The grass swayed an unearthly green as they stepped out into the game. The two who'd never been there before could only gaze, breath taken.

"This is all virtual?" Lucky asked slowly.

"That's what they're trying to pass it off as," replied Shalnark, making sure they were following him and leading them into the trees. "But it's actually in the real world, just a tiring boat ride off the coast of Yorknew state. It's a Nen-based transportation method!"

Zushi nodded, eyes focused as if he was meticulously taking mental notes, as he most likely was. "Which type would that ability belong to?"

Shalnark seriously considered his question, deep in thought. "It really depends on the method you're using. If it's teleportation by means of gates or something alike, conjurer or manipulator. If you transport something by releasing your aura away from you, emitter. If you don't use either of these methods, probably specialist." He smiled at him. "Why? Are you considering your Hatsu, little boy?"

"Osu! But from your deduction, I see I still have much to learn!" Zushi stopped to bow. "Also, uh... could you refrain from calling me that? Please. No."

Shalnark laughed as he always did. It was never demeaning, never insulting. It just happened to be that he was sunshine and found the urge to shed it on others. He apologized quickly, light.

"Good. I'm nearing ten years of age now!" he declared.

"Ten? If that's the case, I have some good news for you." Shalnark refused to tell them what he meant with a knowing smirk that played at his eyes. Rein tried to pressure it out of him, with half-hearted threats and a few attempted punches, all of which he easily blocked. As he led the group further into the woods, they came to a stop at the base of a massive cliff.

"We moved base to keep track of the Nen remover," Shalnark explained, motioning towards them to approach the rock face. He pulled back a curtain of ivy to reveal a short passageway to an open area. Rays of light peeked through the other side and shone in their eyes when they stepped out beneath the rock. There was an open cliff face on one side with a rocky area next to it, a mix of reef and sea down the hill, and lush forest in between. "So we're holing up in here for now. It's your training space too!"

Feitan's eye twitched.

"Machi!" Rein suddenly shouted, swearing she saw a flash of pink amidst the grass. She broke into a dash towards to where she thought the woman was, and with a shrug at the other, Lucky and Zushi raced after her as well.

As soon as they were gone, Feitan pinched Shalnark's ear and yanked him down to his level. "This is my training space," he hissed, breath furious. "Mine."

He only laughed as he tugged his ear away from his iron grip. "Sorry, Fei," he said, clearly not sorry at all about stealing the place they'd found together before the Exam had begun, "but it was the perfect location, you have to understand." He ran off after them, also shouting Machi's name and leaving Feitan scowling in his dust.

When Shalnark caught up with the group, he was faced with a dilemma. Not the dilemma behind him—he would deal with angry Feitan later—but instead, one concerning someone he had completely forgotten to inform them about.

"You're not Machi," Rein stated, tilting her head at their newest member.

"And you aren't supposed to be here," Kalluto returned, his stance already protected and ready to attack.

"Yes she is!" Shalnark interrupted, waving their hands at both of them to stop, calm down, and listen. With no advanced, set-in-stone Hatsu, Rein would have been at a disadvantage, but from the way her footing had been shifted like it always did before attack, he knew that she'd been ready to try and take the Zoldyck on. "I'll introduce you. This is Kalluto!" Shalnark exclaimed, grabbing the child by the shoulders to prevent any thoughts of escape. "He's replacing Hisoka as number four. His Hatsu ability is pretty cool too, and since he's already chosen, I think it's safe to say: feel free to ask him if you have questions!"

He didn't expect the smallest one—if he recalled correctly, his name was Zushi—to leap forward. "You have developed a Hatsu at your age? I'm about your age! This is incredible, how did you ever come up with it?" Zushi's eager face was lit up with awestruck persistence as he awaited an answer.

Kalluto pursed his lips as he leaned away from the boy and his praises, sending a silent stare of disapproval Shalnark's way. "And they are?"

"Rein, Lucky, and you said your name was Zushi earlier, right?" With a curt nod of confirmation, Shalnark repeated, pointing at each of them and smiling. "They're training under Feitan for now, each for their own reasons."

"Oh." Kalluto released his tension and tilted his head. "Sorry for thinking you were outsiders."

"It's okay. I thought the same. Sorry for mistaking you for Machi," Rein replied, and stored away the pebble no one noticed she'd readied. "I thought saw her hair color."

"You must have been mistaken," he answered.

"Alright!" Shalnark said, clapping his hands together before the exchange could go any further. "I'll be giving you three a quick tour of the place, leave your things and all that, and then it's straight to training. Hope you're prepared," he warned delightfully, and looked back Kalluto's way while he shooed them off with only a few mild complaints from Rein. "You'll join later, won't you?" There was no time to respond as they quickly went from view. No doubt Shalnark believed he already had the answer, with the final radiant confidence he'd left. 

Kalluto sighed and turned to the tall grass behind him. "You can come out now."

Machi eased herself up out of the greenery, brushing off her outfit of any grains that had stuck to her. "Thank you," she stated plainly, stepping back out into the road. Her face was unreadable except for the one emotion that he couldn't comprehend. Perhaps confusion? Almost... embarrassment. "I suppose I wasn't prepared to-"

"You don't have to explain," he jutted in. "You have no obligation to tell me."

The woman simply nodded her acknowledgment and crossed her arms. She probably knew that Kalluto, despite his words of not needing an explanation, was trying to think of one at the moment. Perhaps he'd already come upon the answer. She doubted it though, from the fact that even she herself didn't know. She didn't know why she'd hid, and whether it was more from Rein or Lucky was a mystery as well. Machi had known the girl for years, so she can't have been the reason why she'd had the sudden and unreasonable urge to flee. And Lucky... looking rationally, she couldn't fathom why in the world she would ever have the need to flee from him. He was harmless.

Aura aside.

And the other boy. One look at him and Machi knew who he was; her eidetic memory didn't serve for nothing, after all. And his aura was rigid and concentrated, with a dash of something foreign mixed in, but there was no doubt about it. It was the same as number eight's. It was almost too easy to figure out, no wonder Feitan had dragged him back into the game.

"And?" Machi asked. "Are you going to join the training like Shal suggested? You won't have any need to, you surely know that."

Kalluto stiffened, and shuffled his way back towards base without a reply.

*     *     *

"I want to die."

"Lucky-san..." Zushi chided, though he was out of breath as well.

"I want to figuratively die," he corrected.

"Better," replied Zushi, and landed next to him on the ground in attempts to calm his booming pulse. There wasn't any pain when he flopped against the dirt, only a ragged tiredness that made him finally understand why Lucky liked to sleep so much.

"Move," groaned Rein, dragging herself over to them and crumpling just as the other two had done, forcing them to move aside so she could be between them. They welcomed her with racing hearts and words that came out more air than sound.

It had been roughly four hours since Feitan had started their training in a secluded area away from the other Spiders. All of them were at different levels ability-wise: Rein had been with the Spiders for as long as she remembered and had acquired various different types of guidance from each of them, Lucky had only started on taming his chaotic aura months ago, and Zushi had been molded by his controlled environment with a system of stakes, reward and discipline. As his entire plan had been ruined with another student in tow—he'd only planned for the former two; the child of a former Spider had not been part of the picture—Feitan had decided that while he was coming up with new methods to develop the three of them at the same time, he would have them push their physical abilities to the limit, and then some.

Scale the cliff, fell a few trees for firewood and carry it, swim to the cove and back with weights, relocate a couple dozen boulders. If Lucky's aura was to get out of control during this grueling process, a thwack on the head ("Not something you use"). And he'd claimed this would be the easy stretch.

By Feitan's reasoning, this was more a day for stretching endurance. In his eyes, none of these were particularly hard, but these repeated actions were sure to do something to make them grow. If they used Zetsu, then he could save their Nen development for later, and if their Zetsu wasn't perfect, they would get practice trying. It was so simple.

Oh, how he would throw a fit if he saw them lying down now, their limbs going numb. Shalnark had truly been a lifesaver when he'd pulled Feitan away to talk to him about an important matter. They were all in different degrees of tiredness and pain, but they all needed a short break.

"I..." Rein relished the drugged-like languidness in her body as she forced herself to speak. "...have never been worked this hard. I've been trained, sure. But like this? I didn't think Feitan could be this cruel."

There was a silence.

"That last part was a lie, but my point still stands."        

A laugh, combined with a small sigh that was mostly an excuse to take a deep breath. "I've never had anything as half as challenging as this. How much more stronger I would be if I was forced to go through this everyday... That doesn't mean Wing-san was bad!" Zushi hastily corrected himself. "He did his best to train me, ever since he started to care for me." Zushi turned his face toward Rein on the ground beside him. "I guess we're alike, Rein-san. Both orphaned and taken in."            

She gave the slightest of nods, not meeting his eyes. "You don't have to add that thing at the end. We're about the same age."

"If we're on that," Lucky added, breaking from his quietude, "do the same with me. No honorifics. Just 'Lucky' is chill."

Their view of the clear blue sky was obstructed by someone leaning over them. "Same here."

Zushi bolted up, straight as a pin to address him. "Kalluto-sa... oh, wait, no..." he muttered.

"Here I come to see how you guys are training, and you're sleeping on the ground," he said, vivid purple irises scanning the area thoroughly. "Cheating while the instructor is away."

"Of course we are." Rein propped herself up by the elbows, leaning back casually and stretching. Her grin was crafty and proud. "If you'd been with us for the past few hours, you'd do the same, of your own will or otherwise."

They all spoke for a few minutes, hesitant as to whether Feitan would show up again and berate their tired selves, but as time passed, the Spider didn't seem to be coming back. They slipped further into a delicate sense of safety that they would never be caught slacking, and chatted mindlessly. Kalluto had never experienced such a thing. It was alien, the way they were able to put connections over business, and rest over the drive to be better. Though Feitan could return any second, they were acting as if he wouldn't kill them all on the spot.

They were sitting, talking about things that had absolutely no meaning or value. These were words that could have easily gone unsaid with zero repercussions. So useless. And to him, who had spent his entire life revolving his thoughts around the concept of usefulness, it was difficult to comprehend.

The three were of no benefit to the Spiders, even if their abilities were honed. Kalluto had never asked for any background information, but Shalnark had spewed his entire biography an hour back to clear up the Machi misunderstanding, and that had come with the entire Yorknew ordeal. Suppose Rein truly did care for the Spiders, as she claimed. He still found it hard to believe she would join them. And Lucky. Even if Chrollo wished his aura to be tamed, there was little gain in obeying that order. Though Shalnark claimed not to know who Zushi was, from what he could tell, he was too upright to ever become a Troupe member.

There simply was no need to interact with them, Kalluto knew. Their interactions with him or the Phantom Troupe wouldn't amount to anything. Involving himself with others could only be detrimental to him, so even if the other Spiders didn't see the pointlessness of it all, it was better for him to go alone, to stick to his goal.

He had to get Killua back. The Zoldycks would fall without an heir, no matter how long great-grandfather Maha lived, or how confident his father was that his brother would return. In the basement, Nanika was already demanding to see him again, resulting in wasted deaths of two of their good butlers. Illumi had left home to track Killua down, the only communication with his family being by phone, to accept a few assassination requests every now and then. And his mother was fretting so, throwing things at him and overall displeased.

He both wanted and needed big brother Killua to be home, for the sake of his family. If Kalluto failed now, it would be his fault that his family fell. So he couldn't. If the Phantom Troupe was the best way to get a hold of his brother, so be it. His goal came first.

He would cover for Machi when she didn't want to talk with others. He would lend Shalnark his fan when he wanted to tap someone on the head and pretend it wasn't him. He would do all these things and more if it meant creating a natural environment where he could finally ask for a favor and have it granted. His goal came first. And as these three wouldn't be Spiders in the near future, he didn't have to speak to them, or listen to their talk.

But maybe, he supposed as he sat down to listen to their conversation, he could allow himself to do a few useless things, just this once.

*     *     *

"So we've found the exorcist, right? And we're tailing him, right? Well turns out he's in a bit of a predicament right now so we're waiting for that to settle down. In the meanwhile, we're tracking him, but there's this problem. So I was watching him with Kalluto, right?"

"Get to point," Feitan ordered.

Shalnark chuckled some more and apologies bubbled up from him as would a fountain, but he quieted soon enough. "He's being targeted by someone."

He found himself leaning in. "Target?"

He nodded vigorously, green eyes reflecting light. "I was watching through binoculars. He was suddenly attacked by arrows. Because of that whole scam I mentioned before, the Nen creature on him canceled out most of the damage, but he's still injured. I made sure that he's safe for now, but there's only so much time we have."

"And?" asked Feitan. "Did you find the attacker?"

Shalnark shook his head. "I couldn't see the attacker from my angle, but from the pattern of attack and given the fact that it was on a Nen-user, it probably wasn't-"

There was a flash of purple to his right, and an arrow embedded itself deep in Shalnark's knee.

Feitan whipped around for the attacker, ready for a kill, but there was no one in sight.

Shal gave a small groan next to him as he propped himself back onto his feet, trying not to make his shattered kneecap splinter into his muscle. He bit back a swear word, and forced the corner of his lips to turn up. The area was bloodier and more twisted than it should have been for a simple arrow. "That..." Shalnark sucked in a breath and let out a light chuckle to cover it up as blood seeped between his fingers, "...packed a punch."

Just earlier that day Shalnark had been explaining to Zushi how teleportation could possibly work. Both the conjuration and manipulation techniques required someone present, and by the way the Nen had only been released in one, secluded spot, the likelihood that it was specialization technique was slim. No, this was only possible by Emitter methods. And this use of that, with no trace of the attacker, was ticking Feitan off.

Feitan gnashed his teeth tightly, peering around the area once more before pulling Shalnark to his feet and taking him back to base.

He'd never encountered a warping arrow before, but he had the gut feeling that this wouldn't be the last time.

Wow I've been on Wattpad for a year already.

a r r o w s     also i wrote way more about Kalluto than I was expecting but i guess that went okay

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