ITA version (with some image): efp fanfic "Vuoto x Vendetta"
PROLOGUE
- Pitou has just finished healing Komugi, meanwhile Meruem and Netero are fighting in the desert.
- Gon and Pitou head to Peijin Castle, where Kite is located.
- Killua decides to look after Komugi so that he can later use her to exchange hostages with Pitou. This is to prevent Pitou from killing Gon.
- The clash between Netero and Meruem ends, the guards go to cure Meruem, with whom they then return to the royal palace.
- Killua and Pahm come up with plan to take Komugi to the dungeons.
- Meruem goes to the basement where Komugi is, while Pahm goes out and meets Killua who asks how Gon is doing.
Compared to the canonical history there have been 2 changes:
- Pouf does not make the fake phone call (Pitou therefore doesn't think Komugi is safe).
- Pitou and Gon take longer to get to Peijin Castle, because Pitou is forced to go at the same speed as Gon, who is quite slow.
FANFICTION BEGINS
Pahm and Killua outside the walls of the royal palace.
Killua: how's Gon doing?
Pahm controls with his power and sees Gon with Pitou running into the forest, with the Castle visible in the trees.
Pahm: they are about to arrive at the Castle.
Killua ponders what might happen and then turns to Pahm, a little worried.
Pahm: what are you going to do?
Killua: listen, I'm going to Gon now, while you have to make sure that all of our companions get as far away from the royal palace as possible.
Pahm: okay, but the king can't survive now, what worries you?
Killua: we may not be safe yet... I don't have time to explain, trust me. Now I have to go.
Killua heads to the Castle using Divine Speed.
Pahm instead goes to evacuate the area from his companions, also with the help of Knov's Hide and Seek ability.
Killua had to use her Divine Speed ability a lot to protect Komugi from Pouf, and now she's nearly empty.
Gon and Pitou arrive at the Castle and make their way to Kite.
Here the events are the same as in the original story, summarized below:
- Pitou asks Gon's name.
- Pitou tells Gon that she is sorry, and that Kite is dead.
- Gon blames himself for Kite's death, while Pitou treats his arm.
- Pitou says he must return to the royal palace.
Gon gets up and begins to release a huge amount of Nen, but Pitou is not scared, on the contrary she stands still to observe him with a serious expression and covered eyes.
While Gon is expanding his aura, some memories of when he was a child suddenly come to mind:
- Gon going to the Volporsa territory.
- The mother Volporsa attacking him, with the cub behind him.
- Kite cutting the Volporsa with a sword stroke.
- The angry puppy who goes to attack Gon with the intention of killing him, and Gon who stands still to take the blows because he is sorry.
These brief memories give Gon an insight, which leads him to scream in rage.
Pitou is always stationary in the same position.
Gon prepares his strongest Jajanken, similar to how he did in front of Morel but with more Nen, and leaps to Pitou.
Gon manages to hit Pitou on the cheek, even making her spit some blood, but Pitou still doesn't react, standing still.
Gon lands, and prepares another Jajanken. His face becomes even angrier.
Gon: come on, fight! I know you're just pretending!
An image appears in Gon's mind, of Pitou using his power on Komugi.
Gon: It was you who killed Kite!
An image appears in Gon's mind, with Kite being tortured by the power of Pitou.
Gon launches the second attack on Pitou.
This time, however, Pitou dodges him without too much trouble, and while Gon is launching the attack in the air, Pitou hits him very hard on the back of the head, causing him to pass out.
When Gon takes the blow, he recalls Kite's scene against Pitou just before passing out from a similar blow to the back of the head, by Killua.
Pitou: I'm sorry, but next time we meet I'll have to kill you.
Pitou has already figured out that Killua's plan is to exchange hostages, so he can't kill Gon yet.
Pitou leaves the castle and starts running to return to the royal palace.
Pitou thinks: if Gon were to wake up while I'm at the royal palace it would only cause problems, it's best to leave him here, although I have to find a way to use him as a hostage.
While Pitou is reflecting, her Nen senses something very fast moving towards the Castle; it's Killua.
Killua also perceives Pitou's Nen, and this causes him to lose focus, and disable Divine Speed.
Piutou realizes that the perceived one was the human who had to look after Komugi, but Komugi is not with him; this makes her take a very fast shot that brings her directly in front of Killua, in the middle of the forest.
Killua and Pitou met about halfway, from the royal palace to Castle.
Killua thinks: shit! I had to get to the Castle and use Zetsu to hide my presence while she was focused on fighting with Gon.
I'm supposed to use Divine Speed now, but she might be able to hit me with some ruse... I don't have enough information about her!
Pitou looks up, and with a murderous expression asks Killua:
Pitou: where is Komugi located?
Killua decides to humor her and tell her the truth, trying to remain as serious as possible, and without referring to Meruem, who is poisoned and destined to die.
Killua: Komugi is fine, she is safe in the basement of the royal palace, in the *** room, with a companion of mine who is keeping an eye on her.
Pitou watches Killua closely and then begins to approach him with an even more murderous face.
Killua thinks: oh no! that she realized I was hiding something... now what do I do!?... I shouldn't reveal the abilities of my teammates, but I have no other choice
Killua: I warn you that a mate of mine is able to observe both me and Gon from a distance, and if something should happen to us then...
Pitou expands his huge murderous aura, all in Killua's direction before he can finish the sentence, continuing to walk towards him, and Killua is so scared that he can't do anything, even trying to escape is too risky in that context.
Pitou stops next to Killua, and tells him
Pitou: you're hiding something from me...
Killua realizes that Pitou intends to kill him, especially if he tries to escape.
Pitou: but...
Pitou disperses his aura, and starts walking again.
Pitou: what you said seems to be the truth...
Killua breathes a sigh of relief, but is still paralyzed.
Pitou: Gon is in the Castle unconscious, but know that... if I find out that you've been trying to trick me in some way, then...
Pitou uses his aura again, looking extremely murderous and even a little angry.
Pitou: there is no need to explain what will happen... right?
Pitou turns and starts running towards the royal palace again.
Killua, after standing still for a while, also sets off going to Gon.
Killua thinks: fuck! I stood still again without doing anything... but my goal now is not to stop Pitou, I have to think about Gon!
Killua and Pitou will take about the same amount of time to reach their respective locations.
In the meantime, since Killua left, all the hunters at the royal palace have left under Pahm's directions, and that part of the canonical history has occurred where Komugi and Meruem die playing Gungi.
Pitou arrives at the royal palace and expands his Nen on the surface (she is unable to expand it underground).
Pitou realizes that there is no one in the royal palace, and begins to worry, but she knew that Meruem had gone elsewhere, and Komugi could still be in the basement.
Pitou runs very fast in the basement, and following Killua's directions, arrives in front of the room where Komugi is; he senses that something is wrong, but he takes courage and opens the door.
He finds himself facing Komugi and Meruem both dead, holding hands.
[scene change]
Gon wakes up dazed, looks around and then sees Kite's body dead.
[change scene]
Pitou goes through the 5 stages of mourning.
First phase, the denial/refusal that results in a huge desperation, like the one that the other 2 royal guards had experienced when they found the charred body of the king.
Pitou screams in pain, with tears in his eyes, both for the physical death of the king, and for the death of the king's ideology that the royal guards had in the beginning.
Pitou, however, accepts the king's ideological death, compared to the other guards who instead tried to hide (or kill) Komugi.
Second phase, anger.
In this phase Pitou expands his Nen to the maximum, more than any other time, even coming to perceive the outside of the royal palace.
With a face exaggeratedly full of anger, but also with tears, he quickly moves outside the walls, where there are still some hypnotized people, and begins to hit them.
She could kill them all in no time, but she decides to hit them one at a time to fully vent his anger.
After killing about 40 people, she begins to remember what she had just seen in the underground, and even when Meruem told her to protect Komugi.
Pitou knew that Meruem wanted to protect Komugi, a human, at all costs and the fact of killing humans randomly could be offensive to the king's will... it was as if Pitou saw a possible Komugi in the humans she was randomly killing.
The fact that Meruem died satisfied, doing what he most wanted, also removes further motives for revenge in Pitou.
Pitou didn't want to accept these things so that he could vent his anger, but slowly she ended up having to accept them.
After killing around 100 people in total, she stopped but was still angry and in pain.
Third phase, bargaining.
Unfortunately, the experience Pitou had with Kite had already made her realize that there is no way to bring a dead man back to life, so this phase only adds to denial and anger.
Pitou instinctively starts running very fast, moving away from the royal palace, as if she wanted to escape from that reality; there was nothing else she could do.
[change scene]
Killua arrives at the castle entrance.
[change scene]
Pitou begins to reduce the speed of the race, realizing that even running away is useless.
[change scene]
Killua runs into the Castle, until he reaches Gon, finding him from behind, kneeling and facing Kite's body.
[change scene]
Pitou slows to a stop, and then falls to his knees like Gon.
[final scene]
Fourth phase, the depression.
Scene of Gon and Pitou, both in the same position, with eyes lost in the void and tears.
The tears are not falling, they are the ones left over from a previous cry.
ZENO ZOLDYCK TALKS TO THE READERS
"don't you believe it? of course it can happen"
"reality has no protagonists, especially if you are a hunter"
"misjudging the enemy can easily lead to defeat, if not death"
"Gon was completely defeated because he did not want to accept an undeniable reality" (Kite's death and Pitou's strength)
"Could he do a vow? Of course, but something stopped him, a thing of the past, one of the rare times he made a mistake, repenting his behavior, thanks also to the teachings of Kite..."
"hm!? did Netero lose too?"
"No! Netero knew his abilities and those of the enemy well, for this reason he considered his own death as part of the plan to defeat his prey"
"He was certainly a very strong hunter, but he too was getting old and waiting any longer would only make him weaker"
"Meruem and Netero are like yin and yang."
"wrong again! They are not on the same level, this concept is much deeper and more complex than a simple comparison between opponents"
"let's see, the yang (white part) could be the Komugi-Meruem couple, who together reached the maximum happiness and satisfaction... even if shortly after (black point) they died"
"the yin (black part) may instead be the Gon-Pitou couple, both ended up feeling a maximum sadness and disappointment... but at least (white point) both are still alive... for now".
STORY CONTINUES
The hunters who participated in the fight against chimera ants gathered in a hotel.
Gon is in another room. When Killua talks to him, Gon replies, but he still has his blank stare.
Killua goes into the room where the other hunters are, with the TV on and talking about the royal palace.
Pahm: how's Gon doing?
Killua: it seems he hasn't fully recovered yet
Killua, with resentment but without showing sadness: I should have been with him at that moment
Pahm waits for a while and then asks Killua
Pahm: regarding Pitou, what happened to she? the authorities don't seem to have located she, did you manage to defeat she?
Killua: Pitou was an extremely strong opponent, I had already noticed that from our first fight and I had foreseen the possibility that Gon would not be able to beat her alone, forcing us to use hostage swapping.
The king was destined to die and sooner or later Pitou would find out.
The possible reactions of Pitou that came to mind were 4:
First possibility: accept the death of the king and go his way, as the guards of the queen did when she died. This is the least likely, considering the link between the guards and the king.
Second possibility: carry out the king's last wishes. The king's last will was to cure the woman, who however died together with the king.
Third possibility: to remain in a helpless state, until a possible natural death. This is what can happen to some anthills if the queen dies.
Fourth possibility: devote his life to revenge against humans.
This fourth possibility is why I told you to get as far away from the royal palace as possible.
Pahm: so now Pitou could be somewhere killing humans!?
Killua: I doubt it, revenge against humans would have made her kill all those present outside the walls of the royal palace. Going by exclusion, the most likely is the third possibility, but until it is found we must be careful... her revenge may not be the random killing of humans.
Some final scenes of the saga:
- Gon with blank stare, looking out the window.
- The desert where the rose of the poor exploded.
- The royal palace from the outside.
- Meruem and Komugi's hands clenched together.
- Pitou in the middle of the forest, framed from above, with blank stare and lying on the ground (as if from the kneeling position she had collapsed on her side).
2 years later... [next chapter]