Chapter 6
A hand darted out and grabbed his arm, he was pulled back up to a grinning Hisoka. "So you could have made it without my help, eh?" As the magician took a step back to pull the other man up they heard the sound of the brick being depressed as arrows cut through the air. Hisoka jumped up with Illumi in tow to avoid the projectiles.
They ended up in an undignified heap on the floor a few feet away. "Isn't this a pleasant situation?" Illumi looked around to see he had landed on top of the smirking magician. Pushing himself off the other man, he saw an arrow had impaled itself in Hisoka's arm. Somewhat guiltily he thought the other man would have been able to dodge it easily if he wasn't burdened by the added weight of another body.
Hisoka pulled out the arrow and tossed it into the corner. He proceeded to lick the at blood dripping down his arm, "Tasty."
Illumi cuffed the back of Hisoka's head. "Don't do that, you don't know what may be on that arrow." Illumi bent over the other man and proceeded to bandage the other man's arm.
"Aw, you really do care about me!" Hisoka smirked and leaned towards the assassin.
Illumi felt the magician getting too close for comfort. The assassin reached out to push Hisoka away when Hisoka lurched forward and fell on his shoulder. Hisoka really was thinking of purposefully bumping into Illumi when he felt his body go numb and fell forward.
"Fascinating, I seem to have lost control of my body. Your hair does smell nice though." Illumi jerked away from the magician, who fell with a loud thump to the ground.
"Ouch, I can still feel when I hit the floor." Hisoka remained motionless on the ground.
Illumi went over to inspect the arrow. I should have recognized the paralysis applied to the tip by the smell earlier. The way he had landed on Hisoka was running through his mind. Great, that big pervert's mind is even getting to me.
"Hey, if you are done looking at the arrow can you sit me up? This floor is awfully dusty and doesn't smell that good either." Hisoka complained from his position on the ground.
Illumi considered leaving the magician in that state for a little while longer, but he did not want to spend any more time in the drafty place. He hoisted Hisoka onto his shoulder and started down the path.
"It is a nice view back here." From Hisoka was hanging on the assassin's shoulder his face was nearly opposed to the other's backside. Illumi dropped the magician on his head.
"Sorry, my hand slipped." Illumi lifted the other man back up, this time Hisoka wisely remained silent as they continued towards the end of the corridor.
After an assortment of more traps, the two found their way to the center of the shrine. They entered a room with innumerable vials and hair strands of all different colors were strewn all about.
"This appears to be the correct location, but how are we to know which vial is the correct one?" Illumi inspected each container carefully. None of them had labels, and no text indicated what to do unlike at the entrance to the place. The assassin propped Hisoka against a statue on the ground and walked over to the jars to scrutinize their contents closer.
Hisoka yawned at the vials, he was bored. Not being able to move was interesting for the first couple minutes, and he did enjoy being carried by Illumi, but now he had nothing to do and was rapidly growing tired of looking at the dusty place. "There's hair all over the place, why not just test it on the stuff lying around here?"
The next hour or so was spent testing out the contests of the different jars, some appeared to eat hair as soon as it came into contact, and others appeared to be just regular dyes and gels. Illumi finished testing out all the containers with nothing to show from all his efforts. "None of those appeared to have the properties of a rainbow dye." He refused to call it a 'magical hair gel' aloud, it was simply too ridiculous. The assassin wondered what to do next awhile Hisoka had drifted off to sleep in his boredom.
Since the bottles were not the answer, Illumi thought the room itself might lend some clues to the whereabouts of the real thing. He ran his hand across the wall, testing for any weak points which might indicate another area they might have missed. His diligent search of the area revealed nothing. Turning to the statue he rested Hisoka beside earlier he remembered how the entrance had a similar statue.
Hisoka cracked an eye open sleepily, "Did you find anything remarkable yet?"
"Maybe." Illumi brushed his palm across the statue similar to how he inspected the wall earlier. His searching revealed a paper-thin opening along the side of the figure, approximately the width of a hand. Illumi would have destroyed the wall if he didn't think the whole place would come crumbling down around him if he did so.
He roused the dozing magician, "Where do you keep your cards? I might have found something indicating the location of what you are searching for."
Hisoka blinked sleepily but a smirk grew across his face, "In my pants." Illumi raised a couple pins threateningly. "What? I speak the truth. I tucked a couple into the inside of my shirt, under my waistband." He did not feel it was necessary to mention he also had plenty tucked in less intimate areas, such as in his armband.
Maybe I should pick him up by the ankles and shake him to see if any cards fall out instead. Illumi reached inside Hisoka's top to find a card while ignoring the magician's delighted giggles. The assassin felt something wet trail across his ear and turned to look at the magician. "Did you just…lick me?" Illumi asked incredulously, brushing at his ear.
"Maybe." Hisoka grinned. "My mouth obviously still works since I've been talking despite the stuff on that arrow."
The assassin slammed a pin into the wall by Hisoka's head, this was getting to be a regular occurrence. Illumi successfully found a card and walked back over to where the narrow opening in the statuette was. To his dismay the card was too thick to fit into the area. Illumi looked around to see if he could find anything thinner then a card. His eyes swept across all the hair strewn about on the floor. Of course, using the hair here to put in the opening might work, these people did worship hair after all.
Gathering up a sheet of hair from the floor he attempted to put it into the wall. The hair stayed in place for a second, and then was promptly spat back out. So the sculpture does not approve of this hair? Illumi attempted to try his own, putting an inch of his hair into the opening. This offering evidently pleased the statue as it immediately chomped off the hair. Illumi lifted his hair and looked at the now uneven strands in consternation.
"Did that thing just eat your hair?" Hisoka asked. "It is very nice hair, but it doesn't strike me as something that would taste good."
The two men peered at the statue as they heard the sound of stones moving against each other. From the sculpture's chest a panel slid away to show a thin vial hidden inside.
"That must be it, why else would it be in such a secretive place?" The magician's eyes gleamed eagerly.
"Only one way to find out." Illumi checked for traps and did not locate any. He picked up a strand of hair from the ground and dropped it into the vial. When it pulled it back out the end he had immersed into the liquid shimmered and rapidly began to shift from one color to the next.
Hisoka would have jumped for joy if he was able to move at all. He settled for exclaiming, "Yes, yes! I'm so happy I could just kiss you!" The magician grinned broadly at the assassin.
Illumi took a step back from the man just in case. "Now that this foolishness is over with, we can return home. Or, since my debt to you is completed, I can leave you here with the vial." He had no doubt that the magician would survive the day or two it would take the paralysis to wear off.
"You wouldn't." Hisoka attempted puppy dog eyes. "I would be SO bored!"
After a couple minutes of letting the magician tensely wait Illumi agreed, "I won't. You would end up pestering me about it later." Illumi tucked the vial into a pocket and hoisted Hisoka up to leave.
"I could get use to you carrying me around like this." Hisoka commented sweetly, smirking at Illumi.
"There better not be another time, or I really will leave you wherever you end up." As the odd twosome left the temple the assassin thought back on the whole experience. It was not that horrendous. As he thought of the jack-in-the-box, a smile almost graced his lips.
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End note: One more chapter to go and this will be finished. Chapter 7 is a short one ;