Chapter 10

"Gon? You're here? But h-how?!" Pitou yelled at the shadowy figure while remaining in a defensive pose. "Why do you keep appearing, why won't you leave me alone!?" Neferpitou's anger grew to a breaking point, she was fed up with this Gon lookalike. The human boy that supposedly "killed her" is leering at her with an even more sinister presence than before.

The sinister presence is becoming even more sinister than before, the darkness swirling around only grows greater as the two of them become ever more angry. Pitou suddenly lunged at the shadowy figure hoping to get silence it once and for all however as she lunged at him. As her claws were getting closer and closer the his throat however as her hand got closer to it she started to gradually become more sluggish. She got even slower in mere seconds. Slower... and slower... and slower...and...slower...and...slower... until...she came to a halt, right at the moment she was going to grip his neck with her claws, her entire body became suspended in the air while in stasis just like a still image. She noticed her lack of mobility and started to panic internally.

"I...can't move! It's happening again, am I going to die for real this time? Why now?! This can't be happening! IT JUST CAN'T!" Neferpitou's inner thoughts echoed in her mind, significantly increasing the amount of panic she's dealing with. The shadowy figure raised it's hand at her and released more of it's insidious aura at Pitou. Tears began to flow down her face as none of her other function would work at the moment, even though she's faced death head on before it was for something much bigger than her. A cause worth fighting for but now is the first time she ever feared her own life being taken. The first time she has truly feared death.

Pitou then suddenly awoke in medical ward of the palace. This time she was familiar with her surroundings.

"Hippotsu...are you there?" she called out.

"Yes milady, are you alright? Could you tell me what happened?" he asked.

"Well, I guess I can tell you, or rather I SHOULD tell you. I've been hallucinating a lot lately." Pitou claimed.

"I see, and what were these hallucinations of exactly?" Asked Hippotsu

"They were of that boy...the one who 'killed' me. I see him almost everywhere, as if he was haunting me. Every time I try to get a grasp of what it could possibly be, he ends up trying to kill me." Said Pitou "Every nyow and then I'll see him painted in nothing but black almost as if his anger is reaching out to me from the depths of hell itself. Oh, I don't mean to be dramatic but that is what I've been experiencing lately."

As we was writing notes down, Hippotsu looked at his queen with pity in his eyes "I'm sorry you've had to deal with this lately milady, I'll do everything in my ability to figure out what's causing this."

"Thanks Hippotsu. Anyway, tell me...how did your training go?"

"Oh, the training... my queen, I wasn't able to get around to it." He responded nervously.

Pitou looked raised her eyebrow at Hippotsu "Why haven't you? You do realize that a member of the Royal guard has to be strong enough to protect their queen?"

"Of course milady...however I fear you may be disappointed with my lack of combat skills, I'd give up my life for you my queen but I feel like without any other medical staff in the palace it would ultimately bear negative results, thus I'll have to humbly decline, no disrespect you milady. Please understand." Hippotsu said with confidence.

Pitou looked to the ground and recalled what Hippotsu's stats were during his tests.

Hippotu's stats

Strength 32

Endurance 17

Dexterity 84

Intelligence 200

Nen: Emission

"If i'm remembering correctly, you did pretty well on most of the tests and your stats were pretty well rounded." Pitou tried to reassure Hippotsu.

Hippotsu responded with "Thank you for the kind words my queen, but I'm afraid what you've marked down just isn't accurate at all. I never showed you my nen ability nor have I actually attempted to train at all."

"But Hippotsu, I watched you. Alongside Inuka and Jagren. I saw all of you training."

"I-I can assure you milady, it's unrealistic to think I was actually training with them two of them. Perhaps...it was someone else. Someone who possibly took my form? Ah yes! There was such a person. I believe he was a part of mistress Zazan's squadron."

"Who?" she asked

"His name escapes me, but he's a chimera ant that has illusory abilities I believe. He's a prankster and quite the troublemaker. He gives a lot of the worker ants a hard time...it's odd because he should have left the palace weeks before we found you. It's not impossible that he'd try to cause you harm but it's highly unlikely since he hasn't been known to do that in the past. Could he be causing your hallucinations?"

Pitou wanted to get a better understanding of what she's hearing "So you're telling me that some prankster with the power an illusory nen power pretended to be you? Hippotsu, you really are reaching far with these excuses..."

"But, I'm not ly-" he was cut off before he could finish.

"Fine. I understand you don't want to be my royal guard. I'll just have to find someone else."

Pitou stormed out of the medical ward leaving Hippotsu dumbfounded.

Pitou's started to think of a possible replacement for Hippotsu as she was walking back to the office where Inuka was waiting. "Come to think of it. I haven't really met any of the worker ants yet. Ah well, it's not like they really matter. What I need to find is another person who was directly under the squadron leaders...or maybe...I could find one of the ex-squadron leaders that were serving under the previous queen. That could work, I'll just have to find them all." Pitou thought while smirking.

She made a sharp turn back the way she entered the hallway so she could get back to Inuka as quickly as possible. There was an odd stench that Pitou smelled as she got closer to the corner of the hallway. As she got closer the stench got even stronger "Is that the smell of blood?" She thought.

She ran towards the source of the smell which was at the end of the hallway. When she arrived, she noticed that all of the the worker ants she passed by earlier were in pieces. Multiple corpses were torn so horribly that to the point that they were unrecognizable. "This is...awful who could have done this?!" Pitou shouted. "Could this have been what I did when I was hallucinating about Gon?" She looked at each member who was violently slaughtered by her own hand. She didn't realize that expendable worker ants were killed mercilessly by means of her hallucination, she was disgusted with herself and distraught the cat girl who evidently had no trouble with murder in the past has changed, she realized this but she didn't care. All that mattered now was her dilemma, something had to be done about her hallucinations. She looked to the ground and clenched her teeth. "No more of this...I'm sick of it! I NEED TO GET GON OUT OF MY HEAD ONCE AND FOR ALL! Even if this one isn't real...I have to kill Gon."

Elsewhere

"Achoo~"

"Hm? Are you catching a cold?"

"Um...I don't think so...it just kinda came outta nowhere."

"I see. Well, you know what they when you sneeze out of nowhere like that."

"There's a saying? What do they say?"

"Somebody must be talking about you."

"Really? That's an odd thing to say where did it come from?

"Hmmm, I believe it was a superstition that was popularized in the Kakin Empire and other nations on the Azian continent. Years ago a strange rumor went around in the country that claimed if you talked about someone behind their back, that person would sneeze in response. It's funny because nobody really knows how that superstition began. It just kind of came out of nowhere, I guess you have to be Azian to understand it."

"That seems to be very specific. Why sneezing?"

"Who knows? That's just how the saying goes kiddo!"

"Well if that's the case, maybe it was Killua!"

"Hm?"

"Killua must have been talking about me! But wait...what if he was making fun of me?! Gah! I'll never know!"

"Aunt Mito, I'm gonna call him right now and make him pay for making fun of me!"

"Gon, you really shouldn't-"

"It's payback time KILLUAAAA!"

"Hehe...he's too pure for this cruel world...Ging...you were right to bring him home."

End of Chapter