Killua listened closely as the examiner declared his instructions.

"This year, 1,493 applicants have made it through this far, but the second phase examiner has asked me to trim that number to about 300. As for the exam, defeat five people in two hours," the examiner announced, throwing up his fingers flashing with polished silver rings. The crowd visibly stiffened at his words, ready to fight and already planning ahead. "When you defeat them, grab their badges. When you have all five, bring them to me."

In the middle of the sea of heads, a hand was raised.

"Uh, yes?"

"Going with that logic, wouldn't it make more sense for each person to defeat four people?" a man inquired, lowering his hand like a former scholar trying to break out of the habit.

"I think you're mistaken," the examiner chided, tutting and shaking a head of lime green at the man with unkept hair, their opposing fashion senses clashing almost as much as their ability to estimate did. "I quickly did the math beforehand—"

"And that math was wrong," the young man insisted, rather unknowing as how to go about this. "There are 1,493 applicants, so if each five people defeated has one extra person as the victor, that's six. If it's one person out of every six, we would have a number closer to two fifty than if we did one person out of every five, which would give us... like, two hunted ninety something?"

"But—"

"And given the fact that the badges aren't going to be spread out evenly among the last ones standing, that'll probably cut down the number by, I don't know, a dozen-ish?"

The examiner kept his mouth shut this time around.

"O-of course, you don't have to listen to me at all, 'cuz that's, like, you know, perfectly fine," the disheveled man muttered, looking almost embarrassed at correcting someone but attempting to stay calm.

"Um, yes. Thank you for that, uh, applicant number 777." The examiner's charisma and flashy personality came back as he corrected: "Defeat four people and give me their badges! I'll be on the other side of the door. As soon as I close it, it's a start for you."

All too quickly, the door shut. There was no warning nor dramatic countdown signalling the start of the Exam, just the soft click of a lock and the heightened anticipation lingering in the air, relishing the peace of the moment before the violence began. The others used this mutual hesitation to paint targets on other people's backs. But Killua already knew.

Cracking his knuckles, his blue eyes glinted as the room started to stir.

He was going after everyone.

The fighting began. Left and right, people attacked their neighbors with their fists or whatever weapon they had brought along, determined to fare better than their previous attempts. There was shouting, grunting, the thud of bodies hitting the ground and the rip of fabric as the badges were torn from their owners. But they were slow.

Amidst it all was Killua, flashing by with a crackle of lighting to his fingertips, knocking down the exam takers one by one with a sharp hit. Defeat them all now. He would collect their badges later. He moved through the air, undisturbed and stringing along the circumstances himself, barely even having to ready himself for the next attack after hitting an opponent.

He was a puppeteer, and this was his stage. His mind was the master and his body would execute swiftly, so fast that the spotlight wouldn't be able to keep up with him. No one here would even come close to rivaling him, the training he'd gone through with Bisky would make sure of that.

But mid-strike, Killua's body hit the opposite wall, teeth snapping against his tongue as the surface cracked by the force he'd been thrown into it. Bloody iron bit at his taste buds and for a while, he struggled to take in his breath, lungs feeling almost crushed.

His entire body felt the repercussions of the impact, pain thrumming through his veins to every corner of his body. He managed to crack a smile, cursing himself for his brief moment of drunken arrogance.

He'd been so confident that he would be the most talented person there. To think there was someone still above his level here. Killua had, for certain, grown stronger. Just a year earlier and that attack would have crippled him, if not killed him outright. Blinking away swirling black dots in his vision, he stood up. He could handle pain, it was nothing new. Killua might as well take the exam and figure out who they were. He wouldn't be able to beat them anyways.

Whoever had attacked him had also swiped his badge in the process. No matter. The examiner didn't say you had to have your own badge in order to pass, did he? The world swayed for a bit before he forced his knees to lock, keeping himself steady. His eyes blinked back the gloss as he scanned the area for the people he'd knocked out, and if any of them had had their badges already taken from them.

Someone tried to slink past him, attempting to go unnoticed by everyone else at the site.

"Oh!" Killua exclaimed suddenly, voice loud enough to catch the attention of the man passing in front of him. Overcoming the surprise, he dropped his shoulders welcomingly. "Hey, old man, you're here too?" he asked, putting his words lightly and rather pleased despite the wording. He smiled at Zepile.

"Killua!" Zepile tried to smile back, but it came out a grimace.

His grin twisted into a frown. "You're hurt," he accused. "Why are you hurt?"

Zepile shielded his right arm, slipping his sleeve over it protectively. "It's nothing. I was... I was just being dumb today. Although with this injured arm, I'm not sure if I'll be able to pass the first phase, let alone to entire Exam. I thought I could do it, but I should probably just retake it next year."

"Huh." Killua didn't buy Zepile's excuse one bit. When a man charged at them with a raised sword, Killua stepped back and calmly landed a clean hit to the side of his neck, sending a surge of electricity through for good measure. "It's amazing you've managed to make it an entire minute without being attacked yourself, especially with that injury," he commented, ripping off the number plate as his victim fell. He tossed it to Zepile. "Here you go."

Zepile gaped at his sheer speed. The badge hit his forehead before he blindly fumbled for it, still in shock.

"I've already knocked out about..." He stopped to count. "...fifty people since the beginning of the exam. I can share, I don't need 'em all anyway."

"I, uh, yeah, sure."

They collected the badges they needed and made their way to the other room quickly. At five minutes in, they were the first applicants to see the examiner. With a brief explanation, Killua tossed a chain of plates at him while Zepile handed his badges over respectfully. After an over the top declaration of their success: "Applicant numbers 1100 and 1219, pass!", they sat down next to each other on the steps behind the examiner.

Killua stared at Zepile with a raised eyebrow, the man positively melting under his scrutinizing gaze. "What happened to your arm?" he asked again, this time more forcefully. He tried to steal a look at the reddened area, scowling when Zepile turned away to cover his view. However, he'd gotten a good enough glance, and the crimson crescent indents were a dead giveaway as to what was truly to blame for his injury. He'd been attacked by someone.

But Zepile seemed hesitant to admit it. More people entered, passing the exam, and the examiner's enthusiastic voice increased in volume with each applicant, but it was all background noise. Right now, time, color, and sound didn't matter. Only the sense of touch was left standing, and they could clearly feel the rippling tension drifting amid the wafts of cigarette smoke.

Finally cracking under the pressure from him, Zepile rolled up his sleeve, sighing with contentment as fresh air flowed over the inflamed area. Injury able to breathe now, he cradled his arm gently. "I wasn't lying. I was being dumb. Guess stalking someone doesn't look too good, huh?"

"Who are you, Leorio?"

Zepile accepted the invitation to a calmer conversation and snickered for a bit before quieting. "What happened was all my fault, but... I saw her, you know."

"Saw who?"

The examiner leapt up and stuck a finger in the face of whichever poor person had just walked in, shouting, "Applicant number 1201, pass!"

The person jolted back, alarmed. She had to lean away and swivel around to enter the room without nearing the crazed Hunter, bouncing on the balls of her feet as she came to a halt. Her light hair which seemed grayer surrounded by dull walls flounced in an impossibly fixed shape when she stood, black t-shirt clashing against a bright skirt whose pockets seemed filled to the brim. She observed the people with a mix of curiosity and satisfaction, but when her look met Killua's, both pairs of eyes involved went through a brief moment of mutual panic.

Killua tampered down the feeling, instead asking Zepile for clarification: "Rein?"

"Yeah." On seeing the girl in the room, Zepile waved her over. After he'd worked with Kurapika and Melody to get Gon and the others back from the Spiders, he'd heard their side of the story, how Rein had betrayed them. Crying Rein, loyal to the Phantom Troupe. He didn't agree with her actions, but he wasn't mad. He was a reformed scammer himself, who was he to judge? Zepile was one to look at the inner person, and he believed Rein was a nice girl.

He understood the value of second chances. He wasn't going to deprive someone of it. So while he called her over to them, he smiled, trying to let her know of that chance.

Her mouth froze open as she slowly made her way toward them, swinging her arms as if not knowing what to do with them. "...Hey, guys..." she said so smoothly it was almost comical. Though the conflicted look on her face soon vanished when she caught sight of Zepile, now truly concerned. "What happened to your arm?"

"Yeah, well, funny story—"

"You can say that?" Killua asked, interrupting. "After what you did in Yorknew, you think you can just come in and say that?" His words stung, he knew. But no matter how hostile his words came across as, he didn't hate Rein. He wasn't one to hold a grudge. He didn't like her, but he certainly didn't dislike her; she was instead floating around in a confusing gray area. Sure, she'd betrayed Gon and himself into the hands of the Spiders, the people Kurapika despised. She'd shot Leorio and caused him pain, even if she'd sworn over and over that it was an accident. She'd endangered their lives. She'd lied to them, manipulated them, and misused their trust for the entirety of a day, but she had reasons for that, reasons Killua wasn't about to blame her for.

Because in her eyes, Kurapika was her villain. To her, the others were just nice people she'd met along the road to achieving her revenge, which, in the end, she seemed to have let go of. None of those reasons reversed what she had done, but Killua didn't hold her solely accountable for them. In her point of view, it wasn't betrayal, it was serving the Spiders, who must have been as close to her as Killua was to his own friends. She'd only kept her priorities straight from behind enemy lines.

The world was far from black and white, and Killua was well aware of this fact. Villains were not always evil, and heroes were not always righteous.

But for his own sake, and for his friends', he just wanted a simple apology.

Unfortunately, the examiner's shouts interrupted once more. "Applicant numbers 776 and 777, pass!"

The pair who'd walked in caught sight of them and Rein seemed to recognize the taller one, waving him over as well. Killua identified him as the one who had spoken up to adjust the math behind the phase. He struck up a conversation with her and Zepile: 'how're you doing' and 'dude, what happened to your arm'.

But he ignored it all. Killua's interest was in the shorter boy standing dutifully at his side.

"Killua!"

Surprise and joy played at his lips. "Zushi, you here too?"

The boy nodded, clenching his fists. "Osu!" Only a few months had passed since he and Gon had left behind Heaven's Arena. Zushi's eyes were darker from when he'd seen them last, a chocolaty brown compared to the deep amber from before. His stance was better, his shoulders set and sturdy, and he'd certainly grown taller. Still, mere months had passed, and Zushi was still only a boy.

"The heads of the Hunter association rarely accept application forms unless you're twelve or older. How did you get in?"

Like he'd rehearsed, Zushi responded, "Lucky-san has many connections."

"Sure do." The tall one leaned over, breaking his own conversation to sling an arm around Zushi's shoulders. The man's tousled hair stuck up in clumps, and upon closer inspection, Killua could pick out the rips in his jacket, a small sliver of a scar on his cheek, and most of all his eyes. Drooping and judging from the blue-black clinging onto them, tired.

Oh.

"What?" he asked, noticing the shift in Killua.

He remembered now, why that tired gaze looked so familiar. "You're that guy, on the airship with Rein and the Spider." The Yorknew gang was just getting back together, wasn't it. He looked like he was trying very hard to remember and coming up empty, but Killua was sure that he was the person. The other captive who had unfortunately been unable to be released along with himself, Gon, and Leorio. First Zepile, then Rein, then this man who'd crashed their first airship. Might as well wish for Kurapika or the Phantom Troupe while they were at it.

"Applicant number 1439, pass!"

Killua blinked at the figure that had just entered. Their eyes locked, and it took every muscle in his body to avoid the urge to run away just as he had last time. "Why is he here?" He made a mental note to be careful what he wished for.

Rein waved at the person before cocking her head. "Feitan, is that blood?"

The Spider glanced at the cuff of his sleeve, dripping, before casually ripping it off and throwing it back into the room of still battling people. With a torn sleeve and the drips of red still lingering on the cement that had tracked his path, he answered: "No."

"Hold up, hold up," Killua interjected. "Rein, why is he here?"

"Oh, he's with me."

"Yeah, but—!"

Separately, Zepile was also slightly panicking. He cradled his still throbbing arm closer to his chest, trying his best to inch away from the Spider.

Feitan's gaze slid over to him, causing him to almost seize up in nervousness. The Spider blinked. "Nice arm."

"...Thanks," Zepile deadpanned back.

Shrugging, he looked elsewhere, already bored. Lucky settled down for a nap, Killua continued to shout the repeated questions at Rein, and Rein tried to follow along with Killua's logic, even more confused herself as to why he was so uncomfortable with being within Feitan's line of sight.

"The Exam phase has now ended!" the examiner shouted abruptly to cut them off, shutting the door and locking it tight. "I will now be taking you to the next pha-"

A loud pounding came at the door, and Killua shook his head, feeling bad for who ever had the unfortunate luck to finally collect what they needed right when the door had closed. He'd seen the light leave their eyes the last Hunter Exam. Dreams were crushed, lives were lost in a feeble attempt to pass, hope was baited in front of their eyes and wrenched away, never to be seen again. But that was the reality.

Yes, Killua felt a twinge of pity for whoever was desperately pounding at the door until the door fell off its hinges and the person stumbled in, revealing a face with only malicious intent. Killua didn't have a grudge against Rein, but this person could go die and Killua would actually be pleased. In fact, he'd have little qualms with committing the crime himself.

"You said we had until noon," Tonpa asserted, panting. He tapped at his watch, a confident grin on his face as the second clock ticked to the twelve. "I'm on time."

The examiner bit his lip. He clearly wasn't one who was used to being corrected, and twice in one day may have been the melodramatic man's limit. "I, er, well then, this, uh..." He was miserable, but quickly covered it up. "Applicant number 36, pass!"

Tonpa smirked.

"You got lucky, huh?" Rein asked Tonpa, quirking up her features as if they were old pals. Idiot. She didn't know.

"Oh," Killua growled, "far from it." When Tonpa caught sight of Killua, he jumped back, and Killua felt satisfaction at this fact. While being on the same continent as this man was far from the definition of a good time, he supposed striking fear into his heart would brighten the coming days. Killua masked it all with a warm expression so the others wouldn't catch on, but thin enough that Tonpa would see and fear. Perhaps the others would even assist him in taking down this rookie crusher.

'The others', huh? Killua sighed, turning for a glimpse of every single one of them before they were led off to the next phase. Even though he was wary of Feitan, he supposed that subconsciously, he was already thinking of them as a group.

A Zoldyck, a failed applicant from the last Hunter Exam. A passionate auctioneer, who was also a former fraudster. A Kurta survivor whom Killua wasn't sure where to place on his 'allies and enemies' spectrum yet. An earnest young boy, studying the the Nen technique at the famed Heaven's Arena. Someone capable of toppling airships from the sky but was suited for absolutely nothing else. And a small Spider, whose agility and speed Killua strived for.

He doubted this Exam would be as great as last year's—nothing would top the treasured friends he had come to know—but things would certainly be very interesting this time around.

* * *

276 applicants have made it through the first phase of the Hunter Exam.

Wattpad is a cruel joke and is trying to kill me. Seriously I've had wattpad delete all my progress on this chapter twice even though i carefully saved eight times for both those times (I counted. I clicked the saved button so many times i swear but lol n o p e  and ughghsfhuhsak) also because i've had to rewrite the same thing over and over im not sure if its making sense plus wattpad is still acting up for me so please tell me if something's wrong.

On another note Feitan has a sense of humor now. shocker.

Share, support, and comment, I guess. (*still moody*)