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A/N: I'm sorry to say that there is a significantly less amount of fluff in this chapter. Awww... On the bright side, there's more action! Yaaaaaaay! Also, a little backstory, but you don't care about that.
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Chapter 4: The NAZI Task Force…?
"Alright, Gon," I said, "We need a plan if we're going to go into this trap. Any ideas?"
Gon though hard, "We should just fight them head on!"
I hit him on the head and said, "You idiot, there's way more of them than there is us! If we were to fight them head on, we'd lose in a matter of seconds! Any other bright ideas?"
Gon was rubbing his head when he said, "Maybe we could split them up, like what we did with the Bomb Devils."
It wasn't a bad idea, but it still wouldn't work. I told him that we were still outnumbered and we'd have no way of splitting them up efficiently. I also told him it was just going to be us against them. Gon countered that we would be outnumbered either way.
"So, what do you suggest we do, Killua?" Gon asked.
"I think the only thing we can do," I said, "is challenge Natsuki to a fight."
"Challenge him?" Gon asked, "Isn't that the same as taking him head on?"
"No," I explained, "If we challenge him, he'd have to stick to the rules we set. He'd also have to do what we want him to do if he loses."
"Ah." Gon said, beaming with excitement, "Let's go challenge him now!"
He got up and was about to run after Natsuki, when I grabbed his shirt collar. I explained to him that now wasn't the right time to challenge him. He looked a little disappointed by this. I couldn't help but smile.
We walked over a hill and saw that Natsuki was waiting for us. He commented on Gon's foot being better and Gon agreed with a nervous laugh. I told him it wasn't anything too serious. He asked what happened.
"I must've stepped on a sharp rock or something," Gon lied.
"Vwell," Natsuki said, "I'm joost zankvul zat ze bruzah of Killua Freecss is alright. Ve have becoming very good friendz, ja, Killua?"
"Uh," I said, "yeah. Very good friends."
We walked a little more towards town. Gon kept whispering to me about when we jump Natsuki and challenge him. I kept telling him when we got closer to town. When we were just outside of town, we made our move.
"Now!" I yelled.
Natsuki turned around to see us jump him. He was surprised, but still managed to dodge us. So, instead of grabbing him, we pushed him to the ground. I landed on my feet again, but slid a short distance to stop myself and Gon landed on his head, which turned into a roll, before he got to his feet.
"Natsuki," I said, "We're challenging you to a fight."
From seemingly out of nowhere, Natsuki's dogs surrounded us. They didn't move, but were growling and barking. Natsuki ordered them to do something in his language and they immediately stopped growling at us. Natsuki then got to his feet.
"Vwy vould jyoo vwant to challenge me?" He asked, "I have done nozing vrong."
"Don't play innocent, Natsuki!" I accused.
"Yeah," Gon chimed in, "We saw one of your Air-Zingers!"
"So, you know about ze Air-Zingers," Natsuki said. Although, his tone wasn't threatening, it was more sad.
I was thrown off guard a bit by his tone of voice, but managed to say, "Yeah. We read about them. We know it was your family that had started a war with them and that you were called the Natsuki Air-Zinger Invasion task force."
"Vwat jyoo zay is correct," he said, "Howevah, I am not ze mind behind ze Air-Zingers. Ze one zat is behind ze Air-Zinger assault iz a man zat vas vunce a Hunter from zis vorld, vwat jyoo vould call ze 'Known Vorld'. I am from a Province in vwat jyoo call ze 'Outside Vorld'."
I'd heard stories of the "Outside World" from my grandpa, who had heard the stories from his grandpa, who had heard the stories from his grandpa! I naturally thought that Natsuki was lying, but then he showed us some proof, something I had never seen or heard of before. He called it an "Amulet". It was a gold circle with a "blue amber" in the middle and markings along the outside. He said it was given to him by his grandpa.
"Ze amulet," he said, "contains a magical power zat can control ze 'failed' Super Soldiers, like zees dogs."
"What do you mean by 'failed'?" I asked.
"It means zat zey have ze strength und look of a regular Super Soldier, but zey lack ze brain capacity to have clear conscious. Zey turn into mindless beasts who only act on instinct und orders."
"So, you're not the one attacking the town?" Gon asked.
"Ach, no!" Natsuki protested, "I vould nevah do such zings as mien ozah family. Zey had learned ze lesson ze hard vay und zey vould nevah send anybody to vwar again. Howevah, about a month ago, ze Air-Zingers from mien entire province vent missing. Vwe tracked zem over to here und I saw ze man who took zem: It vas ze same man who had vanted zem for his own after ze Hunters had taken zem from us! I remember his description clearly."
"Wait," I said, "That war was over a hundred years ago! How can he still be alive?"
"Ze Fountain." Natsuki said in a mysterious voice, "Ze Fountain zat grants ze vun zat drinks from it Eternal Youth! He drank from it und he is out for revenge on ze Hunter's Association for his banishment!"
I looked at him in a 'You've got to be joking' way. Again with this fountain of youth thing. If it was such a big deal, then why wasn't it more known? Why wasn't every damn person and their mother going to it for their eternal youth? I asked Natsuki these exact questions.
"Ze Fountain is dangerous to get to," he said, "Vun vould have to have great strength in body und mind to get to it. It's also never in ze same place. After somebody drink from it, it magically disappears und reappears in anozah place."
"A disappearing fountain," I said sarcastically, "Now I've heard everything! Next you'll be telling me that Gon will be my boyfriend instead of my best friend!"
Oops. That was a mistake. Not only did I just basically say that Gon wasn't my brother and that my last name wasn't Freecss, I might have also given away a secret I've been trying to figure out for a long time now. I just hoped that they only caught on to the first part.
"You're saying zat you are not Freecss?" Natsuki asked, "Zen, vat are you?"
I let out a sigh, "My name is Killua Zoldyck. I come from a family of assassins."
"Zen, you are here to kill me?" Natsuki asked.
"No," I said, "I'm not an assassin anymore. Not since I met Gon. We're both Hunters."
"Ah-ha!" Natsuki seemed overly excited about this fact, "Zen you vill help me with mien problem!"
He grabbed Gon's hands and started shaking them while spinning. Gon looked as confused as I am and Natsuki kept spinning. Once Gon was sufficiently dizzy, Natsuki grabbed my hand and started shaking them while spinning, like he had done before. However, I was getting dizzy this time.
"Now hold on," I said through a shaky voice, "I never said that!"
He stopped spinning and let go of my hands. I felt somewhat relieved until I felt his arm around my back. He pulled me into a hug and I looked over to see Gon being pulled into the same hug. I thought his brain was about to explode from all the confusion. Mine certainly felt that way.
"Ah~" Natsuki said, "This is happiest day of mien life!"
I pushed him away and said, "Get off of me! Now, tell us what this guy looks like."
"Hmm…" Natsuki thought, "He vas about mien height; he had long, brown hair und pitch black eyes. He also vore a cap on his head und he carried a vwand, zough, I'm not too sure on vwat it vas for."
Gon started to shake his head. "No," he said, "No. No. NO!"
He raised a fist to punch Natsuki, but I got in front of him and held him back. "Gon!" I said, "What are you thinking?"
Gon looked right past me and straight at Natsuki with eyes full of hate. "He lies!" Gon shouted.
"What?" I asked.
"He just described Kite!" Gon yelled, "Kite would never do anything to hurt anybody!"
I hit him on the head. I knew he would just yell at me, but that's what I wanted. I wanted Gon's anger focused on me. If I could direct his attention away from Natsuki, I could reason with him.
"What'd you do that for, Killua?" He yelled.
"Because you're an idiot!" I yelled back.
"I am not an idiot!
"You are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
"Am not!"
"Are too!"
Natsuki decided to intervene, "Boys, boys-"
"Shut up!" We both yelled at him and he backed off.
"Killua," Gon said, "I know Kite and he would never do anything-"
"To hurt anybody," I finished, "yeah. I've heard it before. But did you ever stop to think that this wasn't Kite?"
Gon looked at me, confused. I knew it. Gon hardly puts any thought into any action he does. The only time he focuses is when he's fighting. He asked me what I meant.
"Look," I explained, "we know that the Super Soldiers were created using Nen, right?" Gon nodded. "So, what I'm saying is that maybe somebody is using Nen to look like Kite."
"Oh." Gon said, understanding. He turned to Natsuki, bowed slightly and said, "I'm sorry."
"Oh, no," Natsuki said, "It iz, how you say, no problem."
We heard another Air-Zinger fly overhead. However, this time, it stayed over us for a few moments. Natsuki's dogs started to growl as we saw the hatch of the plane open. In a matter of minutes, there were objects falling from the plane.
"Ze Super Soldiers," Natsuki said.
Gon and I immediately got into fighting stances. Super Soldiers, creatures that looked like what we had seen the previous day, landed in front of us. There were about twenty of them at first, which didn't really seem that bad when I factored in that Natsuki's dogs would be fighting with us and there were about ten of them. However, about twenty more jumped from the plane and landed behind us.
Another figure jumped from the plane, but this one was different. I saw its arm move and something appeared above it. It descended slowly and as it got closer, I noticed it was different than the others that had jumped from the plane. It wasn't until it touched the ground that I noticed what it really was.
It was a man. However, this man did not look like Kite. This man was about my height, maybe a little taller. He did have long brown hair, pitch black eyes and wore a cap on his head and he also carried a stick that I guessed was for walking, but this was definitely not Kite. This man wore an evil smile underneath his black eyes, that was nothing like Kite's smile.
"Hello, Gon," he said as he looked at Gon, "Killua," he looked at me, "and who do we have here?" He looked at Natsuki, "Oh, if it isn't His Highness, himself, Prince Rodgiero Natsuki. What a pleasure it is to meet you again."
Wait. Prince Natsuki? This guy was a Prince? And who was this man that had just landed here? How did he know who Gon and I were? We had never seen this man before.
The man obviously read my thoughts because he said, "Killua, you don't recognize me" The man concentrated for a minute and suddenly grew taller and changed his face. "How about now?" The man now looked and sounded like Kite.
"How…?" I trailed off, not knowing what to say or how to form the words.
The man let out an evil laugh. "I am, as you may have guessed, a Nen user," He said, "More specifically, a Manipulator. I can change my body and voice to anything I have seen and heard before. I took on the form of your friend, Kite, shortly after he had killed my Super Soldiers. It was just pure luck that Kite happened to look like me, when I was younger."
"So how long have you been 'Kite'?" I asked.
After he had transformed into "Kite" and started talking, I stepped in front of Gon because I saw he was about to explode. I had to make sure Gon didn't lose sight of himself in anger, so I had to step in front of him. I also couldn't let this Kite impostor see Gon or else he probably would've ordered his Super Soldiers to do something terrible. I couldn't let that happen.
"Oh, I've been this 'Kite' person for a month, now," he said, "However, finding the real Kite was quite difficult, seeing as how he had killed every member of each scouting party I sent after him. But I finally found him and disposed of him properly. And I was hoping that the forest fire would take care of you two, seeing as how you know my plans, but it just looks like I'll have to do things the hard way."
"I have another question for you," I said, trying to stall to see if Gon would calm down; it wasn't working very well, "What do you mean you 'disposed' of Kite properly? How do you know we know your plans? And what's this 'hard way' you mentioned?" The last question, I already knew the answer to, but I was still trying to stall.
"That was actually three questions, but all right, I'll answer them from the last to the first," the Kite impostor said.
I suddenly felt like hitting him like I hit Gon. Something about how he said 'three questions' just pissed me off. It also seemed like he was belittling me and I hated to be belittled. That pissed me off even more.
"The 'hard way' I mentioned," he began, "involves having my Elite Super Soldiers beat the ever loving crap out of you while you beg for your lives. Like I mentioned before, finding Kite was tough, but I found him last night while you guys were talking at the fire. I couldn't help but listen in to hear what you were talking about. And I heard you say a lot about my plans. And lastly, while you were sleeping, I had my Super Soldiers abduct Kite. I liked his look so much that I just had to take a keepsake from him before I had my Super Soldiers rip off his head."
As he adjusted his hat, which I assume was the 'keepsake' he got from Kite, Gon was focusing all his Nen into his fist. I saw out of the corner of my eye that Gon was raising his hand. I could tell that I couldn't hold him back any longer, after finding out Kite's fate. He pushed by me and ran toward the Kite look-a-like, with his arm raised high in the air.
He jumped at the impostor while shouting "Janken… JAN!"
He landed a direct hit on the Kite impostor's right cheek. Normally, a punch from Gon is enough to bruise you. A punch from Gon, with all his Nen focused into his hand, was enough to break your jaw ten times. This guy, this Kite impostor, took Gon's punch dead on and the only thing he did was just spit out blood.
A split second later, the Kite impostor punched Gon in the stomach. The punch had enough force to make Gon to vomit blood. Gon fell to the ground, landing on his knees, holding his stomach. Then, the Kite guy did a roundhouse kick to Gon's face that sent him flying back closer to where I was standing.
I started to run over to him. "Gon!" I shouted.
"Stay back, Killua!" Gon commanded.
"What?" I asked, "Why?"
"This bastard killed Kite," Gon said, while getting up, "And I'm gonna make him pay!"
"Gon," I began, "don't be ridiculous! You put all your strength into that punch and he just brushed it off like it was nothing!"
"I can put a lot more strength into another punch than I did with that one!" Gon said stubbornly, "This bastard's gonna pay if it's the last thing I do!"
"Gon!" I said while trying to run to him again.
I was cut off by a couple Super Soldiers that I took care of by shocking them with my Nen. Once they were nice and toasty, I was surrounded by five more. The two in front of me, I took care of the same way as the last two and I grabbed the one behind me's neck between my legs and flipped it over so it was in front of me. Unfortunately, this left me vulnerable for an attack from the other two, who started kicking me while I was on my back.
I barely managed to get my hands around their ankles to send electricity into them. I sat up and got onto one knee before I looked around. I saw Natsuki and his dogs fending off some Super Soldiers, I'd guess about two for each dog and one for Natsuki. That makes about 27. I saw Gon punching every Super Soldier that got in his way to the Kite impostor. I counted about ten bodies when he finally reached the Kite impostor.
That left three unaccounted for. I was going to look for them, when I felt a pole around my neck, just under my chin. The pole raised, lifting me with it. The other two started punching me in turn and I tried to kick them each time. Once, they decided to punch me at the same time; one punched my face, while the other punched my stomach.
I was fairly confident that I would kick them the next time they punched me. However, I never got the chance because one of Natsuki's dogs jumped the two that were punching me in one go. It sank its teeth into the closest one's jugular and ripped it out while its hand was choking the other one. As soon as the jugular was ripped out, the dog threw the Super Soldier away so it was only on top of the one it was choking. With its hand still over the Super Soldier's neck, the dog took it other hand, placed it on the Super Soldier's head and snapped its neck.
While I was glad I wasn't being punched anymore, I was still being choked by the pole. I would've kicked the one choking me as soon as the other two were gone, but every time I tried, the Super Soldier just kept pulling on the pole, choking me even more. I was starting to lose consciousness from all the constant choking, when I felt the pole suddenly drop from my neck. I landed on my knees, coughing.
"Killua, are you alright?" The voice belonged to Gon.
"G-Gon?" I coughed, "What happened? Where did the guy that killed Kite go?"
"He got away," Gon said, disappointed, "The plane let down a ladder and he climbed up. I tried to get him, but by the time I took down his Super Soldiers, he was too far up. That's when I saw you."
I looked back and saw the Super Soldier with the pole that was choking me beaten to a bloody pulp. Surprised, I asked, "What the hell did you do?"
Gon laughed, "I just let out some of my anger."
"Sheesh," I said, "Remind me never to get you that angry."
"Do you think he'll be back here, Killua?" Gon asked.
" I doubt it," I said, "He's already killed Kite and he knows that we would leave here as soon as possible."
"Do you think we should tell anybody?" Gon asked.
At first, I wondered who we were gonna tell, but then I remembered Kite had said he was hired by the town. I thought this would've been a good opportunity to get more money, if we told the town's mayor that we had taken care of the threat. However, I wondered if Kite had already been paid. Maybe they only paid him half of the money beforehand and were going to pay him the rest after he stopped the attacks on the town.
"Yeah," I said, "We can tell the mayor that the attacks will stop."
Gon obviously knew my intentions because he said, "Killua, I didn't mean like that!"
We laughed as Natsuki came up to us and said, "Mien friends, I am grateful to you for helping-"
I cut him off, "Don't get the wrong idea, Natsuki. We only fought because we had to. That guy killed one of Gon's friends and we had to avenge him."
After a moment of silence, probably because Natsuki was letting what I had just said sink in, Natsuki said his farewell and told us that if we were ever in his province, Kampa, to look him up. I said we'd think about it. We didn't have any current plans to go to the "Outside World", anyway.
Natsuki left in a different direction than town, which surprised me. When I called to him, he said he had a private plane in a private hangar not that far away. I guess I should've expected it, what with him being a "Prince" and all. Gon and I walked into town.
We hoped the head librarian lady wouldn't recognize us as we walked into the library. After all, we were covered in blood and our clothes were most likely really burnt from being in the forest fire. We got to a computer successfully and went online to buy some plane tickets. Gon used his Hunter's license to get a good deal on them.
I decided to checked my email on a different computer while Gon was looking for plane tickets. I wasn't surprised that I didn't have any new messages because most of the time, it was my family emailing me mission assignments. Because I wasn't an assassin anymore, I stopped receiving these types of messages. I was about to close out of my email when I suddenly got a new one. It was from Leorio. I clicked and read it.
'Dear Gon, Killua and Kurapika, I'm writing this because I'm going to be attending a conference in Yorknew City and I was told I could invite three other people. It will be in one week from the time you read this. Let's all meet up at the Yorknew airport in one week. Sincerely, Leorio.'
I told Gon about what I had just read and he was excited. He quickly changed the destination of the tickets to Yorknew City. He printed out a confirmation notice that said the tickets were reserved, but weren't paid for and had to be picked up within the next twenty-four hours or our tickets would become unreserved again. Gon grabbed the piece of paper and we left the library.