Disclaimer: I do not own HunterxHunter, nor do I profit commercially from these writings.
ABC Series
O is for Orphans
"We are both capable to be a Judas, Kurapika."
The stench of death was palpable in the air. So thick that it suffocated.
"We can be each other's Judas…"
The ground was slippery with all the gore and the spilled innards. Splattered brains, intestines, shattered bones, severed limbs, gouged eyeballs…
"I could have just captured you and sold you as the last living Kuruta to other collectors who are willing to pay for handsome amount of money…"
It was a disaster. They had always known that this might happen. Unlikely, but probable. It was infuriating and frustrating that they were still caught off-guard when it did happen. He should have known better. Should have been more prepared. Should have anticipated it to happen anytime. But he didn't. And now he was paying the price.
"You, at the same time, could have sold information about the Ryodan to other Hunters to help you get rid of us."
Their bodies ached. Some bones were shattered and broken, others fractured. Ligaments were torn, gashes tore through the flesh until bones were showing. Bruises coloured their skins, blood soaked their clothes. Their eyesight was blurred and tinted red with the blood that flowed from their head to their eyes.
"But we didn't."
But there were still mountains of corpses to walk through, decimated walls to pass. They needed to continue. Over there. He needed to see her. She needed to see him. They needed…
"And I don't think we will ever."
They cried. He cried because he thought that he had lost her. She cried because she thought she had lost him. He cried because he remembered the day he lost Ishtar. She cried because she remembered the day she lost her entire tribe. They cried because they survived. They cried because the children wouldn't be orphans. They cried…
"Oh God... Kurapika… I'm so glad…" He sniffled, graceless and heartfelt.
…because they hadn't lost each other.
"Shut up, you big baby… Shut up…" She sobbed haltingly, messy and grateful.
They clung to each other for life, desperately relieved. The dread still clung to them like a plague. The nightmares would visit them for nights. The paranoia would follow them for weeks and months. Even in their current feverish state of mind, they had started thinking of plans to enforce the secrecy of their existence. To erase their tracks. To ensure their invisibility. To make sure that their nice little quaint town they called home in the middle of the mountain would remain uncharted and lost to the world.
To make sure the same disaster wouldn't happen again.
To make sure nobody found out about the Kuruta anymore. To make sure that nobody would try to hunt down and kidnap Kurapika for her Scarlet Eyes again. To make sure nobody would ever know about the children and their Scarlet Eyes.
To make sure the information about the Genei Ryodan wouldn't leak anymore. To make sure they weren't hunted down for the bounty on their heads again. To make sure Kuroro wouldn't lose any of his Spiders more than he already did.
To make sure they wouldn't have to battle the entire army of the Underworld and blacklist Hunters again.
The children were running around excitedly, going over to each dead body to make sure that it really WAS dead. It was a grizzly sight, seeing the children poking at dead bodies, stabbing them in the heart and head execution-style to ensure the death. It was terrifying to see their innocent happy faces as they piled up the corpses and the scattered pieces of those carcasses and burned them bon-fire style. It was unsettling to see how the stink of burnt flesh and boiling blood didn't faze the children. It was disturbing to see how the children amassed the body counts happily as if they were counting their allowance.
But it was okay for now, because they wouldn't be orphans.
Around the burning bodies of their enemies that their parents decimated all by themselves, the children danced and laughed.
Author's Note: A very dark short chapter, tragic-romantic kind of chapter. Inspired from the conversation with bellissima-kirei. And no, they didn't betray each other. In case you didn't get it, Kurapika was kidnapped by the Underworld at the same time that an army of blacklist Hunters ganged up on the Genei Ryodan. So Kurapika had to fight her way through from the Underworld armies while Kuroro had to fight his way through the army of Nen-user to get to each other. Not sure if any of the Spiders died in this battle, though. It was a pretty massive battle, almost war-scale. And yeah, Kuroro Lucifer cried. I still remember how he cried for Uvogin's death, and even went as far as orchestrating a bloody requiem in his memory. Imagine what he would do for the death of Kurapika or one of his kids.
In the rush of writing a dark chapter, I almost made Kuroro or Kurapika lost a limb or two, or one of the children dead. When I realised what I was thinking, I was like "whoa, whoa! Stop right there! If I kill one of the kids, the readers would kill ME!"
And so nobody died here. Except for some few hundreds of thousands unimportant people. Mfufufu…
The title Orphans might have scared some of you, though. Maybe you thought this is the time when Kuroro and Kurapika would DIE! Leaving the kids as orphans! Naaah. Yeah it's mentioned that they almost became orphans, but I guess the 'orphans' here is also referring to the fact that Kuroro and Kurapika depend, rely, and need each other so much that if one of them die then the other would effectively be an orphan. It's more to the concept of losing the centre of your world, like how parents are the centre of a child's world. Kuroro and Kurapika are each other's centre of their respective worlds. The 'they' at the last sentence of the story could refer to 'the children' or 'Kuroro and/or Kurapika'.
Oh, and a reviewer asked me about who's older between Sarai and Noah. Hmmm I would say Sarai is older by few seconds or minutes. It's like Noah just let his sister get born first because that's just how he is; nice, selfless, and creepy ^^