One chapter in two years? That's not too shabby right?! Ahehe, very sumimasen *smacked*. I think I got a bit too preoccupied with school since I last left off and then got too ahead in the anime. (Also not gonna lie, the reviews of you guys saying how I have left makes me feel guilty and everytime I get an email about this story I want to pick it up but the fountain of ideas have been running a bit dry after two years.) Anywho, since I haven't written in a while, I hope this is up to scratch. I also hope everyone had a lovely holiday break and will have a great new year!
Lots of love, your [Kiri] author.
"Eh! How did that work?"
Gon watched wide-eyed as his petite friend transformed into a feline before his eyes in a little short of a second. "Let me see it again!"
"I think Kiri's too shy with so much attention on her," chuckled Killua, sitting cross-legged to the opposite of his fascinated friend. Kiri padded over to him and sat between his crossed-legs.
"This really is quite amazing, I've never heard of anything like this in my field before," Leorio commented, placing his chin between his fingers. "If we figure out how it works, science could be changed forever!"
"Hey, Kiri's not a research subject," the silver-haired boy replied, scratching the cat between her ears. Kiri's eyes flickered over to Kurapika sitting on the sofa nearby, but his expression was unreadable.
"I have so many questions!" Leorio sputtered. "Can she speak?"
The response was a mew.
"How long can she stay this way for?"
"As long as she wants." (Killua replied this time.)
"So she can just do this whenever she wants?" Gon reached forward and picked Kiri up gently. She licked the tip of his nose and he laughed. "Pretty handy isn't it?"
"Well, she was designed for assassination purposes, it's not like it was a coincidence."
The room was silent for a few seconds.
"Imagine if she was only partially cat," said Leorio, breaking the awkward silence. "Kinda like those cartoon girls with the ears you see late night on channel -". His sentence was cut short as a well-aimed book made contact with his head, thrown from the direction of the sofa.
"Hey! That was uncalled for!" moaned Leorio, rubbing his injured head.
"You're uncalled for," was the blonde-haired boy's reply.
"Now now guys, we still have 40 so hours to spend here, let's get along, right?" said Gon, trying to calm the pair down before an argument blew up. It's going to be a long 40 hours…He thought to himself.
10 hours later.
"Hey Gon, what do you have there?" questioned Killua, looking at his friend juggling a few unidentified objects at lightning speed.
"Oh this?" Gon stopped and one bounced off the top of his head. "I don't know, I just found it under the bathroom sink in a box. Looks kinda cool, huh? There's even a pin that I can pull out, let's see…"
Killua's face whitened as he recognised what the object was and threw himself on Gon to prevent him detonating the grenade blowing everyone in the room into smithereens.
"Do you not know what this is, Gon?! Were you raised on an island? This is a grenade!" Killua gathered up the offensive objects quickly before his friend could do any damage.
"Well I did grow up on an island…" Laughed Gon, rubbing the back of his head sheepishly. "What do grenades do though?"
"They make things go ka-boom!" Killua illustrated his point with hand motions. " I should find a safer place to put these."
Hearing the commotion, Kiri approached them. "What's happening?"
"This! This is what's happening," replied her brother, thrusting out his armful of bombs. "Gon found them somewhere."
"Well, the bathroom to be precise," Gon chimed.
Kiri tilted her head to a side. "Well, I didn't mention it but I did find a machine gun in the kitchen cupboard."
In the next hour, the group ransacked the whole apartment and ended up with a small pile of assault weapons and all things dangerous. Sitting in the fridge was even a highly poisonous plant found in the northern mountains, identified thanks to Gon's keen nose and Kurapika's intellect.
"It's almost like they want us to kill each other here," said Leorio.
"I think that's the point. The group of people that are together in the first place wouldn't exactly be 'comrades'. It's only natural that they want to kill each other to get rid of competition," Kurapika theorised. "Especially if one person caused them to be detained in this room." Everyone turned to look at Leorio.
"So… Good thing we're all friends, right guys?" Laughed Leorio nervously and slapping Killua in the back over-exaggeratedly causing him to cough.
"Please don't make me stay in the same room as this guy for another 30 plus hours," Killua muttered.
"Actually, I think there may be a way for us to get out of here."
This time, everyone turned to look at Kiri.
She turned, switched on the TV and started flicking between the channels.
"The CCTV cameras are off," commented Kurapika when the screen was supposed to show images of them, stayed black instead.
"Yes, the recording light is off," she pointed at a CCTV closest to them in the corner. "Since we've been in here, I noticed that they turn off for 1 minute tops at random intervals. They're turned off twice since we've been in here."
"Maybe it's for maintenance," said Killua.
"It could be. I took the second opportunity to squeeze through that vent over there and found out it leads to the outside of this room," she pointed yet again, this time to the vent above the TV.
"So what you're saying is that you could use one of these tools, say a bomb, to blow up from the outside and get out us," explained Kurapika.
"Exactly. Trouble is, I don't know when we'll next get a chance so we must all be ready. Also, I'm almost certain they can hear our conversations so we cannot talk about this when the CCTV is back on again."
"Having two hours to escape this tower isn't ideal," added Killua. "It seems like this is worth a shot." Even Killua was slightly surprised at this sudden plan. She didn't even mention anything to me about this although she could've, he thought to himself.
As soon as the words left Killua's mouth, the red light on the CCTV camera blinked back on.
"Let's just put these in a safe place," said Leorio, trying to act normal.
"Yes, I agree with that," said Gon, trying his best too. The two started picking up the equipment in an almost robotic manner which looks slightly conspicuous to the rest of the team.
Kurapika looked over to Kiri. She suddenly realised that it was the first proper eye contact they had since the conversation they had the previous night. However, right now, his warm brown eyes showed no signs of the deep discussion that they had had.
Kiri nodded. The plan was in action.