DESIDERATUM

Genres: Romance, Drama

Summary: AU: During their fight, Hisoka kills Kuroro. True to her word, Machi hunts him down. / Stitching Pair, Hisoka x Machi

A/N: Written for the Stories Galore Forum's Under-Appreciated Pairs Contest! I've chosen to go with the Stitching Pair (Hisoka x Machi) and this is a canon-based AU that takes place post-Chairman Election Arc. The fic contains spoilers for HxH up to that arc. The story assumes that during the Chimera Ant arc Kuroro managed to unseal his Nen and fought Hisoka while the rest of the Spiders (sans Machi, Nobunaga, and Coltopi) were fighting the Chimera Ants.

I hope you enjoy!

DESIDERATUM

She isn't there when it happens. She isn't there when he dies.

She's sitting in a dingy café across from Nobunaga, half-heartedly listening to him chatting about nothing while a dated television bolted to the wall above their heads churns out news reports about the condition in East Gorteau.

Her tea is getting cold; she doesn't even care when he reaches forward and grabs one the little biscuits they serve with the tea from her plate.

One minute after the clock hits three, however, Nobunaga straightens. "Danchou's late," he says. He checks his phone, even though if there had been any messages or missed calls they would have heard it beep.

"Suppose we should go looking for him?"

"Yeah."

"Suppose something's happened to him?"

Machi hesitates. "I…" Someone stands up and changes the television from news to sports. A roar of approval goes up from the rest of the patrons; apparently, the team playing is a local one. "Yeah."

"Get Coltopi. Let's go." They push their chairs back and stand up, making their way around the too-close tables to where Coltopi is ordering at the front of the line.

"Change of plans," Machi tells him. "We're leaving."

"Oh." He looks disappointed, and they get a few dirty looks and complaints from the rest of the people in line as they shuffle aside to let the group pass.

"They were headed into the forest." Nobunaga attempts to call Danchou on his cell-phone; it rings a few times, then goes straight to voicemail. "We shouldn't have let them go alone."

"Danchou can take care of himself," Machi reminds him. "Still, I…don't like this." Beside her, Coltopi pulls some kind of mottled purple fruit from his pocket and takes a bite.

"Intuition?" Nobunaga sets their pace, and each step seems to be faster than the last.

It's something worse than that. "I don't want to be right," she says.

"I copied something for Danchou yesterday. Just in case." Coltopi's voice is soft and composed, and it helps to calm them all down. Machi is grateful for that. "A pocketwatch." He tugs his collar down to free it, and concentrates for a moment on the dented gold watch.

He points a finger east. "He's that way."

A few minutes pass, and they are off the main road and leaving the town behind, following a winding dirt path just large enough for a car to pass. They don't see any vehicles or people, and after another few miles of heavy running the path veers right, and a battered wooden sign gives the distance to the next town.

"This way." Coltopi drops the fruit core to the ground and points into the forest. They let him lead; Machi stretches out her En, but it just barely reaches past where she can see with her own eyes. The frustration only grows when they start to see evidence of what could only have been a fight between Nen users—scorch marks stretch out across the ground, branches are bent and twisted, an entire tree is ripped in half. Playing cards are embedded deeply in the bark. They jump over it, and reach a clearing.

The air is cool and has the faintest stench of blood. Machi spots Kuroro's coat lying in the dirt on the very edge of the clearing.

A few steps closer, and her entire body stiffens. It's not just his coat, tattered and ripped—it's his body, lying face-down, the ground stained dark with his blood.

"Nobu!" she shrieks, and he's there in an instant. They roll Kuroro's body over, checking his pulse, cataloguing his injuries, already knowing that he's gone and they weren't there and they know exactly who is responsible.

His chest is almost entirely caved in, and while his body is covered with blood and bruises, his face is remarkably undamaged. Was that done just to mock them? No, Machi thinks, Hisoka would not have done such a thing. He would have killed Kuroro only because he could—because in that moment, he wanted to.

"I'm going to kill him," Nobunaga says, his voice so serious and quiet that it takes Machi a few seconds to process the words. "He'll have to answer to me! If that clown thinks he can get off the continent alive…"

"Nobu." She wants to look away, but can't. Kuroro's body is too unnatural in that position, his face doesn't look peaceful or afraid—she's seen those emotions on the faces of the people she's killed herself, but Kuroro just looks dead, and there's no erasing that. To look away would be to disrespect him.

"You can't kill him." It is said matter-of-factly.

"The hell I can't!" Nobu hurls one fist at the ground, his face streaming with tears. Machi glances at Coltopi, but he has dipped his head so that his hair covers his entire face. He is silent.

"That wasn't what I meant. You're not strong enough." She stands up, automatically wiping her hands on the hem of her shirt. She can't remember if she has any of Kuroro's blood on them, and chances a look. Nothing—just sweat and dirt.

"He's long gone by now. Could you track him? Could you fight him? Could you win?" She faces him directly now, narrowing her eyes, trying not to mirror every emotion that fights its way to the front of his face on her own. "You'd just get yourself killed."

"I couldn't avenge Uvo's killer, and you're telling me I can't avenge Danchou's, either?"

She takes a deep breath, lets it out. "He will be avenged. I'm going after Hisoka."

He looks up, bitterly. "Can you kill him?"

She is confident in this. "Of course."

"That's not what I meant." He throws her own words back at her, his fists still shaking as if he'd like to throw them at something, someone, anyone, to take out his rage. "If I had the edge of my sword at his throat, I would not hesitate. I just want to know you'll do the same."

"I won't let you all down." She's learned long ago the risk of making promises, but she made a similar one to the ex-number four not too long ago, and she intends on keeping it. She owes him nothing, but she'll give him that. "I can do this."

"We have to let the others know."

At Coltopi's words, Nobunaga's face distorts into something pained. "That's one call I don't want to have to make."

"Then don't." Machi takes a step back, trying to visualize what had happened—with the large-scale destruction to the area, Danchou must have used some abilities in his book that were unknown to her. Perhaps Hisoka has more up his sleeves than just cards. She's partnered with him enough to know that he prefers close combat, but would be hardly disadvantaged in a setting like this.

Nobunaga splutters. "We can't just—"

"We can," she says. "Think about what would happen if we told them. They'd want to rush in, just like you. And they're too far away to do anything right now—that entire area has been shut down. No air traffic is being allowed in or out. Sure, one or two people could bribe their way out, but not all nine. Not all at once." She had been following the news ever since the rest of the Spiders went there, and while at the time the distance had not seemed problematic, she could guess that it would take at least a month for the Spiders to leave East Gorteau through normal means.

"We can't keep this from them." Nobunaga is firm in his resolve, and beside him Coltopi nods in agreement.

"And I want the best shot at taking him out," Machi says. "Can you really say everyone would be level-headed enough to coordinate an attack? After me, Phinx or Feitan have the best chance, but if they knew they would rush in and ruin my advantage. By myself, I can move quickly enough to track him without alerting him that he's being followed. Please, Nobu, just give me some time."

He is not moved. "I can't do that."

"Then we flip a coin." Machi digs in her pockets, but they come out empty. Coltopi tosses her a coin, stamped with a twelve-legged spider on one side.

"Call it," she tells him.

"Heads."

She flips the coin high into the air, catching it in her right hand and slapping it down onto the back of her left. When she withdraws her hand, the empty side of the coin faces her.

"It's my call, then," she says. "We stay silent. Give me one month—thirty days. If I fail, or you don't hear from me after that point, you can send the others after him."

"I don't like this." When Nobunaga looks back at Danchou's body, some part of his heart breaks, she can see it. When she looks, memorizing every visible mark on his body so she can inflict them in turn on Hisoka, her heart only strengthens.

"You don't have to." She pauses. "You two stay here, and…make the necessary arrangements for Danchou. I'll get my things and leave." This backwater town is too small, and the resources are laughable—she needs access to computers, to airships, to banks big enough to handle the kind of money transfers she has in mind. She may not be a Hunter, but those boundaries mean nothing to her when enough money can erase them completely.

The Azian Continent was closest. She would head to Karta, and use that as her base until she located Hisoka. Then, the hunt would begin.

She had told him she'd find him if he killed Danchou—she'd track him down to the ends of the earth and rip out his heart and watch him die, the same that he'd done to her leader. She wonders, not without worry, that Hisoka had only killed Danchou just to watch her try.

No, she decides. The second she starts trying to parse and decipher Hisoka's moods and actions is the second that she falls behind. She cannot afford to lose.

A day later she has left the others and arrived in Karta, on the coast of the Azian Continent. The city is humid and dirty and she takes a room at a respectable hotel under a fake name and buys the best personal computer on the market so she doesn't have to use the hotel's computer rooms. Those can be traced, and easily, but when she leaves there will be no records that she was ever there. She buys a new disposable phone and tosses the other, just in case.

She has all her meals delivered, and sits cross-legged on her bed all day, clicking through different websites and seeking out the information she needs. There are two airports Hisoka might have flown out of, and she checks the flight lists for both. Her first guess is that he would head somewhere urban, and try to blend in rather than attempt to disappear somewhere rural and isolated—she knows him, as much as someone is able to know someone like him, and cannot imagine him languishing in some tropical resort or hiding away in a farming community. He would get bored.

Machi turns the television on and lets the news channel play in the background while she looks up the flight lists for that day; she doesn't find his face in any of them. So, he chartered a private airship. She makes a few more inquiries, and comes no closer to finding out anything concrete—registration numbers for the airships turn up more dead ends, and when she decides to focus her search to the five largest cities on the continent, his name and face still produce no records. He could have had someone delete them—or delete them himself—but she thinks that there is one place that is not so easily expunged.

It takes a few million jenni to access his Hunter license number and track it, but she finds a first-class train ticket from Baimum to Swaldani City in his name. She cross-references that to the flight information, and finds a single flight to Baimum—it had not been full. Perhaps he bribed his way onboard, or used fake identification? It is irrelevant, and now she has a starting point—Swaldani.

She recognizes the name of the city from the news reports. It's the location of the Hunter Association headquarters, and she realizes with distaste that she cannot just waltz into a city filled to the brim with Hunters and expect to walk out still in one piece with her mission complete. She frowns grimly as the news continues its coverage of the Hunter Association election—Hisoka has picked a good place to hide and recover. She will have to wait him out.

Nine days pass, and she turns on the television one morning to see that the process has ended and a new Chairman has been elected. She turns the television off, uncaring, and turns back to her computer, checking the airship flight records out of Swaldani City. She buys the information she needs, and considers it to be the best ten million she's ever spent. He's headed to Wacau.

It's one of the biggest cities on the continent, and Machi can think of no better place to visit if one wanted to relieve boredom. The city is known for its nightlife and casinos, and although it is heavily controlled by the Mafia, there should be no trouble getting in. A further search and some more money shows that Hisoka used his Hunter license to obtain a suite at one of the grandest hotels in the city. She books an airship ticket for the next morning, and finally leaves her hotel room to do some shopping.

She returns with new clothes and luggage and some additional supplies; the computer will be left behind. She orders more room service and spends the rest of the evening studying maps of Wacau and planning the best course of action. She has never been to Wacau before, but all urban cities are built the same, and she's spent her life in places more hazardous than the tightest Mafia grip, with more people than the densest city on the planet.

Here, she can follow him. Here, she can defeat him.

Wacau is even more humid, and her hair sticks to the back of her neck as she stands outside the airport, waiting to charter a taxi into the city, her Nen suppressed. She's made a reservation at the hotel across from his, and requested a room that faces the street so she can keep tabs on the building.

Wacau does not impress her, and she barely gives the neon-coated buildings and glittering harbor any attention. She looks deeper—at the slimness of the alleys, the shade the skyscrapers cast, and the way most of the people on the street wear fashionably large sunglasses or wide-brimmed hats to shield themselves from the sun. It has the added benefit of obscuring their faces, and while she knows she is not likely to encounter Hisoka on the street she still cannot discount anything her intuition tells her.

And it tells her now to stay on her guard, and to never let it down for a second.

According to her research, Hisoka's suite occupies one corner of the building on the twentieth floor. Her own room is on the twenty-third, and she sets up a telescope apparatus she purchased in Karta, scanning the entrance of the hotel before moving her gaze up twenty floors. On one corner, the windows are completely dark, but in the other all the lights are on and the curtains have been fully opened.

She remembers doing surveillance work for prior Ryodan jobs, and freelance work on her own. Any job, whether it was a theft or an assassination, was more than eighty percent waiting and watching. She considers herself very adept at it, even if the process occasionally bores her.

She keeps a notepad resting on her right knee, and by the end of the evening she has a number of notable observations:

A black car has been parked on the curb just up from her hotel all day, with the same man behind the wheel. At one point he has a visitor, and they speak for exactly seven minutes.

No one matching Hisoka's appearance has entered or exited the hotel through the front door. She knows there are other avenues of ingress and egress—the parking garage and the alleyway staff and delivery entrance make two.

At exactly eight-thirty, a man comes to the window of the corner suite, with a towel wrapped around his neck and disheveled hair so red that it is unmistakable, even through the lens of a telescope at that distance.

Machi clenches her teeth and watches him standing there, looking out at the city. She looks away; the confirmation is enough. If only killing him was as easy as finding him. For the first time she considers the possibility of hiring an assassin to go after him. Depending on which Zoldyeck she asked, the job would probably even get done.

She still has more than half of the thirty days allotted to her remaining. For the first time, she wishes for a partner—she could keep watch from up above, and someone else could go into the hotel and investigate, perhaps even utilize a room on his floor to know if he ever leaves it.

She waits a half hour after the light goes out in his room before catching a few hours of sleep herself, and when she wakes she feels even more tightly-wound than she has since the day Kuroro was killed.

The city returns to its activity, neon lights blazing at all hours, and the same car remains on the curb; around six AM, it switches drivers. She is sure beyond a doubt that they are also watching someone in that building. Machi has never believed in coincidences, and considers the possibility that Hisoka is here to meet with someone. If he wanted to go to a casino, he would have left the hotel the previous night.

Rain begins to fall, lightly at first but heavier as the day wears on, until it is difficult to see through the telescope and almost impossible to pick out faces from underneath black umbrellas and jacket hoods. There are far fewer people on the street, and Machi hunts in the closet for a standard-issue hotel umbrella. It will have to do, should she have to go outside.

Hotel coffee keeps her awake, even if the taste is repugnant. Hotel room service brings her sandwiches, and she eats one while she waits.

That evening she sees him return to the window again, this time wearing a familiar pattern of spades and clubs, his hair slicked back. When the lights go out, she tenses, turning her gaze to the hotel entrance. A few minutes later, he emerges, strolling casually up the street. If there was any doubt in her mind that it was him, it is gone as she watches him walk, his shoulders hunched forward ever so slightly, the arm not carrying a red umbrella swinging loosely by his side. He walks with a purpose, and it is this that has her decide to follow him instead of taking the opportunity to investigate his room. She could set a trap for him there, but her intuition is strong that there is more for her to learn by following him.

She grabs a pair of sunglasses and the umbrella on her way out, zipping up her jacket. Outside, although the rain beats down with an unrelenting ferocity, the temperature is warm. As she passes the black car, she gets a good view of the driver—someone average-looking in a black suit, talking quickly into a phone.

Hisoka is conspicuous enough that she spots him easily, and walks on the opposite side of the street, far enough behind him that she can hide behind her umbrella or duck into a side street if he happens to get suspicious. He turns a corner, heading into the busier part of the city, and she follows. The pedestrian traffic is light, but the gridlock is impressive, and car horns honk as taxis make their way slowly up the street. There is a casino up ahead, and she expects him to enter it; when he does not, she grows even more curious.

They pass a second casino, the grandest one on the street, with large banners flowing down the sides of the walls and bright neon lights racing in time to music. Hisoka pauses in front of it, before turning and continuing to walk. Machi glances up the street before turning and looking behind her; from the casino they had just passed, five men in black suits exit and walk up the street towards her. One of them is doing a passable job of concealing his Aura, but if she can sense it, Hisoka certainly can.

The suits are identical, standard issue with a casino logo on the pocket, clearly Mafia security. The man in the car had worn something similar, and she realizes with a start that they are both tracking the same person.

Rainwater flows over her shoes, and she pauses to look in a shop window while the suits rush past. Up ahead, she sees Hisoka disappear down an alleyway between the buildings. The suits pick up their pace; Machi thinks the one who knows Nen is last in their group, but it is hard to tell through the rain and her attempts to conceal her own Aura.

Even through the sound of the rain, she can hear the suits' footsteps as they splash through puddles and shuffle over uneven cement. Tossing the umbrella aside, she ducks behind them and locates a fire escape built into the side of the casino, connecting the rooftops of the neighboring building and linking the top-floor windows. The alleyway continues for the entire block, but just in case she leaves a Nen string stretched tight across the entrance at ankle height before leaping and grabbing the lowest rung of the fire escape, pulling herself up and climbing as fast as she can.

At the far end of the alley, a second group of suited men block Hisoka's path. He turns around to see the others closing in, and lowers the umbrella and laughs in a way that is low and entirely too at-ease. "You're a long way from the casino. Are you all here to show me a good time?"

His hair droops in the rain, covering his eyes, and that makes him look even more sinister, Machi thinks, watching from above as she weaves a net of threads over the rooftops, looping them around the window grates and safety railings of the fire escape ledges.

One of the suits raises a gun tipped with a silencer. "You are to be executed for your role in the assassination of the Don Hachi—"

A flick of the wrist has a card embedded deep in the suit's forehead. The impact pitches him backwards and he collapses on the ground, eyes wide, blood mixing with the rain in rivulets down his wide face.

The others raise their guns in unison, yet hesitate, as if they are waiting for orders. Machi locates the Nen user in the back, and decides that he must be biding his time, like her.

"Well?" He breathes it out, elongates the word, turns it into something sharp and sickly-sweet. "I'm waiting~"

Shots ring out from behind him, and he dodges by twisting his body to the side, sending more cards flying with his right hand. His feet barely move, planted as solidly on the wet pavement as Machi supposes they can be. Two more suits go down by the cards, and the bullet that one fired hits a man on the other side of the blockade. Hisoka laughs, and tosses the umbrella aside.

The suits close in on either side, some abandoning their guns for knives drawn hastily from jacket pockets. They handle them well, but against an opponent of Hisoka's caliber, the weapons are no more of a threat than the people who wield them. One of the suits closest to her darts out, striking at Hisoka, moving with a quickness that seems unnatural. One kick to his stomach sends him flying to crumple against the wall, and two more rush forward in the same manner.

Machi studies the Nen user as he pushes up his glasses, following the others, using them as shields as Hisoka dispatches the first by slicing a card across his throat.

Hisoka's eyes widen slightly, and he seems to freeze as the second suit's knife cuts into his left arm with an upward slash. He launches out with one foot, driving the point of his boot into the suit's shoulder to divert the attack. The knife cuts through the sleeve of Hisoka's shirt, and where it hangs ragged Machi can see the raw incision.

"Ah-! So you're the one I've been sensing." Hisoka directs his next assault on the Nen user, tossing cards that thud uselessly into the mortar at his back as he seems to slide left and right with an unnatural quickness, avoiding the attacks completely.

"What kind of ability is this? I can't move my arm." Hisoka grins, tilting his chin down. Three bodies lie slumped against the ground around them, and he regards them only long enough to count them. "What a waste for an injury I can't even feel."

"The Hunter Association commandment number four states that I may not hunt a Hunter unless they have committed grave crimes," the Nen user says. "You have fulfilled those conditions, so I am hunting you, Hisoka."

"Oh?" He sounds interested now; Machi spares a moment to further study this person—this Hunter, memorizing his dark skin and hair and reserved posture. If she had to guess, she would say he was a Manipulation type, from the way that he seemed to control his comrade's movements.

"Do you remember Terradin Neutral?" the Hunter continues, and suddenly Hisoka's left arm jerks out, wildly, and cracks at the elbow as it bends backwards too far. "I was his student. You may remember me as Lupe Highland, but I'd prefer you know me as the man who's going to kill you."

From up above, Machi rolls her eyes, but keeps a close watch on Lupe as Hisoka's arm twists again. He doesn't seem to notice or care, and sends a three cards sailing in an arc towards Lupe's chest. He dodges two, but the third catches him in the shoulder, and he takes a step back.

Hisoka's damaged arm drops to his side, fingers twitching. Behind him, the remaining suits ready for an attack. Lupe charges, seeming to melt into the side of the building before reappearing behind Hisoka. It is done so fast and so smoothly that by the time he ducks, pressing both his palms to the ground, Hisoka has barely had time to turn, readying another few cards between the fingers of his good hand.

"Fire!" Lupe shouts, and the suits, guns raised, fire over his head towards Hisoka. Like before, he freezes, but this time he is unable to move his feet, and uses his cards to split the bullets in midair. Machi looks at Hisoka's damaged arm, and with his sleeve gone she can see the evidence of more barely-healed cuts and bruises from what must have been his fight with Kuroro.

It should be her advantage. If he has not recovered, now if the optimal time to strike. Now, when he faces a firing squad and a Hunter who can somehow control his body. It is perfect.

Only if she gets to him first. Lupe lunges, drawing a gun of his own, preparing to shoot it point-blank at Hisoka's chest. Machi dives through the net of strings she's woven, looping one around her ankle to hold her to the net as she launches a second string at the gun, pulling it out of his hands before he can pull the trigger. It clatters in a puddle, and she launches a kick first at Lupe, sending him flying down the alleyway towards his companions. A second string winds its way around his good arm, tightening. He is able to draw away just slight enough that it tightens into place above his elbow instead of around his bicep, where she'd intended. Withdrawing the string attached to her ankle, she draws herself back up and out of the way as the suits begin to fire again.

Hisoka ignores the bullets, leaping up towards where she waits, crouched, on top of the network of strings. Two of the suits come staggering out, moving with that same momentum, and Machi drops down again to wrap strings around their necks, drawing them up and hanging them from her web.

Only three are left, plus the Hunter. "What a nuisance—"

"Machi-!" Hisoka sounds both alarmed and delighted, and she tightens the string around his arm further, pulling on it to keep him from moving too far away.

Suddenly, she cannot move. Her body panics; she cannot breathe, cannot move her arms, and watches with wide eyes as one of her own hands lifts itself up and grasps her neck tightly.

"Your ability has something to do with shadows, correct?" Hisoka flexes, frowning, and tries to fit a finger beneath the tight loop of string. He is unsuccessful. "If you step on someone's shadow, you can stop that part of their body, am I right?"

Well, that would have been good to know earlier. Machi relaxes and tests the string at her ankle, hoping it can disrupt Lupe's ability. She withdraws it, and goes flying back up; the second her shadow is no longer on the ground, she can breathe again, and hangs suspended from the net, grasping at the horizontal strings with her fingers to steady herself.

She can see Hisoka's eyes shining with aura, and knows he is using Gyo. He can see how widespread this network is—he must know his chance of escape is slim. She thinks further, watches Lupe and the three remaining suits advance, and drops down beside Hisoka.

"He can move himself through shadows, too." What a useful ability to have, and one well-used on a day like this, full of rainclouds and thunder, between two buildings that scrape the sky.

"Your timing is perfect as always, Machi," he says, "I…don't suppose you're here to help?"

"I don't want to share your death with anyone," she replies. "I won't let someone else kill you. That honor is mine."

"I look forward to your attempts." He never takes his eyes off Lupe, who is slowly inching closer to the wall, although Machi knows that most of his attention is focused exclusively on her.

"Let's make quick work of these clowns."

"You wouldn't be including me in that description, would you?" He attempts to place his bound hand on his hip, frowning at it when he can barely lift it, the attempted pose failing. "I am a magician, Machi. And the work would go by much faster if you would give me back my arm."

"No. I'm cutting off your circulation. You won't be able to use it for long. Already the skin is turning blue." And swollen, she notes; he cannot break out of the string on his own. His only chance would be to separate her from the lead string, to weaken its strength enough for him to break it with his muscles.

"I'll finish them myself, then," she continues, and charges forward, leaping into the air and running a few steps on the side of the wall to minimize her shadow's path on the ground. She stretches a second thread between both hands, ready to wrap around her opponent's throat, but before she can vault over Lupe he slams one hand against the side of the wall, catching the very edge of her shadow.

"I don't have to just step on it," he tells her, his voice cold. "If I touch it at all, I control it." It's her left hand that's frozen, the hand connected to Hisoka's string, and it strikes out into the wall, blasting through concrete and breaking every bone in her fingers. Her hand comes away bloody, and she does it again; Lupe blocks one of her kicks with an arm strengthened by Ken.

"I'll kill anyone who gets in the way of my vengeance." Lupe slides into the shadows, releasing control of her arm, and with his ability retracted the full force of the pain registers in her hand. It's excruciating, and she chokes on it, the suddenness every bit as effective as the pain itself. When Lupe appears behind her, in the shadow of an overhead railing, and places one hand gently against the middle of her shadow, her body freezes. Is he targeting her spine? Her throat? She cannot turn, cannot see him, and when her throat closes up she is filled with an anger that outweighs every emotion she can ever remember feeling. What a stupid way to die.

A few black spots blossom before her vision, and then suddenly her throat is clear and she can breathe again. Machi takes two steps back on steady legs, watching as two cards fly by her in rapid fire straight at Lupe. He dodges one and catches the other, sliding sideways as the card he'd dodged travels like a boomerang and returns to strike him in the back.

When Lupe had damaged her hand, she'd lost the lead string. Hisoka's arm has a deep red mark from the tightness of the thread, but the thread itself is gone, and from his patchy aim she knows that the feeling still hasn't completely returned to his fingers.

Lupe jumps back, and falters a little against the slippery ground. The right shoulder of his suit jacket is dark with blood, and she guesses Hisoka's card hit him in roughly the same place on his back, from the way he favors it.

The two remaining suits draw their weapons, and when Lupe takes another step back, they join him. "The Mafia does not forget or forgive wrongs so easily." He glances at Machi. "We don't know who you are, but if you are working with him you can consider yourself our target, too. This isn't over. I'll be back to finish this."

"Who says we're going to let you?" Machi wraps some string around the fingers of her good hand, ready to vault back up to her net at a moment's notice. She doesn't even need to glance at Hisoka to confirm that he is more than willing to spill more of their blood from the way his aura races.

Lupe melts against the shadows of the wall, and Machi jumps, retracting the string connecting her to the net and grabbing at another loose thread, swinging herself over their heads to block their escape. Lupe seems to disappear into the shadows, and she scans the walls, trying to find him. She finally spots him up above her net, climbing up to the fire escape railings.

With one exit blocked, the suits run towards the other, firing shots back at Hisoka until their magazines are empty. A card takes out one, and the last is caught on her tripwire and falls. She hears him scream, but is more focused on stopping Lupe from running away. Before she can follow him, she senses Hisoka's aura spike, and has just enough time to turn, her fingers armed with threads, before Hisoka has a card pressed against her neck.

He touches the edge of it to her skin, and a thin line of blood appears where it cuts her, razor-sharp. In return, she tightens the threads she'd thrown around his neck. They stand there for a moment, unblinking, before he laughs.

"You never disappoint me, Machi." She hates the way he says her name. It's too slow, too appreciative, spoken like a caress. "Are you going to let me go now? Or are you going to kill me?"

When she exhales, the card cuts her a little deeper. It would be an easy thing to take his head off now, but she knows it would end with hers on the ground as well. "What did you do to get the Mafia after you?"

"Me?" He looks thoughtful. "I can't think of just one thing. But we did massacre those Mafia leaders and auction clients in York New, or don't you remember?"

"They won't go after the Genei Ryodan—they won't risk incurring the wrath of Ryuuseigai." Rainwater keeps dripping off her bangs and onto her nose, and it's making it harder to see.

"Ah, but I'm not with the Ryodan anymore, am I? I'm not from Ryuuseigai, either." Hisoka shrugs, seeming not to care that the motion tightens the strings around his neck. "So I suppose they couldn't help but take their only chance at vengeance."

The rain has almost completely obliterated his makeup, and it lends a familiarity to his face that makes her uncomfortable. His eyes are glittering with some undecipherable emotion, and her anger returns. "Should I take mine, and kill you now?"

"You know what the price for that will be." His mouth stretches into a grin; it doesn't taunt her, but his anticipation feels very much like a challenge.

"I want to fight you," she finds herself saying. "Like you fought Danchou. I don't want to fight you when you're injured like this…that kind of victory is empty. I won't avenge him that way."

"Then let me go," he says.

"Not a chance. I'm not going to let you out of my sight." She extends the threads so they sag loosely around his neck, and Hisoka withdraws his card, flicking the paper aside to land in a puddle.

He grins at her. "Machi, if you wanted to tie me up, you had only to ask."

She leads the way, tugging on the threads to get him to follow her. "Come on. The Mafia is unlikely to let up, and I won't let them kill you. We'll settle things here, and then you'll fight me."

"Like old times, right?" He falls into step beside her, and together they exit the alleyway and walk back down the street, as casually as if their clothing wasn't ripped and blood wasn't dripping down their arms. As if their shoes weren't wet and they were here, just like anyone else, to gamble. "I always enjoyed working with you, Machi. We made good partners, you and I."

She has nothing to say to that, and when they turn the corner she leads the way into her hotel.

Machi settles herself onto the couch in her room and does a quick assessment of her wounds. It'll require stitches, for sure, and so should Hisoka's. The thought is not an appealing one.

She is used to the pain in her hand now, and it's reduced to a vague kind of burn that is easy to ignore. She works with efficiency, using her good hand and her teeth to hold threads in place, stitching up the wounds and re-setting the bones in her fingers. There's a new crookedness to a few fingers that is impossible to eradicate completely, but as she tests each one, looking at the smooth surface of her skin, she supposes it not so bad a trade.

Hisoka disappears into the bathroom, trailing Nen threads, and she hears the sink turn on. A few minutes later and he returns, shirtless, the blood cleaned from his damaged arm. He moves to sit on the bed and holds his arm out to her.

"Are you going to heal me, Machi? You said you didn't want to fight me in this state, as I recall."

"If that's what you want." She doesn't have the time to wait for him to heal naturally. "I'll be charging my usual fee."

"If you end up killing me, you can have everything I own." His smile is deceptively cheerful. "A dead man doesn't have much use for money. What do you spend yours on, I wonder?"

"Whatever I want." He seems unwilling to move, so she perches herself on the edge of the bed, reaching out and grabbing his arm, studying the skin around his elbow. It's been shattered, and she uses a few threads to stabilize the worst of the break before pulling a new needle from the pincushion at her wrist and threading it.

"I'll heal your arm," she says. "But not…that." For the first time, she can see it clearly—his back has faded evidence of recent burns, shiny pink skin and scar tissue that could not be painless. She reaches out a fingertip to touch his skin, mapping the pattern of the burns on his back where she had once seen his tattoo, and realizes that Kuroro must have done that to him. It brings an unbidden smile to her face, that Kuroro would have marked him in such a permanent way after he had thrown away his membership.

Hisoka doesn't comment on her exploration of his injuries, only stays obediently still as she begins to sew, working lightning-fast stitches into his skin to heal the cuts and reattach the torn ligaments. A minute later, and his arm looks good as new, and she has him test it out, bending and rotating his elbow.

"Don't put a lot of stress on it, or you might reopen those wounds." It occurs to her then that going after the Mafia men right away would be a bad idea, with Hisoka still injured, but time is a luxury, and she's running out of it.

"Your bedside manners could use some improvement." Hisoka pouts, and when Machi tries to sit up her arm catches on something.

There's a thin line of Bungee Gum string wrapped around her left wrist. He crooks a finger at her and roughly pulls her closer; she swings one leg over his and settles both hands on his shoulders to keep from completely falling on top of him.

"Hisoka. What did I just say about not putting stress on your arm?"

He grips her hip with one hand to preempt her attempts at moving away. "If it reopens, you can heal it again. I've always enjoyed watching you work. You're…very good with your hands, Machi."

"Hisoka…" He presses his lips to her neck for barely a second before she has one elbow jammed against his throat, the threads around his neck tightening. His eyes light up, and it gives her an idea.

She leans forward and kisses him, harsh and unforgiving like she knows he'll appreciate, taking the opportunity to attach more threads around his newly-healed arm. She yanks his arm up, attaching the threads to the headboard so he cannot move, binding the entire length of his arm, and breaks the kiss.

He tests the strings, and when one cuts into his skin his mouth widens into a self-satisfied grin.

"If you ignore my advice, that's hardly my problem," she murmurs against his lips. He pushes up the hem of her jacket and shirt to slide his palm over her skin.

"Hmm?" With his chin tipped back, his throat is exposed. It reminds her that she still has the advantage, that with her threads around his neck she could slice clean through his skin if she wishes. Instead, she winds a thread around his free hand, drawing it up to hold it with the other above his head, tied to the headboard. Then, satisfied, she rolls off of him onto her side, tucking the spare pillow comfortably behind her head.

"Aren't you going to finish what you started?" His sour expression brings a smile to her face.

"Why should I?"

He makes a frustrated noise in the back of his throat. "Just like old times."

Her smile falls, and she closes her eyes, hoping for sleep. "Hardly."

She's on an assassination mission, one of her first solo assignments for the Genei Ryodan. She has observed her target for days, recording his patterns and the people he interacts with. For being a high-ranking politician, he has a surprising few bodyguards, and his movements are predictable to the point that she decides the next day to make her move.

The atrium of that country's capital building is a soaring, modern structure of glass and steel, something new in a country build with old foundations. She's perched on the top of the rafters, balanced on a steel beam, with threads stretched between each of her fingers, waiting for her target to leave for the evening. Then, she will drop down, wrap a thread around his neck, and pull—and he will be dead, and her, gone, before anyone can react. Something subtle and quick, like she's been taught.

She knows from her observations that the politician likes to work past sundown, but still leaves at the same time each evening, and the building is mostly empty by the time she sees the elevator rise to his floor. She readies her strings, but something catches her eye at the front doors.

A man with the brightest turquoise hair steps inside, the heels of his shoes clicking on the tile. He's wearing something impossibly strange, and his presence sets off every suspicion she has. Some part of her knows this will interfere with her plans—she couldn't in her life have planned for some strangely-dressed clown with an aura that's equal parts amusement and danger to walk into her assassination attempt.

The elevator opens, and her target steps out. Instantly, the stranger races forward, and Machi knows that her chance is disappearing right before his eyes. If the attempt should fail, and the target can get to safety, he will be moved somewhere secure and his security team tripled. She can't have that, and so she dives, thread in hand, between her target and the stranger.

A half-second before she lands he looks up, sidestepping a kick with an indulgent grin, raising his hands, palms out, as she vaults behind her target and wraps a thread tighter than she had intended around his neck and slices. To hell with subtlety.

Her planned escape route is through the roof, and as she retracts her thread she notices the stranger staring up at her—he isn't even moving, and although it's barely been a second someone's going to notice there's a dead body on the floor and scream or press an alarm—and it's that mix of leisure and carelessness that makes her run a little faster as she slips out through a glass panel she'd removed the previous night and navigates the steep slope of the roof, attaching a thread and swinging down to the street.

An alarm goes off inside the building, and she darts around a corner, flipping open her phone and dialing.

She notices the same man running behind her when the phone begins to ring.

He's beside her in a second, keeping pace even with her best attempts to speed up. He grins at her, and she is reminded of a shark. "Who're you calling?"

She snaps, "None of your business!" When the line connects, she presses the phone even tighter against her ear. "Danchou? The mission's complete."

She listens for a few moments, nodding, and doing her best to ignore the strange man with the stranger smile who can't seem to take a hint. "Right. I'm on it."

When she hangs up the call, the stranger pouts, his earnestness comical. "Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?"

"No." She changes direction suddenly, darting down another street, and the stranger follows. The roads are full of cars, but the streets are largely empty, and their movements are so fast that to the casual observer any disruption is seen as no more than the wind.

"Would you like to know my name?" His good mood is unsettling, and she changes directions again, making sure to keep a wide berth to both her hotel and the site of her next sting operation.

"No."

"I'd like to know yours." The cheer is replaced by a deep seriousness, and she spares him a single, frosty glance.

"If I tell you, will you go away?" she asks.

He shrugs. "Maybe."

"That's not good enough." She hasn't even noticed until now that he's been steadily increasing the speed at which they've been running. She slows down, cutting her pace to a brisk walk and folding her arms behind her back. Ahead, the stranger stops, and waits for her. When she meets him, he matches her pace again, giving her another indulgent smile.

"Please?"

"I told you my terms." Really, she should be more worried that she can't shake this guy. She can count the number of people she knows who are as fast as she is on one hand, and doesn't like the idea that she'll have to add her other to include him. "Walk away and you'll get my name."

"Fine, fine." He doesn't sound as troubled by the concession as she expects.

"It's Machi." It's an easy enough thing to give up when her name is listed on no official records, but it makes them familiar in a way that she doesn't think she likes.

"It's a pleasure to have met you…Machi." With that, he spins on one heel and begins to walk in the other direction.

She's puzzled for the few seconds it takes before she can no longer see him, and tries to put it from her mind. She's successful, for the most part—Danchou wants her to steal something from the national museum before she leaves, and she'll have to work fast to plan and execute the theft that next night. She has no time to think of anything else.

The museum building is an antique in itself, but she knows from her research that its security system is state of the art. Breaking into one museum is the same as breaking into any, but she is glad that what Danchou wants is on general display, and not in a high-security vault or deep in storage.

She enters the museum through an open window in one of the curator's offices on the third floor, and makes her way to the general galleries one floor down. There are cameras she must avoid, but they are easily spotted, and the few laser detectors are placed at the entrances to each exhibit. She leaps over those and crouches before the display of relics that had caught Danchou's interest.

She reaches for the glass.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you."

His voice breaks her careful concentration, and she whips her head back to see the stranger from the day before walking towards her from the shadows. She doesn't question how he got in, or why he's here—but if they're trying to steal the same artifact, she thinks she might have to start questioning her bad luck.

"It's good to see you again, Machi," he says.

She decides she might as well give him a shot, and gestures towards the display. "Well, what would you suggest, then?"

"The glass is pressure-sensitive. If you break it or move it in any way, an alarm will go off, and security doors will close off the exhibits. We'll be trapped."

"You can get around that, I'd wager."

His face is strikingly handsome half cloaked in shadows, but as he moves to kneel beside her and study the display the effect is only slightly lessened.

"I can keep the sensors depressed while you remove the glass," he says. "Do you want my help?"

"Only if you'll give me your name." She makes the excuse that if she has it, she can more easily acquire information about him, and to put them on more equal footing—not for any desire to know.

"It's Hisoka." He says it like a proclamation.

"Well, Hisoka…let's get to work." She attaches a series of short threads to the base of the glass, thin enough to slip between the glass case and the display base. The ends of the threads are looped twice over each hand, and when she's ready to lift it she nods at Hisoka.

He does something strange with his aura, and when she looks with Gyo she can see globs of it covering the sensors. The bulkiness of it is more difficult to manage than the weight—it's several hundred pounds, easily, and spans a length of over three feet to contain all the relics. She sets it down to the side, releasing the threads, and cracks her knuckles.

"The base doesn't appear to have any sensors," she says, leaning forward to study the display and the relic—some sort of fossilized shell preserved in stone, as large as her arm. When she lifts up the stone no alarms are sounded, and with a sigh of relief, she moves to place the stone inside of her bag. She attaches more string to the display glass and replaces it on the base; besides the missing relic, no one would even know that they were there. She turns back towards Hisoka.

"Thanks for your help." The words leave a slightly bitter taste in her mouth. She certainly could have done it without him, but it wouldn't have been nearly as simple or as easy. "Be seeing you."

"Not so fast." She looks up, and he takes a step back towards the shadows, pointing towards the long windowed corridor leading towards the main gallery. "If you're planning to escape back through the staff offices, you might have some trouble."

"What kind of trouble?" Her suspicions reaffirmed, she stands and takes a step to the side, letting the shadows give her some of their coverage. "We were so careful…we couldn't have tripped any of the alarms."

"It wouldn't have mattered," he says, his tone conversational. "I set off an alarm coming in ten minutes ago. I'm sure the police are already here."

"What-?"

"I like a challenge," he continues. "Do you?"

She bites her tongue to keep from snapping at him, but the adrenaline that spikes its way up her arms at his announcement is not entirely unpleasant. "That's the only way into this part of the museum, besides a staff door that's key-coded."

"We could break it down. Or we could fight whoever shows up to stop us. I planned on leaving through the front door."

Of course he did. That's probably how he had gotten inside, just smashed the locks right off the door. Nothing could keep him out if he really wanted to get in, she thinks.

"Let's see how well your plans work, then," she says, drawing a string between her hands. Hisoka's smile widens, and she can begin to hear the clatter of footsteps on the marble floor of the museum entrance. She estimates about a dozen, likely fully armed, the police of a police state.

Their voices are too hushed to make out, but when Machi sees a trio of red laser points sweep down the corridor, she knows they are close. She presses herself closer to the corner right before the open corridor, and waits five seconds.

The first man walks into the gallery, and Machi is sliding across the floor, drawing a string across his legs and sending him pitching backwards into the two men behind him. She pulls on the string, and he scrabbles to regain control, swinging his gun up and into place to fire. The laser point illuminates Hisoka's face for the half-second before he is gone and a card is buried in the unfortunate man's forehead.

She drops the string, swinging around and kicking the body out of the way as she and Hisoka walk into the corridor, side by side. In the smaller space, the next officers go down easily. Machi works more out of a need for haste and precision, dispatching the officers with threads tight around necks or quick kicks to whichever body part she can reach first. She just wants them down, uncaring if they live or die, if they see her face or not.

A glance at Hisoka shows that he is enjoying himself, slashing with more playing cards and laughing quietly to himself. They exit the corridor and out onto the main gallery, and Machi grabs Hisoka and spins them both to the side as a rapid volley of bullets pierce the air where they had just been standing.

In the alcove created by a doorway they wait out the bullets. Machi looks up at Hisoka and suddenly he is kissing her, one hand tangling in her short hair, tilting her head to deepen the angle. She follows, her arms skimming his shoulders, threads still wrapped tight around each hand.

"You should grow out your hair," he tells her.

"You should shut up," she says, and kisses him again.

They split, and she leaps over the staircase railing, leaving threads connected to the balustrade. She surprises the men in mid-reload, winding threads around their necks and pulling to lift them in the air.

Hisoka is taking his time walking down the stairs, tossing cards at anyone still standing. Before long, they are the only two left, and he holds the glass doors open for her as they leave the museum together. His arm settles itself around her waist.

She lets him follow her back to her hotel. She lets him kiss the tattoo on her left hip.

And when he disappears the next day, she throws away the playing card he'd left on her pillow and throws herself back into her work.

One year later, she meets up with Uvogin and Nobunaga for a mission, and they introduce her to their newest member. A familiar face stares back at her, his smile no less disarming and his aura no less chilling than she remembers. When he speaks, it is with an effusion of hearts.

"Looks like we're going to be partners again, Machi~"

"Why is vengeance so important to you?" he asks her, lazily shuffling his cards after a neatly constructed tower falls for the third time. "It won't bring Kuroro back from the dead."

She's on her side, facing away from him. She doesn't think she could handle his eyes right now, and she certainly doesn't want to show him hers. "How did you do it?"

"Do what?"

"Kill him."

He shuffles for a few more moments, then silence. She supposes he's started to build again.

"His ability has a condition—his book can only be summoned and held in his right hand." The soft, steady sound of cards being stacked with infinite patience fills the room. "He can't use it if he loses his right hand."

Machi goes numb, remembering the way Kuroro's body had looked, blood covering the sleeves of his coat…had she ever looked at his arms?

She sits up and looks over at Hisoka with murder blazing in her eyes; he's focused on stacking his cards in neat little shapes. "I'll take yours before I kill you, then."

He is unperturbed. "I asked you why vengeance mattered to you. I still haven't been given an answer."

"It's because I wasn't there. He died alone!"

Hisoka looks up at her. "Are you forgetting? I was there."

She feels disgusted.

"If you killed me," he continues, as casually as if they were talking about the weather, "would you hold me as I died? I'd like that."

"No," she says, shivering. "I'd let you die alone. I wouldn't even bury you—just let the animals pick at your corpse until there's nothing left."

"So harsh. I wouldn't mind. I wouldn't have any need of my body anymore, after all, so you can decide what to do with it. You'd have my money, too, if you remember."

That gives her an idea, and she stands and makes her way to the door, ignoring her jacket even though it's pouring outside again.

"Where are you going?" he asks, sounding interested.

"I can't be in the same room as you without wanting to kill you. Don't go anywhere—I'll be right back."

When she returns, she's holding two black garment bags. She hangs one up over the bathroom door and tosses the other on the bed. The shock collapses his card castle.

"Get dressed," she tells him. "I've had enough of waiting. We're going to the casino."

From the bathroom, she hears him unzip the bag and ruffle through its contents. "Machi," he says, sounding impressed. "You got me Barmani. And it's tailored."

"Of course," she calls back. "I altered it myself." The shoe size had been a guess, but she is confident the rest of the ensemble will fit him like a glove. She intends to make an impression, to hit the Mafia men where it hurts them the most.

The dress she purchased for herself is silk in a dark teal, with an open back crisscrossed by ropes of crystals and a slit up to the knee, from one of the continent's premier fashion houses. She likes it for the color and for the contrast it provides against the clothes she picked out for Hisoka to wear.

She knows that he'll look good in them. There is a knock against the door.

"Which casino are we going to? I'll call for a taxi."

She opens the door and brushes past him, her shoes dangling on one fingertip. "The grandest. If we take them for enough money, we'll be sure to get that Hunter's attention."

He's left his suit jacket draped over the back of a chair. As he calls for a cab, she puts on her shoes; when he's finished, he holds his tie out towards her.

"Would you?"

She lifts up his collar and weaves the tie around his neck, tying the knot a bit tighter than she's sure he'll like. He's left the top button of his shirt open, and she leaves it alone, taking a step back and studying the effect of his appearance.

"Take off your makeup," she tells him.

He's barely paying any attention to what she's saying, and when he speaks, it is with a slow, deliberate smile. "You clean up well, Machi. Is that couture? Is that why you charge so much for your stitches? Is that what you spent my money on?"

She raises an eyebrow. "Does it matter?"

"No," he says, walking past her towards the bathroom. "I just wanted to know."

When he returns, his face scrubbed clean and his hair loose, she changes the conversation as he slips on his jacket. There's a stack of thousand-jenny notes in her purse, ready to exchange for casino chips. "Do you like to gamble?"

"I'm partial to the card games," he says. He's probably got a deck in each pocket—not that they'll want for cards when the fighting starts, where they're going.

She holds the door open for him as they leave the hotel together. "Then let's bring down the house."

The casino is richly carpeted in red, with paneled walls stretching to high ceilings and tall, square columns shaped out of a black veined marble lining the central walkway. Hisoka's on her arm, and the two take their time approaching the exchange station. The night is young, and they're in no hurry.

She's assaulted by the smell of cigarette smoke and the clanging, electronic noises of the slot machines. All around them, men in suits and women in cocktail dresses crowd around the tables, sipping drinks and laughing. More than a few have given Machi and Hisoka curious looks, and she steers them towards a roulette table.

The game is already in-progress, and she makes a spot for them on the side closest to the main walkway, allowing for maximum visibility. Most of the others around them are casual gamblers, but one or two look to be more serious, and she tightens her grip on Hisoka's arm and calls in the next game.

"Jeu zéro," she calls, setting down the equivalent number of chips. Hisoka rests his hand on the table, but she can see him flick a Bungee Gum thread to the ball; when the croupier rolls it, it lands on 26. She's not the only one that wins, and uses the chips she gains in her next bet.

She places an inside corner bet on 11-16 next, and links her fingers through Hisoka's other hand. She trusts his judgment on when to lose and when to win, staggering the wins with losses of enough money that it's not suspicious when she places a top line bet, over eight thousand jenni, her highest yet. It lands on 00, and she leans her head against Hisoka's shoulder, laughing when the other gamblers clap at her luck. If only they knew.

Their roles are easy ones to play as they wander around the casino, taking turns at the poker tables. Hisoka is in his element, wide grin stretching his mouth, and he orders a drink as he sits down at the blackjack table and joins in the game. She wraps an arm around his shoulder, giving the rest of the casino a cursory glance.

There's a grand chandelier of vertical gold bars right above their heads, flanked by a second floor balustrade and an oversized, curving staircase leading to a nightclub. A few men in suits stand against the walls in an attempt to be unobtrusive, and it's easy enough to place them as standard muscle and not anyone that would give them a challenge. Looks like they'll need to make more of an impact.

When the waitress returns, Machi declines a drink. Hisoka crushes the olives in his martini between his teeth, giving the appropriate hand signals instead of outright calling his moves. Machi doesn't care if or how he wins, only that between them they gain entrance to the high-stakes table, where it will be impossible for the Mafia to ignore them for long. Like this, dressed as well as they are, at first glance they look nothing like how Lupe Highland would have remembered them. Better for him to come to them than to waste the time and energy to track him down. He's hardly important enough for that.

Hisoka spins a poker chip between the fingers of one hand. He makes another bet, his largest yet, and when he pulls a blackjack with an ace and a queen she can't help the smile that sneaks its way onto her face.

"The Queen for you," he says to her.

"And you're the Ace?" He finishes his drink, dropping the glass back on the table carelessly. A waitress has it removed immediately, and Machi notices that they've attracted a bit of attention from the other casino patrons.

"Of course not." He laughs. "Is that really what you think of me?"

"No." She removes her arms from around his shoulders and crosses one behind her back. He makes another high bet and Machi stops the next staff member she sees, inquiring quietly about moving to a table with a higher bet limit.

He loses five thousand on the next game, and Machi tsks in disapproval. "You'll never be able to pay me back for the Barmani at this rate."

He looks back at her, a smile playing at the corner of his mouth. He taps the table to receive a new card. "I thought that was a gift?"

"I'm not in the habit of doing things for free," she says. "Especially not for you."

"Admit it. You're enjoying yourself." He grasps her hand, bringing her fingertips to his lips, never breaking eye contact. "I've missed this, Machi."

A staff member approaches them, and says that they have a spot open at one of the high-limit poker tables. Hisoka finishes his current hand—a blackjack, but the dealer has one too—and stands from the table, tossing a chip towards the dealer as a tip. He extends his arm towards Machi, and the two walk together past an area roped-off in red velvet, where an oblong table seats five other players, mid-game.

They take two of the open seats and Machi crosses her legs, doing her best to look bored so she can give the casino another assessment. Another martini appears for Hisoka, but he does not drink it. The table is set on a raised portion of the floor, so it gives them better visibility, but they're also far more exposed. Good.

Hisoka burns through their chips, winning and losing without care, his face like stone. On his third hand, he lays down a Straight Flush, and Machi rolls her eyes, leaning back in her chair.

"Oh, and now you're just showing off."

He offers her the hint of a smile as he collects his winning chips, over fifty thousand jenni. "Well, I could hardly let you down."

She knows he doesn't care at all about the game, and that while he hates to lose, a game of poker is hardly enough of a concern when they're both waiting for the bigger game to commence. Lupe isn't very good at Zetsu, she remembers, and they'll know when he's here. She looks around the casino again, seeking out the security guards against the paneled walls and tall, sparkling lights. It's a busy night, and while most people are relaxed and enjoying themselves, it's easy to pick out the people who don't belong—the men and women in suits and dark sunglasses around the perimeter seem to have doubled since they first walked in. She looks up, sensing a familiar aura at the top of the staircase, but cannot see any sign of Lupe yet.

It'll be a shame to destroy the place, but she can't say she has any desire to ever return to Wacau—and if she does, it'll certainly be for business, not pleasure.

She drags the tip of one foot up Hisoka's leg, startling him out of his game.

"We're about to have company," she says.

"Hmm?" He looks up, comes to the same realization she has, and his expression changes to one of unrestrained anticipation. "There are no windows in a casino—if they cut the lights, there will be more than enough shadows for them to use. This should be very interesting."

He brings a hand up to his neck, tugging the knot on his tie a bit looser. It's a bright red, but it looks even more vivid against the wash of artificial light from the overhead chandelier. When Machi looks at him now, it is as if he is back in the costume and colors of a magician, instead of a well-cut suit with a slight pinstripe. He can remove the paint from his face and play a character, but he cannot remove the bloodlust enough to convince her that he is anyone but who he has always been.

A split second before the power goes out, she sees Hisoka toss a bit of Bungee Gum upwards. In the darkness, it takes her a few seconds for her vision to adjust, but she's already out of her chair, focused completely on where she senses Lupe's aura.

"Without light, there is no shadow," she says. "He can't work like this."

A few people scream, more out of surprise than fear, but Machi knows that will soon change. Above, around the semi-circular pavilion of the second floor, sudden beams of light spring into being, sweeping the floor, looking for them.

Each suited guard carries a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. At the center, Lupe stands, his arms spread wide. The beams of light find them, casting their shadows into gaping duplications of their bodies, stretching up the sides of slot machines and around the gaming tables. Machi crouches slightly, angling her body towards the right. She'll take the ones on that side, and leave the rest to Hisoka.

There are more screams, and when an alarm sounds the patrons begin to stumble towards the exit, tripping over the velvet ropes and dropping what chips they cannot carry. When Lupe speaks, it is with a measured, projected confidence that is impossible to ignore.

"I won't let you escape me again. Tonight, you will die, and I will have avenged my teacher."

Something inside of her resonates with his mission, but she cannot pretend to know what conspired between his master and Hisoka. This Hunter will not find vengeance today, she knows, or any day. Hisoka is a difficult man to exact vengeance from. She only knows of one who has succeeded—the boy who landed a punch to his face. Everyone else has failed.

She cannot fail.

She looks at Hisoka, entirely unconcerned, arms relaxed. He'll go for Lupe first, she thinks. Lupe's ability may be formidable, but his close-combat skills are hardly comparable to theirs.

She steadies her breathing, and when the first gunshot sounds she's already moving, across the floor, leaping up onto a blackjack table and jumping to run across the top of a row of slot machines.

Hisoka jerks his arm down, and there is a crack as loud as a gunshot as the ceiling begins to shudder and break, plaster crumbling before the entire giant, golden chandelier falls with an earsplitting crash of metal and glass, shattering completely on impact, covering the floor and the staircase with broken pieces. Machi jumps again, throwing a needle up to wrap a string around the neck of one of the suits and using his own weight to climb up to the second floor. The flashlight beams race, too slow to follow their movements.

The few gamblers remaining run screaming towards the entrance. More gunshots, all in the direction of Hisoka's aura. The flashlight beams and the muzzle flashes make for good targets, and when a second one appears she sees the flashlight beam jerk up and backwards, the light illuminating his face enough for her to see a card embedded in the base of his throat.

She rolls over the balustrade and forms a thread between both hands, seeking out the closest guards and charging. A beam of light finds her, a gun beside it, and she swings around and kicks his outstretched arm; her skirt rips, and she gives the next suit an extra hard punch to compensate.

The light beams are swinging wildly on the other side of the room—she can see Lupe swerving in and out of the shadows, circling Hisoka and slashing from all sides with a knife, using his own flashlight to cast shadows on his comrades' bodies, moving more than a dozen guards as one single force.

He disappears into the shadows, reappearing for a split second on the staircase before disappearing again. "Come and find me if you can!"

Machi ducks a blow from another suit, threads at the ready as she spins around him, using his own body to shield from a round of gunshots from the others. His neck cracks when she tosses him to the side, releasing her threads and leaping into the air to flip behind another gunman. Her threads, sharp as piano wire, cut through his neck, and she moves on to the next. He barely gets a chance to aim before she hits him beneath the elbow with her palm; when he drops the gun, she grabs it, firing two shots into his chest.

She looks around to see Hisoka and Lupe in close combat, and shoots one of the suits in the corner trying to slip away from the fight. Lupe's movements are wild, and when she gets a good look at him through the shifting shadows and a quick beam of light she can see the sweat on his face and the anger set deep into his eyes. He's doing well avoiding Hisoka's attacks, but he cannot last like this for long—a glance at Hisoka, and while his suit is covered with slashes, he does not seem to have sustained any injuries beyond the superficial.

Lupe drops to the floor to dodge one of Hisoka's kicks, and lashes out against the floor with his hands in an attempt to grab onto his shadow. He fails, and Machi sees with Gyo how in that moment Hisoka throws a glob of Bungee Gum onto one of Lupe's arms.

Hisoka jerks his arm out, and Lupe trips, losing control of the shadows of his few remaining Mafia men. He can see it too—the thin line of aura connecting them, and when Hisoka pulls him straight in for an attack she can see the defeat and disbelief race across Lupe's face.

Lupe's reactions are sloppy, and soon Hisoka has a second line of Bungee Gum on his other arm—it's ironic, Machi thinks, that Lupe should be defeated in this way when his own ability also works to restrain and control others. The two Mafia men still remaining back away, guns drawn.

Machi tosses away the gun, empty of bullets, and reaches instead for a jagged gold bar from the fallen chandelier. A flick of the wrist sends it flying across the balcony to bury itself deep in one of the suit's throats. He drops to the ground, and the other fires wildly across the balcony. The bullets never reach either Hisoka or Machi, embedded instead inside a swath of Bungee Gum.

One of the bullets hits Lupe in the arm. Machi reaches for another piece of broken glass but Hisoka sends the bullets back, thudding into the final suit's body and the paneled wall with a dull thwock.

His breathing is heavy, but not loud enough to disguise the sound of Hisoka's soft laughter. Lupe's injured arm jerks outwards, and he drops his flashlight. It rolls across the floor towards Machi's feet.

"Even in the darkness I never lost sight of you," Hisoka says. "The instability of your aura gives you away. But it was a fun game, while it lasted."

"I-It was never a game to me."

"Either way, you still lost." Hisoka tsks in disapproval, and he reaches out a hand towards Lupe.

"Dead man, come alive, come alive at the count of five. One, two three—"

His neck cracks. "—Four, five."

Hisoka steps over the body, giggling lightly to himself. He addresses Machi. "Did you ever play that game as a child?"

She looks up; he holds his elbow out towards her, and she slides her own hand through it. "No."

They walk down the staircase, stepping around the broken glass and bodies, following the wide and empty central walkway. The doors are wide open, and they stroll out, arm in arm.

The few standard casino security guards outside are working more to corral the crowds and pay them no attention as they walk down the street towards the harbor. It's not raining anymore, but the ground is wet and the air is heavy with salt.

The wind blows Machi's hair into her face, her careful style hanging wilted from the fight. Her dress is ripped and splattered with drops of blood; a glance at Hisoka confirms that he fares no better. Still, it brings a smile to her face—she picked out the color of his tie so that any bloodstains wouldn't show. It is immaculate and undamaged where the rest of his jacket is slashed and ripped, with blood marking the edges of his sleeves.

Once they reach the end of the street and face the harbor, she is unsure which direction to walk. Do they go back to her hotel? Do they part ways? Or should she fight him now—kill him as quickly as she can? She has one day left to her, before her arrangement with Nobunaga is up and the others will have a chance. She thinks of Lupe, and what his search for vengeance got him.

"I want to fight you," she tells him, her hand tightening around his arm.

His voice is light. "Do you want to kill me?"

"That comes after."

"But you should've said it first," he says. "Machi, if you really were going to kill me you would have done it by now."

"I want to kill you." She says it like it's an oath. She says it with all the strength in her body.

"You want to see me dead," he says. "There's a difference."

"Then we flip a coin. We'll let the Spider decide." Her hand goes automatically to the side of her dress; she has no pockets. "I don't have my spider coin."

He reaches into one of his pockets and withdraws a casino chip. He turns it around, frowning; it is the same on both sides. Releasing her arm, he cups the chip between his hands, opening them to reveal the gold twelve-legged spider coin. He tosses it towards her, and she catches it deftly.

"Nothing is impossible for a magician," he says.

She doesn't thank him, merely studies the coin before looking him straight in the eye. "Heads, we fight—and you die."

His smile widens. "Go ahead."

She flips the coin high into the air, catching it and slamming it down onto the back of her left hand. Her heart stops.

When she withdraws her hand, the empty side of the coin faces her.

She stares at the coin in disbelief, but when Hisoka's hand grasps one of hers she looks up at him, at his somber face and laughing eyes, and hates that he can do this to her.

"You'll have a day before the rest of the Spiders come after you," she finds herself saying. "And they will not hesitate. They'll find you, and they will kill you. You won't escape this time."

"What did I just say?" He leans closer. "Nothing's impossible for a magician. Goodbye, Machi." He presses something into her hand and walks away. After three steps, he vanishes, his pace too fast to catch with her eyes.

She looks down; it's one of his playing cards. Without looking at the front of it, she tosses the card into the harbor and walks away in the opposite direction.

END.

At the first pay-phone she reaches she dials Nobunaga collect, pressing the phone with shaking fingers to her ear.

"I failed," she says. "Alert the others."

Nobunaga's gruff voice, still rich with emotion, answers her. "We're already on our way."

Notes:

1) Desideratum means 'something lacked and wanted' or 'something desired as essential.' Each of the characters in the story has their own different desiderata.

2) Kuroro's ability does indeed require that he hold his book open in his right hand to use it (which also means that he must fight with his non-dominant hand). That's a pretty big disadvantage when you think about it.

3) Lupe Highland is a character from the Chairman Election Arc, and along with Bushidora Ambitious and Teradin Neutral desires to overhaul the Hunter Commandments and the Exam process. The other two are killed by Hisoka, but his fate is unknown. As Teradin is a double-star hunter, he must have a student who is a single-star hunter, and I thought—why not make that Lupe? His abilities are unknown, but he is called the Lost Hunter for his desire to track down all of the Association's missing Hunters. The wiki also describes him as a "manipulator," so I gave him an ability in the Manipulation class that I felt resonated with his personal mission.

4) I followed the Hunter x Hunter tradition in naming the different settings of the story and referenced or adapted real cities and used those for inspiration for my fictionalized versions. Karta is a reference to the Indonesian city of Jakarta; Wacau is a modified Macau; Baimum is a reference to the Indian city of Mumbai. Obviously these places are used out of their geographical context, but in looking at a map of the Hunter world, I imagined that the beginning of the story took place at the islands northeast of Greed Island, and that Karta and Wacau are in line along the western coast of the Azian Continent. Barmani is a reference to the brand Armani.

5) My knowledge of casinos and gambling is nowhere near exhaustive, but I used personal experience in creating the physical descriptions of the Wacau casino and I tried to be as accurate as possible with regards to the gameplay descriptions. Dead Man is the name of a children's tag game very similar to Blind Man's Bluff, where one person is blindfolded and attempts to tag someone else. A collect call is also known as a reverse-charge call.

6) Thank you for reading! I would appreciate and value your reviews.

~Jess