Disclaimer: I do not own anything but my OC.
Warnings: Deaths. Violence.
CRYING WOLF
by: Riseha
Chapter 5
Fights
I strained my neck gazing up at the skyscraper.
The fourth tallest building in the world, found in our country, in the Republic State of Padokia. Killua's hand in mine, tight and sweaty from exhilaration prevented me from gaping any longer as he tugged me in, trailing after our father and oldest brother.
Illu-nii went straight up to the 200th floor, having already earned his rights.
I wondered how often he came to this place. I shuffled, craning my neck to see everyone; I think we're the only six-year-olds here.
My grasp tightened in Killua's hand, careful to not lose him or Father.
The receptionist glanced up sharply, an empty smile on her face. She had astonishingly pink hair, and she wore a black shirt under a pink vest uniform with the Heaven's Arena logo which was an emblem of a closed fist, the hat atop her hat was the same design.
"Are you participating, sir?" she pushed a form towards our Father. "Please fill in this form—"
"No," Silva explained patiently, gesturing to us crowded beside him. The lady had to bow over the counter to see us, her eyes were wide with disbelief, her eyebrow twitching in annoyance. "These two are the ones participating."
"Sir, it's not funny—"
"I'm not joking," Our father said, his lips thinning with impatience. "There are no age limits, no?"
The woman pursed her lips in displeasure, nice enough to dislike the idea of kids joining the fight with barbarians. I wonder how she'd survive living with the Zoldycks. Probably die in a day or something.
She glanced down at us in concern, before, very reluctantly, handed over forms, voice shaky as she called for the next registrant.
Father handed me a pen. I stared blankly at it before taking it, scribbling messily—name, age, date of birth, address etc.—before handing the pen to Killua, who took my paper as well and started copying.
The lazy-bum just changed the name, the rest were the same. I rolled my eyes, shoving my hands into my black hoodie, inspecting the place with a critical eye.
I turned back to the receptionist just in time to see her eyes widening when she saw our names. I thought I heard her mutter, "Zoldyck kids, figures, probably'd win the whole thing."
"So we're famous here?" Killua asked, taking the words right out of my mouth.
Father made a noise of agreement. "I've been here when I was ten, took me eight months to reach the 200th floor. Head in there, queue up, fight, win and get lost."
"How many battles a day, Father?" This was also spoken by Killua; I was very reluctant to speak to my father and even when we're in the presence of one another, we had the silent agreement to just breeze past one another unless the one needed something from the other.
"Until eleven, I presume, if this place still runs the same way as it did when I was here. Go," Father pushed the both of us towards where many of the big men were crowding into.
Killua tugged me forward, excitement and curiosity burning in his eyes. I glanced back at where our Father once stood. I blinked, surprised to find him gone.
I rarely ever spend time with him so I don't know his mannerism well (if at all), but he was a skilled assassin, I shouldn't be so surprised. Shrugging, I relented and allowed Killua to drag me away.
From the series, I knew Killua had taken two years to reach the 200th floor.
I swallowed, slightly nervous. This would be a long two years...
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
I blinked, surprised by the small tug I felt, I glanced down to see who had been tugging insistently on my kimono.
I was in a hurry and in no time to play funny games the workers here tend to do. I was on the 189th floor now, far closed than ever to the 200th floor, and I didn't want to be disqualified due to lateness.
That would be a tragedy and a waste of my two years here.
My time in the Heavens Arena hadn't been all fun and games. Father made it clear he wanted us to learn useful skills from this. In between the battles and time spent there, we had missions and the resistant training wasn't discarded. We had to make multiple trips back home and then come back here.
Father and Illu-nii usually accompanied us but by the 7th floor, both stopped coming to check up on us, which was the start of our downfall caused by our own carelessness.
There were times where we were late and got disqualified for it. It couldn't be helped, we still had missions and training sessions back home after all. But the Arena tolerated no reasoning—the first time this happened, at the 31st floor, I barely stopped Killua from killing the referee.
If he did, I was pretty sure we'd be banned from entering the Arena forever.
We had to start all over and Father berated us.
The first time, it took us months to reach the 31st floor because we had a busy schedule and could only manage about three battles a day.
In time, I understood what Father wanted us to learn here: patience (there were condescending referees and workers that practically begged to be beaten), punctuality(a lesson learned the hard and frustrating way), control (killing someone below the 200th floor was illegal and the culprit will be disqualified) and to ditch the bad habit ofunderestimating an opponent (another reason why Killua and I lost some of the battles, our opponent sometimes looked like a baby and we didn't take them seriously).
That wasn't all that I'd learned.
Sometimes, late at night where competitors were resting, after the 100th floor where we were allowed to stay in private rooms, we would sneak out.
Killua was curious about the 200th floor, since it was every battlers' goal to reach the floor and we always tried to find a way up without getting caught.
(We got caught every single time because every employee on that floor were Nen-users and many could sense our uncompressed Nen.)
I met Wing though.
He was a Nen-instructor, someone I met when I snuck out alone because Killua was at home (we had different training regimes). The man was intrigued by me because he rarely ever see a Specialist gracing the Arena, he said that Specialists tend to die sooner or were trouble-magnets, and was honestly surprised that I wasn't starting my own battle royale on my floor.
I was insulted; was I that destructive?
He taught me how to control my Nen, just the basics though, since Specialists must develop their own unique ability by themselves, abilities that only they have and shared by no other.
My control over my own ability was still sucky though I tried hard to improve it. Unintentionally, I would cast illusions, especially when I was upset over a loss, and had killed more than one referee and opponents.
I had no idea what they saw because I didn't even control the illusion, I just sort of, imagined the worst torture I could come up with. As I had a torture-expertise as my older brother, I knew a lot about tortures and he was always applying it into our training.
In a nutshell, my Nen had its own will—to me anyway, it rarely ever obey me, it does its own thing; whenever I wanted to cast an illusion, in a losing battle, nothing happened and when I tried to suppress it, it always surfaced.
Talk about annoying.
So, when I felt the tugs, I tried to stem down the irritation (I, unfortunately, was not the most patient person in the world, a trait that all Zoldycks had) lest something bad happened.
I blinked when I saw the familiar face. "Kalluto?"
The small boy of four smiled up at me shyly; we interacted, we liked one another and were quite friendly towards one another though we had miles of distance between us. We weren't all that close and the age gap made him shy around me, I think.
(If this was what a four year gap did, I couldn't imagine how Kalluto and Illumi would interact with the age gap of twelve years.)
"What are you doing here? Are you lost?"
"I'm here to see you and Onii-sama," Kalluto replied quietly. He had always been like that as far as I was concerned, quiet and pliant, quite different from Noelle.
Ugh, Noelle and Yukiji.
When I told Yukiji to take Noelle to the hospital, did I expect her to raise Noelle all by herself? No, but that's what she did anyway. Personally, I think Yukiji was doing so to avoid her own family.
(I wonder what issues she had with us.)
"I see, well, I really got to go now, can you find a way back yourself or do you need me to bring you back...?" Even though I was reluctant of the latter option.
Kalluto shook his head. "I can go back to Mother myself," he smiled softly, a soft blush on his cheeks—cute, I thought. "Good luck, and tell Killu-nii I said the same to him." He waved, a gesture I returned before turning and running down the hallway to there I heard the announcer calling my name and counting down.
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Like all siblings in the world, Killua and I argued.
Today's argument was particularly vicious.
"Why, brother dear," My voice dripped with venomous sarcasm. "did you drop out?"
"Why do you care?" His voice was as cold as ice glaciers. "It doesn't affect you, no?"
I was a rather ambitious person, I hated leaving loose ends, and to do something halfheartedly. Either I never started it, or I see it to the end.
My twin, however, was quite different, he couldn't care either way and I was quite irked at his nonchalant ways. It was understandable, we weren't real twins, I was just someone who took the twin's face.
In the anime, there was no mention of Killua's twin, he didn't show remorse or mention anyone. It pretty much meant that the twin died in the mother's womb, but somehow, I took its place and here I was, arguing with her hardheaded brother.
I had finally achieved the 190th floor, Killua did it before me and here he was, bailing out on me. I was too prideful to tell him, that, without him as an encouragement, a milestone to cross, every victory would be pointless and every loss would be too bitter with no one to share it with.
I wanted him to be with me all the way. He was disappointing me.
Times like these (oh, this wasn't the first time we argued), I wished he had the ability to read my mind like he usually could. But when we argued, he always seem to lose this ability and start butting heads with me.
I was annoyed, irritated and mad.
"What's so nice about this stupid fights? It's a waste of time," Killua muttered, his hands in his pockets but I knew he was clenching his fists and flexing his fingers to calm himself. "I'm sure I can come back here as an old man and continue kicking ass."
That hit the spot.
I was hurt.
Killua knew better than to bring up the matter of life-and-death, old age or anything concerning the far future, beyond the age of twelve or so.
Sure, he had nothing to worry about, but what about me?
"Yeah," I spat, swallowing the lump in my throat. "you would have all the time as an old man. Has it occurred to you that I don't?"
Has it ever crossed your mind that we would most likely be separated in a span of few years?
Has it ever occurred to you that, in a while, very soon possibly, that you'd be doing everything alone?
Has it ever entered your brain that I won't be standing before you any longer?
Has it ever been considered by you about my feelings?
"Brother, have you ever think about how hard it was for me to live with the fear of dying? The imminent preordained death? The betrayal I would face when you kill me?"
Killua stared at me, stunned.
I didn't realize I had shouted out loud. When we argued, it was usually about something petty. We had the mutual agreement that we were to not bring up about our twin problem and the battle that would occur someday. We were threading on thin ice every time we introduced ourselves as twins, we never brought this topic up.
He was speechless, I was stumped too, as to how we should continue. We never spoke about this, we had never been in a situation such as this before.
Being the more mature one (I like to think so), I pulled back, especially because almost our whole family was staring at us. Father was staring impassively, Zeno graced me with a disdainful stare (he never liked me), Mother smiled at Killua (I was ignored) and Kalluto was staring, stunned, at us (at me particularly, I was usually very quiet and never yelled).
Alluka was still locked up (I managed to snatch a few chances to visit but often, I find myself missing his quiet wisdom). Millu-nii never strayed out of the house, Maha was too lazy and Illu-nii was who-knows-where and doing who-knows-what.
I hated how they stared at me.
As if I should be the one at fault.
Disgusted, I stormed back to my suite. Tried to anyway, Kalluto grabbed onto the ends of my sleeve, whining softly. "Where're you going?" he cried. "We're going to celebrate!"
"No," I spat, voice cold and rigid. "I had it. I'm staying here and fighting my way to the top."
"Doll," Mother called after me. "Won't you take one last photo with us?" Her voice gave no room for argument as she grabbed me and pulled me back to where everyone was gathered.
I seethed, glaring at the cameraman which happened to be our butler, Canary. She smiled hesitantly at us, gesturing for us to get ready.
I was too mad to realize how Mother had phrased her request.
Too angry to consider the situation and how everyone was writing me off.
Had I known that the day was the last time I'd be seeing Killua as family, perhaps I would've offered a smile for him to remember me by.
The photo was taken. I was standing by myself, Kalluto's small hand grasping mine in lieu of Mother who had her arms around Father and Killua, smiling brightly.
Bitter jealousy swelled and I freed myself of Kalluto's grasp, turning and running.
.
.
.
Did I mention how much I hated them at times?
.
.
.
I hate them. Right now, the burning hate was too much for me to act rationally.
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By the time I reached my room, had slammed it shut, I was breathing harshly, my blood-lust was skyrocketing.
I glared at the mirror, slightly repulsed by the slitted and narrowed red-brown eyes glaring back. My reflection looked completely deranged, my teeth had sharpened (another effect of the drugs) and I was completely red with anger. My nails had sharpened into claws.
I better sleep this off, lest I started slaughtering left and right.
I tried breathing exercises Maha taught me and even started counting sheep in my mind, it did little to help my mood.
The doorbell rang.
I snarled, ripping the door open, expecting to see one of my family members. I was greeted to a terrified, trembling maid. She was nothing special, dark hair and eyes, the only thing notable was that she was my unfortunate victim to vent my anger.
She reared back, screaming as her eyes dilated even further before rolling back into her eyes; still screaming in her dream. Her mind will melt, unable to withstand the assault of the mind and I calmed slightly, relishing in the fact that there was someone out there who's life would be cut short.
As my own would be someday.
My bad mood returned. Upset, I walked back into my room and slammed it shut, too distracted to see my beloved (note the sarcasm) grandfather in the corner of the hallway.
Seething, I ripped the kimono off my body, grabbing my towel and storming into the bath.
I was ready to sleep off today's bad luck.
Ƹ̵̡Ӝ̵̨̄Ʒ
I blinked, still drowsy.
Why was I awake?
I glanced to the doorway where light spilled in. Someone had opened the door, without my advance knowing. I tensed, only a very skilled assassin from the Zoldyck family would be able to do such a thing and for me to be able to sleep off contentedly, it was someone close to me.
Someone who's Nen I was so accustomed to, I wasn't worried in their presence. Would've ignored their presence even, but this time, I couldn't.
My heartbeat went crazy, the blood rushing in my ear so loud and I could barely register anything else.
I stared at the assassin that had stepped into my room uninvited.
What was he doing here?
I frowned, suspicious and wariness warring with how much I've been missing to see him after so long.
"Illu-nii?"
My eldest brother was a very, very skilled assassin.
Speed was one of his strongest points.
So, why (why) was it so much of a surprise, that, when I turned, a pin was heading straight for my throat?
I couldn't even scream before I fell back against the white sheets, the pillows (one of them was Killua's, we had a pillow-fight just the day before) cushioning my fall.
Numbness swallowed my body, my mouth opened in horror, my face contorting into one of shock, despair, hurt and rage.
What's happening?
Is this a dream?
It was getting harder to keep my eyes open.
Why?
(why)
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QUESTION: Guess why Illumi did as he did.