Finale
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Part 2

///

Moments later, you are lying on your back, your eyes halfway open to observe the sight of the trees.

You blink, adjusting to vision. The sky has further darkened; all traces of orange are gone, leaving the last murky blue whispers of day as the sun fades away. You can also see the sharp underside of Hisoka's jaw. He's sitting next to you.

You don't want to sit up because your head is pounding. A high-pitched blare rings in your ears.

"H... What just happened?" you whisper.

Hisoka doesn't react. However, hearing your own voice seems to clear up some of the ringing. You roll onto your side, hoping to hold yourself up with your arm, but something within your flesh shifts and sends a shooting pain up your arm and down your spine. You make a guttural sound, gritting your teeth and collapsing on your back once again.

"Don't move," Hisoka says.

"What's going on?" you ask, your voice raw. You stare at him, frightened now to move anything but your eyes and lips.

Several moments of silence pass. Then several more.

After a while, Hisoka speaks. "Are you ready?" he asks.

"Ready for what?"

He looks down at you. "For me to tell you what happened."

"Yes."

"Well," he begins, "Chrollo asked Illumi if he had any last words. Then Chrollo killed him. Then, you killed Chrollo. You don't have any Nen now. I don't know what you did, but it's all gone." He sighs, almost as if he is irritated. "I stuck my hand in Illumi's chest and used my Bungee Gum to make his lungs and heart beat. I tried. I failed."

You feel your bones aching, but even worse, you feel your heart aching.

He's really dead.

"Hang on. Um. Can you... can you please explain that with more words?" you beg, your voice breaking with every other word as your body shivers with grief.

"Yes," Hisoka whispers. "Um... Chrollo and Illumi were fighting, of course, but Chrollo had used a power that let him, in the simplest explanation, blow Illumi's face off. Chrollo said, "Do you have any last words?" and Illumi said something. After killing Illumi, Chrollo told me what he said."

"What did he say?"

Hisoka pauses. He clears his throat, then looks down at you. He touches your arm, very gently, then looks back up into the woods.

"He said... 'Tell (Y/N) I always loved them.'"

You sob quietly.

"Illumi suffocated and died, for the explosion ripped part of his throat open, preventing him from breathing properly. That's when I stepped in. First, I recovered from the explosion, then tried to take Illumi and revive him, but Chrollo already had his body. You came around somewhere around the time when I was asking Chrollo what Illumi said as his last words. He noticed you though, hiding in the trees. That's when he approached you, and you killed him."

"How?"

"Hm?"

"How did I kill him?"

"I'm not sure. You pulled out this iridescent fan and exploded with this blinding Nen. You made the air felt like needles, I felt it. And you just tore Chrollo apart. Now, I can't feel a drip of Nen from you. You must have made an all-or-nothing contract with that fan. Do you not remember it?"

"No, not right now," you say. Your tears are making your cheeks itch. You snivel, and Hisoka notices. He takes a moment to wipe the tears from under your eyes with the pad of his thumb.

"Would you like me to stop talking?" He asks, still wiping at your face as your tears gush out endlessly.

"No," you reply.

"Okay. Well, I tried to stop your rampage, but it didn't work. About two minutes after Chrollo was dead, you stopped mauling him and passed out. That was when I tried reviving Illumi with my Bungee Gum. I tried for about 20 minutes. Evidently, I was too late." Hisoka pulls his hand away, placing it in his lap. He looks away. "And now we're here."

"Wow," you breathe.

"Yeah."

A minute passes.

"I think I broke something," you say.

"I think you broke every bone in your body, (Y/N)."

"Is he really dead?"

"Yes. Both of them."

"Why?"

Hisoka says nothing.

You flop an arm on Hisoka's lap, an action that hurts severely. You grunt as you pinch the fabric of his pants, which are torn up and dusty, and tug. "Why?"

He, still, says nothing.

"Whhhhhhhhhhhy?" you moan. "Ughhhh." You sob. You weakly tug Hisoka's pants again. "Tell meeeeee."

"I don't know," he says.

That's when you start to cry loudly, like a child. Your hand falls away from Hisoka's leg, landing feebly in the grass.

You sob for a long time. You keep sobbing as Hisoka stands up and moves something around, as he disappears for a while, as the sky grows dark and the stars float between the clouds, as Hisoka returns to pick you up and carry you somewhere. Even as you fall asleep in his arms as he walks you through the woods, you cry.

///

Eventually, you fall silent.

Hisoka carries you back to his house, where he lays you in his bed. He makes some food, eats it. He makes more and stores it for when you wake up. He goes back upstairs and takes a shower, rinsing the blood and grime and guilt from his ashen skin. He changes into a red silk robe, then starts setting up some things for you, including clothes and showering stuff.

Then he grabs a blanket, realizing he had forgotten to put one over you earlier. As he is tucking the sides of the blanket under your legs, he notices a very minuscule pin stuck in your leg, right under your knee.

He frowns at it. It is yellow. Because it is yellow, he decides not to remove it from your flesh. He'll let that pin, and whatever serum may be inside of it, be Illumi's last decision.

///

You wake up to the warm orange glow of sunlight hitting your eyelids.

Without thinking, you sit up and stretch. You feel tired, but good. Surprisingly good.

Very surprisingly good.

Then, a tsunami of memories slams into you, forcing a weight that feels like a thousand tons to flop onto your stomach. Still sitting up and staring at the wall, you digest the memories for a moment, sorting through them with a mixture of emotions.

You were injured, weren't you? But you're not anymore; nothing in your body hurts like it did before. You stand up and move around, stretching, jumping, spinning. You feel like a vampire: a thousand years old, but still in peak condition.

You glance around the room, slowly realizing that it is, in fact, Hisoka's room. However, he isn't in here. He has laid out a towel, soap, and clothes on his dresser, presumably for your use.

You take everything that's there and head to the adjacent bathroom, where you run a hot shower. Once it's steaming, you step in and sit on the shower floor. For several minutes, you just sit there in the hot water, inhaling steam. You think about how you killed Chrollo, about how you apparently have no more Nen, and of course, about how Illumi is dead.

At least you still have someone; Hisoka is alive.

You start to lather soap over your body, but since you're sitting under the shower's stream, it rinses off quickly. As you are going over your legs, you feel something hard on the skin under your knee. On impulse, you pluck at it, and it comes off with a slight pinch.

It's a tiny needle. It looks just like one of Illumi's pins, but way smaller than you've ever seen.

You stare at it. When did it get here? Is it actually Illumi's? Since when did he have little tiny pins?

After your shower, you put the little pin on the counter and dry yourself off. Once you're dressed in the outfit Hisoka laid out for you, you put the pin in your pocket.

Downstairs, you walk into the living room to see Hisoka sitting on the couch. He has glasses on, and there's a book open in his hand. His legs are spread wide over the couch, and, since he's wearing a robe, only a small sliver of fabric is covering the space between his hips.

"Hi," you say.

He looks up. "Good evening. How did you sleep?"

Good evening? "What time is it?"

"About 6:00. There's food in the fridge if you're hungry." His eyes return to his book.

You stare at him and don't move an inch. Noticing this, Hisoka looks up again. "Is something wrong?"

"Where did you put Illumi's body?" you ask.

"The Zoldyck estate. His parents can take care of it."

"I didn't get to say goodbye."

"He was dead when you got there. How would you have said goodbye?"

"I don't know. But I would have."

"Well, I'm sorry."

"Don't be." You turn and walk away, heading for the kitchen to grab something to eat. Your stomach is screaming.