(HxH) Amputation
Is it possible to apologize for something in advance? 'Cause that's probably what this is - an apology for how absolutely awful the fic I've written for Ironman7 this week. ^^;;; It was AU week, and... well, it didn't start terrible, but it wound up that way. ^^;;; The first one, the Ouran one, was really good, but the following three failed hard core and the last one probably won't be much better. They'll all be up tomorrow, after I write the last one.
Anyway, skipping ahead to the apology. I like the apology. I've beta'd it myself, but if anyone has suggestions that'd be great. I recently watched Hunter x Hunter (finally XD), and been jonesing for fic... so I wrote some. It's... angsty, but kinda cool. I dunno. I'm babbling, possibly because I'm proud - this is one of very few long one-shots I've ever written, which makes it special in my head if not in reality. So... HxH fic!
Also, if anyone can point me to a HxH icon, that'd be great, too. ^.^;;;
Title: Amputation
Fandom: Hunter x Hunter
Characters: Killua, Gon, Illumi, etc.
Rating: PG14
Warning: Character death
Summary: A German proverb holds that losing a friend is equivalent to losing a limb.
Amputation
If Killua was covered in blood when he returned home, no one said anything about it. The Zaoldeycks were not the sort of family to make a fuss over a little blood on the carpet. Or the walls. Or anywhere, really, unless they needed to go to extraordinary measures to clean it up, and even then, that's what the maids were for.
So if Killua left a trail of bloody hand and foot prints behind him, no one said anything about it.
*******
Killua wished he had buried Gon. That, and a lot of other things besides that. Mostly, though, he wished that Gon wasn't dead in the first place, so he wouldn't need to be buried.
*******
"So you killed him after all, little brother?"
Illumi stood in the bedroom's doorway when Killua raised his head to look for him. Killua didn't know how long he'd been standing there - hadn't sensed his nen approaching at all - but he didn't really care, either. For that matter, Killua wasn't sure how much time had passed since he got home. He didn't think Illumi had been there when he arrived…
Illumi approached the bed slowly, very slowly. Killua watched him come. Illumi usually moved faster when he wanted to get somewhere - didn't take his time when it would be more efficient to get wherever he needed to be and be done with it. No, Illumi only ever moved this slowly right before he picked a fight with Killua, but that couldn't be right because there was no ren coming off him at all.
"I warned you that this would happen," Illumi said as he came closer, and somehow the fact that he meant it and wasn't teasing at all made it the worst thing he had ever said to Killua.
*******
"Please, Killua," Gon pleaded at the end, his voice barely a whisper. Killua's entire body trembled as he stared down at him. A pair of deep brown eyes blinked back at him, and Killua hated himself even as he knew that Gon would not - could not - hate him for what he was about to do. His fingernails grew razor sharp.
"Plea…" Gon began again. He was dead before he could finish.
*******
"You're not injured, are you?"
Illumi sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for Killua in a way that should have been threatening but somehow wasn't. Killua flinched anyway, drawing away from that hand and deeper into the pillows stacked high on his bed, but Illumi didn't take his hand away the way he always did when Killua indicated his surrender to his older brother.
Killua shivered when Illumi pressed against the bloodiest parts of his clothes, and not just because Illumi's hand was cold, although that was true, too. A clinical touch checked carefully to see where any injuries might hide. Illumi tugged up the hem of Killua's shirt to get a better look at a gash across his chest, and Killua let him.
"Maa, maa," Illumi sighed as he pressed against the edges of the wounds. Killua hissed, and tried to draw his legs up to his chest as protection, but Illumi's back was in the way. "You'd better let me fix this for you before the infection gets any worse. You should have fixed it for yourself after it happened, but I guess a year or so away from training will make you forget things like that. Wait here."
If Illumi left the room, Killua didn't notice it any more than he'd noticed that his brother was there in the first place.
*******
"KILLUA!" Gon shouted, and that was all the warning the former assassin got. It was enough, though - enough to get him mostly out of the way from what should have been a deadly attack.
"GON!"
*******
"GON!" Killua sat straight up in bed, hand against his bandaged but otherwise bare chest. He took deep, shuddering breaths.
"Oh, are you awake already, little brother?" Illumi closed a book and set it on Killua's desk. He crossed the room quickly, and grabbed Killua's wrist. "That was fast. Grandfather didn't think you'd wake up for at least another hour."
"What… are you doing here... Illumi…" Killua's body continued gasping for breath.
"Can't I check up on you without having an ulterior motive, Killua?" Illumi asked, voice lifting in what passed for him as a surprised tone. He let go of Killua's wrist and shrugged, shaking his head and crossing his arms. "That's no good, Killua, no good at all! Wouldn't you look in on me if my favourite pet died?"
"Gon was my friend!" The words burst from Killua's mouth without him quite intending to say them. "He would talk to me, and we would hang out, and things were never boring when he was around. He was never my… he was - he was -!"
"Ah, but if that was so, why did you put him down like a dog you were tired of playing with?" Illumi looked at him from behind serenely blank eyes. "I didn't think that's how friends treated each other. But then, you were never meant to have friends, Killua, so maybe you didn't know that."
"Gon wasn't - - He wasn't - -!!!" His body trembled.
"He must have been, right, Killua?" Illumi said in the same way that he had once explained to an over-eager younger brother where the most important pressure points on the human body were. "Otherwise you wouldn't be home…"
"He wasn't…" My pet, Killua wanted to say, but the air was too hard to get into his lungs to make the words come out. It was only when water began to fall on the hand that rested against his chest that Killua realized why, and turned away from his brother, curling into a ball so that Illumi couldn't see him and wishing his brother would disappear.
The door might have clicked shut as the dark-haired man left the room, but Killua would never be sure.
*******
They agreed on the target together. Gon suggested it, but Killua agreed.
"It'll be fun to explore some ruins together, right?" The white-haired boy said. He leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the table and letting his arms droop over his head. "Who knows? Maybe we'll even run into your dad! He was interested in ruins, wasn't he?"
"Yeah. That's what Mr. Satotsu told me, anyway." Gon's eyes were serious, and staring off into space like he could see through the walls to something just out of range. Killua sat up straight again and whacked Gon's head.
"Come on," he said as he got to his feet. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
*******
"He is dead, isn't he? Gon."
The apparition sitting at Killua's desk wore a razor sharp smile to match the playing card it casually made appear and disappear from its hand. Hisoka shook his head. Killua watched as he pulled a card seemingly at random and showed it to Killua. The Joker.
"Too bad. I thought he would be interesting some day." Hisoka sighed, and closed his eyes, looking away with a shrug. "You, too."
*******
They hadn't expected the final trap. Getting into the tomb had been easy enough - dodging the usual rolling rocks and trick spikes and the like. Par for the course, really. Gon and Killua were standing, surrounded by jewels, when Killua spotted a what looked like a ribbon of nen wrapped around a nearby wall.
"Gon, look!" Killua pointed across the vast hall, and the spiky-haired boy turned to look. "Wonder what's behind it." He grinned. "Want to check it out?"
"Of course," Gon said, smiling. "We wouldn't be very good hunters if we didn't, would we?"
They dashed across the room, scrambling up piles of gold coins and sliding down them, racing each other to see who could get there fastest. Killua didn't let Gon win, but he didn't try as hard as he could, so they wound up reaching the section of wall at exactly the same time.
BAM!
The sound pierced the air like a lightning strike. Gon and Killua cried out as they flew back across the room from the force of the blast as the wall began to rearrange itself. Killua felt it immediately, when his enhanced sight faded away and his body became trapped in a state of zetsu.
"Gon!" He called out as he got to his feet, regaining his bearings and immediately looking for his friend. The other boy across the hall nodded. Then his brown eyes went wide.
"KILLUA!" Gon shouted, and that was all the warning the former assassin got. It was enough, though - enough to get him mostly out of the way from what should have been a deadly attack, but not enough to stop the sword his attacker wielded from catching him across the chest.
Gritting his teeth, Killua dodged smartly around his attacker, hardening his nails into the weapon they had once been - a trick that had nothing to do with nen, that was uncompromised by his state of zetsu. He whacked his first attacker across the back of the neck, watching him crumple to the ground and vanish as he took stock of the other enemies. There were twelve of them, all nen constructs, probably, scattered about the hall in various positions. None of them looked particularly strong, but numbers were certainly on their side, especially without nen to back up Killua and Gon.
The white-haired boy fought with a ferocity he hadn't needed since his days as an assassin. How long had it been since he had blocked out everything and lived only for the singing of blood in his ears? How long since he had taken lives easily, carelessly, without worrying about the destruction he was reaping? He downed two more and shoved his hand straight through the chest of a third. How had he become bored with this?
He caught the flicker of it from the corner of his eye - a slim blade pulled from a cask that they had earlier mistaken as some sort of stopper, never guessing at its sharpness. The nen-being holding it barely paused to aim before flinging it straight towards Gon.
*******
"I brought you some dinner, Killua."
Something clinked nearby. Killua didn't want to move, so he ignored it. Illumi let his nen out enough that Killua knew he was there, but that didn't matter so much, so Killua ignored that, too.
"It's not good to skip so many meals," Illumi said. His nen spiked. Killua felt it come towards him, and then a tiny prick like the sting of a needle going in. He sat up. The maids arranged the tray on his lap and hastily left the room. Killua's hand grabbed the spoon and began to move between the bowl and his mouth. Illumi sat silently in the desk chair, watching him. The dark-haired man waited until he had eaten the last bite and put the spoon down, then approached him and dropped a chocolate bar onto the tray.
"For being a good boy," Illumi said when Killua's eyes flickered over to him. He walked to the door. As he exited, he reached out and called his nen back from Killua.
The moment the door closed, Killua threw up.
*******
"GON!" Killua yelled, and the dark-haired boy turned towards him, a poorly timed turn in the wrong direction that left his back exposed to the flying knife. Gon's body jerked as it sank into his flesh. "GON!"
The hunter's body fell slowly to its knees. Red flashed before Killua's vision. He lashed out, striking the remaining nen beings and dispatching them quickly. When the last was gone, he ran to his friend's side.
"Gon!" The knife had buried itself deep in Gon's shoulder, but the blade was small, small enough that the damage shouldn't be too terrible, but Gon was still on his knees and holding his shoulder and trembling and - Killua shook his head. "Hang on, Gon. I'm going to get the blade out."
"Be careful… Killua…" Gon's voice was raspy, but he managed somehow. "Poisoned…"
"Poisoned?!" Killua pulled the knife free and immediately the sickly sweet scent of lilies assaulted his nose. "This is…? Gon, this is…!"
Gon coughed, and blood splurted from his mouth.
"Hang in there, Gon!" Killua tossed the knife aside, applying pressure to the wound. "We can use our nen to heal you. It'll be all right, just focus on your abilities, right? Don't worry about energy, I'll give you mine, and with that -"
"Don't, Killua."
*******
Occasionally, the door to his room opened in the middle of the night - when he sat awake and sleep would not come, or when it came but left him trembling. Killua watched the sliver of light appear each night, as someone slipped in - his father, or grandfather, or Illumi. When he was a little boy, their visits had been an exercise in defending himself from assassins. They would sneak in, and try to tag him before he noticed their presence. If Killua won, they left quietly. If he lost, they would spend an hour training before going back to sleep.
Now, he noticed them immediately when they came in. What they were doing there, or why they didn't leave, escaped him.
*******
"Don't, Killua."
"Don't?! What do you mean, don't? This is your life!" Killua shook Gon more roughly than he intended, and the dark-haired boy coughed in his hold until Killua remembered himself and held him still once more.
"Barrier's… still there." Gon said, and when Killua reached for his nen, he noticed immediately that Gon was right. It wouldn't come no matter how he called. "Besides…"
The shadows around them flickered, and Killua used the instant he had to react, dodging yet another enemy and watching in horror as the blade intended for him sliced through Gon instead. Gon cried out once in pain and lay on the floor, breathing hard. Killua destroyed the nen creature quickly and hurried back to Gon.
"More coming… Killua…"
"All right." Killua got to his feet and bent down to grab Gon. The dark-haired boy batted at him weakly. "What the hell, Gon?"
"Won't make it if you do that…" Gon smiled, but his face was covered with blood and his eyes were filled with pain until he closed them and shook his head. "Leave me… Killua…"
"I can't do that, Gon! You know I can't do that!" Killua grabbed Gon by the shoulder and shook him. "They'll kill you, you idiot! Don't you get it? You'll DIE!"
"If you stay much longer, we'll both die… Killua…" Gon said, and Killua wanted to scream at him, but two more of the shadows had reformed, and it was all he could do to defeat them, to keep them from hurting him or his friend. He fought like a demon, claws sharp, and even that wasn't enough to completely keep them safe. Killua blocked a strike from hitting Gon and hissed with the pain of it before finally taking the second attacker out.
When he was finished, he looked back at Gon. Gon nodded to himself and opened his eyes.
"I know I'll die -"
"Than you know why I can't do what you're asking!" Killua interrupted, but Gon shook his head, and Killua stopped.
"It's all right, if it means that Killua will live," Gon said, his eyes bright with that shine that Killua had come to hate over the years. The one that always showed up right before Gon said something incredibly stupid and refused to even consider changing his mind. "We won't make it together. I can't. So… I want you to. But… Killua?"
"I hope you know that I'm not going along with this stupid plan of yours," Killua shook his head firmly, crossing his arms over his chest, "but tell me the rest, anyway."
"Since I'm going to die anyway… Kill me, Killua."
*******
"Killua."
He looked up. They couldn't be here. Even if they had gotten to the gate, even if they were strong enough to get through the gate, they still couldn't be here. His family would never have let them into the house, never have let them all the way into his room - so they couldn't be here.
But they were.
"Kurapika… Leorio…"
"It's been a while, hasn't it, Killua," the blond said, the corners of his lips twisting up in a smile that only made him look sadder. Leorio waved as the two of them walked into the room, coming closer until Kurapika was sitting on the bed beside him. "How are you?"
He stared at them.
*******
"Kill me, Killua."
"Are you STUPID?" Killua shouted, eyes snapping open. He slammed his fist against Gon's cheek. Gon's head bounced loudly against the ground as it snapped to the side, and Killua regretted it even as he watched the bruise start forming on Gon's cheek. "I'm not leaving you behind, and I'm not killing you, Gon. We're going to get out of this. Somehow. We are!"
Gon looked at him, and opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes went wide before it came out and Killua dodged to the right with the instinct born of hundreds of fights. Three of them, this time, but at least now they were all attacking Killua, ignoring the injured Gon in favor of live prey, and Killua was glad even as he worried about someone going in for the coup de grace. He darted around and up a pile of gold and gems, jumping back down to take one out with a flying kick. The other two were stronger, and more ready - Killua just barely avoided getting stabbed by one who had grabbed the poison dagger from the floor. He ripped one's heart out, and caught the other on the back of the neck.
Killua turned back to look for Gon, and hurried to stop his friend's skull from banging against the concrete again. Gon was convulsing.
*******
"You shouldn't be here," Killua said. His voice cracked on the words, and Killua tried to recall how long it had been since he had last had something to drink. The thought didn't last long. He shook his head.
"Shouldn't we?" Kurapika asked. He reached out to take Killua's hand, but Killua jerked it away.
"Hey, brat, what's with that?" Leorio sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Kurapika and whacked him softly on the head. "You should be nicer to your elders."
"You shouldn't be here," Killua repeated, drawing his knees up to his chest and leaning as far back into the headboard as possible. "I killed him. I killed him, you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't -"
A loud crack echoed through the air as Kurapika's open palm collided with Killua's cheek.
*******
"Please, Killua," Gon whispered when the shaking slowed enough for him to speak. "There isn't much time. I… it's okay, if it's you, but there isn't much time."
"You can't seriously ask me to do this, Gon. Please don't ask me." Killua's body trembled, too, as he looked at what remained of his friend - blood, and pain-filled eyes that screamed for release. Release that only he could provide.
"Please, Killua," Gon choked out again, and Killua regretted in that moment that he had never managed to deny Gon anything that he really wanted. "Plea-"
Gon's death was very quiet, in the end. He did not finish his last whisper, but instead slumped to the floor as Killua withdrew his hand from behind Gon's neck. The blood dripped down his fingers. Killua stared at it for a moment.
Then he got to his feet, and left.
*******
His cheek hurt.
Killua noticed it, and turned his head back slowly, blinking. Kurapika looked at him from behind black contacts, but Killua could see the flashing of a red light in them.
"Gon wanted you to live on, and be happy," Kurapika said as he placed his hand back in his lap. "He died for that. So you owe it to him, Killua. You owe it to him to live, and be happy."
"Kurapika -" Killua started, but the blond shook his head, his earring catching the light as he did so.
"It took me long enough to realize that for myself - that I best serve my people by having happiness that they may share in, now that our sorrows are done. I do not want to see you make my mistakes." Kurapika looked at him, staring into his eyes intensely. Leorio placed a hand on Kurapika's shoulder and then put the other on Killua's. Killua didn't know why he didn't expect it, but he didn't, and he turned to look at the older man.
"Come on, brat," he said, smiling as he always had. "Let's go."
"Where?" Killua asked. He didn't know how he got there, but he was on his feet and following the others to the door by the time Kurapika answered his question.
"Whale Island."
Killua stopped. The others turned and looked at him expectantly.
"We figured someone should tell Gon's family, right?" Leorio said. "Pay our respects, and that sort of thing."
A vision of Miss Mito as he had first seen her, whapping Gon on the head for failing to keep in touch with her, crossed Killua's mind. He nodded to himself, and walked past the other two.
"Follow me," Killua said as he headed for the house's exit. "I've been there before. He's from the middle of nowhere, and an old man like you might not be able to find it."
"Old man?" Leorio protested, but Kurapika put a hand against his chest and shook his head. The three of them headed quickly through the house. Leorio stopped before heading out the door, turning his head back into the house. When Killua and Kurapica were out of hearing distance, he said, "Thank you for calling us."
"Did I do something like that?" Illumi asked, stepping from the corner he'd concealed himself in and shrugging. Their eyes met. After a moment, Leorio nodded, and hurried after his companions. Illumi watched them go, commenting softly to his father, "Even pets have their uses."
*******
When someone thought to ask, Killua didn't know how he escaped from the ruins. He didn't know how he got back to town, or how he got home. He simply knew that he did. Anything else was swallowed in a haze of blood and confusion that ended with a hand against his face and two very concerned hunters staring at him as he sat on his bed at home.
*******
Miss Mito ran out to meet them as they approached Gon's home on sunny Whale Island. Tears were streaming down her face as she came. She lifted her arms and Killua braced himself for the blow he deserved.
He was surprised when instead of being hit, her arms wrapped tightly around him and pulled him close.
"I was so worried about you, Killua!" She said, holding Killua so tightly that he couldn't breathe. The moisture on his face was just from her tears, he told himself, as after a moment, hesitantly, he hugged her back. "Jin said it looked like you escaped, but you didn't send me a letter or come to visit and I didn't know -"
"Jin?" Killua's eyes widened. "He's here?"
"He was. He… he brought Gon back, so that we could… say goodbye." Miss Mito drew back to arms length and brushed impatiently at her tears. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Jin… asked me to give you this."
She offered the paper to Killua. He took it from her carefully, unfolding it slowly from the corners. He read it, and an odd half smile crossed his face.
"Like that time at Greed Island, huh?" Killua said as he let go of the note. "Can you show me where, Miss Mito? I want to visit him - Gon."
Miss Mito led the way, Killua introducing the others as they went. The wind grabbed Jin's note, the small slip of paper flying high into the air, until the nen that had held it together dissipated. The message vanished from its written form, but not from Killua's heart.
Take your time. He'll be waiting.
*******
Anyway, skipping ahead to the apology. I like the apology. I've beta'd it myself, but if anyone has suggestions that'd be great. I recently watched Hunter x Hunter (finally XD), and been jonesing for fic... so I wrote some. It's... angsty, but kinda cool. I dunno. I'm babbling, possibly because I'm proud - this is one of very few long one-shots I've ever written, which makes it special in my head if not in reality. So... HxH fic!
Also, if anyone can point me to a HxH icon, that'd be great, too. ^.^;;;
Title: Amputation
Fandom: Hunter x Hunter
Characters: Killua, Gon, Illumi, etc.
Rating: PG14
Warning: Character death
Summary: A German proverb holds that losing a friend is equivalent to losing a limb.
Amputation
If Killua was covered in blood when he returned home, no one said anything about it. The Zaoldeycks were not the sort of family to make a fuss over a little blood on the carpet. Or the walls. Or anywhere, really, unless they needed to go to extraordinary measures to clean it up, and even then, that's what the maids were for.
So if Killua left a trail of bloody hand and foot prints behind him, no one said anything about it.
*******
Killua wished he had buried Gon. That, and a lot of other things besides that. Mostly, though, he wished that Gon wasn't dead in the first place, so he wouldn't need to be buried.
*******
"So you killed him after all, little brother?"
Illumi stood in the bedroom's doorway when Killua raised his head to look for him. Killua didn't know how long he'd been standing there - hadn't sensed his nen approaching at all - but he didn't really care, either. For that matter, Killua wasn't sure how much time had passed since he got home. He didn't think Illumi had been there when he arrived…
Illumi approached the bed slowly, very slowly. Killua watched him come. Illumi usually moved faster when he wanted to get somewhere - didn't take his time when it would be more efficient to get wherever he needed to be and be done with it. No, Illumi only ever moved this slowly right before he picked a fight with Killua, but that couldn't be right because there was no ren coming off him at all.
"I warned you that this would happen," Illumi said as he came closer, and somehow the fact that he meant it and wasn't teasing at all made it the worst thing he had ever said to Killua.
*******
"Please, Killua," Gon pleaded at the end, his voice barely a whisper. Killua's entire body trembled as he stared down at him. A pair of deep brown eyes blinked back at him, and Killua hated himself even as he knew that Gon would not - could not - hate him for what he was about to do. His fingernails grew razor sharp.
"Plea…" Gon began again. He was dead before he could finish.
*******
"You're not injured, are you?"
Illumi sat on the edge of the bed, reaching for Killua in a way that should have been threatening but somehow wasn't. Killua flinched anyway, drawing away from that hand and deeper into the pillows stacked high on his bed, but Illumi didn't take his hand away the way he always did when Killua indicated his surrender to his older brother.
Killua shivered when Illumi pressed against the bloodiest parts of his clothes, and not just because Illumi's hand was cold, although that was true, too. A clinical touch checked carefully to see where any injuries might hide. Illumi tugged up the hem of Killua's shirt to get a better look at a gash across his chest, and Killua let him.
"Maa, maa," Illumi sighed as he pressed against the edges of the wounds. Killua hissed, and tried to draw his legs up to his chest as protection, but Illumi's back was in the way. "You'd better let me fix this for you before the infection gets any worse. You should have fixed it for yourself after it happened, but I guess a year or so away from training will make you forget things like that. Wait here."
If Illumi left the room, Killua didn't notice it any more than he'd noticed that his brother was there in the first place.
*******
"KILLUA!" Gon shouted, and that was all the warning the former assassin got. It was enough, though - enough to get him mostly out of the way from what should have been a deadly attack.
"GON!"
*******
"GON!" Killua sat straight up in bed, hand against his bandaged but otherwise bare chest. He took deep, shuddering breaths.
"Oh, are you awake already, little brother?" Illumi closed a book and set it on Killua's desk. He crossed the room quickly, and grabbed Killua's wrist. "That was fast. Grandfather didn't think you'd wake up for at least another hour."
"What… are you doing here... Illumi…" Killua's body continued gasping for breath.
"Can't I check up on you without having an ulterior motive, Killua?" Illumi asked, voice lifting in what passed for him as a surprised tone. He let go of Killua's wrist and shrugged, shaking his head and crossing his arms. "That's no good, Killua, no good at all! Wouldn't you look in on me if my favourite pet died?"
"Gon was my friend!" The words burst from Killua's mouth without him quite intending to say them. "He would talk to me, and we would hang out, and things were never boring when he was around. He was never my… he was - he was -!"
"Ah, but if that was so, why did you put him down like a dog you were tired of playing with?" Illumi looked at him from behind serenely blank eyes. "I didn't think that's how friends treated each other. But then, you were never meant to have friends, Killua, so maybe you didn't know that."
"Gon wasn't - - He wasn't - -!!!" His body trembled.
"He must have been, right, Killua?" Illumi said in the same way that he had once explained to an over-eager younger brother where the most important pressure points on the human body were. "Otherwise you wouldn't be home…"
"He wasn't…" My pet, Killua wanted to say, but the air was too hard to get into his lungs to make the words come out. It was only when water began to fall on the hand that rested against his chest that Killua realized why, and turned away from his brother, curling into a ball so that Illumi couldn't see him and wishing his brother would disappear.
The door might have clicked shut as the dark-haired man left the room, but Killua would never be sure.
*******
They agreed on the target together. Gon suggested it, but Killua agreed.
"It'll be fun to explore some ruins together, right?" The white-haired boy said. He leaned back in his chair, kicking his feet up onto the table and letting his arms droop over his head. "Who knows? Maybe we'll even run into your dad! He was interested in ruins, wasn't he?"
"Yeah. That's what Mr. Satotsu told me, anyway." Gon's eyes were serious, and staring off into space like he could see through the walls to something just out of range. Killua sat up straight again and whacked Gon's head.
"Come on," he said as he got to his feet. "What are we waiting for? Let's go!"
*******
"He is dead, isn't he? Gon."
The apparition sitting at Killua's desk wore a razor sharp smile to match the playing card it casually made appear and disappear from its hand. Hisoka shook his head. Killua watched as he pulled a card seemingly at random and showed it to Killua. The Joker.
"Too bad. I thought he would be interesting some day." Hisoka sighed, and closed his eyes, looking away with a shrug. "You, too."
*******
They hadn't expected the final trap. Getting into the tomb had been easy enough - dodging the usual rolling rocks and trick spikes and the like. Par for the course, really. Gon and Killua were standing, surrounded by jewels, when Killua spotted a what looked like a ribbon of nen wrapped around a nearby wall.
"Gon, look!" Killua pointed across the vast hall, and the spiky-haired boy turned to look. "Wonder what's behind it." He grinned. "Want to check it out?"
"Of course," Gon said, smiling. "We wouldn't be very good hunters if we didn't, would we?"
They dashed across the room, scrambling up piles of gold coins and sliding down them, racing each other to see who could get there fastest. Killua didn't let Gon win, but he didn't try as hard as he could, so they wound up reaching the section of wall at exactly the same time.
BAM!
The sound pierced the air like a lightning strike. Gon and Killua cried out as they flew back across the room from the force of the blast as the wall began to rearrange itself. Killua felt it immediately, when his enhanced sight faded away and his body became trapped in a state of zetsu.
"Gon!" He called out as he got to his feet, regaining his bearings and immediately looking for his friend. The other boy across the hall nodded. Then his brown eyes went wide.
"KILLUA!" Gon shouted, and that was all the warning the former assassin got. It was enough, though - enough to get him mostly out of the way from what should have been a deadly attack, but not enough to stop the sword his attacker wielded from catching him across the chest.
Gritting his teeth, Killua dodged smartly around his attacker, hardening his nails into the weapon they had once been - a trick that had nothing to do with nen, that was uncompromised by his state of zetsu. He whacked his first attacker across the back of the neck, watching him crumple to the ground and vanish as he took stock of the other enemies. There were twelve of them, all nen constructs, probably, scattered about the hall in various positions. None of them looked particularly strong, but numbers were certainly on their side, especially without nen to back up Killua and Gon.
The white-haired boy fought with a ferocity he hadn't needed since his days as an assassin. How long had it been since he had blocked out everything and lived only for the singing of blood in his ears? How long since he had taken lives easily, carelessly, without worrying about the destruction he was reaping? He downed two more and shoved his hand straight through the chest of a third. How had he become bored with this?
He caught the flicker of it from the corner of his eye - a slim blade pulled from a cask that they had earlier mistaken as some sort of stopper, never guessing at its sharpness. The nen-being holding it barely paused to aim before flinging it straight towards Gon.
*******
"I brought you some dinner, Killua."
Something clinked nearby. Killua didn't want to move, so he ignored it. Illumi let his nen out enough that Killua knew he was there, but that didn't matter so much, so Killua ignored that, too.
"It's not good to skip so many meals," Illumi said. His nen spiked. Killua felt it come towards him, and then a tiny prick like the sting of a needle going in. He sat up. The maids arranged the tray on his lap and hastily left the room. Killua's hand grabbed the spoon and began to move between the bowl and his mouth. Illumi sat silently in the desk chair, watching him. The dark-haired man waited until he had eaten the last bite and put the spoon down, then approached him and dropped a chocolate bar onto the tray.
"For being a good boy," Illumi said when Killua's eyes flickered over to him. He walked to the door. As he exited, he reached out and called his nen back from Killua.
The moment the door closed, Killua threw up.
*******
"GON!" Killua yelled, and the dark-haired boy turned towards him, a poorly timed turn in the wrong direction that left his back exposed to the flying knife. Gon's body jerked as it sank into his flesh. "GON!"
The hunter's body fell slowly to its knees. Red flashed before Killua's vision. He lashed out, striking the remaining nen beings and dispatching them quickly. When the last was gone, he ran to his friend's side.
"Gon!" The knife had buried itself deep in Gon's shoulder, but the blade was small, small enough that the damage shouldn't be too terrible, but Gon was still on his knees and holding his shoulder and trembling and - Killua shook his head. "Hang on, Gon. I'm going to get the blade out."
"Be careful… Killua…" Gon's voice was raspy, but he managed somehow. "Poisoned…"
"Poisoned?!" Killua pulled the knife free and immediately the sickly sweet scent of lilies assaulted his nose. "This is…? Gon, this is…!"
Gon coughed, and blood splurted from his mouth.
"Hang in there, Gon!" Killua tossed the knife aside, applying pressure to the wound. "We can use our nen to heal you. It'll be all right, just focus on your abilities, right? Don't worry about energy, I'll give you mine, and with that -"
"Don't, Killua."
*******
Occasionally, the door to his room opened in the middle of the night - when he sat awake and sleep would not come, or when it came but left him trembling. Killua watched the sliver of light appear each night, as someone slipped in - his father, or grandfather, or Illumi. When he was a little boy, their visits had been an exercise in defending himself from assassins. They would sneak in, and try to tag him before he noticed their presence. If Killua won, they left quietly. If he lost, they would spend an hour training before going back to sleep.
Now, he noticed them immediately when they came in. What they were doing there, or why they didn't leave, escaped him.
*******
"Don't, Killua."
"Don't?! What do you mean, don't? This is your life!" Killua shook Gon more roughly than he intended, and the dark-haired boy coughed in his hold until Killua remembered himself and held him still once more.
"Barrier's… still there." Gon said, and when Killua reached for his nen, he noticed immediately that Gon was right. It wouldn't come no matter how he called. "Besides…"
The shadows around them flickered, and Killua used the instant he had to react, dodging yet another enemy and watching in horror as the blade intended for him sliced through Gon instead. Gon cried out once in pain and lay on the floor, breathing hard. Killua destroyed the nen creature quickly and hurried back to Gon.
"More coming… Killua…"
"All right." Killua got to his feet and bent down to grab Gon. The dark-haired boy batted at him weakly. "What the hell, Gon?"
"Won't make it if you do that…" Gon smiled, but his face was covered with blood and his eyes were filled with pain until he closed them and shook his head. "Leave me… Killua…"
"I can't do that, Gon! You know I can't do that!" Killua grabbed Gon by the shoulder and shook him. "They'll kill you, you idiot! Don't you get it? You'll DIE!"
"If you stay much longer, we'll both die… Killua…" Gon said, and Killua wanted to scream at him, but two more of the shadows had reformed, and it was all he could do to defeat them, to keep them from hurting him or his friend. He fought like a demon, claws sharp, and even that wasn't enough to completely keep them safe. Killua blocked a strike from hitting Gon and hissed with the pain of it before finally taking the second attacker out.
When he was finished, he looked back at Gon. Gon nodded to himself and opened his eyes.
"I know I'll die -"
"Than you know why I can't do what you're asking!" Killua interrupted, but Gon shook his head, and Killua stopped.
"It's all right, if it means that Killua will live," Gon said, his eyes bright with that shine that Killua had come to hate over the years. The one that always showed up right before Gon said something incredibly stupid and refused to even consider changing his mind. "We won't make it together. I can't. So… I want you to. But… Killua?"
"I hope you know that I'm not going along with this stupid plan of yours," Killua shook his head firmly, crossing his arms over his chest, "but tell me the rest, anyway."
"Since I'm going to die anyway… Kill me, Killua."
*******
"Killua."
He looked up. They couldn't be here. Even if they had gotten to the gate, even if they were strong enough to get through the gate, they still couldn't be here. His family would never have let them into the house, never have let them all the way into his room - so they couldn't be here.
But they were.
"Kurapika… Leorio…"
"It's been a while, hasn't it, Killua," the blond said, the corners of his lips twisting up in a smile that only made him look sadder. Leorio waved as the two of them walked into the room, coming closer until Kurapika was sitting on the bed beside him. "How are you?"
He stared at them.
*******
"Kill me, Killua."
"Are you STUPID?" Killua shouted, eyes snapping open. He slammed his fist against Gon's cheek. Gon's head bounced loudly against the ground as it snapped to the side, and Killua regretted it even as he watched the bruise start forming on Gon's cheek. "I'm not leaving you behind, and I'm not killing you, Gon. We're going to get out of this. Somehow. We are!"
Gon looked at him, and opened his mouth to say something, but his eyes went wide before it came out and Killua dodged to the right with the instinct born of hundreds of fights. Three of them, this time, but at least now they were all attacking Killua, ignoring the injured Gon in favor of live prey, and Killua was glad even as he worried about someone going in for the coup de grace. He darted around and up a pile of gold and gems, jumping back down to take one out with a flying kick. The other two were stronger, and more ready - Killua just barely avoided getting stabbed by one who had grabbed the poison dagger from the floor. He ripped one's heart out, and caught the other on the back of the neck.
Killua turned back to look for Gon, and hurried to stop his friend's skull from banging against the concrete again. Gon was convulsing.
*******
"You shouldn't be here," Killua said. His voice cracked on the words, and Killua tried to recall how long it had been since he had last had something to drink. The thought didn't last long. He shook his head.
"Shouldn't we?" Kurapika asked. He reached out to take Killua's hand, but Killua jerked it away.
"Hey, brat, what's with that?" Leorio sat down on the opposite side of the bed from Kurapika and whacked him softly on the head. "You should be nicer to your elders."
"You shouldn't be here," Killua repeated, drawing his knees up to his chest and leaning as far back into the headboard as possible. "I killed him. I killed him, you shouldn't be here. You shouldn't be here, you shouldn't -"
A loud crack echoed through the air as Kurapika's open palm collided with Killua's cheek.
*******
"Please, Killua," Gon whispered when the shaking slowed enough for him to speak. "There isn't much time. I… it's okay, if it's you, but there isn't much time."
"You can't seriously ask me to do this, Gon. Please don't ask me." Killua's body trembled, too, as he looked at what remained of his friend - blood, and pain-filled eyes that screamed for release. Release that only he could provide.
"Please, Killua," Gon choked out again, and Killua regretted in that moment that he had never managed to deny Gon anything that he really wanted. "Plea-"
Gon's death was very quiet, in the end. He did not finish his last whisper, but instead slumped to the floor as Killua withdrew his hand from behind Gon's neck. The blood dripped down his fingers. Killua stared at it for a moment.
Then he got to his feet, and left.
*******
His cheek hurt.
Killua noticed it, and turned his head back slowly, blinking. Kurapika looked at him from behind black contacts, but Killua could see the flashing of a red light in them.
"Gon wanted you to live on, and be happy," Kurapika said as he placed his hand back in his lap. "He died for that. So you owe it to him, Killua. You owe it to him to live, and be happy."
"Kurapika -" Killua started, but the blond shook his head, his earring catching the light as he did so.
"It took me long enough to realize that for myself - that I best serve my people by having happiness that they may share in, now that our sorrows are done. I do not want to see you make my mistakes." Kurapika looked at him, staring into his eyes intensely. Leorio placed a hand on Kurapika's shoulder and then put the other on Killua's. Killua didn't know why he didn't expect it, but he didn't, and he turned to look at the older man.
"Come on, brat," he said, smiling as he always had. "Let's go."
"Where?" Killua asked. He didn't know how he got there, but he was on his feet and following the others to the door by the time Kurapika answered his question.
"Whale Island."
Killua stopped. The others turned and looked at him expectantly.
"We figured someone should tell Gon's family, right?" Leorio said. "Pay our respects, and that sort of thing."
A vision of Miss Mito as he had first seen her, whapping Gon on the head for failing to keep in touch with her, crossed Killua's mind. He nodded to himself, and walked past the other two.
"Follow me," Killua said as he headed for the house's exit. "I've been there before. He's from the middle of nowhere, and an old man like you might not be able to find it."
"Old man?" Leorio protested, but Kurapika put a hand against his chest and shook his head. The three of them headed quickly through the house. Leorio stopped before heading out the door, turning his head back into the house. When Killua and Kurapica were out of hearing distance, he said, "Thank you for calling us."
"Did I do something like that?" Illumi asked, stepping from the corner he'd concealed himself in and shrugging. Their eyes met. After a moment, Leorio nodded, and hurried after his companions. Illumi watched them go, commenting softly to his father, "Even pets have their uses."
*******
When someone thought to ask, Killua didn't know how he escaped from the ruins. He didn't know how he got back to town, or how he got home. He simply knew that he did. Anything else was swallowed in a haze of blood and confusion that ended with a hand against his face and two very concerned hunters staring at him as he sat on his bed at home.
*******
Miss Mito ran out to meet them as they approached Gon's home on sunny Whale Island. Tears were streaming down her face as she came. She lifted her arms and Killua braced himself for the blow he deserved.
He was surprised when instead of being hit, her arms wrapped tightly around him and pulled him close.
"I was so worried about you, Killua!" She said, holding Killua so tightly that he couldn't breathe. The moisture on his face was just from her tears, he told himself, as after a moment, hesitantly, he hugged her back. "Jin said it looked like you escaped, but you didn't send me a letter or come to visit and I didn't know -"
"Jin?" Killua's eyes widened. "He's here?"
"He was. He… he brought Gon back, so that we could… say goodbye." Miss Mito drew back to arms length and brushed impatiently at her tears. She reached into her pocket and pulled out a folded piece of paper. "Jin… asked me to give you this."
She offered the paper to Killua. He took it from her carefully, unfolding it slowly from the corners. He read it, and an odd half smile crossed his face.
"Like that time at Greed Island, huh?" Killua said as he let go of the note. "Can you show me where, Miss Mito? I want to visit him - Gon."
Miss Mito led the way, Killua introducing the others as they went. The wind grabbed Jin's note, the small slip of paper flying high into the air, until the nen that had held it together dissipated. The message vanished from its written form, but not from Killua's heart.
Take your time. He'll be waiting.
*******