Disclaimer: I don't own HunterXHunter. I am not making profit off of this story.

A/N: The holidays are over and midterms are coming up! And the SATs! Ahhh! D8 Well, here's January's update!

Hope is a waking dream.

XXX

The sound of a crackling loudspeaker woke me immediately. Kurapica was already up, folding his blanket and organizing his belongings, while Leorio sat up from his seated position beside me, looking groggy.

"To all passengers… We are ready to land."

Now fully alert, I quickly folded my blanket and peered out the window. We were quickly approaching what appeared to be a large, smooth pillar.

We landed on top of the flat surface of the tower, and the examinees were led out.

"You are here at the Shrewdness Tower," Netero explained. "This is the location of the third trial. Concerning the trial itself, here are the jury's expectations: within a 72 hour time period, you'll need to get to the bottom of this tower."

He got back on the blimp, and we watched as it began to fly away. "May the trial begin! Good luck!" the loudspeaker blared.

I walked over to the edge and peered over cautiously. "There aren't any windows," I observed.

"So climbing down is out," Leorio said. "Hey, would you be able to do that snappy-thingy of yours and make it down?"

I fidgeted. "I don't think so," I admitted. "It takes quite a bit of my stamina to maintain my nen, and I don't want to suddenly run out in the middle. If the tower were shorter, maybe I'd be able to, but at this point I don't want to risk it."

"Oh, there's a man climbing down!" Kurapica noticed, pointing.

I was astounded. I had no idea even a professional rock climber would be able to scale the wall like that. It wasn't as though there were many grips.

Suddenly, large, monstrous birds came out of nowhere and began to attack the man. "Gyaaa!" he screamed, losing his grip.

Automatically, my arm raised and I snapped my fingers, preparing to jump off the edge. At the last second, I was tackled to the ground and the air was knocked right out of my lungs.

"Kurapi—get off!" I wheezed, struggling to push him off me. "Leorio, make him st—no, no, why are you helping him?"

The two older, stronger boys refused to yield.

"You can't go down!" Kurapica snapped. "Those things will eat you alive!"

"How would you know?" I demanded, slapping one hand against his chest and shoving. Leorio grabbed my arm and forced it back down.

"Use your head!" Leorio blustered. "The moment those birds appeared, that guy was a goner!"

Footsteps echoed next to my ear and I paused in my escape, glancing up at the forms of Killua and Gon, who had curiously wandered over to see what the fuss was about.

"Che, you're too late, anyway," Killua commented casually. "The screams have already stopped."

"Kurapica, Leorio, what are you doing?" Gon asked, frowning. "It looks really funny. Are you wrestling?"

Dropping my arms like they were burning him, Leorio backpedaled faster than I believed possible. "We were saving her life, stupid!" he bristled, smoothing out his shirt fretfully.

Suddenly, I realized what a compromising situation I was in. Kurapica was sitting right on top of my stomach, hands on my shoulders. I had one arm propped up against his chest. I flushed, heat shooting into my cheeks. Kurapica also looked as though his head had caught fire, turning an impressive shade of red.

Scrambling to get up, we pushed away from each other immediately. "M-My apologies," Kurapica stammered, resolutely looking everywhere but my face.

I had trouble meeting his eyes. "N-no, it was my fault. Sorry for the trouble."

"Anyways," Leorio said loudly, attempting to dispel the sudden awkwardness, "going down the wall doesn't seem to be an option."

"Yes," Kurapica agreed, looking supremely grateful at the change in topic. "There must be a trap door that leads us inside."

For the first time since our arrival, I glanced around at the examinees, face still enflamed. I blinked. "Eh?"

"What's the problem?" Leorio asked.

"Shhh, I'm counting," I replied, inwardly numbering the people. "There are only 23 people up here."

"What?" Kurapica blurted. "That's only about half the original amount! There must be several hidden doors!"

Beside us, Killua rolled his eyes, nudging Gon. "Yeah, while you slowpokes were busy rolling around on the floor, Gon and I found some."

"More than some—we found a lot," Gon insisted, gesturing us over. He pointed them out. "There are five over here."

"Five doors, all close to the rest… I don't like this," Leorio expressed, folding his arms.

"Some might be traps," Kurapica remarked.

"Yeah, and it seems like each trap door only works once," Gon added.

That caught my attention. "How do you know?" I asked curiously.

"By chance, we saw somebody using a trap door at another place," Killua explained. "We weren't able to do the same because it was blocked. Gon and I have decided to each pass through one of these five doors."

"Even if it's a trap, no regrets," Gon said firmly. "What are the rest of you going to do?"

"It's fine for me, too," Leorio replied positively, and Kurapica and I nodded. "I was told luck is also a major factor in the exams."

"So who chooses first?" Kurapica asked.

Frenzied rounds of rock-paper-scissors followed, and soon we each stood by our respective doors.

"We'll go on the count of three," Kurapica instructed.

"So I guess this is goodbye for now," I said.

Leorio shrugged, giving a thumbs-up. "We'll definitely all meet again on the ground!"

"One, two, three!" we counted together, and jumped.

I landed on the floor neatly, hearing four identical thumps beside me. Incredulously, I stared at the faces of my four companions. It seemed we had all landed in the same room. Sheepishly, we laughed.

"What a short farewell," Kurapica murmured. He inadvertently caught my eye and reddened, quickly turning away.

"Well, yes," I agreed, still feeling somewhat awkward but doing my best to ignore the feeling, "but there doesn't appear to be an exit."

We looked around, and spotted a small pillar with five watches. There was a small sign above it.

Majority Ruling

For the five candidates: you'll have to reach your goal by following the majority's choice.

"I suppose we should put them on?" I suggested, picking one up and snapping it over my wrist. The boys followed suit.

A speaker on the side of the wall crackled. "All right! This tower contains numerous passages. Each one contains its own crossways. You can only move by following the majority's choice. It is impossible to move by the will of a single person. On that note, just fight well!"

At these words, a wall slid upwards to reveal a door. On the door read a sign: O Open. X Close.

"What a strange question," Leorio muttered, pressing the corresponding button on his watch.

We all pressed O and moved forward.

Almost immediately, there was another choice: O Right. X Left.

I grumbled, pressing the O button again. "How time-consuming."

When the results showed on the small black screen, Leorio began to object. "What? Usually, when presented with two paths, we choose the left, don't we? I don't feel comfortable going to the right!"

Kurapica shook his head at Leorio's simplistic logic. "According some behavioral studies," Kurapica explained, "it seems that when people are lost, they subconsciously choose to travel along the left path."

"Yeah, I've heard the same thing," Killua agreed.

"Wait," Leorio protested, "what you're telling me is the exact opposite of our results. What way did you choose?"

"Right!" Killua and Kurapica both said.

"Instinctively, we choose the left side," I said, "so there's a higher probability of the left side having a higher level of difficulty."

"Exactly!" Kurapica nodded.

Leorio began to mutter to himself crossly, though he was the first to begin walking to the passage. At the end of the corridor was a large, empty room with a platform in the center. There was no pathway to it—only an unending pit surrounding it on all sides.

"Look," Killua indicated, pointing to the other end of the room. There were five masked people in chains, waiting for us.

Even as we watched, the shackles of one clicked open and clanked against the floor. "At last I'm free!" the unfettered man exclaimed. "We are the jurors for the trial commission! Our mission is to fight against you. The matches are one-on-one fights, and each person can only fight once. Who goes first is up to you. You'll have to reach three victories if you want to go on!"

We stared at each other. One-on-one matches?

"The rules are extremely simple," the man continued. "Inside the ring, anything is allowed! There's no limit. You win as long as your opponent admits defeat! Do you accept this trial or not? O Yes. X No!"

"What?" Leorio asked. "Another obvious choice!"

Unanimously, we chose to go on.

"Alright," the man shouted. "I'm the first to go—choose who will face me!"

"Hm, I'll go," I volunteered.

"Are you crazy?" Leorio asked. "He'll crush you!"

"I have a lot of pent-up frustration," I retorted. "Besides, I want to see how they'll fight."

Kurapica folded his arms. "I seem to remember you having very little physical strength," he pointed out. "And if you get cut even a little bit, you just might bleed to death."

"Ah, that's right!" Leorio exclaimed, nodding frantically. "You're a hemophiliac. That settles it—you aren't going!"

I rolled my eyes. "Hey, I'm the best person for this—I have good defense, remember?"

Before either boy could argue back, a thin pathway emerged from our side of the wall to the platform. I frowned at the narrowness of the trail, but made my way towards the center as my opponent did the same.

When we had both met at the center, he spoke. "For the fight itself," he said, "I propose a fight to the death!"

"Absolutely not," I replied immediately, not even bothering to think. "I don't feel like killing you."

He frowned, seeming irritated that I believed I could kill him. To be honest, I wasn't sure I could. "Well, how about this—a fight to the death or until one of us gives up."

I tilted my head to the side, considering his offer. "And anything goes?"

"Anything inside this platform is allowed," he agreed.

"Alright," I consented. "I accept."

He laughed sinisterly, shifting into a fighting stance. "Let's go!" he roared, rushing towards me.

"Whoa," I yelped, throwing myself out of the way. I did several backflips in a row, and he pursued me to the very edge of the platform.

"Take this!" he shouted, throwing a fist at me.

To dodge, I skidded backward, stepping right off the edge of the platform.

"HAAAAaaaaah?" the man asked, clearly bewildered. He probably expected me to fall to my death or something.

"Phew, that was close," I said. "You're faster than you look."

From the side of the room, the loudspeaker crackled to life. "Though that was an impressive display of skills, I must regretfully disqualify you."

There was a brief silence as everyone digested these words.

"…What?" I cried, throwing my hands up in the air. "Why?"

"Yeah, I don't mind her abilities," my opponent added hastily, crossing his arms.

"These people even said so!" I protested to the loudspeaker. "Anything is allowed!"

"They said 'inside this platform' anything is allowed," the voice corrected. "You are clearly outside of the ring. You're disqualified."

I glanced back helplessly at the boys waiting on the other end of the room. "Did they really say that?" I asked.

Leorio looked as outraged as I was. "I can't remember!" he bellowed. "But there was no rule against it! You can't just make up things like that!"

"We're the jurors," the voice from the loudspeaker justified. "We're only upholding the rules that were set."

"We can make exceptions!" my opponent defended me again, and I was beginning to get suspicious. Was he looking forward to a fight that badly or was it something more?

"Are you arguing with me?" the voice asked amusedly, and the man immediately backtracked.

"O-Of course not, sir," he mumbled.

I glared at him for being intimidated so easily. "I refuse to accept this!"

After a few more minutes of pointless arguing, Kurapica finally stopped me. "Arella, just come back—this is just a waste our time. It's fine as long as we win three matches."

I huffed angrily, snapping my fingers and stalking back to the group without waiting for the narrow pathway to appear.

As I approached the group, I saw that Killua and Gon were struck speechless, eyes bugging out as they watched me walk on thin air. They had missed my earlier explanations on nen during the first and second exams, and thus hadn't realized that I had a special ability at all.

"Wow!" Gon exclaimed, and walked right off the edge of the floor. Instead of floating like me, he began to plummet.

I shrieked, snapping my fingers furiously. In seconds, Gon was so incased by my air that he was probably having trouble breathing.

"Gon!" everyone shouted, resorting to anger now that he was out of immediate danger.

"Why on Earth did you do that?" Leorio spluttered, pointing a shaking finger. "Jeez, you trying to shorten my life or something, brat?"

"Why didn't I float?" Gon pouted, having only fallen a couple feet. "Arella's floating! I wanted to do it, too!"

"You… Don't do that," I gasped, hand on my heart. "This is my nen ability. My nen ability. Meaning you can't do it."

I helped Gon back up to the floor, shaking my head.

"Nen?" Killua asked curiously. "What's that?"

"I'll teach you later," I said dismissively. "Concentrate on making it through the exams, first."

He scowled, scuffing the floor with his shoe. "I'll hold you to that," he sulked.

"Right, that's enough," Kurapica said suddenly, staring intently at the men across the room. They had been having a whispered conversation, and as I couldn't hear, I hadn't paid attention. "I heard what they were saying over there—those people are actually convicted criminals. All they want to do is slow us down as much as possible, because for every hour they do, one year will be deducted from their sentences."

"You…could hear what they were saying?" I asked, astounded. Man, I really needed to brush up on my basic skills. From the looks of it, though, I wasn't the only one who hadn't been able to hear the conversation, which made me feel slightly better.

"If the only thing they want is to make us lose time," Killua said thoughtfully to me, "then it was a good thing your fight ended so quickly. That bald guy was probably an ex-soldier or something like that. He would have fought by hitting you so that you wouldn't be able to say that you quit. He probably would have slowly tortured you without killing you until the end of our time."

I paled, feeling slightly alarmed that Killua had been able to say all that without so much as batting an eyelash. "Wow, it's no wonder that my opponent was arguing with the loudspeaker dude," I remarked nervously, "if they wanted a long match. I don't feel quite as bad for losing, now."

"No, you should still feel bad about that," Killua replied bluntly. "I could've killed him easily."

I twitched. "Brat," I scowled, pulling him into a headlock. "Keep that up and I won't teach you nen."

"Argh, I got it—I got it," he griped, effortlessly escaping from my grip. "More importantly, who's going next?"

"Me!" Gon declared, waving his hand high in the air. "Let's finish quickly so that Arella can teach us how to fly!"

"I'm not going to teach you how to fly," I complained, but was ignored.

"Are you sure you want to go next?" Killua asked. "Shouldn't you be even more scared?"

"It's okay," Gon replied earnestly. "The next one doesn't seem that mean."

Kurapica sighed at the naïve answer. "Well, he's still a child…," he muttered.

Killua glanced over the criminal on the other end. "Yeah, don't worry—he's not a tough one," Killua claimed dismissively. "Go for it."

Gon nodded and dashed over to the platform in the center, greeting the criminal eagerly.

Let the match begin.