If she didn't see the resemblance to the Chain User at the moment and the Chain User back then, she could definitely see it now as he stood with the newfound knowledge that the Phantom Troupe lived. The resemblance of the Chain User ad Gon's friends and the one who had killed Uvo was striking now, even without those scarlet eyes and mid-drying blood splattered on his skin, because that was rage fueling him, the burning need for revenge.

If Rein wasn't trying to hide it, she wondered if she would look exactly like him.

Her hand slipped into her pocket. He was distracted, and still thought she was on his side. Still, but fury emanated off of him, clouding his face, thoughts, and vision. He was about to hunt down the rest of the Troupe, her Troupe. She could act now. One flick of the wrist and it would be done. Killing him now—

"Hey, Kurapika." Leorio popped out from the room. "Are you sure you're okay? How do you know?" Gon and Killua came out from behind him, mirroring the worried look in his eyes.

That was right. Rein drew her hand out of her pocket and let it hang by her side limply. Skilled or not, they were all Nen users who wouldn't hesitate to jump to the aid of the Chain User. One second they could buy for him meant he could attack her instead, which now put her life at risk instead of his. She couldn't go up against these three and the Chain User while they were all watching. She had to wait. Why was it so hard?

The Chain User gave his phone to Leorio, who peered at the displayed image curiously. Gon pulled down his arm, straining to look, and Leorio after a few more seconds handed the phone to the boy. He looked up slowly. "Hisoka sent you that?"

Hisoka.

"Yes," said the Chain User.

Number 4?

"I said so before, but I've been in contact with him. We have a solid agreement—" He went on, but it all flew past her ears.

The magician. The red-haired, golden-eyed magician with peculiar clothing that Phinks held a resentment for. Hisoka. He'd been in contact with the enemy? One of the Troupe? One of them. A Judas in the twelve, to put it in the words from Uvogin she heard the night of the auction attack. A traitor.

She almost laughed, and remembered her own words from in that hot air balloon. Traitor to family, right, Feitan?

"We'll help you, Kurapika," Gon piped up. "When we were captured, the Spider with the sword who captured us started talking. He started to cry when he thought about the one who died. He called him his friend and said he would do anything to get revenge. Getting all selfish when they've already killed so many people." He pinched the cloth of his shorts. "That made me mad, you know? Really mad." His smile didn't vanish, but instead widened. "Kurapika, we want to stop them too. Can we help?"

Stars.

Rein hadn't thought about how Uvo's death might have impacted others. She was too deep in her own mourning and the others showed so little emotion that it never crossed her mind. Stars, she was so dumb.

Nobunaga cried? Stoic, perpetually annoyed, pun-hating, loud, easily angered Nobunaga... he'd cried. He'd been the closest to Uvogin, together since they were only eight. He may not have shown it much, but he deeply cared for Uvo. A lot. She knew that. She must have known that. Still, she didn't think, she hadn't thought that he would ever... He wasn't one to cry. Crying didn't look good on him. It just wasn't his character to... break like that. Nobunaga didn't cry!

She tried to calm herself but an uneasy feeling kept bubbling in her middle, catching in her throat. Stars, why was she hearing of this from Gon, of all people? She should have thought of it herself.

So what were the others thinking? How were they dealing with it? Did any of the others cry? She didn't know. This had never happened before. Would any of the Spiders who weren't that close to Uvo cry? Were they breaking? They would mourn, but would there even be something more than that? Were they okay? Stars, she didn't know. She didn't know.

Rein grasped at her rocks, but none of them were truly hers. Stars, it wasn't the same. None of them were the same.

"Rein?" Leorio's voice nearly snapped her in half. He pulled her away from the conversation the others were having. His eyes locked into hers as he felt her forehead. "You okay? You've undergone a lot of mental strain. You should rest, otherwise it might have a negative effect on your physical health. Deep breaths. In," he demonstrated. "Out."

When had her breathing become so fast-paced and irregular? She forced her air flow to slow down to his level. Deep breaths.

"There." Leorio pulled away. "You should really rest—"

"—is the one called Pakunoda."

Rein stopped listening to Leorio as soon as she caught wind of the Chain User's conversation. She turned to them, pulling back her shoulders. Killua narrowed his eyes at her ever so slightly, but the Chain User carried on:

"She will pose the most problems in the plan. With her in the picture, the plan will have a very low chance of success, if it is even possible at all. You said she can read minds?"

"Something like that," Killua answered, hunching his shoulders. "Maybe it's more specific, but it's a mind reading of some sort for sure."

"I see." The Chain User tilted his head down in thought, much calmer than he was before. He spoke to Gon and Killua. "I need some time to come up with a plan. Are you sure you're up for this? It's dangerous. Like Killua said, there's too much risk of being found out if you get caught."

Too much of a risk? It was like a lightbulb went off in Rein's mind.

"We can do this!" Gon affirmed with full confidence. "We want to help you, and we want to stop them. Of course we'll help."

"Me too," Rein jutted in, raising her hand.

"You?" The Chain User almost looked concerned. "Are you sure you want to dive back in? You've only just escaped from the Spiders."

"Yes. Sure, some of them were nicer to me than some." She blew a raspberry and shrugged. "But they still kidnapped me, and..." She paused, wondering whether she should say it. "I don't want any more of my family to get hurt."

The Chain User attempted to smile at her. "I understand. If you feel ready, you may help with the plan."

* * *

Usually, Lucky had no problem with falling asleep because he was always so tired from having to stay awake to put up with his incidents. Sometimes his incidents would cause him to stay awake for ages, whether it be a lamppost crashed through his bedroom window and he had to get it repaired, or he had to take yet another person to the hospital, or he was running for his life from some lowlife criminal who wanted to mug him, during which he would have to run for more than was physically healthy. In the words of Tim Urban, "humans are not supposed to pull two all-nighters".

His brain knew what sleeping pattern was best for him, which was an instant drop dead scheme. Because of life, Lucky was normally very good at falling asleep in seconds flat.

But today was different. Yes, he had fallen asleep once. But he had woken up again afterwards while the moon was still up, and he hadn't been able to get comfortable. For some reason, whenever he lay down he sat right back up, a churning feeling in his stomach. Like he was going to throw up, but he wasn't sick. Like he was suffocating, but able to breathe normally. Like he was falling and falling but not moving an inch. Like he was being plunged into impenetrable darkness but he was standing in the middle of the day.

To put it simply, Lucky was feeling very weird indeed. And he didn't like it.

"My, my," a voice drawled from the door frame.

Lucky jumped back. He seemed to be doing that a lot lately.

"What a difficult topic you seem to be brooding on," the voice said, finally stepping into the room with a dramatic flare. The lilt in his voice didn't give for a split second. "Something bothering you?"

"Uh. Yeah. Quite a bit, actually." Lucky squinted. Something about his flaming red hair, milk white skin and crop top seemed awfully familiar, and it hit him soon enough. This was the other person he glimpsed on a rooftop his way back home, before he'd been abducted. Great! Another late night criminal who was a Phantom Troupe member. Just great.

"Hm." Crop Top approached even closer, a kick to his hips as he swayed. "Is it because you've been kidnapped?"

"No, it's because I'm probably going to miss my advanced physics test, and having to make it up is a pain," he deadpanned. "Mrs. Kennington is just hard to deal with."

"Hm," Crop Top hummed once more, clearly not caring about anything he had to say, regardless of whether it was sarcastic or not. The star and teardrop painted on his cheeks moved when he spoke. "Fight me."

An eyebrow shot up. "No?" Lucky's voice squeaked, and he cleared his throat. "No," he repeated. "Why? I can't fight, I'm terrible at physical activity. I mean sure, I have muscles, but I don't know how to use them. And the only times I've been a remotely good runner was when my life was in danger. I positively suck at any—"

Crop Top leapt forward, a blur in Lucky's view. The next thing he knew, something small and sharp was being held to his throat. It stung. Lucky froze, unable to move as it pressed into his skin. He tried not to breathe, scared of what could happen if his jugular was cut open.

"Weak. But what a lovely, dark aura you have," Crop Top purred in his ear. He pulled back to reveal the sharp item was only a card, its edges dull compared to what it felt like was about to slice Lucky's neck.

Lucky pushed away from Crop Top as hard as he could, stumbling as he did so. He was going just fine, but then he tripped. His foot swung up at the last moment, and the man watched with intrigue as he accidentally kicked a very sensitive area for a man.

Oh, crud.

Crop Top must have been in agony because that's definitely what it would have felt like for Lucky, but he rose just a moment later with a devilish smile on his face. "So it's true your aura effects the world around you. My aura completely dissipated in your presence." His tongue slipped out, but he pulled it back in. "A rather lucky hit."

Huh. "I really wouldn't use 'lucky' to describe me," Lucky laughed nervously. "It's just that everything around me gets unlucky. But... thank you? I guess." Was what Crop Top said a compliment or not? He had a feeling it wasn't, but he wasn't going to show his offense here.

Crop Top held up another card, just like the one that had been pressed to his neck. This one however, had blood on its edges. Lucky's hand flew to his newly stinging cheek and a trickle of blood returned with it. So his cards could cut through his skin after all? The card was too thick for the cut on his cheek to be a paper cut, and the card when pressed to his neck seemed a lot sharper than normal. Perhaps they weren't normal cards? Maybe this whole nen concept had something to do with it.

Either way, he knew those cards could kill. Lucky stepped back, trying to appear taller than he already was to mask how threatened he felt at the sight of one, little, single card.

"Still—" Crop Top drew back his shoulders, seeming to bask in a wave of something. His eyes pulled into delighted slits, and his crawling smile grew ever wider. The look on his face alone was enough to make Lucky cower.

In a swift movement, a card was once again held to his throat, and he struggled to breathe as his wrist was caught and twisted. The man's unrelenting and sharp grip tightened as a warning when he tried to wiggle out of the man's grasp.

He tried to kick, but he couldn't. He tried to squirm, but he couldn't. He tried to break the man's hold, but he couldn't.

Was the man just that powerful, or was Lucky really that weak? This was a Phantom Troupe member, physically stronger than the average person. Lucky was very much an average person physical ability wise. With the little he'd learned of Nen, Lucky knew that most of the Phantom Troupe's power stemmed from their auras. So maybe it was in his favor that they claimed their auras vanished from his. But even without nen, he suspected they could still beat him to literal pulp in seconds flat. It was clear they took a liking to crime and inflicting pain. And Crop Top in particular, there was a creeping something about him that made Lucky want to run far, far away.

Unfortunately, he couldn't.

"—that really is a beautiful aura," the man commented, his golden eyes glinting.

Crud, what was this leading to? Murder? Lucky didn't want to die yet. While he had been joking about the physics test earlier, it was still true. How would he make up the test if he was dead?

"Listen, man. Do you think you could, I don't know, not—"

"You want to get out of here, don't you?" he murmured, so low that it almost couldn't be heard.

Lucky blinked. He wasn't hearing things, right? "What?"

"Do you want to escape?" Crop Top's voice held a more serious tone now, but the sing-song lilt was still there, only very faint compared to before. He continued to whisper. "I have an agreement with an outside force. If I can incorporate you into that—"

"Hisoka," a voice rang out.

Lucky felt a sense of relief. Pinky.

She glared from where she stood, piercing them with her icy blues. "Step away from the captive."

The man gave in to a low chuckle before heeding her order. He pulled away, running a hand through his flowing red locks. "As you wish," he purred, smiling. The smile now was a lot softer than the one he had sent Lucky before.

Up until this point, he didn't think glaring harder was possible, but Pinky made it so. "Leave."

Crop Top did.

Finally, the hairs on the back of Lucky's neck were able to relax. "Thank you," he told her, and only got a cold stare in return. He rubbed at his reddening wrist. "I thought he was going to kill me or something."

"Yes," she said, breaking eye contact. "You shouldn't get mixed up with Hisoka."

He nodded, but what the man said still lingered in his mind. Escape? What did he mean, escape? Was the man truly looking to help Lucky? Pinky said to not get mixed up with him, which meant she didn't trust him. If she didn't trust him, it was very plausible the other Phantom Troupe members didn't either. If he wasn't one to be trusted by them, then the man could very well have been a traitor.

If he was a traitor to the bad guys, would the man help one of the good guys? Maybe he could help Lucky actually escape. But...

He wiped away the drying blood on his cheek. Just because the Phantom Troupe didn't trust the man didn't mean Lucky could.

* * *

What did the Chain User say exactly? "There's too much of a risk of being found out if you get caught"? Now alone in the bathroom, Rein smiled with a childish glee before forcing herself to slow down.

It was perfect. If Gon and Killua were captured again, Pakunoda could read their memories, assuming she was around and without a chain in her heart. It didn't have to be much. Just an instant, just a touch and she would know exactly what they knew of the Chain User that Rein didn't. Restrictions, weaknesses, everything. What was precious to him, what his motives were, what he hated. Then they could defeat him.

Gon and Killua were both close friends of the Chain User, meaning they must have been told some of his secrets. But that wasn't the entire reason Rein was happy. Rein wanted to make the Chain User pay, bend over in his blood before he died, just like Uvo. Make those empty eyes feel something. Make him panic until he realized that he had no where else to run. Make him see the hope slowly fade way right in front of his eyes as he stood hopeless to fix it.

What better way to make the Chain User desperate than to take captive some of his closest companions?

No, Lucky is not stronger than Hisoka. But Lucky's Nen effects the world and people around him negatively, whether that comes from an item or Lucky himself. Lucky's Nen made the circumstances just so, because that's what it does. I hope that cleared things up. (Or maybe Hisoka allowed him to land a hit because he's weird)

Sorry literally nothing is happening there will be action next chapter I swear
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