Embrace Your Fate
Part 4: Into the Belly of the Beast
Hisoka quickly ducked down behind a large drift of snow. He cautiously peered out once more, to make sure his quarry was still there. The whale twitched its tail about three inches to the left, quite happy with the state of things at that present moment, and not too worried about the two men who were behind Molly, the friendly snowdrift (when you spent most of your time in the Artic you tended to get lonely and start to name big piles of snow). One of them didn't look all that interested, and the other was insane. No threat to him at all.
Illumi was really
bored. Hisoka had been sitting there for hours, just looking at the
whale. He was sorely tempted to just up and leave and let the clown
deal with his own demons. But not enough to turn down a good job.
Besides, if he left now he'd never hear the end of it. There would
be a million messages on his phone every morning, he'd have to get
a restraining order drawn up, he'd have to hire some one to enforce
said restraining order, hire some one else when Hisoka killed the
first one to enforce said restraining order. All in all it would be
a pain in the ass.
Hisoka looked out again and then quickly drew
back. Illumi did something that he hadn't done since he was ten:
he lost his patience.
"Come on, Hisoka! Just attack the stupid whale and get it over with."
"Shhh! You'll blow our cover," came the whispered reply."
"What cover? You've been popping up and down like a demented jack-in-the-box for the past hour. I'm pretty sure that the whale knows you're here."
"No he doesn't!"
"You needa go fight Jabu-Jabu!" shouted Navi, clearly excited at repeating itself for the nine-hundredth time.
"GOD DAMN! Now our cover is really blown!" Hisoka sat down huffily and pouted.
Illumi rolled his eyes. "Look, all you need to do is run in, stab something vital, and run out. It's not brain surgery, Hisoka, I could do it by the time I was six."
"We're not all assassins, Illumi."
"You're close enough. The only difference is you won't even wait to get hired. You'll just find a target and go."
Hisoka shrugged. "Whatever. This just doesn't feel right."
Illumi would have fallen over if he hadn't already been sitting down. Instead, he settled for staring in disbelief.
"You love to kill stuff! What makes now any different?"
Hisoka glared. "It's not that! I just feel unprepared. Like there's something missing . . ." He looked up at Navi. "Hey, blue thing!"
"Hey! You needa go fight Jabu-Jabu!"
"Yes, I realize that. But do you have anything that might help me? Like a walkthrough or something?"
The fairy paused for a moment, and then began to spin around in circles very quickly. It kept going faster, and faster, until it was just a blue vaguely circular blob.
Illumi blinked. "I think you broke it."
Just as both men were thinking of getting out of there, the fairy stopped and dropped a book on Hisoka's lap. Hisoka looked up at her questioningly.
"Hey! You needa go fight Jabu-Jabu!"
Glaring at the fairy suspiciously, he opened the book and began to read. Soon it was apparent that he was getting into it. His face was mostly hidden by the book, his nose very close to touching the pages. He was "Ooing" and "Ahing" at everything. Illumi shrugged, convinced that if the fairy had created it, it was stupid. The fact that Hisoka liked it, led him to believe that only insane people could read it. All in all, despite the Hisoka's enthusiasm, Illumi was thoroughly disinterested.
About
half an hour later, Hisoka leapt up with a shout, knocking Illumi in
the head with the book. Illumi now really hated that
book.
"I know what to do!" shouted Hisoka; oblivious to the
glares his hired help was giving. "Illumi, watch the whale. Make
sure it doesn't do anything tricksy like a hobbitsy." With that
final quotation from Lord of the Rings, Hisoka ran off.
Illumi looked up at the whale. The whale stared back at him. The whale winked. Illumi jumped slightly and rubbed his eyes. The whale sat there, completely disinterested in anything Illumi was doing. He sighed and looked away. He was spending too much time with Hisoka. This had happened before, during the Hunter exam. First came hallucinations, followed by uncontrollable laughter, and finally the strong urge to paint shapes all over your face. There was only one cure. Illumi got comfortable and began to count down all the deadly pressure points in the human body. The logic to it all comforted him.
LATER
"Illumi! I'm ready to slay that whale!" Illumi opened his eyes and gasped. He then went into shock. None of his extensive training had ever scared him as much as this. A small part of his brain complained that he was going to have nightmares for the rest of the month.
In front of him stood Hisoka in a Link costume. He had the green shirt, shorts, and cap, the brown boots, and to top it all off a bright blond pointy wig. The ensemble was scary in its own right, but the main problem was that it wasn't made for an adult . . . at all. Illumi cringed.
"So, what do you think?"
Illumi couldn't answer right away; the shock was just too much. When he could, he said the first thing that came to mind.
"Hisoka," he began, "PUT ON SOME PANTS!"
"I am wearing pants!"
"I meant pants that actually fit you!"
"No! This is the garb of a real hero. I must wear it to fight the dreaded Jabu-Jabu!"
"I thought the whales name was Camelot."
"Evil comes in many forms!" It was obvious that whatever small reserve of sanity Hisoka had built up over the years was gone. The man was co splaying, and badly at that. This proved it: Navi had the Nen ability to turn humans into fangirls. Illumi had suspected this all along, but now all doubt had been removed from his mind.
"Hisoka, I think that Jabu-Jabu can wait. Why don't we go get you some nice therapy?"
"NO! I must defeat the evil and save Princess Zelda!" Before Illumi could ask who the hell Zelda was, Hisoka had whipped out a plastic sword. "I'M COMING ZELDA!!" He began to run towards the whale, still managing to grab Illumi and drag him along. With a leap of faith, they traveled into the belly of the beast.
INSIDE SAID BEAST
The Zoldyck family had a special fund in which they put a few million dollars in each year. The point of this fund was if some one came along that they needed to kill for their own safety, they still would get paid to do it. The family member doing the killing would call the house and ask another family member (usually Milluki) to transfer some money into their personal account, so they had been "paid" to kill whomever they wanted to kill. Illumi was sorely tempted to call up Milluki and have him dip into said fund.
The inside of the whale was dark, wet, slimy, and cold. Illumi's wrist hurt from where Hisoka was dragging him, and he had just stepped in something extremely unpleasant. Though he was a Zoldyck (and therefore über) there was only so much abuse poor Illumi could take. Money was beginning to sound like a really dumb reason to go through with this.
"Almost there, almost there!" muttered Hisoka. Though there was no one that Illumi hated more than Hisoka right now, he kind of sympathized with him. Having that dumb fairy drive you this insane had to be traumatic.
"Hey listen, you needa go fight Jabu-Jabu!"
Hisoka whirled around. "I'm in the goddamn whale!" he snapped. "What more do you want?"
"Fight Jabu-Jabu!"
Hisoka's eyes twitched. "Why isn't it working?" he asked Illumi through clenched teeth.
Illumi was now quite afraid. When Hisoka wasn't being driven insane by a chatterbox fairy, he was scary when angered. When being driven insane by a chatterbox fairy, he was scary when acting like a rabid fangirl. The two together were almost too frightening to even contemplate.
"Hisoka, I think the fairy's just dumb."
Hisoka turned to Illumi, a cheery smile on his face and bright gleam of hope in his eyes. "You really think so, Illumi-kun?"
Illumi paused, frowning. "Since when do you use Japanese honorifics? . . . And since when do you address me as 'Illumi-kun'?"
"I happen to be quite fluent in Japanese, thank you very much."
Illumi raised an eyebrow. "Really?"
"Yes."
"Why do I doubt that?"
"I am so!"
"Whatever, Hisoka."
"HEY LISTEN!" Hisoka and Illumi both jumped as the fairy next to them shouted for attention. "You needa go fight Jabu-Jabu!" it chirped right next to Illumi's ear. Illumi winced. He could have sworn that thing had given him a look of absolute malevolence. He was about to comment, when the walls began to shake.
Now, in a normal situation, this would be labeled as an earthquake. But if you haven't forgotten (as I did) that they are in a whale, this cannot be the case. The walls were shaking for a more innocent reason: the whale had decided that he wanted to go underwater for a bit. No reason, just felt like it.
Illumi was the first to realize this, and bolted towards the whale's open mouth. Hisoka followed not because he knew what was going on (he was more concerned with the fact that his wig was falling off) but that if Illumi Zoldyck runs, then it is a very good idea to run as well.
Somehow (we will attribute the actual how to a plot-hole) they managed to get to the whale's mouth, jump out, and safely land in the snow. However, they were wet with whale-spit, so it was even colder than normal.
Illumi shivered. He whipped out his cell phone and rapidly punched in a number. The phone picked up on the first ring.
"Hello, Xu. Has the silver dueling pistol arrived yet?"
Stay Tuned for Part 5: A Birthday Present
