Her heart felt lighter, so much lighter, but it was still chained and caged, slightly relieved but not nearly as close to being free as it should have been. Realizing this, Rein glared at him with a newfound intensity, prompting Kurapika to explain himself.

"I took off the restriction I left on you during our time at Yorknew," he swiftly stated. "I'd forgotten it was still placed around your heart."

"No," she seethed. "Both chains. Take them both."

There was a fleeting hesitation on his face, and for a brief moment she allowed herself the fantasy of believing he would listen. A slight inclination of the head convinced her otherwise. "I can't do that."

Her fist flew forward before she could even comprehend it, but a swift hand stopped her wrist. Killua's grip tightened as electricity set her hair on edge, a warning to calm down and not be rash; to not die. They'd avoided it just in time to keep the chain from acting, and only because he was so quick. If it had been anyone else or if he'd been just a tad farther, it may have been too late for Kurapika to call back his chain before it pierced her heart. Right. She had to control herself.

"And why not?"

Stars, her words hurt to force out, restrained power quivering at the back of her throat.

He opened his mouth and closed it again.

"Because you'll attack."

"Attack who?"

Kurapika hesitated once more, and his head turned to the side. "...me."

"So? What? You're careful? Afraid?" Unwilling to let him answer, her voice rose volumes and shut him out completely. "Afraid, are you? Afraid I'll be able to beat you, like Fei, like Uvo, like Paku—stars, you only kill the people you're afraid of because... because...!" She didn't know why, but Rein loathed every word dripping from her mouth.

"You don't understand. I can't fight you. I will not fight you. And..." He raised his eyes. "I kill for vengeance. I have a solid reason to do what... what I did."

"You..." Her argument was weak. Nen chains painfully present in her chest, she broke eye contact. Her voice was quiet, whimpering, on the edge of breaking. "...but you..."

"Lucky." Folding his hands behind his back respectfully, Kurapika turned.

Lucky had been silent until now, his fingers gripping Zushi and Kalluto's shoulders tightly to warn them to do the same. There was much turmoil in them over what part of them had been lost, but they stood still and quiet, telling themselves that this was Rein's battle. And in it, they would not interfere. Throat dry and eyes suddenly dehydrated, he gave a small nod to indicate he'd heard him.

"You must have come along because you've prepared for your collaboration with me. It is for the best, after all."

"What?"

"Your Nen." Kurapika appeared surprised that he'd been wrong. "Didn't you come along for that purpose? I wanted to study your Nen and how to best use it in it's docile state to ensure we both remain safe during the process. If I'm not mistaken, there are certain conditions that apply, but once you've moved past that, your Nen will be capable of bringing back my... the Kurta Clan," he instantly replaced. "Won't you cooperate? I see no downsides-"

Lucky couldn't bite down his words anymore. He never got angry, only sarcastic or bitter at most. When his aura threw his chance at a normal life out the window, when he got caught up in criminal activity, when he'd been attacked and kidnapped and beaten around like he was a mere object, he had never felt anger. But now, hostility lined every breath he exhaled. "You only think of yourself, don't you."

His jaw stiffened. "Pardon?"

"I'm just here as support. I'm here for Rein. Not for you." His voice was of steel. "I come here and you apologize to one person. You assume that everyone else is fine. But I... I was close to him too, you know. I'm not just going to warm up to you like that. Don't think you're the center of everything."

"I see." There was a silent pause, but then Kurapika's head shifted the slightest bit. "But do you have any idea," he started, and a storm was inside of him, of repressed emotions coming up to the brim as his chest swelled with pure hate. "Do you have any idea what he's done?"

And for a while, no one could speak.

Zushi hadn't uttered a word since they'd left Feitan behind, but he was the first to break the silence. "I don't agree with anything he did." Nothing had changed about his tone. He still sounded as child-like and formal as he always did, but somehow... "He did bad things, but we still loved him." He looked up. "We still-"

"Then why do you support him? If you all know what he's done, what they've all done, then why are you so desperate to defend them?" Kurapika looked straight at Rein. "Do you not care? Do you not know?"

Rein was taken aback. "It-It's not-"

She didn't want to know.

"The Phantom Troupe has taken everything from me. My friends, my entire community, my family. I left and when I came back they were all just lying there and they were dead." He choked out his words, and they were laden with pain. "The village was torn to shreds and everyone I'd ever known was..." His fist trembled, shook, with raw fury. "There was so much blood."

No.

"All their eyes stolen from their bodies—" His constricted words entered as whirling static into her ears that she didn't want to be able to understand.

She didn't want to hear.

"And just when I was on the verge of getting revenge for everyone I used to know, I saw they spared one single person." His eyes with that familiar tint sent a strangling shiver down her spine. "You've been through horrible things, haven't you? They've put you through so much. I believed I was the only one left and you... you don't even remember everything. You've been forced to forget, Aira, all because of them, you can't remember how happy you used to be, you can't remember-"

"No, I-" She didn't want to remember.

There was nothing she could possibly say to counter this. She'd known this truth for some time, but she'd never really accepted what that reality could mean, what could happen because of it; and now it was far too late.

"I am happy." She was, right? "I was." Right, she wasn't any more. Not since Kurapika entered her life and had messed everything up. This Chain User. This Kurta. "I can't let you hurt anyone else close to me."

"Aira, you don't love them."

The words stabbed at her heart.

"They don't love you. They're murdered with no regard for human life and don't bat an eye at the blood their own hands shed. They kidnapped you, and you forgot everything. It isn't love you've experienced. It can't be close to it. People who killed my family, people like that, they can't possibly-" His fist tightened and his knuckles turned white, shadowed by his chains. "They can't possibly..."

As much as loathing and hate boiled inside of her at his words, a twinge of her stalled, knowing exactly how he felt. And it sickened her; Rein tried to convince herself that this empathy made her want to puke. But that would be pretending, and somehow the thought of forcing herself to be fake made her more nauseous than anything. 

* * *

Phinks dropped the box he was holding.

"O-oi, Fei."

In an instant, he was at his side, knees falling heavy to the ground. "O-oi, Fei, wake up." Phinks took his shoulders, frail and slender in his strong hands. He tried to shake him awake, but it was becoming alarmingly clear that he was without a pulse. "Wake up, Fei. You gotta." His skin was blue and white and bruised. "You gotta wake up, there's still that whole training thing you have to do, and Danchou's still AWOL, and we gotta send that bastard chain user right to-"

When Phinks tried to pick Feitan up, his entire body drooped to the side, fighting his touch with a stiffening cold.

"It's too late." Machi came up beside him. Her eyes traced the remnants of the fight; scuffed furniture, splatters of blood, shards of glass and torn curtains. It was rare for such a scene to even exist around the Spiders; they did their business so skillfully that unless they wanted to send up smoke and flames to be gaudy, there was never any trace of their fight left over. And such a scene never meant that they'd been on the losing side.

The Spiders were strong. She had surrounded herself with strong people with the conviction that they could not die, that they would not die and leave her alone like so many others had done. Chrollo had assured her of it, with an outstretched hand and soulful eyes she still trusted in to this day. But borrowing his words, unexpected events could overtake anyone. And putting her entire self into believing in him, she had built herself into something worthy of the Phantom Troupe to dominate any unexpected events that could possibly come her way, so she wouldn't have to worry.

And yet, in spite of that—a deep ravine, an arrogant giant, the sound of rapid gunshots and a soft thud—there had been so many she hadn't been able to save.

She looked at Phinks, clutching a body that should never have been. Machi averted her eyes.

"I can't fix him."

Nen zipped between her fingers, useless.

"I can't."

Foul curses left Phinks' mouth. His grip tightened on the body and angered strength flowed through him, but when he finally lowered Feitan to the ground, it was with an uncharacteristic gentleness. Setting him down softly, Phinks got up and walked a few steps to the wall before he punched it in, wood cracking and flying everywhere. "God, Fei, you... gotta just wake-" He didn't finish his sentence. Phinks sank into a crouch, his shoulders shaking.

Zepile was the last adult to enter, yet the first to access and accept the situation for what it was. His question was simple, yet the hardest to ask.

"Kurapika?"

"Ah." Phinks rubbed roughly at his face and ran his hands back through his hair. "You bet."

"This is all my fault." Zepile spoke in a mumble at first, but the idea cemented itself in his mind. "This is my-"

"Geez, both you and Zushi with your pathetic blaming games. Just stop it. It doesn't help."

"No, I-I..." He gulped. "I used to work for him. I quit a while back, but I was supposed to tell him of your movements so he could be informed. I-I didn't think about wha-what he could have done in retaliation-"

Phinks stood. He growled, "You what."

Under his intense glare, Zepile withered. "I-"

Phinks shot out his arm and grasped the fabric of his loose collar, twisting it hard as he yanked him forward. "Spit it out," he threatened, breath hot and dangerously quiet. "Tell us everything you know before I rip your lies from your throat."

He was truly terrifying when angered, and Zepile didn't deal well with this. But he knew he was partly to blame here, for it was because of him Kurapika had known where they even were in the first place. "I knew he hated you, but I never imagined that this could happen. I thought... I just wanted the money at first. But then I saw everything and started to think for myself and I even have a kid now and-" He gulped for air, his windpipe slowly constricting as the Spider gripped his collar tighter. "I quit. I quit a few days back and shut off my phone, but he didn't tell me he would go to such measures." His face started to redden, but he didn't dare bring his hands anywhere near his neck, or even fight back. This was what he got.

"Phinks," said Machi. "Calm down."

"Calm down?" Phinks snarled, but dropped the man to the ground nonetheless. "Fei's like this and that's what you're telling me?"

She honed her ears, and hearing nothing, made up her mind. "What's done is done. Right now, we should be focusing our efforts on finding out where Lucky and the children are."

At her words, the two men glanced about and realized the silence Feitan had been left in. Phinks once again caught Zepile and this time, threw him down with an arm twisted behind his back. "Where are they?"

"I-I've been with you for the past half day, how would I know?"

Machi left the room behind, clutching her own arms tightly. Her fingernails started to dig into her skin and came close to drawing blood, but after a moment she let them go limp, leaving her arms intact. Their one-sided quarrel rang through the still air until a slight gust of wind came through the open doors. It played with Machi's hair, tangling her pink strands together before passing on. Jaw set grimly, she raised a hand to her head to set it straight. Her eyes trailed after the aftermath of the breeze, toying with a simple jar of flowers Gon had picked for Rein and sending a single petal fluttering softly to the ground.

She'd just shut her eyes when a rustling reached her ears. She looked just in time to see the night wind fighting against a sheet of paper sticking out from between two pages of a book. Machi tilted her head. She'd seen this volume before.

Maps of Various Regions in the Eastern Mountains.

She wondered if what her gut told her was accurate.

While Machi confirmed her suspicions quietly, Phinks continued to pick a fight with Zepile, as if to have something, anything to blame. After much arm twisting and weak-based accusations, he finally let the man go, falling back to the floor. He cracked his knuckles. "We've got to find that chain user."

Zepile rubbed his bruising wrists. "I'm coming with you."

A scoff. "Why should you, traitor?"

"The kids are gone aren't they? This could mean they've gone on their own will, but it doesn't mean that they haven't been taken. And if they are, it can't be good. They could be in danger in either case, too. I'm coming along. And if Zushi is-"

"Listen, you scumbag," Phinks said. "You're staying here. The only good you've ever done to this world was bring that boring brown brat into it!"

Shutting the book shut, Machi decided to leave them to their counterproductive bickering and slipped outside. She was met with cool darkness as she drew farther from the brightly lit lodge, and her sharp eyes adjusted to the night, gleaming when the moonlight passed through the trees and illuminated her figure.

She crouched and assessed the scene; a sweeping scuff of dirt to her left, grass tufted with small specks of dirt at its tips, and a sure trail of crushed leaves and twigs left behind.

So this was the direction they'd gone.

* * *

Everyone's expression was grim, and they couldn't step forward to say anything. But the situation concerned all of them now, and that was what brought Lucky to speak again.

"You mentioned restoration of the Kurta Clan. If you've studied my Nen as you seem to have done before, you should now it's not as strong as it once was. But you should also be aware of the repercussions that will come if you do this." His looked hardened. "You're willing to make such a sacrifice?"

"I'm aware of what pains I'll be causing you. This is why I proposed to spend time on it and figure out a peaceful way to draw it out and put it to use. I know it's a heavy thing to ask of you, so I'll wait as long as needed. My clan can wait a little while longer for their resurrection."

"And your friends now," Lucky looked to Gon and Killua, "you'll just let them die in the exchange?"

Kurapika appeared confused. "Die?"

"Well, that seems to be the general concept of how things are going to roll," Killua commented, scratching the back of his head casually. "Don't tell me you approached this without knowing about that."

"Die?" Kurapika whispered, and his composed form started to slip from his grasp.

"Yeah," Gon piped up. "Life for a life. Lucky said it would most likely be ours."

"You heard them," Lucky said, and crossed his arms. "Didn't you know? You'll have to trade with people who are equally precious to you know. You can't go through with this. So just stop, please. Give up. You won't get anywhere."

Kurapika's hands dropped to his sides. "I'll have to choose between..." His foot ground firmly into the tiles. "Don't mess with me! I'll have to choose—that's basically the same as telling me that I'll have to decide who to kill. Lucky, it's not right. Isn't there any other way? I've waited so long for this day."

"No." Lucky struggled to restrain himself from taking out his own anger on him. "Either you let things be, or everyone you know today is going to be the sacrifice for what you want. They'll all be gone, just like... just like what you did to..." He sucked in a breath, jaw aching from gnashing his teeth together. "It's time to think of others. I would personally like it if you backed off and let all of us be."

"But..." Kurapika's voice was soft as he took a few steps back, glancing at them each before his eyes glazed over and he shook his head. "I couldn't possibly choose." He did his best to hold his strength, but it was escaping from him quickly. "I couldn't..." His back hit the wall and his black heel squeaked against it, trying to press him forth into a reality he couldn't accept. His blond bangs swayed as he shook his head once more. There was no way, and yet, there had to be a path he could take. He couldn't let things end like this; he'd dedicated his past five years into assuring the Kurta Clan would be properly avenged. In vengeance for Aira, who the Spiders had manipulated. For his mother's sake, for his father's, for Pairo.

There had to be another way, this certainly could not be the limit. It had to be a lie, it was a lie. Please, this had been the only thing keeping him going for so long.

"I can't."

His legs started to give out, and his eyes finally reached a state of pure blankness.

Of its own volition, his Chain Jail started to quiver, rising uncontrollably and lashing out violently before it shot in Lucky's direction; toward his Nen.

Well this was a much-later-than-expected chapter after that cliffhanger we had.
I apologize from the bottom of my heart. I have no idea how this late of a chapter happened, but I'm glad I finished it! Hope you enjoyed?

Before was a requiem, now we have a nocturne. (I took inspiration from the formatting of this recent series of chapter titles from Detective Conan, and it's totally over-the-top dramatic, as planned.)

Oh look. Having hope hung in from of his eyes and having it snatched away is causing our Pikachu to mentally snap into nothingness. I'm super nice to these characters.