Hello, everyone! Before you say anything, I'm really, really sorry for not updating in so long! A lot of things happened that made me just not want to write. Anyway, on with the story!
Edit: Something fishy's going on with the system, I think. I couldn't access my own story for a while. I deleted and re-uploaded the chapter, so I hope everything is okay now!
Disclaimer: I don't own Hunter x Hunter. A genius named Togashi created it. Seriously. He is a genius.
Here we go!
Spotlight
Chapter Seven: Prefrontal What?
Without a second thought, without a sliver of hesitation, Ayaka stomped through the closing elevator doors and barged her way inside Hisoka's suite, eyes locked down on her target like a veteran sniper. She was about to do something stupid again, she could feel it, but this guy... this guy somehow knew about Ryuu, and she needed to know why.
"What did you say? How the hell do you know my little brother?"
If overbearing mother grizzly bears could speak, Ayaka's seething voice would represent them just fine. She curled her fist into a harmless-looking ball, resisting the urge to hit him right then and there. Right. As if she could. Oh, but the anger she felt right at that moment... it was bursting from inside of her, and she could do nothing to suppress it. Really, this bipolar like-and-dislike thing she had with this guy needed to stop.
Hisoka merely turned a few degrees to glance at her sideways, and Ayaka could see that his eyes revealed nothing but passive condescension. To him, she wasn't even worth his full attention, and it pissed her off even more. What did he want with Ryuu? Hisoka wasn't the type of person to let slip a fact without having a plan in mind.
And then he smiled with that cunning mouth of his, and Ayaka's heart forgot to beat. "Well, will you look at that?" he said as though suddenly finding life through a microscope. "There goes that angry face again. You know, I just love it, the way you look at me. One second you want to kiss me, the next you want to tear my face off. You just can't make up your mind, can you?"
Ayaka frowned as she felt the embarrassment ignite her pale cheeks a bright red. How could he even say that like it was nothing? Why did he have to... mock her every chance he got? She took a deep breath. It was getting really hot in there, and Hisoka's provocative smile did little to calm her down. "Hmm~? Did you think I wouldn't notice?" He reached out and brushed his smooth, warm fingers across her cheek, but Ayaka immediately slapped his hand away. It burned. His fingers were so hot, so scalding that he set her on fire. Her chest was aching, her heart was squeezing itself in its own home. What power did this man have?
"I said, how do you know about Ryuu?" she snapped angrily, baring her teeth as her anger elevated to dangerous, risk-taking levels. This was Hisoka she was picking a fight with, she knew it... but... Ryuu. She needed to protect him from this mad man. That was all her crazy brain was telling her to do.
"Ahh, yes, your little brother. Your otouto, Ryuu." Hisoka had uttered his name with such familiarity that Ayaka's eyes grew wide with tyrannical rage. He chuckled again. "Oh my. Why are you so angry? Do you have a brother complex?" Ayaka scowled wildly as her blue eyes flickered darker. Oh, it was nen, wasn't it? The reason she was burning right now, so threateningly and obsessively, was nen. Wing did warn her about the magnifying quality it had on anything she was feeling, but that didn't matter since it only seemed to fuel Hisoka's twisted amusement even more. Her defiance against him was his entertainment.
"I see what you're doing," Hisoka continued. "You're trying to seduce me with those eyes of yours, aren't you?"
That was it! Ayaka pushed forward with her thin legs and swung her right fist towards his face, but he merely dipped backwards like he was playing an easy round of limbo. He chuckled again; he was having so much fun, and Ayaka was only feeding him more and more! Yet she wouldn't stop. She couldn't. She swung again, only this time, Hisoka strained his neck forward like a dog catching a stray frisbee, and that's when it happened. He caught her wrist in his hungry watering mouth. Mid-air. Mid-cry. And he bit down hard. Really, really hard. Like a hungry lion severing a young deer's head.
And all she could do was yelp like an animal.
God. The pain!
"AGH! ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR MIND?" She screamed in hostile panic as she tried pulling away, feeling each of his pointy teeth embedding two crescent moons on the smooth skin of her wrist. And her body, well, all it could do was fight back, ordering her arm to tug away, to escape somewhere as far from the predator as possible, only the mad man wouldn't let her go, and struggling against him only caused her skin to tear from the pressure. His teeth sank into the tissues of her arm, burying themselves deeper, and she could suddenly smell it, the sweet fragrance of her own thick blood. It diffused into the room, mixing together with the sweet aroma of lemongrass. A sickening combination.
"LET GO! LET GO, HISOKA!"
She clawed his face with her left, much weaker hand, digging her nails into his flawless cheek if only to make him let go, but he wouldn't. He couldn't even feel it, this monster! He laughed against her bleeding skin as he watched her with malice-filled eyes, themselves crescent arches in shape, a bright yellow burning like the sun. She could see it. He wasn't just sinking his teeth into her like a rabid dog; he was relishing the taste of her flesh.
And there was no desire to kiss him this time. There was only fear. And tears.
"Thanks for the meal," Hisoka suddenly said as he let go of her wrist, pulling on her pink employee's shirt and wiping his bloody mouth clean against the soft material. "I'm quite disappointed. Your brother tastes a lot better than you do."
Running. She was running. "Your brother tastes a lot better than you do." What did Hisoka do to Ryuu? Past the entrance, past the hallway, everything was a crazy array of melted colors as she slithered past oblivious people, skipping the elevator in favor of the stairs and then bursting her way through Ryuu's pale blue door. "RYUU!" she screamed hoarsely as she panted, immediately fixing her solid gaze towards the hospital bed where he should have been nestled in. It was empty. "RYUU!" Her heart banged maddeningly against her fragile ribs as she burst into the bathroom. Empty. The closet. Empty. Did Hisoka really get to him? "Ryu-!"
"AYA?" Ryuu abruptly materialized right behind her, startling the color out of Ayaka's flushed face as she turned around to face her ghost of a brother. He was so close that they could almost touch, yet she felt absolutely no presence, no existing warmth from his towering six-foot physique. When did he get there? "Aya, what's wrong? What are you doing here so late?"
Ayaka wrapped her thin arms around his diet-controlled torso, squeezing desperately and tightly as she planted her sweaty face at the center of his broad chest. "God, Ryuu! I was so worried! Where did you go?" She blinked away a few tears of relief, tarnishing his blue hospital gown with the black paint of her smeared mascara. There was no sign of injury. Ryuu returned the hug, placing one giant hand on the small of her back and the other gently on her muddy blond head. "Sorry..." he muttered shyly, clutching her closer to him like a child reuniting with his lost teddy bear. "I went to the garden and I lost track of time. Sorry... Sorry, Aya."
Ayaka hid her grimacing face. Was he lying? But there was something wrong with him. He was being gentle... so gentle that he almost seemed like a normal person. And she would never be so careless as to forget that when people like Ryuu showed signs of being normal, they usually wanted to die soon. "But you never go to the garden. Why did you go today?" She could think only of Hisoka. Did he have anything to do with this? If he did... then why?
"I was bored," he said hastily, looking around as though somebody was there. What was he so wary about? "Anyway, you should go home, Aya. You shouldn't be here right now. It's late."
She gritted her teeth. Something was going on. Ryuu never turned her away like this before. She was about to object when Ryuu suddenly caught sight of her bloody arm. Shit. Shit-shit-shit.
"What happened here?"
Ryuu grasped her by the elbow and raised her arm closer to the soft fluorescent light attached to the ceiling. She instantly felt the pain upon remembering the raw wound that Hisoka had carved just half an hour ago. Her entire arm was caking with dried blood and it had swollen to twice its original size. How could she have forgotten about it? Shit. If Ryuu found out that another man had hurt her... there was no telling what he'd do.
"Who did this to you?" he growled wildly, and she jumped at his sudden hostility. Who? Well, a crazy, handsome psychopath she was attracted to, that's who. "Uhh, no one. I had a bad fall. In the kitchen. Near some knives. Now let go, Ryuu." It hurt pretty damn bad. She couldn't really tell whether the pain was coming from Hisoka's cruel kiss or from Ryuu's grip. Probably both. Either way, the pain came in waves, the room was spinning, and if she didn't patch herself up soon... What if he had rabies?
"Did Hisoka do this to you?"
She froze. How in the world...?
She didn't even have time to complete her thought. Like a magical summoning ritual, Hisoka appeared by the doorway of Ryuu's room, leaning casually on his side. And Ayaka cowered. He looked... different. His trademark grin was even more sinister than she had ever seen it before, and he looked absolutely monstrous, with traces of dried blood at the corners of his lips. That was her blood. She subconsciously took a step back away from him, and Ryuu didn't fail to notice the fearful tensing of her muscles. "Hisoka. You did this to Aya?" he barked dangerously at the lone intruder, eyeing him like a wolf about to strike. How? How did they know each other?
Hisoka scoffed haughtily as he tapped his chin in pretend thought. "Did I do what? Ohhh, you mean that? Maybe, maybe not," he sang. "Either way, I have your attention now, right? Sister-complex Ryuu-chan."
Ryuu...chan?
"I thought I told you to stay away from her. "
"Don't look at me. I honestly tried to stay away, but she kept coming after me. I think she's in love with me or somethi-"
"JUST WAIT A FREAKING MINUTE!" Ayaka blurted out, still unable to wrench herself free from her brother's grasp. "How the hell do you two know each other?"
How did Ryuu know Hisoka? How did Hisoka know Ryuu? There was such a petrifying chill in the air, such toxic malice between these two men that all Ayaka's body wanted to do was flee from the scene. Or not. She so wanted to stab Hisoka in the face, no matter how beautiful it was.
And then Ryuu scowled deeply. There it was, his rabid side. Deep entrenched lines around his lips. Bared teeth. The frightening glint made its sparkling debut in his blue eyes, and Ayaka quivered in conditioned response. His grip grew even tighter, turning her battered arm a sick gypsum color, and she wondered if her bones would actually snap from the pressure. "How do you know him, Aya?" he snarled viciously, pulling her even closer to him than she already was. The quality of his voice reminded her of... back then. "He's a dangerous man. I've always told you to stay away from people like him. Why don't you ever listen to me?"
"Ooh, so I'm dangerous? Look who's talking!" Hisoka laughed, enjoying the sudden development unraveling before him. "Kind of ironic-"
SLAM!
In a flash, no, quicker than a flash, Ryuu had tackled Hisoka out of the room and crashed him onto the barricade of the nurse's station outside, generating a large cloud of dust that filtered the faint light streaming from above. Did that... just really happen? She rushed after them, swatting away the dust with one hand and coughing into the other. Where were the nurses? Where were the other patients? When the dust finally settled, she could see them. The force of Ryuu's attack had broken the heavy duty marble and old wood of the nurse's station, and Hisoka's head was buried underneath the rubble. Ryuu was crouched on top of him, ready to make the next move. Was she hallucinating from the blood loss after all? This was Ryuu, her baby brother, attacking the prized fighter of the Arena. Attacking Hisoka! How was that possible?
"I should've killed you that day..." Ryuu spoke in between clenched teeth, his eyes bloodshot as blue veins popped onto the surface of his pale skin. "It's all your fault that I did all those things to Aya... I swear I'm going to kill you!"
Hisoka suddenly erupted in tyrannical laughter as he heard him speak. His thunderous voice echoed menacingly from underneath the rubble and across the hallway, like a true madman who had just found his place in the world. A criminally insane subject. An animal who didn't care about death, so long as it died having fun. "Kill me?" Hisoka grinned. "But Ryuu-chan, that's what I've always wanted you to do!"
Ryuu roared with rage and wrapped his large hands around Hisoka's neck, but Hisoka merely snickered and struck him in the gut with his knee. Ryuu fell backwards and buckled down, clutching his injured stomach as he coughed out a tiny amount of blood. A second later, Hisoka jumped upright and kicked him on the side of his face, sending him flying across the hall and crashing into the wall, which promptly crumbled into pieces from the assault.
"I've been looking for you for a really long time," Hisoka smiled. "When your sister suddenly appeared before me, all polite and fake, well, I knew you would be close by."
"Ryuu!" Ayaka shouted as she ran after him, but another second later, Ryuu was pulled upwards by an invisible hand, and as though he was being held by a spring, he recoiled back towards Hisoka against his will. "Did you actually forget about my Bungee Gum?" Hisoka snickered as he punched Ryuu in the face when he was an arm's length away. "My, why are you so weak? Are you really that cute student I took in?"
'...Student?'
And like a steady game of Paddle Ball, Hisoka would reel Ryuu in, punch him in the face and send him crashing to the wall, over and over again. Punch after punch after punch. Blood everywhere! Ayaka could hear the sickening cracking sound of broken bones. Fractured ribs. The muffled grunts of pain. She had to do something!
She could see more of Ryuu's blood spilling on the ground as time went by, but what could she do? Wing hadn't taught her how to fight! Wasn't there something? Anything? Ryuu was going to die!
No cries to be heard
No tears to be dried
The dead are burned
The living are tired
It happened too quickly. Ayaka didn't even have time to think about what had happened, or how. All she could do... was watch. And listen.
As Ryuu soared through the air on his way back for another punch, he flashed Hisoka a wild smile. "Weak?" Ryuu laughed as he spoke, like he hadn't just been punched thirty times in a row. "Just who are you calling weak, sensei?" Just then, Hisoka's fist paused mid-attack as if seized by some unseen force, and Ryuu used the momentum of his recoil to kick against Hisoka's chest, ultimately breaking away from his Bungee Gum and landing stealthily on his feet. Hisoka slid upright across the floor from the kick, his arm still raised in the air as if still waiting to punch someone.
Hisoka glanced at his fist, which was blotched generously with Ryuu's blood, and attempted to make it twitch the slightest bit, but it wouldn't budge. With a short sigh, he pouted and tilted his head to the side. "I was trying to remember what your weapon of choice was," he said as he grinned widely, licking his lips as though tasting his very words. "It's been so long that I've forgotten it was your blood. No wonder you let me hit you so many times."
Ayaka rushed to Ryuu's side, but he was... completely fine. Aside from a crooked nose and a chipped tooth, he wasn't injured at all! Who was this guy? "Ryuu?" she mumbled, unsure of what to say or do next. "You know nen?" Well, wow. Of all the questions she could have, should have asked, that was all she could muster. She was never good at setting her priorities straight to begin with, but this was just... wow.
Ryuu glanced at her shortly, signs of his violent scowl fading away little by little. His messy mop of banana-blond hair covered part of his bright blue eyes, and for a moment, he didn't look anything like the fifteen-year-old boy he was supposed to be. He was a stranger. A stranger with wounded eyes blinded by murderous rage. "That's right," he replied plainly after a few moments of thought, turning his guarded attention towards Hisoka, who was walking around the hallway still attempting to make his fist move. "My nen naturally circulates with my blood, so I can use it outside of my body. I'm of the Hoshutsukei type."
"...w-wha...?"
"Any living thing that my blood touches, I can paralyze, but it has to touch that person's skin. The more blood on a person, the better and longer I can keep them from moving. I let Hisoka hit me a lot so I could get enough on him. Did you actually think I was losing?"
Ayaka didn't know. She had no clue that someone could do that with nen... or that nen was really that complicated. Did Wing intentionally hide these things from her? "But how do you even know nen? You didn't just learn it by accident, did you?"
Ryuu shrugged. "Some people can, but I didn't. Hisoka was on a rampage in the city a few years ago. You remember that year when so many kids died? He was giving bursts of nen to every child he crossed paths with, and I was one of two who survived. I guess he was bored. He taught us everything we needed to know... so that we could become people worthy of killing once we ripened."
Ayaka couldn't speak. Her mind was a total blank. "But there were problems," Ryuu continued. "People whose nen channels get forced open, especially if they're young and inexperienced like we were... well, they get damaged randomly. Sure, I survived, but this part of my brain got wiped out." Ryuu poked his long index finger right at the center of his forehead. "Right here. The prefrontal cortex. You remember what the doctors told you, right?"
Ayaka remembered. But she didn't want to say it.
"Yeah," Ryuu chewed on his dry bottom lip. "It's what separates us from other animals. It prevents us from doing inappropriate things, from thinking disgusting thoughts... stops us from doing whatever we want, whenever and wherever. Well, mine got broken thanks to Hisoka's nen... so I did those things to you when I grew old enough to know I could. I'm no different from an animal, living on instincts. I deserve to be in a place like this."
He glanced at Ayaka's injured arm and his scowl returned. "So right now, I just want to kill him. I'm probably going to die trying, I know that... but I don't care. So step aside, Aya."
And Ayaka did step aside... over to where Hisoka stood. Involuntarily, mind you. She felt a sudden strong pull on her injured arm, wrenching her away from Ryuu and towards Hisoka's un-paralyzed arm, which seemed to move as she moved. "That's a good girl," Hisoka chuckled, patting his heavy warm hand on her head. "Remember when I kissed you? I put some Bungee Gum on you that time too. Right here." Hisoka took her arm... and licked her bloody wrist.
The cool air chilled the moist spot, and Ayaka shuddered. What. The. Ryuu's bloodshot eyes grew murderous. He really, really wanted to kill him now.
"Hold your horses," Hisoka said as he winked at Ryuu. "Today was just a routine check-up, and the verdict is... you aren't ready yet! I'll give you six more months. If you still aren't good enough to eat, well, your boring sister can take your place, can't she?"
A life without regret
The tongue of truthfulness
I will never forget
Your ruthlessness
"You were losing," Aya smirked in triumph as she was dragged along by Hisoka's Bungee Gum. They were on their way back to the Arena. "Ryuu was kicking your ass, and you retreated."
"Is that what it looked like?" Hisoka sighed, finally able to move his hand freely. "I guess mosquitos really have tiny brains."
"Ryuu's going to kill you, you know."
"I don't mind. If he can, that is."
"He can, and he will."
Hisoka stopped in his tracks and turned to look at her. She raised her brows haughtily, quite the rebellious brat. "Just a minute ago you were about to wet your pants," he said, smiling as he stepped closer. She didn't flinch, not like she used to, and it definitely amused him. "I thought you were, I dunno, scared of me?"
"I still am," she said frankly, smiling back. "But I'm too happy right now to care."
He chuckled lightly. "Happy? Happy about what? Or did my nen damage your brain too?"
She shrugged. "Just happy that I have a real reason to learn nen now." She walked past him and winked. "I'm going to kill you before Ryuu does. That is, if you don't mind."
End of Chapter Seven!
How did you guys like it? I seriously didn't know where it was going half-way through writing it. I couldn't sleep just thinking about it. But I think I like how it turned out. It could definitely be confusing, but I tried my best to explain things in a way that people outside of my head can understand, since sometimes, you know, I tend to forget that people are just people and not people who can read minds.
Please let me know what you think by leaving a review! And speaking of reviews, I need to start reviewing for finals. Thank you for reading!