Hehehehe...Now the fun really begins
Yep-yep! The first Multi-sentence dialogue with our mysterious little murder
Aren't you proud?
And LOOK! An actual reference to a non-character subject in HunterxHunter! NEN! WOW!
(as you can see, Sete is one of my favorite chapters)
Fine fine, I'll be quiet...
--------------------------
The Magician and the Fool: Capitulo Sete
Hazel eyes flicked open in the pitch dark. Hisoka sat up and jumped out of the hammock, landing artfully on his feet as usual. The clock glowed 12:47 in green on the table, but that wasn't the only thing. He opened the window, letting a cool breeze billow in. The magician shuddered, and not of cold. He could feel it, something big in the city. Nen, and a lot of it. "Our visitor sends a beacon…" he snickered to himself and licked his lips. The aura was muffled, pulling out his talent for Nen detection, as well as his interest. "What's that my little friend? You want me to come out and play…?" his grin deepened feeling the aura waft into the room and around his body like vapor. He climbed out onto the ledge of the building and put his arms out like a diver "Sa, iko."
The wind blew hard against him as he fell from the window. So hard that he lost his balance for only a moment, though that was long enough to falter his step. Hisoka hissed and rubbed his ankle, which had absorbed most of the blow. He heard a small giggle above him and looked around. Nothing. He frowned and tried to pick up the Nen once more. The frown deepened as he realized that the cloud was all around him in small concentration, the thickest aura in a small lump actually bouncing at high speeds all over the city. A maze. 1st street. 2nd street. Duncan Avenue. Moor Boulevard. Main Street. Weller Street. Turkey Lake. Von Christ Boulevard. 5th street and back again, appearing and reappearing erratically. He could hear a small laughter near him once more and then it was gone. He smirked and took his mark like a racerunner. "So…you want to play tag…ready…set…— "
"Go" another voice. Right behind his head. The one place to shoot a dog so he doesn't feel it. Hisoka had never heard her true voice before, but he knew it was his quarry. He still shot off like a rocket in the opposite direction. Usually in this scenario character A is behind character B, so B turns around to see character A, but character A leaves as soon as B turns around. In this case he knew she'd be gone, and she knew he knew. Strange that they had never met in person before and yet knew each other's next moves.
"Thank you my little visitor…I'm getting such exercise since you came" he grinned wide and showed his teeth to the blur of lights whizzing by him. He didn't even feel his feet touch the ground and soon lost track of what street he was on. In between leaps and bounds, he could feel her on the next street over, or not at all the next minute. It was like finding a rat with a needle in its mouth in a haystack, so close but it keeps moving. The clever magician had it all planned out in his head: she'd continue in her random disappearing and reappearing, but he'd keep going in a beeline. Eventually they would have to meet. Not just by chance, but by necessity. She wouldn't have gone through all this trouble to send messages in the newspaper, feed her Nen maze all through the city, and exert such energy by flying around at random points all just to get him tired. Or would she?
"Pin pon" His curled shoes found the earth again. The city scenery seemed to thrust forward as he stopped abruptly. He breathed a little heavier to catch his breath, but in no manner that didn't already fit Hisoka. She had run him all the way down town, in some four-way cross section rendered useless by cracked tar and potholes. Some fractures of asphalt stood slanted as if a giant beast had fallen and destroyed the buildings around it. A single flickering light post stood on a stained street corner, offering what sporadic yellow light it could on the scene. And to complete the stage a tiny marionette sat, swinging her legs on the arm of the post. She was still dressed in her harlequin jumpsuit and ridiculous jumper. It was already of bright color, but the strobe beneath her only made it more striking. Her hair was still wild, but in the light he could tell it was a much bloodier red accompanying the brown. All in all she would have looked terribly cute, like a little china doll, if not for her unnatural pink eyes and cheshire grin. Those eyes were closed now, a blissful expression accompanied by a slight hum. They flicked open and focused on a deep-voiced "Good evening" from below.
She stayed silent. To a normal passer-by she would have seemed…a bit on the creepy side, for she held a pose for such a long time that she actually did look like a giant doll. Her eyes were simple, just studying the strange man beneath her. Finally her plaster-grin emitted a small sly "Good morning" to correct him.
"Ah. So it is" he snickered remembering he had left at 12:50am. "But the night is young"
The little doll nodded. One could tell her answers would be few and far between.
She kept silent on purpose. Hisoka frowned, realizing that she was just going to sit there smiling and pull speech out of him like teeth. He kept silent too and smiled back. Long games of quiet, a match of chicken so to speak, to see who would break and talk first. The girl had the upper hand unfortunately, for he wanted to find out more about his next victim. He grinned wider, he knew she wanted to know things about him just as badly, otherwise she wouldn't even be here.
The sky bleeds tears of rain today,
what will we do? What will we do?
The sun sobs tears of strawberry ice cream,
for all the bad people,
and me and you
She finally broke the silence with a child's song. A strange song of unknown origin and stumbling tune. It trailed off in a fluttering giggle and more wavering of her legs. He looked up expecting to meet with devilish pink eyes about to speak something vague, but instead he saw her still singing and swinging her legs completely lost in her own little world.
The clown he comes to make you smile
instead he cries, behind his lies
The puppet girl she comes and goes
Clapping her hands, ripping the strands
The little riddle girl Nazonazo
"And you are?" she punctuated her song suddenly with a sly voice.
Hisoka smirked. She knew almost exactly who he was, and he was certain this was no chance meeting. She had an interest in meeting him for one reason or another. All he had to do was find that reason out, find more about her, and eventually strike her down. "Hisoka"
"Hisoka?" she repeated him and hummed. "So ka? Hisoka. Aka na Hisoka. Akiraka na Hisoka. Akuma Hisoka" Her word-play followed a tripping beat. Another fluttering laugh, similar to that of hyena some might say. And her glaring reflective eyes didn't exactly improve her image. "Baka na Hisoka" she added quicker than her rhythm
"What is it with women and verbal abuse?" he pouted to her "Tell me…why is it you've come to bless this city with your presence, there's not much going on" Nazo had managed to pull another question out of him, sarcastic as it may be.
She chuckled again and looked down at him with now narrow eyes "I could ask you the same thing"
"Oh?" He grinned. "I had friends here, but they left me all alone with these horrid people" letting his voice shake to add a bit of irony.
"You have legs don't you?" she closed her eyes in a wise-ass cheshire grin. "Besides that nice little license is your ticket all over this hell-box"
"Done your homework I see" he chuckled, his eyes starting to darken underneath. "I suppose one has to know about her peers?"
"Nah-ah" she waved a finger "That's a secret" with a cute chuckle she took hold of the pole and fell backward, making a loop. "Can't tell them or I'll die"
Hisoka merely stared with a smirk, trying earnestly not to laugh at her little monkey tricks.
"They'll come in the night! They come, they kill, and they leave. In the midnight hour they scream more, more, more! I can't tell what's up or down, (you've got to figure that one out for yourself you see) or else they'll run me out of town! By means of a garden hose! It puts the lotion on itself or else it gets the hose again!" Nazonazo suddenly became much more talkative. Although it wasn't anymore useful; her mindless chatter came and went so quickly at such a high pitch. As she spoke she flipped off the pole, bending her knees like a dancer as she landed. With pirouettes and sporadic movements all in all the speech was quite confusing. A dramatic curtsy ended her speech with an answer to the previous conversation. "Looking for fun"
"A noble cause" Hisoka spoke low, never loosing his grin. "You seem to be stirring up quite a bit of your own" He licked his lips dripping with venom. Now that Nazo was at a normal talking distance to the magician, she looked much more like a normal young girl. A young woman maybe. In the light her hair shined a bright candy red, but the rest was a deep brown. Her face seemed to suit her; it was as strange as her getup. Stark white for starters, but a dash of blush added to her porcelain appearance. Over and around her left eye socket was a great orange splotch surrounded by little triangles. Smothering her right was a bright yellow star. Just to top it all off the right side of her nose was painted green. "I enjoyed my glass house" his eyes became darkened slits, a bit of lust seeping through his teeth as he talked.
She still kept an innocent grin and a sweet voice. "Thought you would" Now he could see it. Now he could see why her way-too-wide grin never moved much. Of course it was a mask, You knew it, I knew it, he knew it. But it was just a handkerchief tied around her jaw, obscuring her real mouth (if indeed she had one beneath). Not an elaborate kabuki mask, not a genetic horror, just a hankie with lines inside a crescent. "This is a nice city for fun" her eyes closed, and her mask did the rest.
"Maybe so, although I've never seen your methods in action" another sharp grin "Perhaps you would—" her eyes opened again and cut him off by swiftly jumping backward. A hop, skip and a jump back onto the light postl; she stayed silent looking up at the sky. "Hmn." He frowned a bit and looked after her. Nazo's back faced him but her head was cocked up to the stars, as if they begged her to stay (either that or she was just lost in the purdy sky). A few minutes past and he called after her "I like guessing games" knowing it would get her attention
And it did. Nazonazo still stood on the pole's arm, but looked over her shoulder "Don't we all?"
"You sweep up after everything don't you?" a wide and wily grin flew over his lips, bringing the conversation back to her style of murder. Her attitude threw the magician off a bit, for he thought her to be very proud of her style, and not so blunt. One might daresay when he mentioned it she stopped short…embarrassed maybe? And why?
The girl didn't turn away, but didn't face him either. She merely looked to her side at the ground and took something from the ruffles in her skirt. "Even wipe the fingerprints off the Clorox bottle" she held up a spray bottle of cleaning agent, making reference to the age-old mistake a burglar makes by cleaning his fingerprints from everything but said cleaning product. Nazonazo gave him one last wild grinning glance and leapt from the post, bounding and running off into the dark.
Hisoka merely stared after her with a toothy grin ripping at the sides of his mouth. A rumbling chuckle flew from his throat and cut through the now quiet street. The hollow plonk of a something plastic hitting the asphalt woke him from his murderous daze. He looked up and saw something white on the sidewalk. The magician slowly sauntered over to the walk under the still-flickering light post and picked it up. It really was a surface cleaner, but the label said 409. "She lied" he looked it over and nit-picked at the fact that she has said Clorox earlier. He pocketed the object, knowing it would come in handy later and started on the long walk home. This part of town was actually fairly enjoyable…the streets were absolutely empty and the buildings were old and broken. He looked up at the sky, and straight ahead, lost in thought as usual. The silly magician looked up very high at the moon and stretched with his hands folded behind his head
I wonder what else she keeps up that skirt?
End Capitulo
-----------------------------
Naughty Hisoka!
Also the confusing text when Nazo repeats Hisoka's name is my own form of Japanese word play XD
Japanese Mini-lesson!
"So ka" is the japanese equivalent to "Really?" or "Is that right?"
Aka na - "red"
Akiraka na - "obvious difference"
Akuma - demon
I think you guys can figure out what Baka na is xD
(really this is just the result of me thumbing through my Japanese dictionary at three in the morning xD but it rhymes)
Also "Sa iko" translates to "Let's go"
Hehehe also 50pts to whoever can quote what Nazo's talking about when she's coming off of the lightpost. (random quotes from movies and songs, but it's funny to see which)