A/N: Nyaha~ after weeks on end~ xD Procrastinating on Procrastination.
Calendar here says 3:50pm, November 24th. Happy Birthday KiGaMi! Okay, to ease the tense mood, everybody sing with Akane! ^^
[Akane: Why me? Me: Just because.]
HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOU, HAPPY BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY~ HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO YOUUUUU~~ xD
Thankies for the people who greeted me/gave me gifts on my birthday~ Akane thank them too.
Akane: Thanks ^/^
(Yes, I have pretty long discussions with my characters. xDD)

Sorry for the over-angstiness of this chapter. Dun worry, we get past this arc and I'll be back to humor again.
I hope.

OWC: 2,431 words

DISCLAIMER: Yoshihiro Togashi owns HxH ^^

Run after him.

Run faster.

The adrenaline rushing in her spine was exhilarating. If she were in her normal state, her legs would've already broken out, dog-tired, but that time they continued to run, racing after Gon. The adrenaline was making her run. And she knew that adrenaline would save her, and Gon maybe, as well.

Thu-thump. Thu-thump. Thu-thump.

Hurry. You're running out of time.

She barely paid attention to where she was going. She just kept coming after Gon, following seemingly-existing motion lines coming from where he proceeded into. She followed the heavy pounding of Mike's beastly paws into the forest ground. She sensed the surroundings turn into pure silence, just like the norms whenever a predator lingers in the area.

Faster. Faster.

Mike's going to catch up soon enough.

"GON, RUN!" She felt her legs suddenly turn wobbly, and they felt like jelly. Tiring faster than she expected, her fast marathon run turned into a brisk walk. Her knees started to buckle as she tripped on the ground, barely able to evade the little sharp stones that protruded from the damp forest ground soil.

Mike... and Gon, they...

Useless! If Gon gets hurt you're going to be all to blame.

"I KNOW! I KNOW! STOP IT PLEASE!" She cursed to the consciences she was fighting with in her fragile mind. She felt beaten up and battered like dirt, mentally and emotionally. She struggled to stand up, fought against the pain, but she continued to stumble. She felt like shrinking. She hated losing, and shrinking into that little shameful level of 'uselessness' was far too heavy for her dignity.

I'm Pathetic.

You're far too useless.

"AAAH!"

Sudden snap back to reality after hearing Gon's painful scream. She ignored the pain, imagining it all numbed away after that excessively loud noise. She tried her best to run back to the noise. She ran, and ran, and ran. Ran like there was no tomorrow. Ran like the world would end if she didn't save that child.

Gon.

That's it... you knew you could do it.

There was no giving up, after all.

She saw Gon, almost falling off a cliff. His loud roar for a child might as well have been his battle cry. He was heading toward the edge of the cliff. Akane shouted. "GON!" She ran over to him, despite the pain, and jumped after him just a little after he fell over. She grabbed Gon's wrist, no plan on letting go.

"Why did you do that, Gon?"

"I wanted to save Leorio!"

"He could've saved himself!"

"But that's Leorio!"

Oh, she would've loved to laugh at that moment. Gon being naive was just typical, but saying that was just plain humorous and entertaining to her ears. If only they weren't hanging for their lives.

Suddenly she heard a familiar haunting tune. When she heard the tune, Mike turned and dashed toward it like a puppy hearing its master's whistle. She recognized it as the whistle Zebulo used to call Mike.

Safe.

This time, for sure.

After that, Seaquant came to them and rescued them by pulling them up.

"Thanks, Akane-nee."

"Thank Seaquant-kun, he brought us up."

"You let me hold on to you and you didn't let go."

"Well, I guess you got that. Thank you for being such a great friend deserving to be saved."

Gon could just grin.

20 days had passed after Zebulo the gatekeeper took them in for training. After 20 days, this training had gone on pretty smoothly, and as per usual they were all doing the training in the afternoon.

For some reason, all of them felt it, that gut-feel that told them something special would happen. Akane hoped it was what she thought would really happen.

Gon pushed the door first. His determination, coming from his pure, wild, and untamed animal instinct, taught all the rest of them that if they do their best to what they do, they'll manage whatever they wish to do. Perseverance was also another thing, but that's going to be a different story. And all of them cheered when they watched him open the first door. Especially Akane, who, since the start, had been cheering for Gon like a great sister. "Okay, Kurapika!" he said with a sweet smile as Akane ruffled his already very zero-gravity, spiky hair.

Kurapika pushed second. He taught the group of focus (where he had learned it from would maybe be reflected on how seriously focused he is on his revenge). Yes, they had to focus all their energy and all their power into the door, because with that he believed they'll be able to do it. He pushed the door and did it up to the first door, like Gon. They smiled and congratulated him, especially Gon and Akane-the cheeriest members of the group next to Killua. Kurapika smiled, knowing if they kept it like this, they're going to make it clearly through in no time. "Leorio?"

Leorio pushed the door third. He taught the other what he had learned from Akane-he had to flex his muscles nice and firm first before he started pushing. In other words, he had to prepare himself for everything, before striking to battle. Yes, he had to plan first before rushing into the enemy. With that, he managed to push out the first door, and even the second door. He received a grand, celebratory round of applause before turning around to grin again. "Thanks! Akane, your turn!"

Akane smiled and pushed the door, being the fourth and the last to do so. She taught the others what she had learned from her favorite childhood Sensei-to believe. She said that if you say to yourself, "I can do it!", you'll really be able to do it. It was almost like Gon's. She was a little annoyingly entertained at Gon's naivety, but little did she know she was almost as naive as Gon as well. She saw through both sides but she still believed that maybe, just maybe, that bad side would turn all right. She didn't like to be called naive, so she said she was optimistic. And with that childish optimism, she opened through the second door with a big grin.

With that, they all knew the end result. They've all done it.

They're all one step closer to Killua.

"THANK YOU ZEBULO-KUNN! AND TO YOU SEAQUANT-SANN!" Gon waved his arms in a friendly goodbye. "YOU'VE ALL BEEN AWESOME!"

"Shucks, that was nothing. You kids take care, 'kay?" Zebulo said said, a little awkward, but still with the fatherly warning.

Gon nodded in response. "Yes sir!"

Zebulo laughed like an old man, somehow reminding Akane of Santa Claus. "Anyway. Go up this path to the mountain. I think the mansion's up there... Geez, 've been here 20 years now yet I've never been there. Hope I haven't sent you the wrong way."

"I'm sure it's going to be the right one, sir," Gon said with a grin. "We'll be going now. 'Bye Zebulo-kun, Seaquant-san, and thank you!" Gon started walking up the mountain path with Leorio, Kurapika and Akane.

xXx

"Where do you think this path will lead?"

"I'm not really sure."

"Maybe it'll lead to Killua!"

"Or maybe to another scary beast, geez!"

"Would you guys stay a little bright there? It's not even raining yet, stop being such a Kill-Joy."

"Yeah, yeah, we get it."

"Oh look, I see something!"

"What do you see, brown-eyes?"

"Hey, why did you call Gon a brown-eye, sunglass-face?"

"Not like it's not true! But why call me a sunglass-face, violet-eye?"

"Stop calling yourselves names!"

"It's funny seeing Leorio and Akane bicker."

"We're not bickering!"..."It's not even funny!"

"Look I see something!"

"Is that...a girl I see?"

As the three of them came near Kanaria, she tensed. It was rare to have intruders come. What's more, the last kind of people she welcomed were silent creepy men in black suits, guarding Killua with heavy security. Maybe to prevent him from running away again. They knew of his 'special talents' that were enough to pull him up in status as heir to the assassin clan. Oh no, not just any assassin clan, but the assassin clan. Dedicated to breeding assassins. They were feared by almost everyone.

They were assassins, after all.

"Hi!"

Keep a cold face, she told herself. You must follow orders.

"Hi, I'm Gon, Can we come through? We passed through the gate of verification!"

She watched the intruders take more comfortable steps on the path. She eyed them criticizingly. They looked like weak kids, in her eyes, compared to her masters. Pathetic. There were three of them. One of them, the one talking to her, was wearing a green jacket, with spiky black hair wilder than Killua's and chocolate brown eyes. There were two blondes, one with sea-green eyes and another with deep blue, but she couldn't be sure which one was the girl between the two since they both looked very feminine. The last one was a lanky, tall man with black hair and a pair of sunglasses on his nose.

"Leave. This is private property, and trespassers are not welcomed." She finally spoke up in a cold tone. She didn't like this job, actually. But, what could she do?

The brown-eyed boy, emm, Gon, continued to insist. "We called the butlers! And-and we passed the gate as well!"

"But the butlers didn't give you the access permission, now did they?" She asked.

Gon continued to stay stubborn. "No, even though we said that we were Killua's friends. ...Now, how do we enter?"

"How would I know? There had never been a situation like this before." Her voice was still very cold, very indifferent and uncaring. But it seemed like the boy Gon perceived it. The faltering in her voice.

"So the only way would be to trespass, right?" Gon said. "Okay, let's do this."

...21, 22, 23...

Akane didn't know what in her subconscious mind made her actually want to count the times her younger friend got hit by the staff of the heartless girl gate-guardian. Every time she heard the staff whip through the wind loudly, she'd cover her face, wincing, because she didn't want to see. And for health reasons, because she knew dust would breeze across.

Later though, she realized she never removed her hands from her face. Because there was more than dust that she was protecting herself from.

...24, 25, 26...

Tears.

The tears fell like waterfalls from her eyes as she chanted 'Stop' in her mind. Seconds passed, minutes, hours. It was long enough for her, it was too long. She had had too much.
She felt the wounds open, bleeding. Wounds in her heart, in her mind, in her soul.

In her self.

...27, 28, 29...

She watched, through her fingers, as Gon struggled to stand up. She saw with terrified eyes his face, battered and bleeding with a million cuts and bruises, not to mention his swollen eye.

Akane could almost see his pain through the gushing of the blood off his wounds.

But no, he wasn't giving up. His face was still purely of determination.

...30.

'Stop it... Stop it Stop it Stop it Gon, Stop it...' Her mind was about to explode and she felt her knees buckle. She fell to the ground, hands on her face as she felt the weakness of fear and helplessness swallow her whole.

She couldn't help Gon. He wouldn't let her.

But the burden of all of it ended up with her.

...31, 32, 33...

Kurapika stared at her with sympathetic eyes. No one wanted to see Akane crying. She was too close to their hearts like a dear sister and friend to be able to stand to see her crying and in pain.

He couldn't stand as well that all he could do was watch. Watch her cry, watch Gon bleed. Because sometimes, he knew, the only way to be a friend is to just stay back.

But that was just too hard to do.

...34, 35, 36...

Gon's face hit the hard ground again. He tried to peel open one his other eye, the one that wasn't swollen, but he couldn't. It was somehow stuck half-lidded, and he couldn't get it to open.

And yet, even with that incapacity, he stood up again.

Ready to fight.

...37, 38, 39...

Akane didn't rise up from her position. Oh, she expected it, Gon falling down and standing up again. No one coming for comfort, because of pain within them as well. She knew pretty much well enough that no one wanted Gon to get hurt. She didn't want to cry as well, because she knew that would be a chewing pain in their heart as well, but she just couldn't stop, the tears continued to gush.

Oh yes, she knew. She knew too much the reality in the situation. It was at that moment when she wished she actually didn't just know.

...40.

That it will never stop.