Beta: TaintedLetter

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Ding-ding-ding.

"I apologize for the delay, everyone. The airship will soon arrive at its destination."

Miwa rubbed at her eyes, and Killua slowly lifted his head off her shoulders, yawning. They had been sharing body heat, and their blanket, for the past few hours. The airship wasn't terribly cold, but it had enough of a chill for the two children to huddle together.

Miwa rolled her shoulder where Killua had been sleeping on it. She mumbled a small good morning and he returned it.

It didn't take too much time for the participants of the exam to be shuffled off the airship and onto the stage of the Third Phase.

The airship had docked itself on a ridiculously tall brown-stoned tower that stood dead center in a forest near the ocean. It was high enough that there was a constant stream of wind, blowing everyone's hair about and making Miwa firmly believe this would be a great place to parachute from.

Bean cleared his throat. "Everyone, the Third Phase of the exam will begin here, at the top of Trick Tower. To pass this phase, you must reach the tower's base alive. The time limit is seventy two hours. With that, the Third Phase will now begin. I wish you all luck."

'I don't think we're supposed to just jump off, or use chakra to walk straight down?' Miwa guessed.

No one else had a way of walking down, anyway, so that must mean...

'There's got to be a door or something to get inside the tower then stairs to go down,' Miwa concluded, grabbing Gon and Killua's hands. She pulled them over to her and explained what they were looking for.

"A hidden door that leads below?" Gon saluted. "Got it, let's look around."

As Killua and Gon began to tap around, the other contestants followed suit. Eventually they were able to find about five trap doors all close to one another.

"It looks like there's only room for about one person to go down each door," Killua observed, tapping on one of the doors. He looked up a Gon. "Since there's so many, at least one of them is bound to be a trap."

God, I hope so. Make this a teeny-tiny bit more interesting. I hope you get the trap door.

Miwa thought she'd be able to handle the trap door a bit better than her new friends, so she hoped so too. She smiled at them. "Only one way to find out, though."

"No hard feelings for those who don't get the trap, then?" Gon offered.

"'Course not," Killua dismissed.

"There's still two more doors, though... I'll go get Kurapika and Leorio," Gon said, hurrying away. By the time Gon had returned with Kurapika and Leorio, he had also already explained the trap doors to them.

"I see," Kurapika remarked. "Then this might mean a temporary farewell. I'm sure I'll see you all at the bottom of the tower, though."

"Yep!" Gon nodded firmly. "Let's all hop down one of the doors now."

They five of them then stood by the trap doors, said some dramatic farewells, and hopped on the doors.

Miwa stepped on her trap door, and down she slid into darkness. The fall was only about ten feet, and she landed lightly in an all stone room... with the four others who had come down with her.

"That was a short goodbye," Killua dryly remarked, shoving his hands in the pockets of his black shorts.

LAME.

Gon immediately noticed an odd pedestal set off to the side. On it were five wristbands, and a sign posted above it.

"The five who drop into this chamber must find their way down together by majority rule," Gon read from the odd language.

You haven't learned to read this world's language, yet?

'I'm working on it.'

As the group converged around the pedestal Gon pointed out the wristbands. "Look, they're stop watches."

Sure enough upon closer inspection Miwa could see a timer counting down from 72 hours. They were currently at 71 hours, 30 minutes, and 22 seconds. There were only two buttons on it, a red O, and a blue X.

"So...what do these mean?" Leorio asked.

"Take a look at the door on your left!" came a voice over the intercom. All eyes glanced over to the door that only just appeared. "This is a group game, and you use those watches to vote."

Gon read from the sign posted above the door, "To open this door, select O to open, X to not open. This is a game of majority rule. Good luck!"

Miwa immediately pressed O, with her teammates following suit. The door swung open without issue and the five of them stepped out into a red stoned room. They were immediately presented with another sign that Gon read from. "Which way do you want to go? O to the right, X to the left."

A glance to either side showed only long stretches of redbricked hallways blocked by iron gates.

'You go left in mazes when you're lost, right?'

Go right. I bet the more violent stuff is on the right.

'Okay,' Miwa agreed easily, hitting O.

The sign lit up with 4 votes to go right, and 1 left.

Leorio gaped. "Why would you all vote right?!"

"Because going left would be too boring," Miwa answered, with Gon and Killua nodding along in agreement.

"Left would be too obvious, I thought it would be better to try and outwit the examiner by going right," Kurapika explained, giving the three youngest an odd look. "Not because I thought it would be more interesting."

The gate to the right opened up and the group headed down the dimly lit hall. They turned another corner before they reached another odd room.

It was round in shape, with the path in front of them abruptly cutting off. There was a square arena structure in the very center of this dead drop, with four torches lit on each corner. On the opposite end of the room, past the arena, was the hallway. Miwa could smell some unhygienic humans down that way, making her nose wrinkle in disgust.

Miwa narrowed her eyes as she tried to pick out the gross-smelling figures across the room. They were dressed in tattered brown cloaks with their hoods pulled up, but when Miwa's group entered the room one of them pulled off his hood to reveal a bald, scarred head.

"Well then, allow me to explain," came the examiner's voice over the intercom. "Before you are a few of Trick Tower's prisoners. The Hunter Exam Committee has officially hired them as examiners. You will be fighting against the five of them. The fights will be 1v1, and each person may only fight once. You can fight any way you like, there will be no draws. A win is declared when the opponent admits defeat."

The bald prisoner across the room drawled out, "Decide for yourselves which order you will go in. If your side has a majority of victories—three—you may pass. The rules are simple."

"Heh," the voice of the intercom scoffed. "For every hour these prisoners delay you is one year less they have to spend in prison. So their goal is to buy time."

"And since we only have 72 hours to reach the bottom," Kurapika trailed off.

"Decide the order now," the bald man ordered.

"I'm going first," Miwa declared, raising her chin up and taking a step forward.

"Eh?" Gon tilted his head. "No fair, I wanna go."

"Too bad, I called it first," Miwa said, and two bridges pushed out on either side of the room to connect to the arena. She crossed the bridge, and the prisoner followed suit.

"Now to determine the match... I propose a death match," the bald man said with a cocky grin.

Kurama started to laugh.

"I really will kill you," Miwa warned. "But if you're still willing to continue... I accept your suicide."

"Ahahaha! I commend you for your confidence." The man adjusted his stance.

She shrugged and abruptly spit out a low powered fūton: dangan. The wind bullet traveled quickly through the air, splitting the man's head open and continuing to collide into the stone wall with a massive impact. The whole room trembled, and the cracks crawled dozens of meters tall in several directions.

'Oops,' Miwa thought uncaringly as the body fell over, dead. "Uh.. do I kick his body off the edge, now?"

"You're teaching me that, too," Killua immediately told her.

"Wha—I want to learn, too!" Gon cried out.

"If you can," Miwa said with a shrug. She was curious if they would be able to use that chakra-like core inside of them. If they could, then they might be able to use techniques like ninjutsu.

'I wonder what their elements would be?' She wondered.

She stared at the body for another moment before she looked up at the intercom. "Seriously what do I do with the body? It's rude to just leave it laying there. Do you know how many monsters this could feed?"

"Just throw it over the edge," came the amused voice over the intercom.

Miwa kicked it off before walking back over to her friends, twirling her hair in a bored manner. "So who's going next?"

"Me, me!" Gon excitedly said, already sprinting across the bridge. "I want a death match, too!" He skidded to a halt halfway over, though, turned back around and handed Miwa his backpack and fishing rod. He then headed over to the arena, a skip in his step.

The prisoner Gon currently faced was all skin and bones with a greasy mop of brown hair, and tired eyes. He offered a fake smile to Gon. "As you can see, I'm not very strong. I don't really enjoy fighting, or physical altercations. I prefer to think, rather than fight."

"Hmm... I like fighting, but I hate using my head," Gon admitted with a frown.

"I figured," the prisoner said. "So I came up with a simple game we could both play. One that doesn't rely on mental or physical activity." He pulled out two identical white candles. "We each light a candle and the one whose candle goes out first is the loser."

"That's easy to understand, let's go with that." Gon held up his thumb.

"Now which one will you use? Press O for the long one, and X for the short one."

'What does it matter? The prisoner didn't list any rules saying Gon couldn't kill him and blow out his candle.'

After some deliberation, Gon decided to go with the longer one. The prisoner casually tossed it over to Gon and at the same time both moved over to one of the torches and lit the candles. Since there was a bit of an updraft coming from below the flames on the candles wavered a couple times.

"How long does it take for those candles to burn?" Leorio asked, his voice subdued.

"Five... six hours?" Kurapika guessed.

Ugh. Try manipulating the wind to blow out the candle.

'Isn't that cheating?'

Don't get caught then, idiot.

Manipulating wind wasn't something Miwa had a lot of practice in, though, unless it was wind she had conjured through fūton. She scratched her cheek as she considered how to do so, but before she could even make an attempt Gon's candle began to rapidly burn up.

Gon let out a startled shout, panicking at the massive flame. "Ah!"

"His candle will burn out in only two minutes if this keeps up!" Kurapia exclaimed, worried.

The prisoner wore a pretty smug smile, and Gon stared at his rapidly burning candle for another few seconds before he put on a huge grin. Gon set down his candle, turned on his heel, and sprinted to the prisoner.

He moved with such speed ordinary folk—like that prisoner—couldn't track him, and in between one second and the next Gon had reached the prisoner and blew out his candle.

"Ta-da! I win," Gon declared proudly.

The prisoner spluttered, and the bridges reconnected once again to allow Gon to pass back over. He held up two peace signs as he did so, "Easy-peezy."

"All of this has been ridiculously easy," Killua sighed.

Miwa nodded her head in agreement, letting out a sigh of her own. "Hopefully the next Phase will be a bit more interesting."

"Aw, come on guys," Gon tried to cheer them up. "We still have a whole tower to climb down. There might be some dangerous situations up ahead."

"You think?" Killua and Miwa asked hopefully.

"Sure," Gon said, patting them on the shoulder.

Kurapika cleared his throat. "Returning to the current obstacle... I will go next."

"Have fun," Miwa and Gon chorused as Kurapika crossed the bridge.

The next prisoner they faced was...frankly very ugly. He was muscular, had dark blue skin, nineteen hot pink heart tattooed over his chest, and one messed up face. He reeked of something so sour it almost made Miwa gag, and his core was laughably small.

"Heh-heh-heh," the prisoner laughed, puffing out his chest and pointing to his hot-pink tattoos. "You see these? Nineteen. That's how many people I've killed. But that's such an odd number, so I'm glad I'll get to twenty today!"

"Yes, yes," Kurapika dismissed. "What's your match?"

"A death match!"

"Fine," Kurapika sighed, discarding his overshirt for better maneuverability.

His dismissive nature seemed to catch the prisoner off guard because the blue man spluttered. "U-Uh...wait! I forgot to mention no weapons allowed."

"Fine," Kurapika agreed, discarding a couple of hidden nunchucks. "Anything else?"

The prisoner seemed confused by Kurapika disinterest. The blue man then puffed up his cheeks, and launched himself high into the air. He slammed his right fist down hard enough on the ground that it created a small crater, and blew back bits and pieces of debris.

As he removed his hand from the crater, he showed off his bare back.

There, on his back, was a black spider tattoo with twelve legs.

'Ew.'

For some reason this caused Kurapika face to drain of color, while Leorio gasped in horror. "No..."

'No...?'

"What?" Miwa asked with a frown.

"That tattoo... only members of the cruelest thieves, the Phantom Troupe, have them," Leorio explained. "Those bastards are responsible for murdering Kurapika entire clan."

Oh, SAGE, not again. Don't tell me—are his eyes seriously turning red?!

'Yes,' Miwa confirmed as Kurapika once ash-colored eyes lit up with a vibrant scarlet red.

UGGHHHH. Don't tell me people obsess over his eyes, too.

"His whole clan was killed for their eyes," Leorio finished.

UGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

The sheer agony of Kurama's moan made Miwa want to giggle, but she didn't dare. While Kurama began to bemoan the cruelness of fate and Sage-Damned Uchihas, Miwa tried to keep her face neutral and Kurapika steadily grew more enraged.

Eventually the blond boy snapped and he abruptly flipped the prisoner over and punched him so hard, Miwa could distinctly hear the bones snap under the weight.

The prisoner obviously did not get back up after that blow.

"First," Kurapika snarled out quietly, his voice barely even, "the Phantom Troupe tattoos have a number on the body of the spider. Second, they don't bother keeping count of how many they've killed. And third, do not ever mention them again."

The bridges reconnected again, and Kurapika gathered up his discarded things.

"Ah-ah!" Miwa scolded when Kurapika moved to cross back over the bridge. "Kick the body off the arena floor, mister! It's just flat out rude to the janitors of the world to leave a body lying around."

"Oh," Kurapika quietly murmured, before he nodded. "Yes, you're right..."

Kurapika promptly shoved the body off edge before he crossed back over the bridge, pulling his overshirt back on. He was clearly still distressed over being reminded about his dead family and whatnot.

Miwa didn't know how to offer him comfort, though. She couldn't say she was ever in a similar situation as him, and simply giving him empty condolences seemed rude. If she were close to him she might offer him a cup of ramen, but she wasn't so she didn't.

With Kurapika's round concluded the team of five could advance. A new bridge formed on the right side of the arena, and they were able to proceed.

Unfortunately the rest of the tower was painfully dull.

Oh sure there were some traps tossed here and there, a few pitfalls, dead-ends, and so forth but nothing genuinely dangerous. Killua and Miwa were so bored they started to actively look for rooms that seemed potentially lethal.

They didn't end up finding a single one, but damn did they try.

The group of five eventually made it to the bottom, and the examiner over the intercom announced their arrival at 17 hours, thirty minutes, and fifteen seconds.

And now they had to wait for the rest of the 72 hours for the other contestants.

If boredom didn't strangle them first.

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I did a lot of thinking about Kurapika in this chapter. He's crazy reluctant to kill, but I've seen nothing to prove he would know when he's killed while that enraged. He clearly lacks the experience. After rewatching this part a few times I think that Kurapika genuinely thought he had killed his opponent, and didn't know he was alive until after the other prisoner claimed he was.

Since it was shown in the first match what to do with dead bodies, he had no reason not to follow suit if he thought he had already killed the fella. At least I can't think of a logical reason for him to do so.

Even in the event that Kurapika knew he didn't kill him, I present to you this alternate scenario that would ultimately lead the same:

"I'm not fighting someone who can't fight back," Kurapika muttered, and while Leorio tried to argue with him, Miwa stepped over to the edge of the platform.

She took a deep breath, then "accidentally" sneezed out some raw fūton chakra to push the body off the edge, effectively killing him.

She rubbed her nose. "Oops."

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BONUS TT!AU - In which Miwa, Killua, and Gon have traveled back to this point in time with all the knowledge / skills they possess.

"Let's see what reaches the bottom of the tower faster: Miwa's hiraishin dagger, or Gon destroying the tower straight down," Killua brightly suggested.

"Pfft. Obviously hiraishin," Miwa taunted, causing Gon to give her a splitting grin.

"That's a challenge I'll gladly rise to," Gon agreed, gathering up his nen.

It was a tie.

Although the examiners weren't very happy that Gon destroyed the tower.

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Answer: Dragon Age/Mass Effect are tied.

Question: What reality TV show would you want to be apart of? Sitcoms are also acceptable.

Reviews are love!