THREADHEART: The Bloom That Binds

Threadless Doesn't Mean Free

Chapter 6:
Not every thread leads back. Some are meant to drift.

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Days passed.
Then weeks.

The storm faded. The temple crumbled.
The threads unraveled—at least the ones they could see.

Killua sat at the edge of a lake in the Northern Range, ankles in the cold water, arms tucked loosely around his knees. His hair was longer now. Untied. Wind-touched.

Gon walked up beside him, two skewered fish crackling over a fire behind him.

“You haven’t said much.”

“Still thinking.”

“About her?”

Killua shrugged. “About me.”

---

The fight hadn’t left him. Not really.
Clause Bloom was dormant, but not gone.
He could still feel it under his skin—like a heartbeat that didn’t quite match his own.

Sometimes at night, threads danced across his vision in the dark.
Sometimes when Gon touched his arm, he flinched before relaxing.

Not because he was scared.

But because he remembered how close he came to losing who he was.

“She’ll come back,” Gon said quietly.

“I know.”

“Would you fight her again?”

Killua paused. “No,” he said eventually. “Next time, I’d listen better.”

“And then fight?”

“Yeah,” he smirked faintly. “Then fight.”

Gon handed him a fish.

They sat in silence for a while, the fire cracking, the stars beginning to bloom.

“Hey Killua,” Gon said, half-laughing. “You do know that thread is still there, right?”

Killua blinked. Looked down.

A single, fine, silver line—barely visible—looped gently around his pinky.

It shimmered. Then faded.

He didn’t react. Just leaned back, let the wind carry his thoughts, and muttered:

“Yeah. I know.”

"You clipped the thread, but not the root. She left her echo behind."

---

Killua stood ankle-deep in a river, lightning crawling along his skin like restless ants. The current rushed fast, but it wasn't strong enough to steal his thoughts away.

He wanted it to.

Since the night of Clause Bloom’s retreat, things had felt... quieter. No more threads lashing out. No more ghostly hum in his Nen.

But peace didn’t feel like peace.

It felt like a held breath.

“You keep doing that,” Gon called from the bank.

“Doing what?”

“That twitch thing. Your hands. Same move you used when you were trying to break out of her weave.”

Killua looked down. He hadn’t noticed.
His fingers were curled like they were still gripping phantom threads.

Later that day, they made their way toward Ryushan—a border town reporting sudden “spirit sickness” cases. Nen poisoning, likely.

Gon had picked the lead up. Killua hadn’t argued. He needed a distraction.

What they found instead?

Velra’s fingerprints.

Not literal ones—but her design.

People with fine tremors. Hallucinations of soft whispers. And in one case, a boy with silver hair muttering:

“Don’t pull it… don’t pull it…”

Killua stopped breathing.

“Who is that kid?” he asked the healer.

“We don’t know. Found him tangled in wire near the edge of the river. No one saw who dropped him there.”

He looked ten. Maybe eleven. Way too young to have his aura awakened.

But there it was—Nen, faint and raw, laced with something that wasn’t his.

Something Velra’s.

“This wasn’t an attack,” Killua said that night.
“She’s replicating the bloom. That boy… he’s like a thread puppet she cut loose.”

“But why?” Gon asked.
“Why leave him alive?”

Killua’s eyes darkened. “Because she wants me to come find the rest.”

They set out that night—tracking threadless echoes. Velra was scattering seeds. Not weaving traps, but networks.

And somehow… Killua could sense it. Not through her.

Through the fragments she left behind in him.

She wasn’t gone.

She was growing—through him.

As they stopped to rest, Gon finally spoke what had been on his mind:

“Killua, you ever wonder if she didn’t lose that fight?”
“If maybe… she gave it up on purpose?”

Killua didn’t respond.

Because in his chest, under the silence—

Clause Bloom twitched.

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