An Amusing Interlude - Part 4: Chains - In which Kurapika makes a decision.
By
Deborah (Kosagi) Brown

Hunter X Hunter is copyright Yoshihiro Togashi. Quoll and Kurapika aren't mine more's the pity.


QUOLL:

I wake slowly, feeling sun on my face and blankets covering me. Now this is different, and a bit disconcerting. My memories are confused. Dim images of the past swirling around me. Ruby Eyes glaring hatred. No can't think about that The memory is too deep, too intense, even now. Years after the event and the very thought of what happened threatens to send me over the edge again. I can't assimilate it, can barely deal with it. I force my thoughts away and find other memories. A swirl of thoughts and concepts not my own. Lesser minds, though, and easier to wipe away entirely. Not like theirs. Again I force my thoughts away.

Taking a deep breath, I lay still. My eyes are shut and I can feel a cloth over them. Another source of near panic. Did Neon get me after all? Am I to be further crippled? I'm almost scared to try opening my eyes. Still, I manage and sigh with relief. I can see. It's just a towel covering the upper half of my face. Through it, I can dimly see the bright sunlight and the ache is intense.

I lift my hand, intending to remove the towel, to look around, but find that I can't move. I try with the other hand and realize what must be wrong. There's a sting in one finger that tells me he's used my benz on me. That little Teach me to reveal my weapon secrets to an enemy. On one hand, it's good to know I'm probably not in Neon's hands. On the other, I'm still stuck with Kurapika.

I hear the sound of a door opening and closing. Then the towel is pulled off my face. "Good. You're awake." Kurapika's expression reveals nothing, not his anger at me, nor anything else he might be feeling. "I have food."

My jaw muscles aren't paralyzed enough to prevent speech. "Oh. Good," I say sourly. It seems we've switched roles again and I'm not at all sure I like it. "Where are we?"

He begins lifting me up and leans me against the pillows. The room could be anywhere, a fairly simple hotel lodging, most likely. "Siulus." At my blank look, he shrugs. "Somewhere to the east of the city. A small town and – hopefully – far enough out of the way that the Nostrads won't be able to find us. I'm hoping what you did to Neon and her men will slow them down, at least."

"They found you by your nen, I would suspect. They still can." I open my mouth and let him put some soup in it. My stomach feels wretched and I have a feeling that the last few hours, possibly days, have not been pleasant ones for either of us. From the taste in my mouth I'm fairly sure I don't want to remember.

He nods, "I agree," he says with studied calm. "We'll have to keep moving. But you were too sick. I used some nen to heal you back at the warehouse, but I didn't dare do more than the major repairs."

"We?" I ask, raising a brow and ignoring the rest of his explanation. He's expecting me to go with him, wherever it is he's planning on going?

"She has even more reason to capture you now," he tells me. "You've got her skill and the rarest type of Ruby Eye there is."

I let him keep feeding me, thinking hard and fast. On one hand, the color of my eyes aren't likely to be all that valuable, not being the true ruby that Kurapika's are capable of. On the other, they probably are the only ones of their kind. "It's nice to be wanted, I suppose," I mutter at last, swallowing the last of the food. "Is there more?"

"More food? I'll have to get it from the diner. I wasn't sure how much you could take."

I shake my head – more a twitch really – and realize the poison's wearing off. "Not that well, more food would be a good idea but is there more reason than the fact that we have a shared danger? If anything, sticking together means that she – or her father – can concentrate their forces on us." That was one of the reasons my Spider stays apart from each other when no job is in the offing. The further apart we are, the less of a target we make.

"I'm not done with you by a long shot," he tells me. "You killed my clan and you won't tell me why."

"Nor am I likely to. The Spider keeps its secrets. To the death if it has to," I tell him and add, slyly. "Though if you were to join We are missing a few members right now" I'm pushing his buttons deliberately, testing his temper, testing his reactions. I see a flare of rage in his eyes, feel a flicker of his power before he tamps down on it. "Those friends of yours wouldn't be bad additions either," I tell him.

"Shut up. There's only so much of your crap I'm taking, Quoll." Kurapika gets up. "I'm going to get more food for you."

KURAPIKA:

As I head down the stairs to the restaurant I have to wonder why Quoll is trying so hard to get me angry with him. He doesn't want to go with me, that much is certain, and I'm not sure why I am so adamant that he do so. The fact that he's part kin to me isn't a good enough reason to drag him along. I ought to kill him and be done with it.

That's the problem though. He'd scored, that night, telling me that I didn't want to kill anyone. Not even the Spider. I'd wanted to destroy them. Scatter them. Yet not kill them. I would have, given good enough reason. A reason such as self-defense or in defense of Gon and Killua. He's right, though. My Chain Jail isn't a weapon for vengeance. It's a weapon intended for some form of justice.

The trouble is, I begin to have doubts about that justice. He killed my people and he won't explain why. How can I judge his deeds when I can't understand their reasons? I remember what he'd said before we'd fought. 'Shall I tell you how horribly I feel for the deaths of your people? Or say it was a terrible, regrettable, mistake? Or maybe I should tell you that the reason Kurota died is that they brought it down on their own heads?' What if some it were true What if all of it was? What if he came there for some other reason and somehow things got out of hand?

The questions I have can't be answered without his cooperation. He's not afraid of dying, so that isn't why he won't answer. He's still protecting his Spider. Just as the rest of the Spider protect him from my knowing the truth. Somehow he must fear that what happened will only inflame me more, send me on a vengeance trip again. Maybe I should kill him. No, I decide, getting another bowl of soup and two sandwiches, taking it upstairs with me. Not until I know the truth. Not when his ravings suggest something more terrible. Harder to bear and the worse because it may mean I have no right to the vengeance I want. It's not a pleasant thought, but it's one I have to set aside as I open the door and find him gone from his bed.

QUOLL:

I lean against the bathroom sink and look at myself in the mirror, glad that the paralysis has worn off. My hair is a greasy mess, my chin covered with stubble, though not thickly. I've been out about a week to a week and a half then. Vague and disturbing memories of sickness and screaming and babbling flicker through my mind. They aren't thoughts I want to consider. I focus on the now, force myself to wash my face, then use Kurapika's razor to clear the stubble. I need a shower, a long, hot shower.

The door to the bathroom opens and Kurapika blinks at me. "Oh I thought"

I glance his way. "That I'd run? Where to? In my condition I wouldn't get far." My body is still badly damaged from what Neon's nen user had done to me, despite Kurapika's healing. Then there's the headache. It'd taken me over a month to wake up after the last time I'd used the Eyes – I suppose I'm fortunate that I'm up so soon. But then I only used them for a minute or so not like that time. I have to force my thoughts away again, I can't think about it. I mustn't. I finish shaving and turn to him. "I'd like to shower before continuing. Unless you want to kill me now, that is."

He glares at me. "If I was going to kill you I would have done it while you were asleep. Or just left you to die of exposure."

"No you wouldn't," I tell him, allowing myself a superior little smirk. Quoll, you must like playing with fire, picking on him this way. Or maybe it's just that I don't dare let him get close. Don't dare risk him learning truths better left alone. Truths that he's absolutely determined to know. "You aren't the sort to kill a helpless man. Even if he is the murderer of your entire family."

He growls a curse at me and slams the door, adding, a moment later, "There's another bowl of soup and a sandwich. Finish up before the soup gets cold."

I turn to the bath and start the water warming.

KURAPIKA:

Damn him, anyway. Try to be nice and he just gets bitchier. It's not like it's easy to be kind to him, either. He's the killer of my people as he keeps reminding me I realize he's trying to keep me away, to keep me from getting too near to his truths and I wonder what he fears. It's likely to be for his Spider, but I have the oddest feeling that there's more behind it than that.

I go over to the package of clothing I'd gotten him while he was unconscious. He's a bit taller than I, but not a lot heavier. I'd chosen accordingly, finding him something in black, if only because I couldn't picture him in anything else. It's probably too large but the belt will keep the jeans from falling around his ankles and a too large T-shirt is better than one too small.

Opening the door to the bathroom a crack, I can hear the sound of him humming something as he showers. I don't recognize the song, but it's relatively cheerful, considering he must be hurting like hell. I'd done my best with his injuries, but I'd had to be quick in order to avoid notice by whatever nen user it who'd found me for the Nostrads. I'd limited my efforts to his internal injuries. The external – bruises, cuts and scrapes – had had to heal on their own and his skin has be stinging from the soap and water. "Quoll. There's clothing on the towel rack for you," I call, then close the door before he answers. I don't really want to risk his current attitude infuriating me all the more.

Stepping out on the balcony with the sandwich I'd bought myself, I sit down in one of the chairs, watching the people wandering around the town square. I wish Senritsu was with me. She could have told me what he was feeling. Though she couldn't answer for much the last time. I remembered how horrible it had been for her. My anger and his composure. What was it she said? A happy melody?

It occurs to me that part of the answer lies in that prophecy of Neon's. She couldn't tell me what it'd contained, but from what he'd told me, from the way the Ryodan had behaved, they knew they were at risk. Knew some of them were going to die. Except he wasn't one of the doomed. So either he was happy because he knew nothing I did would matter or or he wanted me to kill him so that the prophecy would be broken. It occurs to me that he let me capture him, all to determine my weakness, even knowing it would probably be his death.

And he did find a weakness. He knows only too well that I don't want to kill. I wonder if he realizes that I will if I have to? I shake my head. All that may not matter at the moment. I need to find out the truth and I need to figure out a way to keep him under control. A memory comes to me. Something from my childhood. When my mother had come down with a fever That might do it, I realize. But what I need is somewhere far from here. May not even exist anymore. Still, I'll have to try.

The sound of a step at the doorway causes me to turn my head. The clothes I got him fit, barely. He's had to turn the pants legs up a bit. The T-shirt's not so bad, loose, yes, but not falling off him. With his hair tousled around his face he looks more like a teenager than the grim, dangerous, leader of the Genei Ryodan. Even the cross on his forehead looks innocent, the work of a child trying to imitate the adults.

Reminded of a question I'd had over the course of caring for him, I can't help but ask, "I thought all your bunch had a spider tattooed on you?"

QUOLL:

I blink at the question, surprised. It occurs to me that he's had ample time in the last week to find out what marks are and aren't on my body, though, so I just point to my forehead. "It's stylized." The arms of the cross I wear are actually three legs each of a twelve-limbed spider, one straight, the two surrounding it bent away and back, then darkened in. At the very center a tiny 13. All very symbolic, no doubt. Not to mention convenient for other purposes.

Kurapika frowns, gets up and stares at my forehead intently and I'm suddenly very glad the tattoo artist had been able to cover up the rest of the number with black. "Oh. I see," he says finally. "Hidden in plain sight, then." He walks over to the balcony, looking thoughtful. "Put your soup down, would you?"

Somehow I know what's coming. "Don't want to break the bowl?" I ask, setting it down. There's no point in running. I just don't have the strength right now. It had taken everything I had to make it through the shower.

"Something like that," he agrees. Then he wraps Chain Jail around me, the chains tightening around me so closely that I could barely breathe. I'm beginning to get tired of this thing, I think, even as he does something that sends searing agony through my heart.

As I collapse to my knees I hear him saying, "If I thought I could trust you not to run right now I wouldn't have chained you. But I have to change the rules, and that means taking the old Judgment Chain off you."

I look at him, knowing that my resentment of this treatment is showing. I'd like to ask him if he has any idea how much it hurts, but that would mean admitting more than I dare. Instead I just wait for him to do what he thinks he has to. I wonder what new torture he's devised for me.

KURAPIKA:

He's in pain and a part of me would like to revel in it, but that's a part of me I don't want to allow control. A part I don't want to accept or cater to. There's no point in playing games. No point in trying to force the truth from him with pain or fear of death. Neither bothers him. I'm still not sure why the risk to me had broken past his composure that night, but I do know it has a lot to do with why I'm doing this.

"First," I tell him. "You will travel with me. No specific distance between us, but you have to stay around and go where I go within as short a time period possible and stay as close as is reasonable for two men traveling together." He blinks at me, startled, and I continue. "Second, you will do nothing harmful to me or yourself. That means no attacking me physically or getting someone else to attack me for you. Nor are you to do or say anything that would make me attack you. I don't expect you shut up entirely, but you're not to push it. If I tell you to be quiet, you stop. Understand?"

His eyes are wide and confused, but he nods, slowly. What I've done ensures he could contact his Spider again. Could even bring them out of the woodwork to follow us and find ways around my second rule. It also returns his nen to him, since I can't put more than two rules on one person. I'm pushing things with the second rule anyway, with all the clarifications.

At his nod I let my Judgment Chain dangle free and swing it. He twitches, convulses as it hits and I feel a certain sympathy. I have one in my own heart, part of what ensures the Chain Jail's strength against him, and I know it hurts. I hadn't cared, the night I'd put it on him before, but that's changed.

As I release him from the Chain Jail he rises to his feet and sits down, rubbing at his chest with a rueful expression. "I don't suppose you'd tell me where you're thinking of going?"

I shrug. "Home."

QUOLL:

I nearly choke on my soup. "HOME?" I feel the Eyes trying to break free and am forced to lock down on the power. My hands start to shake. ""

"There are things I need to do there." He eyes me. "Do you have any objections?"

Dozens, I want to say, but am silent. It's all I can do to hold back the fear. To hold back the rage that wants to let itself loose all over again. "Why should I? It's empty. There are no ghosts there to haunt me, if that's what you hope." No, the ghosts are all in my head, all locked in my memory and forced into hiding by my will.

"Then that's where we'll go." He finishes his sandwich and stands up. "We'll need to get some supplies. I couldn't drag you and your stuff with me."

I take refuge in mundania. "My books? You left my books?" It's easier to deal with that fact than where he wants us to go.

Kurapika frowns at me. "I grabbed a couple. I wasn't going to carry a whole library with me. It's amazing how many you've collected in one month." At my irritated expression he adds, "We can go back to the warehouse when we go in to the city. If you think it's safe."

I consider that and sigh. It isn't safe and the likelihood is pretty good that if Neon made it out she, or rather her father, would have sent someone keeping a watch on my hideout now. "No. I'll just have to find some new ones on the way." It's an irritant, but a minor one. More importantly, it distracted me from the larger disturbance of my impending doom.

No, doom is an exaggeration, surely, I think to myself. I can handle it. The memories hidden in my mind say I'm wrong, but I refuse to acknowledge them. I dare not give them substance by doing so. Instead, I finish my soup and follow Kurapika into the room. "So, what supplies do you think we'll need?"

KURAPIKA:

I gaze down at our luggage with a frown and glance at Quoll. He's changed now into the new clothing he bought during our shopping trip, using a name and credit rating I was almost sure wasn't his to use. Tight pants, boots, trench coat and a loose shirt of pure silk, all in basic black with various subtle and not so subtle designs on them. What is it with that cross thing anyway? He was looking a lot more like himself, though he'd left his hair loose, covering his forehead with a white bandana. "Exactly how are we going to get all this anywhere?" I ask, a little annoyed with myself for having let him buy so much. "And who did you steal the card from?"

He laughs, a startlingly pleasant sound, and I realize it's the first time I've ever heard him be really amused. "Well, in the end, I suppose it is stolen goods. But the credit rating belongs to one of my aliases. As for carrying them" A book with a palm print on its cover appears in his hand and he flips it open. For a moment he pauses, looking at the book almost fondly and I realize he's pleased to have his power back. As I step back, startled, he materializes a blanket and tosses it over the luggage. A second later it's shrunk down to a mere handful. Both book and blanket dematerialize as he closes it.

"One of your stolen nen?" It irritates me, but I force back the annoyance. I know he's a thief and worse. Getting upset about it now, when I've decided to drag him with me, isn't going to help matters.

Quoll picks up our luggage and hands the pile to me. "Of course," he agrees. "A handy one, too, wouldn't you say?" He sticks his hands in the pockets of his coat and waits for me to react. When I don't, he shrugs and adds, "So. Shall we go?"

I pause, looking at him directly, meeting his dark eyes with an expression I hope is serious. "I don't want to spend this trip giving people back their stuff. And I intend to pay our way." I'm still not sure why I'd let him pay for the luggage we just bought. Though I have to admit it'll make our trip into the hinterlands easier. We have to fly part of the way, but my tribe's lands are hidden in remote mountains so far from any civilization that we'll need the camping supplies he'd chosen.

He blinks at me thoughtfully, then shrugs and bows deeply. "As you command, master."

Damn, I think. This is going to be a long trip.

To Be Continued


Author's Notes: Thanks to Yukiko and Blunt for your reviews. Ego boo is SOOO good for the author, oh yes indeed it is.

Quoll's Spider Tattoo: Well, it certainly isn't on his chest. It could, of be on his back, butt or some other intriguing location. I've seen fan art with it on the back, but nothing certain. It merely amuses me to speculate that the forehead cross was intended to be his version of the Spider.

Quoll's Eyes: I have noted a similarity in eyes between Killua's family and Quoll as well. One wonders. One does indeed wonder, especially considering recent events in Shonen Jump. (SFX: Kosagi jumping up and down on Togashi doll whining "GIVE ME MORE QUOLL, DANG IT!")