With a new vigilance the four of them ventured deeper into the country of NGL, on the lookout for Chimera Ants. After wandering for a day they came across a hoard of Ants with the intentions of stopping them from going any farther.
Kite instructed the three to fight them, so they each found one who wanted to fight and challenged them one on one. This proved to be a little difficult for Usagi, since she was the defense and not offense in the tag team, but she got past that and used her wind to flip her opponent into the air before shooting them several times with her pistol. To finish, she used an assassination technique to rip their heart out.
Once they had each defeated one, Kite realized they didn't have enough time to fight each of them, so he instructed them to fallback and give him a turn. Using his Crazy Slots he got a giant, curved blade that resembled a giant sickle, so he told them to jump on his signal.
Once he gave it, Usagi conjured wings and grabbed Killua and Gon before propelling them both up into the air to avoid being cut in half from the giant blade, all chimera ants and trees within its path falling prey to its deadly slice. After that had ended, they walked a few miles more before setting up camp.
Kite and Gon were off talking presumably about Ging, so Usagi and Killua decided to leave them be and sat around the fire they had created a while before.
Usagi sighed, adding her voice to the jumble of other sounds being produced by nocturnal creatures. Looking up through a patch of trees, she could see the stars; each of them twinkling brightly, the sky so clear that even the galaxy was visible.
"I love nights like this," she admitted, breathy voiced. "Do you see that?" Usagi asked, pointing upwards, "it's the constellation Gemini; one of my favorites."
But Killua wasn't looking at the stars, he looked at someone who shined much brighter than them all. There was nothing more that he loved seeing at that moment than Usagi's face lighting up as she stared up at the glowing lights; her golden eyes reflected them so brightly. He propped his head up with a hand to keep him from melting onto the ground.
"Do you remember that, Killua?" she asked, dragging him out of his reverie and back to earth, grinning as she looked at him.
"Hm?" Killua let out, eyes growing wide. "Oh no, did she say something important?! I didn't even realize she was talking because I was too busy watching her-" he stopped mid-thought as he noticed his face heating up at the realization that he had been too busy gazing at Usagi to even register that she was talking to him.
"Killua, are you okay?" Usagi asked him, a puzzled expression on her face.
"Yeah, I'm fine! I was just lost in thought and didn't hear you," he explained, looking away from her reluctantly to regain composure.
"Oh, okay. All I asked was if you remembered that the stars were out like this back on Whale Island when we visited Gon's family," she stated, head tilted up at the sky. Her legs were crossed in front of her as she fell forward into her outstretched hands, catching her face.
"I've always liked looking at the stars, ever since I was younger. Did you ever have anything like that?" she asked, sparking up the conversation again.
Killua turned to face her as he said, "not really, I was always busy with assassination training; my mother didn't want me to get into anything but that, to be honest." He quietly scooted closer to her.
"Oh! Sorry for making you think of that!" Usagi profusely apologized, waving one hand in front of her.
"No, it's fine!" Killua quickly reassured her, waving his arms wildly.
Without any warning, Usagi let out a slight giggle before covering her mouth to not attract Ants. Killua watched with wide eyes as her voice rang out. "Sorry, I'm not laughing at you, just at how awkward I am," she explained.
"I didn't think you were awkward," Killua reassured her as he tried to scoot closer again.
"Hah, that's good, at least," Usagi let out, looking back up at the sky.
Trying to be casual, Killua leaned back on his hands to make it seem like he was looking at the sky with her; which he was, but it was so much more tempting to look at her instead. With a swift motion he put his arm behind Usagi, slowly inching closer.
"Killua," she said, knocking him once more out of his mind. "You don't have to be shy; put your arm around me already."
Momentarily he went red in the face that she had seen through what he was doing, just like Gon had previously warned him once ("Women see all!" he had said) but he quickly got over it and put his hand on her shoulder, pulling them both closer.
Without any warning she turned towards him and put her arms around him in an embrace, right before she planted a kiss on his cheek. "I was going to say that the stars look the way they did when we kissed for the first time," she stated, unaware of Killua's increased heartbeat. Since he had been completely derived of his ability to produce any human sounds, all he could respond with was putting his arms around her in a tight embrace.
The two were so distracted that they didn't even realize that Gon and Kite were going to walk back to the two of them, but stopped to watch the fluff from behind a tree.
"How many times have they done this?" Kite whispered.
"I've recorded five times, but I doubt that's all," Gon replied in a hushed tone with a goofy grin on his face. "I'm happy my best friend gets to be with my other best friend; she passes my test to be Killua's girlfriend."
~~~
The next morning Usagi and Killua woke up when Gon poked each of them on the cheek. "We're heading out now," Gon stated.
Killua yawned before trying to get up, but then he realized that he and Usagi had fallen asleep together against a tree. His face turned a bright red as he noticed they were both looking at him, but it only got worse when Usagi, who wasn't fully awake yet, squeezed him tightly with her arms wrapped around his torso. Not only that, but she snuggled her face into his chest too.
There was almost steam radiating from Killua's face at how embarrassingly cute she was being right then, and any other time he would've melted into a puddle on the floor; but that was impossible at this moment.
"You're going to have to wake her, Killua," Kite told him, looking in their direction before realizing how much fluff was occurring.
Reluctantly, Killua brought his hand up and shook her shoulder, which only made her squeeze tighter. "Please wake up, Usagi; this is really embarrassing!" he whisper shouted at her.
Finally she lifted up her head and sat up, oblivious to what had just happened. Stretching and yawning, she finally got up. "Oh, hey Killua," she stated monotonously with a half asleep look on her face and a bed head, which she wasn't dead set on fixing right away.
Eventually the group of four continued their search for the entire day as they dashed towards no specific destination, weaving in and out of trees. Once it became twilight, the group had finally made it to a cliff, which upon looking over revealed a flat plain with a walled in palace in the center.
"Is that the Chimera Ant base?" Usagi questioned, looking towards Kite.
"Yes, it is, so we have to be careful," Kite answered her, scanning their surroundings.
"What should we do?" Gon asked, his tone serious.
"We need to head back and get reinforcements," Kite explained.
Suddenly, they heard something in the distance that caused them each to stiffen up. Without any warning whatsoever, a cat person had jumped out towards them.
The next was all a huge blur as Kite yelled at them to run away before the cat sliced his arm off. The three of them were in a state of silent panic, but all of that was thrown out of the window when she looked over to the three of them, eyes radiating a bloodlust so powerful it felt like a physical force was pressing on them.
It was so powerful that Usagi's eyes turned red, as the bloodlust had snapped the veins inside. Gon was furious.
Kite exploded at them to run away, but Gon didn't listen. He was filled to the brink with rage, aura violently bursting out of him. Unknowing of what else he could do, Killua reluctantly punched Gon with almost all of his strength, knocking him unconscious. Usagi was in a state of panic as all of this happened, watching in fear as Killua slung Gon's limp body over his shoulder while the ant with cat ears continued glaring at them.
Frozen stiff, Usagi was rendered completely unable to move; it felt like there were ten Sachiko's all forcing bloodlust into her.
"Usagi!" Killua's rushed voice called her back to reality. For once, she could easily see how scared he was. Before she could say anything, he had grabbed her hand and tugged her to his side before bolting off in the direction they had came from.
The farther they got from them, the easier it was to move- but the damage had already been done. Usagi ran alongside Killua, the only thing keeping her going was feeling his hand clasping tightly onto hers. With her free hand she wiped the blood off of her face, but when she tried to calm herself she couldn't. It felt like there was something encasing her, pressing on her chest making it difficult to breathe, move, and function.
They continued running for about an hour in silence before Usagi suggested, "Killua, I can carry Gon for you."
His gait slowed before the two stopped entirely, breathing heavily. "It's okay, I did this to him, so I should take him," he explained.
"No, I won't let you," she stopped him, taking Gon from him.
They continued running for several hours, switching off holding Gon every few hours until finally, weary and out of breath they arrived at the border. The two walked slowly, sweat streaming down their bodies from running all night. Once they made it to the giant tree, Usagi laid her cloak down of the ground so Killua could set Gon on it before taking off his shirt to set on Gon as well.
This caught Usagi by surprise, and any other time she would've fangirled so hard she'd hit her head on something, but at the moment she didn't have anytime to stare at his glorious looks. And besides, they were both sweaty, hungry, and wanted nothing but to crawl in a hole and never leave.
As the two sat there, a car drove up and after stopping revealed that Chairman Netero and two other people were inside.
"Hmm, what are you kids doing here?" Netero asked them as they walked by.
Usagi's lips tugged on the ends to form a frown as she held her head low.
"Looks like they ran away from the Chimera Ants," the bigger out of the two who accompanied the Chairman stated.
"Stop talking about us like that," Killua demanded in a somber tone.
"Kids don't know when it's not they're fight," the bigger man continued.
"He said stop!" Usagi shouted, looking up at them. Her eyes twitched as she snarled at him like a savage dog, smeared blood from her eyes still prominent on her face. "Don't judge us until you know what we've seen."
The big man looked down at her in a look of shock before the smaller one said, "Morel, we have to go."
The man named Morel reluctantly walked forward as Netero stated, "I'm guessing that you'll want to go back, so take these." He threw two blocks of wood towards them. "If you can defeat the people who carry the other blocks in a month, we will let you back in."
Without another word, their group walked off. Usagi and Killua each took one before looking at each other.
"You don't think only two of us will be allowed back in, right?" Usagi asked, slightly worried that she would be left behind by herself.
"It might, but I'm sure there will be a way to get us all in," he reassured, almost trying to convince himself of that fact.
------
Wow that's a long chapter XD
I didn't plan for it to be this way, so you can blame the unscripted fluff for that XD I saw the chance and I took it to write something to make you guys FEEL EMOTIONS!!!!!
So yeah, what do you think of what happened? I thought it was super cute :3
I figured I needed to write more fluff that's seen more through Killua's eyes, and this is what I produced \(*^*)/
I hope you guys have been enjoying this on-schedule-ness I've been trying out XD
Btw I'm writing this last half of the chapter on the night before school starts ;-; I'm already feeling the social anxiety, but I'll feel it even more in the morning (which is when I will have posted the chapter that came before this one XD)
The plan is to write the chapters in advance and then post them in the mornings before I go to school, and it sounds reasonable so that's what I'll be doing until further notice
Lastly, I just want to say that it has come to my attention that some of you don't like this arc and may be upset that it will take me twelve chapters to write it all, so please know that I'm more focusing on Usagi and Killua's relationship so there will be fluff like in this chapter, and necessary character development will be happening too :3
So yeah! Hope you guys have been having a wonderful time! Vote and comment a lot please I wanna now what you guys think :3
Marina
Day wrote: 8/15/16
Day posted: 8/19/16