Scarlet Memories

Disclaimer: I do not own HxH.

Reminiscence 18– Their meeting

Many years had passed since their faithful meeting had occurred. As a dweller of Ryusei Gai, Gale was a thief acting for the Ryusei Gai council, but when he met that certain girl, his life has changed gradually.

It was night that time in a big city. But even if in that late of time, the city was still bustling with activities. The street lights overwhelming the stars. The busy city of York Shin, the place where dreams come true as the other people call it. But that is actually a name designated by the mafia families.

Every once in a year, the mafia bosses would gather in the said city to attend the underground auction, but that is also the reason why some groups of criminals would also gather in the same city with the purpose of stealing the auction items. The same purpose was being carried out by a group of people coming from Ryusei Gai, which was led by no other Gale Altair (he actually resembles Kuroro when he was young) as the council chose him to be.

Jumping from building to another, this group of seven headed to the auction site and upon arriving in front of the building, they scattered themselves and went on their own way of infiltrating the building.

Gale, who was then wearing a black business suit, easily sneaked inside by showing a fake ID and walked coolly in the corridors of the auction building. But, as he entered a certain room, a girl with golden-brown hair and a pair of huge, deep-blue eyes was already there, standing at the center of the room, waiting for him. An amused smirk graced Gale's young face. "What is a beautiful young lady trying to accomplish now?" he asked, not even bothering to hide the amusement in his tone.

"Isn't that obvious?" the girl asked back, returning the smirk.

"Pray tell me," Gale insisted, even though he, indeed, knows the answer already.

"To capture you, of course," she answered anyway, "I am a black list hunter after all."

"Dare if you can," he challenged as he jumped toward the girl and started attacking her with his daggers that seems came out of nowhere.

Seeing the man's action, the girl immediately emitted a pinkish nen shield to protect herself from the attacks Then, she emitted some kind of pinkish, blade-like nen and sent them to attack the man.

Gale dodged the attacks as he jumped backward and started running around the girl while throwing his daggers at her direction, but the girl deflected all his attacks with her nen shield. Seeing his attack as futile, Gale decided to stop as he stood in front of the girl in a considerable distance. There are still some daggers in his hands.

"I wonder," he suddenly spoke, "how long can your nen shield last with my attacks?" he asked.

"And I wonder, how long do you plan on not using your nen?" she asked back. "I'm sure you don't have unlimited daggers with you."

Gale chuckled at the girl's remarks. "Of course, these are actually the last," he said, shrugging the daggers on his hands. "Normal daggers, that is," he added.

"Oh?" she raised her eyebrows questioningly, although she somehow has a feeling that the man was mentioning his nen.

As if to answer her suspicion, Gale bent down and taped the floor with his hands, his eyes not leaving the girl. He concentrated his nen on his hands to the floor and started to pull something out. That something turned out to be a spear which created a small crater on the floor.

'He created a weapon out of the floor. He is either a transformation or a specialization,' the girl thought as she readied herself for the incoming attack and their battle last long until both of them are exhausted.

"You're strong," the girl commented to the man, standing not far away from her, breathing hardly as she wiped out the sweat on her forehead with the back of her hand.

"And so you are," Gale commented back, also wiping out the sweat on his forehead, but not as exhausted as his opponent.

"You're not even taking me seriously," she pouted.

A sudden shake of the building made the two of them to almost lose their balance as they bent down with one hand on the floor to prevent themselves from completely falling to the ground. The building continued to shake. Having a feeling that the concrete ceiling would fall any time soon, Gale looked above him with a displease expression on his face.

The girl also tilted her head with a questioning frown and saw the cracking ceiling above her. She returned her look at the man and quickly jumped toward him.

Taken aback at the girl's action, Gale belatedly stood up to jump backward as he lost his balance and fall on his butt, putting his hand on the floor behind him to prevent himself from falling further. It just happened so suddenly and he did not able to react faster as the girl knelt over him, raising her hands over her head and concentrated her nen. But what he was expecting did not really happen, instead of a sudden attack (which she can perfectly do right then if she wanted), she made a nen shield to protect both of them from the falling debris that came from the ceiling.

Gale's eyes are wide from all the happenings. He really didn't expect that kind of situation, that someone would save him and more than that, that someone is a black list hunter.

"I didn't expect to scare you with that," the girl said as she saw the man's reaction while trying to suppress the debris above them.

Gale closed his eyes and opened them again to look at the girl with his calmer countenance. "Right, I really thought you would attack me," he admitted. He looked at the nen shield that surrounds them and then to the girl again. He can clearly see that the girl was having a hard time suppressing the debris. Continuously adding nen to the inner layer of the shield as the debris was breaking its outer layer. Now, he thought, he has to do something or else both of them would be buried to death.

"Hey, hunter girl," Gale called.

The girl twitched her eyes as a vein popped out on her forehead. "What?" the girl answered, annoyed at the way the man called her.

"Can you make a hole over here?" he asked as he raised his free hand, pointing his index finger above him.

"Eh?" imaginary question marks appeared above her head.

"I want you to make a hole over here, enough for my hands to go through. Can you do it?"

Her eyes blinked twice. "I, I'll try," she answered in a stuttered voice. She closed her eyes for a while as she breathed deeply. She opened them again and looked at her hands above her as she started on concentrating, imagining the flow of her nen from her body toward her hands and then to the nen shield. A few seconds later, a hole started to appear above Gale.

"That's alright," Gale stated as he adjusted himself and reached his hands into the hole and concentrated his nen to the debris above to make smaller stones that began to fall on the floor.

"What are you doing?" The girl asked as she watched Gale while still concentrating on her nen.

"Making an escape route, obviously," he answered nonchalantly.

"While burying us with these stones?" she gestured at the stones that started to fill the floor, kicking them away from her feet.

"I'll disintegrate these rocks by layer," he said, "while I'm doing that, try lifting your nen shield.

"And the stones?"

"Just step on them, don't let them bury you."

She sighed in annoyance, but she did what the man told her. In the end, she began to understand what the man is trying to do. The man made a hole above them while the stones that fell and filling the floor became their ground. After hours of creating the hole, they finally made their way out of the collapsed building, breathing hardly out of exhaustion as they let themselves collapse on the ground.

"Ah… thank… goodness! We're… out," the girl said in between pants.

Gale seated himself up as he looked at the girl, lying not far away from him. "What's your name anyway?" he asked.

With that, the girl also sat up and looked at Gale in scrutiny.

"I don't think you want me to continue calling you 'hunter girl'," the man answered calmly, seeing the girl's scrutinizing eyes.

"Ah!" the girl smiled. "Just call me Crea," she finally answered.

"Crea," he repeated, as if testing the name with his tongue.

"And you are?"

"Gale Altair."

"Hm…." She hummed, crossing her arms over her chest as she intensified her look at the man.

"Is there something in my face?" Gale asked, trying to suppress a twitch coming from his mouth. "Except for the scratches," he added.

"No, no," she shook her head. "I just thought of something."

"What?" he asked in curiosity.

Crea put her hands on the ground of stones in front of her and leaned her body as if to look closer at the man, complete with her wide, deep-blue eyes. "Why don't you come with me?"

"Huh?" Gale frowned.

"Being a hunter is fun," she encouraged with great enthusiasm.

Gale chuckled at the girl's antics. "You don't mind being accompanied by a criminal?" he asked.

Crea tilted her head sideways before answering. "I don't mind."

"I see," he said as he started to muse about it. Being a criminal had been already fun for him, but being a hunter, hunting another criminal, 'what do you think it would be like?' He wanted to know.

"So?" the girl asked again.

Gale looked back at the girl in equal intensity. "Yorokonde," he answered.

What happened to his companions anyway?... Ah.. never mind.

To be continued.

AN:

Hello dear readers!

So this is a small flashback for Gale Altair. What do you think about this?

Anyway, have you already visited "Labyrinth of Fate"? If yes, I hope you like it. I'm still halfway through finishing the 2nd chapter.

Well then, if you haven't seen it yet, you may visit my profile and look for "Labyrinth of Fate."

And don't forget to review!

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Altair is the brightest star in the constellation Aquila and the twelfth brightest star in the night sky. (Thanks Wikipedia!)

Yorokonde: With pleasure (and thanks google translate! Hehe!)