SOUR CANDY | killua z. ✔

7 | gut

tw: mentions of cooking/preparing pigs to be cooked (in case anyone is sensitive to that)

ON INARIYAMI, there were rickety, wrought-iron gates separating the safe parts of the riverside from the unstable rocky parts. The rich vacationers always turned back, but the rusty 'KEEP OUT' sign did nothing to deter fox children from hopping over for shits and giggles.

The gates blocking off the site for Phase Two were much bigger and fancier. Sen definitely couldn't jump over those. She'd probably get shot on sight.

She also had a sinking feeling those gates weren't for Trick Tower.

I'm never going home at this rate, Sen thought morosely, staring up at the gates.

"What are you looking at?" Killua stepped up next to her, trying to follow her gaze.

"The gates," she pointed upward. "They're huge."

"This is nothing," he shrugged. "My front gates are, like, triple this size."

Sen considered bugging him for an elaboration on that. Was Killua rich or did he just live on a big farm?

But it felt like a serpent had sunk its fangs into her vulnerable belly, poisoning her with bad feelings. She had to get those coordinates to her brother soon. Tomorrow, he and Mai would be leaving for Yorknew to hunt down the rest of the purist group. It would take them less than a day to finish the group off. 

Sen couldn't lag behind.

She felt the umi clan's eyes on her even here, on another continent. Waiting. Images of Umishin's bloodied beaches stuck to her brain like barnacles.

"Hey," Killua elbowed her. 

She flinched. Sen looked his way and tried to pretend that didn't happen. Killua inspected her face, obviously not buying her shit.

"What's up with you?"

"Nothing," Sen lied. "Sorry."

Sorry for flinching? Sorry for lying? Sorry for not being a better sister? 

Killua looked at her for a while, waiting to see if she'd continue. When Sen didn't, he didn't push the subject. He simply went back to looking at the gates with her.

Sen exhaled. She'd been sure he would press. He seemed on the verge of doing just that back at the sewer exit. 

Her relief lasted maybe three seconds.

The back of her neck prickled, and she turned her head as subtly as she could. Sen didn't want to alert Killua to whatever this was if she didn't have to.

Her eyes met piercing, sickly gold in the distance. Hisoka smiled, slow and deadly. Still holding her gaze, he pointed at her, a mimicry of her pointing at the swamp creature earlier. His sharpened nail glinted in the sun, focusing on Sen like a dowsing rod. 

I see you, said the pointed finger, teasingly, as if she were on the losing end of hide-and-seek.

That wasn't good; she knew that gesture meant Hisoka identified her as another Nen user. Sen could tell with her senses that he was human, but something about him reminded her uncannily of a kitsune. It raised her hackles.

Sen turned away, half-expecting to have a playing card lodged in her neck. It never came.

No one else seemed to have seen the exchange. 

"Oh! Gon's back!" Killua exclaimed.

Sure enough, the spiky-haired boy was wandering around the group of remaining applicants, Kurapika at his side.