A/N: A little rushed, this time. Thanks for your patience!
;
Apparently, participants who finished the third phase were expected to wait in the antechamber until the allotted six-day period was up. Amenities and a fully-stocked kitchen were built into the antechamber's walls, along with a linen closet for sleeping bags and pillows, so the wait was tolerable.
Barely.
After all, the antechamber lacked the basic psychological need of sunlight, green life, and, with every participant's pass of the finish line, sane company. Titania couldn't help herself; she chatted with the ninja who had bowling balls for shoulder pads, and made small talk with the girl wearing a turban. Basically, anyone who was willing to engage in even the mundane contemplation of how the prison wardens maintained the facilities. Titania needed to talk to someone before she could go insane after six days of complete silence.
Her walking club, with the addition of the skater boy and Tonpa, daringly bolted into the antechamber with seconds to spare before time was up.
"Look, Ti beat us to it!"
"Of course she did, idiot, we barely passed!"
"Long time no see, Ti."
Titania grinned at her rambunctious group as the passing participants all walked through a newly-revealed door in the antechamber for the outside world. A ginger girl in a sweater awaited them with a box in her hands, accompanied by the director standing at her side. As the participants drew lots from the box, the instructors explained the rules of the fourth phase.
It was essentially a manhunt within the bounds of an island the participants would be boated to. The targets were participants' badges, with three points each allotted to one's own badge and to their main target's, as determined by the drawn lot. Everyone else's badges cost one point. To win, participants had to acquire six points' worth of badges and return to the boat before seven days were up. Any method for acquiring badges was up for grabs, even murder.
Titania immediately unpinned her badge and stuffed it down her waistband.
Hopefully her predator preferred rap battles. Or writing persuasive essays.
As for her prey, the red shirt of the brother trio didn't seem impossible to hunt. Because…red shirt.
She was later proven correct more than four days later, when skater boy trounced the triplets and sent two of their badges flying opposite ends down the island's forest. Because skater boy — no, Killua, was raised by assassins, apparently. And literally! Why should she be surprised!
What was wrong with the parents of this world? They either left home to buy cigarettes and never returned, or they were trained killers. There was no in-between.
Titania chased after a random badge that Killua threw and, for once, lucked out. The ninja from earlier caught the badge, but amicably tossed it to her when he realised he had targeted the wrong one. Titania profusely thanked him and wished him luck, before parting ways for the island's dock. Aside from creatively camping and fearing she'd be murdered in her sleep every time she drifted off, Titania found the fourth phase tolerable. Her fear of heights had not been challenged even once.
When the fourth phase passed, and everyone was taken up by a blimp to the next phase's location, Titania learned she had dodged a bullet. Over the course of the week, the rest of the walking club had apparently encountered a snake trap, insider trading headed by Tonpa, and the perverted clown, again. Titania nearly wished that the assassin of the two child participants had been thrown at Hisoka, until she remembered that she didn't wish the homicidal, pedophilic mithridate on anyone. That madman was a walking safety hazard.
Titania said as much to the director, when he interviewed each participant on their opinions of the others. The director expressed interest in who they would seek and avoid to fight the most.
While Hisoka had been Titania's latter, she couldn't decide on a participant for the former. She didn't want to fight anyone in her walking club, but compared to everyone else, Leorio didn't appear to possess inhuman physicality. Titania would receive the least amount of harm from him. The next best choice was fighting the ninja, if only because he seemed friendly enough to defeat her in one strike that she'd just feel later.
Titania would swiftly come to regret her honesty when the director revealed that the fifth and final phase was a battle tree. It wasn't even like sports, with a final match between the best competitors. Participants needed only to win once before they passed the exam and gained a hunter license. Losers had as many chances to gain a victory and pass as there were losers left to fight.
In other words, Titania wasn't allowed to lose only once.
The director also displayed a battle tree that obviously reflected the results of his interviews with participants. The prominently physically-able participants were flushed left of the tree's last nodes, while Titania, Leorio, and the rest of the participants were flushed right. The geriatric director was milking the exam for entertainment. If Titania could, she'd purchase him a subscription to Netflix, or its local equivalent. Him, and the dozens of buff men in suits that had volunteered to referee the battles.
Titania couldn't fathom an incentive beyond money, when the suits didn't tear their gazes an inch from Gon's battle, which lasted three hours. Titania was furious that the little green boy refused to yield to the anti-chiropractic ninja; not because of Gon's illogical tenacity, but because an absent father had driven the boy to willingly go to such lengths. As her fury ebbed, however, Titania got off her tired feet. She curled up on the floor of the arena and napped through most of the fight, surprised to wake up and discover that the dozens of referees had not moved a centimetre since the battle's start. Gon finally outlasted his opponent in a battle of wills, leading to the ninja's surrender and Gon's victory, punctuated with the boy passing out.
The rest of the matches had not lasted as long, but it was a wonder that none of the referees slouched in their spots for even a second.
On Titania's turn, she suggested to her opponent that they engage in a sumo wrestling match. Her words didn't translate fully, but the fully-grown, muscled male that was her opponent understood that he was being challenged by a lean girl in jean shorts. The two of them crouched down in front of each other, and on Titania's mark, they charged.
PACHI!
Titania clapped the air in front of her opponent's face, startling him long enough for her to slam her head into his chin. She held nothing back. If Titania had been handed a brick wall, she would have headbutted it just as hard until either her or the wall cracked. In this case, the loser turned out to be her opponent's jaw.
As Titania stumbled sideways with a hand to the top of her head, her opponent reeled back with a bruised jaw. Titania seized the opportunity to grab him by the shoulders and headbutt him again, this time on his forehead, swiftly splitting her consciousness with pain. Titania was blearily aware of her opponent falling over unconscious as she joined him on the ground. When her vision refocused, she was back on the sidelines leaning against the wall, and Killua and the pincushion guy were up next. The referees must have moved her — or her walking club had, if the referees were dedicated to just watching and standing still. Titania had apparently ceased a tie from her opponent.
What followed in the next five minutes was an awkward airing out of family drama. That was what Titania managed to follow, at least. The pincushion guy ended up flipping his hair in a less festive reenactment of bian lian, revealing himself as a fish-eyed guy like that was an improvement, and holding a one-sided debate on why skater boys were incapable of making friends. Titania cringed at the verbal equivalent of a lonely online post, or a troll's tandem. She was confused to find the flat garbage affecting Killua, only for her to arrive at the logical conclusion of family trauma, with a teaspoon of genetic sadism and a sprinkle of they're brothers? They don't even look alike. The last part was her internal addition.
Then fish guy declared his intention to murder an examinee who had passed, and did the referees move to stop him? Of course not! Other examinees stepped up and blocked the exit.
Honestly, where was the regulations book? So that Titania could use it for paper mâché, or kindling. Heavens forbid anyone around here read a rulebook. Fish guy then went on chatting, Killua ceded, and dear big brother punctually claimed he was lying about the murder part. He didn't apologise for the rest.
Assassin. Skater boy. Surrendered.
Titania didn't possess strong feelings for the kid one way or another, but she wanted to slap his big brother repeatedly until he flopped on the ground like an actual fish. For a kid with such a strong personality, Killua apparently harboured deep internal issues that the fish guy had just reopened. That was a no-no in Titania's books. The fact curbed Titania's shock as the competition progressed with Leorio winning by default against Titania's former opponent, when Killua crashed his fight by murking said opponent. Followed by Titania winning through default's cousin, when her next opponent would have been the loser of Leorio's fight.
It was a proven fact that for Titania to win a fight in this world, her opponent had to already be dead.
The waiting room for winners had the cheer of a mortuary. The energy considerably spiked with the little green boy storming in, breaking the fish guy's arm, sparking an uncomfortably heated argument across the entire room, and challenging the actual assassin. Everyone's passion finally simmered with the geriatric director deciding that family issues were the perfect segue into hunter orientation, and covering the importance of plastic cards.
Priorities.
Gon had the brilliant idea to confront fish guy again after orientation. His genius proved infectious, with Leorio and Kurapika backing his idea up. For better or worse, fish guy quickly brushed everyone off and departed, leaving Titania to watch her walking club figure out internet. She didn't care overmuch for Satotz' insight into Gon's absent father, when the examiner found them. Gon's father was easily Grade A garbage. The walking club of four eventually left Satotz and the exam grounds behind to decide their next steps.
Titania was a licensed hunter, now. She had passed the exam. Taking That Bastard's promise into account, her next destination should be a remote corner of civilization where she could live out her second life without being fated to die a certain way.
So, where was That Bastard? Where was the receipt to Titania's carefree second life?
"Titania? You seem…distracted."
"Are you unwell?"
"How's your forehead?"
Titania nearly felt like garbage, herself. She was looking for the exploitative afterlife equivalent of law enforcement –– or a defense lawyer? –– while her walking club was discussing how to viably rescue a peer from his twisted family. Titania's life was precious to her, of course it was, but she had passed the exam. Maybe a spiritual switch had automatically flipped once she had been handed her hunter license. In which case, chasing down a receipt was secondary to separating a kid from a toxic environment.
Full of assassins.
…Hesitance started to sprout in Titania. She feared death with the unfairly intimate knowledge she had of it, and the very thought of flirting with danger gave her cold sweat. While it was possible that death itself was no longer actively chasing her as someone who had not crossed over fully, she was still vulnerable to the consequences of her own actions.
"I'm fine."
The false defence fell from her lips naturally. She returned the thoughtful expressions directed at her, like a lake pretending to be the moon. Bright and calm.
"Off we go then!" Gon exclaimed. "To Kukuroo Mountain!"
The walking club of four had to ride an airbus, then a tour bus to reach the mountain. One upside was that the airbus had fast food that essentially tasted like McDonald's. One downside was that everything that followed were downsides.
The name "Lamentation Tours" was a poor marketing decision in Titania's opinion. As was the tour guide's willingness to overlook a few passengers maliciously carrying weapons, and to leave behind other passengers at the foot of a mountain because they said to. For the record, Titania's group was the latter. Killua's family apparently not only owned a mountain home, but the entire mountain, else Titania couldn't explain the towering concrete wall running around the forested feature. Hence Gon wanting to go through the front door engineered into the wall, no matter how long it would take for him to do so. The hostile sword toters from the tour bus earlier had attempted a side door at the wall, and ended up a beastly creature's snack. It had been the most exciting bus tour Titania had had in years.
Titania thus counted two levels of security in Killua's home so far: a stone gate that could keep nations out, and an oversized coyote that Killua's family called a "pet."
"The front door alone weighs two tonnes," the gate's security guard, Zebro, peppily informed. "My employment with the Zoldyck family continues so long as I'm able to push it open. I can tell you kids right now that you have much training ahead of you before cracking that door open a single inch. Fortunately, dear Mike won't attack you if you pass the gate through the front doors."
Mike being the oversized creature guarding Killua's front yard.
Titania trained until she couldn't think. The walking club boarded in the security guard cabin for several days, wearing body weights and shifting overweight utensils and furniture around with Zebro's advice. All the while, Titania constantly mentally criticised Killua's home for poor user design.
Fifty kilogram tea cups? Five-hundred kilogram bathroom doors? How on earth did anyone hydrate and relieve themselves around here!?
At least the walking club wasn't being charged for their lodging. Titania could easily imagine that Zebro and the only other security guard, Seaquant, didn't often see visitors. With her hunter license, Titania had been able to purchase an outfit from the airbus port that was a less ragged alternative to her jean shorts and sleeveless sweater. If she had time to feel silly wearing what was evidently an "I love Padokea" T-shirt and athletic shorts that read "Kukuroo Mountain" across her behind, then she wasn't focusing enough on pathetically trying to lift a teacup under Zebro's coaching.
"Maybe I should just give up," Titania lamented one night.
The boys shifted over in their cots to look at her.
"Whenever we try to push the front doors, I feel like I'm not contributing at all," Titania directed to Leorio and Kurapika. "I can feel your strength on each door. I'm pushing at the gap, the easiest part, and can't feel my own weight."
"Under Mr. Zebro's training weights," Leorio reasoned, "I doubt anyone can."
"I'm sorry," Titania apologised. "Even my attitude isn't constructive." At least Gon was able to be a good sport with his arm in a sling.
Said green boy rolled to his side. "Small progress is still progress, Ti. You're also being more helpful than you think."
"You're here because you care," Kurapika continued with a gentle smile. "We all feel it."
Titania's eyes shimmered, and she rolled away to face the wall. So, they could sense her abstract fear, and the fact she stuck with them anyway. Her three boys were blessings. If one of them had a friend in trouble, all three of them would step in to help.
Evidently, she would too.
In a moment of contemplation, Titania realised she wasn't the same person who had stepped out of her home one day to unknowingly die.
Zebro eventually permitted they shed their training weights. Pushing the front doors felt no different to Titania, until something shifted on either side of her, and Leorio and Kurapika sharply exhaled in excitement as the doors budged open. Gon instantly tossed his weights and sling aside to assist, giving the walking club the momentum they needed to finally part the doors wide. They collapsed on the foresty stretch of Killua's front yard, burning with accomplishment.
The Zoldyck family's gateway comprised of multiple "doors" stacked on top of each other. By parting the entrance, Titania, Gon, Leorio, and Kurapika had just moved a hundred twenty-eight tonnes of steel.
Yeah, baby.
Zebro saw the four of them off as they traced a dirt path towards their next obstacle: a lithe apprentice butler armed with a cane and unfailing politeness. The little girl informed them she would strike at any who crossed the dirt line drawn in front of her. She kept herself honest by thoughtfully hitting Gon in a different part of his body through his dozen attempts to pass. Every time he was sent flying, she'd tighten her face, tracking his descent into the ground. Gon was collecting injuries that would bruise for weeks, but wouldn't hinder his everyday life like his broken arm had. This grew increasingly obvious between Leorio, Kurapika, and Titania's silence as they witnessed Gon's bond with Killua soften another employee of the Zoldyck family.
The apprentice butler eventually cracked. Rather, she politely begged for them to save her young master.
"I'm happy…Young Master Killua made a friend."
B A N G.
Titania bolted over the dirt line to grab the fallen butler. Her walking club also exploded into action.
"Who would shoot a little girl––!?"
"There!"
Titania's hands trembled as she cradled the butler's head, before finally whipping her eyes to the direction of Gon's finger. Blood leaked out of the butler's wound and ran slick and warm over Titania's skin. A cyborg and a pale little girl stared flatly across the forest at them.
"Who––"
"Greetings," the cyborg murmured, lowering a folding fan that apparently also functioned as a gun. "I am Killua's mother. This one is Kalluto. My dear Kil volunteered for solitary confinement, and wished for me to pass a message on to you, his friends. 'I heard that you came, Gon. I'm very happy. However, I cannot see you right now. Sorry.'"
Titania heard none of what the Victorian cyborg had to say. The little girl in Titania's lap had just been shot.
A weight on Titania's shoulder pushed through her mental white noise. Spectacles tilted, framing a million thoughts in deep brown.
Leorio.
He had already been in the middle of treating the young butler before reaching out to ground Titania back to earth. The future doctor was essentially juggling two patients. The butler was breathing. Ahead, Kurapika and Gon were ready to fight so that the little girl could stay that way.
"She'll live," Leorio confirmed to the rest of their group.
Relief lined Kurapika and Gon's shoulders. Titania straightened, shifting Leorio's hand away. One patient, now.
"This isn't right," the cyborg's hysteria gradually drew back Titania's attention. However, the Victorian woman wasn't addressing the butler she had shot. "You can't let Kil go, Father! I must–– Pardon me," her tone abruptly flipped. "I must depart. See yourselves out. Kalluto."
The pale little girl obediently sprinted with the cyborg woman up the mountain, the two figures quickly swallowed by the dense forest. Kalluto…a boy's name? A pale little boy, then.
"The butler's office should be nearby," Kurapika produced order in the midst of panic. "Let's take Canary there."
The sun was slipping away faster than falling sand. Or blood. In the background, Leorio hastily assisted Kurapika with moving the little girl as delicate as her name, wary of her head injury.
Gon suddenly slipped Titania's trembling hand into his own.
"Ti…."
Gon's gaze cut across the space between them. What he spoke, as always, was the truth.
"We're going to be okay. You, me, Killua, everyone."
He squeezed her hand.
Their trek for the butler's office ate well into the night, when fireflies and crickets made themselves known. At one point, the young Canary awoke and refused to be carried further, instead opting to lead the four of them to the office. Leorio pursed his lips at her bandaged head but eased with a smile when the butler looked at him. He was carefully attentive, approachable, and patient, ready to redress Canary's wound if her current bandages began to soak with blood.
"If doctors could treat children for free, my friend wouldn't have died!"
Titania hoped Leorio would become the doctor he desired the most. It was always sad for a child to pass away. On both sides of the event.
They eventually arrived at the butler's office to be greeted by a small contingent of men in suits and jeweled ties. Under bright lighting, Canary proved in better condition than anyone could hope, allowing Leorio to quirk a concerned brow but say nothing when Canary and the group of butlers seated and served the walking club at a coffee table without addressing Canary's head wound even once.
Gon perked up when the only butler with a red jeweled tie shared that Killua was on his way to the office. The other butlers silently followed his lead, identifying him as the head butler. No one blinked when the man proposed that the walking club play a game while waiting for Killua to arrive.
"What kind of game, Mr. Gotoh?" Kurapika wondered.
The head butler pushed his glasses up like a pro gamer, and tossed a golden coin into the air. The instant the butler caught the coin in a flash of hands, Titania enthusiastically declared, "Heads!"
Gotoh frowned. "…Which hand did I catch the coin with?"
As the boys agreed on his left hand, Titania flushed. Wrong game.
"Killua is like my own child," Gotoh suddenly vented. "I had to witness his mother weep at his decision to leave home for his 'friends.' I won't tolerate malicious deceit. The next person to wrongly guess the coin's location loses their right to see Killua."
Uh, what?
Titania's brow twitched in irritation. "Isn't that up to Killua?"
A flash of hands.
"Left hand!" Leorio declared.
"Right!" Kurapika and Gon chorused.
"No one?" Titania swivelled her head. The boys on either side of the couch with her met her gaze with apprehensive expressions. "Why do we have to––"
"If you can't answer in three seconds," Gotoh shared looks with a butler behind Canary, "we kill the disobedient apprentice."
Short swords slipped into the hands of the butlers around them. Canary was held under a blade with mellow resignation.
"Left," Titania snapped.
Gotoh revealed a coin in his right hand.
Leorio and Titania slumped back in their spots in the couch while Kurapika and Gon stiffened.
Fwip.
"Left."
"Right."
Only Gon remained. Two more butlers stepped in and flashed their hands before the coin vanished.
"…You care for Killua," Gon directed to Gotoh with sharp eyes. "I know you'll miss him. Sorry. The coin is with the butler behind me."
Titania turned to see a butler behind the couch reveal a coin in his hand. The swords vanished in place of golf claps from all the butlers. Killua punctually strode into the room just in time to meet eyes with Titania, his gaze quickly sliding to Gon next to her.
"Gon!"
"Killua!"
Titania turned around back to Gotoh, who fixed his cuffs and nodded. The head butler quietly apologised for keeping Killua's friends occupied with a poor joke of a game. Personally, Titania found she was starting to dislike games.
Nearly as much as exams, and bespectacled grown men in suits.
"…And Kurapika, right?" Killua acknowledged the other guests in the room. "Liorio?"
"L – e – orio!"
"Chi?"
"Sure," Titania exhaled.
"Off we go, then?" Gon and Killua excitedly determined. The walking club quickly departed, with a brief, quiet exchange between Gotoh and Gon. Titania honestly only noticed because she saw Gotoh toss Gon the coin.
Free money!?
"He wants us to take care of Killua," Gon cheerily said. "The world is full of tricksters, so we should look out for each other!"
That was probably a diplomatic interpretation of the head butler's words, but believably spoken all the same. The coin game was a glimpse into the adult world, in Titania's opinion. …With more swords involved.
"Hey, Gon. How much do you think that coin is worth?"
The train ride to the international airbus port went by in a flash. The walking club chatted with Killua about their experiences with Zebro, Seaquant, Mike, Canary, and Gotoh, quickly descending into future plans and what their next steps were in the world. Titania drifted out of the conversation at that point. She could feel Kurapika's reserved gaze in the corner of her eye as she merely listened or asked questions.
They huddled together at the airbus port.
"You can't be convinced out of this?" Titania tried again. "You truly want to get within punching distance of a homicidal, pedophilic mithridate?"
Killua abruptly spluttered.
"I can't accept Hisoka's help from the exam!" Gon declared. "I'm returning this badge to him along with my fist!"
Killua side-eyed Titania. "…Where have you been hiding this vocabulary?"
Leorio narrowed his eyes. "Do I want to know what you call me in your head?"
"I call all of you by name," Titania dismissed. "Now."
"Now?"
"I don't wish Hisoka upon anyone," Titania exhaled, "but if necessary, I'd rather Killua be with you on the day of the auction. Don't go near Hisoka without anyone less metal than an assassin skater boy."
"That's your label for me?"
"Until September 1st, then," Kurapika determined.
The group collectively nodded. They would part ways for personal priorities, before reuniting in Yorknew City where Kurapika would be able to learn more about the Phantom Troupe, and Gon would be able to confront Hisoka.
Oh, it sounded like such a terrible idea when spoken aloud.
Titania caught Kurapika's sleeve as everyone separated. She pursed her lips. "Do you mind if I go with you? I don't know how to find a hunter patron."
"I'll help where I can," Kurapika agreed as they walked together. "In which case, what do you aim to 'hunt,' Ti?"
"Honestly, I just need a job right now."
"As do we both." Kurapika's grey eyes sharpened knowingly. "A marathon runner will never lose their way if they fix their eyes on their goal. You are as driven as any of us, yet haven't shared your drive yet."
"You mean like a dream?"
"If you see it as such," Kurapika adapted.
Titania gathered her courage with a sharp breath. "I want to go up to heaven without dying."
"I see…. You don't have a dream yet."
"I'm serious!" Titania defended. "I already know I'm en route for the Great Beyond. I just don't want to suddenly die while getting there!"
Kurapika sighed, shoulders loosening. "Choose a more realistic goal. Like achieving immortality."
"There's a guy somewhere," Titania moaned, "with the knowledge I need. I just wish he'd confirm that I did things right. Am doing things right."
"A guy?"
"Or two," Titania hastily improvised. "There are…shamans who specialise in the occult, right?"
"I believe shamans are defined as occult."
"There you go!" Titania gestured to Kurapika. "I want to find the most authentic specialist. I'll know he's the one once I see him."