The tall fellow was waiting to greet them. His arms were riddled with curious marks; they were scars but it was near impossible to tell what they were from. They seem like they used to be very deep, as if he had been punctured from the inside out. They were large as well, both in size and number.

The girl who returned the man's friendly 'hello' knew exactly what they were from, and her friends could more or less guess.

When Leorio first saw the man standing at the end of the corridor with a nomadic grin that he had seen before, the intern dropped his checkered suitcase in alarm and called for a retreat. His hysteria made for hysterical laughter from the scarred man and the children.

Rukei couldn't even keep down a smile as she tried to explain the situation to the doctor; her mouth was oddly twisted into a very bad attempt of frown. It looked like she was trying to smirk and hold back a sneeze at the same time.

The scarred man squinted, he was trying to pick out some sort of detailed difference as they came closer. He crossed his arms, but that didn't help him, so he cupped his chin in his hand. "Is it just me or have you gotten shorter?"

"'Shorter'?" Rukei echoed, her bemused expression falling into disbelief and a slight hint of disappointment, "That's impossible, Jen. I'm thirteen. I'm growing."

"Not faster than these boys," Jen hummed, crouching down to the children as he made an invisible line over her head.

She heard the sharp, victorious clap from behind her, so she knew her friends gave each other a high-five. When she first met Gon, she was taller than him, the spiky hair aside of course. In the exam, Rukei was pretty sure that Killua and herself were separated by only a tiny margin, if not exactly the same, and her ever perfect posture usually gave the illusion that she was the tallest out of them.

Now, not so much. Upon her somewhat dismayed look, Jen decided to double-check, "Alright, fine. Back to back."

They followed his directions eagerly, shuffling to stand against each other awkwardly, as the three of them could not be literally 'back to back'. If Glass and Shichi had not already long left for their meeting, they would have rolled their eyes at the foolishness. Crimson would have played along, giving the brunette something akin to a comforting pat on the shoulder.

"Rukei, stop standing on your tip-toes," Leorio snickered.

Both Killua and Gon craned their heads around to check, but the girl was back on her heels just in the nick of time with a denial that nobody was going to take. "I wasn't."

"Killua's the tallest," Jen concluded before anyone could call her out, pulling away his marred arm that he used as a makeshift level, "Gon's gonna catch up pretty soon though."

The white-haired boy set his elbow on her shoulder, using her as a makeshift rest as he leaned on his new post with a smug grin, "'Killua's the tallest,' he says."

She sniffed irritably and roughly yanked her arm away, fast enough for him to lose his balance and nearly fall to the ground. "I'm thirteen, I'm still growing," Rukei repeated, trying to convince herself more than anyone else. She turned to doctor with a hopeful look, "Right?"

"It's hard to say," Leorio made an expression to mimic one contemplating a difficult subject, and Rukei suddenly regretted not taking Shichi's advice of drinking lots of milk.

He immediately took back his words when Rukei gave him a very slight glare and told him to stop lying.

"Hey, it's Jen!"

The bright call was from the a familiar, light-haired, freckled thief who had an unfamiliar companion with an ashen complexion trailing behind him reluctantly. The woman, maybe a couple years older than Leorio, nervously rubbed her arm as her pale eyes flitted from one person to another, before deciding that the wall was the most interesting to stare at.

The two subjects exchanged hearty greetings and laughs; the words between Rukei and Yona were much quieter, awkward, and limited, but they also went through the custom. Yona had not changed much. The woman spoke scarcely, and when she had company, it was usually Marron, who carried on his jolly, yet one-sided conversations. They did not meet each other while in Meteor City- Rukei heard from Marron- but they had a lot in common, so he guessed that was why Yona was easier with himself.

Whatever they had 'in common' was not evident to her friends who watched cluelessly, as Jen affectionately threw his arms around the two citizens of the nonexistent city with a wide grin, and said it was good to be back together.

"We were hardly even together," Yona's spoke faintly. She had the sort of sound like something vanishing, like the evanesce of crystalized breaths in the winter.

Jen's voice was a direct contrast; he was always very loud, as Rukei complained, and his yelling had a sort of rugged quality to it, as if he always had a laugh stuck in his throat. "Cold as ever, Yona."

"I thought you and Jen were paired up together the most," Marron glanced towards the woman, after tapping out of Jen's tight and, unfortunately, unappreciated grip.

Yona only shook her head. Rukei corrected the ginger for the woman, "Yona guarded Wren. Remember?"

"Did she?" Marron repeated, turning his bewildered gaze towards the woman, "Did you?"

Her expression said that she was frankly unimpressed by the boy's memory.

Marron tried to apologize to her while Rukei introduced Gon and Killua to Yona, for Leorio's case, she made sure he knew both of the experiments. "She is Yona. Leorio, this will be your first time meeting, but this is Marron."

The woman barely nodded, but the boy gave a flaring bow, the way he swept his foot behind him and his arm in front of him was very unnecessary- and to Leorio, somewhat familiar. He felt like he had seen this on TV before... "A pleasure to make your acquaintance!"

The doctor sought for clarification. From what he had experienced with the Zyphon experiments, Rukei aside, they were hostile and crazy. Jen, rather Rock at that time, looked like he had lost a few screws- granted, Leorio was not that far from the mark- and the doctor was pretty sure that Elaine had lost all her screws. But the two in front of him seemed, at least somewhat... normal? "So, both of you are experiments?"

"I'm Subject 8, and she's Subject 6," Marron finished, gesturing to the ashen woman beside him before placing his hands on his hips in a satisfied manner, "I'm glad there's four of us. At least we outnumber the Zakuya!"

"Five," Rukei stated firmly, "Wil is with us."

Yona's brow creased in confusion, scanning one person to another. Had they forgotten the most unforgettable of all? She was looking forward to seeing him and his contagious excitement. Her eyes lingered on Gon for a moment; he closely resembled the boy she was looking for, but he was not. It was in the pure honesty that glowed in his eyes. "What of Wistle?"

Nobody answered her.

Yona was not present during the rebellion. She had received a tip from Marron and disappeared from society days before. She returned to the place she was the most familiar with, and remained hidden there in the place that did not exist for five years.

"Let's go to the office," Jen started, giving the woman a pat on the back. It was significantly gentler than his usual cheerful slaps, "Marron and Rukei have a long process to run through today."

-

"Eight hours?!"

The doctor did not even turn to the freckled boy; Galen prepared himself to completely tune out the boy's whining the moment he had walked into the room. Rukei offhandedly wondered if the phantom thief noticed that the old man had plugs in his ears.

The ginger histrionically flailed his arms about, like that would alter the flow of time and shorten the tests or, a much more unlikely case, change Galen's mind. With an aggravated look, Killua ducked once to avoid getting hit. "But, Doctor, I'm sixteen! I can't stay still for eight hours! My young, wild heart calls for me! I must listen to it until I grow old, like Jen!"

"You would never survive high school," the scarred man exhaled deeply after fixing the ginger's statement; Jen was only thirty-three.

Yona scoffed; it came out like a puff of brumal air, and it was just as icy to the youth's fragile heart. "He would not survive elementary."

"Why is everyone so mean to me?"

"Leorio," the doctor started, taking out the plugs for a moment to talk to his temporary assistant. He seemed tired; his voice had the same dry quality of another they knew. Leorio remembered the said other telling him that Galen would be cranky because he had to deal with a heavily injured Wick the other night, "You won't need to be looking after the experiments that much. They probably won't be something you'll encounter often. Just make sure Wick doesn't die today."

One end of the intern's mouth twisted downwards in disapproval, and he shared a short stare with the brunette. She was about to ask him what he was concerned about before he nodded and replied with a short, "I understand."

"What does she have to go through today?" Killua questioned, as the old man stood up and turned to wash his hands, "Why does it take so long?"

"There's no use explaining to you kids," Galen muttered, while giving directions first to Jen and Yona, "We'll be here all day."

"We're already going to be here all day," Gon pointed out innocently, dragging out the 'all' for a couple seconds, and Rukei gave him a light elbow and warning not to bother the doctor too much.

Galen grumbled something when Yona flinched away from the needle. He spoke loudly, louder than he usually did or allowed in his office when he replied to the boy, suddenly changing his mind as he worked, "Basically, I gave her and Marron something that'll make today's test easier. It takes about eight hours to take effect. Today, what she's going to take has stronger side effects, so I'm keeping her here to be monitored. If something's wrong with her, she'll have a pretty serious reaction."

Killua frowned, giving the girl next to him a sidelong glance, "That sounds really shifty."

"It is," Galen replied regretfully. It was then that Killua noticed; today and the day before- was Galen angry because he didn't want to use this process? "But there's no other way. Here, we can help here. It's better than her dropping dead somewhere else."

The girl shrugged off the concerned looks given to her with her usual impassive reasoning. "The most serious side effect is severe dehydration which only occurs if the subject moves around excessively. I've taken it several times before. Nothing happens if you stay relatively still. That's what the Rubik's cube is for."

"Plus myself," Marron chimed with a grin, "I'm still here to keep her company!"

Once Galen set the bandage over the woman's arm, his voice returned to its normal volume. "I know that Rukei won't have a problem. She listens. You on the other hand, are a different story."

"Who, sir, me, sir?" The ginger sang with an exaggerated feint of guiltlessness, folding his hands behind his back as he whistled a short tune.

"Don't force yourselves to stay here," Rukei assured her two friends with a gesture to the boy and Leorio, "You'll annoy Dr. Galen, and it won't speed up the process," she gave a quick look out the window along with a suggestion, "Take a look around Jianghai. Or look into the Chimera Ants. We can't relax. Time doesn't stop when we're not at Yorknew or the Balsa Islands."

-

"We can't relax," Cheril stated firmly, "We're not sure if our spy is just receiving false information, or if he's dead and we've been getting information from someone else. Either way, with that explosion from yesterday, they know that we know."

Shichi grunted, plugging in her almost completely drained laptop to an outlet, "They know everything. Unlike us."

"It's something to be expected," Noriko sighed deeply, "The XX Alliance thrives on the Hunter website; it's why we're such a big deal. We get the most information about everything across the world to every Hunter across the world. The problem is that all that is on the website can be bought, and right now they have the mafia in their support. We can only guess which families they're collecting from."

"Or how much they are collecting," Wren stiffly added to the complex equation they had on their hands. Half of them unconsciously believed that their answer would come up as 'no solution'.

The entire Alliance was carried on the backs of thirty-eight people. Out of those thirty-eight, only fourteen were Hunters. Five of them were ex-members of the criminal organization they were fighting. One of them is an exhausted and haughty teenager on the edge of her twenties, another is a thirteen-year old child. This information is also known by the Zakuya.

"Miss Shichi, Glass told me you said something interesting," Harold Andor called that said teenager out of nowhere, and she suddenly did not look haughty at all, "You said that the Zakuya wanted to imply a sort of message. A 'declaration of war', was it?"

"Of sorts," Shichi repeated charily, her voice filled with a hesitance of one stepping one's way through a mine field, "I can't think of many other options. It's just- their movements are really erratic..."

"Highly unlikely," Cheril muttered while she balled her hands into fists. He was right, even Glass said so, and she, the other Crime Hunter, was wrong.

"I'd like to entertain that idea."

Shichi whirled around like she heard a bomb go off. Though, this feeling was much more pleasant; a foreign- rather, very old jolt of energy that she hadn't felt in a long time ran through her blood.

Harold Andor smiled, smoothing out his lapel casually as he turned to the woman, "Miss Shichi, why do you think the Zakuya has revived? For money? For power?"

Shichi glanced at Glass and Crimson, looking for some sort of help. She was overjoyed to be approved by the man himself, but that also meant being pushed back into the mine field with a blindfold. "I think there is a more focused cause. Money? Yes. But only to achieve power. For what?" Shichi turned her stare on the floor in defeat, "If we knew, we wouldn't have this problem."

"What do you think we should do to find out?" He continued on smoothly. Shichi had begun to feel like a real student the past few days, being asked questions people already knew the answer to.

The dark-haired woman still did not lift her gaze, but she was more confident in this answer than the last. "I think the Zakuya's irregular actions are influenced by who they deal with. They're being selective. Even though they have control of the the Ten Dons' title, a majority of the mafia isn't involved. They're going too far out of their way... of course, that may just be to avoid detection... Even if it wasn't for finding their cause, we still need to know their lifeline and cut it off."

Harold Andor gave her small smile, and she let out a breath she didn't know she was holding when he turned away. "Glass. I know we've tried it once before, but can you do it one more time?"

The blonde's face was mostly stoic, but the way his hand twitched to close for a second said he was not particularly pleased about the idea. But there was no exception to his harsh, bare rule regarding work, including himself. "Fine."

He retrieved from a pocket inside the blue windbreaker a silver compact. It was circular in shape, and it obviously used to be something beautiful, but the years had tarnished its white, burnish shell embellished with what looked to be some flower; that flower too seemed to have faded- rather, it had wilted away in a blackened winter.

Glass stood there, staring at the round frame in his hand intensely. Those around him tried to give him the room and comfort to focus, but in the end, their eyes also wandered over to the man and the mirror. He opened it and spoke.

"Magic Mirror in a compact,
the shadow seeks to make a contract,
tell me now, mirror of old,
to whom have they borrowed and sold?"

Glass' Magic Mirror had three restrictions. He could only speak in rhymes, his own rhymes, wether they be end rhymes or eye rhymes, and his answer would be returned in the same format usually riddled with mysteries and ambiguity.

He could not find out a person by using their name; if he wished to find out about Shichi, he could only do his best to describe her and hope that Magic Mirror's response would be in correlation to the dark-haired woman.

And Magic Mirror only operated for the current. Glass could not look for the past or the future; all the Mirror reflected was the present.

The Hunters around him held their breath; some had only seen it happen once, and to those who had seen it many times, it had never grown, unlike its silver surface, old.

The voice that replied was melodic but weary, like one of a mother putting to sleep her child after a long day. Shichi had memorized this voice a long time ago; a grim smile tugged at one end of her mouth as she recalled it. When she first studied under Glass, when she was still young, she liked to dream that voice coming from her mother's throat.

"Covered in dirt and dust
with those, who's rage has yet to rust,
hidden by hate and scorn,
between them an alliance has been born."

Crimson was the first to try to shade in the gaps between the lines they could not see. Their reply was notably more vague than the last few they had heard; the others were actually decipherable. "At least we know it's a personal grudge."

"Do we though?" Shichi skeptically put in, "It may not be against us. For all we know, we're just one of their little stepping stones. An obstacle before the real chaos begins."

Wren stood up first, straightening her blouse. For some reason, to Shichi, Wren almost looked like how a bird would when it preens its feathers- maybe it was how she would crane her neck around to assure she was not missing any spots.

But the dark-skinned woman always looked professional as well; perhaps it was the set expression on her face similar to Rukei's. "I will see to Flask's and Route's interrogation myself. With this information, we may actually get somewhere. Shichi, you lose your temper, and Cheril, you aren't as experienced."

"Very well," Harold Andor finished, following the woman's actions, "I'll have everyone report back by tonight. Do not forget Magic Mirror's words."

-

"Have you ever been to Jianghai before, Jen?"

The man hummed, sparing a look to the boy who asked the question as the exited the Alliance walls. "No- actually maybe once? I think might have been here for a mission a long time ago."

Jen had decided to tag along with Gon and Killua who wanted to have a look around. Shugo was on the Ochiman continent- fairly far from Yoribia. There was no way that the Ant would have washed up in this country, and anything they could have found online had already be thoroughly searched. Yona opted to stay within the Alliance's building and take a nap in the break room.

"Didn't Kurapika said he was going to be in Yuinan area?" The boy brought up having settled one topic, he bounced to another, "We should meet up with him!"

Killua rolled his eyes at the boy's ability to pick up detail; sometimes he could catch the most evasive point that would end up being a key to turn a situation completely around and other times, like this time, everything seemed to go right over the boy's head. "Were you paying attention earlier? Kurapika said he needed a translator to navigate the Yuinan district."

Gon frowned; he didn't speak Shugonese, and Killua didn't speak Shugonese... Rukei could but she was taking tests... The rustic stared intensely at the ground, trying to think of ways to break the language barrier without knowing the language. He whipped his gaze over to Jen at a new idea. "Jen, can you speak Shugonese?"

"What? No," the man replied quickly, incredulously. Gon came up with the most random questions, and the said boy was currently disappointed by the man's answer.

Maybe Shichi could help them!

-

Unfortunately for Gon, Shichi had already left. With a draw of lots, the woman had been decided to be the blonde's translator, and that was how the jinxed duo was quickly reunited.

"You're well-informed."

Kurapika glanced over to her quizzically, as they side stepped a pair of workers moving a large ladder through the streets- she gave a curt, foreign apology to someone she bumped into as a result. Yuinan's streets were significantly less populated than the main areas of Jianghai, but it was a little congested nonetheless because of the narrower streets. "What?"

Shichi's eyes flit from one building to another. She was in the correct place, wasn't she? The type of place Kurapika was looking for could move at a moment's notice, so there was no guarantee that it remained at the same spot. "Most tourists wander into Yuinan expecting to read Hunter."

"I am more surprised that people are unaware about the circumstances surrounding Shugo," Kurapika replied with a vaguely amused huff, "It remained in major news articles for a long time."

"A long time ago," Shichi added, drawling certain words for effect, "A very long time ago. Like, beginning of the Association long time ago."

"Shugo and East Gorteau were the only two major countries that countered the idea of Hunter becoming the global language for more than four years. Shugo yielded when they realized they were losing profit and power due to the language barrier after nearly a decade, but there are still districts like Yuinan that refuse to use Hunter to this day." the blonde brushed her off stoically, "I think everyone should know this much."

Shichi sneered, looking away from the blonde to read over a couple signs. "Nerd."

For a very short moment, his brow creased with annoyance, before returning to its usual impassive appearance as he changed the subject easily. "You are very different around Harold Andor. I was not aware that you were into older men."

Shichi choked on her own spit. "What the hell- no!" She ran a hand through her bangs, exasperated at the resurfacing of the subject. Apparently, this was not the first time, "He's just someone I respect. A lot. He deserves it."

"Rukei appears to feel the same way," Kurapika noted, remembering the girl fumbling for the man's title in Yorknew, "Is there a personal connection between you all?"

Shichi exhaled deeply through her nose; the conversation had distracted her enough so that they missed a turn. They turned around and walk back. "He was one of my examiners during the Hunter Exam. When he was nosing into my business on why I was taking the exam, I, uh, flipped him off without knowing that. I'm still amazed he passed me. I was a brat."

"'Was'?"

The woman spoke through grit teeth, she tried to ignore the insult. "In any case, after meeting Harold Andor in the Hunter Exam, he offered me a ton of help in getting out of the Zakuya. I denied most of it at that time, but he sent Crimson to watch me. Once Glass found out about that, he took Andor's help, and here we are today," her shoulders relaxed a little, and she released the grip of her jaw, "I owe him a lot. And partial thanks to him for Wings of Gabriel."

Kurapika interest piqued at the mention of her Nen ability. The great, white feathers stretching across her back had surprised him the other night; he had not expected her Nen to be so... conspicuous, or for her to be a fellow Conjurer. "How long have you had that ability?"

"Since...," she stopped for a second to think, counting up the numbers in her head, "Six years? Two of those I took to form it."

The blonde waited for her to stop conversing with another man before he spoke. He could understand that she was trying to get the names of the people who lived in one of the buildings, and then the business next to it. "Two years to form?"

"I'd like to see you try and learn how to fly," Shichi jabbed with a sarcastic grin, "And I'm not sure if you know this, but not everyone is a Nen prodigy."

He let out an annoyed breath; she was right. He had been surrounded by geniuses, one of them was the woman's little sister, so he had forgotten that the pace they were learning at was very unnatural. He was about to ask why she created Wings of Gabriel, but stopped when Shichi started talking with another, older woman who stood outside her store. She was slightly stooped over and looked like she only half understood what Shichi was saying.

Shichi tried switching to Hunter, and Kurapika then knew that Shichi was asking about the business above the woman's shop that was old in every sense. Kurapika gave a concerned glance to one of the painted, wooden poles in the center of the room- it was once a bright red, but now it was very faded, and chunks of the pillar has been chipped put. The air smelled strongly of herbs.

The rest of the building was in a similar state. The metal railings in the back of the elder's shop were rusted and bent in certain areas. The outside of the edifice also had color torn from it's wall; it was obvious that some places had paint slapped over it to cover some sort of graffiti- at some point they stopped trying because defamation remained untouched towards the sides of the buildings.

He tried to figure what was above the woman's floor- he could not read Shugonese but by the image on the neon sign, he could tell some sort of restaurant took another floor. He could not tell what was on the third, and he was not even sure if the fourth was being used.

Shichi's conversation with the elder went nowhere. The dark-haired woman pinched the bridge of her nose as the elderly lady offered the Crime Hunter a piece of some popular confectionary instead. She grumbled a semi-polite 'thanks', and turned around tiredly. "You sure you got the right address?"

"Yes," Kurapika replied, trying to look behind Shichi, "Is there an issue?"

The woman sighed and shook her head, turning her eyes back upwards, "No, it just seemed kinda... Let's just take a quick look," she finished quickly, stepping ahead of him and rounding the rusted stairs, "Maybe someone in the noodle shop above us can actually give us something. Other than candy."

   The results was better. The third floor was a studio for wire art according to the lonely restaurant owner. Dark circles hung underneath his eyes, and he yawned often. A table in the back was covered in a napery of dust. The chairs were mismatched, some had backs and some didn't, a couple owned cushions, and others were lacking.

   They ascended the next flight of steps; the room on the floor was unlocked and empty. A peek in showed them a desolate room with wire and cords strewn about in a such chaos; all the tools were piled into the back, and looked like it hadn't been touched in a long while.

   "The woman you're looking for," Shichi started, breaking the quietude that hung over them like the musty air, "She's supposed to be a tailor now."

   The blonde followed her out the room to the final floor. They did not ask what was there, and they could only hope that it would be their answer. "You are acquainted with her?"

   "I've been in this craft much longer than you, Kurapika," Shichi boasted dryly, bitterly, "I've heard her name thrown around."

   The woman's hand rested on the doorknob, and she looked behind her. She was always cautious, Kurapika knew, but this was one of the few times that she dropped her relaxed demeanor and showed it. She broke the silence to confirm that there was only one person in the room- the blonde noted that she knew how to use En.

   Shichi took a deep breath, and leveled her blue-green eyes ahead. She had been in this craft much longer than Kurapika. "Don't let your guard down."

   But the woman Kurapika had sought and the woman Shichi had known was no longer there.

。。。

Very late update, I do apologize! But I did finish a lot of new art in the meantime! I mentioned which ones I posted on my message board and I'm about to mention some new ones below! I also will probably open up an art book at the beginning of October for Inktober and keep it there for other random pieces that are not related to any of my books.

Added art to Before X the X Mission and heavily revised art from Whale X Island! Please check them out if you have the time!

Yona's name is inspired by Yuna Kim. It's sorta embarrassing but Marron and Elaine were both taken off of Cardfight! Vanguard cards ^^;