Hi everyone! Here is a short chapter because I really want to speed things along and get to Illumi and Psyche reuniting lol So I'm fast forwarding to the present timeline to the fourth phase of the hunter exam. Unfortunately, their reunion doesn't happen here, but but BUT! Psyche meets another psycho instead haha :D This chapter might be cursed. Just a little. Or a lot. Hisoka's in this one lmao Happy reading!

Chapter 17: Just Buried

"You're all I could think about."

There was a strange girl standing in front of Hisoka. Hisoka just dumbly stared at her, there was no one else around them nor anyone else she could be talking to, but him.

From head to toe she was dressed in black like a pretty grim reaper without a badge to her name. Fabric frayed at the edges of her clothes and salt water sprayed against her hair, as if she strayed farther from civilization than she would have liked. She isn't an applicant and though he has never seen her before, he has seen those eyes. Eyes that obsessively yearned to devour him and leave him trapped in the dark. Hisoka acquired all his badges to pass the fourth phase of the exam, now it was time for him to play. "You're not an applicant taking the hunter exam, are you? You would be very hard to forget."

She wasn't answering his question, perhaps he needed to ask ones she was interested in answering.

"What have I done to earn your affection, love?"

Psyche meant to shake her head, but something in her neck cracked instead. "This exam is sickening." She spilled everything. Her disgust over the hunter committee. Her exhaustion pursuing the applicant pool. Her weariness whilst avoiding wild animals and 'this close' to harrowingly catching more than she ever needed to know parasitic infections from not properly boiling river water. After leaving the swamp, Willow burrowed her into a pile of pig bones. It was enough to induce a heart attack thinking she was surrounded by Illumi's remains. After watching the committee blimp depart, Psyche diligently trailed them. Sprinting through the Forest Preserve past carnivorous pigs to scaling Split Mountain while fighting against the blistering winds to squatting outside Trick Tower watching men fall to their deaths until finally renting a dinghy and rowing herself to Zevil Island. Perhaps it was because she was devoid of human contact for weeks or because she was surviving off berries plucked from vines and chewing on medicinal roots like a child reared in the wild that made her delirious enough to crave any semblance of a conversation from any living things that didn't try to nip at her fingers or pluck her hair when she trying to sleep at night. Sleeping in a hollowed out tree with a family of owls wasn't the enchanting dream she thought it would be.

"Oh my. What a journey. You've done all of this… for me?"

Psyche's voice was shallow, strained and tired. "Even without a face, I saw you clearly in my mind and couldn't resist the curiosity of wondering who you were. In my days of solitude, you were there to keep me company and we have gotten so close, yet no nearer to becoming anything more than strangers. Still, I couldn't think about anyone else, well, I wouldn't allow myself to. I'll give you all my attention even past the point of making myself sick of it. I'm sorry, my sisters have told me I can be a bit obsessive."

Hisoka tapped his lips, sealing a smile. "Not at all."

"That's good." Psyche slowly breathed as she flipped open her knife. Dragging the metal point across the cold stone of boulders as the ear splitting sound pierced the air between them. "I had so much time to think about you. I want you. No, more than that. More than you could ever give me." The silver catching Hisoka's awed reflection. "I want your life."

"You flatter me, my dear." The ends of Hisoka's smile rose as she took gradual steps towards him. She wasn't the first girl to yearn for Hisoka's attention, but she was the first to track him down all the way to a deserted island and demand that he lay down his life for her. The slow killing poison of unrequited love. It was grimly original and left a sensual tart taste on his tongue. He'll definitely remember her long after this little tryst she hopes to spark with him ends. But could it be that this was the girl Illumi mentioned? Moments after Illumi buried himself in the earth, he reemerged, half awake with the stardust of deep sleep surrounding his eyes. He spoke of a girl, and without elaborating he laid back down among dirt and roots and black beetles to rest. Some girl was coming for him. Could this be her, spoken by the man Hisoka wanted for himself. Hisoka will let her reveal it all while he lies back and lets her control the reigns.

She looked impatient to put him in his place and he never ceased lusting to be entertained.

"Hisoka Morrow. You're going to die." Psyche's heart pumped with anger. Anger for those who weep at injustice. Anger for those who could never fight back. Anger for those who prayed with all their heart for revenge.

A searing hot shiver shot down Hisoka's spine. He wanted her to say it again. One more time. "Then may you permit a dying man one last question? What have I done to warrant your desire for my death?"

Her voice composed all the tenderness of the bane of a swarming plague. "You don't know what you did?"

"Might you help me remember."

"You hurt him." An accusation.

Hisoka furrowed his eyebrows together, waiting for her to finish. She didn't. "It seems that neither of us are shy to have a little fun, and I like to have a lot of it. You say I hurt him—your words, not mine—and you're here to hurt me. Verbatim." He paused, looking her down all the way to her knife. "It is not a crime when they set themselves up against someone to have more fun than they thought they could handle. But so much has happened recently, and if I did something to him and still don't remember him, well," his eyes pierced her like molten gold, "he wasn't worth remembering and a waste of my time. I do that alot, regrettably. I admit, it's something I need to work on." He smiled, with all the gentleness of a viper's kiss.

Psyche's frown deepened into a scowl. Men like Hisoka—drunk on bloodlust—kill for fun, but not for Psyche. Her eyes widened, without a shred of mercy to shine on him. "You cruelly attacked an unarmed man for show. You dismembered both of his arms and laughed. You ruined a man for pleasure. I could sense your aura once I landed on shore. It was pungent, unmistakable, like the smell of cheap perfume of a washed up performer desperate for attention. You weren't hard to find."

"You know how to make a man feel special." Hisoka put his hands on his hips, and smacked his lips once. "Ah, him. Yes, well, some people misconstrue the truth. It's sad. He bumped into me—ask anyone, they'll tell you. He didn't tell you that, now did he. See, this is why they say it's important to get both sides of the story. I'm surprised he isn't here to give me an apology?"

A girl with a bitter heart. A knife with a fate to meet his own. Hisoka felt her nen, hostile and feverish and untamed, prickle like nails hammering down at his skin. Before he was aware of it, Psyche closed the gap between them and commenced her onslaught against him. Sharp eyes, sharp knife, sharp nen. She'll carve him up and serve him to her client. Flashes of silver streaked across Hisoka's vision as she took aim at him.

He evaded every attack. Never taking his eyes off her own while savoring her viciousness. All her rage just for him. He grabbed her hand, the one holding the knife. The knife point drove right through Hisoka's hand, but he did not flinch. Blood dripped down their entwined hands like red wax—sealing them together in this malevolent dance.

For a moment, Psyche was taken back. Startled by his ferocity that was more savage than her own. He went for her knife, not to take it away, but to embrace the brutality as an extension of his own. She felt his other hand caress her waist then with the full force of his arm he wrapped himself around her back and pulled her close. She was forced to look at him up close with those eyes that trapped her in their sinister gold haze. His beauty was luminous. His skin was milk white and his hair shined with the fervor of the burning sun. Strands of red flared away from his head like fire, as if one touch would burn. Scarring the fleeting temptation forever on her skin. That is how devils enchanted angels, all bound in the endlessly delightful pursuit of watching them willingly fall from Heaven.

"You are a cruel creature by punishing me to a single death than to not indulge me in all your grim fantasies of everything you have done to me in your hours of solitude and worse. To die one death by your hands would be far worse of a punishment than to experience all you cursed me to. Please, one more. Tell me something particularly cruel and vile." He spun her around, entangling her in a dance of his own invention. She didn't know any of the steps. He carried her through them all.

She told him her name.

"Psyche." She spoke her name as if it was a forbidden spell to free her from his prison. A sickly pirouette without an end. The world blurred around her, only Hisoka remained focused.

He breathed her name.

And pitied her.

Hisoka moaned, sullenly. "Poor Psyche, wandering day and night, taking no refuge or rest. You never really came solely for me. Now did you? A girl in the possession of a heart this big cannot lie wholly." Hisoka took pride in being a magician, but he despised playing the fool. She felt his hand squeeze tighter around her own, no matter how much more blood he made himself pour from his own wound. "You came for him and he was waiting."

Psyche blanched.

"Riddle me for a while. Will you drown yourself under the waves?" Hisoka didn't stop. He pulled the threat that led to her heart. Girls like her were seldom talented at hiding their emotions from their faces. "Or will you find the tallest tree on the tallest cliff on the tallest edge and defy the sky to fly only to rock bottom?"

Psyche is an assassin. She lays her life down for no one. "Or what? You're going to make me."

"I won't make you do anything. You demanded I lay down my life for you, it's only fair I inquire if you would do the same for him."

Psyche's heart spiked with rising panic. "What did you do to him? What did you do to my Illumi?"

My Illumi. It was jarring to hear those words spoken outside his own head. Hisoka smiled, the canines of his teeth showing. "Your Illumi? Well, well. That is something we both have in common. But you're still asking the wrong questions. It wasn't what I did to him, but what he did to me. I never had a mother teach me how to protect my heart, so instead I let him play with mine."

"I don't understand."

"I would never have a part to play in a beautiful girl's death, no matter how untimely and tragic. It's what I fear you will do." He pulled her close, a wicked smile kissed her ear as he spoke with all the spite and pain of someone who had their heart broken. "I buried him."

Psyche ripped the knife from his hand.

Hisoka's cackling laugh echoed maniacally in her ears as blood poured down his arm. He wore crimson red with maddening pride and passion.

Psyche towered over the magician, kneeling and straddling his chest. The knife, soaked in Hisoka's blood, was raised high above her head. Ready to strike down like the mighty ax of an executioner. She wanted him to look at her as she ruined his life and brought it to an end.

Her shadow extended beyond herself to reveal a creature. A beast that felt primordial and familiar all at once. It ripped from her own and Hisoka shivered from the way it felt like an icy breath blowing up his neck as it slithered over him. A shadow that took the form of a wolf pinned Hisoka's arms down and away from his body. He was breathing harder now, panting.

Hisoka's breath caught in his throat, eyes swallowing all her passion and fury. In that moment, he didn't care that she was going to kill him over a man he didn't give a fuck about dismembering and another man he wished loved him in return but never would. No. He only begged her not to take her eyes off him while she ruined him. Not when she was looking at him like that. Not when he was just about to break beneath her.

Psyche was forcing all her nen away from her body and into the knife. She was going to cut Hisoka's arms off with two clean strikes and take in the wretched beauty of him bleeding out for her. She needs all her power infused within it—the very same one Illumi gave to her and vowed to return when they reunite, refusing to believe the magician's lies. That knife held all her love and vengeance and rebel heart.

Hisoka was stunned, as if caught in a hypnotic trance, he couldn't look away from her aura. Swirling terribly upon itself like a growing whirlpool beneath a stormy sea. He felt sparks begin to ignite and pulse throughout his body.

Her aura stilled and silenced reigned. The dreaded moment arrived.

Hisoka saw her for who she truly was as the knife descended. She was a luscious fruit picked off the vines with dazzling skin, but deceptive core underneath. One bite was all it took to reveal the sour and spoiled pulp dripping down his throat in rotten gobs. Smothering him until his last breath.

The wind above them began to beat violently as the sun shone in effervescent rays behind her back—wings. She was an angel. She was death. He was going to die—

And she was smiling.

Hisoka groaned; as a man, an animal, a depraved beast. Mouth wide open in wicked and blessed reverence. He felt the full force of a carnal wave rip through his back and shoot out his hips. Reveling in the intense rapture of delicious pleasure escorting despair.

Her knife was a hair's length away before a cosmic force collided against Psyche and sent her airborne. Crashing into the woods until finally cracking the bark of a tree. Psyche let out a sharp cry. She channeled all her aura into her knife, leaving the rest of her body defenseless. Still, Psyche stood up, brushed off her knees, and cracked her neck. A blow like that would have killed a normal person. Hisoka was still on the ground, motionless. He did not attack her.

The beating of a helicopter's blade roared increasingly louder as it hovered closer to land. There was a man standing on the divide between the aircraft and sky. Psyche could have sworn she saw an immense golden statue in the clouds—god-like and terrifying. It disappeared and left nothing but an afterimage and her imagination to fill in the rest of what she thought she saw. A great ferocious god looming over her in the sky. She felt so small when it struck her, as if she was nothing but an ant.

"That's her, sir!" Beans yelled over the roaring winds. He could recognize that tardy would-be applicant from anywhere. "But you could have killed her with your 100-type Guanyin Bodhisattva!"

"Nonsense." Netero said, "I wouldn't use something as powerful as a palm strike or even a Hand against her. We can't get any answers if we scramble her brain, no! I only gave her a little flick with my middle finger. It was more of a hefty pat, a warning, than a direct attack. Ha! Look there. The girl stands. Right as rain. Tits intact. Alive and well before us!"

Psyche eyed the hunter insignia on the helicopter. She's been found out and the man in there was a powerful nen user. His voice carried through the harsh winds, screaming at her to drop her weapon despite the fact he could probably kill with another attack—she could tell he wasn't acting at his full potential. She dropped the knife and put both of her hands up in the air, reluctantly.

"Good," Netero stood at the door. Tottering over the edge. "She knows when to give up."

Psyche scowled up at the man. Come down, face her head on, and she will have her shadow beast tear his throat out with its bare teeth.

Beans yelled. "Sir! What are you doing!?"

Netero tottered on the ledge of the helicopter. "It would be inhospitable of me to not greet our intruder."

"Sir, not again! Let me land the helicopter first! There's a landing site just up ahead!'

"Absurd. I've already found one."

"Parachute! At least wear a parachute!"

"It will only slow me down."

"SIR!"

Chairman Netero did not tolerate outsiders disrupting his exam. He jumped out of the helicopter, free falling to earth. He landed on his feet without breaking a single bone or rupturing one blood vessel. I still got it, he thought. He looked at the young girl, with her hands in the air. It is not everyday an ordinary human is struck by a Hand and lives unscathed. She was more than an ordinary human. Marvelous! Netero laughed, heartily. "I suppose you're the mouse that's been leaving crumbs littered around my exam, personally leading my secretary on the run trying to find you. A difficult task, but not impossible for him. Hunting comes easily to him, as it does to all those bearing the association's insignia. It's a shame you didn't register this year, you are a fine huntress already. I am Isaac Netero. Chairman of the Hunter Association and head of the exam commission you have been so keen on disrupting. Now, my dear, who are you?"

Thank you for reading chapter 17! Does it count as cheating when you're trying to assassinate a guy but he's just really into it? Psyche's in desperate need of advice! I hope you enjoyed the chapter! What did you think? Hopefully it wasn't too cursed haha XD In conclusion, Psyche was apprehended, Hisoka was...being himself, and Illumi was napping. Sadly, Netero interrupted Psyche and now she can't complete her job...for now :) See you in the next chapter, with hopefully more love and less murder haha :D