After receiving a nice reception with my first HxH fic, I'm happy to have something much darker for you all! Hope you enjoy, and I promise I'll try not to make anyone cry (cough, I mean yeah).

Disclaimer: I do not own HxH, that would be interesting considering I was a wee child when it was first published.

For Kurapika.

The words echoed in his head a thousand times over, like a whisper in a cavern so vast the end could not be seen. They held no emotion, no depth, simply were the voicings of a decision made and carried through. Of all the people who could have been there, he doubted that anyone had expected it to be him, but that only made his actions more important.

After all, if anyone understood suffering like Kurapika's, it was Killua.

He was doing his best not to be bothered by the sounds and smells that flooded his senses, to not be brought back to a place in his mind where he knew he would be affected. The man standing closest to him could see the effort in every line on the young man; he was stone. His eyes did not blink, his breathing was barely noticeable, and all of the color in his face had long ago drained away. The man standing by could not help but to stare, feeling his stomach churn as he took in how similarly he looked to the broken body lying in the bed between them.

No more than a few words had been spoken between them in days; it seemed impossible to converse under the circumstances, let alone with expectations of a horrible fate looming over their heads. They had never been talkative companions either way; there had always been some sort of buffer between their interactions, always at least three of them, and long ago memories of four. The tension between them was a side effect of this reminder, the reality of the situation weighing on both pairs of shoulders in each of the lengthy silences. It wasn't as if they had nothing to talk about. They simply knew everything the other would have to say, and saved themselves the trouble.

They were terribly worried about each other, but looking from the outside in it was nearly impossible to tell. There had been whispers from the hall, concerns expressed by strangers over the tall man and the lithe teen, over how they would react when the news that was inevitable was finally delivered. No one dared approach them, though. They were in too much pain to have communicated, anyway.

Despite this, neither of them had left. It had been days of nonresponse, days of nothing but staring at white walls, of sleeping in hard backed chairs and eating soft foods and all possible maddeningly trite actions and nothing had happened. Yet, still they stayed, eyes wide and trained on either the patch of recognizable yellow from under the innumerable bandages or the stains on the walls. As much as the two were reminded of the last time they lay in wait, they knew this was different.

They knew that there was no coming back from this without consequences.

How the blond had even gotten to the godforsaken city was beyond them; last either of them had heard he was stalking around Yorkshin on a job. That was halfway around the world, but several weeks back, and one way or another fate had been cruel enough to stick him here of all places to face off with the one opponent that had been on his trails for years: death. This time, it seemed as if the battle was not to be won again.

The city was a legend among Hunters and even those lay people who had heard the stories of treasure from the old world. It was hidden to most of the world, not by any mystical means, but simply because it was difficult to get to. The surrounding mountains were treacherous, making Kukuroo look like a pleasant hill comparatively. After the mountains came the vast forests, which were strange tropical woodlands unlike anything they had trekked through before. The easiest way to travel was by boat, as the trees were buried in swamps that held species unknown to most men, and probably for the better. Though he was no Wild Beast Hunter, Killua was schooled in recognizing poisons, even on other living beings. He had seen more deadly fish and amphibians on the trip in than he had even known existed, and that wasn't even counting the plant life. The journey had taken three days, though he knew it should have taken him longer. His worry, and the other's, were enough to speed him along to his destination. Even so, he hadn't used his Kanmuru, hoping that his path would be less conspicuous.

He would have been disappointed in his surroundings when he arrived if he had not been so preoccupied. The city was always dark, for some reason, as if light could not reach such a place. The air was thick with pollution, though the hand of technology did not extend past the most basic of amenities. Most of the buildings that lined the streets were made from some sort of natural clay molded over rusted metal pipes, seeming to add to the stench of rot that permeated the air. It didn't help that there was always a layer of fog levitating just off of the ground, thick and dark, like the deadly rivers around the settlement. The grime of the city had stained his pants and shoes within the first minutes of his arrival, as if marking his passing. He wondered if the color would ever wash out, but knew that the clothes would be discarded as soon as he was allowed to escape. He wouldn't be able to get the essence of death off of them anyway, not with the nondescript bodies that were found piled at the outskirts of town, where the building they resided in was located. He couldn't blame the indigenous people: had he lived here he would have kept the sick as far from the rest of the population as possible too. Then again, he couldn't imagine why anyone would seek such a life out. Clearly, Kurapika had.

He had asked, but no one seemed to know how he had gotten into his condition, just that it could not have been good. It was through a halfway broken connection, amplified with some sort of newfangled device the doctor had picked up during his travels that Killua had even received the call for him to come – he could only imagine what the other had gone to in order to have gotten there when he did. All they had been told, translated brokenly by an old explorer who had found his way into the city but never managed to get back out, was that the blond had been found moments before his breath was stolen from him, a single word on his lips.

Leorio.

They had, of course, frisked him for any sign of what that meant when he was admitted. It had been the same old man, the only one literate in the common language of the outside world, to find the name among an excruciatingly short list on the young man's mobile device. How they had gotten ahold of him was still a mystery to the former assassin, but they had, and Leorio had been there from that day onward. Since his arrival, they had done nothing but wait, trapped in the small room, for any hinting of hope.

Killua had grown so tired of living for hope. This, surely, was a lost cause. Kurapika had lived through such agony, a life full of nothing but torment and rage, but this was irreparable. His ribs had shattered in multiple places, puncturing a lung in the process. One of his kneecaps had been crushed to the point that walking was an unlikely future for him, but it was the least of their worries. There was so much internal damage, between the bleeding and the fractured limbs, that neither man was sure if there was enough of him left to save. Looking at him, it was impossible to tell that the young Kurta was the same person they had grown close to so many years ago.

The medical technology of local people lacked much to be desired, and with the language barrier it was difficult to even figure out what they thought was most important to treat, let alone how they had planned on going about it. Killua could tell by looking at him that Leorio found it traumatizing: he had arrived just in time to save the younger one from an unnecessary amputation. He had worked on him for the entire first night, emptying the contents of his briefcase with his efforts before turning to pure Nen techniques to try to pull him out of it. He still wasn't as skilled as the others, as he didn't rely on Nen to save himself on a daily basis, but his specialization came in handy at times like this.

It was a lucky happenstance that Kurapika was breathing on his own; from what the old man had gossiped Killua figured that he had stopped for a time while Leorio was trying to stitch him back together. It was no wonder that Leorio had his eyes trained on him like a hawk, now sitting close enough to the bed that he could see the slightest change in the rising and falling of the other's bandaged chest. Killua watched as the bags under his eyes darkened as each day passed, the most recent member of their gang to become a Hunter using his Nen quietly, secretly to try and fix the other. They both knew how hopeless a cause it really was, Killua staying silent as he watched the life drained from the other two. He'd have tried to help, tried to seek out an alternative had he not known that there was none, had he not been through it all before.

He knew that Leorio had made the call.

He hadn't told him, but Killua knew beyond reasonable doubt. He supposed that was why Leorio had been so shocked that he had come, that and the fact that Killua wasn't' exactly the easiest person to get ahold of. Even now that the threats from his family had died out, he lived his life like he was on the run, never staying in one place for too long and keeping a list of aliases as long as a phonebook. In a way, he still was running, but not from the Zoldyck clan. That's why, every few minutes or so, Leorio's eyes would shoot past to him, worried. He had definitely made the call.

The question was whether or not he was coming, whether he'd even make it in time. Part of the white haired boy knew that if the Kurta died before the other made it to the city limits that he'd be gone before having to see him. The rest of him… well he wasn't about to prepare for that eventuality. He'd rather just not think or feel anything at all.

There wasn't any time to prepare anyway, in a moment the room went from still to bristling, the energy in the air becoming entirely too volatile. Silence changed to a flood of beeps and screams from the archaic machinery in the room, burning the boy's ears. His eyes dilated, realization filling them as he took in the body of the blond, seizing and shaking. Leorio was on him in a moment, hands on his arms as he tried to still him, struggling at the same time to reach for his briefcase. Killua only stared, his body going numb, before the doctor's pleas sounded in his ears.

In a second he was moving, taking the other's position as he pinned the gargling blond to the bed. The one eye that was not bandaged had rolled back in its socket, lids fluttering wildly as he seized, the uninjured leg kicking as his back arched unnaturally. Killua felt sickness rise to his throat as he held him, trying desperately not to go on the defensive lest he hurt him. The smell of death filled his nostrils, shocking his system as the body under him stilled all too suddenly. There was a violent push to his shoulder, and Leorio was back, tossing a syringe off to the side and folding his hands over the other's chest. Killua stepped back to give him room to work, watching morbidly as the doctor pushed rhythmically against the other's chest.

Blood started to bubble from the Kurta's mouth in the form of foam, but Leorio was wiping it away to press his mouth against the other's, pushing fresh air into the one working lung. His hand flailed, and with some primal semblance of understanding Killua took over the artificial pumping of his heart. Out of the corner of his eye he could see that the city's doctors had crowded the doorway, hands over their faces as they watched, whispering prayers and mantras instead of doing anything that could be seen as useful. For the first time in so very, very long, Killua found himself terrified.

And then, without warning, it was over. The blaring of the machines quieted, the trembling beneath him stopped, and hands closed over his to keep him from moving any more. He looked at the other, eyes wide and fearful, to find him smoothing back the blond's hair. Wiping the blood from his mouth, he turned to the younger one, eyes dull, but racing.

There was a heartbeat under his palms.

Killua stepped back shakily, his legs barely holding him up as he looked, unsure of what he was seeing, to find that the blond was breathing. It was an uncertain sort of breath, one that was moments from being extinguished, but it was there. Everything seemed to slow down, the world ceased its turning. Leorio had slid down onto his knees, crumpling over halfway onto the body that he had just breathe life into. Without it really registering, he watched the older man begin to sob, clutching at the dark blankets around his fallen friend.

It was out of pure instinct that Killua turned his head, looking toward the door. It didn't matter, not in that moment. He was much too numb.

There was Gon, staring dumbly at him, his eyes wide and full of emotion. Killua looked at him but didn't see, didn't understand or care. All there was, all that mattered, was the heartbeat that he felt under his fingertips just moments before.

"Killua…"

And then he was running, moving past the white haired boy toward the Kurta to stand over the bed. But the moment had broken, the glass between himself and the real world had shattered, and suddenly Killua was very aware of his surroundings. So very aware of the lamenting cries coming from down the hall, of the doctor, looking between himself and the dark haired boy with an emotionless gaze, his mouth stained with blood, of the fact that Gon was in fact here, a breath away from him.

He was gone within a second, slipping through the door that had held the other's presence, and disappearing into the nightly dark. He'd rather surround himself with natural brought death than spend another second in that room anyway.

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