Beta: TaintedLetter

(≧ڡ≦*)

Things were dull at the tower for Miwa. She was obligated to participate in one fight to stay in the tower. Unfortunately, when she signed up, Hisoka caught wind of it and decided he wanted to fight her, so—

Miwa stood in the pristine arena, idly twirling one of her pigtails while Hisoka smiled at her from across the arena. Gon and Killua were in the stands, Gon enviously watching on. The crowds of people were chanting something—likely cheering for Hisoka. Miwa couldn't pick out their individual words.

After Miwa had murdered the pale creepy man, Gon and Killua merrily continued with their training to prepare to fight the remaining duo of the creepy trio. Miwa admitted it was funny to see the creepers faces' upon finding out half of their friend's decapitated head was in their beds, but that humor was short-lived when police got involved.

Not that they could find any proof of anything happening. Oddly enough the investigation was only open for a day before they shoved it aside.

Killua guessed the police weren't allowed to look too closely about what happened in the tower.

"I've been looking forward to this since the exams," Hisoka commented. "You and Gon have... caught my attention."

"Uh-huh," Miwa murmured, unimpressed.

"It's a little discouraging to be ignored," he said, his tone teasing and flir—

Miwa's face twinged in disgust. "Were you—were you about to flirt with me?

Hisoka's smile was a million times more disturbing.

Uggghhh.

The referee cleared his throat. "Ready... Start!"

Neither moved.

'Gon wants to fight him. I shouldn't hurt too bad', Miwa thought, goosebumps crawling up and down her arms as she watched him gaze at her with those uugggh those bloodlust-filled eyes. 'I hate fighting masochists. So gross.'

Really the only way she could defeat him while minimizing damages to him would be to use a sedative to knock him out or render him unconscious with one hit.

She really didn't want to directly touch him.

Thankfully, genjutsus were a thing.

And shadow clones.

She spawned thirty clones in the arena.

"WHAT'S THIS?! THERE'S NOW THIRTY MIWA'S IN THE ARENA?!" the announcer's shrill voice drowned out the crowd's surprise. "How is this possible?!"

The clones began to engage in a light bout of taijutsu against Hisoka while Miwa began to apply a multilayered genjutsu over the jester. She had to reluctantly admit that Hisoka was decent at hand-to-hand combat. Despite facing thirty of her clones, he had managed to evade all of their attacks. Granted, none of them were using Kurama's chakra, or any ninjutsu, but it was still impressive given the incredibly low bar Miwa previously set for him.

The genjutsu applied shortly afterward and Hisoka froze in place for a solid ten seconds. Plenty of time for Miwa to throw a paralysis tag on him that immediately took effect. The genjutsu was canceled, but Hisoka could no longer move due to the fūinjutsu tag on his forehead. One of Miwa's clones took that opportunity to swiftly knock him out in one clean hit.

"Knockout! Victory to Miwa," called the referee.

"OOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHO WOULD HAVE SEEN THIS COMING?! Hisoka is now at 9 wins and 3 losses, with Miwa taking her first win. What a powerhouse we have! An overwhelming victory for Miwa."

Miwa turned on her heel and left.

(≧ڡ≦*)

Her friends were waiting for her in the public area outside the arena. Gon pulled on Miwa's arm spinning her around as he whined, "Teach me, teach me, teach me!"

"I already am," Miwa laughed, easily lifting Gon up with one arm and tossing him in the air. Gon grinned joyously as he landed beside her. "You and Killua have the leaf exercise down, why don't you two try walking vertically now?"

Killua frowned. "Now?"

"Not right here," Miwa said, acknowledging that they were in the middle of the tower and there was a bustle of people around them. "Let's go to a park, start with walking up trees. Don't push yourselves too much since you both have matches with the rest of those freaks."

"Woo-hoo tree walking!" Gon called out, dashing away. "Beat you there, Killua!"

"Hey! You got a head start, you cheater," Killua called out, breaking out into a sprint to catch up.

(≧ڡ≦*)

Gon and Killua won their next two matches against the surviving duo. It was completely one-sided, neither boys having any bit of difficulty. Wing, impressed by their victories and their training, decided it was time for them to move on to the next stage of nen training.

After a day of training in the park the trio met up with Zushi at Wing's home where Wing began his next lecture on nen.

"We'll begin our study of hatsu today. Once you master hatsu, you will have mastered all the basics of nen. After that, you will need to work on developing your individual nen style. Hatsu is the technique by which you control your aura—or as we have learned your physical energy. In other words, it is the culmination of nen abilities and there are six distinct categories."

Wing wrote them out on the chalkboard behind him.

Enhancer - enhancers strengthen and reinforce natural abilities.

Emitter - emitters propel aura.

Transmuter - transmuters change the quality of aura.

Conjurer - conjurers materialize objects out of aura.

Manipulator - manipulators control objects or things with aura.

Specialists - those with a unique and distinct aura that doesn't fall within the other five classes.

Wing went on, "It's important to find an ability that suits you. Nen abilities are highly personal, with two areas of particular prominence. The first would be your inborn potential. The second would be your potential refined later in life. For example, Gon was born with flexible and springy muscles. His acute senses were honed by the result of a childhood spent in nature. From the moment of birth, your nen abilities fall within one of the six categories. While rare, it is possible for your nen aura to later change types. If you attempt to learn an ability that does not fit the nature of your aura you will have a hard time. I'm sure both of you have already struggled a lot with learning chakra, yes?"

"Chakra is so much harder to use than nen," Gon vehemently agreed.

Wing smiled as he drew a hexagon connecting each of the points he had previously written down.

"This shows the compatibility rate of other auras to learn compared to your own. The closer one is, the easier it will be to learn. If you are born with an aura of the enhancer category you will find enhancer abilities easiest to learn and master. And adjacent transmuter and emitter classes will also be easy to learn. On the other hand, the specialist class which is the furthest away would be very difficult for an enhancer to train."

Killua shifted his weight where he stood. "Is there a way to find out which category your aura falls into?"

Wing smiled patiently. "There is. I have already prepared the test. Follow me over to the kitchen table."

The children did as asked. They gathered in a circle around a small wooden table. At the center was a glass of water filled to the brim with a floating leaf on top. It looked like if so much as a drop of water was added to it, it would overflow.

"Oh no more leaves," Gon sighed.

"Water divination: a Shingen-ryu screening tool for classifying your aura. It is also used in training hatsu," Wing said, ignoring Gon's complaint. "Place your hands around the glass and perform ren. Your ability is revealed by what happens."

Wing placed his hands on either side of the class, conjuring his aura to wrap around it. The water began to multiply, spilling over the glass. He explained, "if the volume of water changes, that means you're an enhancer. This shows that my aura falls within the enhancer class. Okay, now it's your turn."

One by one they tried.

Gon - enhancer (water overflowed)

Zushi - manipulator (leaf twitched)

Killua - transmuter (water turned sweet)

"Miwa, if you're able to, I'd be curious to see what your physical energy would do to it," Wing kindly probed.

'I'm not very good at separating my physical and spiritual energy,' Miwa thought to herself, her brow furrowing as she slowly pulled her spiritual energy back from her chakra.

Kurama must have been interested in the results as well because he pulled out his own chakra from the mixture in order to provide Miwa with a clean sample.

The water darkened to a scarlet red, thickening as the stench of blood began to fill the room. The entire cup of water was overflowing with old, sludgy blood. The kind of blood that oozed out of corpses several days old.

Miwa immediately pulled away from it, wincing at the mess she had made—and the stench.

"A specialist," Wing observed. "I suppose I shouldn't be surprised. It would be fascinating to see how your nen develops. I hope you'll continue training it."

"I—I suppose it wouldn't hurt to learn something new," Miwa allowed after a moment. "Might be more fun to fight people with only nen."

More of a challenge at least.

"Over the next month you should practice water divination until your results are significantly more noticeable," Wing advised all of them. "Good luck."

Luck obviously had nothing to do with training. Killua and Gon had already proven themselves eager—and talented—students. But it was a nice sentiment and the four children let out an enthusiastic yeah!

(≧ڡ≦*)

One month later

Training went as well as expected. Killua and Gon showed tremendous results by the end of the month while Miwa had become stagnant. She couldn't pull out her spiritual energy without Kurama's assistance and it embarrassed her.

Wing told her that her initial result was impressive enough to pass his test for her, but encouraged her to keep trying to improve.

Unfortunately for Zushi, his own training had borne nothing.

Killua, Gon, and Miwa had officially completed the basics of training nen.

There was only one thing left to do at Heaven's Arena for the three friends: Gon's fight with Hisoka.

Gon had already picked the time and date, all Killua and Miwa had to do was show up and watch.

It was one of the more sought after fights. Gon's popularity had taken a step up since he won his last few battles, while Hisoka was only one victory away from challenging a floor master. The tickets to see the match were considerably more expensive than any previous match the trio had watched.

Unsurprisingly the arena was jam packed the day of the fight. There was good circulation so it didn't reek of stagnant body odor, but it still made Miwa uncomfortable.

The fight opened up with an eruption of flying fists, quick jumps, and nimble dodges. It was decidedly in Hisoka's favor—Gon simply lacked the experience to fight evenly with him. When Gon realized he couldn't keep up the attacks forever, he jumped back. He picked up a slab of concrete, and shattered it with enough force the debris went flying to Hisoka.

Hisoka stood his ground, chopping and smashing any of the pieces that flew at him. His arrogance refused to let him move a single step, so Gon took that opportunity to hide amongst the debris before coming out with a surprise attack.

Gon delivered a solid punch on Hisoka. The jester was blown back several paces, surprise flickering on his face by Gon's impressive punch.

Then both parties relaxed. Gon pulled out a—badge?—and walked over to Hisoka where Hisoka accepted it.

'Weird.'

Nothing that kid does surprises me anymore.

"How much of the basics of nen have you learned?" Hisoka asked, his voice a low sultry.

"All of the basics," Gon muttered.

"I see, you must be an enhancer," Hisoka said, pointing a finger at Gon. Miwa had to squint, but she thought he saw that pink ch—nen that Hisoka had shot out from his finger and latch on to Gon. She was sitting too far away to see, each time she blinked it seemed like it kept dissapearing and reappearing.

"Eh? H-How did you know?" Gon asked, dropping his guard in surprise.

Hisoka chuckled. "You're so adorable. You should do a better job of keeping a secret."

"Ehhhh. Shut up. How did you know?"

"It's my personality analysis based on aura type," Hisoka explained. "Although it's not an exact science, it's much like personality profiles based on blood type. Enhancers are simple and determined."

'He's right.'

Hisoka gestured toward himself. "By the way, I'm a transmuter. Whimsical and dishonest."

Miwa looked over at Killua, the transmuter assassin who looked away from her gaze and coughed.

'He's right again.'

"Emitters are short-tempered. Specialists are independent. Conjurers are high-strung. Manipulators are argumentative."

'You would be a manipulator, Kurama.'

How dare you. I would be a specialist.

'Mm-hmm.'

Their conversation was over, The fight picked back up, but it was noticeably more in Hisoka's favor.

The referee ended up rapidly calling points in a blatant attempt to end the match quickly. Within five minutes Hisoka had won by accumulating more points that Gon. A fact that made Gon puff out his cheeks in annoyance like a chipmunk.

(≧ڡ≦*)

With that match concluded, the three of them had reached an end to their stay at Heaven's Arena. Gon mentioned going back to his home island to tell his adopted mother about his adventures, and he cheerfully invited Miwa and Killua to join him.

As if Miwa and Killua weren't already going to follow him anyways.

(≧ڡ≦*)

Wanted to wrap this arc up quickly to move on to my favorite one. Phantom Troupe next! I'm so excited~ I adore them.

Answer: I would love a Killua to my Gon.

Question: A side character you wished had more screen time? Any anime/book/videogame/etc.

Reviews are love!