Here's the next chapter! I know it's been long overdue, but please bear with me. I hope this is long enough to compensate for my absence. Thank you for allotting some of your time on this humble fic of mine!

CHAPTER FOUR: CLAWS

The images slithering through his head were as real as though he was once again experiencing that night. There was much chase and bloodshed in it to keep any normal kid awake for the rest of their traumatized lives, but Killua Zoldick--try as he might to force it into himself--was far from being normal. So no matter how hard he wanted to open his eyes, they just wouldn't budge, keeping him an unwilling captive to the gory recollection of that certain part of his dark past.

Conveniently enough, he alone was aware of this, thus sparing any outside gawker from the disturbing acquaintance of his repulsively tainted being.

The cold, evil side of his soul.

Even the prying raven-haired Chinese girl standing beside the bed with a frown of sheer curiosity marring her innocent face would never know the depths of the silver-haired kid's misery, the profundity of his chasmal agony. No one would ever do… Not unless he became the kid himself, suffer the same life as he had and have every tormenting bit of it haunt his dreams for the rest of his life.

No one would ever see the eerie memories of that fateful night through the pained, contorted face alone. The indiscernible mumblings and convulsive twitchings only hinted, though rather deviously, the amount of throe the kid was currently going through.

"K-Killua-kun?" Before she was even aware of it, Meilin had already settled her snoopy ass discreetly on the bed, her muliebral weight making the resilient cushion bounce slightly. She called his name again, this time reaching out one impertinent hand to give the mumbling kid a wicked shove out of whatever nightmare was plaguing his haunted head. She, however, got a mere stifled groan for an answer before the slumbering form casually rolled on his side, turning a rigid back on her as though obliquely telling her to get lost.

Creep, her mind screamed in exasperation as she obstinately delivered another fierce nudge on the insolent guy's shoulder.

"Teme!" a stifled groan of irritation rumbled from the depths of the soporific kid's throat. And suddenly, there was a dreadful, discomfiting thickness in the air that made the intrusive hand draw back, the slitty chestnut-colored eyes taking on a cautious spark as a set of irked, receptive cells turned the fiercely frowning youth flat on his back.

The still very nibby Chinese lass remained unmoved from her post, watching with heightened discretion as the angry contortion on the silver-haired lad's face became grimmer, almost murderous. She kept watch as the kid began struggling against some force that he alone was seeing--and feeling--in his dream. She felt a hint of apprehension flooding her nerves, though couldn't quite tell whether it was for the kid, or for herself.

"Yameru!" was the sudden angered wail that came rushing through the pale, trembling lips. And no amount of human prudence could've prepared Meilin Li for what happened next.

Stunned and bewildered out of her wits, she nimbly jumped off soon enough to save her face from being scraped off by those mean looking nails that had mysteriously grown on the boy's right hand. A veiny, right hand was the exactest way of describing it.

A veiny, right hand with mean looking nails--like the claws of a beast!

Meilin hardly felt the rattling impact of the floor against her rear. The next thing she knew she was looking straight into those large, terrified eyes of the stranger who had nearly cut all terrestrial breaths out of her as long, severed strands of black hair created a nonchalant downpour on the empty space between them.

"What's wrong with you!" she choked out a scream as large specks of tears began forming a winding, salty trail down her wan cheeks.

"So… Sorry," the kid himself choked on his reply, turning his tear-glazed eyes on his now very normal-looking right hand. "I… They… They were gonna hurt him! I… I had to… I had to save Gon! They were gonna…" He sniffed and sobbed pathetically like a little child that Meilin had no other choice but to forget about her plans of retaliation and just leave the room while she still had a bit of her considerate side left within her.

"I…" Killua whispered bitterly in the suffocating hollowness that descended upon the room as soon as the door closed rather violently, distinctly reflecting the wrathful fright of another friend he had just lost.

"I… had to… save him…" He gasped as he saw a vision of his blood-drenched hand. A clear memory of that dreadful night he had to breach on his words, his vow to discard his slaying ways for the sake of a friend, yet despite this fail to keep that said friend close to him… Losing him in such a dreadful, inculpating way.

He felt bad that he broke his promise in front of his dying friend, in spite of the scrupulous kid's choked, sharp screams of reproof, of wrathful admonition. Until now, he could still hear that angry, raspy voice shouting, "Killua, yameru!" as he carried on his thoughtless, pitiless requital on their assailants.

Gon wouldn't have minded if they were acting on their own will. But those freaks had merely been innocent minors turned into brainless puppets designed to answer to their weasly master's diabolical biddings.

This fact had deftly slipped his mind the moment they began gaining on his friend. He was left with no other choice as an uncontrollable wave of wrath took over him in a rush. He had to save him after all, and that's exactly what he did. But he was too blinded by rage to notice one sly pawn creeping up to him from behind. He never noticed Gon coming up to him until the stealthy kid had hugged him tightly, using his fragile body to shield him from the frenzic attacks of the wailing man.

His friend willingly gave up his life in exchange for his. And as he watched him smile up at him for the last time, before completely letting go of his breath and slumping dead on the ground, Killua lost whatever morsel of sense he had left in him and attacked the man, venting all his anger out at him until he was nothing but an unnoticeable glob of flesh and blood.

He could still vividly remember how tightly he had cuddled his friend after that, amidst those mangled corpses slowly losing their no-good lives to death--his own bloody handiwork.

Somehow, he felt like he was solely to blame for what had happened. Aside from being the cause of Gon's unbidden death, he failed every inch of his friend's fair, unbiased judgment of him, every ounce of his expectations.

He had killed again. Killed with more merciless abandon than ever, right before his friend's very eyes…

Perhaps, it wasn't really because of companionship, but of extreme disappointment that the young licensed hunter fainly acted on that suicidal impulse to save his blasted life.

Gon didn't deserve him. Nobody did. And ever would.

Not that cute girl he met on his first day in school, who eventually became his good friend after just a few days…

Not that cute girl's cute friend with the annoying camera…

Definitely not that Chinese prick who had always been after his throat…

And… Never that Chinese prick's Chinese cousin whom he had almost killed… The feisty girl who had Gon's eyes and hair… and guts. The one he had initially believed to be his saving grace… The friend he had just lost.

The sobs began racking up him in convulsive chains, almost like the way it did so on that night--perhaps, more. He cried for his best friend. He cried for all the days he had let himself believe in the illusion of a simple, normal life he knew he would never have.

He cried like there was gonna be no tomorrow.

He cried like he had never done so before. So hard that each tear scathed his soul… Each choking whimper sliced through the very depths of his heart.

His heart. His beating, breathing weakness.

-----------0-----------

No matter how hard and stubbornly he tried to deny it, Syaoran knew something was amiss. It wasn't only that a great length of his cousin-cum-ex-fiancée's hair had mysteriously disappeared, leaving in its wake a plain bob that was not even half as alluring as the truncated cascade of silky locks. It wasn't merely the disturbing silence the usually babbly lass carried on at breakfast, passively yet resolutely refusing to give even a mote of rational explain as to why she was so suddenly sporting a new look for the weekend. It seemed that the dolt had even made Wei-san vow not to open his mouth on the matter!

And it definitely wasn't that the kid, was nowhere to be seen--on the table, in his room nor anywhere else around the house.

Well, okay, so maybe it was. To the littlest degree. The inflexible Chinese guy wasn't about ready to admit that he was missing his blasted rival after all that had happened in the past few days!

He didn't know why, but he suddenly felt it was his prerogative right to ask about their guest's whereabouts. Yeah, that stranger was their guest, after all. And curse these people for making him feel so left out on whatever friggin' mystery there was surrounding that prick's sudden disappearance. Nobody should dare keep a young master in the dark--especially not in his very own house!

"Where is he?" Syaoran asked in his firm, quiet voice, intending to force some answers out of anyone-- like it always did--without abandoning his usual respectful reserve.

Not on this certain day, though.

"I'm done," was all the answer he got from Meilin, before she pushed her chair off and silently walked out of the dining room, dull chestnut eyes unwaveringly glued on the ground she was walking on. Perhaps, even beyond it.

Syaoran didn't bother calling out to her anymore, knowing full well nothing could possibly sway the girl's stubborn resolve. And finding no one else in the room aside from Wei staring silently at him from the opposite side of the table, the awfully irked Chinese lad turned to him and stated, rather than asked, "You're not gonna tell me anything."

Wei shook his head slowly and put on a rather sympathetic look on his face, "There is nothing I know that I can possibly tell you, Syaoran. Sumimasen."

The young kid sighed loudly in resignation as he put his utensils down beside his plate of untouched omelet, all the while keeping his usual well-mannered, gentle approach to everything despite the wave of resentment welling up in each of his fragile nerves.

"There's one thing, though," Wei, probably sensing the wrath his young master had been trying to bottle up within him, proceeded to add. He went on only after making sure he got the brunet's full attention--the kid sat still in his chair, sending a questioning scowl his way. "Even though she's still too freaked to admit it right now, Meilin would surely want to talk to him after a while. You have to find him, Syaoran."

Syaoran's brows crossed at the proposition--a mandate stated almost pleadingly by the old butler whose decisions he had always respected and adhered to like a young kid would to his father's decrees.

And despite all the dissension he got from the majority of his brain cells, he soon found himself walking down the neighborhood, caught up in his resolve to find that insufferable prick. He should be happy now that the mysterious stranger had unwillingly departed his abode, right? But it took only Wei's pithy words lingering on and on in his head to make him change his mind…

"Your cousin has always done everything she can to make you happy. It's time you do something for her in return…"

tbc…

Note: Okay, I admit it was pretty short. I intend to put all other things as well as a few flashbacks into what happened from Killua's first day in school to the weekend he suddenly disappeared in the next chapter, which I'll post up as soon as I'm done with it. Until then, minna-san. Thanks again!