Kiri. With hair as black as the darkest night, and eyes to match, it would be hard to tell she wasn't related to the notorious Zoldyck family. Her light complexion only made it even harder to believe. Her height could be argued below average,even though she is older than Killua she remains only a few inches taller. Her petite physique and small, childish face often allowed people to misinterpret her age. Nevertheless, she still gets her job done, and that's all that matters to the Zoldycks.

To the Zoldycks she would be described as robotic. A pet. A 'being' they paid to get created. At a hefty price too. It was Kikyo's idea to begin with. She was starting to wonder how long it would take before their heir was to be born. To be able to distinguish who the heir is, is most certainly not a difficult task. It was not Illumi and definitely not Milluki. The real problem began was when Silva agreed and they set about planning the process. Where to start? What would the gender be? These were all factors that had to be considered carefully on a certain evening, with the family gathered around the dining room table.

"Boy?Girl?" That was Zeno's first question. He intertwined his fingers together to rest his head upon it.

"It'll be a girl of course!" Kikyo shrieked. "I thought I made that clear already." She turned to her younger son who was playing with broken parts of a toy car on the floor. "Milluki, stop playing with your toys here and move over there."

The toddler furrowed his brows in annoyance and gathered up his toys before proceeding to toddle over to the far wall.

"She must be a female!" Continued Kikyo, clearly in her own delirium again. "We must have the best of the best!"

Silva rested his head on her hand as he watched his wife rambled on, wondering why he agreed to sit in on this in the first place when it was all already pre-determined inside Kikyo's little fantasy world.

"Silva! It's going to be your daughter too, have a say!" She urged.

"She's not mine. I will never see her as my real daughter. I've had enough of this." Silva pushed his chair back and stood up. "You can decide on the rest." With that, he left the room.

Kikyo watched her husband leave the room. "Where is his family spirit", she huffed.

"That's fine isn't it? I mean, we all knew it was going to be that way". The 7-year old Illumi twisted a piece of hair between his fingers. His hair was getting long, almost shoulder length now. "More importantly, how are you going to make this 'daughter' someone who can fit our expectations?"

"Don't you worry about that, Mother has already thought it all up," she said proudly. Illumi only then noticed she was clutching a large plastic folder which she now begun to empty its contents onto the table. Pages and pages of portraits spewed out.

"What are these?" Questioned Zeno, one busy eyebrow raised.

"These," Kikyo paused to straight her dress, "are all possible candidates". She pointed to a nearby portrait of a young woman, which looked like it had been slyly taken without the owner's permission. "This girl is the wife of Prince Gerasha in the West, they are due to have a child delivery in a few months, and this", she selected another one of a smiling woman smelling a purple flower in a flower garden, "is Queen Sporat of the High Wuajs. And there are many more choices yet!"

"So..You are planning an abduction?" Illumi asked, not entirely surprised.

"Yes, but! That is not the only thing". She whipped out a sheet of paper from underneath. "You see, Mother has been doing a lot of thinking. It's not that easy to get into our family." Her eyes gleamed. "So I would like to do a little experiment". Everyone listened closely. Even Milluki seemed to have dropped his toys and scooted a bit closer upon hearing the word 'experiment'.

"We can eject her with some different kind of DNA. Say...Another animal. To give her some kind of ability".

Zeno picked up a sheaf of paper. "Dolphins? You want to turn her into some kind of mermaid."

Kikyo hurriedly snatched the piece of paper from him, "That is only one of the options! There are many more, here."

"How about something like Mike?" Zeno suggested.

"You want my daughter to be wolf girl?!" Kikyo shrieked, outrageous.

"Mother calm down, and Mike is a dog. Not a Wolf." He was slightly bored with this conversation already and wanted it to be over. Absent-mindedly, he began leafing through the different animal types. "You probably want me to do the kidnapping, right? Father doesn't care enough and I'm pretty sure Grandpa is indifferent to it too."

Zeno said nothing and continued sipping his tea.

"My, how lovely of you to offer" said the overjoyed Kikyo, clapping her hands together.

Something caught his eye. One of the species. He remembered reading about it before, being one of the most ferocious, yet almost endangered species that walked their world. A small smile pricked the edge of his mouth. "Well if I'm going to do the kidnapping, then I'll have a say in what she's injected with."

And thus, the one-year long pricey process of creating Kiri began. Through many sacrifices of foreign princesses, trial error, mix and matching, Kiri was born 3 years after Milluki, on a cold Autumn day.

Growing up, Kiri knew that her purpose in life was killing. She knew her one and only purpose was to serve the Zoldycks and the Zoldycks alone. Her skills didn't turn out as ideal as the Zoldycks wanted to be, she wasn't as strong as Illumi but she was extremely fast on her feet. Physically, she was an assassin, but emotionally, not quite. In the early stages of her life she was trained intensively and exclusively by Illumi. If it wasn't for Killua, she was sure she would turn into an Illumi no.2. Passionless puppet.

This was what she thought about on a regular basis, on the grass of the estate. She turned on her front and looked at the sleeping figure of her younger brother. His fine white hair ruffling in the wind and smiled. Everyone expects her to be heartless and emotionless but thanks to her brother, she learned that there's more to life than just killing. There are things in life that can be enjoyed. For instance, chocoballs. She laughed slightly at the thought of chocoballs which cause Killua to sit up with a puzzled look on his face.

"Sorry, did I wake you?" Kiri gave a small apologetic smile and sat facing her brother.

"Not really," Killua yawned, "I wasn't sleeping anyways. Plus, I always wake you up when you're in your deep slumbers."

That was true. Killua always pounced on Kiri whenever he was feeling bored or upset. And most of the time it happened when she was sleeping. It had so happened that the animal Illumi had chosen happened to be of a feline species, granting her the innate skill of speed and agility. Alongside, she had an ability to shape-shift into the feline form. According to Illumi, she had been doing it since birth. At first it was uncontrollable, she wouldn't be able to control when she morphed and when to remorph. It was like a waiting game sometimes when she didn't morph back to her human form for days. After a few good years, Kiri got the knack for it and morphing at will became second nature. To everyone's surprise though, the ferocious predator DNA that had been injected into her, didn't seem to allow her to morph to a form that represented that ferociousness. Instead, she turned into a little black kitten. 'Kitten' may be an over exaggeration but it certainly was little. Another downside was the regular nappings and cravings for cream.

"Hey Kiri, I was thinking...maybe we should get out of here."

Kiri snapped out of her thoughts and looked at Killua, wondering if she heard what she thought she had heard.

"Get out of here? For an assignment?"

Killua sighed, rolled over and propped his head up with a hand. "I thought you would say that but no. I meant get out of here. Get out of this place. I'm tired of killing, Kiri, Well, more like bored. I want something different."

Kiri saw Killua's eyes light up on the word 'different'.

"Well, I guess you can ask Otou-sama and Okaa-sama..." she began.

"Do you really think they would agree to it?" asked Killua, rolling his eyes. "They don't even let me go anywhere now." He leaned in towards Kiri and spoke in a hushed voice. "What we need to do, is escape."

Kiri's eyes widened at the thought of rebelling. "But, they'll find you soon and you'll be punished. Severly too."

Killua leaned back and waggled his index finger side to side. "They won't be able to find us that easily."

"Us?"

Killua blinked at her. "Yes of course I said us, I'm not going to leave you here to decay whilst I go gallivanting off on my own."

Kiri sighed. Killua was too stubborn in times like this.

"Well, I thought you would react like this so you sit here and wait for me. No, in fact, go to the gate and I'll be there in twenty minutes. If anyone comes tell them you're waiting for me." Before Kiri could even utter a single word, Killua stood up and began to walk in the direction towards the house without even a backward glance.

For a moment, Kiri just stayed where she was. Then she flopped back onto the cool grass and let out a deep sigh. Killua can be stubborn at times that it would be a waste of breath to argue. Besides, maybe it wouldn't be bad to experience the outside world. With this last thought, Kiri glanced at the top of the gates, peeking out from the tall trees from where she could see.

She reached out a hand towards the sky and clenched it into a fist, as though she could grasp the clouds firmly. A cool wind blew and tickled her shoulder-length hair against her collarbone. It felt good.

"Freedom.. I wonder how that feels."