Cecilia Alcott x Shalnark x Sarashiki Tatenashi

"So Houki, could you please tutor me on the IS? At this rate, if I'm unprepared, then I'll lose. Worse, I'll end up becoming Cecilia's slave." Ichika begged. Shalnark stood in front of him in line, flipping through the pages of the IS book, only looking up to receive his food.

"That wouldn't have happened if you hadn't gone recklessly along with the provocations against Cecilia." Houki replied.

Shalnark turned around at that unnaturally cold voice that seemed similar to Orimura Chifuyu's and Machi's. The perpetual frown on her face almost startled him, especially when everybody else in the school smiled. None of the girls in the Troupe smiled either, but at the same time, none of them, not even Machi, frowned with such astonishing intensity. Shalnark wondered if the number of "no's" in her name had anything to do with the negative façade she put up.

"Ah, right." Ichika introduced the other male in the school to his childhood friend as they picked a table for lunch. "Houki, this is Shalnark. Shalnark, Shinonono Houki."

"Nice to meet you," she said quietly.

"Aren't you the girl who dragged him out of the classroom?" he asked, setting down his tray.

"Ah- Y-yes I was." Houki stammered. She looked away quickly, blushing lightly. "You seem to be pretty observant."

"The other girls were talking about it a lot. It was interrupting my reading." Shalnark shrugged. He picked up his chopsticks and began to eat.

"Hey, are you the boys mentioned in the rumors?" Another girl approached the trio. Shalnark discerned from the confidence in her eyes that she boasted experience, and from her generally taller height that she was in a higher grade.

"Which ones?" Shalnark asked, turning to look at her.

"The ones who are going to fight against that representative," she answered. "Is it true?"

"Yep," Shalnark nodded. He spied Ichika turning pale behind him, and recalled that Ichika was a below-average student in this school by performance, and thus would gain more from remaining unknown.

He turned back to the girl. "Is there something you need?"

"No, rather, I'm offering something that you need. I can teach you about the IS." She paused for a moment, and Shalnark caught something of a glint in her eyes as she glanced at a faraway table. "My table is over there, so we could start, but, we only have room for one more, so…"

"It's fine." Shalnark said, holding out a 100-Jenny coin. "We can just flip a coin. You want to be heads, Ichika?"

"Uh, alright." Ichika said. Shalnark flipped the coin into the air, caught it, and opened his palm.

It landed on a heads. Ichika looked nervously at Houki before getting up to leave.

"No need. I'll be teaching him." Houki intervened, and Ichika sat down.

"You're only a first year, right? Pardon me, but I should be more suited to teaching him."

"…I, I'm Shinonono Tabane's little sister." she squeezed out reluctantly. That effectively stunned the senior student.

"Then…"

"I'll come, if it's alright with you." Shalnark said. The girl breathed a sigh of relief. "Good luck, Ichika. Study well."

"You too, Shal."

The nickname Ichika gave Shalnark reminded him of Phinks. Phinks often referred to other people by a nickname composed of the first few syllables of their names. "Feitan" became "Fei" and "Bonolenov" "Bono".

"So, Shalnark-kun, what's your favorite animal?"

His attention went back to the girls who invited him to their table. Most of them were obviously prepared for a conversation rather than to give him information on the IS.

"The spider," he answered, smiling.

Many of the girls tried to hide their disgust, but it was as clear as day to Shalnark. All of them wanted to be rid of him as soon as possible.

Except for one girl, who seemed to regard him with more interest than before…

"What is it, Tatenashi? You like guys like that?"

"He's fun, don't you think?" she asked cheerfully. "Most guys wouldn't reply so honestly with that kind of answer."

…but her red eyes disturbed Shalnark greatly, and with good reason. The Phantom Troupe was being hunted by someone with red eyes, albeit said hunter's was a brighter scarlet.

"I guess so…"

"Come after school to the gym." Tatenashi told him. "I want to see how good you are."

"Oh, a practice test?" Shalnark asked.

"Yes," Tatenashi answered. "And no, it's not pencil and paper. We will be sparring in hand-to-hand combat, Igor Shalnarksky."

Without a doubt, this girl was dangerous. There was no way she could have known that name without making contact with government officials or being familiar with them in some way.

The bell rang and everyone headed to their next class. However, the girl with the red eyes, Tatenashi, decided to drag him to her next class, adding along the way that she was the school president, and that Yamada-sensei would be okay with it. She even said that he would be able to learn more about the IS in this next class. Shalnark could only expect so much from taking a course from a girl in a grade above.

"So how you first school day?" Feitan asked.

"About as good as your Japanese," Shizuku replied casually. Feitan cursed back at her in Chinese, causing Franklin to intervene and break up the dispute.

"A bit difficult. It's like a Greed Island scenario that keeps you from moving around." Shalnark replied after things had settled down at the other end. He had dialed Feitan after arriving at his five-star hotel room of a dorm, and was searching for information on the IS over the internet. "I attract unnecessary amounts of attention without trying because I'm only one of two boys here."

"I thought you in school. Instead, you go party in Lust Island."

"I wish it was that much of a party." Shalnark sighed. "The school council's president has red eyes and sparred with me today while telling me about the IS."

"You no lose, so still party in Lust Island."

"Actually, I lost."

"What?"

"Just kidding," Shalnark laughed, "Though she's quite skilled at martial arts for a human without Nen."

"…you say she has red eyes?"

"Her eyes are a darker shade and she's a far cry from Kurapika, from what we've seen of him through Paku. It might just be a coincidence."

"Be careful."

"I'll keep that in mind," Shalnark turned to the other male in the school, "Hey Ichika, want to speak with a friend of mine?"

"Oh, okay." Ichika replied wearily. Shalnark handed him the phone; Ichika was so tired that he wouldn't be able to catch it. The bruises he sustained looked like they had resulted from combat more than any kind of studying from a book, in a similar case to Tatenashi sparring with Shalnark in the gym. "Hello?"

"Hey! You other guy in girl school? What name?"

"Uh, I'm Orimura Ichika." He replied, clearly feeling awkward at the realization that the other guy was not very fluent in Japanese, "Nice to meet you."

"Feitan," the interrogator introduced himself. "How school?"

"Uh, there are a lot of girls here…"

"Any one you like?"

"Well…"

"Okay. Give back the phone."

"Here," Ichika handed the phone back to Shalnark. "Your friend is really something."

"They're pretty weird people, I know." Shalnark said. "But they mean well." He held up the phone to talk to Feitan. "Hello?"

"Have fun in Lust Island, lots fun." Feitan said lewdly. "Go stick antenna right up their-"

Beep. Beep. Beep.

"Bastard hung up on me!" Feitan cursed on the other end of the line in Meteor City.

Shalnark used Gyo to view Ichika's battle with Cecilia, hoping that either one or both of the cores would contain the God's Letters necessary for him to return home. Unfortunately, neither boasted God's Letters; he would have to search for another IS that had one.

Ichika's preparation consisted solely of moderately intense kendo training, meaning his time spent on the machine was effectively nil. Shalnark may actually have to battle. He could use Nen to force the Uchigane to adapt to him. It would then optimize him for battle conditions, amplifying his Nen output. Then he could transfer his Nen to the IS's engines for sudden speed boosts, as long as it didn't overload the engines.

The match had ended. Ichika had lost. Worse, Cecilia's shields were still full, and she was simply waiting for her Equalizers to be repaired. Shalnark frowned as he took out an antenna. Sticking it somewhere inconspicuous was going to be difficult, especially considering he was wearing a skin-tight suit (and in no way was he going to stick it down his pants).

He steeled his nerves for the pain that would follow after Autopilot and walked into the hangar.

Cecilia Alcott had won the match against Orimura Ichika. But rather than being proud and haughty, she was entirely confused.

She was confused for a good reason. Ichika's sword had almost reached her, but somehow, his shields were emptied seconds before he was able to score that hit. Not to mention that previously, he was only fighting with initial settings for his IS.

Regardless, he as good as won the match. But she still had another match to go, against the other boy who came from no country: Shalnark. She still wondered what special power of his forced her to submit to his conditions. He proved that he was strong without doing anything at all. But that made her all the more curious of what exactly his strength was.

She felt cold to her stomach.

Shalnark flew out in his Uchigane. But the Blue Tears was detecting an energy output that no training unit could ever hope to accomplish! It was above even a third-generation unit such as her own!

And his hair, a smooth bowl cut before, was now spiked aggressively. He was staring directly at her, completely focused on defeating her. As interested in him as she was, she started to feel fear in this boy, not unlike when he had given her his conditions.

Could her cannons damage him? What about her drones?

The match began. She looked square at the Uchigane and fired. As intimidating as his energy output proved to be, it should go down with enough shots.

He disappeared from view. She gasped as he shot above her line of fire and, conjuring a rifle, began to fire nine shots of his own.

All nine rounds were headed directly towards her face.

She dodged narrowly and fired back. "You…you dare aim at the face of a beautiful girl such as myself?" At least Ichika was polite earlier and aimed for her torso.

He didn't respond, and kept firing, and closing the gap between them. His grip was tight on his rifle; in no way was he thinking about switching to a short-ranged weapon.

What was he up to? She never thought this would happen before, but her aim was shaky. Was it due to the influence of this boy or the sheer energy output of everything he was doing?

In any case, if he observed the bazookas the Blue Tears boasted, he should know that closing in would be a mistake!

But he closed in anyway, and then his face was only a few feet from hers'. She blushed as he looked at her with those resolute eyes.

The bazookas fired. She hit him. A clean shot. It should have blown him away and ended this match in her favor.

But he clung to her waist with two arms and no weapon. And he was out of range of her rifle and bazookas. The next thing she knew, she was facing the sky and accelerating downwards at a rapid rate.

This was his plan from the start! A dive bomb!

The only thing she could do was direct the drones to fire at his backside in hopes that she could deplete his shields to end the match. But the drones only caused her to accelerate downwards at a faster rate.

She saw his face, so close, and so determined…

CRASH!

"Ending the match. Winner – Shalnark Dunois." Later, while Cecilia Alcott would giggle in amusement at her two competitors settling their bout with a coin flip, "Shalnark Dunois" would twitch in excruciating muscle pains while wondering how he had ever been given that name.

A/N: The title's purpose is mostly to exhibit Hunter x Hunter's titling style. While it does imply pairings, to warn you ahead of time, this will not be developed. They most likely will be in the sequel, however, provided said sequel materializes.

The Japanese pronunciation of "Shalnark" is "Sharunaku". The Japanese pronunciation of "Charlotte" is "Sharurotto".