Disclaimer: I do not own Hunter x Hunter, or any related characters or concepts. Hunter x Hunter is owned by author Yoshihiro Togashi, along with Shonen Jump, Madhouse Studios, and various other persons and companies involved with the creation and/or publishing of the series. This is simply a fan-work written for entertainment purposes only.

Hey, there. Well, this is my first fanfic in a while. I generally write original fiction nowadays, but I missed the simple fun of fanfiction. With its great characters, concepts, and character development, Hunter x Hunter became not only one of my favorite animes quickly after I started watching it, but one of my favorite stories. In particular, I found Killua's character development and his relationships with Gon, his family, and other characters interesting, so I thought it would be fun to write a fic that focused on that. However, this will be a rather dark fic, so "fun" might not be the best word, but the grimmer side of things can still be fun in its own way. Also, there is a more detailed summary available on my profile, if you'd like a better idea of where this is going.

Note: This fic is based off of the Hunter x Hunter 2011 anime adaption. Nothing that happened, or that will happen (assuming Togashi starts writing again), in manga chapters that take place after the anime's ending is relevant to this particular fic. Think of it as an AU that splits off from the canon after the last episode of the 2011 adaption.

With that said, enjoy~

CHAPTER ONE
-killer-

"Do you know why you're here?"

Color was gone from the world. Nothing remained but gray walls and gray tile. The concrete surged in on him with each inhale and swam away with each exhale, pulsing like the inside of a panicked heart. Light rained down from the roof and smeared in his eyes. He blinked the water away, sucking it back down with a shaky breath that stunk of smoke and rust.

...Here? Where was here, anyway?

He stopped, knuckles freezing inches from the door. Wait. He didn't need to knock, he realized. It hung open just a crack...a crack just wide enough to render the lock useless. For a while, he simply stood there, staring down the door to room 116. Why would it already be open like that? The dark, silent slit offered no answer. He sucked in the air to call out, but it died in his throat. Something was wrong.

His head throbbed to the hum of the harsh, florescent white above him. Each time he moved it, the whole world wavered, blurring into splatters of black and white. The rest of his senses drifted behind his eyes, while his mind chased after his nose and ears, trying to escape the pounding in his skull. The images wouldn't go away.

He smelled it as soon as he entered the room. The black drowned out his eyes and smothered the rest of his senses, but the sweet, metallic tang cut through the shadows like the edge of a knife. He knew what it was without thought or doubt. It was something all too familiar, something that traced the scars in his memories with cold fingers. Blood.

Oh. His eyes stopped on the surface of the table beneath him. The dim light turned the steel into a mirror, and his own face stared back up at him. Blood. Blood smeared his cheeks, painted streaks in his hair, stained his suit.

His fingers found the light switch, and after a final beat of hesitation, flipped it. The world turned red.

That's right...

"You arrested me for murder."

He was in the interrogation room of the local sheriffs' office. He'd wound up covered in blood when the cops had pushed him down. Cuffed him. Dragged him to the car. Forced him all the way to that gray box.

The boy raised his head, looking at the officer sitting across from him for the first time. Something shifted in the older man's face when they locked eyes.

"You were detained under suspicion of murder, yes." The cop confirmed, hands folded on the table. "We need to start off with a few questions."

They really thought he did it, huh? How funny. How completely and utterly stupid. He almost laughed.

Crimson pooled on the kitchen tile. Sixteen. The body had been stabbed sixteen times. Sixteen red rips. Sixteen bloodied slits. The logical part of his mind counted each gash even while the rest of him stopped. Dead. The familiar figure on the kitchen floor was dead.

He hadn't even heard the officers coming when they'd tackled him from behind. He hadn't resisted, following along with them like he was following the whims of a dream. His mind lingered there in that room, heavy with shock and the smell of blood, even as his legs had walked him to the police car. Now, he found himself chained to a chair.

He looked up at the single lamp above the table. Its electrical hum burned his bleary senses. Too loud. He'd trained his ears to listen for the buzz of electricity, but sometimes, the noise was grating, like a fly he couldn't kill. He let his eyes chase quieter hums around the room. A heater, a PDA in the officer's pocket, one-way speakers, a security lock on the door. Yeah. He could escape whenever he needed to. Slight relief sent the tension out of his muscles, but his stomach only sunk deeper in his gut, twisted in knots. His limbs dangled like rope weighted with lead. He didn't have it in him to make a break for it, not yet. The numbness was starting to wear off.

"We could make this easy." The officer offered. "Just tell us the truth, and this'll all be over quickly. Up to you."

The boy didn't say anything, silently staring down the stranger. The officer was a plump man, probably in his late thirties. He was well-dressed for the job, complete with a notepad and pen poking from his pocket and a badge displayed proudly on his lapel, but his hair was greasy, unkempt. Black bags hung beneath world-weary eyes. The type of man who didn't have anyone to impress at home, but still took his job seriously. Someone who had no choice but to. A divorced father of multiple, probably. Heh. This guy was hardly a threat.

"I'm going to ask you flat out." The officer straightened. "Did you murder the victim found in room 116 of the Equinox Inn?"

"No." Something inside him twitched, and his lips curled into a smirk before he could stop them. "But I have killed lots of people, back when I was a kid. I don't even know how many." He heard his own voice, but hardly registered the words. His mouth was moving on its own, bypassing his brain. "You could arrest me for that, if you wanted to."

For a while, the man didn't say anything. He finally answered with an incredulous blink. "Sure you did." His voice oozed sarcasm. "We aren't here to talk about anything like that. We're here to talk about what happened tonight."

"Don't believe me?" He leaned in closer. "I could show you." Venom dripped from his tongue. "I could get out of these cuffs and kill you in less than five seconds. You'd be dead before you got the chance to scream."

This time, something changed in the cop's face. His features paled, sinking with anxiety before he masked it with anger. "You better watch what you say. You're already in a whole lot of trouble here – you wouldn't want someone to actually take you seriously, hmm?"

The boy laughed, his whole body shuddering.

What was wrong with him? Some logical part of him knew that he should stop - that he wasn't helping his case - but somehow, he couldn't. Rage boiled black in his stomach and escaped his mouth as bitter poison.

"All right." The officer sucked in a breath and brushed bangs off his sweaty brow. "If you're going to play this game, we're going to start at the very beginning. What's your name?"

"Killua Zoldyck." He answered, watching the cop's face for any recognition. He didn't find any. A shame – that really would've given the guy a good scare. The Zoldycks were seen as untouchable by the law. When they eventually figured it out – when they realized that he had, indeed, murdered more people than anyone else who'd ever sat in that chair – they'd probably let him walk away, scot-free . Funny how that worked. They'd come up with new fiction to feed the press, and blame the crime on someone else – someone safer. "What's your name?"

The man twitched, nerves showing despite his best efforts. "We don't give out that information."

Killua fell into another round of raucous laughs, even as his mind screamed at him to stop.

The officer swallowed. "Your age?" He asked, trying to keep things moving.

"Seventeen." Killua answered simply. He caught the irritation creasing the older man's face. In the eyes of the law, he was still a kid for one more year. Minors didn't face the same punishments adults did.

"What do you do, then?" The cop continued. "Do you work? Attend school?"

Killua flashed the cop a smile. "I'm a Hunter."

"A Hunter?" The man didn't mask his surprise. "That explains your connection to the victim, then."

The boy's smirk fell into a frown. Stupid. The cop didn't know anything, not even how clueless he really was.

"Tell me, do you know who the victim was?" The officer pressed. "Did you know him personally?"

Time stopped. Killua's hot anger changed, tying itself in cold knots. He swallowed before he could speak. "Gon Freecss." He answered. "I knew him. He was my best friend, once."

There was a silence. He couldn't hold the stranger's gaze anymore. His eyes drifted away from the detective and up to the florescent glow above them.

"Oh?" The cop blinked. "You were close, then? Or had been? I need you to tell me more about that. What was your relationship like, recently?"

Killua didn't answer, staring up at the cold electric light. He didn't want to.

The man waited a good few minutes. "Fine." He gave up with a frustrated tap on the table. "We can come back to that later."

Killua didn't answer.

"For now, how about you tell me what you were doing at the scene? You say you didn't commit the crime, but something must've brought you to room 116 after midnight, huh?"

"I was there to see him!" Killua snapped. "He was my friend! I..." He stopped, voice snagging in his throat. "There was a party all evening. A party for Hunters. He was there, but he was busy, so we didn't get to talk. He sent me a text after it was over, inviting me to hang out with him at the hotel. It was late, but I hadn't seen him in years, so..."

"What happened when you arrived?" The officer leaned in closer, like a child listening to some wonderful, suspenseful story. "What happened inside that room?"

"Nothing." Killua forced himself to meet the man's eyes. "He was dead when I walked in."

"You're lying." The cop accused, vindicated. "We have two distinct witnesses who say they saw you enter that room while the victim was still alive. He let you in himself, they say, and they heard screaming a few minutes later. Both of them called the police. That's how we found you."

...What?

That wasn't true! It blatantly wasn't true! That wasn't how it...

The world closed in on him with a cold surge of realization.

Someone had set him up.

Someone had made sure he'd stumble across the crime scene, someone had called the police, and someone had waited for him to take the blame.

...Had that text even been from Gon at all?

He shivered, the hair rising on the nape of his neck.

"No arguments?" The officer raised a brow. "Didn't think anyone would notice you going inside, did you?"

"Wait!" Killua straightened. "What time did he...what time did he die? Where was his phone?"

He wasn't going to be able to sway the opinion of a cop who'd already made up his mind, not with two 'witnesses' against him and no alibi after leaving the party. He was going to have to make a break for it. First, though...first, he may as well try and make what sense he could of this nightmare he'd wandered into.

The officer blinked, unsure whether he should answer. "I can't tell you much...but I can tell you that we don't know for sure, yet." He scratched the back of his head. "The carnage makes it hard for our examiners to tell."

"Oh." Killua sucked in an involuntary breath and held it. His own insides twisted.

"As for the phone, we haven't found it yet."

"What about the cause of death?" He bit back the images still burning in the back of his skull. "Was he still alive, when...?" Sixteen. Nausea ripped through him. He'd seen death way too many times before, but it'd never left him like this. His whole reality felt off, thrown off balance while time ticked by without him. Was this how a normal person was supposed to feel?

"Even if our examiners knew, I couldn't talk about that." The cop leveled his gaze. "Unless, of course, you want to answer your own questions. What do you know about all this? The phone? The time? The weapon?"

"I know the make and model of the cell. It's one of those old beetle phones." More than likely, anyway – Gon had never changed his number. "I also know that the text came in at around 11. That's all."

There was another silence.

"You're playing with me." The officer accused. "This is all some game to you, isn't it?"

Killua blinked up at him.

"You talk about death like it's nothing and do whatever you can to keep from answering my questions." His frustration rolled off his tongue. "You're just biding time, but it's not going to make any difference. I'm not going to let you walk. You murder a friend and have the gall to sit in that chair and laugh? You're despicable."

Something buried a long time ago broke loose and sunk into Killua's gut. "I didn't do it." He whimpered, the venom suddenly gone from his voice. "I don't kill anymore!"

The cop smirked, satisfied at the shift. "Except it doesn't work that way, does it? Once you kill, something inside you breaks that can't be fixed. I've seen it time and again. It becomes an instinct – an urge you can't control. That's what happened, isn't it?"

Killua glared blue daggers into the cop's narrowed eyes.

"Maybe you didn't intend to hurt your friend at all. Maybe you've really convinced yourself that you haven't." He leaned across the table, breath stinking of coffee. "But once you got inside that room, something went wrong. Maybe he said something you didn't like. Maybe some old grudge came up. Who knows? Either way, something set you off, and you ripped him apart before you could stop yourself."

Killua barely managed a gulp.

"You want to know what I think?" The cop tilted his head. "I think you were jealous."

Killua said nothing.

"You aren't a very successful Hunter, are you?"

The boy grimaced. No, he wasn't. Not anymore.

"My son's something of an enthusiast. He's always going on and on about all the famous Hunters out there. I've never heard your name. But even I know who the victim was. He was a celebrity in his own right." The man frowned. "You say you were friends, but you didn't share in his success. Something must've happened between you. Or maybe you just didn't get what you felt you deserved compared to your childhood colleague. Is that why you did this?"

"You're wrong!" Killua leapt to his feet, but the chains pulled him down. "I saved his life! I was always the one protecting him! I did everything –"

"That's just it, isn't it?" Excitement flashed through the cop's eyes when he saw the opportunity and snatched it. "You did so much for him, but you never really got much in return, did you? Maybe he forgot about you all together as he became famous. He didn't help you when you were the one who needed it most." He smiled with faux sympathy. "You were just angry. That's understandable. You didn't intend to kill him. Everything just got out of hand."

Electric rage bristled through Killua's tense muscles. He knew how these guys worked. The cop was trying to read him – trying to break him. He'd throw out any stupid theory he could think of, just to measure his reaction. He'd look for new cracks to try and squeeze himself into, until finally, the boy shattered, and said what the man wanted him to say.

Killua forced himself to hold the stare. "You can come up with whatever stupid story you want. It doesn't matter, because I didn't do it."

"Really?" The man straightened. "Or is that just what you want to believe?"

Killua's voice was as icy as his eyes. "You just want to wrap this case up fast because of the press its going to get. Because Gon was famous. You don't really care about what happened, about him, at all!" He paused to swallow down the lump in his throat. "You just don't get anything."

"Oh?" Another arch of the brow. "Explain it to me, then. What don't I 'get'? Because I feel like I've gotten quite a lot already."

Killua didn't say anything. He wasn't going to bother.

"Look," the cop offered, "just give me a few more answers for my notes, and I'll leave you alone for a while. Give you time to think on all this, hmm?"

If he made that satisfied smirk one more time, Killua swore he wouldn't be able to stop himself from breaking free and ripping it right off his face.

"Where do you currently live?" The cop continued, oblivious. "Do you have parents we need to notify?"

He sucked down another laugh. "No." Definitely not. "I'm a traveler. I don't really live anywhere."

"If you don't live here, then what brought you to this city?"

"Money, mostly. My sister is sick, so..." He stopped. Where was Alluka, anyway? He'd wanted her to head back to their own hotel while he was gone, but she'd insisted on hanging out with a group of other girls staying late at the party, and he'd reluctantly agreed, promising her that he wouldn't be gone for more than a couple of hours. He didn't even know what time it was anymore.

"Sister?" The officer blinked. "You mean the cross-dresser throwing a tantrum in the lobby?"

Ah. Well, she was safe, at least. "Alluka's just a normal girl." He corrected, almost automatically. "She shouldn't be out here. Have someone tell her that I'm okay – that she should go back to our room."

That Alluka knew he'd been arrested at all meant that rumors had already reached the lingering party goers. Crap. If his reputation as a Hunter was already ruined, this was going to destroy it all together.

The man gave him another blink, but nodded. "Do you travel together, then?"

He nodded in turn. "We needed to stay somewhere where I could find enough work to pay for her treatments, and somewhere with a decent hospital. I came for the party, too." He admitted. "I wanted to do some networking, see if I could get better jobs." He could forget about that idea, now. "And, I..." He stopped, looking away.

"Go on."

"I guess I did kinda want to see him. Gon. I thought he might be there at the party."

He could forget about that idea, now, too.

The man folded his hands back into their neat little knot on the table. "So you were seeking him out, then?"

Killua shot him another glare. "Were you listening at all? He's the one who invited me!" He hesitated. "I mean, I did send him a text earlier, but it wasn't anything like –"

"Wait. You sent a text?" The cop sat back in his chair, as if he were planning on staying there a good while longer. "How about you just start from there and go over the whole day from the beginning? Nice and slow. After that, we'll call it good for now."

Killua swallowed. This was going to be a long night.

Thanks for reading! I hope you enjoyed(?) this rather dark introduction.

Stay tuned for the next update to find out what happened the day before!

-R.R.