The sights and scents of midnight could not reach Killua as he whisked through the blurs of objects both animate and inanimate alike. He was running, although he did not know or care of his final destination; he would race until the explicit images poured from his eyes and could no longer apprehend his thoughts and the morbidly painful words ceased their heinous echoing in his ears.

There was perhaps no escape, although even the panic-stricken second he'd managed to borrow in order to wonder so could not halt his desire... no, his need… to continue on. Could he truly never find peace or freedom from his past? Would it chase him forever and devour him once he was breathless and weary?

You are incapable of friendship…

Perhaps fate was real after all, and the fates had decided that come hell or high water, he should be Killua Zoldyck… and that one cannot outrun their fate no matter how adamant one insists on being against it. For what good is running really if one was under water all along, drowning in one's inescapable destiny?

'Idiot…' his mind scolded him. 'I'm an idiot to have ever believed in-…'

As Killua opened the bedroom door, he was instantly paralyzed by the unmistakable image of his eldest brother. His eyes widened in shock, and the familiar sensation of cold sweat enveloped him. So frightened of the unexpected appearance of Illumi was he that he even failed to really observe the situation right away.

'He's here,' was all that the boy could fathom. 'Illumi is here.'

Yet the man did not look at him during this time for even a moment. Instead he was focused below him…

…on a writhing and fully exposed Misaki, who also seemed unaware of Killua's presence from her half-shelter beneath the sheets.

It was only then, when confronted with the realization that the girl he had fallen for was completely bared in front of his eyes, did he understand that Illumi was unclothed also. He seemed frozen in time above the girl, and after a minute or two he finally spoke to her.

"Perhaps this is a bad idea…" he suggested flatly, not bothering to lower the volume of his voice.

The plum haired girl let out a desperate wail and grasped his arm with her fingernails.

"Don't… you can't… like this?' she cried out in a slur, panting heavily enough to skip words unintentionally.

Killua did not want to watch this. He did not want to hear any of this. It had not truly sunk in precisely what he was seeing and hearing yet, but he did not want to… Still somehow his body refused to obey his authority and stayed, absorbing the scene wholly.

"You might be using me," Illumi explained hollowly, "and thinking of someone else."

Misaki shook her head violently.

Towering over her in a position more of power than of passion, he said, "Then tell me my name."

She did so, on loop, in a voice that was so sultry and almost deliriously pleading that even in his odd stupor, it physically hurt Killua to hear. It was only then that Illumi finally glanced up at his younger brother, his eyes depthless as ever. Then, he obliged the girl's begging… right there in front of him… Meanwhile leaving Killua to understand this agonizing message that Illumi had somehow discovered that he had become fond of Misaki and that in the end he was not allowed to love…not her, and not anybody else…

When it was finally over- after minutes, hours, perhaps days… Killua did not know- Misaki rolled away from Illumi on to her stomach. Her cosmetically made up face was dewy and sweat-stricken in the aftermath, and faint, unsteady streaks of black reached down from her eyes to her cheek bones. The eyelids lifted, initially only halfway, and her amber irises seemed to lock on to him after a few hazy seconds of aimless wandering.

Jolting suddenly, her chapped mouth fell partially agape and her eyes nearly bulged from within her skull.

"K-Killua?" she gasped out in utter disbelief.

This broke the spell which rendered his limbs useless, and his body caught up to his rushing mind. Spinning on the ball of his foot, the silver haired boy dashed from the room and then from the house.

"Wait!"

…But no, he would not wait. Not anymore and perhaps never again…

The myriad of excruciating emotions which had initially fueled his physical body to access its flight response now appeared to be hindering its performance. He found himself plagued by it as he began to analyze the scenario rather than simply react to it, and in a moment he could only categorize as pure weakness he threw himself helplessly on to the grass below with his pale face down in to the dirt. His heart pounded and knocked against his ribcage as he gasped for breath at an alarming rate, all the while limply outstretched on the ground.

'Misaki…'

She had lied to him.

She knew Illumi.

She had probably always known Illumi.

And she had lied to him.

Maybe about everything…

His body shook and trembled as though it was weeping vigorously, but no tears came. He had believed her… believed in her… and it was all a lie. Her name might not even be Misaki. Her parents might not have been bandits. She might have never run away from home. There was a possibility that she was not even an Archaeological Hunter…

'Idiot,' he scolded himself inwardly once more.

"Idiot!" he hissed aloud this time between panting breaths.

Clad in only an aged and tattered navy blue robe that she had managed to snatch from the hook behind Haku's bedroom door on her way out, Misaki stood at a fair distance from Killua's collapsed and quivering body. Seeing the boy, his expression stunned and wounded, in the doorway following her and Illumi's excursion had sobered her up enough to chase after him. Now he had stopped and there was a definite opportunity to approach him, and yet she found herself unable to do so.

Perhaps she would have been unconditionally embarrassed about the situation if she had considered it at the most primal level. However, all she could see was the pale boy's frail remainder of sanity at stake, and quite simply all she knew was that she cared- and she cared a lot. She yearned to comfort him, and in her mind the agony that had been so evidently reflected in his face had assured her indefinitely that she had overstepped her bounds.

'He's a child,' she reminded herself. 'This is wrong, Misaki; he is a child and you are an adult. Do not over-analyze your emotions this way…'

"Killua…" she whispered, her legs having taken her to him all on their own amidst her impressions and musings.

He ignored her, though his body cringed slightly at the sound of her voice.

"Killua," she started again, feeling uncharacteristically vulnerable, "I'm-…"

The boy mumbled something to cut her off, though she could not understand the words.

"Pard-…?"

"Who are you?" he asked, clearer this time, using his elbows now to prop him partially up and absorb his weight. The tone was cold and generally numb sounding.

She shook her head slowly, uncertain how to respond.

"Are you Misaki Tanoh?" he questioned in a slightly more accusatory voice.

She nodded once, ever so slightly.

"Are you an Archaeological Hunter?"

Lowering her gaze, she bit the inside of her bottom lip.

"No," she replied almost inaudibly.

"You're not Satotz's friend, are you?"

She hesitated again, but ultimately shook her head.

"I see…"

His eyes lifted to meet her stare now, cold and empty. Still, there was a level of danger and malice to them that Misaki could not deny. She held each muscle still as he examined her quietly.

"You're Illumi's puppet then," he decided. "He just wanted you to help him get to me, right?"

"Killua," the girl objected with slightly more vigilance, "I did not consciously have anything to do with-…"

"You're a liar," he said darkly.

Bowing her head in shame, Misaki murmured, "Why would I tell you the truth now if-…"

"Here's the truth," he growled under his breath, rising to his feet with his eyes concealed within the tips of his forward tipped hair. "I hate you both."

He dashed away from her, stopping only as she made a single motion to move after him.

"If you follow me," Killua explained callously, not bothering even to call over his shoulder as he spoke, "I'll kill you."

He disappeared through the small rush of flora.

A droplet on the back of her palm woke Misaki from her vulnerable incapacitation of willing movement. She lifted her hand nearer to her face in order to examine it, only to have a second and then a third moist little bead fall upon the flesh. Touching her second knuckle to her eye, she was surprised to confirm that the wetness was in fact that of tears and indeed coming from her.

The evening breeze blew through her already disheveled hair, and she rotated her hands, opening her fists before her as if examining her hands could reveal to her the answers to the questions she could not properly form amongst her chaotic tangle of thoughts. Instead she simply surrendered to catching teardrops in her palms until she could no longer resist the urge to hug herself tightly and submit to the understanding that in reality there was no loophole to her existence, not really.

She was alone, and perhaps fate had decided this path for her long, long ago... and even at the expense of others it was persistent in demonstrating so.

A/N: Originally when I planned out this part of the story, I did not have Illumi play such an active role and rather simply had Killua catch them off guard. When I was thinking about it, though, I had a hard time having Illumi being aware of Killua's attachment to Misaki and not taking advantage of his perceived weakness. Hopefully nobody was too offended by this chapter, but it's not over yet.