Getting to the base of the tower in seventy-two hours... There were no stairs, or at least none that she could see as the tower seemed to be a completely bare, plain, empty platform. She looked over the edge of the tower along with her friends, a wind whipping around their legs. "That's a long way to fall."

"You don't say," Killua drawled sardonically, glancing at the brunette.

"A-are we supposed to climb down that?" Leorio asked nervously, backing away a bit from the edge.

Kurapika did not take his eyes away from the ground far, far below. "That would be suicide..."

She heard the smug snickering of someone behind her causing her to glance back, "Maybe for a normal person."

A man with the tag 86 moved past them and began to shuffle down the wall. They all turned to watch him, and Gon bent down to get a better look.

"But a top-class rock climber can handle this no problem." He told them as he continued to drop down the side of the building.

"Wow..."

"He's going down pretty fast."

Rukei took another look at the walls, they were almost absolutely flat. "Are we supposed to follow his actions?" If she had a knife or something she might be able to get down...

Her thoughts were interrupted by the beating of wings that continued to grow louder, till she realized that the sound was coming towards them. She corrected herself as giant, six-limbed, winged creatures swooped down over the climber; it was heading towards this man which was soon snatched up and taken away in mere moments.

"Guess we can't climb down the walls," Leorio muttered, breaking the silence.

"... Yeah."

Rukei straightened her posture after a while of searching. They were missing people. Of course, they were missing one due to the creatures earlier but unless the others had also attempted to scale down the wall and met the same fate that meant there had to be passages leading down the tower.

She headed over to speak to Gon and Killua about her thoughts but was stopped when they saw a man suddenly disappear underneath a flipping tile. They exchanged quick glances before dashing over to the same stone. Gon knocked on the surface but received no response.

"So the doors can only work once," Rukei murmured, "And from the size, it'll only let one person go down..."

"In other words, one door for one person," Killua finished up with a huff.

Gon stood up, spirits not dampened, "Looks like we'll have to find another door!"

And they did find another door, another six doors to be correct. They quickly informed Leorio and Kurapika of the discovery who caught on quickly. There was the possibility of some of the doors being duds, and Rukei was feeling a bit uneasy about the whole situation.

"We'll all have to split up," Killua announced, "Gon, Rukei, and I have decided that we're each going to choose a door."

"No hard feelings if one of us springs a trap!" Gon chimed after him, "What are you guys going to do?"

Leorio followed their actions, "I can live with that. Luck is part of the game..."

"I have no objections," Kurapika agreed, "Then that settles it."

For some reason, something tugged at her at the thought of being away from the four for seventy-two hours in a dangerous, suspicious place like Trick Tower. She didn't quite know the feeling but it was getting annoying so she pushed it away as she headed over to one of the stones and stood beside it, looking around at the others.

"Let's go, on the count of three," Leorio suggested, as they all stood there, waiting, she wasn't quite sure for what, but it didn't seem right to just jump down.

"I guess this is goodbye for now," Gon added; the word 'goodbye' seemed to stir something in her mind, the annoying feeling returned.

Kurapika smiled at him, "We'll meet up again, at the tower's base."

"Good luck," Rukei wished them with a very slight curve of her mouth.

Killua brought back the task at hand, "Let's go! One!"

"Two..."

"Three!" They all chorused together as they jumped onto the tiles next to them, flipping over the secret doors. She fell through the darkness and she tried to make out her surroundings quickly, hoping there wasn't something dumb and cliche like spikes waiting to run her through on the floor.

Her suspicions were put to rest as she landed lightly on familiar solid ground, not that the fact made it any safer, she straightened her posture warily.

She heard a couple grunts in the dim around her; familiar voices, and a crash that just yelled 'Leorio'. Relief along with the surprise washed over her for whatever reason as she looked about to see her friends' equally surprised faces.

"That was a brief farewell," Kurapika half-joked, standing up and dusting off his tabard.

Leorio gave out a sigh, "So in the end all the doors led to the same room."

"How anticlimactic," Rukei commented, hoping that the delight in her tone wasn't too obvious. She shifted her gaze over to Gon who headed towards a pedestal at what she assumed to be the front of the room with a plaque hanging over it. She followed him, observing the objects on the elevated platform; metal watches.

"The six of you must follow the will of the majority to reach the goal," Gon read aloud, and she almost groaned in frustration. Six meant they had to wait for one more person to drop in, and who knows how long that would take.

"Six?"

Gon picked up one of the watches, and she almost yelled at him as it could have been a trap. But there were no explosions, no electrical charges, or darts from the sides of the walls, so it would be okay. "Look, there are six stopwatches."

She took one into her hands carefully, flipping over in her hands a couple times before deeming it safe to snap around her wrist. 71:19:01, it read along with an O and a X underneath the little monitor.

"There's an O and a X button," Killua mentioned, hearing the words half reminded her of the video game controllers she used to use so often.

Kurapika put the watch on, glancing about, while voicing her concerns out loud, "Could it be that we can't leave this room until another person drops in?"

There was the sound of something similar to a mike being turned on, and she realized it was a speaker moments after looking around, "That is correct!"

"Who's there?!" Leorio whipped around.

"My name is Lippo," the voice answered, the name pulled at her mind, she thought she had heard of it before, "I am the prison warden here as well as the Third Phase examiner."

Kurapika repeated his introduction, "Prison warden?"

Rukei mumbled to herself, "Prison..." Yes, Lippo the prison warden did sound a little familiar... The memory seemed to make itself clear to her as their examiner went on with his explanation.

"Multiple routes have been prepared through this tower," he started, "You have chosen the path of majority. Cooperation will be the key if you wish to clear this phase of the exam. One person's selfish behavior can derail an entire group. And you can't start until you have six members. Best of luck, gentlemen!" He finished, followed by static.

People that the XX Alliance had captured were sometimes sent to Lippo, including them. She looked about again with a more worried and thorough eye before scolding herself silently. The chance of her meeting up with any of them was very, very low; they were sent all over the place. She would be fine.

Leorio turned to them with a loud huff, slumping over. "We can't move on till someone arrives?" He glared at the last watch, "What do we do?"

"We don't have much of a choice," Rukei stated.

Kurapika nodded, "We have to wait..."

Rukei leaned against the wall, pulling out of her bag a cube with six different colored sides, mixing up the little squares amongst each other. There was no way she'd see any of them again. Besides that, she was no longer a part of them, so it didn't really matter. She worked with the XX Alliance now, a group working for justice; the good guys. It didn't really matter at all. All that mattered was getting through the phase and passing the exam and going back to Shichi.

But she wanted her friends to pass too.

Rukei almost frowned to herself. Wait, when did that begin to matter too? She couldn't seem to pinpoint where she began to think that. Perhaps this was tied to that squishy, warm feeling or-

"Is that any fun?"

Rukei blinked, looking up at the white-haired boy who called her back to reality. Killua was holding Gon's fishing rod in his hand while the mountain boy stood on the yellow and red skateboard that had stopped whirring a couple moments ago as Gon stared at her with equal curiosity.

Killua glanced between her and the cube in her hands when she didn't reply in confusion. "You solved that and mixed it up at least thirty or forty times by now..."

Rukei followed his gaze and kept it there, the faithful little cube built out of smaller squares three by three. It was a bit beaten and worn with age, the color was a bit faded too, now that she realized it, "It gives my hands something to do."

"You were solving it really fast!" Gon exclaimed in a complimenting manner, hopping off the skateboard and heading over to her, "Can I try it?"

Rukei tried to suppress the amused expression as she handed it over to the boy after mixing it up for him. "Don't break it," she warned.

Gon smiled as he began twisting the cube every which way as he had seen her do, and Rukei was beginning to wonder if he really knew what the goal of solving a Rubik's cube was because by the looks of it, he seemed to be going around in circles. The frustration showed on his face as he sped up the twisting and turning with angry puffed cheeks.

Killua began to snicker and put a hand over his mouth as a very sorry attempt to stop or muffle it at the least, and Gon glared at him. Kurapika and Leorio's light laughter joined in much to poor Gon's irritation. "Don't laugh!" He pouted, as the laughs and snickers were no longer held back. Rukei's faint smile widened as she chuckled along with them.

The brunette trailed off as it began to grow silent, and she quickly brought her eyes up to see why only to find everyone staring at her.

"Rukei, you laughed!" Gon yelled and she immediately felt her cheeks run hot. The face of stone was put right back on as the room was once again filled with laughter and she avoided everyone's gaze.

"Aw, is Rukei embarrassed?" Leorio teased and she sniffed in an annoyed manner as she stayed silent for a couple more moments. She put her hand back out towards Gon stiffly.

"Give it back."

"Petty!"

-

Rukei glanced at her watch for a moment before continuing to mix up and solve the cube in between her hands. Though she wasn't quite sure if she could call it solving as she basically twisted it around based on muscle memory. It was a habit she had picked up long ago along with the cube, so she was used to them.

Two hours had passed and Chance still hadn't dropped a fellow into their path of majority. She listened carefully for any signs that someone was coming by, only to be distracted by the whirring of a skateboard, swinging of a fishing pole, and Leorio's continuous tapping. The clicking and clacking of the cube in her hands added to the noise but her fingers slowed to a stop as she glanced at Kurapika. She wondered if he was getting annoyed by all the noise in the room.

Suddenly, Leorio jumped to his feet having taken enough of the suffocating environment, "Oh, come on! It's been two hours! What if everyone already took different routes?" He smashed his fist against his palm, "Only an idiot would still be at the top of the tower!"

"Calm down, Leorio," Kurapika spoke up cooly, "Complaining won't help."

"But," the man continued on nervously, "What if no one shows up before we reach our time limit?"

Rukei's eyes wandered about the open space, "We can always bust down the walls," she suggested half-heartedly, "It'll be like a jail break."

"Rukei-"

Kurapika quickly brought a finger to his lips, shushing the older man, "Quiet!"

Leorio was angry at the thought of being told to shut up until the boy pointed above. Everyone gathered around the final door to be open, the knocking sounds becoming clearer and more pronounced. Finally!

Rukei couldn't help but feel a very good blow of dissapointment when she saw their final member who fell to the ground with a loud thump.

"Tonpa-san!"

Killua seemed just as dissapointed as she did while the boy shoved his hands into his pockets, "Oh."

"It's the old man," Leorio finished, using the nicknamed that everyone had given him.

Rukei grumbled under her breath a phrase that she had been using a bit too much recently. "How anticlimactic."

As soon as the fat man put on the watch, one of the walls slid upwards, revealing the doorway out. On it was another plaque reading 'At this door, press O to open, X not to open'. Round about questions like these annoyed her, so she quickly pressed X. If it was in her personality she would have shown her growing vexation as she stared at the screen. O - 5. X - 1.

Leorio however was much more vocal about it, "Who pushed the X button?!"

Tonpa laughed, "Sorry, sorry, that was me! I pressed the wrong button by mistake."

"Stop screwing around, old man!" Leorio growled with an annoyed, strained smile on his face, "Are your eyes going bad?"

"Like I said, it was an accident."

"How can you accidentally press the wrong button?!"

Gon broke in shedding some of his positive light on the group, "It's okay. The door opened."

"No, it is not okay!" Leorio countered angrily, "This guy deliberately pressed the wrong button..."

Kurapika stared at the escalating fight impassively, "Let's go. We don't have time to bicker."

"That's right," Killua agreed, with a lazy type of drone to his words, "Even if he keeps pressing the wrong one, the rest of us just have to press the right one."

"Ignore him," Rukei added, heading through the doorway.

They were immediately met with another choice planted on a red brick wall. On both sides of them were two hallways closed off by bars. 'Which way do you want to go?' It asked, 'O for right, X for left'.

O - 4, X - 2.

"Huh?! Why would you choose right?!" Leorio demanded, staring at all of them in a panicked manner, "Normally, you would go left!"

Kurapika nodded, before continuing on with a psychological explanation, "That is true. Studies have indicated that people who are lost or stuck at forks unconsciously tend to go left."

"I've heard of that too!" Killua piped up, she silently wondered where. She simply got the advice from her senior.

Rukei glanced at the board again before looking back at Leorio. "Shichi-oneesan said to go right when in doubt."

"Wait!" Leorio called out, still confused, "The numbers don't add up! Which button did you press?"

"Right."

"Right."

"Right."

"Why you..."

The next space they met was quite large, very spacious, but Rukei didn't see how they could continue. The next platform was separated from them by a drop off, to which she could not see the bottom to, and the room was lit up by four burning fires on the edge of the said platform.

"Look over there."

Rukei did as Killua said, and she felt an odd discomfort crawl up her and she could not place her finger as to why. Prisoners stood on the other side, their heads covered by drapes and their hands and cuffed together. A pair fell to the ground with a heavy clatter, freeing the man and he pulled the drape off his head, revealing it to be scarred all around.

The sound of the speakers coming on echoed throughout the room, "Gentlemen. Let me explain. Before you are some of Trick Tower's prisoners. The Hunter Exam committee has also officially hired them as examiners. You will be fighting against the six of them. The fights will be one on one. Each person may only fight once. You are free to use any method you like. There will be no draws. A win is declared when an opponent admits defeat."

The man that had pulled off the cloth called out to them. "You may pick your order. It's majority rule. So secure four wins here and you may pass. The rules are simple."

Leorio huffed, "So majority rule again, huh?"

"Well, I prefer straight forward rules," Killua stated, shrugging his shoulders.

Lippo seemed to laugh, "However the actual fights will not be so simple. The prisoner's sentences will be reduced by one year for every hour they delay the applicant here. In other words, their goal is to buy time."

That could be troublesome. Rukei eyed each of the prisoner's carefully, trying to get what she could, but the hoods really threw her off. "That's quite the motive."

"I understand. And we must reach the base of the tower in seventy-two hours," Kurapika looked down at his watch, "So time will be critical during these fights."

The man on the other side, Bendot, announced that he was first. Kurapika offered to take the first match only to be interrupted by Tonpa. She really wanted to prevent him from taking part of the whole ordeal in the first place, but Rukei most definitely did not want him as tie breaker. Having him go first would be best to get the whole thing done and over with...

But she definitely did not expect Tonpa to surrender their first match in the first few seconds.

Rukei was actually having a very hard time not glaring bullets through this... This nuisance.

Leorio confronted the man as soon as he came back with colorful words and snarls. Tonpa finally revealed his identity as the 'rookie crusher' only there to be an annoying pain to everyone else trying their best. Kurapika stopped Leorio from beating the crap out of the eyesore, as they all probably wanted to do but restrained themselves from. Leorio was about to counter when Killua spoke up with his eerily nonchalant voice.

"But you know, if their goal is to buy time, then the old man made the correct choice. That bald guy is probably a former soldier or mercenary," a sneer made it's way onto his face, "Had you fought him, he would have started by crushing your throat so you couldn't have given up. Then he would have tortured you without killing you for the rest of the remaining time..."

The fat man's face turned blue, as he slowly craned his head back over to an unimpressed Leorio, "O-of course I took that into consideration."

"You look sick."

The next prisoner seemed to be a lanky figure, Sedokan, he didn't seem to be much of a fighter, which probably meant he was a more clever, sly character. Gon volunteered to go next without missing a beat as everyone turned to look at him, blinking.

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah!"

Killua gave the prisoner a second glance. "The next opponent doesn't look to strong..."

"That's what I'm concerned about," Rukei noted warily.

She was right in having concern. At first, Sedokan offered a simple game of burning candles. At first it seemed like just a way to buy time but it appeared much more complicated when he revealed a longer and shorter candle.

Gon chose the longer candle with a rather simple minded reasoning, but they had decided to go with the boy's instincts either way. It was quiet, calm, and slow for the first few moments until Gon's candle bursted into a much large flamer that began to eat away at the wax that melted onto the boy's hands. The rigged candle seemed to be all but over, reduced to a little stub along with their chance of victory until the boy placed the candle down on the ground with a wide, victorious grin on his face.

He dashed forward with his quick step, and blew out Sedokan's candle within a couple seconds. Rukei could only stand there amazed, hoping that maybe his cheerfulness wasn't the only contagious thing, and maybe that way of thinking that turned a crisis into a chance would rub off on her too.

Sedokan returned to the prisoners and exchanged some coarse remarks there, before the next man stepped forward. She couldn't see his face very well, but she could see the blue skin behind the shackles, odd in and of itself. As the man threw off the rags, she concluded that odd would not be a good enough word for him.

He was of gigantic figure with wires running around his head, faintly reminding her of some character in a horror movie that Crimson watched. He seemed to be made of even more muscle then Bendot, and Rukei wondered if Kurapika would really be okay. But the more she looked at the opponent, the more suspicious she became.

The more he talked, the more Rukei felt the need to roll her eyes. Shichi could easily beat this man to a pulp with both hands behind her back. As perceptive as Kurapika was, she was sure he figured it out too. This prisoner, Majitani, was nothing but talk as he cackled about blood, entrails, and agony.

She was proven right as Kurapika calmly tossed away his weapons and tabard, facing the man without the slightest fear. Majitani then smashed the concrete underneath Kurapika as the boy lept away, shielding his face from a shower of stones, sliding to the ground on one knee.

And then the prisoner made his greatest mistake. He turned around.

Rukei stared at the twelve-legged spider tattooed on his back; the symbol most associated with the Phantom Troupe, the brutal thieves that left a river of blood in their trails. She had handled a couple files on them before, so she raised an eyebrow at the missing number. On top of that, claiming that he had killed only nineteen people and was a part of the Phantom Troupe was a very bad call.

However the more Majitani talked about the Phantom Troupe, the more unrest she felt grab at her mind and heart; it was not coming from the fraud, rather from her friend, who was stood silently, slowly.

Silence was different then Kurapika's normal quietude, this silence was familiar. She had felt it before somewhere, an unforgettable feeling that clawed at her.

Red.

Red, glowing red, the most beautiful shade she had ever laid her eyes upon. The color seemed to have a life force of it's own, a color that could never be recreated. She didn't have the words to describe it, the vivid color that blazed with fury. What was her 'expressive eyes' in the presence of that burning scarlet?

The sight of his eyes, so red with rage and hatred seemed to boil her blood and scorch her heart. If that was the result of only looking at them then what was he himself feeling? While the scarlet eyes seemed to be a pit of rage, why did it also seem to be an abyss of sorrow? What was it?

Oh. She knew.

Hatred.

The sea and the ocean would meet in her eyes. They would both share an iris but keep their distinct colors, blue and green. Shichi's eyes were pretty to look at.

But Rukei remembered the flashing storm crashing against the soul's windows, the colors blue and green churned with loathing. A tempest of ire in her eyes reflected their surroundings of the downpour that failed to put out the inferno that spread around them.

Hatred.

She had not forgotten the look of hatred. Not once had she forgotten it when she had seen in upon Shichi's face. Not once had her heart not ached in pain and fright upon seeing Shichi's blazing eyes. Not once had she been able to reach out and stop the fiery suffering that scalded Shichi.

Not once.

Kurapika grabbed the man by the jaw, lifting the yelling man into the air, before throwing him down to smash the man's face in, sending him to hit the ground three or four times before finally coming to a stand still.

"Consider this a warning," Kurapika almost whispered, as if he could barely restrain himself, "First. A real Phantom Troupe tattoo has the member's number on the spider. Second. They don't bother counting how many they've killed. Third. Never mention the Phantom Troupe again. If you do," the boy lifted his head slightly, the blonde locks making way for the Scarlet Eyes burning with Hatred, "I will kill you."

。。。

Hmm... I feel like Rukei's memories and the description of Kurapika's eyes were too dramatic here... What do you think?

Again, thank you for reading! I will hope that you look forward to the next chapter, where a very, very important piece about Rukei is revealed. Comments and votes are very welcome at Hunters X and X Heroes!