Hi!
It's been a while. I'm back on the writing wagon now. Thank you to the recent followers who have brought this back to my attention at exactly the right moment. You know who you are :)
I'm actually having a lot of fun writing this. Somehow, three years later, I'm having an easier time expressing myself. I've decided to experiment with past tense and play around with an element of retrospection. The reviews I've gotten are giving me the warm and fuzzies.
For the readers which I've neglected for so long, I'm sorry :((
Stay tuned!
When I had trained for the Hunter exam in the karate dojo that my adoptive father ran and in the woods around it, I had imagined what it would be like. I had expectations, and many of those have been met. The physical exhaustion, the mind games, the sheer life-threatening should-not-be-legal situations. But a battle royale? With convicted murderers?
I sat down on our side of the platform as Kurapika engaged a blue coloured man, I cannot lie. The cell was vast, and our voices echoed. Our opponents seemed like miniature murder figurines in the far distance. We were separated by an ocean of darkness broken only by the arena, the size of a tennis court rising out of the void on one central pillar. The darkness was only broken by torches in brackets, two on either side of our platform, two on the convicts' side and one in each corner of the arena. Spread so far apart, the darkness seemed to be crawling for revolution.
I almost choked when Kurapika's opponent turned his vast blue back. Up until that point, I had not been regarding him as much of a threat. He was freakish looking, for sure, but spoke too much game to actually have any game. And yet... a spider tattoo on his back. The elusive criminal group, the Phantom Troupe, identified by their one shared symbol. It is unmistakable. How many times have I heard about this skulking in the taverns and bars at home?
Kurapika was not moving. I could only see his back. He was rigid with tension. What must it feel like to finally encounter one of your fatal enemies?
But the criminal looked taken aback. What was going on? I did not have much time to ponder before Kurapika had thrown him into a smackdown. It was then that I saw his eyes.
Red. An indescribable, unnatural share of crimson red.
I could not move.
'First, the real Phantom Troup tattoo has the member's number on the spider.' His voice was deadly soft. A fact that I had not picked up from all those conversations, all those people, somehow, he has delivered to me for free.
'Second,' he continued, 'they don't bother counting how many they've killed. Third, never mention that name again. If you do, I will kill you,'
I believed him.
Not one of us moved.
After a few seconds, Killua said 'Well, saw that coming from a mile away.' He was nonchalant, with his hands behind his head in that cocky pose of his. It broke the ice. The thin electronic walkway reached out and Kurapika came back to us.
'Are you okay?' Leorio asked.
Kurapika sighed and rubbed his face with one hand. 'From the moment I saw him, I knew he was weak, and mentally I knew that the tattoo was fake. But everything in my sight turned red.
'Actually, even when I see a real spider, my personality changes and I enter a frenzy.' He looked embarrassed, speaking fast. He walked into the small hallway we had come from and sat down. I did not know what to say.
On the other side of the room, another hooded figure made their way to the front. Leorio said, 'It's my turn next!' obviously encouraged by Kurapika's easy opponent.
Form the beginning we knew that the longer that the prisoners detained us, the longer their sentence would be reduced, capped at seventy-two hours. Once we lose three battles of the royale, we would be kept until the timer ran out. From Tonpa's disappointing but unsurprising surrender to Gon's optimistic and light-footed win, it has been clear that their goal is a long drawn out game or an orchestrated win. Now, the hooded figure has brought a technicality into play.
'He's still alive.' The voice was sweet and high. 'The fight doesn't end until one contestant surrenders or dies.'
Oh dear.
Leorio whirls around with authority. 'Hey, Kurapika, go finish off that worthless piece of trash,' he orders.
'I refuse.'
Leorio blows a gasket. 'Why?' he demanded. Literally no one, including Tonpa, looked surprised at his refusal. It is completely unreasonable to ask someone to kill another.
'Dude, no.' I said.
'He's already lost his will to fight. I won't fight someone who has already lost.'
Leorio persisted angrily until Kurapika burst out, 'I have no intention of killing him!' They were both pissed off and had no will to back down. When Killua chimed in by offering to finish the guy off and said Kurapika should not be selfish considering we are working as a team, Leorio tooted his horn from aboard the insane train and tried to get us to vote Kurapika off to murder. Obviously taking pleasure from our tension, Tonpa climbs atop his high horse of ethics and says,
'You shouldn't force others to do things. Different people have different circumstances and ideals.'
Oh my god. Can he just butt out for one second? We would be in a much nicer position if you had not jumped on my back to saddle us with your burdensome sack of crap. Now Leorio has gone to sulk with his back to us. Men.
And so, we waited. I rested. Gon stretched. Killua stared off into the distance. Tonpa, for some reason, was standing with his chest out and arms folded. Leorio glowered. Kurapika appeared to be sleeping. The silence was deafening. My sense of unease grew in the pit of my stomach. A gust of cold wind wafted out from the abyss smelling metallic. I snuggled deeper into my fuzzy sweater. After a while, I learned to put my unease into words.
'Um, guys,' I start, 'do you think it's possible he's just pretending to be passed out.'
'Or, he could already be dead,' Killua said, not seeming very bothered at all.
Leorio sprang up. 'WHAT?'
We all looked out to the prone blue body in prison trousers. If he was alive, he was keeping incredibly still. Just the thought of having to keep still makes me want to scratch my nose.
'It has been several hours,' said Gon.
Leorio jumped and yelled across the arena, demanding to see the body. The same hooded figure with the titillating voice assured him that the blue guy was indeed alive and knocked out. Leorio blew another gasket.
'Would you like to bet?' she asked, suddenly.
'Bet?' Leorio was as taken aback as we were.
'On whether he's dead or alive.'
'What the heck would we wager?' Leorio demanded.
She spun on the spot and gestured to the space around her. 'Time.
'Look at the monitor on the wall. We each have fifty hours. However, we can only wager in multiples of ten. We continue placing bets until one of us has no hours left. We'll take turns deciding what to bet on. If you lose, your time limit will be shortened by fifty hours.'
'And if you lose?'
'Our sentences will be extended by fifty years. If those terms are acceptable, I'll go check whether he's still alive.'
Fifty years is incomparable to fifty hours. Is she so confident? Kurapika told Leorio to make his decision carefully. Kurapika got scolded by Leorio because it is his fault that we are in this situation in the first place. Kurapika was pissed off. Leorio was pissed off. Get me out of here.
Leorio bet ten hours that the blue man was still alive. He was being cautious. The hooded figure snickered, and Leorio was allowed to approach and check his pulse. From his face, we could tell ten hours had been won. It was his turn to choose a question to gamble, and true to our sentiments, he said:
'How about we bet on whether he's truly unconscious or not?'
The hooded figure bet on him being truly knocked out until Leorio hauls the man to the edge of the arena, angling him at a forty-five-degree angle with his head and shoulders hovering in the darkness.
"I want to change my wager,' the woman giggled, 'I bet forty hours that he is conscious.'
Leorio grinned triumphantly. How her true colours show. There should be a rule against changing your wager to suit your purposes…
As soon as Leorio loosened his grip on the blue man's shoulder, which was clearly sweating, the man freaked out and windmilled his arms, propelling him into the centre of the arena where it was safe. 'Better alive in prison!' he exclaimed.
We lost the forty hours. But we had two wins to a loss and Leorio was up next.
But the moment his opponent whipped their hood off to reveal a woman, I knew we had lost. She was pretty – thick curly magenta hair tied into two ponytails, a slender feminine body that moved with beauty in prison rags. We were done for.
'Why don't we bet on whether I am male or female?'
Oh, dear god.
'That's fine, but how will you prove me wrong?'
She smiled. 'I'll let you examine every inch of my body,' she said, wrapping her arms seductively around herself, 'until you are fully satisfied.'
'Oh, no,' I said aloud.
Beside me Kurapika said fiercely, 'He will bet she's a man.'
Killua grunted his agreement with an expression of disgust.
'What?' Gon asked, 'why?'
In the arena, Leorio makes his decision. 'All right, I bet ten hours that you are a man!' He points his finger at her to assert his decision.
'Oh, please!'
'I knew it.'
'Dirty old man.'
'What? How did you know?'
Killua whispered in Gon's ear. Well, as long was it was not me explaining.
'Too bad… I'm a woman,' the magenta-haired beauty said.
'R-really?' Leorio stuttered falsely. She bit her finger slowly.
'Would you like to check?'
'But of course!'
I could not help blushing furiously as I tried to look elsewhere. Good god. There are literally kids here!
Kurapika facepalmed. 'It hurts to watch.'
Gon stared, transfixed. Welcome to the world, kiddo.
After selling ten hours for a peek and feel, Leorio proceeded to lose spectacularly in three rounds of scissors-paper-rock. Are you kidding me? When he walked back towards us with his head bowed, I made it a point to look the other way, especially when Tonpa goaded him. We now owe fifty hours, to be spent helplessly in a little grey room somewhere in this cursed tower.
It was finally time for the last round.
'Guess I'm off,' Killua said.
I look at him. 'Says who?'
The kid peered through his white hair at me. 'Do you think I should sit back because I'm a kid? Gon did it!'
Leorio pulled at his hair. 'Damn it!' he said, 'I forgot who was left, I needed to win my round!'
Ignoring him, I stared Killua down unfalteringly. 'Do you think I should sit back because I'm a girl? Leorio did it!' I counter. We both ignore Leorio's yelp of indignation.
'Fine, let's scissors-paper-rock for it,' he sighs, holding out a fist.
I lost, three out of three. And was in hindsight thankful for it. There was a commotion on the other side, hidden in the darkness of the ill-lit cavern. We heard the sound of rocks being broken like the crumbling of stale bread, hitting the ground in crumbs.
Leorio narrowed his eyes as Killua's opponent entered the light. 'That's Johness the Dissector,' he said, tense, and told us about his crimes. Slaughter with bare, naked hands. I could not help the involuntary cringe away from the arena.
'You don't have to face that psychotic killer, there's always next year,' Leorio urged Killua. I agreed. But, unblinkingly, Killua walked the plank with his hands in his pockets, as if he was bored.
The plank retracted, leaving him stranded. His back was to us – I could not see his expression, but he sounded like he was smiling. 'How are we settling this?'
Johness the Dissector was a straw-coloured mountain of a man. He looked like rural-born the Aryan dream – fair, blue-eyed, large, and powerful. Perfect for vanquishing inferior races. 'I believe you're mistaken,' he growled. 'This will be a one-sided massacre.'
I heard Killua agreeing, 'Then the loser is the one who dies.'
Who is this child with such confidence in overcoming the devil?
They started towards each other. Killua held his heart in the palm of his small, child-like hands. 'I'm… so… cold,' his opponent said. His prison shirt hardly showed any blood where a hole now gaped. The heart was still beating. He moved towards Killua like a man in a dream. 'Mine… mine…' he breathed, before falling to his knees, then his face, one hand still outstretched. Killua plopped the heart into that hand. The screen changed to show three wins in our favour.
I unlocked my knees and slowly sank to the ground.
Leorio's voice is unsteady. 'Who is he?'
'Oh, that's right,' said Gon, 'You guys don't know. Killua is from a family of elite assassins.'
Gon was smiling. He did not seem bothered. To him, a friend was just that – a friend. When Killua came back, the plank did not retract. Instead, another one extended from the arena to an alcove on the right-hand side. The detached voice seemed gleeful as it instructed us to wait out our fifty hours, thanks Leorio, in a room there.
This required us to troop through the arena. As I passed the killer's body, I looked away.
~oOo~
It had only been five hours.
The room was small, with fluorescent lighting that washed us out. There were air vents near the ceilings, a tiny bathroom to be shared with four boysand a dumbwaiter which sends down trays of food. We just ate a simple meal of rice and soup. That was dinner, we must be deep into the evening now.
Currently, we were arguing about sleeping arrangements. Four narrow couches were arranged in a square in the centre of the room. Two grown men, two teenagers and two kids.
'It makes sense that the two smallest people should sleep together,' Leorio said, shrugging in a manner that nearly burst all of Killua's blood vessels.
'I don't want to sleep with a boy,' Killua protested.
'How do you think I feel?' I muttered, but everyone ignored me.
Leorio loosened his tie angrily, 'I'm an adult so I should get a whole couch.'
At this point, Tonpa sat down into a couch and spread himself out. No one seemed to want to argue with him, even though he deserved the floor.
I marched into the fray like I was watching the scene from outside of myself. I grabbed Leorio by his tie and Killua by his shirt collar. Killua was yanked up to my eye level, and Leorio down.
'Keep this up and you can sleep together,' I glared at them both. They cringed away from each other but put their fists down. 'That's better.'
'Let's just sleep together, Killua,' Gon said, consolingly.
Killua looked defeated. 'Okay.'
'Leorio, no one wants to sleep with you so you can have a couch,' Kurapika said, looking genuinely quite disgusted.
Leorio raised his haunches, then settled down when he realised his advantage.
That left me with the blond bookworm. I would complain, but at least I did not end up with Tonpa and his visually smelly feet. Far out.
That settled, it was time for a little evening entertainment. Leorio was once again absorbed in his dirty magazine again, Kurapika in what appeared to be an encyclopaedia and me with a comic book. One double-page action spread only had the word 'POW' written in muscular letters, something that the blonde know-it-all clearly disapproved of if his sidelong glance was anything to go by.
'Hey, Gon, teach me how to fish,' Killua demanded, cheerfully.
'Okay!' Gon agreed, 'First, you have to think like a fish.'
'What the heck?'
'Yeah, so, like this…'
Gon readied his stance and sailed his hook across the room to land in Tonpa's mug of tea. Killua looked awed.
'Let me try!'
Killua whipped the rod like a lasso and snagged Leorio's pant leg.
'What a big fish,' he exclaimed.
Leorio was jerked from his porno.
'It's going to tear,' he yelled, tugging at the snag as he was dragged heavily away from a busty blonde. The hook was reluctantly extracted, and the boys moved on to the next item on their agenda of destruction, purposefully ignoring the barrage of telling-off from the grown ass man.
'Killua, teach me how to do that trick on your skateboard.'
'You mean this?' Killua demonstrated the flip that sent his skateboard from his feet to under his arms in a flash.
'Yeah, that!'
'Okay, it's like this… then you do this… and it does this… see?'
'Yeah!'
It would have been a truly lousy lesson if not for the demonstration.
Gon geared himself up on the skateboard, an ambitious gleam in his bright eyes. 'Here I go!'
I felt, rather than heard, the displacement of air as the skateboard hurtled past my head and across the room. It buried itself in the brick wall, missing Leorio by inches, a fact that made him furious.
'No more shenanigans, I have had enough of this,' Leorio said with venom.
I giggled from behind my book and immediately stopped.
'What, do you want your head split open?' he growls at me.
'Why, yes!' I smile sweetly. 'It's been my dream since I was a little girl, but Papa disapproved of it.'
I got a kick out of seeing Leorio scream in frustration and lie down on his couch. Heh. The old man is like a little wind up doll.
Sometime later, Kurapika sidled up to me on our couch. He did not say anything for a long time.
Then, 'Can you tell me what happened when the Lisbon Collection went missing in more detail?'
'I didn't expect you to ask that,' I said, raising an eyebrow. 'What's the occasion?'
'There's something that's been bothering me about your story,' he replied, slowly.
'Okay, let's see…' I began, 'it was the day after my birthday. I turned eight and our gardener, this white-haired old man in dungarees, gave me a collection of fake things.'
Kurapika raises an eyebrow, urging me to continue.
'Rubber replicas of things like puke. Can you imagine the trouble I could have caused?' I asked, momentarily sad to have lost them.
'Yes,' he was frank.
'It was a Friday, I remember, and my father hauled me like a caught fish to see my grandmother. She couldn't walk anymore, right. She was in the parlour and my father threw me down at her feet. I got carpet burn on my knees. She wanted me to confess but I really had no idea what was going on so she threw her tea at me. That's this burn here.'
I rolled up my sleeve to show him the smudge of dark scar tissue on my forearm, which I had raised to shield my face.
'Next thing I knew,' I continued, 'I was in the basement trussed up like a chicken and fully wired up. I always thought that when push comes to shove, my father would leave his study and come save me, even if I look do like my mum,' I could not help a sigh escaping me. 'But he followed the old woman's instructions, put this thing around my leg, and zapped the hell out of me. I don't really know why it had to be on my leg.'
'You were electrocuted, right?' Killua chimed in, from behind us. His fluffy white hair blocked out the fluorescent lights. Inviting himself, he hopped over the back of the couch and plonked himself down between Kurapika and I. It was a rather tight fit. 'Electricity runs "down to earth" which means that if they had zapped your finger, for example, the current would travel up your arm, through your body and down your legs.'
Killua looked at me to make sure I was following. Satisfied, he continued. 'This would have knock out your internal organs, you know, like your heart.' Then, he added, 'For normal people, that is. I don't have such wussy problems.'
'Wow, okay,' I said, trying to hide my grimace. 'Thanks for the explanation.'
What on earth did this kid suffer to develop a resistance to electricity?
'No worries,' Killua replied, 'any time you need to be schooled you know who to call.' He shot us a cocky head tilt and double finger guns. This kid.
After a while, Kurapika said thoughtfully, 'Why would your grandmother and father think you stole the Collection?'
'I'm not sure,' I said after a while, 'it should have been obvious that a child didn't do it, but she said it must have been an inside job.'
'I think your grandmother must have known it was not you,' he said.
'Why do you say that?'
'It's simply impossible for an eight-year-old child to breach the Lisbon security, inside or not.'
'You know about the security?' I asked because I did not know myself.
'Of course,' he replied, brushing a stray lock of hair out of his eyes, 'it is one of the most heavily guarded items in the world. To be completely honest, it is likely to have involved some inside job, just not by you.'
I twist in my seat to face him. 'What do you mean.'
Who else was in the house? I could list them all on one hand – my father and grandmother, Bobby the gardener, Ned the driver and Macy the maid. Oh.
'Are you suggesting –' I broke off when I saw the look in Kurapika's eyes.
'It is but a hypothesis,' he said. 'This is why I have suspicions: The Lisbon Jewels were matrilineal, meaning they were passed down from mother to daughter.'
'How on earth do you know that?' I said, feeling unfriendly. Why does he seem to know my history better than I do myself?
Kurapika held his hands up in a defensive gesture. 'There is a legend about a collection of jewels from old times which many professionals in the field speculate to be about the Lisbon Collection. According to legend, the stones were cut under supervision of the full moon by a group for a peasant girl, in gratitude to her mother for a service of protection to them. When she had children herself, she passed it onto her eldest daughter in honour of her mother, and so on.'
I leaned forward with interest despite myself. 'How do you know this?'
'It was a favourite tale of the Kurtas.' Kurapika held my gaze fiercely. He wanted me to believe him.
I swallowed. We did not speak for a long time.
~oOo~
Lavender…
I must have fallen asleep. The first thought I had when I came to was 'lavender'… hmm, smells yummy. My neck was kind of sore. I was sleeping against something rather warm, with slow rises and falls of breath.
Whoa.
Hesitantly, I opened my eyes. The first thing I saw was the white-haired brat looking up and bounding over, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He started miming something. I stared at him blankly. He gave up and jabbed his finger at the air to my right.
There was a soft weight on my head, so I turned my face slowly following an incline right into the side of Kurapika's neck. Lavender. I gulped. He smelled good. My cheeks radiated uncomfortably with warmth. I was sure I looked like the setting sun.
I must have fallen asleep on his shoulder. Oh dear.
Gon came over too and sat down next to Killua. 'Morning Risumi,' he whispered, cheerfully.
I nodded mutely.
'He didn't fall asleep until ages after you did,' Gon said. 'So, Killua and I have been playing scissors-paper-rock to pass the time until he wakes up!'
As if on cue, they launched into another round which Killua lost. Not his first loss either, I noted with satisfaction – he looked too annoyed.
So, I could not move until Kurapika woke up, huh? I must have fallen asleep on his shoulder last night at some point after we moved onto safer topics. What did we talk about? I remember asking him about his favourite colour. Obviously, boys talk to me for my witty repartee.
How I wished he had just moved away or shoved me off. Now I was returning the favour and I was not liking the way Leorio was smiling as he lumbered over upon waking up and spying us. Put me out of my misery! Welcome to the panel of spectators.
My face burned.
Lavender.
Shut up, brain!
'So,' Leorio said, with a wicked grin. 'How's this for couple goals?'
'Kurapika and Risumi are dating?' Gon whisper-exclaimed, eyes wide.
'No!' I hissed.
'Methinks the lady doth protest too much,' Leorio sang.
I nearly screamed. The panel snickered. Soon, they drifted off, leaving me with Kurapika. It was pretty comfortable, actually, and without thinking, I cuddled closer. Leorio caught my eye and gave me a wide beaming smile and double thumbs-up. Ugh!
It was nearly an hour later when Kurapika finally came to. I realised he was awake when he abruptly stopped breathing. Slowly, he lifted his head off mine and we moved apart. He cleared his throat.
'I'm terribly sorry about that,' he said, not meeting my eye.
'Yep, terribly sorry about that, too,' I replied, looking in the other direction.
Gon looked up and smiled brightly. 'Kurapika's awake. We can talk now, right?'
The blond in question rubbed his eyes. 'I'm sorry,' he said, 'were you waiting for me to wake up?'
'Oh, I'm sure Risumi here didn't mind,' Leorio swaggered. 'You know, studies have shown that sleeping together, actually sleeping, strengthens trust in the relationship. Aren't you lovebirds getting off on the right foot!'
'So, so, when did you decide to confess your deep love for each other?' Killua teased.
'There is no love,' I grumbled.
'She is correct, it was merely a fault of circumstance,' Kurapika said.
Was he more formal in situations like these?
I buried my face in my hands. When will this phase be over?
