Chapter Forty-Eight

The Vigilante and the Thief

Next stop: Epilogue.

A midnight moon arises over Meteor City, just enough to illuminate the blood-splattered streets and the tears that have dried to salt on its residents' cheeks. Just enough to see the whites of another person's eyes and lose your grip on hatred, if only for a second, because your eyes are white, too.

Inside the Hall of Elders, the Princes of Kakin have joined with the Meoeor City commoners, removing bodies from the slaughter and scrubbing the blood from the walls.

And inside the back room, on that ugly mossy carpet and before the long-deceased grandfather clock, the hope of Meteor City sleeps.

Nanika mumbles nonsense before rolling towards the edge of the mattress, the mattress she created for herself.

"Hold it." Hisoka uses Bungee Gum to roll her back onto the mattress. She doesn't awaken, to his relief.

Illumi's keen eyes do not miss the gentle smile, even though brief, on Hisoka's face.

"What?" Hisoka demands. He feels Illumi's soft, sincere gaze on him.

The rest of the Hall of Elders has become a makeshift hospital, the hospital Meteor City has never had before. Cheadle and Leorio have been running to and fro for hours, with Nanika healing anyone close to death.

The Kakin queens supply food from the Black Whale, and Pariston has found himself in a nenless prison with Tserriednich. Owl, on the Spider's insistance, has been released, nenless and alone.

Where he goes is up to him.

Fortunately, enough residents of Meteor City had witnessed the attack to believe the Kakin queens' innocence. Right now, the question is Pariston's fate, the establishment of a new government, and the use of the riches below the city to save its residents.

But those aren't questions for the Spiders, Hunters, or Zoldycks. It's close to midnight, and Nanika has finally reached her limit. Now, she sleeps, and the others take turns guarding her in the elder's backroom. Illumi, and Hisoka by default, volunteered first.

"You're still hurting, aren't you." Illumi utters a statement rather than a question.

Hisoka turns his head away from his husband.

Illumi waits.

"I did tell myself I liked it." Hisoka blurts out the most painful words first. He gasps and shivers, but forces himself to continue, speaking quicker and quicker. "I seized every moment I didn't feel like scum and held onto it. I told myself I was special. I was special because he had others and still chose me. I had – I had nothing, and he gave me something, even if it scared me."

Hisoka wraps his arms around his legs. His voice cracks. "It still scares me."

"It wasn't your fault." Illumi bends over Hisoka's huddled form, sticking his upside-down face directly in his. As if this is a perfectly natural stance, as only Illumi can. "You told me it wasn't my fault. I will tell you the same."

"I'm as hypocritical as Chrollo and Kurapika," Hisoka says with a sad laugh.

"It wasn't your fault." Illumi straightens and moves in front of Hisoka. He crouches before him. "I'm afraid, too."

Hisoka's eyes crinkle, the way they do when he's emotional and trying not to show it.

"It's not your fault. It's not your fault. It's not. It's an imperfect analogy, but are any of my needlemen and needlewomen at fault for what my manipulation does?" Illumi brushes Hisoka's cheek. "He manipulated you, not with nen but with food and power. It wasn't your fault."

Illumi has vowed never to say his name again.

"I'm not a good person," Hisoka says, with a shaky smile at the familiar touch.

"I never asked you to be." Illumi traces the teardrop on Hisoka's cheek.

Hisoka's face crumples. He bows his head and fights tears. His words come out in a gasp. "Don't ever compare yourself to that man again."

"Okay." Illumi looks straight into Hisoka's eyes.

Hisoka snickers. "We're two very broken men, aren't we?"

Illumi swallows. Broken… the one thing he's never wanted to be. But. "Yes, I think we are."

His eyes move to the door, where he left Killua standing with his arm around Gon, both of them glaring at Ging Freecs with a ferocity that thrilled Illumi. "But maybe we're going to be okay."

"We've got to, right? For your kid siblings." Hisoka smiles a watery smile, watery like fresh rain.

Illumi's eyes glow. "And Milluki, too."

"And Feitan and Machi's kid," Hisoka says. He shakes his head, bemused. "We're going to have a large family."

"I thought I was giving up my family, you know? By defying my parents, by letting Killua have friends and Kalluto join the Spiders, by allowing Nanika and Alluka to live." Illumi brushes Nanika's dark hair, dark and shiny like his own, back from her peaceful face. "But instead, I've just gained more and more."

Hisoka snakes his fingers between Illumi's and holds him tight.


Ging's expression remains sour the entire time Gon stares at him.

The shine of their first true conversation on the World Tree, the sparkle of the end to the hunt, has passed.

Gon looks at his father and he feels emptiness, emptiness stronger than his exhaustion late at night. That's why he requested Killua stay with him.

And Ging knows this, and he's annoyed.

"You might as well come over," Ging finally says, but he's not speaking to Gon. He's calling to Raissa Valdrada, the mafia widow who's been tailing them whenever she's not negotiating with the wealthier members of Meteor City and the Kakin queens.

She colors as Gon's eyes land on her.

Killua gasps.

And Gon knows. He's not even sure how he knows. Maybe it was Killua's gasp, but Gon's not an intuitive person. But here, still, he knows.

"Mom?"

Raissa approaches, tentatively. Her hair is the same dark green, her eyes a similar oval. "Gon?"

"…Mom?" Gon isn't sure how he feels. He doesn't want to betray Mito.

Raissa presses a gloved hand over the ragged lace of her bodice. Her voice sounds brittle. "Gon?"

He draws back, and so does she, as if afraid.

"You can just say it," Ging says with impatience. "Say 'yes.'"

She falls quiet, displeased by his interruption.

"I love you," Raissa whispers instead.

Gon starts.

She kneels before her son, too emotional to cry. "I never wanted to give you up. It was – I was a tenacious girl, who got herself into trouble too young, and my family would have starved if I'd kept you."

Her voice darkens. "I thought – I always hoped Ging would have loved you, if not me. Because you were his son."

Gon hesitates. He wants to say Ging did.

But Ging didn't, and he doesn't.

Raissa's hand moves to slap Ging, but she stops herself. Instead, her hands encircles Gon, pulling him towards her in a rough embrace. "I had all these things to say and I've rehearsed for years and I've forgotten near everything right now. But – but – you're so much better than I ever imagined. I – I'm so proud of you, Gon."

Gon begins to sob, and Killua wipes his eyes.

Raissa holds Gon back, examining how her son has grown, how he looks like her and like his father. And yet better – he risked his life for friends, not pleasure or adventure or mischief. "I'm so proud of you."

Gon cries now because he never knew what he wanted before. He thought he wanted Ging, but he didn't. He wanted his parents' love.

"I'm so proud of you," Raissa repeats over and over, rubbing Gon's back, though her own tears. She even holds out a hand for Killua to join.

Eventually, Ging slips away, an unfixable enigma even now, and Gon cries harder, and his mother, the mother he didn't want to find, still holds him.

"I'm sorry," she tells him. "I'm so sorry."


The night sky has turned grey with morning again, and Kikyo Zoldyck finally drifts towards the exit.

She's scavenged Silva's ashes into the needle around her neck.

But she's guarded the children until more guards could be found. Some of them reunited with parents or foster parents or siblings. Most, of course, have none.

But they might be okay, if that Valdrada woman and the Kakin queens have their way. If Meteor City changes overnight.

Kikyo knows it won't.

For now, though, she guarded the children. And by that duty, she likes to tell herself she was useful to her own children.

And that's all she really wanted for the time being. That, and one more thing.

"You saved me, putting me in that circus." Kikyo stares stiffly at Feitan and Machi, who guard the door of the Hall lest any idiots try to stir up trouble.

"It wasn't our idea, and certainly not for you," Machi informs her bluntly. "You've been evil to your kids."

"They turn out well," Feitan says, throwing a fond glance towards Kalluto, who chats excitedly with a freshly awakened Nanika and Alluka. "Not by you. Or Silva."

Kikyo quiets, watching the three children.

Kalluto is quite animated. That's right; Kalluto always loved being forced to stay up all night.

"Where will you go from here?" Machi asks after a moment. She hates feeling pity for this woman, yet she does.

"There's no home for me, is there?" Kikyo laughs sadly.

"No, but you can make one." Nanika turns to them, as if she's heard the entire conversation. "That's what Alluka told me when I first came to Kukuroo Mountain."

We'll make this your home. Silva smiled at her. She as still burdened with a sagging stomach from birth in a slum a week ago. Yet she gazed up at the mansion in which her new husband lived. You'll never have to return to that city again.

"I see." Kikyo swallows. She turns back to Feitan. What can…what can she say?

She's a teenager, pinning down this assassin three times her size, forcing him to understand her, to feel all her pain, to feel what assault and slavery feel like. Let's start at the start, shall we?

She'll start at the start again, she decides.

"Did you know…your birthday…is August 1st?"

And then she leaves, because she doesn't know what else to say, at least not right now. Someday, she may return.

Kikyo walks off, illuminated against the raw sunrise.


Kurapika watches the latest group of citizens they've allowed into the hall. The elders' families went first, to retrieve the bodies, though no one will claim Bizeff. And now the relatives of the missing ants have come.

In particular, the scrawny man who is no less shaggy than when they first met, though his color is less pale and his cough dissipated.

The man staggers up to a young female ant who lies with her a head at ninety degrees. Sobs wrack his body. "You're back, you're back, you're back!"

"Daddy –"

"It's okay, you're beautiful," the man says, squeezing his daughter close.

"I promised him," Kurapika tells Chrollo. "He was the first person I met who lived here. I promised him we'd find his daughter."

Tears run down his cheeks. "I saw this city, Chrollo, and it's so much more and so much worse than I knew."

"You could say that about many things in life," Chrollo muses. He offers Kurapika a pointed smile.

"Like you?" Kurapika teases.

"I was thinking you, but sure, I suppose. Me too." Chrollo runs a hand through his hair.

Kurapika sighs, serious once again. "I'm sorry about your book."

"The good news is Tserriednich hasn't regained his powers. They've simply vanished." Chrollo sighs. "Nanika thinks I should learn how to invent my own powers, and keep them in a book."

"Yes, I suppose we'll both need to develop new nen abilities," Kurapika says. "Since my masochistic tendencies ought to be tempered."

"Another thing we can do together?" Chrollo raises an eyebrow.

"I fancy the idea of staying here. Until Raissa's government is settled, at least."

"Good. I'm not requiring it for any members of the Spider, but I suspect most will be here the next few months." Chrollo's countenance alights. "I always enjoyed having the entire troupe together."

"I would like to get to know my fiancé's family better, too." Kurapika smiles. He still blushes at the word fiancé, a habit Chrollo hopes never changes.

Unless it's that Kurapika blushes more at the word husband. Chrollo shall accept that.

Chrollo wraps an arm around Kurapika's waist and pulls him closer.

After a minute, Kurapika finally gathers his courage to speak his thoughts.

"Would you like to see me with a tattoo?" Kurapika glances towards Chrollo. "I was thinking about a twelve-legged Spider."

Chrollo's eyes shine. His hands settle along Kurapika's arms, drawing him closer and closer, but to Chrollo, Kurapika will never be close enough. But he's happy to spend a lifetime chasing that.

"As long as you still have a ring on your hand."

Kurapika smooths Chrollo's hair back from his face, the way it was when they first met, as vigilante and thief, as avenger and villain, as murderer and murderer. He presses his forehead against the cross on Chrollo's forehead, and seals their latest deal with a kiss.