"Feitan." Kite dipped his head in greeting, his long hair almost brushing the ground. "A word, if I may."

Bacon swirled around his feet and purred as he replied: "What." He was busy. The exam was over, and he had to get back to Greed Island within the day. He was grateful it was only a short ship ride away, but it would still take time. He had no obligation to stay there any longer than he had to.

Kite looked fondly upon the cat and crouched down, clicking his tongue for it to come. It didn't, lingering behind Feitan's legs. Kite sighed. "I saved that cat on the side of the road. Its ears were near frostbitten, and two of his front teeth had to be removed from decay later on. He was in poor condition, but I somehow got him back up on his feet, so I thought to use it for my Exam phase."

It was obvious to see the cat was not at its peak. Why reiterate? This man was making light of him, wasn't he. Saying that with all this, the cat weak, that Feitan hadn't really deserved his spot on where he was now. "If that's all," he growled, only to be cut off.

"You're going to be an excellent Hunter, one day."

He cursed the surprised leap in his eyebrows.

"My mentor once said that any person who is good with animals is destined for adventures worthy of that of a Hunter. I trust those words deeply." Kite blinked at the cat, a way of smiling before bringing up his lanky figure once more. "You're the first he's grown fond of."

There was a still silence as Feitan gave no verbal response, only lowered himself to scratch Bacon behind his chewed-up ears and to mess up the height difference.

"I'm sure you had every intention of taking him after the Exam anyway, but since he was originally mine, I'm only here to officially state you are allowed to take him. I'm sure the cat will have no complaints."

"Bacon," Feitan started, "is not mine. Not yours. He is own cat and he does what he pleases." He heard Rein calling for him from the front of the building, and he made his way there. A mess of grey fur and lemon eyes trailed his heels.

Kite let out a short chuckle, adjusting his cap further down his forehead, a goodbye tip of the hat towards the Spider. The cat, his own being, huh? "So he is."

*     *     *

"Guess this is where I say goodbye," Zepile said, hesitating for a brief moment before crushing them all in his large arms. For someone who spent his days on business matters, he was surprisingly strong. "It was fun, really," he thanked.

"There's absolutely no way you can spare another hour or so?" Zushi was already sweating."Please?"  he squeaked out.

He laughed, but patted his shoulder out of concern. "Sorry, kid. I have to meet up with a friend. Don't worry, your mentor cares about you, and I'm sure he'll make whatever decision he does in your best interests. I'm sure you'll do just fine!"

"Y-yes," replied Zushi, unaware he was gnawing on his thumbnail, a suppressed bad habit that was cracking out again. "J-just f-f-f-fine..."

Killua slung his arm around him as Zepile left. The young boy's shaking rattled him to the very core, quite literally, almost as if he was trying to comfort a washing machine. "Your request won't be taken seriously if you look like that. Calm down a bit."

He tried to take a deep breath, his exhale still as trembly as his nerves. His eyes caught on another he knew, and he tried to call her over, desperate. "P-Ponzu-san! Wait!"

The girl looked over, her eyes questioning as she approached them. She decided not to try to talk to the shaking boy and instead turned to Rein. "I'm off to reunite with my team. Where will you be headed?"

"We were going to go somewhere, but he," she tried to point subtly at Zushi, who was currently taking a water bottle offered to him by Lucky, most of it splashing onto the pavement as he tried to somehow compose himself. "He wants to come with us, so we're going to get permission from his guardian first."

"And after that?" Ponzu inquired.

"We'll meet up with my family and train." The truth slipped off Rein's tongue quickly.

"I see." Ponzu's eyes flitted to the side, and finally, she whispered, "Is he going to be okay?"

"That's a, uh, good question." Zushi did not appear to be all right in the slightest. His shaking had not stopped, and from the water spilled on his clothes, it was impossible to tell where the water ended and the nervous sweat began. Bent over on his hands and knees, Lucky was fanning him with his jacket.

Rein and Ponzu looked at each other, lips pursed. "Let's hope," they uttered simultaneously.

Ponzu seemed to be taken aback before throwing her head back and laughing, clutching her stomach. Rein didn't understand what was so funny yet offered a few lighthearted snickers, and as soon as Ponzu stopped and smiled with near tears in her eyes, she promptly became aware that this smile was the warmest she'd ever seen. During the Exam, Ponzu had laughed, yes. But not like this, and she had smiled, yes, but none as true as this one here. Perhaps this was how she was without the pressure on her.

"Hey, Ponzu?" she asked. "Why did you take the trouble to drag me and Zushi away from Tonpa?"

"You just... remind me of my siblings," she answered, looking at Rein with the same warmth from before, but it dimmed quickly. "Speaking of which, I should be getting back to them." She scribbled down her email on a notepad and left it with Rein as she ran off towards the airport.

"W-wait, Ponzu-san..." Zushi dropped his arms, dejected.

"Lighten up," Rein tried to order, but his depressing aura was rubbing off onto her. "We'll still be with you. My offer to kill him if he doesn't let you leave still stands."

Zushi hung his head and made a small whining noise, not sure whether the joke was consoling or further stress-inducing. Like a sapling, he withered under the sun, their gaze, the future, the present. Would he be able to pull this off?

"Stop moping."

Zushi did not.

Feitan, who had suddenly appeared, pulled him back up by the scruff of his collar and started to push him down the street. "Nothing will happen if you don't try." Leaving the cat behind, he dragged the group along. Feitan noticed that his quivering had changed into a more subtle vibrating. Good. For some reason, he could only feel the chopping wind above a ravine, and the swaying of a rope bridge high above it. Blinking once, that instant was gone, replaced with the summer heat. "Hūxī," he ordered, adding a few swears in his mother tongue into the mix.

"Feitan-san," Zushi said quietly, gaze softening. He pointed in the opposite direction. "My master's residence is that way."

*     *     *

Bowing was a tradition in Shingen-Ryu. After all, martial arts not only trained the body, but the mind and soul as well, for all these to be aligned was key in making a strong student. Being able to lower one's head proved that they indeed were wonderful students. If bowing alone represented how gifted someone was, Zushi would be perfect. He bowed every single day, every hour even for trivial things. It had been drilled to his core. To Wing, seeing the top of Zushi's head was a normality.

But somehow, the way that Zushi lay crouched on the ground this time, with his head pressed against the floorboards and pleading, was different than all the other times.

How could he put this? His form was no different. But his sheer begging, this was something Wing had never seen. His student had never asked for much, but this way he did so now, as if he had a burning, driving force, a strong desire to be, it was desperate.

He wanted this, didn't he?

"Get up," he said amicably, eyes curving up towards him. "I'll allow it. It's high time I let you make your own way in the world."

"Really?"

"Yes, really."

Wing had no concerns about it. Well, perhaps he held a few, but the boy was strong enough to handle whatever came his way. He had greatly improved in the past few months, starting to show the same rapid growth that Gon and Killua had not too long ago.

Killua, who was in the back of the room right now, inclined his head and mouthed a small "osu" as soon as he was acknowledged.

He viewed the others in the room, all watching this scene unfold and backing their friend. There was Killua of course, and one glance told Wing that he was still improving and honing his skill as of now. There was Lucky, whom he knew as a hard worker but tired out easily. There was a girl between them, brown hair flying as she sent Zushi a small smile. And then there was him.

Wing did his best to politely smile at the short adult, but set his aura on edge, a clear warning to the man.

He just knew this man was involved in whatever had dragged down his colleague years ago. He would have liked to believe it was fraud or drugs, or something other than what her blood soaked cardigan implied, but there was no denying it.

"I've gotten involved in some business," she'd said, shoving the child into his hands. Red dripped from her sleeve onto the toddler's brown hair. The horrified look on her face as she rubbed it clean hastily, as if she'd hurt her own child, before snatching herself away was one that lingered in Wing's mind from time to time. "H-he shouldn't be with... I shouldn't... Just take him, take him!" 

This coldness that emanated from the man, his murderous aura with an intensified version of what he'd felt in her voice was something Wing could not dismiss. He had trained himself to be critical, to analyze, to make no claims without any evidence. But as most of the excuses he used, he was an Enhancer at heart. He would ignore the lack of basis because his gut told him to.

He would let Zushi go, but to entrust his student to him?

Wing didn't notice he'd been glaring until the man returned his angry stare.

"I can," Zushi breathed, and jumped back in joy, exclaiming to his friends who grinned and didn't bother telling him they already knew.

He tried to calm him down, but it was as if his student was deaf to his words. "Wait, Zushi, we aren't done with the discuss-"

Zushi whipped back his head to shout at the man excitedly. "Hear that, Feitan-san? I can go!"

His face remained emotionless, but he granted him a slight nod. "Fine."

At that word, Wing paused. He let go of his thoughts and emotions for a moment to view from a clean angle. He'd never seen Zushi excited before, at least not to this extent. Here, he was jumping and shouting. He'd thought Zushi wasn't one to act like this. Wing had always believed he was just a mature child, and didn't engage in such emotions and acts, but here he was, his grin wider than he'd ever witnessed. Here, Zushi acted the age he was. Here, his eyes looked as if they would pop from their sockets and he would explode from delight.

Here, Zushi looked happy, so incredibly happy.

He gazed upon the sight a while longer before his student came up to him, bowing. "Thank you so much, Master! I am grateful!" The bounciness in even this rigid form caught his eye. "And you had something further to discuss?"

"Oh."

He hesitated before giving his answer.

Wing saw them off from the window. It had taken Zushi only five minutes to pack the little belongings he had, and bowed to him a final time while declaring words of thanks and apologies and promises to send postcards as soon as he figured out how to do it. But it was Zushi, his strong-willed, stubborn, head-strong, yet humble student. Though not exactly his anymore, he supposed.

He watched as they headed down the street and returned a smile as Zushi turned back around frequently to bow a final bow many times over. He watched until they were all out of sight, waiting at the windowpane for what he hoped would be Zushi rushing back, a selfish feeling. His student was going to have great experiences in the outside world. He would be fine on his own.

He would be fine on his own.

With a wave at nothing, Wing finally forced himself to shut the curtains in the middle of the day and set about on brewing a cup of tea in the empty apartment.

*     *     *

"We'll meet in Greed Island again." Killua uttered these words and accepted a fist bump from Lucky as they made the promise and split up.

Feitan rushed them all to the airport, making them sprint all the way as if their training had already begun, which it indeed had, in his eyes at least. The airship ride to Yorknew was quick. Zushi meandered about the aircraft in an awe that never seemed to fade, and Feitan took a quick nap. As for Rein and Lucky, she asked whether he had any strings on him at the moment (which he did, tangled colors spilling from his inside pocket) and asked for another bracelet, plus a small favor. She talked about shining silver hair and the musty smell of animal furs that had been self-skinned, heavy pelts, mountains of empty beer cans, the rising moon on the night he disappeared, and the cold, cold ground where he currently lay. How she couldn't  throw any other way than the fastball and curveballs he'd showed her, and how she wished he'd had the time to teach her more.

All this, his descriptions, what he'd done and what she wished she'd been able to tell him, it was all woven into another mess of a bracelet that finished just as the airship landed.

One made far too late, Rein decided as she stepped off at the airport where she had come to get Chrollo back, with Gon and Killua as technical hostages and Leorio bleeding from his side.

Per Feitan's order, they all made a mad dash towards their old base on the outskirts of Yorknew, he at the back and urging them to go faster. They arrived at the base in twenty minutes, the Spider unimpressed as he shooed them inside.

They walked on in, and Rein trailed a finger across the cracks of the cement walk. Grime came away at her finger tips as she paused, the others going a few steps ahead of her before realizing she'd stopped completely. "Can you wait a bit?" She went off to the side, drawn to a certain room. "There's someone I want to see first."

There were two crosses now.

Two mounds of cement that had forcefully been crushed to powder, both with fresh flowers decorating them; white lilies and red and pink carnations. The other three stayed at a respectful distance as she eased herself to the ground, trying not to disturb any of their mounds.

Rein twisted the two friendship bracelets off her wrists and set them on the wood, one of them blue and silver, the other orchid purple and grey.

She'd hoped for a response, but there wasn't any. She peeled herself from the ground and left with the others, the bracelets on the two mounds with the fresh flower petals surrounding them as she exited the room.

They came to the main room. Shalnark was waiting there for them, two extra slot cards in hand. The legs of his trousers were dirtied from the knees down, and a smear of grey decorated his cheek. A shovel lay in the shadows behind him, darkness concealed by his light.

Rein smiled at the sight. It felt good to be back. "Shal," she exhaled.

He smiled as they entered, waving the cards in the air. The console at his feet blinked its colors as he called, "Let's go."

Shalnark reburied Uvo next to Paku aint he sweet (of course he is, he's a scientifically proven babey). Also writing and reading romance is fun but for some reason this fic has become strangely family centered and revolves around that concept? My ultimate goal is Feifei becomes a mother duckling.

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