The effect of Youpi's coming is worse than Pouf feared. For, without a promise to bind her, the queen turns back to gungi with a ravenousness that surprises him. He watches, fearfully, as she becomes locked into herself with a gaze that has time only for the board and the books that might better help her understand it. For something has been aroused, awakened, and she devours the game theory inside, before spitting out strategies at an aggressive pace. Pouf frantically tries to stay one step ahead of her, suspiciously tearing through the pages she hasn't read yet, as his eyes rake through the words for that one, vital name the queen must never, never find.

To his surprise the human female is not mentioned as widely as she merits. Her moves, those ones she devised seemingly on the spot (or at least, the ones she had before she met Meruem) are mentioned of course, though Pouf notices her 'remote concealment' has vanished from the newer editions. But there are no pictures of her and when she is mentioned, it is usually by her title, followed by the dates depicting the length of time she managed to hold onto her crown. It briefly occurs to Pouf to wonder who the current champion is, but he dismisses the thought a moment later; he is too worried for his queen.

And worried too, about Youpi. The guard watches him now, eyes narrow with a gleam of calculation that Pouf had never dreamed he would see. But he tries not to let it bother him; Youpi never interferes with his reading after all, and he doesn't seem to care when Pouf strips the books of their incriminating pages. In fact, his eyes turn disinterested when the other ant's fingers become frantic, pulling in a way that is both swift and clean as though he were to rob the books' spines with a knife instead of his hands.

Most of the time though, Youpi trails after the queen like a puppy, watching her plot out moves with a calm sort of patience Pouf struggles to stop and understand. He wonders, fleetingly, what Youpi learned in the months he was alone and what could possibly have tamed him enough to make him sit and listen to the clank of the tiles. He does not stop to consider, not for one second, about how the grief of the king's departure, let alone his own, could have helped shape his old comrade.

It is, however, completely unsurprising that Youpi cannot play gungi. At least not well. He picks up bit and pieces, and when the queen drifts into a certain mood, she lets Youpi play against her, depriving herself of certain pieces at the start in the hope of making the game last a little longer than the ten minutes it inevitably does. Sometimes, she even lets Youpi invent his own rules, lets him pick off her own pieces with diagonal, and according to the game's rules, illegal swipes of his fingers, before allowing him to build barriers with his own pieces in shape of a fort. It makes Pouf wonder which of them is really the younger, for she seems much older in these moments, and kinder too, the soft look on her face awakening a dark and violent fear within him. For he remembers the day he once saw something similar in Meruem's face, the day the king stood in the doorway of a ramshackle hut and blocked his way to Komugi. He had been hard then, yes, but the softness in his eyes when he looked at Pouf had stirred something within, had made him feel small and mean.

He still feels that way sometimes when he follows the queen and Youpi with his eyes, when he watches them drag in piles of rubbish and sort through bundles of clothes, clothes she then heaves over her head with the coltish grace of the very young. Remembers the way his heart fell to his shoes once, becoming a small, buried stone in his heel when he saw Youpi clumsily adjusting the way a scarf rippled over her throat with his thick fingers. The queen had laughed as Youpi's giant thumb brushed against the knob of her throat, the one that blew her windpipe into stark relief, and Pouf, in response, had felt something inside him clench and then shrivel.

And to his horror, it is only the beginning of a much longer game. For not long after that, she sweeps into gungi societies under the cover of these over-sized jackets and long shawls she digs out from the trash, sometimes even sporting hats from which a spew of feathers erupts from under the rim. The humans, of course, are so stupid that they shrug it off as a mere fashion statement, or else as some weirdo who like to superglue a bunch of bird tails to her clothes. But they accept her, even if some sneer at the 'goth paint' she has apparently smoothed over her skin.

Pouf is indignant. 'You should strike them down where they stand!'

'No.' The queen smiles indulgently. 'It is...funny.'

Youpi hums and then sniggers as though he agrees; he often accompanies her excursions to these societies, the muscular set of him wrapped up firmly within the folds of a trench coat. He also, much to Pouf's disgust has taken to wearing a large bower hat that covers the pointed tips of his ears with its curled rim, and is, in his opinion, like a badly dressed extra from a spy movie.

'It is funny,' Youpi mutters a little sullenly, though there's an excited tremor to his tongue. 'You would know that if you actually bothered to join us for once.'

'Besides,' the queen adds. 'The people there make for better challenges than either of you two.' She grins. 'Maybe one day, I will be strong enough to challenge the champion.'

Pouf tries to swallow down his trepidation at the thought.

But the day arrives; Pouf should not have doubted it. The fact that he did...well, it speaks to how unworthy he truly is. He watches his queen from the shadows of the crowd, the zetsu of his nen disguising him as beautifully as any tapestry woven against the wall would. And Youpi...Youpi is knelt on the floor a few scant metres away, his shoulders bunched up beneath the lapels of the trench coat irritably. Pouf spares a thought as to how overheated his fellow guard must be and allows himself a private smile.

He is not the only one. Smiling, that is. The queen is positively beaming. She even giggles. Then she walks over to take her place on one side of the board, slumping onto her knees in front of a woman who is dressed almost as heavily as she is. Pouf takes in this new shape, watching the way it slides through a stack of arm warmers and scarves, before wondering why it tugs at him so.

'Let us begin,' says this woman and Pouf notices how steady her voice is.

They play. And it is like...it is like Komugi has been reborn. Or perhaps not quite. The queen plays beautifully, like she is sitting at a finely tuned piano, her moves methodical until she is surprised - and then it is like her fingers race forward with a spring of inspiration. Her style is far more unruly in these moments, nothing like the elegant tap of Komugi's fingers, despite their sudden decisiveness.

The woman struggles to keep up. To Pouf's eyes, it is as though she is a shadow, someone who bends and allows the other player to race through the gaps in her defence, before turning and springing forth a trap. She bites her lip, grunting with the effort of thinking. Gungi is not smooth to her; it does not flow through her mind as though she were born for it. And she plays as though the board were nothing more than tracing paper, her fingers following a designated line that only she can see.

It is only after the queen has won, that this woman straightens with a strange smile. 'You play as beautifully as your mother,' she says and then it is the queen's turn to straighten up, her tail twitching in astonishment.

And it is these words that set Pouf free, that throw the ant within him into a visceral rage. He flies forward, feeling as though he has left his heart thumping back below the shadows, under the sway of people as they clamber and press in on him like...like smoke. With a cry of rage, Pouf is wrestled to the ground, the smoke puppets pressing him down to cover his wings in a smothering grey. Within seconds he is tearing his apprehenders off, albeit weakly, and to his left, he hears Youpi bellow, watching the windmill swing of his arms, before they are clouded over with a swirl of tobacco smoke. But despite everything, he glares through this mist, glares as though his eyes could cut through to her, Fern Russia, the defeated champion.

There is a sizzling crack and a blue shot of lightning strikes his shoulder. He rolls, feeling half on fire, his heart wrenching at the startled cry his queen gives out, a cry for him.

''Shia-pouf!

A boot lands in his face, the force hitting him away from whatever reassurance he could hope to utter back.

'I told you before,' their white-haired owner mutters as Pouf's world begins to turn dark, 'I really hate people like you.'

He turns to see Fern Russia, now free of her scarves, helping that boy – Gon - pin the queen to the ground. She's such a small thing, smaller than Meruem, though still larger than Komugi. And she fights like an animal. If it had been the former champion alone, she would have fallen. But Gon is here and that's all Pouf can really register before the darkness hauls away his mind completely.

If Pouf had still been awake, he would be in despair. The boy he once hoped would kill Komugi, is now throwing his last hope to the ground, thrusting it in along with his elbow with a force that is not quite lethal. And all the while he wears a strange, thoughtful expression. In truth, he appears a little less like a monster because of it.

When Pouf wakes up, it is in a cold craven, stone binding his wrists to the floor. He looks at it with disinterest, noting the way it crawls up over his skin like webbing, like it had once sloshed against his flesh like a liquid. Under the gloom it appears blue, as though they have been dragged down, miles underwater.

'Such terrible eyes.'

He looks up to see Fern Russia staring at him. There's something dark in her eyes, something that flashes away like a scared rabbit and makes her fists clench slightly. He recognises it as hostility.

'You look as though you wish to die.'

He has no interest it talking to her, he really doesn't. But still, almost despite himself, his voice emerges from his throat in a gravelly tone that warps, almost becoming a keening note of sorrow.

'I failed my first king. And the one thing he left behind, that one vital part of him that still lives...I failed that as well. Of course I wish to die.'

Fern Russia tilts her head to the side. 'Your second master is not dead yet. There is no reason to throw your life away so quickly.' She smiles to herself as though she is hearing a particularly twisted joke, even though she can see joy erupting upon his face. 'And I don't say that lightly.'

'No, I imagine, you wouldn't.' Pouf leans back as far as he is able with a smirk. 'I remember you; the woman who defied her species. Palm Siberia.' He lets her name leave his mouth in a rush, as though it is something unpleasant he wishes to spit out.

Palm smiles sedately and calmly lifts her head. Her gaze is haughty, as though she is one of the king's guard and not a lowly foot soldier.

'Before you twisted me, I was part of another species, fully human,' she says. 'I could not forget that despite your best efforts; not while there was still another human who cared enough to try and remind me of it.' Her eyes go distant. 'You spoke of your current queen, as though she were a part of Mereum. But from my, admittedly limited observation, she seems quite different. An individual in her own right.'

Pouf lets out a breath. For one, startling moment he had been sure that she would say the queen, impossible though it was, took after her mother.

'She is,' admits Pouf, though it grates at him to admit it. 'I tried' – he cuts off and swallows, trying to ignore the interest that glows in her eyes. 'I tried to run from it, at first. But now, I no longer know if it is a bad thing that she is not...that she is not Meruem. Or if it is good.'

'You're better off, like that,' Palm tells him gently. 'If you knew for sure, you'ld love her in a very different way. It may not be as pure or as...as forced as the way you loved Meruem. But this way, I think, is better.'

Pouf stares at her. He cannot think of a single thing to say in response.

Palm sighs, her eyes never quite leaving her face. 'Honestly I did not want to talk to you.,' she admits. 'If I had my way, we would have killed you on the spot. Killua was another vocal advocate in that department, as well.' She smiles softly to herself. 'But...Gon insisted. He said he didn't want a repeat of last time.' Her eyes drift away from him. 'It's a pity; I would have liked to talk to your new queen. I learnt to play gungi because of her mother, after all. My self-inflected penalty for breaking my promise, when I could not keep her safe.'

Pouf is not human - he scorns the very thought of it. So he does not swallow as Palm's eyes find him once again. And the slight jump in his stomach? That twisting grind of nerves that pull at him, that yank the queen's face into view, making it taunt and wide-eyed with disgusted surprise? No, it is nothing.

Dimly he remembers the queen scouting out town windows, peering through to view families, something similar to longing clouding her face. And the twist in his stomach tightens, pulls harder.

'Ah,' says Palm gently, so gently that her whisper sounds sinister. 'I really do regret it, you know. Not being able to keep her alive, in much the same way you probably regret not being able to save your former king. It must gall you, to know that a lowly human, a hunter, was the one that claimed his head.'

Pouf looks up.

Palm's lips twitch. She is being too vindictive, she knows. But this is the guard who played with Gon's life, who held it up against Komugi's as though one should have out-weighed the other; almost as if he expected them to act the same way he would have. So she feels more than a little justified when she leans down and brushes her voice against his ear.

'Hisoka,' she breathes, 'that was his name. He even left behind his signature, so we would all know it was him. Didn't you see it? Or were your eyes already so focused on your new queen, that you were blind to everything else?'

But Pouf is already incapable of listening. The blood rushes through and his brain flares into life at the sound of the name she gives him. Hisoka...Hisoka, Hisoka, Hisoka...the chant rises in his mind and gives fuel to the rage that begins to burn, shimmering into a heated fusion of grief and violent, antagonistic instinct.

'WHERE!?' demands Pouf, his jaws snapping together with a clink that does not sound entirely mammal-like in nature.

Palm notes the slight black that emerges from his mouth, only a little sharper than a stick. It wiggles in fury and she remembers Knuckle recounting how Shaiapouf's face had once shorn in two, one half openly displaying the insect within.

'WHERE? WHERE, WHERE, WHERE, WHERE!' Pouf charges forward, the sinew in his muscle beginning to tear. He ignores the rock that clamps down upon his wrists, yanking frantically so that the blood vessels within drift and tear from their intended paths. 'WHERE IS HE?'