Okay you guys, I'm not gonna delay your reading, there's an important note at the end of this. At least read the first half. Meanwhile, enjoy: (Published 10/25/2014)

Life for Akumi while living with the Zoldycks slowly fell into a loose routine. Wake up, eat, train, sleep. Sometimes there were other things thrown in, like no food that day, but overall, Akumi's life consisted of training and killing. And scaring the Zoldyck children.

It had been an entire month before Milluki was able to stay in the same room as her, six months before he stopped flinching when she came near, and he still couldn't look at her in the eye. Five goddamned years and the boy couldn't maintain eye contact. It had been three years before he had directly talked to her and that had only been because of an accident.

Milluki, having recently turned seventeen, had come back from upstairs where he had enjoyed eating different dishes for the past several hours. Arriving at the door outside of his room, the boy had paused, able to hear the click clack of a keyboard. He knew that no one paid him any attention in the house, but they still never went into his room. None of them had ever had a reason to go in.

Reaching, he grabbed the doorknob and pulled the door open, eyes going to the figure that was sitting at his computer tapping away. He couldn't see who it was, but nonetheless, he walked in, slamming the door behind him.

The person on the computer did not flinch, giving no indication that they had even heard him slam the door. Milluki reached out and grabbed one of the less rare dolls off of his shelf, aiming for the head of the intruder. Usually, one would think that considering the people he lived with, Milluki would know better than to throw something at someone who was in the house, but Milluki did not think in the long term, which in this case was considered anything past throwing the doll. All he wanted to do was get their attention while taking his frustration out on them.

"Get out of my room!" He yelled, throwing the doll in a high arc.

He watched as the doll soared through the air towards the intruder's head. A foot from the person's head, the doll was suddenly cut through the middle, the two halves separating and falling to the floor. Milluki realized his mistake the instant the doll was cleaved in two. There was only one person who had the ability to do that without getting up and moving their hands- which were still clicking away at the keys. He had just thrown something at Akumi, the blood manipulator. The blood manipulator who currently had a spike pointing at his eye.

"Milluki," the boy's blood ran cold upon hearing the voice. It sounded just as it had when he was fourteen. "It's been three years and you've never said a word to me. But now, our first decent conversation consists of you yelling at me? I thought you were smarter than that." The boy in question was stock still, remembering the aura that she had shown three years ago.

"Oh well," she said, getting up off his chair and turning around. She was still exactly the same as before, except the number of scars marring her flesh. His father had made her continuously pull out the different piercings so that she would no longer be distracted by pain when she ripped them out. The whip pointed at him moved away from his eye, changing its shape into a sphere that floated beside her head.

"I'm done with your computer. I just needed to look up a few things about some people." Milluki's eyes stayed glued to the sphere of blood beside her. It was only the size of an apple, but he knew that it was harder than rock.

"I know that you're curious as to what I looked up, but I can't have you seeing that. Unfortunately, I know that you would see what I was looking up no matter what I did, so I believe that the only way that I'll be able to keep it a secret is to destroy the evidence." Immediately upon hearing her words, Milluki knew what was going to happen. He jumped out of the way as the sphere flew past him, slamming into the computer that was behind him. The ball continued to fly around the room, destroying anything electronic that was in there. After a few minutes of this, the ball came to rest right beside Akumi, who had not moved the entire time. She had several cuts from debris flying around and was wearing the same smile that she had put on when she had met him. Gulping, he looked away, not daring to say a word about what just transpired.

Satisfied, the now nineteen year old girl walked out of the room, sure that Milluki would never mention this to the family.

Though the younger siblings knew that Akumi was with them, they barely saw her around the house. The girl would only make appearances during dinner time, and they would occasionally see her in one of the training rooms. Knowing that the girl usually fought to kill in training, they avoided her at all costs, scared to look at her in the eye unless she was speaking- which was as rare as hearing Illumi talk.

Kalluto was the child who had seen Akumi the most besides Illumi, who was the one that usually trained with her. Despite her personality, Kikyo still tried to talk to Akumi due to her being one of the only females in the house. The girl would always be polite- or as polite as a psychopath could be, staying with Kikyo and in turn Kalluto for tea and other affairs, but she was always closed off, not telling them anything personal about herself. Even though Kalluto had spent countless hours with the girl and his mother over tea, the only thing he really knew about her personal life was that she had killed her parents and previous nen master.

Kalluto had only spent a single training session with the girl, and he had only been nine at the time. He had been working on making his paper fly towards opponents and Illumi had made Akumi try it.

"Why do I have to help the child train? Why not you?" Akumi wasn't happy about helping Kalluto, and Kalluto was already starting to panic about attacking her. He didn't want to annoy her in any way.

"This is also training for you Akumi," Illumi said, his face never changing from its bored expression. Kalluto knew that Illumi was taking a huge risk. If Akumi decided to attack Kalluto because she was annoyed, Illumi wasn't sure if he could hold her down by himself.

He continued. "You will let the paper cut you and you must stop the blood from flowing from the cuts. We will see how many you can stop from bleeding. Please begin Kalluto."

The first few times he had choked, losing control of the paper before it was able to hit her. On the fourth try, the paper hit her directly on the right shoulder, slicing a deep cut. The girl narrowed her eyes at Kalluto, before putting a bored expression back on her face.

The next few tries created cuts all over her body. By the time Kalluto was able to accurately hit the girl, she was covered from head to toe in injuries, but none of them were bleeding. Pausing in his attacks, he studied the girl's aura. His eyes widened slightly, seeing the amount of aura that she was using in order to stop all the cuts from bleeding. He knew that he had severed several arteries and even then, the girl still showed no outward signs of fatigue.

"What are you doing?" She growled, eyes staring at Kalluto. "I'm still waiting for something to actually hurt me." His eyes narrowed, staring intently at the girl before moving his gaze to her right eye. He raised his fan and waved it around, moving the now red paper in a circle before making it fly towards her face. He was at the end of his patience.

The paper flew for her eye, creating a sharp point. Upon realizing it's destination, Akumi's aura flared up, releasing a wave of madness. Immediately, the blood coated paper froze in mid-air. Kalluto's eyes grew wide as he tried to get the paper to move, but it wouldn't budge. Staring in horror, he watched as the paper came together, creating a large spike that was pointed at his face. The pieces of paper slowly fell to the ground, leaving the blood to float in the air.

He realized just how dangerous of a position he was in. When he had created all those cuts, her blood had been splattered onto the paper. The blood that she was able to manipulate. Akumi had effectively turned his own weapon against him.

"Look here you little fucker." She said, the last two words coming out in a hiss. "I said that so that you should attack better. Not that you could fucking poke my eye out. If it ever happens again, I will rip you apart bit by bit and keep you alive until you look like a lump of meat."

Spinning on her heel, she walked out of the room, never letting go of her control on her nen. The door slammed closed and the blood fell to the ground, splattering onto the ground and on Kalluto's kimono. Shakily, Kalluto lowered himself to the ground, eyes never leaving the blood stain. He had a deep fear of Akumi Chisio.

Akumi reached into the secret compartment of her drawer, pulling out the collection of needles that she had collected over the years from Illumi. She had two that were still filled to the brim with his nen while the others were mostly empty. Taking one of the two that were full, she plunged it into the vein on her neck.

The effect was immediate, causing her to slump over slightly. Your nen has gotten nastier over the years Illumi. Taking a deep breath, she let the nen course through her body. She had started this a year ago in order to become immune to Illumi's manipulation. The first time she had put the needle in her, the effect hadn't been pretty and she pulled it out before even a fraction of its contents had been emptied. Now, she was able to handle the entire needle without too many complications.

Getting up, she left her room, headed towards the training room where she sparred with Illumi. Arriving, she realized that she had an audience today. Both Silva and the child with white hair, Killua, were there. She had to stare at the twelve year old, noticing the dark circles underneath his eyes. Brat didn't go to sleep last night. Wonder what kept him up.

"Illumi," she said, the boy in question talking to Killua. "What's with the audience today?"

"We thought that it would be good to show Killua other styles of fighting." Silva replied.

"You'll be sparring with one of the butlers," Illumi added, opening another door to reveal one the butlers. "Please refrain from doing anything too crazy."

"Come on," Akumi complained. "A little torture before killing someone is always fun."

"But an hour of it is pretty long."

"Fine, any other requests?"

"No nen."

Akumi paused at that, staring in question at the child who wasn't paying attention to their conversation.

"You mean, he's going to be the head of the family and the child hasn't learned nen? Are you being delusional? His younger brother started when he was half his age! That boy is twelve and he hasn't started!"

"Training the head of the family is different. Don't worry, we're going to start next week. Now, please get the fight started."

A small sigh escaped Akumi's lips. Illumi never lets me have any real fun when the other children are watching.

Her attention moved to the butler that was standing on the other side of the mat. He looked strong enough to earn a little interest and he had a nice ten if she was being generous. Nothing to worry about.

Without preamble, she ran forward, trying to gauge how much she could play around with him before she would kill him. He dodged left, not noticing the fist that was headed for his face.

The blow sent him flying against a wall and left a small crater. Akumi's signature smirk appeared. Even without the use of nen, she had sent him flying. The five years of training were finally paying off.

"Now Killua," Illumi began. "What was Kuri's main mistake here?"

"He wasn't paying attention to his surroundings and missed the follow up to the first attack."

"Correct, Killua."

Looking over at the boy while waiting for the butler, Kuri, to get up, Akumi took particular note of his expression as his brother praised him. It could have been her imagination, but she swore she could see something that was... fear? on the boy's face. It took her a moment to find the right word, and in that time, Kuri had gotten up and was throwing a right hook right at her face.

She didn't have time to react, as watching Killua had distracted her. The blow, reinforced with nen, connected with her right cheek. She flew across the room, crashing into the set of weights in the far corner. The sheer shock of being hit had been enough to prevent her from raising her defenses, causing her to take the full impact of the force.

Looking up, she noticed the raised eyebrow of Illumi as well as the gaping mouth of Killua. Getting up, she ignored the broken ribs and dislocated shoulder, staring at Kuri. No nen Akumi, yeah fuck you too Illumi. You thought yesterday was bad? This will haunt you.

The murderous intent exploded from Akumi, swirling all over the room. Her vision zeroed in on the butler. Nothing else mattered. Not the child, not Illumi, not Silva, and sure as hell not the rules.

The blood flowing from the wounds on her stopped moving, gliding towards her right hand. Hardening, the blood formed two claws, sharper than even the nen claws that she usually used. She pounced forward, grasping onto the right bicep of Kuri. Immediately, the blood wrapped around his shoulder, moving downwards to his wrist.

Releasing him, she backed up, letting the blood falling from her leg fly up and separate from each other, creating little spheres of blood the size of marbles. A flick of her hand caused the blood to fly towards Kuri. Upon impact, each one spread outward until a spider web-like pattern covered his entire body.

Kuri stared at her in horror, knowing that nothing he could do would save him.

"Look," she said, practically spitting the words out. "I will kill you. Slowly and painfully. First I'll get rid you your arms, then your legs, and finally your body. Don't worry though. I'll keep it so that you won't die of blood loss. You'll be stuck as a head until your brain turns to mush from oxygen deprivation. Then I'll smash your head into itself."

She did exactly what she said she would.

Silva left after the pieces had been disposed of. Once his father was gone, Illumi grabbed Akumi and started pulling her out of the room. Right before they passed through the door, Akumi noticed that Killua was staring straight at her, scared to see what else the girl could do.

As Illumi was dragging her out the door, Akumi smiled at Killua and gave a small wave. Even across the room, she could hear him gulp, before getting his body in control and putting on a blank expression.

The door slammed shut before Akumi could do anything else to scare the child. Illumi continued to drag her out of the corridor and up the stairs to one of the sitting rooms.

"Something wrong Illu-chan?" Akumi was very glad at that moment that Illumi was a manipulator and not an emitter that could shoot nen out of his eyes.

"I told you two things. Don't play and don't use nen. And you did both." His eyes were narrowed, still staring daggers at her.

"That guy did it first." Already, his name had slipped away from Akumi. "He punched me full on with a nen fist. He got what was coming."

"But that was too much for Killua. I let it slide with the others, but Killua is special. That needle can only do so much be-"

Crashhhh!

Illumi's voice was cut off by the sound of a door being kicked down. His eyes unfocused and he tilted his head slightly to the right.

"Hm... it seems Killua is running away," he said, voice back to normal.

"Let's go see wh-"

"KILLUA WHAT ARE YOU DOING? YOU CAN'T LEAVE YET YO- AHHHH"

They both ran to the entrance of the house, surprised at the shout made by Kikyo. Reaching the room, both Illumi and Akumi stopped to observe the scene before them.

Killua stood at the door, staring in defiance at Illumi with his claws out and open. Beside him was Milluki, who laid on the floor with a stab wound in his stomach. Kikyo was clutching a wall as she tried to staunch the blood that was gushing from the wound down her side.

"My my, this is interesting. It seems that you're running away Killua. Was my little fun thing too much? Did it make you feel uncomfortable? Were you really that scared of me?" Akumi paused in her taunting as a new thought came to mind. "No, you're running away because you like it. Admit it Killua, you're as bad as I am on the inside. Did you want to be in my place? Admit it, you wanted to be me in that moment and you were scared of that. You're scared that you're becoming me."

Without a response, Killua ran out of the house, leaving his mother and brother bleeding out on the ground.

A fourteen year old Akumi stared up at her mother, whose eyes were wide open in shock. The knife in Akumi's hand was placed on the ground, her eyes never straying from the long red slice that traveled across her right wrist. She couldn't hear anything at the moment except for the buzzing in her ears.

A scream from her mother pierced the silence, bringing her father to her room. By the time he arrived, there was a small puddle of blood on the ground.

Her father had yelled at her while her mother cried in the corner before wrapping her wrist and taking her to the sitting room. She hadn't lost enough blood at that point where it would require medical attention, but she knew that it was still a good amount. A week ago, her master had finally taught her hatsu, and she had been working on finding her medium for manipulation. When she had seen the knife in the kitchen, the idea had come to her: blood. Without further ado, she had grabbed the knife and ran to her room, eager to try her new idea.

Her mother had seen her as she had grabbed the knife and followed her, worried about what her daughter would do. She had noticed that her daughter had grown colder the past few months, no longer the happy individual that she once knew.

"What the hell were you doing?!" Her father yelled, his face inches from hers.

"Just playing around." Akumi replied, not really caring about what was happening. Her nen would make her heal quick enough.

"Playing around?! That's not playing around. Self harm is no small thing like playing around!" He spat the last two words out, disgusted that his daughter had spoken of cutting herself so flippantly. "You're coming with me! We are going to talk to a therapist no-"

His words were cut off as he felt a sudden wave of something that could only be described as murder. His eyes widened as he stared at its source. He had no idea what it was, but he knew that something in his daughter had snapped. His wife finally stopped sobbing, only to begin blabbering.

"Oh my gosh, the neighbors! When they find out what's happened, they'll never stop talking! I'll be the laughing stock of the entire town. Where did I go wrong? How did my daughter turn out like this when I tried to be the perfect, strong role model?!"

The word strong seemed to be the final straw for Akumi. Her eyes focused onto the blood dripping down her wrist, bending it to create a one foot blade. She sliced her other wrist, ignoring the pain. Creating a second blade, she walked over to the wall and hit it, the blood leftover on her hand hardening into a protective barrier. The punch made the wall crumble, leaving the shocked expressions of her parents.

"Strong? You, mother?" Akumi let a laugh tumble out of her mouth. "Mother, you are the weakest being I've ever known. You sit around all day, talking shit behind people's back. You act like you have control over your life, while in fact you are manipulated everyday by your best 'friend' who has thrown you under the bus to the neighbors more times than I can count. You hold onto the false belief that you are at the top of the ladder, while in reality you are struggling for a single bone. You are weak."

"Wh-" Her father placed a hand on her arm, only to have it fall to the ground moments later. Without stopping her arm, she let it continue in its arc, the blade cutting his head off before he could finish the sentence. The body thumped to the ground a second later, leaving the woman to stare in horror at her fourteen year old daughter.

Annoyed at her, Akumi moved her arm again, this time slicing her mother in half along the torso. The two pieces flopped to the ground, leaving an expressionless Akumi to stand in the destruction of her living room. Without looking back, she let the blood fall to the ground and grabbed a lighter and jug of gasoline that her father had kept for the stove. Turning on the lighter, she flung it into the jar, protecting herself with nen as the world exploded around her.

"I hate weak people. I'll kill them all myself."

A punch sent Akumi flying across the foyer, causing her to stared shocked at Illumi for a moment before flipping mid air and landing on her feet.

"Well someone isn't happy," she said, rubbing her ribs, which were still broken from the confrontation with the butler.

"You should not have said that. You've greatly impeded his training." Illumi said, walking over to Akumi.

"Well, we both know that he's coming back though."

"We can't wait long though. He'll grow soft."

A voice interrupted their discussion. "Illumi, Akumi, we need to talk. Come with me." Silva stood at the top of the stairs, taking in the scene in front of him. His eyes went to Kikyo and Milluki for a moment before resting his eyes on Akumi. She could almost see the exasperation in his eyes.

Arriving in his room, Silva sat down beside Mike while Akumi and Illumi stood in front of him.

"Killua will return home at some point. He is not one to abandon family, even if he may hate them," Silva said. "Meanwhile, Illumi. I have a job for you coming up that involves the Yorknew auction. Even Milluki can't get the information so it might not be possible for you to find much on the topic."

"How would you suggest I get information then?" Illumi asked, taking the envelope that Silva had held out.

"There will most likely be information on the Hunters Association website."

Akumi and Illumi both quickly connected the dots, realizing what Silva was saying.

"I'll get Milluki to sign me up for the application." Illumi turned around, headed for Milluki's room.

"Akumi will also join you." Silva said, interrupting Illumi's departure. The girl in question let a smirk appear on her face as she saw the slight tensing in Illumi's arm, a sign that he was irritated.

"She needs to train more," Silva continued, ignoring the fact that Illumi was not happy with the sudden turn of events. "Besides me and Zeno, who are both very busy, no one is prepared to teach her."

"Very well father. I'll have the butlers prepare a blimp and we'll get signed up as soon as possible. We'll leave before dinner."

After being told by Milluki that the exam took place somewhere in Zaban city, Akumi and Illumi left the house. Settling into one of the seats on the blimp, Akumi watched as Kukuroo Mountain faded in the distance before turning her attention towards the silent figure beside her.

"Ideas on how to find the exam location?" She asked, wanting to get the talking out of the way so that she could spend the next two days training in solitude.

"We'll split up," Illumi said, staring out in space. "Get your killing done beforehand. I don't want to deal with trying to stop you from murdering one of the examiners."

"Disguises?"

"Hm… just get something that covers up most of the tattoos. They stand out too much. I'll be going as my usual alias, Gittarackur."

The next two days on the blimp passed by slowly, comprised of Akumi stabbing herself with Illumi's needles, stabbing herself with other objects, and stabbing other objects with her blood. Basically two day of stabbing various things.

By the time they arrived at Zaban city, Akumi was ready to kill just about anything for entertainment. Illumi had simply nodded once at the girl before speeding off to who knows where. Deciding that there was nothing better to do, the girl walked into the first internet cafe she saw. Thanks to the long sleeves of the hoodie and her jeans, no one took particular notice of the girl. Grabbing one of the laptops that were sitting at a table, she printed out a map of the entire city.

The testing site has to be large, she thought to herself. Large enough to hold at least 400 people. That means either a large building or somewhere underground. I'm putting my bets on somewhere underground with an entrance at the surface. Looking out the window, she noticed the bar across the street. Perfect.

Entering the bar, she saw a single person that was surrounded in nen. His muscles tensed for a single moment upon her entry. Good. He knows I can use nen. Without breaking her stride, she sat at one of the barstools. Immediately, the bartender ambled over.

"Are you old enough to be in here missy?" A sigh escaped her lips as she looked upwards, the hood covering her face able to hide all of her facial features.

Her voice came out quietly, just loud enough that the nen user would hear. "I'm old enough to take the hunter exam, so I see no difference in not letting me have some fun." She knew there was no logic to the statement, and the bartender's confused expression showed that he also saw no correlation between the two facts, but she had done what she wanted. Getting up, she left the bar, walking down a nearby alley. Moments later, the nen user in the bar, who at this point she believed to be a hunter, followed, coming face to face with her.

"I want to get to the hunter exam site," she said, giving no preamble.

"Well missy, you seem promising. You know nen and all that but I can't just lead you there. You know, the testing site is a good half a day away." He said, coming closer to her. Her eyes narrowed when she heard him talk, knowing that he was lying. Looking up so that he could see her face, she tilted her head slightly.

"If you don't, I'll kill you," she said calmly, her voice giving no hints that she was lying.

"You can't kill a navigator and then take the exam. They'll ban you."

"Not if they can't find the body."

Without another moment, she grabbed the man and sprinted towards the abandoned buildings at the edge of the town. Minutes later, she walked out, sure that no one would think to check the sewers for chopped up parts of a body. Orienting herself, the girl walked south, headed towards the steakhouse that the now dead hunter had revealed to be the location of the exam.

Okay, so I finally finished the introduction to the story. Yes, 6 chapters, 16,000 words, and 42 pages for an introduction. This story is going to be long. This story will follow the canon events. It will have different parts taken out of the '99, '11, and manga version. I also will be putting my own writing into this. The story follows the canon, yes, but I will not be quoting the episode. I'm going completely off memory so you can get at least a few original scenes. Basic events will be the same, and so will important details, but conversations, details, possibly even certain events will be changed so that the story works with what I have.

If you're looking for a story that follows the canon to the word, I'm sorry but this isn't the right place for that. This will have canon divergence. (not sure how major yet, but it will be there). If you are only interested about the information on the story, you can stop reading here.

Do you guys prefer the long chapters with longer wait, or short ones with shorter chapters? Good either way.

Holy shit you guys, I'm sorry for the long update. Its almost 5 am and frankly am ready to collapse. I've been putting off school to write the last few chapters and now its caused me to stop writing so I can catch up. I do give frequent updates on the progress on my story in my profile, so if you're ever wondering where I go, check there. Hopefully I'll be able to handle bi weekly updates, if not weekly. This chapter was almost triple my first and nearly double the last one, so it took a while. I just wanted to finish the introduction out and not drag things on. As always, thank you breather for beta reading and don't forget to favorite, follow, and review. As always, see you next time!

PS: Just a little personal thing, but anyone that does IB or has done IB, I would love to hear about it. Been going through it now and it would be nice to hear your experiences.