This is a flashback chapter, although it's one of a few I plan on making.

•••

"Journal entry number 7: It's been about three weeks since I came to the Mintene Union. I just left the NGL about five days ago, and am on my way to Peijing in the Republic of East Gorteau. My food rations are running out, and I'm fairly certain I've come down with some sort of illness. One I probably contracted in the NGL, since they don't treat viruses there."

Y/N muttered under her breath as she shakily wrote in the small journal in her hands. She had started writing in it after leaving the NGL, thinking that it'd probably be best to keep track of her findings to bring back to the council back home, if she ever even made it home.

But, she was growing tired and hungry, plus she was sick, so her movements were all but sluggish.

"I need to find shelter soon, it looks like it's going to rain. Maybe there's a cave or something nearby..." She closed the journal, putting it, as well as the pencil she had, in her travel bag. She'd continue writing tomorrow.

She coughed violently into her arm, hacking up mucus, among other fluids.

She spit it out onto the grass, noticing traces of blood mixed with her saliva.

"Shit..." She whispered to herself. It was getting harder and harder to talk, and it was even harder to stay awake.

Letting out a shaky breath, she sucked it up and grabbed onto the bark of the tree she was sitting on, pulling herself up off the ground.

She let out more violent coughs and covered her mouth with her hand. She considered sitting back down, but decided against it.

'if I pass out while under that tree, an Ant will definitely find me and take advantage, then kill me. I have to keep going, until I reach the city, atleast. It's only a few miles north east, I can make it.'

Letting out a determined, yet shaky breath, she began walking once again, pushing to atleast get to the edge of the city if she just kept going.

~~~

She continued walking, her feet killing her, and her body aching. She walked through bushes and over tree roots. On a hill in the distance, she saw an old stone castle. It looked way too far up to be able to reach, but she tried anyway. After all, it was shelter, and it had already started raining.

Although, as she continued to get closer, she was unaware of the growing steep downward slope she was approaching.

She stopped walking and coughed again, blood coming out of her mouth, along with bits of stomach acid. She tried to put her hand on a tree to lean on, but missed just by two inches and proceeded to fall down the slope.

She couldn't even let out a scream, as she had passed out as soon as she hit the hard dirt ground.

As her unconscious body continued falling and falling, she eventually slammed right into the trunk of a tree.

However, what she didn't know, was that her legs had landed right on the edge of someone's En.

~~~

Pitou stared up at the stormy gray night sky, rather bored. The King was still trying to ease his own boredom by playing games until the Sorting, but since it was beginning to rain, no one came to the castle to play with him.

They didn't have much to do other than sit outside. Pouf was currently watching over the King for the time being, so Pitou was left with a bit of free time.

They sat on one of the many towers of the palace, having an almost birds eye view of everything surrounding it. They could see a forest in the distance, along with the silhouette of a stone castle on a hill.

However bored they might have been, they still had their En activated in case some intruder decided to use the rain as cover to come and try and kill the King.

Suddenly, their ears twitched.

If it hadn't been for their feline like features, they might not have heard it, but the very, very faint crashing sounds coming from the forest had them ready to leap off towards it.

It wasn't until the sensed something entering just at the edge of their En, that they decided to go towards whatever it was. They could sense that not all of the thing was inside of the barrier, but what was even weirder, was that they couldn't sense anything aura related at all, not even an ounce of Nen. It would probably be safe to assume that whatever it was was just an animal, but from what was inside their En, they could tell it was human.

Finally getting to it within a few minutes, they wandered. Mud began to cake the bottom of their shoes, but they didn't really mind at the moment.

Pitou continued searching, until they finally found it

About three feet away lied a human girl unconscious on the ground against a tree. It looked like she had maybe fallen from the slope at the top of the steep hill. One of her arms was bent in an odd position, and her head had blood trickling from it at a pretty alarming rate.

Approaching the girl, Pitou considered finishing her off and feeding her to the king, but before the did, the did a once over of her body.

Yep, they were right, not a shred of aura.

What confused them, though, was that she appeared to not have any aura nodes at all.

Crouching, Pitou tilted their head, gazing at the human in cat like curiosity.

'well,' they thought 'this is rather interesting.'

Pitou noticed the rather unsteady breaths the human took, and could see how her cheeks were sunken in just ever so slightly, probably from lack of food.

She seemed to be in rather bad shape, especially considering she just fell and tumbled 20 feet down a steep hillside.

They felt an unknown feeling rise in their chest, one they had only felt once before, if only for a second.

Pity.

They felt pity for this mere human.

Letting out a whiny sigh, they picked the human up by the arms wrapped one over their shoulders, and picking up what appeared to be a bag in their other hand.

Scanning the forestry for any shelter to put the human in, they darted their eyes around. They decided to avoid the stone castle, as there were probably enemies hiding out in there, and moved their gaze somewhere else.

Finally, they found it.

A cave on a nearby small mountain range, big enough to keep an ill human.

And so, they headed towards that, the human on their shoulders.

~~~

Pitou snooped through the humans girls bag, digging through its contents as the human herself was passed out asleep on the other side of the cave. The rain had picked up quite a bit, and now it was pouring as lightning and thunder flashed and roared throughout the sky.

Based on the humans current symptoms, she most likely had the flu. What Pitou had read on the virus said it was treatable with enough time and rest. They had also used Doctor Blythe to heal the humans broken arm, along with some cracked ribs she had.

On the floor next to them, Pitou had taken out stuff ike papers, drawings, pictures, food rations, an empty water canteen, an emergency radio, a sleeping bag -which they had put the human in- along with a small convenient rag that they had soaked in the rain and put it on the humans head.

They were currently reading through a journal they had found in one of the front pockets of the bag. The stuff written in it was rather interesting to them.

'Journal entry number 1: I got my hands on this thing in a small market place town after I left the NGL. I think I'm going to start recording my findings in here, that way the council will have something to go off of other than my words alone. Maybe it'll finally get Head Council Man Niles off my ass for once.'

'boring.' Pitou thought. However, they continued reading anyway.

There wasn't much, and nothing was noteworthy enough to remember. Although, there was a pretty quickly sketched out diagram with the title "Chimera Ants?" , Along with a drawing of a large ant with an evil smiley face.

Pitou found themselves amused. So this human had never actually seen a Chimera Ant, but was studying them anyway?

Putting down the journal, Pitou rummaged through the bag some more, just in case they missed anything. In a small pocket on the inside, they pulled out something bound in leather.

Opening it, they saw what they assumed was money. They also found an ID, along with a Hunters License.

Pulling out the Hunters License, they looked it over.

"Y/N L/N, 18, Beast Hunter."

Pitou tilted their head 'Beast Hunter?'.

Putting it back inside the leather casing, they began to put everything back in the bag.

A picture caught their eye, however.

They picked up the picture, looking at it.

A woman, a man, a little girl, and a kitten that looked to be about 6 weeks old.

Growing bored once again, Pitou put the picture in the bag, losing interest

They looked out of the mouth of the cave. The rain seemed to be getting worse.

Looks like they'll be staying with the human here.

Letting out a bored sigh, they stood up and approached the human girl, taking the rag off of her head and pressed the back of their hand to her cheek and neck.

Her temperature was high. Way too high.

Ringing out the water on the cave floor, they soaked it once again with rain water. They also filled up the canteen for whenever the human woke up.

Pitou didn't know exactly why they were taking care of her, or what drove them to do it. But the fact that she was a Hunter, yet seemed to have no aura nodes, despite being human, intrigued them greatly.

They didn't really know how to care for human illness, they only knew what they had read in books, so they were just winging it.

Falling down onto the cave floor once again, their tail swayed slowly in the air.

'This is so boring' they thought.

~~~

Pitou sat with the human all throughout the night as the storm raged on. They didn't really have a need for sleeping long periods of time, so they just sat in silence and stared at the rain.

Even through the dark clouds, they could see when the sun was finally rising, even though it didn't cast any light.

Standing up, they stretched their limbs. They had been sitting down so long it was making them restless.

As they were going to change the humans wet rag however, something interesting happened.

She began to wake up.

Edit: fun drinking game! Take a shot every time you see how many times I wrote the word "human" in this chapter. That'll get you fucked up.