Hi everyone. I know I haven't updated in ages! I was going to wait until I had convinced one of my friends to proof read this story for me so I could improve my writing skills but I felt really bad cause people are still reading it even though I haven't updated for two years so I posted up this chapter. I've done some of the next chapter as well but I'm not sure when I will be able to finish and post it up. I'm a painfully slow writer . Sorry!
I would like to thank dreamonkid, kitsunekuruoshi, featherfun, SoundzofSilence and BlueRaposa for reviewing. Special thanks to SoundzofSilence for helping me improve my first chapter :D
And thankyou to all the other readers for being so patient. Please enjoy the third chapter, if you're still interested in reading it. Feedback and criticism is very welcome as this is my first story and there is always room for improvement
Chiyo walked through the door onto a step jutting out of the building she had been in. Peering around for any sign of movement, she cautiously crept down the steps. Perhaps she could avoid the spiders and escape.
Turning around a corner Chiyo stiffened and came to an abrupt halt. The spiders were in a huddle beneath the tower, waiting.
"Crap!" Chiyo thought and slowly retreated. Had they seen her? She hoped not. But knowing their inhumane abilities, they probably would have sensed her presence as soon as she'd walked out. If only she knew how to use Inn!
If they had sensed her then she'd probably have minutes if not seconds to escape. She was a fairly fast runner, though she wasn't sure if she'd be able to outrun the Spider Organization. Heck, what was she thinking? She wouldn't stand a chance!
Especially since the only thing surrounding her was grass. If she strained her eyes Chiyo thought she might be able to make out a forest, but it was so far away that she figured it would take at least an hour to run there. Time she didn't have. Besides, she had that creepy feeling that she was being watched.
Grudgingly, she made her way down the steps. She'd have to escape later, when she had more of a chance. Machi turned as Chiyo walked to them.
"Took you long enough" she muttered and turned back to the group. About two minutes later Nobunaga had joined them.
"Alright lets go" Feitan instructed the team and headed in the direction where Chiyo thought they were being watched.
Chiyo followed silently behind Nobunaga.
After a few hours of walking, they came to a small town where Feitan ordered everyone to split up and search for clues on the Nen user's whereabouts. Nobunaga was partnered with Machi and shortly joined (much to Machi's disappointment) by Hisoka, whom no one had wanted to partner up with. Even though he was a member of the organization, everyone found him a little strange and thus intimidating, though they would never admit this out loud.
Deciding they would look for the nen user in the town, Machi took the lead and led them through the market. Of course, after smelling all the yummy foods it wasn't long before Chiyo's stomach began to growl, reminding her that she hadn't eaten since yesterday. Machi glanced at her in annoyance but then stopped when she heard Nobunaga's stomach respond in an even louder growl.
Sighing in irritation, she walked into the nearest restaurant. Inside was a strange looking cat chef.
"Good Morning, how can I help you?" he smiled. "We have a special deal today. If you can eat our famous spaghetti within 20 minutes it's free and you get a prize!"
"In that case, we'll take two" Machi said just as Hisoka's stomach started to grumble. Machi rolled her eyes.
"Make that three."
"With Coke" Nobunaga added gleefully. The large cat gave them the coke and a table number. As they sat at the table Chiyo wondered if they knew about the Greed Island money and if she should tell them. However after a few seconds of thought, she decided against it. They probably never paid for anything anyway.
One of the waiters brought over the spaghetti. Chiyo gaped as he placed the spaghetti in front of her. It was twice the width of her shoulders, and towered above her head. She would never be able to eat that much food let alone finish it in twenty minutes!
She glanced sideways at Nobunaga who was shoveling down the food. Well it didn't look like he would have any problems finishing. She turned back to her plate and began eating. It was a complicated process. If she wasn't careful enough and extracted the spaghetti from the wrong place, then it would collapse on her.
By the time she was a quarter way through, fifteen minutes had passed and she was full. Nobunaga had long since finished his and was hungrily eyeing hers.
"Uh…you can have it if you want" Chiyo murmured and slid the plate across. Nobunaga's eyes filled with tear of joy and dug right in.
Meanwhile, Hisoka who was also full was now unsuccessfully trying to get rid of the excess spaghetti. He had been going to give it to Nobunaga but Gon had beaten him to it and there was only so much a man could eat. Or so he had thought.
"Hurry up, we've wasted enough time already" Machi grumbled as Hisoka boredly twirled the spaghetti over and over. He looked at Machi, a devious gleam in his eyes.
"Want some?" he grinned as he tried to stuff a fork full of his spaghetti down Machi's mouth.
Machi dodged him and glowered angrily. Hisoka was thinking of dumping it on Machi's head but was disrupted when he tried to put his thoughts into actions.
"Quit wasting food!" Nobunaga grumbled snatching Hisoka's plate and replacing it with Chiyo's now clean one.
The others watched in amazement as he finished off Hisoka's spaghetti. When he had finished the cat chef came up to him.
"Wow, we have a new record" he cheered. "Three spaghetti's in eighteen minutes. Congratulations!"
Nobunaga smiled sadly.
"If Uvogin were here he would have eaten six plates of spaghetti" he thought as he was given three cards.
The chef cat grinned and then held out his hand.
"That'll be $4.90" he said.
Nobunaga's eyes widened.
"What? For the cards?"
The cat rolled his eyes.
"No for the coke. The meals were free but the drink wasn't."
"Oh…" Nobunaga turned to Machi and HIsoka.
"Do you have change?"
They shook their heads.
"Gon?"
Chiyo grabbed her wallet from her pocket and took out a five dollar note. She had been planning to spend her money at the Festival but it didn't look like that was going to happen now. Plus the cat wouldn't take her money anyway. She remembered reading that it only took cards.
She handed the money to the cat who stared at it in confusion.
"What's this?"
Nobunaga sweat dropped.
"Uh, it's money to pay for the coke" he said raising an eyebrow questioningly.
The cat shook his head and handed the money back to Chiyo.
"No I want this type of money" he said making a card appear in his hand.
Hisoka stood up and walked towards the door.
"I'll wait for you outside" he said.
Nobunaga took the card and glanced at it nervously. He turned to Machi and looked at her questioningly. Machi sighed.
"Geez I have to do everything" she complained. She flicked her wrist and one of her nen threads sliced the cat's head off. The cat went fuzzy for a second and then reappeared looking quite pissed off. Glaring at Machi, he took off his apron, revealing a belt that held a ridiculously large set of sharp kitchen knives. Matchi stared at the belt silently while Nobunaga voiced what everyone else at the table was thinking.
"Oh Crap!"
Two seconds later they were racing out the restaurant with a group of chef cats rampaging close behind. Chiyo had never run so fast in her life. They were chased around the whole town until eventually they lost them near the plaza.
Machi glared at Nobunaga.
"Why did you have to order the coke!" she yelled.
"I was thirsty!" Nobunaga defended, cringing slightly. An angry Machi was a very scary thing to see. At this point, Chiyo figured it would be a good time to make her escape.
Machi closed her eyes and took a deep breath, calming down.
"We'll talk about this later" she said passively. "In the meantime your quarry is escaping".
"Huh?" Nobunaga looked around and then noticed Chiyo who had been quietly edging away. Chiyo stopped and smiled innocently. There was a crowd just a inches behind her. If she could just distract them for a second…
"Look it's Hisoka" she said pointing behind them and running in the opposite direction. She didn't get far before colliding with someone's chest…yet again. She reminded herself to look where she was running next time.
"Ow" Chiyo groaned rubbing her head and looking up to see ….Hisoka.
Nobunaga and Machi appeared from behind her, creating an impenetrable circle.
Chiyo smiled nervously. Act like Gon. Act like Gon…
"See I told you I saw him!" she said feigning excitement while pointing to Hisoka. Machi and Nobunaga sweat dropped while Hisoka raised his brow quizzically.
"Nice of you to come back" Nobunaga sneered glaring at Hisoka. Hisoka shrugged.
"It's not like I had anything else to do" he said boredly.
Nobunaga frowned and glanced down as Chiyo fidgeted nervously.
"What's up?" he asked her.
Chiyo frowned. "There's something I don't quite understand… Couldn't Hisoka have made one of his deck cards look like one of the money cards?"
Hisoka's eyes widened momentarily in surprise.
"You could have couldn't you?" Chiyo asked him confusedly.
Hisoka glanced down at her, pretending to feign disinterest.
"…I guess"
Nobunaga jolted in surprise.
"What! You mean we went through all that and you could've prevented it? Why didn't you do something?"
Hisoka smirked
"You never asked"
Nobunaga's eye twitched angrily.
"Stupid jerk" he thought as Hisoka's phone rang. Hisoka took a phone out and pressed the talk button.
"Hello? Oh good you're here. Where should we meet up? …. Suits me." He hung up
"Who was that?" Nobunaga demanded.
Hisoka put the phone back in his pocket.
"A friend…" he grinned mysteriously. Machi rolled her eyes while Nobunaga clenched his fists tightly.
Chiyo wondered who it could be. Judging from what she had read in the book it was probably Illumi or Kalluto, the girl in the kimono. After all she had remembered seeing the manga image of Kalluto helping to find that nen user in the Greed Island game.
" I suppose you need to leave now?" Machi asked, interrupting Chiyo's thoughts.
Hisoka shrugged. "It'll take a while before he gets here" he said.
"Before who gets here? If you're going to stay then we have a right to know what you're planning!" Nobunaga yelled.
Machi covered her ears. "I'm going to call Shalnark and see how the others are doing. I'll come back when you're done arguing" she said and walked away to a quieter location.
"Hnnn maybe I'll leave too" Hisoka said stifling a yawn. "Listening to your complaints is quite boring."
"That's it I've had it!" Nobunaga roared leaping forward to punch Hisoka in the face. Hisoka dodged, still yawning.
"That the best you can do?" he teased causing Nobunaga to emit an angry shriek. Nobunaga pulled out his sword. Chiyo's eyes widened fearfully as she felt his nen rise dramatically. This was getting a bit too serious!
Nobunaga charged, unleashing a flurry of strikes at Hisoka. Hisoka dodged them all, smirking at the samurai's rage.
Chiyo's eyes followed the pattern of Nobunaga's attacks and Hisoka's resulting blocks. Of course this would have been very interesting to watch if she hadn't been in the middle of their fight! Barely dodging one of Hisoka's punches she swerved to the side, only to be nearly impaled by Nobunaga's sword. Chiyo ducked as Nobunaga lunged forward, nearly skewing her a second time. She quickly crawled to the side, out of his direct sword range and sat feeling light headed. That fight had been way too close for her liking but at least now she was out of the way.
Of course fate just had to prove her wrong. No sooner than Chiyo had thought she was safe, Hisoka revealed his deck of cards and threw three at Nobunaga. Nobunaga , being too good of a swordsman to be hit by them deflected them all. It was only to be expected as he had spent all his time training for times like this. Being a member of the Ryodan, he had to be good in both offense and defense.
…It was a pity he hadn't thought to work on his aim.
Chiyo watched in horror as one of the cards deflected off Nobunaga's sword and spun back towards her. In her haste to get up, she tripped falling on the pavement as the card whirled past the place her head had been just seconds before. Scrambling to her feet she looked frantically for an escape route, dodging another two cards and a sword strike in the process. She had to get out of here fast before she got killed. She'd been lucky she hadn't been sliced so far but she couldn't rely on luck forever. If she didn't escape soon she was going to get hurt. She tensed, getting ready to dive roll through, before another card or sword strike came at her.
"THERE THEY ARE!" a voice shouted, causing all three to freeze momentarily. Hisoka looked through the corner of his eye and chuckled silently.
"Well isn't this amusing" he grinned.
" !...HOW THE HELL DID THEY FIND US!!???" Nobunaga yelled as he stared in horror at the scene before him. Chiyo turned her head, wondering what could have caused both of them to react like this. She stopped dumbstruck as she tried to comprehend what she saw.
Standing in front of them was the chef cat backed up by what looked like the entire restaurant staff, carrying an assortment of carving knives and frying pans. Somehow, the cat chef had managed to find them after temporarily closing the restaurant, and retrieving the staff. Talk about persistency!
The cat grinned at the three triumphantly, holding a wicked looking meat cleaver. A murderous gleam came into his eyes.
"That'll be $4.90".
Chiyo stared at the blade worriedly. This was one psychotic cat!
Nobunaga stared warily at the cat army, and got into a fighting stance, clutching his sword very tightly.
"So what do we do now?" he asked Hisoka. Hisoka shrugged.
"Whatever you like. Makes no difference to me."
"YOU'RE NOT HELPING!" Nobunaga yelled. Chiyo sweat dropped. She could see where this conversation was heading and didn't want to be caught in the middle of a three way fight between the two killers and hoard of crazy cats.
Grabbing her wallet she got out an old receipt and handed it to Hisoka.
"Do you think you can use your nen to make this look like one of the money cards?" she asked him.
Hisoka took the card and flamboyantly passed his hand over it.
"Voila" he said handing the card to the cat chef. The cat stared at him incredulously.
"...do you think I'm stupid?
Hisoka studied the cat curiously.
"Interesting" he commented. "Looks like your plan has failed...Gon."
"Enough talk! Either you pay or you DIE!" the cat roared, smashing the wall next to him to further emphasize his threat.
The sound of falling rocks echoed along the alleyway as the wall began to crumble and cave in on them.
"Uh oh" the cat chef said as the other cats backed away from the wall. Nobunaga jumped as a large chunk of rock flew past him.
The place was falling apart. Rocks began to hail on them from above as the alleyway crumbled. Chiyo stared at the rocks with a dumbstruck expression. And to think this was all because of one small coke…
Chiyo watched as Nobunaga dodged the flying rocks, causing him to jump further away from them in the direction of the cat army. As he came closer, one of the cats, thinking he was about to attack them threw a stove at him.
Nobunaga's POV
Nobunaga ducked as a rock sailed past, twisting and swerving to avoid being pummeled into the ground. He could tell he was getting further away from the group but he couldn't do anything to prevent it. It was hard enough dodging all the rocks. Nobunaga leaned back as another giant rock flew past. He'd made it to the edge of the wall where there were less objects to dodge. Propping his back against the wall, he paused to regain his breath and reassess the situation. He'd been separated from the group and was now in the midst of an undead cat army. How was he going to get out of this?
His thought process was stopped as something was thrown at him. Nobunaga's eyes narrowed and then widened in surprise. Was that a stove? Nobunaga jumped out of the way and the stove flew into the wall. A resounding crack echoed throughout the alley. Nobunaga glanced anxiously back at the stove which was now indented into the wall. Cracks were starting to form and the remainder of the alley caved in.
Brushing off the debris, Nobunaga took in his surroundings. Lucky for him the cat army had taken the brunt of the rocks and were temporarily stuck under a pile of rubble. Unluckily so were Hisoka and Gon. Nobunaga studied the barrier of rocks that were blocking the part of the alleyway where Gon had just been. He could probably break through it with his sword but it would take a while. If Uvogin were here he would have broken through it within minutes.
Nobunaga jumped as he heard a rustling from the rubble beside him. The cats were breaking through the pile of rubble. These freaks were insane! He needed to get out of here and fast! If he remembered correctly there was another path that led to the other side of the alleyway. He'd go there.
Meanwhile on the other side of the rubble, Hisoka and Chiyo were standing, looking up at the barrier of rocks. Chiyo pressed one ear to the side of the barrier, listening intently.
"I can't hear anything" she said. She turned to Hisoka.
"Do you think you can break through the wall?"
Hisoka looked at the wall with disinterest.
"Do you want to face those cats again?"
Chiyo grimaced.
"…Good point."
She looked around. The alleyway ended behind Hisoka and led into what looked like part of a market.
"So what are we going to do then? Wait for Nobunaga and Machi?"
"Hnnn I guess" Hisoka said, pulling out his pack of cards and making a tower. Chiyo watched, fascinated. She'd always wondered when reading the comic whether Hisoka had used his bungy gum to stick the cards together when making a tower, or whether he was just good at balancing them. Chiyo had tried a number of times back in her world to make a tower but it had always toppled over as soon as she tried balancing another two cards on the second row of the tower.
Crouching in front of the card tower she watched and stared intently. She had a great temptation to touch one of the cards, just to see if he was using nen or not. Forgetting her fear of Hisoka, Chiyo tapped one of the cards at the top, causing the whole tower to topple down.
"…oops!"
So he wasn't using nen….so much for her hypothesis.
Hisoka looked up, one of his eyebrows twitching slightly in irritation. Then with a sigh he stood up.
"So tell me…who are you?"
Chiyo stiffened, her eyes widening in surprise.
"w..what do you mean?" she stuttered nervously.
Hisoka chuckled. "You can quit the act. It's pretty obvious you aren't Gon" he smiled flicking a card out of his deck. His face suddenly turned serious.
"So why are you impersonating him?"
Chiyo staggered to her feet and backed away, eyes darting nervously for a way out. There was a group of people coming by. Perhaps she could cause some kind of distraction and slip into the crowd?
"How'd you find out?" she asked, edging conspicuously towards the group of people.
Hisoka looked at her quizzically.
"It was your personality. It doesn't quite fit Gon's or that of a reinforcement user. However I must admit, you shaped your nen to fit his image quite well. You managed to deceive me for at least an hour. I am quite impressed."
His smile changed to a smirk as a sudden thought occurred to him.
"Enough talking. Lets see if you can fight as well as him."
Hisoka stood and beckoned for her to charge at him.
Chiyo gulped and backed away, shaking her head furiously. There was no way she wanted to get into a fight with Hisoka! He was too scary and she wanted to live.
Hisoka sighed.
"Very well if you won't come to me then I'll come to you" he said, taking a step forward.
"Wait Stop! I don't want to fight you! Can't we just talk? You know I'm not Gon . my names Chiyo, I'm just an ordinary girl and I really don't want to die yet so just let me go and tell Nobunaga I got away?" Chiyo stammered. She sighed in relief as Hisoka paused. Her relief soon turned to confusion as she spotted something shimmery in the corner of her eye. It was stretchy, like a piece of gum and it was heading towards her!
Hisoka's eyes narrowed, his smile turning upwards into a leer.
"I don't think so"
Chiyo jumped startled, as the shimmery blobby thing increased its pace, darting towards her. Grabbing the first thing she could lay her hands on, she threw it in front of her and made her escape, dashing through the crowd.
Hisoka stared in surprise as his bungee gum missed its target and retracted, sending a rock hurling into his face. How had she seen his nen? He watched silently as the girl disappeared. It had been a little frustrating that she had eluded him, but he guessed it didn't matter. It's not like she would have put up much of a fight anyway. She was still unripe. Plus something told him he would see her again. Hisoka smiled. He could wait until then.