Shichi was tired: the last time she slept was—

... She can't remember when it was, but that time was probably brief and usually left her feeling more deprived than she did before. She dragged her leaden, filthy, sole-worn boots onward through the night never ending not even a comfortable weariness to sink into during the still moments, no lull, no drift. Just a woman stranded, and Shichi was tired.

And now, on top of that, with a mind bogged down by exhaustion, boggled by questions, confusion swamped her conscious and unable to find answers behind actions, Shichi was not only tired, but also angry.

"What." Shichi snapped: more of a curse than a question, "Rukei, I told you that it was an ord—"

"Get out of my way."

Illuminated by feeble, white moonlight that just barely managed to creep through the thick glass, Rukei glared at her. Her hands, though hardly visible, trembled— Rukei was scared, which all the more proved her resolve.

Shichi's slanted smile hilted the acidic cut in her voice. "Are you serious?" You know she is. "You know what you're doing?" That's why she's scared, you fool.

The girl snatched up a toy out of the holster, held in what she struggled to maintain a firm, iron grip steadied on the woman ahead of her. "I know."

After a heavy, silent pause and with a long, deep sigh, Shichi breathed out, "Okay."

She slid the dirty coat off her shoulders and with a frigid, staccato click, click, click retrieved Tenjū from the hard shell guitar case. White wings burst forth from her back, bouncing back a cold glow in the dark corridor- colder still was the look in her eyes. The sea and the ocean were freezing.

"You broke the rules."

Swinging Tenjū out, Shichi swatted away Rukei's grappling hands, blowing the girl back several meters. Her foot scraped against the floor, pulling her defensive rolling to a stop and blasting her forward like a bullet again. Shichi raised her arm and needed to grit her teeth to bring it down. Again. They were doing this again.

Rukei ducked under the heavy end of the rifle, expectedly she would use this to slip through the gaps and grab the woman by the inside of her elbow and throw her weight off, but a filthy boot met the child's abdomen.

The woman was tired, she was tired of all of it!

Rukei kicked out her legs in a snare to topple her sister— they slid over nothing—a single, feathery beat blew the woman upwards. The ghost of stone breathed over her spine; the ceiling hung over Shichi, too low and heavy like a smoke coiling in.

"You've gotten better," Shichi conceded to the girl spitefully, "Not good enough, though."

The brunette barely escaped unscathed when Shichi dropped, heel sailing over the girl's shoulder instead of her head as Rukei retreated, though only a few centimeters, shocked and unbalanced. Predicted and trapped, Shichi slammed the end of her rifle against the girl's nose—

The word barely left her lips before they could get busted. "Trace!"

The gun veered in the other direction, its embellished, smooth, surface running out from the woman's calloused fingers and crashing against the wall— a small hand clutching a paint gun tightly forced Shichi's vision the other direction with a wicked WHAM!

"You've gotten worse," Rukei echoed her own observation dully, yanking Shichi off her center by that grayed lapel, legs swinging and grip steeled to smash the woman into the stone floor beneath them.

Shichi didn't land, shooting her leg back out behind her and caging herself in white feathers to protect herself from Rukei's barrage. But the moment Shichi felt a sharp paint pellet sting, she flung them outwards, batting the child standing at point blank into the window. A sharp crack broke into the woman's memories.

It was the window. It was the window, Shichi, get it together!

Rukei's eyes burned with a coral fire (fire, FIRE), and what else was there? With the way she seemed so disappointed yet the determination that persisted throughout her aura, what was that?

Oh you know.

You're not such a fool or a monster

to forget her tears twice.

"Why?" Shichi spat out, finding no better word at the moment, as her elbow struck against girl's arm instead of her temple, "What are you trying to stop me from this time?!"

Barely deflecting one hit after another, only to be blinded by a white field, then by stars (a kick to the jaw? Or her whole skull splitting?), Rukei could not catch breath to reply. She skittered away from another blow barely— Shichi's voice bounced in the corners of her brain, pricking at her eyes, pinching in her nose, her ears are ringing.

"And you?" Rukei demanded in a crumpled voice, blood spilling over busted lips, "What are you fighting for?"

"No, it's just that... I don't really get what you're doing all of this for, Shichi."

Shichi spat bitterly at the child— but what was that? The girl's short, light brown hair seemed to shine more ginger in the moonlight and her twisted, pained expression twisted further into a crooked, boyish grin. "This is my job, Rukei."

"No, it's not!" Rukei yelled, the sharpness in her voice scathing, "All you've done is stay silent in the Alliance's shadow after you made a mistake, and now you're going to spread your wings? When you're safe? You said Hunters are supposed to be in danger!"

Stomps crash, crash, crashing against the ground like ferocious waves against the shore, Shichi scowl only grew heavier while she readied a fist, "Don't tell me what Hunters are supposed to do!"

White plumage acted as an extension of the woman's arms; whenever Rukei darted close enough for a hit, a barricade of feathers flattened out before her setting her into confusion, and up and away would the girl's vision and balance go. Hopefully, soon, her consciousness with it.

"Don't be a child!" Rukei reprimanded (in this situation? Yeah, some things never change), "Why do I always have to act like the older one out of us?!"

"Yeah, it's always kids who say that!" Shichi shot back indignantly, her expression smarted with the burning fury and shock of a false accusation, "Do you have any idea how many God forbidden circles I have run around because of you and your friends?"

Rukei straightened her posture rigidly in the middle of the fight: defending her honor had suddenly become more important. "You say that as if I haven't had anything to worry about-!"

"No one asked you to worry," Shichi snarled, exasperating every coil of her acerbic, furious sting.

"Do I only take actions when people ask?"

"When have you done any different?!"

Rukei progressively flushed redder with frustration, "I have! No one asked me to become a Hunter either! Or to save you from the fire—"

"Damn right!" Shichi snapped, "No one asked you to! Nobody asked you!"

Did Shichi's voice just... crack?

They stood closely to one another- either one of them could raise a fist and end the other then. Against her fighter's instinct but according to her tired, vulnerable mind, Shichi drew back a couple steps, breathing in tiredly. Warily. "Why the hell did you do that? Why are you doing this?"

Rukei retracted her hand from the side of her skull (it rang and bounced) and replied evenly, quietly. She stated it like it was normal, though the muted tones of her voice betrayed her hesitance in admitting that it was so. "I needed to see you. And I want to see them."

With an old, half-humored roughness to it, Shichi's scoff drifted through the corridors, "Do you even remember what I did?"

A pause. Tense still, ready for battle yet, this conversation lasted like Rukei and Shichi held all the time in the world to search for the things they wanted to say. "Was... that a rhetorical question?"

The woman sucked in air through her teeth, seeming ready to hurtle off into war again (it certainly delivered to the child that message, obvious since she braced herself, scooting her left leg back) but exhaled again through her nose, in pure confusion, irritation, and exhaustion. "What is wrong with you? Do you only get the things you want to get or something?" Dryly, she chuckled out a swear, "I don't get any of you."

   "There are things I don't understand that I wish I didn't," Rukei murmured. Her gaze was level. "Why Marron volunteered." Her voice was even. "Why Marron betrayed us."

Shichi fingers twitched. Her jaw tightened.

"You already knew, didn't you?"

-

Before her, reasoned a young ginger with a boyish grin and freckles, looking so much like someone else; she was thankful that the pure absurdity of his costume led her attention- memories wandering lost behind it- away.

-

From the day he lied to her about knowing nothing about the phantom troupe despite having camped outside the vault for hours, his disappearance and the assassination of the Ten Dons, his uncharacteristic goading for Rukei go stay, Shichi knew.

Why didn't she see this before? Why did she see this now? Marron, Marron who resembled another that she loved, Marron who's excited greetings brought a tilted smile to her face wether or not she liked it, Marron, Marron the boy she never considered as an enemy, lied to her.

Marron lied to her, and she believed him willingly. Completely.

"Shichi-oneesan?"

Shichi's wings folded abruptly, collapsing into her aura and muttering under her breath, "That brat lied to me. I know. I know he wanted you to stay because goody-two-shoes Rukei was a perfect alibi."

    The girl pressed her lips together tightly— Rukei accepted this, like everything else she told herself to accept about the Alliance: their sanctimonious words, their ambiguous actions, their dishonorable silence. Marron, Subject 8, could not be protected so unfairly.

The woman cursed suddenly and dragged a hand down over her face, "I forgot Tenjū. Trace it back, Rukei."

The brunette froze suspiciously. "Only if I can see them."

"Are you trying to bargain with me?" Whirling on her heels, the woman scoffed, "Right now?"

Rukei said nothing, her will set in iron.

   "Haven't you acted out of line enough?"

   "No," Rukei's hands curled back into a fist, "Not enough."

As if preparing for a lengthy (and probably loud) speech, Shichi wet her lips— only to end with a sigh cloaking a dry amusement. "Y'know, what? Do whatever you want. Knock yourself out."

   What? The reply dumfounded the child. Was she being fooled again? "You'll allow it?"

"It's not if I allow you, right?" Shichi rumbled, "So, can you please Trace Tenjū back?"

Why did her trembling return with such fortitude that Rukei felt like she was going to collapse? She should be overjoyed, accomplished! Those emotions indeed washed over her, only that Rukei had not realized that the relief was to the extent of washing away her ability to stand and that the sharp, salty sting behind her eyes accompanied Victory's soughing wind.

"Shichi-oneesan?"

"What."

"Thank you."

Shichi grunted something and looked away.

Rukei dragged her finger over the ground to form the circle. The weapon returned and the two sisters hurried down the corridor seeing two entirely different things: for the younger, a new path, for the other, an old road.

There were only a few chambers in the Alliance to hold prisoners- they only operate as temporary cells, until Hunters from the Association or the government relocate them to proper prisons; found at the end of the maze of halls, the cells were the only section of the building aside from the library with completely rebuilt walls rather than simply reinforcing the stone slabs built there.

   Echoes that once bounded freely now hushed betrayed the switch in the medium. It however, wasn't hushed enough to escape the ears of Gon Freeces. That and barking followed by "down, boy!".

   "Oh, someone's coming," the boy interrupted the other three's debate on who they thought was the killer, "I hope you came up with a good conclusion!"

   "Yeah, right, like it's that easy—"

   Sharp, urgent banging on the door, and a monotonous yell of "hey!".

   A dumb silence fell over the company; with furrowed brows and a slackened jaw of disbelief, Leorio yelled back. "Is— is that you, Rukei?"

   "Yes!" the girl replied, "I'll break down the door momentarily, but please listen to what I have to say. While I can release you, all our circumstances essentially demand that we stay here one way or another. This puts us in an awkward situation with the Alliance. In the first place, this normally isn't the optimal way of getting you all out."

   They crowded around the door; she was earnest, though clearly uneasy. The bespectacled man replied back, "So you can't talk it out with them?"

   "I'm a child— perhaps less than that," Rukei corrected herself, "They have no reason to listen to me."

   "Or to lock us up!"

   "The Alliance's reasoning and then its actions: its far too out of hand- there are others beside you here. In the cell next to you are the Zyphon experiments. And in the one across from you, several other members. My reasons for breaking you out are selfish, and I apologize: I want your support."

   A weary voice interrupted her: not only weary, but reluctant. "Do you think that the Alliance would purposely put possible defenses like Wil and Jen into stupid roles and stupid places at a time like this? There's someone much higher up handling the ropes."

   They were surprised to hear the woman's voice— for someone who disappeared when they needed her the most to intervene, her reappearance was somehow unwelcome and somewhat resented.

   "Very soon, this sanctuary will become a living hell," Shichi stated heavily, "Be ready for that when you walk out of there."

   A scoff from a tart voice, "Yeah, like waiting in this tiny room wasn't. Took you long enough, stuuuuupid!"

   "Don't make me take back my apology, Killua," Rukei threatened immediately, "I regained consciousness an hour ago."

   "So I can break this door down, right?"

   "Please refrain from doing so, Gon. I can manage something with Trace-"

   "First comes rock! Rock... Paper..."

   Shichi exchanged a glance of something like confused alarm with Rukei- they both ducked for cover at the ear-splitting crack!, and the remains of the door spun over the floor in bits of dented shrapnel.

   The rustic stared down at his fist with his surprise, "Oh. That wasn't as hard as I thought it was."

   "Was that necessary?" Kurapika queried as the grounded dust cleared, and the boy offered an apologetic grin.

   "Hey, Rukei."

   Concern riddled his face, though he seemed relieved that they were out and Rukei was fine; he readjusted the tinted glasses, lowering his voice a little while others fussed over the destruction and the noise it made (ironically, but not surprisingly, Shichi raised her voice).

   Leorio slouched over a little and even cupping his mouth, "Are you really okay with this?"

   "I'm scared," Rukei smiled. Fire rushed through her veins and shook her soul, and she liked the way it burned, "But I'm okay."

- - -

h hey guys wassup, haven't seen yall in a while haha

haha

ha

this chapter was sitting finished in my drafts for 2 years. I couldn't bring myself to post it because it's. Well, you see how it is.. I did some minimal editing but you can see that disappear as you get further in because it gets so. HGGGGGGGGGGG this situation is irreparable. I must take responsibility and die like a man. I'm gonna take it full force guys. I DONT know why this story is making a comeback, don't be fooled by that shiny new summary i added yhear, but if you need GOOD hunter x hunter fics check out my reading list those are *chefs kiss* hxh fandom is NOT dead RISE UP

Really tho, yalls support is insane. Thank you. Here's the other half: If X Clipped, X Run

SO where have I been? on ig, making comics. Both Rukei and Shichi are in it, revived as a characters in an original series. You can see the art in both my B TEAM book and on my ig.

Here this chapter's star, Shichi. She's grown a lot, huh?