SALVATION | Killua Zoldyck

Chapter 41

The white of newborn daisy petal clouds that filled the sky in an almost iridescent goldenrod of fluorescent lights, a sanctuary of only the blessed, and a haven specially for the safe. If Aurora was the same child when she was five, she'd describe the soft warm place as .. fluffy.

It was soft, filled with amenity. A refuge for the forsaken. An artificial heaven for those who could never make it to the empyrean skies; deserted and forlorn for self function, wondering where they had gone wrong. Where and when had they not reached the bar set for them, looming and hovering over their heads like a festering mingling spirit.

Aurora always harbored a vague, mysterious fear for places such as the one before her eyes.

It was so blinding.

It was too pure, making her feel uncertain about where her true substantive self-hood stood. With every step she took, it became lighter laced with hesitation that mended itself into shoes, afraid that her ebony would discolor the porcelain ambience.

The framework of those enlightened with faith, and the condemption of those who sought desecration.

It was so white there were no shadows. She felt entirely insecure, exposed and vulnerable. The light was not her sanctuary.

However, Aurora couldn't help but still be awestruck. A place for the righteous, like Gon, yet there she stood, as a killer, causing even the angels to shy away and abandon a place they called their pride and joy. A realm in which defied reality, but blurred truth.

"Never thought I'd make it to heaven." Aurora still had some bitter humor pent within as she pat the floor and sat down on what she assumed to be a cloud— or cotton candy. She was too afraid of Killua's scolding if she were to pluck a piece and try it.

If she'd ever even see him again.

Noah walked past her seating where he tapped his foot twice on the ground and an modestly sized oval shape was drawn into the ground and it sunk like quick sand, surfacing a clear blue hued liquid, despite there being no cerulean sky.

Aurora fought the urge to let out an excited squeal at how her brother had created a pond in two movements, but for the sake of face, she sufficed with just a small shimmer in her eye.

Noah scoffed. "Tch, did you think you'd make it here with me next to you— or even the blood flowing through your veins?"

"I wouldn't have made it here regardless, you prick." Aurora retorted snappily before she let out a sigh, seemingly exhaling her partial anger as well and soothed her soul into the acceptance of melancholy. "It's so empty here .." She muttered.

"Forgive you for stating the obvious. After all, with the filthy curse mom placed on you before she died, even the angels would run." Aurora looked on her shoulders, as per usual she saw nothing but her milky white skin.

But the little imps hid and crawled around her body in certain circumstances where they ate and nibbled at her Nen similar to how Ignis would.

But in a world distant from such cruel fates, she wavered. "Can I .. use my Nen?"

Noah waved his hand, signaling her to test it out as she started off by squeezing and molding a butterfly onto the tip of her fingers .. and then she stopped, staring at the butterfly like it was made out of tissue paper as it slowly crumpled itself up into a chrysalis— reversing its cycle of birth.

"What's wrong? Is that all the Nen you got in that tiny body of yours?"

"No." Aurora replied, squeezing her fist. She had plenty of Nen left .. just none of the courage to conjure it. Courage, confidence, it was the lion of pride that gave conjurers the ability to make the daydreams crawl out of  dreams and into the light of day itself.

Without it, you'd might as well be handing an artist some invisible ink. "Or does all of your validation lie in that Zoldyck boy, Illumi's kid brother?"

"And now look at you, helpless on your own while he's fighting tooth and nail, quite literally too." Noah's hand swept through the air as a table set appeared before them. A swish of his finger plopped a tea-set onto the table like the nobility they were.

Although the era of reigning aristocrats were no longer as common as they used to be in just about half of the global countries, Solarid, built off of a hierarchy of aristocrats starting with the founding Ivanovs who had been in reign for centuries, staying hidden and cloaked under their barrier of secrecy, keeping up with the modesty of the present, yet hanging on to the history of the past.

They were once apart of a larger country, one of which that had been torn apart years ago by an uprising aristocratic faction overthrowing the reigning royal family. The fight tousled, tossed and turned the land into a gravity defying chess board, incarcerating the entirety of it, only a small fraction being salvaged by a neutral marquis, Abra Ivanov.

And wiped out by the youngest, Aurora.

"Have I taught you nothing .. or are you just thinking, just because you've grown a little, that you'd start your rebellious stage early?"

"I've grown a lot."

"Oh that's right .. I suppose your rebellious stage began when you killed us. Father first, me next, mother last. Of course you saved the best for last. But, like crazy mother, like naïve sister, mother also saved her best card for last, which brings us here, dear sweet sister of mine, a projectory world."

"A projectory world that we peacefully sit in while mother goes berserk again and ravages everything in her path, once again, screwing over everything, afraid of being thrown away again into Meteor City. Not sure how long it's going to take the nut-job to realize .. shes dead. And all she is, is a corpse of emotions, not even retaining a physical body, strong enough to be manipulated and manifested by Albert into your body since of course we all share the same unfortunate dastardly blood."

Noah only chuckled. After all, he always found amusement in watching his own sister struggle, flailing to find a reason to continue on as a human being rather than that of a lifeless corpse who tore her own vocal chords apart pleading against the foot of the door of her bedroom every night.

"I've grown a lot, Noah. If you've been watching all this time, you'd know .. Do you know why I won't conjure anything else? If you don't let me conjure something from you, I'll end up conjuring that very same monster that killed you, that crazy wench, and dad— and in the case it kills you a second time .."

"You're my only hope out of here." Aurora's eyes, a fine point of precision swept across like the shallow ripple of a surface filled with mines of amethyst glimmers, priceless as could be.

"You're my only hope to go back."

Noah snorted. "What makes you think I'll help you get out?"

".. Because you've given me a way out before." In the midst of their conversation, Aurora had learned how to work the figuration of the world as she tapped her finger onto the table. From thin air appeared a stuffed animal, it's back torn of where a vile of poison once resided. But the moment Aurora touched it to pick it up, the object disappeared into dust.

"Perhaps you've grown too confident and vain. Maybe freedom has gotten its way to your head .." His lilac eyes flickered over to the younger girl who flinched upon touching her own reflection in the mirror, watching it distort like the echo of an auditorium.

"Am I really free?" Never. Aurora was always plagued and burdened by the weight of the past that she refused to let go as it bore itself into her skin, suffocating and welting every orfice in her body. It didn't matter how much kindness she expressed, how much sacrifice she prevailed, it was a stubborn stain in which it refused to go away, forever there to torment her as a curse of grudge placed upon her by her mother.

Maybe Hisoka was right. In the end she ended up harming Killua, swallowing him along into her misfortune.

There was a cold sensation on the top of her head, almost like an ice pack for the sick— the homesick wishing one to feel better soon. A dead cooling touch, deprived of body heat, Noah stared off into the existent horizon as he pat his younger sister's head.

"So your Nen is back it's full capacity." Noah murmured, staring at the purple aura that laced his finger tips— they were remnants of Aurora's wild Nen, spiraling out of control due to a dead lingering spirit occupying her physical body.

"Paku died, so the seal on my memories was lifted .. And Itoko .. he's still alive, I think. He travels a lot, and in the end, I did find him. Just not in the way I had hoped."

"After Paku died, I regained everything. My memories, my conjurations that she locked away .. so I had to look for a Nen teacher to help me curb Nen and helped me transmute and heal. But of course my roots always stay in conjuring. So I met Biscuit. After that whole ride .. the Chimera Ants .. there was people dying everywhere .. and Alluka, and then Hisoka and Illumi .." Their adventures had been long, but not every adventure was a happy one.

Maybe it started off that way in the beginning, but no ending was happy.

"And so the more you conjured after that, the worse the curse progressed. A curse where you were meant to slowly get eaten away every time you dared look into your memories and conjure your own fears .. the very same memories you used to kill all of us that night by summoning that beast. It was a slaughter. A blood bath." Noah let out a chuckle.

A curse that triggered hell imps on Aurora's body to nibble away at her sanity and lifespan whenever she triggered it.

"My dear younger sister is being tormented by her own mistake .."

By her, Noah made no references or gestures toward Aurora. Their mother was the downfall of the Ivanov Family and that was all.

Elenora was always a woman filled with hatred. Abandoned and tossed to Meteor City by parents who didn't ever plan to conceive her— wandering the wasteland of the forsaken, fighting for every scrap she could gather. The concept of pick pocketing, sundry, killing, and eavesdropping was her way of living, sifting through one job to the next.

Until she had caught the eye of a man. Felix Kallisto Ivanov.

The first man to show her compassion, although it was common courtesy of his noble rank. But a woman who had been raised in the slums wouldn't have had known that his gesture was the farthest thing from sincerity. Felix wanted Elenora— but he did not want her. But rather everything that made her whom she was.

Her abilities, powers, things that could help him become the head of the Ivanov Family and succeed it.

Had Elenora known that a decade later, she'd be tossed to the side, she would have turned her back around and continued to walk into an ocean of catastrophe to strangle her weeping sorrows away.

And thus, she was abandoned all over again, by a man who swore to love her till death, and fell out of love with her after she gave birth to life. And by children she was supposed to care for— she had turned the other into her own reflection in the mirrors she so hated.

Elenora despised mirrors. There were always translucent curtains over every towering window in their chateau and mirrors were often removed— because in the reflection of the mirror was only the truth in which her children and husband alike spoke, even those around her at galas.

No matter how many pearls she put on, or fancy gowns, corsets and petticoats, Elenora was nothing more than a piece of plastic recycled from a trash-hole.

And everything had fallen apart when she had taken a glimpse of the amethyst eyes from a daughter. A daughter she had begged the doctor to dispose of once the birthing process was over with. Had the doctor disposed of Aurora sooner, before Felix nonetheless Noah walked into the room— all would have been well, and Elenora would still have her non-soiled golden castor of a throne in the Ivanov Family.

Plum eyes were not a common trait passed down in their family, and just for the spite of curiosity, to see how much a female born with such Nen right out of birth, would fare in their hell-raising of a family, she was named the hues of dawn, in which the midnight blue of the lunar hours collided with the rising hues of crimson, creating a solidification of a heliotrope lavender, the irises of her eyes twinkled, she was Aurora.

Elenora tormented her own child in every way she possible could in every waking moment. Placing Aurora into nightmares of new creatures everyday, teaching her what fear wasn't.

Instead she unknowingly taught to Aurora what fear could be.

Fear was the monster Aurora had conjured that night.

And a child could only endure so much for so long without any care until she broke, and when Aurora broke, her tsunami drowned them all, and her fears and nightmares morphed into reality and tore them all apart, skin and bone alike.

"She was crazy in the first place. She always bought herself priceless jewelry and dresses, went to the most lavish parties just to show other people her adornings — to inflict the implication that she had a husband who loved her and liked to pamper her, but in reality, she was alone."

"And I've had enough. Because of her, because of that miserable woman we call mother, I was always alone. She always forced me to be alone in all of those nightmares! No one helped, not even the maids or servants. I was a shadow in that household!" The splash from the puddle flopped droplets of water onto her clothing, a white dress, blending in with her porcelain skin, but contrasting her ebony hair.

"But you went back to it. To home .. to Solarid. If you didn't go back to it, Albert wouldn't have gotten the chance to activate his ability on you and resurrect mom's hatred for you. She left her marks on ever nook and cranny of the house, even if you destroyed almost the entire thing after conjuring that monster that killed us all. Why did you come back, did you suddenly gain pity? Guilt? You should have turned around and just—"

The sound of a crackle cut the male off as his hand was slapped off her head. "I don't regret what I did!"

"I did what I had to do— just like what you all taught me. Kill or be killed, and eventually, you all were going to drive me onto the edge of death, and you all were the ones who ended yourselves .. So I killed you. Do you know why I came back, Noah? It's not because of guilt, or anything!"

The male's eyes widened, first flashing furiousness for her crude outburst, until he stopped.

This was the first time he had seen his own sister angry.

This was the first time she had expressed her own emotions.

Gon taught her how to be angry. How to be worried about someone. Killua taught her acceptance and that she could be loved.

And Noah, Noah taught her morality.

Aurora's bottom lip quivered as she shakily parted her lips. "I built myself a house of cards and found myself a home and it became my pillar .. I did it and I'm not .. I'm not a kid anymore!" The ravenette sniffled. The tidal wave shattered through its glass aquarium spewing out the crystalline shards embedded into the aching wounds of her swollen heart.

"I'm not .." Aurora tried to wipe away her tears, but they wouldn't stop. They just wouldn't. No matter how raw she rubbed her skin to scarlet palettes, the liquid smeared onto her cheeks and down onto her lap.

Because somewhere, deep inside the pond in which Aurora was afraid of her own reflection, just as her mother had been— Aurora did regret. She regret killing the one person she hated and loved most in the world. He was the first person to care, but Noah certainly wouldn't be the last.

She regret killing so many people before Killua had stumbled upon her.

In the end, Aurora was as fragile as the detachment of scales on a butterfly's wings. So beautiful yet so easily taken apart by the simple gesture of even a light poke. It would tear down the walls of artistry and leave behind the torn canvas in which her parents had created and left behind.

"Tsk. You realize, dead or alive, the age gap between us will never change, right? You'll always be a stupid cry baby who never properly knew how to retain her emotions as much as she prided herself into." Noah hit the girl over the head, squeezing a hiccup out of her until he wiped away the stray wisp of a tear.

"I just wanted to show you how much I had grown .. I wanted to show you both, how much I had grown." Killua was still waiting for her— she would come back, always.

"So you want to live." Noah affirmed. His face turned as still as silt, almost unreadable, forever frozen in a standstill of an hour glass. In a threshold breach of a encumbering stagnant flourish, Noah looked his younger sister in the eye with a tenderness of a hazy reminiscent day.

"I want to live ... with him. I want to grow, with him .. So he can't die .. Killua cant die .. Don't kill him, okay..?"

"What do I get out of this?" The sharpened blade that skinned the silhouette from its mortality, landing the crashing light down of heaven into the plains of sand. Dunes piled from stardust, the Estrella in the sky.

"I'll be liberated from my torment .. Just like you wanted, right? My sentence is over, I can be free." The way she spoke so airily with content, peaceful as if she had hope that there was some humane love from her older brother. Although it was tough love, love was love, and in the end, Noah was harsh, but merely looking out for her.

And Aurora, someone who has grown accustomed to glimpsing at other's fears, reading their emotions— she was right about Noah, because she was alive.

"And so in order to do that .. you want me to lift Mom's curse." Aurora only smiled at his reply, holding her hand up to him, allowing the ring to glisten under his gaze.

His teenage sister was engaged.

Noah's gaze fell, as did the white curtain that shrouded over the lidded box of their surroundings, flopping onto the floor like a snapping branch falling from grace, leaving them under the company and comfort of a starry cobalt blue sky where Aurora reached her hand up with a grin.

"As Aurora Estrella Ivanov, I place all of my hopes onto every shooting star in that sky above us. So you have to make my wish come true, right Noah?" She couldn't revive the dead, but she could still salvage the living.

Noah blinked before he bursted out laughing. His sister was fighting against the inevitability of life— she fought against fate, and everything that set her future in stone. Aurora didn't want a pre-determined future. She wanted one that was as spontaneous as her adventures with Gon and Killua, as unexpected as the people they met along the way.

She did everything he couldn't.

"That's right you brat. If you want something, take it. Take control of it!" Noah could see it now. Aurora was no longer the girl who hid and screamed for help, desperately pulling her nails out to the bed whilst leaving rabid animalistic scratch marks on the door, inadvertently sacrificing her sanity for the sake of escape.

She was no longer the sun, the star in the sky that scorched itself, but rather she was the wishing coin of luck that soared in the starless nebulas and granted her own wishes to exact her own desires and fate. Aurora was selfish and she was proud of that ..

Wishes were made for her to bite into the dust.

"So it's a Zoldyck." The man crossed his arms skeptically.

Aurora sheepishly nodded. "It is."

"Don't you think you should have picked someone stronger? Someone who can save themself so I can save myself the trouble?"

Aurora shook her head, beaming at the thought. "Your brain makes it so that loving someone isn't a choice— but my heart wanted him anyway. I chose to love him and everything that defines him .. and I think you'd like him too."

"He's plenty strong and he can indefinitely save himself. But he can't save himself while saving me, protecting me because he promised. He breaks a lot of them, but not this one. I'm a little bit of a handful, and I'm sure you know that too, Noah." Aurora brushed her thumb against the accessory.

"He always ends up coming home .. and so now it's my turn. He's waiting for me, you see."

The older Ivanov paused before he turned his head away from her. "So sappy .. its disgusting .. go haul yourself out of here before I change my mind." Noah shoved her forward as she blew a raspberry at him. This would be far from the last time they would see each other for now.

Aurora stared into the pond before sucking in a breath and leaping inside a tangent of her own butterflies.

Watching her dissolve into the puddle of water, Noah chuckled. "You heard all of that, didn't you, twerp?" The blonde tousled his hair, looking down at the pond in which the reflection had changed, this time, showing the mirage of a silvernette who only grinned. "Yeah .. Aurora is coming back. That idiot is coming back."

Killua cracked his fingers that were slowly beginning to grow sore and weary, puncturing through sternum after sternum, rib cage after rib cage. It had been a long time since he'd felt this merciless. Years? Maybe.

As he spilled red all around the corridor, blue drifted off of his body in the form of electricity. It felt almost like days since he'd last heard Aurora's voice reciprocating through this mind in addition to another one. Almost as if it were an internal commission, listening to Aurora talk with someone he figured soon to be her brother.

Her curse, her misery and every tipping scale of her reclusive sobs.

They had long been netted and knitted into the objective of the Chimera Ants to slowly notice the spider web cracks crawling on Aurora's cathedral of stained pigmented glass.

"You know she really likes the rain. Jumping into puddles. And apparently she drinks alcohol too." Killua began muttering, somehow knowing that Noah would hear as the echo of a scoff sounded out and eluded the eerie silence of his mind. "Save it kid. I don't need a narration of my sister's likes and dislikes."

"Well you're dead aren't you? How else are you going to find out?" Killua froze for a moment, realizing he sounded like Gon, but he continued anyway.

"She's afraid of eating by herself, and when she sleeps, she goes into a really deep hibernation and it's almost impossible to wake her up .. she's like a butterfly creeping into its chrysalis." Killua hummed about it before coming to the conclusion that he might have reversed the life cycle of a butterfly and the caterpillar went into a chrysalis first. 

"It's not how I find out, its the reason behind it all. She's afraid of eating by herself because it suscepts her to vulnerability. I taught her that. Going to sleep like a dead possum is her brain making up hours for more than half of her life being pried awake by nightmares, wrestling them and avoiding getting eaten alive .. and I've only seen two out of many monsters she's seen." 

The monster that broke through the roof of the mansion due to its towering height, succumbing over the figure of the sobbing Aurora who had long lost her drive to fight back against anything-- but rather than the monster chasing her like it would in her head, it targeted Felix Kallisto Ivanov who had fended it off rather well.

Only, Aurora's anguish fueled the ravaging beast's ability to conquer, and she, she had over a lifetimes worth of nightmares well enough to conquer the head of their family.

And the second were hell imps that crawled along her body, leaping out of the sealed away box of memories in which the chains had fallen to the floor as Pakunoda passed on to the next life. They ate away at her emotional stability and memories first, and then soon feasting onto her life energy, also considered her aura.

There was no way to work around the curse, Aurora had tried numerous times in Knov's box room when she reached into her fear of Neferpitou. Receiving strength in the double edge wound of a doubtful hope for future.

Zeno Zoldyck had caught eye of the ghastly beings. He wavered, even attempting to estimate Aurora's time left-- only pitying her enough to approve an engagement between herself and Killua.

"Besides kid, don't you think you should be focusing on Albert than me?"

Killua narrowly ducked a morning star club that would have crushed his skull then and there, exhaling a sigh of short lived relief before glaring at thin air. He blinked once, and then twice before choking back a spewed profanity.

Where was Noah Ivanov watching him from?

"Hey, are you really the next heir of the Zoldyck family?" As if it were possible, Killua could practically hear him raising a brow as he jumped upward, kicking the sprinkler top and with the zap of his finger, electrocuted and scorched those in his path. "I left that title behind a long time ago."

"I don't like killing, but if I have to, I will." It was as simple as that.

"More importantly .. are you apart of that old geezer's ability too? Some type of ability to resurrect the dead? Almost like Pitou's .. But he can give them their speech ability and emotions back too .. its different from what happened to Kite." Killua muttered to himself. He needed to take a moment to pause before rushing in there too blindly.

"Ha, you haven't figured it out yet?" A jeering taunt that as per usual, the boy fell for it and let out a disgruntled curse. "What, was hearing my sister not enough to give you more motivation-- or was that the problem?"

"Shut up, dammit, I'm trying to think!" Killua snapped aggressively. There was no way in hell Aurora was related to him. Perhaps the only resemblance lied in their jeweled eyes, but now it made sense how Aurora even thought of killing her own brother— he was a pest, and annoying.

"Duck."

"I said I'm tryi—" Killua cut his own remark off by snapping his neck to the side, being let off the hook with a mere graze across his cheek.

"I said to duck, didn't I? I would've rather worked with Illumi, hell even that pig of a brother of yours. You on the other hand .. you're difficult to order around and your talents are mediocre .. you yourself are mediocre entirely. Of all people she had to fall for a Zoldyck."

"Look here, brat. The faster you kill Albert, the back I can go to my nap. Being half resurrected like this was a rude awakening, and I don't do those. So, listen to the directions I give you, or I'll change my mind about helping my sister. This is her wish, not yours, not mine."

Noah was the repose of death, his name rooted from the purpose of killing and putting those around him in a permanent slumber. He was Demetrius, the king, the next head of the Ivanov Family, and he didn't tolerate interference.

Killua held an iron gaze of irk. "Where do I go now?" The mansion was so excessively large that Killua himself couldn't navigate no matter how many times he turned the corner only to be led into another one that looked just exactly the same as the previous.

"You don't go anywhere." A lubricious splash of poison caused the boy to freeze, eyebrow twitching.

"Because they'll come for you." Quicker than he had dodged the Chimera Ants, placing his adept ability to dislocate the limbs in his body in order to save his own flesh from being bled out, he heard a crack from his shoulder. "Dammit, this was a mansion without an owner for years, whats with all your damn staff!"

"Our staff just don't get to quit. There are certain circumstances to it .. and all of our staff, they come from Meteor City."

"Albert's Nen ability .. Troubador."

Sapphire blue eyes widened in almost surprise when an icy cold hand grabbed his nape from behind, out of instinct, he kicked them to the wall, causing the entire floor to quake. A stinging sensation on his leg caused him to wince, and look down, only to find it was burned. Making skin to skin contact with whomever he had just kicked .. burned him.

"Just about all of our staff and workers are Nen users. Not originally of course. If they met the right regiments, we assisted in the opening of their Nen Nodes. We're the head of intelligence for worldwide organization kid. We know lots of things, lots of secrets through spying. We were worth a great sum of money .. and Aurora, she probably even surpassed our net worth by now."

"We're spies. Info-brokers who sell information to people like your family. We don't accept just anyone. We know secrets to Nen too, and how to manipulate its functions through poisons, similar to the one Albert exposed you to. It's the reason why Aurora is immune to certain poisons and even sensitive to Nen."

"And Albert's ability? You're right. He can't resurrect the dead, rather, no one can."

Neferpitou's ability, Terpsichora, couldn't bring the dead back to life either, and Gon and Killua both had acknowledged this. It was a mere string attachment to a dead doll of a puppet to be strung around by what seemed to be a demonic beast. It could enhance the corpse's physical abilities but it couldn't reach out to its Nen's ability.

"Meteor City ..?" Killua attempted to clear his mind through of what Phinks had explained at the auction at Heaven's Arena about remnant Nen from emotions.

It clicked into place. The last shard of a glass chalice now shone in pristine perfection; cracks aligning each of its pieces put back together in perfect alignment. Slowly, the music scores of a bar straightened out and the requiem fell onto its proper placement.

"Aurora, did your mom hate you?"

"Emotions."

The same reason he'd dip his hands back into the ruby red that oxidized into burgundy, smearing death along a canvas, long and weary — the same reason Aurora had killed her family out of fear.

Emotions were the fuel, the match that lit a sea of gasoline ablaze soaring and roaring to life as smoke filled the air and suffocating their lungs.

Noah chuckled. "There it is. The prodigious brain I'd heard so much about."

"Albert — if the conditions are met and the emotions are strong enough, he can revive them, bring them back over to the world of the living— however, it is only their emotions alone. A physical body don't apply to this. Thus, two things need to happen. Either one, the revived person must have someone of their bloodline alive to take over their body, or two, a body either too weak of a resolve to fight against the strong will of the spirit, or is on the brink of death."

"Doing this, he has access to the spirit's Nen ability to some extent, just like how Mom was able to put you into that nightmare." Noah explained carefully. Killua took the information in, and wrung it out through the dripping blood of his enlonged nails.

"You've experienced it first hand. Albert has the ability to manipulate people through his words, rouse their anger, trigger their senseless need for revenge and killing." A sweet melancholy of enthrallment perceived by the precedence of a balance beam, even the tiniest of feathers would make a fraction of a shift.

"Specifically, just like Mother, our servants are from Meteor City. In the scenario that the Ivanov Family was ever under attack, of course our servants are deployed first— and should our servants fall, we deploy Albert. Souls willed with anguish of growing up in poverty where the forsaken wallowed, abandoned to die while they sleep beside a corpse long dwindled— their childhood upbringing makes it a perfect candidate for Albert to resurrect them and simply send them out to battle again until the enemy forces wear down."

"So you see .. Killua, these people you've all been killing? It's been useless." Upon the words that fell onto his hearing, Killua looked around where the corpses of bloodied servants stood up. Maids, kitchen staff and guards alike. Just like his dream enacted into reality.

"So I have to head straight to the root of the problem, huh." The boy cracked his fingers, activating Godspeed. "Kill enough of them and you can kill Albert entirely. If you activate your Gyo, you can see that each of the corpses have a string of Nen attached to them .. all of them root to one person. For every corpse he brings back, the stronger their emotion, the more they shave off his lifespan. Keeping mother here must've taken out a chunk of his remaining time. He's planning to die here anyway .. only after he's killed Aurora."

A lyre of burning iridescent flames burning everything to ash in their way with the frequencies of the lullaby only quenching the thirst of the lion.

"Then I'll kill him first."

"You could .. but it still wouldn't rid the curse from Aurora. Now speaking that she's trying to keep control of her body, Mom is probably doing her most to turn it into a carcass from the inside out— we need an exorcist."

"Then we find one. With so many staff members you've got to have at least one exorcist among them, right?" Running the probability and estimates through his head there was a less than one percent chance, but he'd take it. Specialists were rare, but he'd seen them before, from Chrollo and Kurapika, to Neon Nordstrade.

From his hot headed nature that clashed with his demeanor capable of deducing every scrap and inkling producing an outcome within a stimulation of his mind, Noah understood his sister's words. "I get it now. I get why she said I'd like you."

"You're a transmuter, fickle and temperamental." An assassin disguised as the ferocious tempest of a hollowing muse.

His words reflected just like Hisoka's own that mirraged against the checkerboard marble tiles aligned and arranged perfectly like that of a chessboard. "You're perfect to control under the right provocation, although it's difficult at first." The elder Ivanov remarked.

"Your heart would've been in the palm of my hand if you were alive." The alabaster haired boy muttered with such a deadliness that it would've been well mistaken for poison to be dripping from his fanged words. "I've heard about you all .. what you did to Aurora .. if your pops was here, I'd kill him twice, and you and your mom— I'd kill you all, all over again."

"This isn't an alliance, this is a temporary truce." Killua was bad at comforting, that much, he would lower his non existent pride, to admit. Aurora had picked apart each spectacle of his falsified pretentious front used to cover his fear of getting too close to people.

But he would at the very least pride himself in the very aspect that he knew how to read Aurora in some aspects from their intertwined rose bush prickling the hands of those who touched and sacrificed their blood for the sake of each other.

She held hatred in her body. Much, hatred, just as much as he did for Illumi, yet whilst loving her family at the same time.

A bittersweet love that canceled out the bitterness in their childhood and brought just sweet.

But the thing is, despite how dark everything gets, the conceit of the bleak chances of survival in each of their journeys, the horrid circumstance in which life and death were strung in a tip of balance— Aurora was a star, and she only shone brighter, even while the light in her eyes dimmed.

Her porcelain skin only grew paler, and she only shone more splendidly. And the more tired she became, the more energetic she appeared.

Like a slow burn out.

"I like that spitfire, twerp. Ha! She's your curse! My little runt of a sister is your curse. Our little black sheep, your very own little light in disguise as a curse that'll lead you to your death. Because you'd risk that much for her— because she has you wrapped around her little finger. She's a tour guide straight to the depths of hell." Noah merely spoke from personal experience.

"We were all going to die some-day. Neither of us like living our lives out with a future planned by other people, who would? That's why we're just some kids touring the world and its secrets, what's wrong with that? Nothing is ever promised, I'm sure Aurora knows that better than anyone, especially with the earfuls she gives me over breaking them." Killua managed to muster out a chuckle.

"You know .. your sister, she can feel pain too. She just bears it and keeps a straight face to avoid losing her front." She and Killua were two peas of the same pod.

"But it's a miracle. How she can burden so much hate and still manage to smile genuinely. I used to make fun of how weak she was, but Aurora, she's stronger than anyone I've ever met, because she doesn't hate anyone, really, not even the world. Not even the cruel world that put us through everything, or even the family that she forgave due to the fact that it was her own birth that caused your hatred to be directed toward her in the beginning."

"In the end, she still loved you all. She loved life as it's whole and embraced all of its ugliness. She's a light that brings life to the dark. Aurora is strong, and Aurora is human." A child who grew in such a short span of time. A child who had begun by drawing pictures on the damp ground with a broken twig about a happy fairytale family where they all lived happily like merry dolls.

And it soon went to questioning her own existence, writing names of herself and Noah in the ground— because he was the only one left in her fairytale family.

Noah was the only one left that she considered family.

And then the twig snapped, and the pictures washed away in the midst of a thunderstorm, rain fell from her starry eyes as she withered over the corpse of the only person she had loved.

And then it was gone.

Aurora wandered, and wandered, leaving home behind collapsing in its own ruins till she had found a new one.

There was no second thought about it.

Love at first sight, maybe?

She just knew, that he was going to be her home, and so she treated it with care, and found more homes. And together they formed a sanctuary. But soon it only became the three of them.

From drawing a family in the mud, to only a family duo of two, and to none— to fighting tactics and battle strategies. Aurora had grown, amazingly. She had fought against all odds and adapted, repeated and smiled, asking for nothing from the world except goodwill to those she cherished, leaving nothing for herself.

And Aurora sat crouched onto the ground on the edge of a runaway puddle, she picked up a stick and drew. Three figures and one botched little dragon, smiling with childish content, she stood up. Elenora Ivanov was her mother— but her mother was dead and belonged dead.

Aurora had the blessing of being alive, and she'd leap to take the opportunity back into the fate of her own hands.

She turned around where a leaf of a dandelion fell into the lake they stood on. A reflection of a woman with long tresses of brown hair and stunning peridot green eyes, sharp filled lips painted burgundy with a mole beneath her lip. She and Aurora looked absolutely nothing alike in the physical sense.

There was no way she could have been Elenora's birthed child-- but alas, she was. An unfortunate turn of events.

"I never thought that robot doll of a sister would ever want something. It's amusing, to see her so desperate, it's like swimming against a riptide .. and she keeps drowning and resurfacing over and over .. at some point, I'd push her head down because I grew annoyed that she wasn't dead yet, but even so she didn't struggle. She kept a straight and calm face."

"It annoyed me." Noah tsked. Aurora was a seldom to society. A story with words continually flowing out and splattering ink trails onto the floor, slowly the pages came together, woven and stitched tightly.

"So why are you helping?"

"Why did Illumi put the needle in your head?" Noah retorted simply like the skipping blade of a silver hunting knife.

"Pushing aside the fact that it was to protect you— it was also to help you grow as an assassin. To hone your instincts. Just like that, I'm just here for the bloodbath— to see if the growth Aurora's been wagging her tail out and about, is really true. Besides I told you earlier didn't I? I'm only half revived right now, which is troublesome. I'd rather be fully dead and back asleep."

"Is that so, young master, Noah?"

In a rabid sense, Killua snapped his head around faster than someone could blink.

The eyes Aurora adored ever so endearingly had become one unrecognizable where he could only see red in his sight. Albert's red for dying the ivory skin of Aurora in a tainted crimson he'd wish he'd never had to see again.

"Ah Albert, so you've come back to your senses and come to greet me?" Noah chuckled, swirling the glass of whiskey in between his fingers whilst staring at the playing reflection in the pond.

"Indeed. Welcome, master—"

"How come no one in this god forsaken house understands when their late lord is being rhetorical? How degraded has this place become without a lord or heir? Obviously dead people can't retain onto their title in the world of the living .. you of all people are aware of this, Albert. The title gets passed on to the next blood if the former is dead." The elder butler only stiffened for the split of a second.

"Welcome to the modern day century. Gender or not, if it comes down to it, a female can be the head of the house-- and if that's an issue, her fiance here is the next heir of the Zoldyck house. No matter how you look at it, Aurora's blood is more potent than yours. You've committed quite the act of treason .. trying to kill her and all— your lady, the girl you're supposed to serve."

Killua's nerves tingled with an inhumane bloodlust long outlived its years of karma. "You've done the boring part of crawling out for me." Killua stripped off the splotted shirt and tossed it onto the floor. He had few scars from the occasions in which the wound was too deep for Aurora to rid him of the discolored marks.

"And if I kill Lady Aurora?"

"You've grown bold haven't you? The blood that we share is almost non existent. There's no way you can become the heir of this ballistic family. There's no way you can end it either. Even after Aurora, there's someone with stronger blood than you." Itoko, their cousin was still someone well alive and breathing.

If worst case scenario occurred, he'd be next to take the title.

"It seems today I go against your will, Lord Noah .. It is your time to return back to your repose as the name bestowed upon you .. Now, Troubadour."

The clicking and clacking of wooden pieces like doll folk clacked.

Killua hadn't admit it aloud, but he was slowly growing tired. Fighting Nen users was just as bad as fighting against Chimera Ants all over again. "Hey kid, I'm gonna hide away in your body real quick so he doesn't get me."

"Wha-" Killua felt a sharp pang in his chest as everything in his line of sight hazed and tripled. His head throbbed yet his body surged with a light filled anemity reliving him of fatigue. His conscious felt as though it were floating away into an abyss.

"Hoo! So you can do something like this with this body!" Noah flopped the arm around.

"What the .. are you .."

"In your body, yup. Your resolve strengthens when you talk about Aurora, you know that? But when you think of me helping you— redemption, salvation, just as my own kid sister had done for you, and pulled you out of your own hell hole, you envision me like you. You see it as how Aurora gave you a second chance— she's giving me one too. You weakened your resolve, so it made it easier for my to slip into your body."

"I mentioned it right? I'm only half brought back from the dead. Since I don't have that big of a manifestation to fit inside one measly vessel, it makes obtaining yours easy peasy." Noah flexed his hands, grinning ear to ear, tapping his foot on solid ground— seeing real light.

His crazed orchid eyes lit up.

Although he wasn't quite used to the under developed body, Killua had massive stamina and physical strength for him to plenty work with. "I hope you didn't think that I'd let you be the one to kill Albert."

"You bastard— get the hell out!"

Noah chuckled. "You don't know how to fight back. I'm raised in a family of illusionists and nightmare conjurers. My will is stronger than yours. You're still just a kid, plenty to learn. I'm an adult, y'know, so sit back and let me get my dying itch to kill someone saturated."

Everything seemed too easy.

For Albert to appear before their eyes— like a man waiting to be killed.

"It's been a long time since I've seen your abilities in action, hasn't it, Albert?" Slowly, Noah circled the ring of his prey with a merciless smirk. Depending on the defensive capabilities of Albert, Killua would get out with a few broken bones and an earful from Aurora, at the very least a sprain of some sorts.

"Ive longed for the day in which I could serve Master Felix once more .. however it seems as though his festering emotions were seemingly not there .. thus it was impossible to resurrect him, due to the circumstance. It seems toying with the grim reaper has fogged your mind and caused you to forget the very person who had sent you to your misery." Albert disappeared with Zetsu, vanishing into thin air.

Noah's eyes darted around his body, and before he himself could make a move, Killua's pre-programmed reflex response body had done it automatically, dodging the scorching flare of a blue fire ball launched his way as he leapt out the side of the window to dodge the attack.

The limp corpse launched itself toward him, attempting to knock him off the ledge whilst Noah used his legs to dangle on a balcony ledge. "Vector, Meridianam."

Swiping his finger downward, the sous chef was planted into the ground as Noah leapt back upward, stepping over the body as a welcoming matt to his home. "Now, now, don't look so flabbergasted, twerp. We are a family of Nen users after all. It's like magic, I can create an arrow of Nen, forcing whatever I want into whatever direction and whatever net force I want onto it. Just defying the simple laws of physics and gravity. Although the more net force, the more use of Nen."

"All the requirements that allow me to use my ability all lie in the extension of my En. Your electricity was starting to bore me a little after watching it for so long." Although the downfall was that In was granted immunity to Noah's Nen ability, thus the use of his other Nen categories came in handy— either that or he simply used brute force.

The elder butler encased his fist with Nen, enhancing his strength and sending an impact to the wall, causing a multitude of earth shattering cracks to run through every crevice of its structure, even leading up to the ceiling as the chandelier swung. Debris fell from all angles.

Noah ducked, nearly snapping Killua's own spine at the expense of avoiding a beam of white light that crisped the side of his shirt.

Albert was taking advantage of the fact that in such a small body, he'd have to dodge the dropping pieces of concrete while simultaneously deflecting and or dodging the attacks delegated upon him by the very own staff who watched him grow.

Noah swiped his finger, darting the debris out of his way and launching them toward the insurrections of Albert's Nen ability, taking them out and plummeting two very tall stories downward.

Albert himself without the entirety of the Ivanov Family backing him was someone near useless and powerless. At this rate, Noah'd be able to single handedly wipe out their entire staff blindfolded. "So anti-climatic .. I was looking for more of a thrill.." Noah wiped his cheek off of the blood that splattered.

Killua inhaled a sharp need of air. Even if he had removed the needle Illumi set in his head— Killua still felt fear. It was inevitable. Noah Ivanov was just holding back while effortlessly fending off dozens of the estate workers with a mere swat. If he wanted, he could have ended the fight before it began.

But there was a reason he didn't.

"I spent some time wondering why you were letting me kill some little weaklings. You know my strengths well, so it made absolutely no sense .."

"Unless you're planning something .. something like .." Noah trailed off. Killua took this as the opportunity to state his hypothesis. "Like use your ability to switch into .. someone else's body." If Neferpitou's ability, allowed her to turn her own corpse into a fighting puppet, there was no reason as to why Albert couldn't do the same.

Noah began to speak again."But even so, that seems like a very thinkable plan, even with the sorry excuse of a plot twist .. so .." With the snap of a finger, it was almost bewildering as to how it reminded him of the same snapping sound that echoed out in the forest that day when he and Aurora fought against the Amori brothers.

"What could you possibly be thinking to make this absolute ridiculous ridden plan? First you revive mother, place her into Aurora's body to amplify the curse and to kill her— or leave her in a vegetive state where all of her memories would be eaten away and wiped out by the hell imps .. then you revive me— halfway, you unsuccessfully poison Killua .. you were unable to revive father— you're killing me here Albert! I expected something more grand. I cant even call this a coup."

"You can't possibly be looking to become the next head of the Ivanov Family by killing us all off and setting us up against one another, can you? You gain nothing out of killing Aurora. She doesn't even live here anymore. She's practically abandoned her surname— and although you reek of vengeance, it's not strong enough for you to have turned your back on the allegiances you swore to our family name."

"So look around. Our house has returned back into the state it has stood before years ago, the day we all died. Corpses left and right, our damaged home, my wistful sister crying, dear dead mother and of course theres me. A house without an owner, a thriving town population of thousands, completely unaware." 

"Is this your goal? To turn back time back to our old former stage where my sister suffered, mother psychologically abused her, I berated her and father pretended her existence was worthless? Are you trying to become father and take his place in this deranged play of our family?"

"That's it, isn't it? All of this nonsense you use about an excuse to kill Aurora when in reality it's just a disguise as your layout for a restoration of our former days. Thats what you want. To take the place of father, to restore the Ivanov Family back to its former time. Before Aurora had killed us all." Noah let out a tired exhausted sigh before crouching down onto the floor, his body pulsated and shook like the folding waves of tides.

Tides of delirious laughter that he could no longer hold back.

"You've outdone yourself Albert!" Noah's shout convulsed their rundown former glorious halls. "So in the end, we're all just your dolls, set up on a stage ready for an act of your choice."

"Oh god .. Ha .. ha!" Noah's laughter died down, as did his anger. The time he spent alone was peaceful, re-adjusting to the conniving ways of humans still remained in his body like a shockwave. Noah was tired, but not as tired as he felt, even though he physically wasn't there— beside his sister, beside Killua, the day grew lighter.

He was ready to go back into the slumber of his bestowed name. An unorthodoxed requisite of his shallow resentment.

"Why?"

This time it wasn't the deep chalky voice of Noah that spoke, but rather Killua's. The boy who did not understand the family of spies and info brokers and their twisted hemorrhage of loyalty. It was something that differed from the tough love of his own family.

And he was a boy venturing about the true freedom of emotions and willed pain.

"It's as simple as it sounds. I live to serve the Ivanov Family, if such doesn't exist, what meaning is there to my life?" Albert sharply glanced into the side view of his peripheral vision.

"So you're that insanely loyal .. and so attached without a thread of purpose that you're willing to go this far." Noah couldn't believe it. But it was so insane that he couldn't help but laugh.

Albert stared for a while before reaching into his breast pocket. "It seems time has run out."  He clasped shut the pocket watch in his hand as Noah took a step back.

"Boy. Where did you hide Aurora's body?" Noah retracted his En, conserving stamina.

"Behind a secret vault in your dad's office that Aurora had shown me once."

Noah muttered something to himself before nodding. "He should be able to find it there." Killua bit down onto his tongue drawing blood in order to restrain himself from protesting against Noah's words, but ever protest Killua had made up until this point had been proven opposite by Aurora's elder brother.

"You see, theoretically speaking .. if Albert gets his hands on either your body or Aurora's, it's game over. He can physically kill his body now, and revive himself as a spirit and flow into either your bodies, and take your life aura as long as you were alive before he entered the body. Chances are, he'll likely target Aurora's considering Albert is of Ivanov descent in some way, shape or form."

"In doing that, Aurora's physical body wont be able to handle the substantial mangling to her own living spirit, done by the aura of those dead, and in the end she'll die. He'll likely aim for her body. Your body will be fine as long as I can cancel myself out of here fast enough-- that and, you aren't cursed. If you go back to re-hide her body, Albert has eyes everywhere. He'll find her."

"So now, we just hope he finds Aurora's body in time."

"He?" Noah only ignored the question.

"What happens if we kill that old fart right here and now?" Killua cocked a brow. His eyes grew enflamed simply watching the elder man, on the toppling slide of death. "Who do you take me for? If I could've done that, I would've. Post Mortem Nen kid. He'll hold a grudge onto you because of his undying regrets. And Post Mortem Nen is even stronger than Nen belonging to that of the person from when they were alive."

They were absolutely out of options. Albert was someone alive quadruple their years on the planet. The pair had absolutely every right to consider Nen belonging to the dead. "Then let me suffer the effects of the Post Mortem Nen."

"You're kidding."

"Get out of my body, you don't want to kill him in case you also suffer the repercussions of when that damned butler dies, so I'll kill him on my own." Running away once was enough, having her cry was even worse, but it was better to have her angry with a beating heart than without.

Killua had meant to shoot for the moon. Somewhere far, far away, away from the terrorizing eyes of those who chose recluse-- but blinded by the tormented agony of his suffocating family home, he'd mistaken a brightly twinkling star, as the moon, and shot for it, landing on its enveloping warmth.

A magnetic personality, undeniably contagious with laughter and smile.

He was a little homesick in the grey little world they sat in together in a field of blemished dandelions where wishes surrounded them where they sat, fulfilled by the comfort's melody.

"Damnit kid, how do I keep you alive with your ridiculous duty to save my sister!" Noah could feel the numbing loss in his legs, the sensation of Killua overtaking his body back.

"Then don't. You don't have to do anything, just get out." The saturation of his arm being dug through the heart of one man seemed the most satisfying idea of all. Slowly feeling the numbing aches and pains of his body stinging. Killua took a step forward.

Albert let out an amused chuckle. "Troubadour, illustris."

Killua flash stepped forward with the intent of driving his fingers through flesh-- is what Albert had thought, especially when Killua had pulled out an alloy yo-yo, swinging it around a pillar as the end of the object hit a corpse doll, and the boy was in a split second, behind Albert.

The butler who only grinned whilst Killua drove his hand through the man's abdomen, not heart.

"Did you think I was going to kill you so easily?"

Albert let out a hailing gasp before toppling over to the floor. "I told you, this will just be like awake surgery."

Gon would have probably reprimanded him for his inhumane ways-- but had he understood the reasoning and raging thoughts that truly lied within every multiplying and dying cell in the boy's body-- Gon would have turned gravity upside down if it meant he could get his itching hands onto beheading Albert and getting his skull onto a platter to feed to Mike.

"This will probably fuel your hatred for me-- make the Port Mortem Nen stronger .. but I'll give back what you did to her, ten fold-- especially for trying to do it again, to re-create her misery. If you think its impossible to live without the Ivanov Family .. then you should just die. Maybe you were meant to be born without a purpose and to find one in the first place." Killua's nail ran across the flesh of Albert's arm, tearing through the fabric of the uniform he wore.

The switch within Killua flipped. He was a force of Yang to be reckoned with, reeling his arm backward.

"Damnit this little prick." Noah forced himself through the small cracks of Killua's iron will, the very undermined fractures caused by his hesitance and fear of what Aurora would think if he were to kill someone potentially close to her. After all, Aurora still loved Noah even after all he had said.

Would she hate him?

Noah slammed his knuckle against Killua's cheek, sending the boy skidding across the continuum of a black floor. "I told you to stand down. Listen to your elders, yeah, kid?"

"Move. I'll rip him apart."

The two fought for control over a singular body. Killua's arm rattled and jolted while his nails un-sharpened themselves. There was the hollow and blank wave of barren impassivity. Coughing out crimson, Albert raised his arm.

"Damnit you shit head, move, you can't block this attack with your measly In! You don't even know how to use it! Oi, can my punk of a cousin help me out here?!" Noah barked as Albert encased his hand in Nen, shrouding it and enhancing its physical attributes.

"Skill Hunter : Bandit's Secret."

Sleek charcoal black hair like an obsidian stone soaking up the moonlit tresses and the voice of a velvet incinerator turning defiance into ash-- grey eyes that resembled just that. The chilling wisdom of an impassive man who hung shadows in their realms, he was the man who lived alongside death and fought against life.

Just like his younger cousin.

Albert let out a deathly gasp as the palm of his hand fell atop the cover of the book. A glistening light enveloped the room as his arm fell limp, eyes rolling to the back of his head.

In that split second, Noah backed off, allowing Killua reign over his body once more, unfortunately puncturing Albert's heart while he was at it. The frenzied smog that overlapped the boy's azure eyes heated up with a tar of hatred as he continued to dig his hand through the flesh of the elder man who was now deemed dead.

"That's enough." The feminine voice flowed out as she grabbed his arm. Almost on reflex, he'd nearly killed her, but she'd reacted faster, flipping his arm over and twisting it over his back, hearing a satisfying pop as it fell from its socket. She had unruly magenta-pink hair, tied up in its usual up-do, wild and untamable.

"You guys .. are .."

"The Phantom Troupe, I suppose you all still call yourselves?" Noah chuckled. Rather it was only part of said Troupe.

Killua blinked, snapping into reality where he surveyed the people who stared at him as he towered over the corpse of a cold body. "You .." Killua stared at the man donned in his not-per-usual slicked hair, but rather his onyx locks fell flopped and free downward. A blue bandana was tied around the tattoo on his forehead as he was dressed in a long black trench coat.

"You knew the Troupe's leader?" Killua had asked another question. He thought she would avoid it but she nodded. "I didn't know he was their leader until recently though. I had been looking for him since him and Paku sealed some of my childhood memories and I can see why." She said weakly, planting her feet on the ground to stand.

Killua could see it now.

The uncanny resemblance in the three of them. Pearly snow white skin, the raven black hair and the depth in which beclouded their eyes. The man even eyes, grey enough to be mistaken as purple. "It would've been bad if we hadn't fulfilled that last condition in the fraction of a second. Zoldycks are such a hassle, no wonder my sister is engaged to one." Noah grunted, scratching the back of his head.

"You still look confused. Was your head so caught up in killing someone that was already dead— that you didn't see what was going on around you?" Machi thunked at his head with the side of her elbow, the stoic look on her face never faltered for even a second. Not an ounce of resentment laid wake on her features.

"Boss's Nen ability, Skill Hunter. You know about it, right?"

Killua slowly nodded his head.

"Skill Hunter allows satan here to take a Nen ability away from someone under four strict conditions .. One, he must witness the Nen ability in action with his own eyes. Two, he must ask about the ability and be answered by the victim. Three, his victim's palm has to touch the handprint on the cover of Bandit's Secret and four .. all of this must be done within an hour."

"All of this time, using Zetsu, he's been hiding and lurking in the shadows. While I asked the questions about Albert's ability out loud, Chrollo repeated them underneath his breath, thus still fulfilling the requirements. You did the hard part of getting his hand print to touch the cover for us. Because of that .. Chrollo was able to take Albert's Nen Ability right before he died, making Post Mortem Nen, useless."

"You look battered up. Were those weaklings too much for you?" Phinks mocked whilst Machi flexed her fingers, slowly pulling in clear threads of Nen. Scraping against the floor, dozens upon dozens of limp bodies squirmed in their restraints. "Troubadour."

A pale flame of smoke erupted from their mouth, dissipating into thin air. Shrill cries and curses from spirits that slowly melted away had eluded the atmosphere, and now only two remained.

"Where's Kortopi?" Chrollo questioned, to see the #12 of the spiders nowhere in sight.

Killua took a double take. "Kurapika's Judgement Chain!"

The boy leapt back a few meters, on guard for anything.

Chrollo chuckled, raising his hand up in the air and waving his book. "It's gone."

What surprised the boy wasn't the fact that it was gone— but rather how. "Kurapika said .. the only way you would be able to remove it is .. with a Nen exorcist .. So that means, you a Nen exorcist." Machi felt as though Killua was going to pounce at any moment, stopping at nothing to grab the Nen user from their grasp.

After all, she had fought the boy before, he'd landed a few solid hits on her— not only that but he was clever and creative.

"Settle down brat. I was the one who let them know Aurora came back home to Solarid .. Plus, he's here for his own benefits too .. isn't that right, Chrollo?" The head of the spiders merely smiled. It wasn't a warming, kind smile. Just a smile, one where he moved his facial muscles upward.

"That's right .. We obtained a Nen exorcist as an acquaintance. I'm sure you might know him. After I got my Judgement Chain removed, I began to go on the run from Hisoka. After all, the two of us promised to fight. However I've been in need of some new abilities in my book in order to defeat him at our battle in Heaven's Arena. Solarid is right on the way to Heaven's Arena and Noah offered two ripe abilities for me .. in the end, it's a benefactor for all of us." Killua cringed at the mere mention of the jester.

"I found her, Boss." The small voice had entered the room, standing next to him was a man cloaked entirely in beige with a yellow poncho. "Sleeping Beauty has arrived." Killua was quick to take her out of the grasp of the man in white.

"She's grown since the last time I saw her at Yorknew. In the end, she did find me. But she also found someone else." For a moment, the ashen eyes flickered to the alabaster haired assassin who didn't notice— but Noah snorted in disbelief.

Said man who was cloaked had taken off his top hat revealing the familiar face that Killua was taken aback by. The tall lean man with dark sun kissed skin and black hair. Killua remembered exactly who he was— the man in Greed Island.

"Didn't you die when Genthru had placed a bomb on you?" According to the story told to him by Aurora and Gon when he had gotten home from the Hunter Exams, Abengane was the player who had told them about Genthru's true nature and goal of the game.

The man shook his head sheepishly, finding it awkward to reappear alive to a child who had cleared the entire game in which he supposedly had died in.

"Hisoka picked him up from the game to get rid of the chain around Boss's heart so they could fight. Now here we are." Phinks jabbed a finger, summarizing the event quickly, but Killua brushed it off.

"Undo the curse. The curse her Mom placed onto her."

Abengane shook his head. "This won't do. We need a forest so I can call upon the forest spirits."

"Hey, I thought you said you couldn't exorcise curses placed by dead people." Phinks placed a hand on his hip, skeptical as he leaned toward Abengane's face in which the man showed no reaction. "That is true. My skills are not to that level, but judging from what Mister Lucifer has told me .. The woman and her Nen that placed the curse, has technically been resurrected. As long as I exorcise this curse while the woman stays inside Aurora's body, all will be well."

"Enough Phinks. The kid looks like he's about to push us all off a cliff if we don't get moving. We don't need to spend anymore time here than we already need to. The quicker we can regroup with Feitan and Shal, the quicker we can get more abilities for Boss." Machi retracted all of her Nen threads and stretched her arms up into the air.

Chrollo Lucifer was-- is an observer of human nature. He cared not for family nor grew any attachment to any. People were no different than puppets. Even he would not grow soft for Aurora Ivanov as Noah did. He admired the anticipation of death that strummed within his beating human heart.

His philosophy, the head's orders were more important than the head itself. He held more worth in the very organization he had founded, than that of his own life. He was just another human being, simply replaceable.

Despite being a civilian at Meteor City, abandoned, as Chrollo had made his name with more relevance with the people of Meteor City-- even reaching the ears of the infamous Ivanov Family, they had reached out to him-- attempted to recruit him, to no avail. But it had made Chrollo aware, he had blood out there related to him.

This began his fascination with Aurora.

A small tormented child, vexed by everything she possibly did to survive. A father who intentionally kept her alive, only to acknowledge her assistance when it came to tasks in which applied to her Nen. A mother who cursed and waned her own birthed child, persecuting Aurora to the deepest depths of hell, and a brother who filled her words with agonizing afflictions to drive his younger sister to her own salvation met by poison.

Versus to he, the head of the spider, amalgamating with life and embracing death, as well as causing it-- to her, the butterfly with clipped furled wings, still attempting to fly to the sky, despite every scale on her beautiful paper thin wings were plucked and brushed off, leaving her prone and exposed. Vulnerable to all.

But just as how birds did not eat butterflies due to their unbewaringly poisonous nature despite the propelled iridescence they held-- Chrollo decided not to take advantage of this vulnerability, in the same scenario Aurora's father had, thus causing him to lose his life, a destiny fated by the hands of the very child he neglected.

Aurora was a walking tinker of hope.

She had become the fallen apple that grew her own buds.

Sapphire eyes intently examined the process of the exorcism. It began with them gathering around a camp-fire, laying her body down onto a mat. Abengane sculpted an effigy, resembling that of Aurora as he murmured prayers under his breath as the fire flickered, its shadows dancing violently.

The exorcist wove together netted decoration for the doll held in hand before tossing it into the fire entirely, watching as the flames roared to life. The warm hues of oranges exacted into the fiery color of rage. It amassed the aura of the flora and fauna of the forest alongside Abengane's own as a slow building figure of a beast was constructed.

It was massive, well towering over Abegane's height himself as his eyes widened. The size of his conjured Nen beast reflected to the size of the curse as he shook his head solemnly. "To bear such ill will that can muster such a curse."

Machi planted a hand atop the boy's shoulder to keep him from moving-- especially as the hideous beast slowly slugged toward Aurora's unconscious body.

"God the imps are as ugly as the wench herself .. this is embarrassing." Noah planted half his face into the palm of his hand as the small deviling creatures hissed violently. They were a burnt crimson lizard like creature with pointed wings and even sharper ears. A scorpions tail that attached itself to two humanoid limbs. They had razor sharp teeth and slit eyes even thinner than that of a snake.

Slowly, the imps fell victim to the voracious appetite of the conjured Nen beast as they growled.

"Is she going to wake up?"

"Once Chrollo removes Mom's spirit, she'll wake up at the usual time she wakes up. You said it yourself, she sleeps like she's dead." Noah squatted down onto the floor, poking at his sister. The Troupe members gathered around together whilst Killua wired the asked amount of money that Abengane requested for the procedure.

"And when she wakes up, we'll all be gone, you too, right, Satan?" Noah watched as Chrollo pulled out the conjured book out of thin air, handing it to Noah who grinned, placing his palm on the cover of it, successfully transferring over his vector ability to Chrollo. "Our job here is done. We've acquired what we needed to and even made our mark." Chrollo chuckled to himself, staring at the decimated estate.

Somewhere in the home, the past died, and the perfect picture fell from its golden frame.

"Don't you want to see Aurora?"

Chrollo turned around. "She'll find me. You know where I'll be a month from now and who I'm with. It's up to you to decide where you want to go next— although I'm certain it's away from Hisoka .. and if you ever see him, tell the Chain User friend of yours that he's still on our list."

With that, as quick as they had come, they had disappeared. "I'm running out of Nen to keep me here. I'm sure Mom and Aurora are parting ways .. I'll do my end here."

Killua extended his arm out to the conjured translucent form of Noah who had used his own Nen to prolong his disappearance that would soon occur. Noah stared at it for a moment, clicking his tongue, ignoring the gesture and turning around, triggering a tick mark from Killua. "Oi! For taking my body, the least you could have done was shake it!"

Noah shook his head continuing to walk forward. "I'm saying this to you while you're still sleeping because I know you would be a little annoying runt and prod at me for it — but maybe you have grown. A little bit. Don't get full of yourself. It's a desolate place out there. You're not a struggling caterpillar anymore. I've done my part, I've fulfilled your wish, and now you've grown just a little bit more."

"As I set you into the world on your own, you're ready to fly. Go home and don't come back. This place isn't home anymore." Noah whispered quietly, plopping down beside Aurora, picking up a stick from the floor.

'Estreella.' He wrote onto the floor.

"It's Demitrius, not Demetreeus, idiot."

Killua peered down at it with furrowed brows. "You spelled—"

"I know. It was intentional." Noah snapped, tossing the stick aside. Killua stood there, his shirt draped over Aurora while her elder brother slouched forward.

"You said you were half revived .. you didn't have vengeance or anger for anyone." Killua stated aloud. Noah let out a low hum. "I was the one who drank the poison, so I could relieve her of half the burden of killing me .. since you won't see me anytime soon, i'll go out and say it. I had regret. Lots. And I'm sure you would know, being raised as a heir, isolated, restricted."

"But now the title is being passed to Illumi right? Take the chance, If Aurora slips while taking the leap of faith, you catch her. If you fall, she'll heal you. From the looks of it, even death won't be able to separate you two."

"If death wants her, you fight death. If life wants to determine a fate set in stone for her that she doesn't want, you go kick life's ass, you got me?" Killua hadn't a clue where this conversation was going. So far in his mind, absolutely nowhere. It hit a stone wall, as blank as his ability to comfort a crying Aurora.

".. Yeah."

"Wouldn't want me crawling out of the grave again."

'Definitely not.'

"It would've been interesting. Being a brother-in-law for a few moments was fun while it lasted, now it's time I get back to my nap .. back to being an only child." Noah let out a long drawn out yawn, smirking at the pair.

'Don't come so soon, little runt.'

And somewhere in the back of his mind, Noah envisioned a psychedelic memory, long buried beneath the past of anguish, there were two siblings. Idyllic serenity in the most hallucinative jinxes. Aurora no longer stood at the height of his knees.

Aurora had grown.

Killua had been so caught up about Aurora being angry he had excluded one extremely important and major factor—

Alluka and her crazy pet dragon.

"Big Brother you big meanie!" Killua could still feel the stinging sensation of the sleeve of his sister's dress as she hit him repeatedly— even more so giving him a scolding about not knowing how to properly treat a girl— she was completely unaware of every single event. The poisoning, Albert, Noah, the Phantom Troupe— every single one of it.

And Ignis— Ignis was even worse than Alluka despite not knowing human speech. The fiery lizard bit and tugged at Killua's hair relentlessly, even daringly going against his lightning. The dragon even scorched and boiled his water intentionally every time he took a shower and it had come near the point that Killua was ready to put the lizard onto a cutting board and turn it into their next dinner.

As mean as Alluka was, she still felt some remorse and sympathy, allowing Killua a few moments a day alone with Aurora by her bedside.

Killua knew he shouldn't rush the process of her waking up. He knew he couldn't turn around and go chase after the exorcist to check Aurora's condition since it had been days— but in doing so, it meant that he had to get up and leave her side.

The object sat on her nightstand, collecting almost four consecutive days of dust now. A gift left behind after Noah had disappeared, it conjured using the last remnants of his flickering Nen.

Sleeping was Aurora's previous occupation for escape from life. "I get that. But you know .. you're also an idiot. We're both idiots. I admitted it. There! Are you happy?" There was still not even the slightest rustle of noise.

It was time for his shooting star to come home, to land somewhere that he could catch her.

"Aurora. Do you remember when you got me out of that cellar back at my house?" He didn't expect a reply, so he inhaled a breath and continued.

"You're in shambles, and I want to help you even if it means I have to pick up the hundreds or thousands of pieces. I'm your problem and you are mine!"

"The, 'I'm your problem and you're mine' crap, and damnit you're a really big problem, Aurora! You're so messy and terrified of yourself and you never say a word until it's too late. I know nothing, I still don't know anything, but there's too much of you to uncover in a small amount of time."

"But I do know that you like the blue of my eyes, even though I don't— or how you like sleeping under trees in the rain when we're too far away from the nearest town to get a hotel. Even when you like sleeping in the middle of Gon and I because you think if I bear or monster or something were to come take us while we were sleeping, they would take Gon and I because we're on the outside and most accessible."

"But then you end up waking us up in the middle of the night when you complain about needing to go pee but not being able to get out like a total moron."

"You like drawing on the walls inside caves because it reminds you of how symbolic it used to be so long ago, and you think someone will discover it centuries later."

"And if some crazy person ends up being able to decipher whatever the hell nonsense you put down on those walls, they'll only get a fraction of our adventures and stories together .. but you know we can't do any of those things if you're still asleep like this, Aurora."

"One more day and I'll call Gon to shake you awake— I'll call Leorio if I have to, and even Kurapika so he can yell at you .. Just wake up." 

"I'll go bring some of Alluka's soup for you." The abrupt screech of the chair hung in the air as Killua sighed and stood up. He had unintentionally been using the unconscious Aurora as a form of venting.

"Oh .. Aurora-nee isn't awake yet? Maybe you're not trying hard enough, Big Brother!" Alluka protested. Killua only lightly laughed as he held the tray for her to scoop the beef stew into. "Maybe. But your food will make her feel all better soon, right, Alluka?"

The girl nodded her head furiously. "Ignis and I put extra love and care into the stew today! Make sure to tell Aurora-nee that, Big Brother! Wait .. Ignis?" Alluka darted around. The small red dragon from Greed Island was nowhere in sight.

Horrified, Alluka slowly peered into the pot and stirred it up, scooping a large thick object. "Big Brother .. I cooked Ignis!"

"Good riddance."

Alluka was aware the dragon was immune to fire, but she was horrified nonetheless, holding the laddle with contorted facial features. "Also, that's a clump of meat, Alluka. Look behind you. The little bastard who's been eating your snacks."

"Ignis!" Alluka whined childishly.

Killua only stifled a genuine laugh as he gathered the utensils when the sound of shattering echoed from the same room he'd just exited from.

Without a second thought, Killua darted up the stairs where glass shards littered the floor

"Ow.." The unmistakable ebony black hair that cascaded down her back as she rubbed her arse that had landed flat onto the ground. Glass pinnacles littered and dotted the floor with their prickling multitudes of reflections.

Killua threw a blanket over the glass as he stared down at the fallen girl, extending his hand out.

A grin tugged on the corners of the boy's lips as he extended out his hand to help her up. "Im Killua."

He stood there, waiting for her to grab it. To wake him, and shatter his being from the lecherous nightmare of his own hand digging through her flesh. If she could still touch him, grab his hand after the dozens of people he had just cold-bloodedly turned into a blood bath ..

"You reek of someone who hasn't slept or showered in days .." She laughed at him. Of course she did. And for once, he didn't mind.

It felt like in had been months, but lavender had never been more comforting in his life. Aurora grabbed his hand as he pulled her upward with such force, before her feet had touched the ground, he had hoisted the girl upward, wrapping her arms around his neck.

The muscles in her legs still felt like jelly, but regardless, she only hugged tighter.

"You're here. I'm home.." Aurora inhaled the scent of comfort that overtook her mind and body in a gratifying tangence of exuberant leisure. "You missed an entire family reunion, stupid."

She was home, and finally .. they were under the same sky again. Cerulean blue filled with the empyrean of Helios.

Aurora pulled her head away from his shoulder, staring down at the deep cobalt blue eyes that stared at her like gems. "I'm sorry I made you wait so long .. You look exhausted." She pressed a kiss to his forehead, brushing aside his locks of silver hair. "You were amazing. Almost like a superhero." Aurora teased jokingly, cradling Killua's head to her chest as she rocked them back and forth.

Their fingers intertwined in an engraved pattern of infatuation like the only two souls to exist to have found their other half. The scaled balance of yin and yang, and a happy smile that painted his soul in every imaginable color that spiraled the wheel.

And as the salty tear jerking sea of waterfalls fell from the lids of her amethyst eyes, rolling down her delicate cheeks in which Killua pinched. "Cry it out. You've had enough penting things in for a lifetime's worth now. Give up and let chance do its thing." He pat the back of her head as Aurora hiccuped.

"I saw Mom .. and my curse .. and then all of my nightmares .. I didn't want to wake up— I was scared that there would be no one left." And in the first moments when her eyes had fluttered open, just that had occurred. The emptiness by her bed side, seconds after Killua had left—there was no one.

She jumped out of bed, only to have received no support from her legs and knocked down a glass cup before she even took one step out the door to go search for Killua.

"Noah's gone."

"You knew that."

"I wanted him to stay long enough to walk me down the aisle." Aurora sniffled. Killua wiped away her diamond stained tears with his thumb as Aurora grabbed his hand and held it to her cheek. "Then I'll walk you down the aisle."

Aurora froze. "But you can't do that."

"We can now." Killua shrugged nonchalantly. Aurora had waited for him to flick her forehead and announce the joke but it never came.

"But who's going to be waiting for me at the altar .."

"So you want me to be alone, just stand there while I wait for you for forever to get ready?" Killua knew— heaven forbid Aurora and her snails pace at getting ready in the mornings. She was the last one— always. Always making sure everyone looked presentable first before herself, thus always leading in their tardiness.

Aurora sighed, letting the last salty droplet to flow down her cheek and land onto Killua's shoulder as she sighed before laughing. "You were never one to stick by the rules anyways, promise breaker." Now this earned the Ivanov a flick to her forehead as she let out a cry. "That hurt!"

"It was necessary. Besides .. your brother didn't leave you alone."

Killua picked up the item from the bedside. It was a stuffed bear. A damaged one at that. Stitching was seen on the back of it where it seemed as though the bear was torn into. Aurora reluctantly took the object into her hand as she parted her lips slowly.

"This was .. my first and last birthday present I ever got .. and it was from Noah."

Noah's bittersweet farewell to his black sheep of a sister. This time, he left her not with poison, but with a wish come true. "I'm liberated." The girl gasped.

"I'm free .. I'm free, Killua!" Aurora grinned so giddily that Killua himself couldn't help but be contaminated by the very love she radiated. Butterflies detonated from the tips of her fingers and filling up the room. He was thrown off the bed by her sudden decision to engulf him in another hug, toppling both of them over and onto the ground where he cushioned her fall.

"You're free .. That means if you want something, you say it. There's no more talks about dying, no more talks about you hurting the people around you— we're human beings, and we'll hurt, and sometimes that means each other."

"So if you want something Aurora, you spit it out and we'll take a star from the sky and wish on it." She was the spinning starlight and its moon that swore in spite of all requisite. A whirlwind of broken glass— they were natural disasters, human beings, and they were absolutely on their free reign.

"But if we do that there won't be enough wishes for everyone else."

Although the other stars rejected her, Aurora mapped her own tribute, as the Borealis in the sky, she became a guide to those who sailed the seas in hopes to find anew. "Be selfish, take advantage of it— it's first come first serve." Killua retorted. Even in the wake of the moment, all she could still think about, was others.

"Don't be mean, Killua .. besides, I don't need you to promise me the moon and stars— I just need a promise that we'll be under them together for as long as we live, silly."

WORD COUNT : 15,406

ITOKO : JAPANESE HONORIFIC FOR ELDER COUSIN

[-] Hi everyone! Finals are standing right there holding me a gun point rn as I type this, it took me one whole week to type this one chapter, and it was miserable.

If you had no idea what I just wrote, I don't either!

See you all then,

-Rosie

P.S This is Abengane, the Nen Exorcist that purged Kurapika's Nen from Chrollo to those who don't remember him,