X Syn X (Illumi) Hunter X Hunter

X Chapter Eight X

"Illumi-sama." I called to him over a roar of thunder as I spotted four military grade helicopters heading in our direction fully armed. It seemed a little overkill for a family, regardless of how they'd obtained their fortune.

Dread washed over me as a horrific thought crossed my mind. What if the contract was a setup and this was some plan to get rid of the two most active Zoldyck assassins? I looked over at Illumi, he was calm and emotionless as ever, taking it all in stride.

"Can you handle those?" He asked me indicating the military grade helicopters, he knew I was capable, but he was asking if I was in the right state of mind and I felt heat burn in my cheeks, he'd picked up on my sloppiness and thought me incapable now.

"Yes."

Illumi shrugged his shoulders before darting away from me to face the throng of armed men and I mentally cursed myself. I hurriedly scaled the mansion, making my way back to the rooftop in a matter of seconds before retrieving a small thin blade strapped to the side of my leg. Closing my eyes, I concentrated my aura around myself before shedding my simple black jacket leaving me in my soaked black tank top and black pants. I dragged the blade over my forearm in an intricate pattern before envisioning a demonic winged creature with claws, fangs and a spiked tail.

When I opened my eyes, the mark on my arm began to glow and I heard a loud guttural shriek erupt behind me and cringed as the great winged beast flew past me, nearly striking me with its spiked tail in the process.

"Ungrateful bastard." I hissed, my Nen acted as a portal of sorts, my blood and the summoning circle acted as an invitation, but my Nen gave various beasts from demon lore a foothold into the world, but that didn't always mean they listened to me, the weaker the demon the stronger my influence was over them. Silva explained to me I was a specialist that I used various Nen types and that was as far as his explanation went in the matter. Zeno was nice enough to help me understand why my nen manifested this way and how best to use it. He surmised it was due to my past before them, the haunting past forever ingrained in my memory all the horrid people who called me a demon, who tortured and beat me because I looked different. The 'demon' scar across my shoulder blades burned.

The winged beast luckily thought the helicopters were challenging him with their approach and tore them down with ease. I cast out my influence urging it to attack the men on the ground as more men began to exit the forest, there were at least 80 men at this point. It let out a roar and took a dive toward the ground as I gracefully leapt off the building landing swiftly on the ground below. My gaze sought him out and my heart skipped a beat as I saw him swiftly cutting down his enemies. I retrieved two curved daggers from their sheaths strapped to my thigh and flitted forward slaughtering about ten armed men in the process and disabling their weapons.

No matter how many men I cut down, it seemed like they were never ending. This was definitely not just a case of our contractor having slightly off information, this was clearly an assassination attempt on us. My blood boiled as I paused to ponder this, I had a feeling our contractor was also their contractor. A bullet grazed the side of my neck and I watched in awe as twenty of Illumi's Nen needles pierced my attacker in the face killing him in an instant. It was overkill, by a long shot, one needle would have been enough with Illumi's perfect aim.

He didn't even cast me a second glance as he fought off his own swarm of men, I was hindering him because I was distracted. Ignoring the pain and the blood seeping down my neck, I continued fighting, but paused again as I heard a strange sound, something big was coming, I could feel it in the trembling of the muddy earth beneath my feet.

I sensed someone behind me and managed to roll away from them and avoid getting cut down, my body was cold and tired and I'd lost a significant amount of blood from the wound to my neck and the summoning of the winged beast. Murderous intent was all around me, these men wanted us dead, they weren't even trying to get into the mansion we were supposedly protecting. Not so gracefully, I managed to roll into a crouch, but gasped as I found myself with a gun barrel in my face.

Strong arms encircled me and I felt myself being lifted away as the gun fired, leaving me unscathed. I chanced a glance to my rescuer and felt my heart skip a beat as my gaze was held by his dark soulless eyes.

"I-Illumi-sama."

"We're surrounded." He didn't even sound concerned as he flit to the top of the roof with me in his arms.

Once atop the roof he set me on my feet and my heart dropped, the entire mansion was surrounded, there were more than a thousand men, it was like an entire army had been assembled. Even if Illumi could turn as many as he could into Needlemen, we still wouldn't be able to take them all down. My stomach took a sickening turn as I realized what the rumbling in the earth had been caused by, there were six tanks rolling toward the mansion.

"Illumi-sama? What do we do?"

He shrugged, "Don't fight when you can't win."

I bit my lip to keep from arguing with him, we couldn't win, there were far too many and they outgunned us. "I could try Cerberus again."

"You almost died." Illumi noted tonelessly.

"Well it looks like I might die either way." I grumbled. "Do you have any Nen Needles left?"

Illumi handed over one of his Nen needles without question, for which I was grateful. His needles were imbued with his Nen and I hoped if I carved the circles with something imbued with his Nen that Cerberus wouldn't attack him, if I could even summon him. I carved two symbols into the palms of my hands before returning the needle to Illumi.

He regarded me with slight interest as I turned my nails into claws before folding them in front of me so my nails hovered over the inside of my forearms. I dug my clawed nails into my skin and tore down to my wrists before holding my arms out catching the blood in my hands with the summoning circles etched into them. Cerberus demanded a larger blood sacrifice than any of the other demons I could summon.

I envisioned the great demon hound in my head, every last detail of him sharp in my mind, down to the exact number of teeth in each of it's mouths. There was a slight pull and I winced as I felt as if my lifeforce were being sucked away from me.

"Syn?" Illumi reached out and caught me by the waist as I started to slip towards the ground. "Stop." He ordered me softly, did he sound worried? Why would he worry? Was he even capable of worrying? The blood loss was probably effecting my hearing.

My palms began to glow and with one glance in Illumi's direction I knew my eyes were glowing. Cerberus had accepted my invitation. Now I just hoped I could control him enough to get us out of here. A loud monstrous chorus of growls erupted from behind me and I slowly spun to face the great demon hound and all three of its ugly mottled heads.

Cerberus' cloudy ghostly white eyes stared down at me trying to discern if I was prey or not. My body felt cold and heavy from the never-ending rain, the blood loss and the overuse of my Nen. The winged beast had fled the moment Cerberus had accepted my invitation. I held my hand out to the demon hound and smiled as he sniffed me. His cloudy white eyes watched me patiently, waiting for a command and I felt my heart leap with joy.

"Destroy everything. Kill them all." I waved to the men surrounding the mansion and each of the heads let out a glorious heart stopping howl before the great beast leapt from the rooftop, leaving a path of death and destruction in its wake. My knees buckled beneath me and I gasped as Illumi swept me into his arms. "He'll disappear if I lose consciousness, we should leave."

Illumi nodded and leapt off the roof with me in his arms before racing through the carnage, no more than a blur. The screams of the swarms of men getting ripped apart echoed in the back of my mind as we fled the estate. Once we were a safe enough distance away I allowed myself to slip into unconsciousness.

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