"Hello. Please take a number. Be sure you wear this on your chest at all times. Be careful not to lose it."

I took a number pin from a small green guy that read the number sixty. That pin now sat on the left side of my chest. When I looked back at the crowd already gathered in front of me, I saw looks of confusion and a few sneers for intimidation purposes. The sneers I understood, but the confusion was a mystery all on its own.

Ignoring the crowds stare I walked forward and tried to find a spot among the crowd to call my own. A few of the applicants backed away from me and others just stayed in the spots they had before I came and joined. It didn't take long before I found a spot among the pipes along one of the walls. I was surrounded by the natural shadow of the room and felt at peace. As more applicants joined the growing crowd I assumed that no one could tell I was even here, how wrong could I have been?

"Haven't seen you around before."

I looked down from my shadow heaven and saw a short fat man. He didn't look like a threat so I didn't consider him possible of doing any harm. I wondered what he could possibly want from me. I was just a mere stranger and therefore there was no reason for us to talk.

"Yo. Why don't you come down for a chat?"

With nothing better to do, I decided to oblige the fat man and jumped down to the main floor. Stand next to him I noticed that standing up next to him I was at least a good four to five inches taller than him. This was amusing to me because usually, men were taller than myself while females were usually smaller.

Once the fat man noticed how much taller I was compared to him I could visibly see him tense and begin to sweat. The fat man was obviously intimidated by me, but he held his ground. Apparently whatever it was that he came over to talk about with me was more important than fleeing from me.

"You're new aren't you? This is your first time taking the hunter exam?" He paused thinking that I was going to answer his question. I just continued to stare at him waiting for him to get on with whatever it was he wanted to talk about. "Right, well, this will be my thirty-fifth attempt and I've never seen you here before."

This man was very strange to me. We didn't know each other and he is trying to talk to me like we are old friends. I see no reason for me to talk to someone who doesn't even have the decency to introduce themselves before trying to be so friendly. This fat man was very rude and didn't have any kind of manners.

"Well, you could say I'm an exam veteran" he laughed.

'That isn't something to brag about. No matter who you are' I thought to myself.

"If you have any questions, feel free to ask me. My name is Tonpa" Tonpa said.

So the fat man, Tonpa, decided to finally introduce himself. The question now is if I should introduce myself as well? There were a lot of things he could do with my name, but then I would be the one not having manners and being rude. What should I do?

As I ponder this I never noticed that Tonpa had his hand out to shake, and I only realized this when he brought his hand back to scratch the back of his head awkwardly. Once I realized how rude I was becoming I decided to fix my mistake before it became too big of a problem.

"I apologize Tonpa. It seems that I have been very rude to you" I bowed my head to him slightly as I continue to speak "Please forgive my rudeness. I am just not the kind of person who likes physical contact. Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Shadow" My voice sounded like a rough, scratchy, whisper from having not been used for so long.

Tonpa seemed to have been frozen and stared at me in shock. I was confused. Did I do something wrong? Did I not apologize the correct way that he was familiar with? When I thought I had somehow made the situation even worse Tonpa laughed awkwardly and said it was alright. He was lying. I could tell by how tense and pale looking his body was that Tonpa was not alright.

"How about I give you some info on some of the applicants that I know of. This will be to show that I forgive your rudeness" Tonpa offered.

I nodded my head and looked to every person he pointed to and told me what he knew about them. I memorized every word he said so that I could use this information in the future, in case I where to fight any of them:

Number 255, Todo, the wrestler.

- Unmatched in strength

- Smart

Number 103, Bourbon, the snake charmer.

- Holds grudges

- Don't want to be on his bad side

Number 191, Bodoro, the Kung Fu master.

- Old, but still good at martial artist

The three brothers, Amori, Imori, and Umori.

- Perform consistently well

- Excellent teamwork

Number 384, Gerreta, the hunts man.

- Specializes in killing any creature with blow dart and club

"There are many more, but they have taken the test the most times. Was there anything else you wanted to know?'

I shook my head at him and continued to observe the applicants Tonpa had pointed out. They all looked weak to me. This thought saddened me. The main reason I even can here was to fight worthy strong people, getting a hunters license was a plus, not to fight worthless weaklings. As I continued to wallow in my sadness I didn't notice that Tonpa was trying to talk to me again and hand me what looked like juice.

I continued to ignore him and jumped back onto my spot on the pipe. "I would like to be alone now Tonpa, but thank you. I greatly appreciate the information you gave me. I will keep that in mind if we should ever cross paths in the battle field."

With a shiver and growl from Tonpa, he walked away and left me to my thoughts. It many have been hours later from when I talked with Tonpa, before I decided to lift my head and look at all the new applicants that had arrived. It seemed that the last ones to arrive was a three man party. One looked like a twelve year old child in all green clothing, another looked like he was in his mid-teens and could pass as a female, and finally the last one looked like an old adult. The adult though was actually a teenager, because of the way he speaks and how he carried himself.

It looked like Tonpa was talking to them about the other applicants. It must have been exactly the same ones he told me about. Before I could observe the group even closer there was a blood curdling scream echoing through the room. I stood up and tried to find the source of the scream, but couldn't see anything from my vantage point. I decide to blend into the shadows around me and travel through them to find the source of the scream. This was one of my many special abilities were I could control and travel through any kind of shadow.

As I traveled through everyone's shadow I came upon the most beautiful scene I have ever laid eyes on. A man was screaming as both of his arms turned into tiny red flower petals. The petals where the color of blood and held me trapped in a trance as they floated through the air. I never realized I stepped out of one of the applicants shadow until I heard a new man's voice.

"Oh, how peculiar... His arms seem to have become flower petals." He unfolded his crossed arms and said, "No smoke and mirrors here. Do take care. When you bump into someone, you really should apologize."

The crowd surrounding the man looked at him with disgust and fear, while I looked at him in wonder from the shadows. I noticed that if we were to stand next to each other, he would definitely be a few inches taller than myself. He had red, pinkish, hair that looked to be frozen as wind blew against it. He was very pale, with an almost grey hue to his skin. On his face was painted a pink star, under his right eye, and a teal tear drop, under his left eye. His clothes reminds me of a clown, but looked more like a joker outfit from the playing cards.

I took in his appearance in only a few seconds, but it felt like time had been stopped. I was knocked out of my trance by not only Tonpa talking to the group of three, but also the whimpers and screams of the man who lost his arms. I tried to listen to Tonpa as he told the child, Gon I think his name was, about the joker guy. All I got was that his name was Hisoka, and that he would have passed last year but he almost killed an examiner. I couldn't hear anything else because of that one screaming.

His screams where starting to irritate me to the point I was going to snap. A thing that should be known about me is that if I'm on the verge to snap you better run. If you are the person I'm annoyed at, let's just say there is no use running because you are already a dead man.