invasion." Silva said at last, his voice calm and calculating. "If explosions were going to occur, then there would be fire. Not to mention what other weapons the Nihilists and the Rebels have smuggled into the city." His frown darkened tremendously. "It means that this place will be bathing in flames, that's what he means by hell."
Everyone tried to picture the future in their minds. They saw crimson and gold fire, licking at the sturdy wooden beams of the thousands of little gazeboes, rooms and buildings which made up the Forbidden Palace. They heard the thundering blasts from rolling tanks, missiles whirring like falling angels in the sky and black smoke, a dank and blinding cloud billowing from the entire Forbidden Palace as the entire place went up in flames and destruction.
~ Parents and brothers will turn against each other. Fight the madness with the devil.When seven suns are suspended in the sky. ~
"I can't get my mind around this. Apparently, I have been called the devil" Alluka grimaced slightly "but I have no clue as to why we will start attacking each other, or how seven suns will appear in the middle of the night." He rubbed his eyes hard and sniffed piteously. "This whole thing makes my head hurt and to make matters worse, the most important character - this Dark Executioner - I don't even know where to begin to look for this person."
They were all interrupted when General Kamus and Misha barged into the room. Kamus looked tired and weary, his brows drenched in sweat at the sudden realization of how dangerous the situation had become. Misha's scowl was more than frightening, and his aura, a menacing presence, was only barely restrained.
"I'm going out there to kill the whole lot of treacherous leaches right now!" he growled, glaring so intensely at Kamus that had there been real power behind it, Kamus would now be a pile of ashes. Instead, Killua's uncle merely grunted.
"Our informants have been sprung it seems, so the only reliable information we have now is that they will strike, at three o'clock. Some of the Generals are on their way back, but it would help us immensely if the Zoldick family would join in this fight and lend us a helping hand."
"The people who hurt me four years ago are with them. I'm going to hurt them, no matter who stands in my way." Alluka declared. Renard nodded appreciatively.
The rest of the Zoldick family turned to Silva, who, after short deliberations, consented. "I guess we are involved, since it mentions 'killers' in the prophecy. I won't charge this time, and if you are satisfied with our performance, we'll give you a twenty percent discount the next time you require our services."
Kamus grinned and shook Silva's hand heartily. Hell was coming, and it seemed that the darkness was irresistible, unless everyone else had a say of course.
Cat calmly sat behind the three people, his sleek black tail idly swishing from side to side as he allowed them to register their shock. Alluka numbly reached over to tickle his chin.
"Cat?"
"Well, that's what Illumi calls me these days. But no son, my name is not Cat."
Echlan furiously studied the bit of paper and glanced at the back. He gaped at the fading signature. "Renald Romanov Kalinnan? THE Kalinnan?"
"Yes," Cat continued in the velvet smooth voice. "I am the Official Guardian, being the founder of this Dynasty. I've been looking after the Forbidden Palace for about six hundred years already, in different forms and manifestations of course."
"Why a cat this time?" Zeno asked flatly, unimpressed.
Renald shrugged a bit, if a cat could shrug, but its expressions were entirely human. "It's inconspicuous. Wherever there are rats, there are cats. I can go places and no one would spare me a second glance. It means I've been doing espionage and covert operations in order to gather vital information."
"Back track, back track. Who made you Official Guardian?" Alluka asked, cautiously withdrawing his hand. Cat purred a bit in thought.
"I did, I made myself the Guardian because I was the first Kalinnan, that's why. When I died, my dying wish was to protect the generations to come, so my nen was incorporated into the mainstream of the nen around us, taking shape and form whenever it was necessary and danger loomed over the Forbidden Palace. I swore on my deathbed that if the Kalinnans to come remained in the Palace, no harm can touch them, but only minutes before I died, I had a terrible vision. I saw the Palace under attack, and I was helpless to prevent it. So I wrote down what I saw, in my feverish state and conditioned my nen and will to live on until that day finally came."
"Does that mean that when this vision has passed." Echlan left it hanging, a great mourning and sadness stirring in his heart, and pride for the long dead Emperor who lived on to protect his family no matter how corrupt and despicable they had become.
"Yes, it means that my mission's finally over and I can rest in peace. There will be a new guardian to take my place of course, and I take it that Berenger is still around?"
"Yes sire, loyal to the family even after all these years and what they have done."
Cat sighed, a little sadly. "Yes, that's good. He was my best friend, and his sons thereafter became my children's protector." He shook his small black furry head vigorously. "No, we must talk business. I remember seeing enormous explosions rocking the very foundations of this Palace. There were no weapons around in my time capable of doing something like this. Could you guess what it could be?"
Zeno shivered slightly. "Whenever someone talks about explosions, I think of Millu trying to talk to me about his theories and new inventions."
"You mean bombs?" Alluka sat up alert and glanced around him, his sharp eyes darting. His mind immediately leaped out to scour every square inch of the Forbidden Palace grounds, passing through the grand halls, the hidden passages, the empty silent courtyards, and he struck jackpot. Scattered all around the Palace grounds were large explosives, capable of blasting apart the thick and impregnable walls. Without second thought, he defused them and with his mind, ripped them apart so that they shattered into a million fragments.
Zeno looked worriedly into his grandson's once again, blank and slack face, and almost jumped back in fright when Alluka scowled in menace.
"Bombs and explosives were planted everywhere. I've deactivated them now, well, destroyed them to be more precise, so whoever put them there is going to have a nasty surprise."
"Did you just say bombs EVERYWHERE?" Echlan's already high pitched voice raised another few tones in horror.
"Yes, enough to shatter the Palace Walls and possibly set the nearest courtyards and rooms alight with blazing fire."
"I must take this information and alert the Generals and place the Emperor under maximum security." Echlan stood up, his face held fierce determination and strength.
Alluka quickly reread the mad prophecy over and over again, then stared flatly at Renald. The Cat was looking at him funny.
"You must be the white devil.yes.I think I can finally remember your face. You must excuse me, but back in my time, I don't think I ever came across one so young with hair so white already. Your grandpa I can understand, but no.I truly thought that you were another creature from another world when I saw you in my visions six hundred years ago."
"I'm an albino! Get it! There may not be plenty of people like us, but we're BORN with this hair!" Alluka shrieked, offended. Cat laughed easily and hopped into Echlan's arms. They all ran at a breakneck pace towards Kastro Court, but the conversation continued.
"This 'Dark Executioner' plays an important part." Alluka began, running those eerie last phrases in his head. "Do you remember what he looked like?"
"Am I seriously expected to remember with crystal clear clarity something that I saw six hundred years ago whilst I was dying with a bloody high fever too!? I may have been a powerful natural nen user in my time you know, but I'm not a freaking god, though I wish I was sometimes. But there is something that has haunted me all these years, and that is who this Dark Executioner? He was but a black and forbidding shape in my last visions, ominous, threatening, a being of great and immense power. Perhaps it was the true face of god, or something damn close to it, because he wouldn't let me look into his face." Cat made a dreamy expression, one of worship and adulation.
"Your theory however, contradicts everything that our Emperor believes in, for you profess to have seen into the future. Yet Rudy believes that the Future is what we make it to be, rather than what something greater has preordained for us." Echlan muttered. "It means that there is no one future, and that it is but an endless infinite tree of possibilities, each branch a consequence of our actions and what it leads to."
"Ah." Cat purred, swishing his tail again. "But destiny works to bring us together. You must accept that coincidence does play a role in our lives, and I do believe there are bigger forces at play. How else do you explain, say, the sudden reappearance of an Arcadian Princess, Kikyou, who was thought to have been murdered nearly forty years ago?"
"Chance." Echlan replied flatly.
"And how about Illumi, who reminded General Kamus immediately of his other dead sister? AND the fact that he hired him at the same time the rebel Liam was in the Capital, hmm?"
"Point taken, but that does not explain Rudy's abilities."
Cat frowned slightly, and Alluka thought that it was the cutest thing he ever saw - a cat frowning. Fancy that.
"The Vision is more about imputations of possibilities and calculations of people's actions. It is not so much a true vision as it is a mathematical machine. Think about it this way. Rudy's Vision could not have seen Alluka defuse those bombs, like I did six hundred years ago. I SAW this boy's face, six hundred years before he was born, before he even came into existence. Now that is truly staring down the tunnel of time. Rudy on the other hand, is focused more on calculating all the possibilities and consequences in her mind, then seeing the most appropriate course of action. It is rather short term, and does not allow for the introduction of new variants, which would otherwise involve an entirely new calculation of a whole new infinite tree of possibilities. Get it?"
There was a general series of grunts and shaking of heads.
"This is too slow. It's eleven o'clock already. Lets see.three hours past midnight would mean three o'clock. That gives us four hours to put up some defence before we all go to hell." Zeno grunted, only seeing abandoned courtyard after courtyard. Alluka shouted them to a halt and urged them to touch him.
"You must all have had an urge to cut through time and space at one time or another right?" Alluka grinned viciously. Without waiting for a reply, they all disappeared in a flash of blinding blue lightening and clap of thunder.
==========
Kikyou cheerlessly wandered back over to Kastro Court to see Silva with Killua and his friend, Gon, trying on Arcadian clothes, giggling and laughing at each other as they tried to fix on the sashes and the right buttons to the right holes after Alluka ruined Killu's only shirt which fit. Milluki was ferociously attacking the keys of his laptop whilst Karuto sat near him on the table, quietly playing with the ugly doll. She looked at her children and then suddenly wondered what they thought of her. Illumi was wrong! She loved all of them, even if they were rebellious, slightly mad, or was as quiet as a mouse.
"Kikyou, are you all right?" Silva approached her, then remembered that his wife could see with perfect clarity now without the aid of the visor now. She stared blankly at him for a moment, then briefly nodded and wiped something quickly from her cheek. "Have you been crying?" her concerned husband hovered around her and felt anger slowly burning when he saw his wife's eyes, red from the tears.
After much coaxing, she finally blurted out what happened in the little confrontation an hour earlier with her eldest son. "He thinks I hate him!" she cried, the fabric on Silva's shoulder already wet form all her tears. Gon handed her a tissue box, and she gratefully accepted, blowing her nose thoroughly on the tissue.
"Ni-chan is nice to me." Karuto spoke up for once. She padded silently over to the sofa where her parents sat and present them the doll that she had been carrying recently. It was a rag doll with ebony black hair, but the face was missing, leaving only a wide, smiling crimson mouth which resembled more of a gaping wound. The very inhumanity of the doll caused the toughest assassin to shiver at its horrific undertones, but the youngest Zoldick seemed unaffected. "See, ni-chan made this for me. He said he was going to give her another dress for my birthday."
"Karuto-chan, please remove that disgusting and offending object from your mother's sight." Silva said harshly, but his daughter actually frowned, a small crease to her flawless features.
"It's got very good craftsmanship. And the dress she's got on is very pretty already. See the stitching." It was perhaps the longest sentence that she had ever said to her parents, and she held up the intricate embroidery on the otherwise very plain brown dress which the doll wore. Kikyou gently plucked the doll, careful to avoid the head and looked at the work on the dress. It compelled her to look closer.
"What is it Kikyou?" Silva leaned over, but he didn't know what to look for.
"It's just the stitching..it's damn familiar.but Karuto is right. It's a very pretty dress indeed."
"And I can access the Hunter Website now." Milluki announced proudly.
"Oh? How so fat pig? Last I heard, you couldn't even run for two hundred meters." Killua mocked his elder brother. Milluki on the other hand, didn't raise to the bait, being far too mature for that kind of thing. He withdrew from his wallet a bloodstained hunter licence card.
"See this! Aniki gave me this in return for looking after Alluka. Now I can gather the most reliable information in the world without even having to hack in and incur the Hunter Association's wrath!"
"Where'd he get it?" Killua examined the card in Milluki's hand, but Milluki couldn't trust his brother to let him touch it. He grunted slightly.
"Who cares Killu." Milluki shrugged, carefully placing the card back inside his bulging wallet. "Probably killed another Hunter and grabbed his card. That's how I explain the bloodstains. So you see mama, aniki looks after us all. He just probably said those nasty things because he was angry."
Kikyou's fingers traced around the glittering stones on her bracelet and turned to Killua, presenting it to her son.
"Killu, you did give this to mama last Christmas didn't you?"
"Um.mother, I was with Gon trapped inside the Greed Island game during Christmas. I've never given you guys presents before."
"What about the dozen Benz knives that you got for my birthday?" Silva asked. Again, Killua could only shake his head in response.
"What gave you such ridiculous ideas? If I had any money, I'd blow it all on candy."
"He sure would!" Gon broke in. "You should have seen our room when we were fighting at the Celestial Fighting Tower! Killua spent his entire reward on boxes and boxes of chocolate balls and wanted to take mine to buy some more. Ouch Killua! What'd you do that for?" Gon rubbed the sore back of his head where his friend had just hit him, his fist still shaking.
"Kindly don't blurt out my most embarrassing behaviour, especially in front of my brothers and sisters Gon."
"Oh, oops.sorry." Gon stuck his tongue out, but almost bit it off when he was startled by what he thought was lightening crashing into the middle of the Kastro living room.
"Dear lords! Don't ever drag me through that again!" Echlan shrieked with complete lack of composure and dignity that the person with highest authority in the Forbidden Palace should have, waving his arms like a madman and venting out every bit of anger and frustration on the cowering child.
Zeno grabbed both shoulders of the eunuch and shook him hard. "Echlan. Calm down and remember what we have to do."
Echlan took in a few deep breaths regulating his heartbeat and finally felt his mind clear. He fumbled for his cellphone and quickly dialed a number.
"Koran, code red, but don't alert the Emperor. Contact the Palace Guardian, tell him bombs have been defused around the Forbidden Palace and set every single guard available on emergency footing - armed to the teeth, those are my exact words. Don't ask any questions, the Forbidden Palace will become a battlefield. There will be more instructions later. Over." Echlan slammed the phone shut and immediately went to find General Kamus.
Cat looked amused at the entire Zoldick family cozily gathered in a miscellaneous living room in the large Kastro Court. His tail swished like it had a mind of its own, twisting and writhing like a live snake. He padded over softly to Silva and sniffed curiously.
"You don't seem old. Why do you have white hair?" his infuriatingly calm and smooth bass voice came out unnaturally loud from such a small mouth. Kikyou, sitting beside her husband was positively horrified, but Silva leaned more towards being offended rather than amazed at the large cat.
Alluka gathered the animal in his arms and feigned an innocent and apologetic laugh.
"Oh, I get it, he's got that albino condition that you have, hmm, son?" Cat easily twisted in the grip and with large feline green eyes stared deeply into Alluka's pale blue ones.
"It's not a condition." Alluka whispered testily into Renard's ear, annoying the cat's sensitive ears. "Just born that way damnit! Keep your voice down and act like a cat!"
"It matters not" Renard arrogantly held his pinkish nose high up in the air. "I have business to attend to now, and in the meantime, could you ponder on how to stop friends and family from tearing out each other's throats?"
"Huh? What's the Cat talking about Allu? And how on earth does a cat talk?" Millu leaned forward.
"I am not a mere cat." Renard said as a matter of factly. "I am a nen construct which has been sustained by my dying vow in the last six hundred years. I only manifest when my family is in danger, and of course, I can choose any shape or form I want."
Gon snapped his fingers brightly. "Killua! That's it! He's a ghost! I knew I'd see one.but.I certainly didn't expect something so." Gon's enthusiasm died a bit as he thought about the correct word.
"Ordinary?" Killua suggested.
"Yeah, I suppose. I was expecting perhaps a headless body with the head floating around or something ethereal, silently haunting the Palace grounds. Cat just seems a little too.friendly in my opinion."
"Lets just contain your curiosity for a second please." Alluka rubbed the sides of his temples furiously. "Exactly WHY would people start fighting each other? And I'm supposed to do something when there are SEVEN suns in the sky? You must have been raving mad when you wrote down your stupid prophecy."
"As a matter of fact, I was." Cat cut in indignantly.
Alluka did his best not to stare in absolute disbelief and hurriedly continued. "Now if you don't explain it to me clearly, exactly what I have to do, I am just going to walk away, right this instant so that I won't have to shoulder any responsibilities. That, or I'll rip out those visions from your mind so I can share the delusions you had in your dying moments."
Cat hissed so coldly that everyone in the room froze and dared not move. "In case you are wondering child, I have the power to prevent you from leaving this Palace, even if I have to summon four generations of the Kalinnan emperors to do it. Now why don't you run through those words a few more times in your head and perhaps discuss it with your family so you can get some inspiration. I have to listen in on what the Generals plan so I won't be swept away by the confusion when it all begins. The eunuch will probably brief you later." Renard stalked away, easily picking up Echlan's perfume trail which led to where Kamus was frantically coming up with the last line of defence before hell decided to pay them an unkindly visit.
Silva tousled Alluka's hair and regarded him intently. "What prophecy are we talking about?"
So Alluka told his entire family everything that happened, from the moment he found the old slip of paper and Cat appearing, speaking in a naturally human voice, claiming to represent the will of the first Kalinnan Emperor - Renard Romanov.
~ To prevent explosions, seek the white devil ~
"You see, because this was supposed to have been written six hundred years ago, Cat didn't know about the existence of bombs, so he just put down explosions. I guess he didn't have much time to be descriptive, because he was dying, but when Grandpa thought about explosions, he immediately connected it to Millu's numerous inventions."
"And so were there bombs?" Gon shivered slightly.
"Yes. All around the city walls. I defused them and tore them apart, don't ask how, I'll explain when this is all over. But it says that at three o'clock, possibly tonight, something bad is going to happen."
~ Three hours past midnight, we all go to hell ~
"Hell connects to bloody infernos, lakes of lava, a demon king.damn, it's not making sense." Killua rubbed his chin in thought, his mind racing through every channel of possibility.
"Sounds like a full scale invasion." Silva said at last, his voice calm and calculating. "If explosions were going to occur, then there would be fire. Not to mention what other weapons the Nihilists and the Rebels have smuggled into the city." His frown darkened tremendously. "It means that this place will be bathing in flames, that's what he means by hell."
Everyone tried to picture the future in their minds. They saw crimson and gold fire, licking at the sturdy wooden beams of the thousands of little gazeboes, rooms and buildings which made up the Forbidden Palace. They heard the thundering blasts from rolling tanks, missiles whirring like falling angels in the sky and black smoke, a dank and blinding cloud billowing from the entire Forbidden Palace as the entire place went up in flames and destruction.
~ Parents and brothers will turn against each other. Fight the madness with the devil.When seven suns are suspended in the sky. ~
"I can't get my mind around this. Apparently, I have been called the devil" Alluka grimaced slightly "but I have no clue as to why we will start attacking each other, or how seven suns will appear in the middle of the night." He rubbed his eyes hard and sniffed piteously. "This whole thing makes my head hurt and to make matters worse, the most important character - this Dark Executioner - I don't even know where to begin to look for this person."
They were all interrupted when General Kamus and Misha barged into the room. Kamus looked tired and weary, his brows drenched in sweat at the sudden realization of how dangerous the situation had become. Misha's scowl was more than frightening, and his aura, a menacing presence, was only barely restrained.
"I'm going out there to kill the whole lot of treacherous leaches right now!" he growled, glaring so intensely at Kamus that had there been real power behind it, Kamus would now be a pile of ashes. Instead, Killua's uncle merely grunted.
"Our informants have been sprung it seems, so the only reliable information we have now is that they will strike, at three o'clock. Some of the Generals are on their way back, but it would help us immensely if the Zoldick family would join in this fight and lend us a helping hand."
"The people who hurt me four years ago are with them. I'm going to hurt them, no matter who stands in my way." Alluka declared. Renard nodded appreciatively.
The rest of the Zoldick family turned to Silva, who, after short deliberations, consented. "I guess we are involved, since it mentions 'killers' in the prophecy. I won't charge this time, and if you are satisfied with our performance, we'll give you a twenty percent discount the next time you require our services."
Kamus grinned and shook Silva's hand heartily. Hell was coming, and it seemed that the darkness was irresistible, unless everyone else had a say of course.