Author's Note: This was written for the 2023 Yorknew Art Auction: A Mini-Reverse Big Bang Event. This was based on an illustration by turtledotjpeg on Tumblr. To view the image, visit turtledotjpeg's Tumblr account or check the version of the story on Archive of Our Own (AO3 username: lemonpika).
Countdown to Seven at Hotel Beitacle
In the evening of September fourth, Melody finds herself hovering alone by a circuit breaker in the dimly-lit basement of the Beitacle Hotel. Time is barreling rapidly toward a new millennium, and her journey as a Music Hunter and now as a recently-appointed mafia bodyguard has somehow led her here.
Beyond the hotel's double doors, a thunderstorm rages. Rain pummels against the reinforced concrete and steel of the skyline of Yorknew City, while wind bends the trunks of trees and whistles through their leaves. The juddering flow of a traffic jam rumbles over slick roads.
Through the slash of rain and clap of thunder, Melody focuses every modicum of her attention on the radio transmitter in her fist. This handheld device, coupled with her curse of hypersensitive hearing, will keep her apprised of the occurrences in the lobby above her.
Her ears perk up as, amidst the snatches of conversation among hotel guests and receptionists, she hears the sounds she's been anticipating all this time — five fresh pairs of feet shuffling across the marble flooring. The footsteps of these new arrivals wander from the eastern to the western side of the lobby.
These must be Killua, Gon, and three of the Spiders keeping them in line. Since Melody has been tracking them down, she's familiarized herself to some extent to their aural profiles.
"Let's wait here," says a deep voice that's both attractive and authoritative.
There can be no question this voice belongs to the head of the Phantom Troupe himself. Toward the northern area of the lobby, where somebody dressed in the blazer-and-skirt combo of female receptionists awaits his opportunity to pounce, a heartbeat burdened with years of vengeance and misery nearly drowns out every other sound in the vicinity.
This symphony of fury is a thousand times more frightening than it was when Melody first encountered Kurapika. She shivers violently, as if she's stranded in the storm outside instead of huddled safe and dry inside.
Silently, she implores Kurapika to keep his bloodlust at bay. To his credit, he manages not to alert the enemies to his presence. He doesn't even break his cover to the unsuspecting hotel guest who's conversing with him about the merits of upgrading his reservation from a presidential suite to a penthouse.
As Kurapika's heartbeat slowly stabilizes into something resembling its baseline, which veers toward the erratic even on his best days, Melody's attention drifts southward. There, Leorio sits on one of the lobby couches and pretends to be engrossed in his newspaper. On the coffee table in front of him is a radio, which is tuned into a listener request show on the JFN station.
Leorio's heartbeat is also uneven, especially in comparison with his warm and uplifting baseline. This arrhythmic quality, Melody guesses, is not only rooted in the stress of the situation but is also indicative of the growing romantic and perhaps even sexual impulse sparked by the golden presence to his north.
Melody has previously detected these nervous notes whenever Leorio's eyes fall upon Kurapika. She speculates that Kurapika's feminine disguise, which affords generous glimpses of skin in contrast to his usual cultural garb, is further adding fuel to Leorio's fire. She won't be surprised to witness a full-blown conflagration from Leorio somewhere down the line.
It remains to be seen, of course, whether Kurapika will eventually reciprocate these burning feelings. He certainly isn't in a position at present to have any room left in his overcrowded mind for frivolous matters such as romance.
A frantic whispering in the lobby's western side rouses Melody from these musings. The muttering voice is familiar to her.
"Melody, can you hear me?" Killua whispers. "If you can hear me, give us a signal." After a pause, his voice turns desperate. "Melody! Please give us a signal!"
Based on the skittering of his pulse, it's evident that Killua's feelings of fear are far more prominent than anyone else's in the entire hotel. He surely wouldn't hesitate to bolt at the earliest opportunity. This revelation piques Melody's curiosity because she's assumed that being trained as an assassin from birth has long since accustomed the boy to life-threatening circumstances like these.
"Melody!" Killua murmurs with increased urgency.
Without wasting any more time, Melody presses the transmitter against her lips. Her thumb jabs the button to send her voice through the radio waves toward the earpiece hidden in Leorio's ear.
"It's time," she informs him with a firm tone. "Give your young friends a sign."
Even though her message has directly instigated it, the sudden amplification of Leorio's voice over the transmitter makes her jump. As planned, Leorio has commenced a heated conversation with an imaginary subordinate over his mobile phone. His script includes carefully-worded hints intended to tip off Killua and Gon to the amended details of their plan.
"What time do you think it is?" Leorio is yelling. There's a rustling as he refolds his newspaper and slaps it against the coffee table. "It's the Beitacle Hotel, you idiot! Not Bayloke! How the hell did you get it wrong?" At this point, he pauses. He must be looking around indignantly at everyone eyeing him, including his young friends and the Spiders subduing them. "Hmm? What are you starin' at? Want a piece of me, do you?"
"Shall we get rid of him?" mumbles a young woman's voice. That sounds like Shizuku. As expected from a member of the Troupe, her pulse doesn't fluctuate at all despite the deadly import of what she's suggesting.
At Shizuku's words, Gon's heart thumps more loudly than it has all day. He clearly feels more concern for the safety of Leorio and his other friends than his own.
"Ignore him," Chrollo tells Shizuku. "Look away."
Beside Chrollo, another young woman sighs. This must be Machi. Her heartbeat has been radiating anxiety since their separation from the other faction of Spiders traveling with them.
Even though Machi says nothing, Chrollo must sense how she's feeling. In a barely audible whisper, he tells her, "We're picking our battles tonight. Starting a fight won't make her return any faster."
Machi gives a resigned grunt in response.
"Hey, this isn't a show, people!" After hollering these words to the lobby at large, Leorio returns to his fake phone conversation. "What? I wasn't talkin' to you! Geez, with failures like you workin' for me, my future's about to get real dark! You think I'll just close my eyes whenever you screw up? Listen, you'd better get to the hotel by seven o'clock sharp! If you're even one second late, you're fired! Understood?"
Melody can only hope that Killua and Gon have gotten the message that they're planning to switch off the lobby's lights at seven o'clock to allow Kurapika to capture Chrollo with Chain Jail, as well as to enable the two boys to escape the clutches of the other Spiders.
Leorio ends the call now. There's rustling again as he picks up his newspaper and uses it to conceal his face, which is most likely shining with sweat. His heart is pounding just as loudly as Gon's and Killua's. Similarly to Gon, Leorio's anxiety for his friends' wellbeing seems to exceed his fear for his own.
This observation only reinforces Melody's resolution to assist this tight-knit group of friends as much as she can.
The sudden sound of a wrist cracking interrupts this sentimental turn of her thoughts.
Her own pulse roars in her ears as she assumes that the Spiders have somehow discovered their plan and have broken one of the boys' bones in retaliation.
Before she can fly up the stairs in a doomed attempt to save them, she swiftly realizes the true state of affairs. Killua must be testing if he can dislocate his joints in preparation for his strategy to slip out of his restraints and to free Gon from his own so that they can escape together under cover of darkness when the time is right.
Cleo, the disc jockey, chimes in on the radio at that moment. "It's time for the last song in this week's two-hour show. This one's a request from Chon-Chon in Yorknew. Before we have to say goodbye at seven o'clock, enjoy 'Moonchild.'"
The jazzy stylings of a saxophone follow.
Melody glances at her wristwatch. There are five more minutes until seven.
She prays for her four allies in the lobby to stay strong as the brass clock above the counter ticks slowly but surely toward that crucial point in time when the intertwined fates of all the characters involved in this conflict will inevitably change.
At three minutes to seven, three new players enter the scene in the lobby. The pulse of one is particularly ponderous. Its owner must be deep in thought about something significant.
This is Pakunoda, the mind-reader among the Spiders, isn't it? Has she learned the intricacies of Kurapika's identity from somebody in Nostrade? This can't be good.
Melody is itching to phone Basho. Regardless of the nature of the trouble, Miss Neon must be kept alive at all costs. Otherwise, Melody will lose her valuable placement at Nostrade, with all that mafia family's connections to flesh collectors and other black market connoisseurs. Hunting down the Dark Sonata is her top priority.
No, she can't worry about that just yet! She needs to concentrate on what's going on upstairs!
"There they are," Shizuku is saying now.
At the sight of the three new arrivals, relief neutralizes Machi's heartbeat, while panic quickens Killua's. He can't help a gasp from escaping his lips.
"Huh? You guys got caught again?" It's Nobunaga's gravelly voice speaking. "Heh, I get it. You changed your minds and decided to join us."
Notes of tenderness and grief offset the swordsman's brash manner of speech. Melody gets the sense that he might not be as irredeemable as some of his companions.
"We didn't know the mafia had canceled the bounties on your heads," Killua responds with remarkable composure. Only a sense of hearing as attuned as Melody's can detect the trembling undercurrent to his tone.
Amusement seeps into Nobunaga's voice. "So you failed at tailing us again? You never learn. But you know what? This must be fate. The two of you were meant to join the Troupe."
There are only two minutes left till seven. But can Killua keep his wits until then?
"C'mon," Nobunaga insists. "Let's be friends."
"No way." Killua's strategy is seemingly to maintain whatever inane conversation he can spin to hold the Spiders' interest and to keep Pakunoda from reading his and Gon's minds for as long as possible. "We were only chasing you people because of the reward. To be honest, we wish we didn't have to look at your faces. Hmph!"
"Me too!" Gon pipes up. "Hmph!"
They're taking advantage of this direction in the conversation to close their eyes so that the sudden darkness at seven won't incapacitate them even momentarily, aren't they? Melody has to smile at this realization. These two boys never cease to amaze her. They've succeeded in keeping their mental faculties intact despite the intense pressure looming all around them.
"Heh." Rather than being annoyed by the boys' antics, Nobunaga sounds as fond of them as Melody feels. "What do you think, Dancho? They're a piece of work, aren't they? They've got brazen impudence, just like Uvo!"
"They're only fearless because they're kids," Machi interjects. When Kortopi makes a soft sound of agreement, Machi forges on with the pivotal question. "Anyway, what's the Chain Bastard like?"
"Hang on," Chrollo cuts in.
The Spiders all fall silent, deferring to their leader's authority as he appears to contemplate for a moment.
In the ensuing quietness, Melody focuses on Chrollo's pulse, which is one of the most tranquil she's ever heard. The thrumming of his heart is entirely devoid of malice. While the rhythm occasionally flutters with mild curiosity in response to what Killua, Gon, or Leorio are doing or saying, he's scarily inscrutable otherwise.
This isn't the sort of sound she'd generally associate with somebody who's supposedly committed heinous crimes like large-scale robbery and genocide. Is Chrollo's serenity a side effect of his amorality?
"Before we get to that business," Chrollo says with perfect gentleness, "will you check the two boys again, Paku?"
"Sure," Pakunoda replies. "What shall I ask them?"
"What are you hiding? How about that?"
Melody's mouth goes dry. Chrollo has selected a question flawlessly formulated to net all the answers he needs from the boys. It not only gets right to the point but also encompasses multiple memories at once.
"And that was 'Moonchild,'" DJ Cleo says on the radio. "We're down to our last minute, dear listeners."
One more minute till seven! Just when they're this close to the end, the mind-reader might thwart their mission at the very last second!
"It's no use!" Killua exclaims in a transparent effort to stall. He can't fight the tremor from creeping into his voice this time. "You extract our memories by touching us, right? We have nothing to hide. And even if we did —"
There's a spluttering as one of the Spiders, presumably Pakunoda, seizes his jaw to snuff out the end of his sentence.
The DJ's voice is shockingly sunny when juxtaposed with the dire situation presently unfolding. "This week's letter is from 'I 3 Cleo.' Aww! Thanks!"
"We'll find out whatever you're hiding," Pakunoda says harshly. "Be quiet."
"Even if you did, we'd find some other way to stop you!" Gon fires back, only for his jaw to be grabbed in the same way.
"My thoughts exactly," Killua manages to enunciate despite the hand attempting to silence him.
From miles away, the DJ begins reading from the letter sent by one of the station's listeners. "Hi, Cleo. I enjoy your show every week. How old are you? What do you look like? What are your hobbies?"
There are more muffled sounds as Pakunoda seemingly tightens her silencing grip on both boys' faces.
When she speaks again, she sounds like she's gloating. "You're wrong about my ability. I extract the memories beneath your consciousness. I don't read your surface thoughts."
DJ Cleo lets out a scandalized gasp. "What's this, a dating game? I'm 24 years old, and everyone tells me I look like Holga, the model."
"My questions stimulate your memories," Pakunoda continues. "I bring them to the surface the way a stone thrown into a pond stirs up sediment. These are your original and unprocessed memories, and I scoop them out."
"However, my hobby is lying so take that with a grain of salt!" DJ Cleo adds cheekily. "Tune in again next week!"
"They're impossible to falsify." As Pakunoda finishes her explanation, the choking sounds coming from Killua and Gon further intensify.
Behind the newspaper, Leorio is growling with mingled anger and anxiety. Although Melody can empathize with what he's feeling, she fears he won't be able to resist leaping into action like she did earlier. If the Spiders keep tormenting his friends, he just might swing his fists to defend them.
DJ Cleo has one last thing to say before signing out. "At the tone, the time will be seven o'clock."
This is it. The radio commences a countdown of three beeps.
There's a popping noise as Killua succeeds in dislocating his wrists. Pakunoda, however, doesn't seem to notice. "It's time for you two to answer our question. What are you hiding?"
Pakunoda's gasp, as the boys' memories flood all at once into her brain, coincides with a high-pitched tone on the radio.
As the clock strikes seven, Melody flips the breaker switch. The lobby is pitch black in an instant.
Amidst the clamor of collective confusion, there's the clinking of metal as Kurapika raises his right arm in the direction of Chrollo, his target. He dispatches the chain from his middle finger at the speed of light. His left arm then sends a knife and a message in place of what was, a split-second ago, a person.