Enticing hunts

Series: Hunter x Hunter

Pairing: Kagome x Illumi

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters or series

The cool breeze that came with dawn was refreshing, a welcoming respite from the humid heat that covered the ruins Kagome had been stuck in for the last couple of weeks. If she concentrated, the miko could still hear the cheers and music from the celebration the rest of the excavation team were making at their camp. A job well done, accompanied by ground breaking discoveries was certainly worth throwing a party for, but she'd still chosen to walk away, looking for a break.

It would be easier to enjoy this little break if not for the fact that she could sense him lurking around.

Kagome's life had been full of unexpected twists and turns, and the young woman took pride in her ability to adapt to the often absurd circumstances she found herself in. Being pulled through time and into a world filled with myths and legends hadn't been easy, but she'd managed to find her footing and strike a balance between her two lives, regardless of how different they were. She'd made a family in one of the most unstable periods of her country and figured out how to deal with an impossible problem by abandoning the pretense that the Shikon could be destroyed and sealing it instead. Sure, things hadn't always worked in her favor, her luck had a tendency to go to the extreme ends of the spectrum, but considering what the alternatives were, being thrown into an entirely different world as one last act of revenge was better than being absorbed, or simply failing and being forced to guard the stupid thing while praying her next reincarnation wouldn't be tossed around by relic.

From a devastating situation to what almost felt like providence.

Her arrival to this world had been attention grabbing, but the men sent to figure out what happened had been surprisingly understanding. Chairman Netero had taken a personal interest in the stories she shared and the unique way her power seemed to manifest in this world, keeping her away from the less savory organizations that might've been interested in less humane ways of studying her. The old man had helped her get her bearings and taught her how to navigate this world. With his tutoring, they'd figured out how her reiki had adapted to work in similar ways to nen and how she could use it while passing as a specialist, allowing her to stand on her own and opening a way for her to start a new journey.

There was no guarantee she could ever find a way to sent a message back to her world, let alone going back herself, but she was determined to keep on searching…if only because the miko felt guilty that a part of her hadn't exactly been dismayed when she realized what happened.

Because the truth was, this unknowing, the uncertainty of where her choices led her to had turned into something like a craving. At some point, the excitement and anticipation of journeying with no clear destination in mind, never knowing where she'd end up had overtaken the initial fear and hesitation that her travels incited. The prospect of going into this foreign world that was oh so similar to her own up until the point it wasn't and diverted in the most uniquely interesting ways was just that appealing to her. So Kagome had followed to Chairman Netero's offer and agreed to take the Hunter Exam.

It had been a good choice, with the Hunter's license she could gain access to the sort of places that might have a hint on how she could try to get back to her world while also providing her with the freedom to chase rumors without having to worry about living expenses. Not to mention, the sort of connections she could forge could guide her to the right places. And if part of the reason the miko was looking forward to the auction in York New city had more to do with the chance to meet back up with Gon, Killua, Kurapika and Leorio, well hyper focusing on chasing myths without giving herself a break would be counter productive in the long run. She'd done the right thing by taking the Exam, no matter how she looked at the actions she'd taken after falling into this world Kagome hadn't made any major screw ups…although she had to admit she may have messed up a little during the exam, since she ended up catching some unwanted attention in the form of a persistent stalker.

With a sigh, the girl knelt to study a deep violet flower.

She hadn't gone that far from camp that she couldn't hear her companions' loud celebration, but she wasn't near enough that some of the less friendly beasts would be too scared to attack her. Under the music and joyful cheers, she could hear the soft, rapidly approaching footsteps of a beast on a hunt. Idly, she debated with herself for a minute before making a choice.

She didn't move when a low roar reached her ears, or when the feral feline lunged at her, claws out…only to fall to the ground a few steps away from her, a needle stuck deep into it's head.

"You didn't move." It could be a simple observation, or an admonishment, the miko wasn't really sure.

"Didn't feel the need to," Kagome said with a huff as she stood up and turned to face her stalker.

Void black eyes stared straight at her, and odd as it felt to say, the miko was almost sure Illumi Zoldyck looked pleased with himself as he stepped out of the jungle dense canopy, as if him being here was in any way normal. Then again, this wasn't the first time he'd showed up out of nowhere during the last few months.

At first, Kagome had worried the man was hunting her because of her involvement with getting Killua far away from his family, but despite her giving him plenty of chances, the professional assassin never made a move on her life. He would just…stay at a distance, no matter if she was in a city or in the middle of the jungle and follow her around for a few days at a time before disappearing for a couple of weeks. One time after another, he found her and lingered in her vicinity, doing nothing but watching her as she lived her life. She'd restrained herself from confronting him before out of concern for the people around her, but this was starting to get ridiculous. This place was weeks away from civilization and reaching the ruins took going through terrain infested with dangerous animals and poisonous plants, and yet, she'd felt Illumi's presence waiting for her as soon as her group got back out. Honestly, he looked entirely unbothered by the trek, or the unfamiliar weather, the assassin even waved at her while walking closer to her.

"You knew I was here." It didn't sound like a question.

"Call it a hunch." While zetsu messed with her ability to read others, she could still sense the souls of people around her. Even if her power resembled it now, she still wasn't really using nen. "Are you targeting one of my teammates?"

"No."

"Ok… not that." Calmly, the girl let her hand trail close to the staff on her back. "Have I somehow managed to piss off someone to the point they're willing to pay whatever rates your family manage?"

"Not at all," Illumi smiled, head tilting to the side.

"So you're not here for work." Trusting the words of someone like him would be foolish, but it was clear the man wasn't trying to kill her, and none of the people she'd worked with before was harmed in any way, so she wasn't sure there was any point to debate that point. "Then why are you here in the middle of nowhere?"

"You're here." He said it so matter of fact, that the miko almost gaped.

"Really?! You came all the way here just to stalk me?" Perhaps she shouldn't be loosing her temper when the person she was snapping at was a professional killer, but she'd never been as careful as she should be with her words anyway. "Don't you have people to kill?"

"I finished my work early and I can always take up some work in the area." That…was probably more information than she wanted or should have.

Perhaps the stormy whirlwind her life had become after her fifteen years had affected her judgement, because she was sure irritation wasn't the normal reaction most people would have to learning the person talking to them had killed someone a few days ago and planned to do the same soon after. The miko doubted her reaction was normal even among Hunters.

Then again, a normal person would've probably struggled way more to survive what she'd been through.

Shaking her head, the young woman crossed her arms, annoyed by the obvious persistence in Illumi's unwavering stare. He was serious, and something told her this obsession wasn't going to vanish any time soon, if at all, and she wasn't sure there was anything she could do to make it stop aside from actively starting an all out fight, the type only one person walked away from still breathing. It really wasn't the approach she'd preferred to take. Not that she could actually do that here, not without the rest of her current companions hearing the commotion and coming here, putting themselves in danger.

"What can be so interesting about watching me?"

"Are you interested in my opinion?" He didn't balk at her deadpan look. "You're different."

"No two people are the same, everyone is different." If the professional killer started to wax poetic, Kagome was going to lose it.

"Not like that." Again he smiled and shrugged. "Even for a specialist."

"…you sound quite sure about that." Slender fingers flew to close around her staff.

"Because I'm right, aren't I?" Yes, he was definitely pleased with himself.

For all the changes her power went through, it still wasn't nen, so while she and chairman Netero agreed that passing as a specialist was the best thing she could do, it was still important to add as many misdirections as they could. Most of the people she'd worked with so far thought of her as an emitter or a conjurer trying to pass as an enhancer. She'd known he'd watched her fight during her last expedition, but it still shouldn't have pointed him to jump to the specialist class so quickly with such a small sample of her power.

Of course she'd managed to attract an insanely observant stalker.

She had a choice to make here.

The man in front of her was undeniably dangerous, and he could spell trouble. At the very least, Kagome knew for sure he was a manipulative asshole who was willing to push his own younger brother to the breaking point. If he was as determined as he seemed to be, attempting to deny her class wouldn't work. Which left her with two options: either actively try to take him out to protect her secrets…or trust him and accept she was willing to have some odd relationship with a man who saw no issues with killing for money and abusing his family.

"…we just managed to get out of that death trap without loosing anyone, not even the most accident prone acting manager I've ever met." Chairman Netero had an old friendship with one of the Zoldycks, didn't he? Maybe they were had more in common than she'd originally thought. "If we end up with a body in our hands because one of the other Hunters noticed there was someone following us I swear you won't be able to keep working."

"So it's fine as long as I'm not seen, got it," Illumi nodded, satisfied expression on his face.

"What…no, that wasn't…" Before she could complete a thought, the man vanished from her field of view. "I didn't mean it like that!"

He was still in her perimeter, she could sense him. Frustration made her fingers twitch, and she had to fight the temptation to just start shooting in his direction. The whole point of not picking up a fight here was to avoid attracting attention, and she wasn't fifteen anymore, throwing tantrums wasn't something she did. Latching her staff on her back strap, Kagome began making her way back to camp, she'd rejoin the others, have a bite to eat, and then focus on resting. She and the other Hunters still had to make sure the expedition team made it back to civilization and the miko still had to make her way to the York New city.

Dealing with Illumi could wait since clearly, he wasn't about to kill her, and if she was starting to get a little too used to the idea of having an assassin following her every move…well, her life had always been a little unhinged.

The lights keeping away the night from York New city were a nice enough view for the prices this place kept, he supposed, though from what Illumi had seen, this wasn't the sort of environment Kagome preferred.

Rural and natural areas found along the way to whatever myth or legend she was chasing appeared to be the places she enjoyed the most. But the young woman wasn't here for the view, it was the auction that brought her here, or so she'd said to the other Hunters on her way back from that jungle. The assassin would be lying if he said that part of the reason he'd so readily accepted his current job wasn't because it gave him the chance to follow her again. Not to mention, his brother was also here.

Priorities needed to be kept, naturally, so he couldn't spend as much time as he'd like watching her until his current contract was dealt with.

Obsessing over someone wasn't something he'd ever thought he'd find himself doing, but after meeting her, he could understand why Hisoka had been so intent on paying attention to that kid…to a degree. The magician was a unique type of weird and perverted, and the assassin really didn't see the point of chasing that insatiable hunger only to break the toys he liked. After all, Illumi wanted to keep the blue-eyed Hunter whole for one, and he intended to keep her for another. It might take some time, but he was a patient man and she was worth the wait.

Most of the people who took the Exam together with him had been fairly worthless, weak and inefficient fighters he could kill with a flick of his wrist. There was Killua, of course, but after his first cursory scan the assassin had assumed there was no one else aside from Hisoka who'd manage to catch his eye. However there had been more to the friendly inoffensive demeanor she'd shown at the start. Luck had placed him in the right spot to see what she was truly capable of and his interest had only grown from there. It helped that she also seemed to care for his brother, even if her methods were misguided. It was nothing that couldn't be worked out.

His phone rang, startling out of his reminiscence.

"Yes?"

"It's you…why wouldn't it be you?" Kagome's voice had dropped her usual kind facade, she never tried to keep it in front of him. "Why would the number someone slipped under my hotel room's door while I was taking a shower be anyone else's?"

"Doesn't this make things easier?" He could imagine her placing a hand on her hip.

"Can I assume this is just you stalking me?" She was really fond of that word. "Or are you here to harass Killua? I can take you following me around, but if you're planning to harm your brother I promise…"

"I'm here for work, mostly." His response earned him a sigh followed by a beat of silence.

"…Illumi…" Lately, the young woman had started calling him by his name more often. "Does your job have anything to do with the auction?"

"Why would you say that?"

"You're here for a job at the same time some of the most awaited auctions are taking place. It doesn't take a lot to connect the dots," she huffed. "In my experience, things like that are rarely simple coincidences."

"Oh? What type of experiences have you had?" Curiosity bled into his words.

"Every type." Kagome was probably rolling her eyes. "Can you answer me, please?"

Humming, Illumi took a second to archive that vague little bit of information. The myth Hunter was an enigma, he'd asked Milluki to dig into her past, but the boy had come up mostly empty. There was a perfectly average and perfectly fake paper trail that had been created almost four years ago, when she was first captured on a street security camera. It looked like someone high up within the Hunter's Association was trying to help her blend in which made looking deeper into her a far more difficult endeavor than he'd expected it to be.

"Now is when you choose to protect your job's confidentiality?" Ah, that was a new tone of voice. "Alright, can you at least tell me if I should keep the children away from the auction?"

"To which one are you going?" Good, she was starting to trust his warnings.

"Killua and Gon want something from the respected event." After a pause, she continued. "I was planning on going to both."

"You can go with the kids, but I wouldn't go to the less publicized one." The details of what was going to happen during the auction weren't shared with him, but he could make a few educated guesses.

"Great, things are going to get messy, aren't there?" Yes, she was definitely beginning to trust him. "That's why my contact told me to just give them a list with the items I wanted."

"Who's your contact?" It was probably not the same person who fabricated her backstory.

"None of your business." And she was back to deadpan. "I mean it, if they suddenly die in a tragic accident…"

"Has any of your previous co-workers suffered through tragic accidents?" He only killed when there was a payment, or when someone was enough of a fool to attack him.

"None of them had the kind of enemies that would pay to get them killed." Ah, she knew him quite a bit. "Look, I can live with the fact that you're determined to become my shadow, but I won't have people around me dying because you managed to find their names on a hit list."

"If I promise to let them be will I get something?" He was pushing her limits but that's how she'd get used to it.

"You get me not shooting you on sight," she sighed. "You do realize anyone else wouldn't be chatting with their stalker without calling the police first?"

"Personally, I'd call this merely observing you."

"Forget it, I don't even want to know what your definition of stalking is." Her voice sounded tired, she had just arrived to the city today and the detour she'd taken on the way here probably meant she hadn't rested properly. Perhaps he should send something to her room to help with fatigue. "I guess I'm not going to the first auction…thanks for the warning."

"Anytime, Kagome, goodnight."

Establishing trust was going well, she may have hung up in a hurry after a quick goodnight, but he could tell the woman was a little less on edge every time they met. He'd get her to come to him. For now, he had to focus on his job so he could get back to his observation. Though he should probably start planning how to deal with Hisoka. As useful as the magician could be, his interest on not only his brother but Kagome could be troublesome, even knowing Illumi would kill him if he tried to touch either of them wouldn't deter him. In fact, it would probably arouse him further.

Well, that was something for another day, he had a meeting with the man first after all. Once that was done he should be able to sneak by the legend Hunter's room to deliver a few sleeping aids, even if she didn't use them now it'd be good for her to start accepting his gifts. She probably wasn't used to it, so he should be careful with the dosages. It really was just a question of time before he got her.