Disclaimer: I do not own HunterxHunter, nor do I profit commercially from these writings. I do own Lucian, though. Hohoho!
Lucian's Story Part 2
MISCALCULATION
He didn't know how this came about.
Kuroro Lucifer thought Madame Sforza was just taunting him. He thought she had simply pulled a very convincing act just to tease his legs in her extremely horrid style, like she always did years ago when he was younger and—dared he say—more gullible. Five years had passed since Madame Sforza had confronted him and thrown the warning to his face, and nothing happened to Lucian. He had been as obnoxious as ever, meddling with his family's affairs incessantly and stumbling into troubles left and right.
A major flaw: he forgot how the concept of time was rather irrelevant to the long-living Solomonar witches. How they usually forgot to consider mentioning time into their conversation.
Just as he relaxed and let his guard down, IT happened.
One time he was sipping his hot chocolate in his living room. The next thing he knew, he was mobilising his entire Spiders to the direction of the Hiera Sedes; the capital for the most influential religion in the world that called themselves Ordo Novum Lumen—The Order of the New Light, shortly called The Order.
How dare they! He seethed, mind burning with rage and fury. He had to keep clenching and unclenching his hands to avoid inflicting collateral damage. His dark eyes were burning as he glared at the towering spires of the citadel, standing arrogantly up the hill in the distance.
It was during this kind of moment that Kuroro was pretty sure his eyes would be blazing scarlet if he was a real Kuruta like Kurapika.
He initially had objections to the children coming along, but they convinced him of their use in this operation. Besides, the children were no longer snivelling brats. They were fully-functioning, perfectly-capable little soldiers; including even the twins although they had yet to awaken their Nen. They wanted dibs into this bloodshed, and Kuroro Lucifer granted their wish. It was well within their rights, as Lucian was family.
As for Kurapika, Kuroro didn't even bother trying to tell her to stay home. The mere notion was ludicrous.
So here she was, standing like a shadow behind the silently seething Kuroro Lucifer. Kurapika stared at his back, but her eyes kept dropping to Kuroro's hand. To the ring. She licked her dry lips, trying not to imagine that Kuroro's incandescent anger was influenced by the ring. It was only rightful for Kuroro to be as furious as he was right now. If she was in Kuroro's position, she would have stormed the place herself as well. At least Kuroro had backup and reinforcement. She only hoped that the ring wasn't eroding his sanity any more than it already was.
She did come for the rescue, but her primary motif here was to keep an eye on Kuroro. The ring unnerved her. Kuroro wasn't a man governed by emotion. If anything, he kept a tight control on his emotions and wasn't very liberal in showing it. At the same time, he was very very scary when he was angry.
Kurapika recalled Lucian's story of when she had been captured and tortured by the Mammon. He had told her in great details about how Kuroro had mobilised the entire Spiders to basically obliterate the whole organization in order to rescue her and for retribution. As much as it flattered her that he would go so far to help her, she never failed to cringe at his willingness to commit genocide. It scared her even more that this exact scene; Kuroro standing over and glaring at the building with someone standing behind him to keep an eye on him, was the exact mirror of what happened before Kuroro annihilated the entire Mammon group.
She found it ironic that this time the position had changed. This time, it was her who was keeping an eye on Kuroro while he was in a mission to rescue Lucian.
"How?" She asked with quiet voice. Goofy as Lucian was, he was no pushover. No ordinary people—Nen users or not—could hope to capture Lucian; much as how near impossible it was to capture Kuroro Lucifer.
Kuroro stopped clenching his fists and forced himself to relax his grip.
"The kids…" He whispered through gritted teeth. "He was protecting the kids."
"Dad! Dad! Please!" The children and Bast flew into the house in a flurry of feathers (evidently from Meta's Daemon-Nen transformation) and wisps of black smoke (evidently from Bast's transformation). They were all a mess; blood all over them. Even Bast looked harried.
"Why the kids?" The blood in Kurapika's veins froze. What did The Order want with her children?
My apologies. They heard me. Bast murmured apologetically; her tail curled and her ears flat against her skull.
"Bast. They heard her talking with the kids."
Kurapika paled even further. Bast, a talking black cat. The Order had thought the children were in league with the devil.
"Lucian presented himself to distract them from the kids." Kuroro continued quietly, with a burning hiss of fury in the undertone.
"The presence of a mature vampire. An immediate danger." Kurapika whispered in horror.
It was the Crusader. The fanatic sect of The Order… Bast hissed, her fur bristling slightly.
"It was during daylight."
Kurapika flinched. She had seen what sunlight could do to Lucian. Granted that he had the special sunscreen, but there was a limit on how long it would last. And a mature vampire operating in broad daylight must have driven The Order into frenzy.
"…How is Bia?"
The question took her by surprise, and Kurapika bit her lower lip. She hadn't been there when the children had come back home in panic. After feeling a great disturbance in Kuroro's Nen inside her that alerted her that something profoundly wrong had happened, Kurapika had rushed home. When she reached home, the first thing she noticed was the children.
Meta had a wild look in his Scarlet Eyes. Sarai was almost hysterical as she clung desperately to Noah who was carrying her like a bolster in his arms. Even Noah himself looked shaken, but there was an underlying rage underneath those blank black eyes. But Bia…
"What happened?!" Kurapika yelled anxiously as she burst into the living room unceremoniously.
Kuroro was in the process of questioning Bast, who was the only coherent one. When he noticed her, he looked up and gestured at Bia while uttering one word with very grave tone that made Kurapika flinch:
"Lucian."
Kurapika snapped her gaze towards Bia, and her heart promptly skipped a beat when her eyes landed on the girl.
An empty shell. Bia had looked so empty and hollow it broke Kurapika's heart. For a split second, she saw the little emaciated girl hanging in the preservation tank of Bensalem. But that wasn't all. She had half her white hair painted purplish red—Lucian's blood had a slightly purplish tint to it, although it was only noticeable at close inspection—and her eyes were bloodshot on the edge of her sclera. The front of her white dress was soaked in that very same blood, that it looked as if Bia had been showered by a gallon of Lucian's blood. The thought turned Kurapika's blood icy cold in her veins.
"What happened?" Kurapika asked again, voice soft and gentle and afraid. She was afraid of the answer. There was just so much blood. Too much blood.
Kuroro had opened his mouth to reply to Kurapika, but a fainter voice interrupted him.
"….cian…"
All eyes zoomed in on Bia. Kurapika's eyes widened even more. Had Bia just…?
"Bia?"
"..Lu…cian…."
Bia was speaking. With her own voice.
"Bia—"
"…Lucian…" This time, her hollow eyes shifted to meet Kurapika's. "…Lucian…"
"Bia? What's—"
"…Lucian—"
Suddenly, the girl sprung to life and made a run toward the door.
"NO!" Meta screamed as he lunged for his adopted sister. He wrapped his arms around Bia's waist and tried to pull back.
"LUCIAN! LUCIAAAAN!"
"NO! BIA, NO!" Meta tried to scream above the hysterical shrieking of his sister. "YOU CAN'T GO THERE! BIA STOP!"
"LET GO! LUCIAN! GO! SAVE HIM!" Her voice was rough from disuse, and that disuse gave her voice a strange pitch that made everyone cringe.
"YOU'RE INSANE! IT WAS YOUR FAULT!" Resentment. Blame. "DON'T MAKE IT WORSE! STOP IT, YOU IDIOT!"
"What's going on?!" Kurapika whirled around to question Kuroro, but the man had dashed past her to help his son restraining the hysterical bloodied girl.
Kuroro grabbed Bia by the back of her head and slammed her bodily to the floor. It was the same technique that he had used on Kurapika when she had gone hysterical when the half-dead Shalnark had informed her that four-year-old Meta had been kidnapped in York Shin.
"Bia, calm down!" Kuroro barked at her harshly.
Bia's face made a violent impact with the hard floor, and it did calm her down. She lay on the floor, dazed and in pain. And then she wept.
"Lucian…my fault…because of me…Lucian, he…Ooh…I'm so sorry…So sorry…I should have….He…for me…ooh…oooooh….aaah—"
But her weeping soon escalated into an even worse hysteria. She thrashed around frantically, her Nen flaring uncontrollably that it burned Kuroro's hands and Meta had to retreat to safety. She cried and cried and cried and shrieked.
"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHH!"
In the end, Kuroro had to inject her with a tranquilizer that had enough dose to knock out a mammoth. Normally he wouldn't have done that; he would rather allow the children to let out their frustration and anger before dealing with it calmly, but Bia was of no sound mind at that very moment. In fact, Kuroro knocked her out cold after Bia had screamed her throat dry to the point that it bled.
"She has calmed down, but she refuses to leave Aranha's cockpit. She also insists that she takes part in this mission through Aranha. Heen is monitoring her remotely." Kurapika said quietly.
Kuroro made a soft grunt, and turned back to glare malevolently at the Order's headquarter. Kurapika observed him again for a while, before she reached out and put a hand on his arm. She was greatly pleased and relieved when he laid his other hand on top of hers and squeezing it gently in reassurance. That meant Kuroro was still in control.
"Are you sure this is wise, Kuroro?" Kurapika could feel Kuroro narrowing his eyes in displeasure, so she hurriedly elaborated; "you might instigate a full-scale war here. The Order is equivalent to a government."
"Then let them come and we will take them on." Kuroro said coldly. The Spiders had taken down governments before, albeit of small countries.
"Kuroro, The Order is almost as influential as the Hunters Association!" Kurapika hissed as she turned to face him full front. "There must be a more subtle way! Just as you have your demons," Kurapika threw a baleful glare at the Solomon Ring, "the Holy Saint has his angels and the Holy Knights are equivalent to Nen-users Hunters! I also know of the truth behind the Ancient Holy War!"
Kuroro glared at her, and Kurapika hesitated for a second before barrelling back at him.
"Yes, Anansi told me! He told me that it was caused by the Solomon Ring, by the Fourth Master of the Solomon Ring. 'Consumed by grief and the need for retribution at the loss of loved ones, the Fourth Master of the Solomon Ring instigated a war against the world, becoming the enemy of the world and killing a third of the world population. In the end, he was defeated, but not by the humans. His body and mind were consumed by the Ring, devoured by the demons.' That was also why the Ring ended up in Ishtar's hand for the next few centuries. Anansi told me all that!"
The Ancient Holy War was a major part of the world history. The Ordo Novum Lumen was created during that war, and history said that the Order defeated the man and restored order; hence the name. Since then, the Order had become the most influential religion in the world. However, the victor wrote the history book. It was always a one-sided history, with the fact bent to the victor's convenience. The Order did NOT defeat the man. The man had been consumed by the demons who were feeding on his grief.
"Kuroro, please…" She gripped Kuroro's arms tighter. "We might win this war, but the possibilities of the casualties… You are willing to lose your Spiders? How many Spiders? The children? Ryuusei-gai?"
By principle, Kurapika did not do puppy's eyes. However, somehow she managed to pull a very earnest expression that could soften Kuroro's hard expression a tad. Kurapika then proceeded to rub his arms gently.
"Meta can help. He's very versatile, his deamons are various. He has some that can alter memories, devour memories. Bia has Aranha and Heen has Beast, they can hack into the Order's system and, I don't know, do something with it."
Kuroro sighed resignedly.
"Fine. But whoever gets in the way," Kuroro made a clicking sound with his tongue and a feral lopsided grin that sent shivers down Kurapika's spine, "gets eliminated."
Kurapika chewed her lower lip, but finally conceded.
"Fair enough. Just make sure Shizuku cleans up all evidence."
The grin grew wider, and more sadistic.
"With pleasure."
Author's Note: If you notice, the Order is equivalent to the Roman Catholic Church and Hiera Sedes is equivalent to the Vatican in Rome, while the Holy Saint is equal to the Pope. I have nothing against them, really. However, perhaps this is something like a commentary on how even the most religious organization in the world is also guilty of having fanatics in their organization that are very very judgemental and think they are better than the rest of the world and be very self-entitled and treat others like shit. I am a Christian, but I don't condone this whole stupid judging-other-people-based-on-their-religion thing. Just because you're a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim or Jewish or atheist or whatever else, does not automatically make you a better person unless you show it in action.
And poor Lucian...