Hi all! Since someone messaged me about shorter, easier to read chapters, I decided to start writing shorter chapters. Please let me know how else I can improve this story so it's more interesting, easier to read, etc.!
Giggles echoes throughout the mansion. I grasped my switchblade in my hand and bumped Kurapika's hand with mine.
With his black wig and contact lenses Kurapika looked like a different person.
Kurapika's grip tightened on his katana while my sand floated into the air.
"Nobody steals the scarlet eyes and wrecks one of the best merchant family's goods and lives", a disembodied voice said, coming from the ceiling of the other side of the room.
I twitched in surprise as a petite man fell from the ceiling. With white hair and eyes, the man's appearance was rather...unsettling.
I pushed my feelings of fear and unease deep inside of me and looked past the man's physical appearance.
"Nen?", Kurapika muttered.
I slightly shook my head. I couldn't see anything. No sudden shift in aura indicating the man was going to attack or flare outwards indicating the man even knew aura existed.
Kurapika took a step forward. "You...you work for and support murderers. You are as good as the murderers who killed my kin."
The man smirked and giggled once more at Kurapika.
But I didn't move forward, something was...off about this man.
"Avi!", Kurapika snapped,"Focus. This is the last merchant family in this town. Let us finish this job here and move on!"
Kurapika was correct. We had been raiding mansions and killing my family's competition, not that Kurapika knew that, for the past 3 weeks.
Kurapika was blind, all he cared about was finding his scarlet eyes, which he was. He held funerals for his kin after we had retrieved the eyes, but I never attended. It felt like I was intruding on a private moment between Kurapika and the remains of his friends and clan members. Even though the clan members and friends were all dead.
The sound of footsteps shifting on the cement floor of the warehouse near the mansion captured my attention.
"Wait! Kurapika!", I shouted. I realized what was wrong-the man had no aura! He was hiding it somehow which meant...he had to be aware of it.
Kurapika immediately lunged to the left as the man suddenly appeared directly in the spot Kurapika had been moments before, nen concentrated in his hand.
Nen transformed the man's nails in claws, the entire had itself was veiny, the skin, thicker. The man glanced up at me, with lack of irises and all.
"nen user!", I shouted.
"Really", Kurapika complained,"You couldn't have noticed sooner!"
He swung his katana at the man who easily dodged the blow, only to trip over my sand. That was the best part about being a manipulator, all I had to do was choose my main material, or conductor, that I would use to control a person. However, this meant I could only ever use that one conductor. Once my opponent learned what my conductor was, my offense and defense limits were limited.
'This is the price of choosing a conductor', Hisoka said as he flipped his deck of cards around, 'As a manipulator you are able to use your aura to control objects and creatures. But the moment your opponent learns what you are, or what your conductor is, you will mainly be playing a defensive game. That, Avi, is why I am better suited to teach you nen than Illumi. Simply on the basis of creativity'
'But why teach me nen? Why not kill me?', I questioned Hisoka.
The clown smiled coldly and looked down at me. 'Bigger events have yet to unfold, Avi. More games to be played. But it is not fun playing with friends if all are not at the same level. Besides, I owe your parents. After I will have helped you succeed, my debts will have been repaid.'
I huffed. 'You're not honorable'. Immediately a blow to the side knocked me to the ground. Instinctively I curled into the fetal position. Hisoka towered over me, nen flaring, and rage glittered in his yellow eyes.
'I always repay my debts and keep promises', Hisoka hissed in fury, 'Never disrespect me with false accusations again.'
I shuddered and simply nodded. Hisoka was a SCARY guy! Being stranded on Zevil Island during the Hunter Exam didn't help either.
The man coldly giggled, bringing me back to reality.
"Avi!", Kurapika shouted in irritation as the man had dodged around him faster and faster, "I need your help!"
The man was clearly an enhancer, which was surprising considering his deceptively slight build.
Nen-coated sand rose from the ground and flew at the man, who immediately dodged and crouched on the ground, studying me.
Kurapika and I glanced at one another and rather than run towards the nen-user, I ran towards Kurapika.
This threw the man who cautiously dodged to the side to move a bit farther away from Kurapika and me.
Unfortunately for him, Kurapika and I have been training together since Phase 3 of the Hunter Exam. Between the two of us, we could predict what both nen-users and regular guards would do and who they would attack first: the girl with the light green hair and nen-user or the boy with the black hair and katanas.
In coordinated motion, Kurapika and I approached the man, matched step for step. The man raised a fist, glowing in nen in defense. Kurapika and I had him cornered. All of us knew it.
"I will avenge the Kurta Clan", Kurapika said, black contacts hiding blood red eyes.
"Shut up you moron!", I snapped, the adrenaline getting to me, "I'm fighting him too. Don't risk our lives because you are a rash"-the Enhancer lunged forward towards me, the main threat. We both knew we were nen-users.
It was a fight between us. Kurapika had no nen and logically, could not match either of us in combat.
A fist caused air to rush past my head...and blood to rush from my face. That had been too close.
My switchblade swiped at where the man had been moments before and I tried to focus on moving my nen underneath his feet. Right now I was incapable of even moving my sand smoothly. The motions was jerky and delayed as I really wasn't focused. That was another drawback of my nen ability.
In an instant, Kurapika had sliced a thin line into the man's arm.
"You bitch!", he snarled at Kurapika.
"They're down here!", more voices shouted.
"Fuck", I yelled in frustration. More guards. Damn it!
Kurapika glanced at me and I at him. We needed to hurry.
I sent a powerful kick towards the chest of the enhancer but he caught my leg and fear rushed through me. I was such an idiot!
'You are a manipulator', Illumi told me, 'If you ever fight an Enhancer, attempt to avoid physical contact because you will lose.'
Illumi would claim to have never seen me before in his life had he seen me centimeters away from an Enhancer.
The Enhancer smiled evilly, white canines matching his hair and eyes.
In a millisecond I felt pain radiate from my shin up to my femur (thigh bone) when suddenly the Enhancer was stabbed in the back. Kurapika.
The Kurta leaned over the shoulder of the man. "The Kurta Clan sends its regards," Kurapika breathed as he viciously stared at the man.
The Enhancer grunted and elbowed Kurapika in the chest, sending the larger 6 foot Kurta flying across the room.
Meanwhile, I had danced off to the right of the man and felt...an irrational amount of rage at seeing Kurapika tossed across the room. Both at him, for being a dummy and not finishing the man but instead spouting Kurta Clan honor nonsense at him, and at myself.
I would not make that mistake again.
The man lunged towards me and I focused, losing my sense of the environment and watched as my sand shifted around my switchblade, which had fallen from my hand when the man grabbed my foot.
The man's fist was flying towards my face. I had milliseconds left.
"Avi!", Kurapika howled.
The knife flew towards the back of the man's throat and I cocked my head to the side. The man's eyes widened as he saw the motions of my left hand.
His body slammed into mine as his fist had missed my face, but I bounced off of him. As I flew backwards I focused on making a circular motion with my hand, causing the knife to circle around to the front of the man's throat, and slit it open.
Blood poured from the gash as the man fell to the ground.
In a second, it was over. Kurapika and I looked at one another.
"Move in! They killed Leto!"
Leto, or the Enhancer, was dead.
"Let's move!", I shouted at Kurapika, who was staring intently at the scarlet eyes.
His shoulder shook. He glanced up at me and I felt my blood run cold at his expression. "No", he growled, "Every person in this house will pay for associating themselves with murderers."
He jumped past me to attack the guards who were shooting at us with guns. But Kurapika didn't care. He never cared when he fell into a rage.
I hung back, knowing I couldn't stop him unless I fought him myself, which I had done before and won. It was disturbing how he wanted to kill anyone involved or associated with those who traded the scarlet eyes, whether man, woman, or child. According to Kurapika, they all needed to die.
In the case of the security guards, I did not care. They could all die. But the children of my family's competition...I felt...guilt. I had blood of my hands, literally and metaphorically, the blood of innocents. We had recovered 12 pairs of scarlet eyes from the 8 merchant families in this town. And then there were none. We had killed them all.
This was the last merchant family in this town. We would go to Yorknew City after this, to where my brother, Brec, was located. Was I mentally stable? I didn't know anymore, was Kurapika mentally stable? Fuck no.
The last security guard made a gurgling sound as he fell to the ground in the pool of his and his colleagues' blood.
Kurapika turned to me, walked over, picked up the jar of scarlet eyes, and held out his hand to me. The black contacts made his eyes unreadable.
"Ready to go?", Kurapika asked. He said it so casually, as if he hadn't killed the 4 unlucky security guards at the mansion.
I nodded. I only knew one thing for certain as I held Kurapika's hand: this man beside me would help me complete my goals and vice-versa, except at this point we knew one another's fighting style so well that we would forever be in a dead-lock, IF Kurapika learned how to use nen.
Naturally, after every fight, Kurapika looked at me with his emotionless eyes and said, "The fight would have finished faster if I can learn nen."
And as always, I looked at the artificial black contacts and replied, "I can barely control my own nen as I never truly had a teacher. What makes you think I can effectively teach you?"
Kurapika's mouth opened and shut. And we walked hand in hand out of the mansion with the lone pair of scarlet eyes in the jar.