She stepped back onto the platform among the others wearily, as if she had been drained of all her energy and she knew it wasn't from the fight. She should apologize, she had to apologize to Gon, Killua, Kurapika, and Leorio.

This wasn't her first time thinking about this; but it had been a while. She had been avoiding it desperately because she had discarded the past, she had left it there, it was no longer a part of her.

"It's not that easy."

They were the Zakuya.

A criminal syndicate stained in blood. The memories seem to pass through her brain, slide by slide like an old powerpoint. An agent once told her that he never remembered the faces of those that he killed. Not their names, not the mission, not the cries of those left behind. Nothing. The agent told her that she should follow suite.

"It's not that easy."

She remembered everything clearly. Their faces of ignorance, their faces of horror, their faces of desperation. The cries of a weeping mother, the cries of a widowed wife, the cries of a wailing child. Everything was very, very clear.

Her own cry over Shichi's limp, battered, bleeding body.

They were the Zakuya.

"Good work."

Huh?

Rukei looked up to meet blue eyes that feigned lazy nonchalance. Her gaze stayed on his for a bit longer only hoping that her silent message would be sent and received. "Of course."

"Now we're tied!" Gon stated cheerfully, the uplifting tone lightening the air a little. She wondered if they could sense it too; the intangible almost sorrowful string that bound each and every experiment together.

Rukei turned so that she was facing the platform, "It's up to you, Killua-" She almost flinched as she felt someone press a cotton swab to her cheek. It was then that she realized that the cut was still dripping blood down the side of her face and onto the hood of her yellow sweatshirt. She quickly wiped it away with the back of her hand and looked up at Leorio.

He was scrutinizing her injury carefully, before slapping a sticky plaster over it, "I don't know about Zairon blood or anything, but you need a bandaid over that."

She blinked in surprise, bringing her hand up to the white bandage, hiding away a smile, "It's Zyphon."

She was sure she saw steam and angry tick marks. "Does it matter?!"

Rukei would tell them herself about the who they were. She owed it to them. Of course, when that annoying, blue-suited, fat nuisance was out of the way.

Right now, she would focus her attention on Killua's match who declared that he would be heading off. Leorio gave the boy a very doubtful look to which Killua did not take to fondly.

He huffed, shoving his hands into his pockets, "Don't give up before we even know what the contest is," but then looked away sheepishly, "But if it's mental math or something, I'm surrendering."

"That's it!" The doctor started up cheerfully, "Depending on the opponent we still have a chance!"

"What is that supposed to mean?!" He turned to his friend angrily, pointing at the doctor, "Gon, this old geezer is really pissing me off!"

Rukei began to tune out the argument that began to go like 'right back at you little smart-' and tried to get a better look at the prisoner on the other side. She was pretty sure their last opponent was a man but by the looks the others were giving him, they seemed to be rather wary, frightened even as they backed away from him as the handcuffs were removed.

Majitani laughed and scorned the man only to be made into a crater in the wall as the man began to tear away at the tower walls with a single hand. He threw away the hood and Leorio paled. "That guy..."

"You know him?" Gon asked.

Leorio was very serious as he continued on with the statement, "We should take the loss. Killua! Don't fight him!"

"Why?" Killua asked, he sounded exactly like when he first met the doctor in the first phase.

"Johness the Dissector," Rukei recalled, after going through a couple memories, "I've handled a file on him before. We didn't capture him but I do know that one of our members had to help transfer him to this prison. From the XX Alliance that is." She added realizing that 'our' had different meanings now.

"He's the worst mass murderer in Zaban's history," Leorio detailed, "He chose his victims randomly. It was a famous case... 146 people, young and old, men and women, met their death's at his hands. The victims had one thing in common. He murdered all of them with his bare hands. He was known for his iron grip, the power in his fingers," Leorio finished as they watched him crush the rock in his hand effortlessly; the grains of dust falling away, "You don't have to fight that psychotic killer! There's always next year."

Killua did not waver for an instant as he walked forward, with his regular bored expression. The doctor called after him with worry but Kurapika stopped him, with the idea that Killua might have a plan.

"How are we settling the contest?"

"Contest?" The criminal echoed, "I believe that you're confused. This will be a one-sided massacre. I have no interest in the exam or any offer of amnesty. I just want to hear you scream."

Killua did not bat an eye at the threats or predictions. "Really? Okay," he put his opponents words in the simplified rules that he liked, "Then the one who dies loses."

Johness appeared to be mystified at the boy's casual manner for a moment but payed it no heed as he moved on. "Yeah, that's right." He continued to speak but Killua had already received the go sign.

With the rules properly put in place, Killua brought Johness' statement to life. A one sided massacre.

Rukei wasn't quite sure what kind of injury Killua had inflicted at first and tried to figure out what the dark red hole in his shirt was, soon realizing that the wound was very deep into the man's chest. Her eyes widened; he couldn't have-

The boy turned around with a dark smile across his face and a moving sack in between his fingers. Killua had ripped the man's heart out of his chest; ironic death for a man known as the 'Dissector'. She couldn't tell if the boy placed the heart into his opponent's open, limp hand out of mockery or something else, but with the uneasy feeling that had been bothering her all up until now had finally made it clear.

The familiarity surrounding Killua was not because of Killua himself but because of the boy's profession. The presence of an assassin. The '3' above their heads changed to a '4'.

"Okay," Killua called out calmly, looking towards the other prisoners, "That's four wins and two losses. We pass, right?"

Bendot found his voice after a couple seconds, "Yeah, you win."

"By the way," the white-haired boy went on, his voice having a more ominous underlining to it, "By the way, you must be itching for some action, since you didn't get to do anything," his grin grew wider, "Want to play with me?"

"... I'll abstain."

Killua shrugged with his usual nonchalance weaved among other things, "Oh, okay."

"Who is he?" Leorio muttered with shock.

Gon turned around, realizing the issue, "That's right. You guys don't know."

"Huh? Don't know what?"

"Killua comes from an elite family of assassins."

Leorio gaped at him, "E-eh? A-an elite family of assassins?!"

"I'm back," Killua chimed as he stepped back onto the platform, and Leorio flinched away from him.

"What?"

Rukei inwardly rolled her eyes. You did just rip out a person's heart. Of course, people are going to be surprised.

"Uh... Well...," Leorio tried to find the right words, settling with, "Good work!"

A passage to the left of them opened up, and it was explained that there they would find a small room where they would spend the fifty gambled away hours. She shifted her backpack around her shoulders, following Killua as he headed back across the bridge again.

But before she got onto the next bridge, she turned to the prisoners, her stare on the still unconscious Rock. The white-haired boy glanced back at her, "What's wrong?"

"How long was Rock's sentence?" Rukei called out to the others.

Bendot hummed, following her gaze, "I believe it was sixty years when he first came here. He already spent two years, and we stalled you for fifty-eight hours. He'll be free when he wakes up. Does that worry you?" He questioned with a smug look and she held back a laugh at this by turning her head away.

"The opposite," Rukei replied, puzzling the people around her, "When Rock wakes up, tell him that there are people out there for him. For us," she corrected herself.

The man sneered at her answer, "Don't you want to know his real name?"

"I'll ask him myself when he gets out of here." Rukei assured, stepping towards her friends. Then, they would have a proper introduction.

As soon as they stepped into the room, the little green light on the door turned red, and locked them all in. "Good grief, we have to spend fifty hours in this room?"

"Killua," Kurapika asked, suddenly bringing up the match they just had, "Can you tell me how that technique works?"

"Technique?"

Kurapika clarified for him, "The one you used to instantly remove his heart."

"Oh," he began apathetically, "That wasn't even a technique. I just ripped it out."

Kurapika raised an eyebrow at his casual explanation of pulling out an internal organ, "Ripped it out?"

The dark gaze returned as he brought up his hand to demonstrate, "But to make it easier, I manipulated my body a bit," he explained. His nails lengthened, resembling claws in a way, and from what she saw earlier, worked just as well.

"Wow!"

"Mass murderers are still only amateurs. I used to be a professional," Killua stated, pointing a finger towards himself, "But my old man would have done better. When he removes a heart, you won't even see a drop of blood."

Leorio chuckled dryly, "How reassuring."

"That's 'elite' for you," Rukei commented, glancing towards the clock. Only five minutes had passed.

"Now then, we have two more whole days."

"What should we do, Killua? Rukei?"

The white-haired boy had completely switched from assassin to twelve-year old child in the matter of moments as he excitedly continued, "First, we should search the room for any kind of entertainment."

"Yeah!"

"I wonder if they'd be nice enough to put something like that here..."

Leorio scoffed as they ran by him, beginning to dig through shelves "Man, you kids don't have a care in the world."

They had tried to find something on TV for a while, then tried to find some books to read, and then Rukei ended up trying to explain to Gon how to solve a Rubik's cube. She failed.

Thus Rukei having failed explaining her methods of entertainment, Killua tried to explain his skateboard trick to him instead. The yellow and red skateboard flew across the room, narrowly avoiding Leorio's face and the back of the nuisance's head. He also failed. "Hey! What are you doing?!"

Gon nervously scratched the back of his neck, "Sorry, sorry..."

"Don't skateboard in this tiny room!"

"Aww..."

An hour or so had passed, and she had confirmed that the nuisance was actually asleep, before sitting down on the ground with a sigh, the cube in one hand.

"What's wrong, Rukei?" The spiky-haired boy questioned, as she opened her eyes to see him follow her actions along with Killua.

"I...," Rukei stopped for a moment, trying to sort through the things she wanted to say before they came out as some kind of jumbled, rambling, incomprehensible narration, "I thought that it would be appropriate to tell you all about the Zakuya and Zyphon."

A muffled snap indicated that Kurapika had closed the book in between his hands as he turned to listen and Leorio had sat up more attentively. She opened her mouth to begin before realizing that she didn't know where to begin. She looked up at them.

"Rather, why don't you ask me what you want to know? It's easier to answer questions."

"Okay," Killua started, looking at her curiously, "How'd you go from Zakuya to the XX Alliance?"

Rukei nodded, trying to be as clear as possible and reminded herself to separate what they did know and what they didn't know, "Shichi-oneesan and Glass both worked with Crimson to take down the Zakuya. At that time, Crimson was an Alliance spy, that Shichi-oneesan had found out."

Of course, Rukei remembered this clearly, she could still see herself now, a girl who would soon be turning ten in Zakuya uniform with a real gun in her hands.

-

"You were right, Seven," Rukei had always reminded herself to call Shichi that amongst the other Zakuya members. She pointed the armed and ready gun at the crimson-haired lady struggling to maintain face in front of the ponytailed-teen, "Red is a spy."

"I'm always right, Puzzle," her sister joked despite the serious situation, taking a step forwards, one hand in her pocket, the other hand easily maneuvering the heavy musket. It was amazing how close their codenames were to their actual names.

'Red', or rather, Crimson, took a step back in response, her dark gray eyes unbroken and brave, "So what will you do, Seven?" The lady questioned evenly, "Will you tell the council?"

Shichi laughed, always easy mannered, despite her cautious and chary nature, "Let's see...," the girl drawled, placing her free hand in her chin as if she was debating something.

Rukei waited for the command to shoot the traitor; after maybe prodding some information out of the red-haired woman. There was no telling how many people Red had reported the information too. They needed to find those people and 'tie up some loose ends'.

"How about you help us?"

Red stared at her warily, very confused but not as confused as Rukei who whipped her head over to Shichi, so quickly her neck began to hurt. "Seven-"

"Or rather, how about we help you?"

"What?"

-

As it turned out, Glass and Shichi were already forming a rebellion that they had hid from Rukei for a while. She was uneasy and even scared, but she could not deny Shichi and ended up going along with it anyways. "I was dragged into it too. After all, I had been placed under Glass and Shichi-oneesan since I first entered the Zakuya."

"When and why did you become a part of the Zakuya?" Kurapika asked as she wrapped up her response to the first inquiry.

Rukei exhaled deeply upon this question. "My parents were under the Zakuya when I was born, but they managed to shield me from the knowledge of them and them from the knowledge of me for five years. They tried to escape but ended up being caught up in an accident and they passed away. I was with them, drugged to sleep but alive. The Zakuya found me," Rukei only realized then that she was solving the cube again, but it brought her relief so she did not stop, "They told me my parents died on a mission for a Zakuya. They wanted me follow their actions." She ended bitterly, resisting a scowl, "That was about seven years ago."

"Then Zyphon?" Gon continued on and at the word, she gingerly spared a look for the bandage on her cheek.

"Zyphon is something they put into our blood so they would have an easier time tampering with our bodies and cell structures. One of the side effects is the odd color of our blood. As you saw with Rock, we're given 'abilities' to use 'for the Zakuya'," a faint scornful smile crossed her face, "There are eight of us in total. There used to be nine, but he was killed during the rebellion."

"But you don't have an ability, right?" Gon reminded her of her match, "Rock said you didn't."

Rukei closed her eyes and nodded, "That is correct. I was their last experiment before the fall of the Zakuya, thus they did not complete the project. On top of that, Shichi-oneesan stalled them as long as possible during the procedures and they were rather careful with me. But they still managed to inject me with Zyphon, so Anti-Zyphon liquid has the same effect on me that you saw Rock go through earlier."

"The Anti-Zyphon liquid," Kurapika brought up, "Why do you carry it around?"

Rukei sped up the solving, this part made her nervous. "I... We rather... On occasion, we lose our minds to Zyphon under certain conditions. It varies from experiment to experiment so they created Anti-Zyphon which can basically shut down our system no matter what ability we are given."

There was a hum and moments of silence following, and while she was a little nervous of what they would think but she was glad that she was able to talk about it. That was the first time she had ever relayed that much about herself to someone and while she felt almost a little guilty, she was a bit relieved at the same time. She didn't understand it, but even if she didn't understand it, some part of her told her that it was okay.

"Rukei."

She moved her gaze towards Gon, who had a huge grin on his face. She didn't know why, but Gon was so cheerful, she was sure he could smile for no reason. But he did have a reason this time around.

"Thanks for telling us!"

"Huh?" She took a look around at her friends to see similar friendly gazes surrounding her. She flushed slightly, very slightly. She knew they were friends but saying the word out loud had a different, warm, fuzzy feel to it and it made her jumpy and a bit awkward, "Of course. Since you're my f-friends... And all... Thanks... For listening."

They laughed at her embarrassment and she quickly put her stone mask back on and worked away furiously at the cube in irritation. But another question had her slowing down and eventually all the clicking and clacking was put to a stop all together.

Leorio brought up a question that in the back of all her buddies' minds. "I've been thinking this for a while, but 'Shichi''s an awfully weird name. I mean, it's a number!"

Well, honestly, Gon, Killua, Leorio, Kurapika, and even her own name was also awfully weird but there was a reason for Shichi's name. "The name of Shichi-oneesan's father was Roku, her uncle, Go, her grandmother, Yon. And so on and so forth," she explained, "Why they didn't name her, 'Nana', instead, I don't know. Maybe they wanted to make it clear that she was named after a number?" She gave a half-hearted solution.

"Weird tradition," Killua mused, "Also didn't that guy called you 'Iron Face' or something? I thought your codename was 'Puzzle'."

Rukei huffed in aggravation upon the familiar titles, "It is. 'Iron Face' is the nickname they gave me. Even the XX Alliance members use it. It's annoying," she caught Killua's snickering face, "And no, don't try it."

"Alright," Leorio stood up, smiling smugly down at her, "You should go to sleep, Iron Face."

The white-haired boy grinned as he moved to turn off the lights and Kurapika held back a chuckle as Killua taunted her, "Yeah. Good night, Iron Face."

"I regret telling you."

-

Rukei awoke with a pillow in her face, and she sat up with irritation. She gave the two boys that were engaged in a pillow fight a disapproving stare. Gon returned a guilty look that she did not accept, "Sorry, I meant to hit Killua..."

The white-haired boy had a smug, cat-like look on his face, "C'mon, Iron Face, do you need your beauty sleep that badly-"

WHAM!

"If that's how you want it..." Rukei grabbed her own pillow to smack Gon in the face after she had already flung the other at Killua. She was not letting either boy get off scotch free.

Gon had quickly ducked underneath though, albeit he was surprised and she was about to take another swing when she barely had enough time to drop her own pillow to grab the one thrown at her. She looked up at the white-haired boy looking for revenge. It was war now.

"Hey, pipe down," Leorio scolded them drowsily, his words all slurred together. They all laughed sheepishly, a smile on Rukei's part, if she started laughing again, they'd all make a big, embarrassing deal out of it.

As Leorio tried to get some more sleep, he found Tonpa's smelly foot in his face and quickly jumped away to escape the stench. Even Kurapika began to chuckle and she had to cover her mouth with a pillow to hide her own.

"What's wrong with you guys?! This isn't funny," the man muttered before giving Tonpa a nasty look, "You better not be pretending to be asleep..." He stood up and headed towards the center of the room, "Geez, now I'm totally awake... And we still have forty hours left?"she glanced at the clock. 39:58.

The next day was spent similarly as the last. Except, instead of Rukei or Killua teaching, Gon decided to show them how to use his rod. "You have to think like a fish!"

"Think like a fish?"

"How would a fish feel if it saw bait dangling in front of it?" He chimed, and she wasn't quite sure how to respond to him. But apparently, unlike Rukei and Killua, Gon had some results for his teaching as Killua snagged the end of the sleeping Leorio's pants.

"See? I caught him," Killua bragged smugly, though she had to admit despite his humorous target, he did handled the rod pretty well.

The doctor stood up angrily, "What's that supposed to mean?! I'm a fish now?!"

The white-haired boy pouted, "You don't have to get so mad. It's not like I'm going to grill you and eat you."

"Don't mess with me you, fool!"

Rukei looked up at the white-haired boy, "You need to work on thinking like a fish, Killua."

"You too, Rukei?!"

-

Rukei woke up with a jolt and not because of some nonsense like a pillow fight.

But that shouldn't have been possible. She shook her head and held it in her hand. But the feeling was unmistakable; the hazy yet impossibly real gripping sensation. She quickly reached for the Rubik's cube in her bag to calm her down a little.

"A nightmare?"

Rukei lifted her head out of her palm to look at Kurapika with a novel in his hands and the towers of books surrounding him. She pulled her eyes away from him and back on the cube. "I don't know."

She could feel the confused look burn on her that asked for clarification as she began twisting and turning the cube together.

"I had a dream and I forgot what it was."

There was a small chuckle from the blonde at her apparent fuss of the little subject, "That happens a lot, Rukei."

"Too other people," she added on to his statement, before admitting, "I don't dream and I don't forget things."
There was a pause only filled by the clicking and clacking of the cube in her fingers. "But, that could also be a good thing, can't it?"

She stopped moving it around to look at the Kurta, "What?"

The boy gave her a comforting smile, a smile that was a bit too familiar, "It could have been a good dream."

Rukei was left speechless for a couple seconds, before returning to her cube, "Then I wish I remembered it," she added lightly after a few seconds, she blurted, "You remind me of Shichi-oneesan."

Ah. I wasn't supposed to say that out loud.

She quickly looked down at her feet and decided to just keep going rather than just leaving the weird statement out there by itself. But was putting other weird statements really going to help her?  "Actually, a lot of things remind me of Shichi-oneesan. I miss her." She stated after a moment of contemplation.

She could still feel Kurapika's gaze on her and she heard him close the book quietly, "Shichi means a lot to you, doesn't she?"

Rukei looked up quickly, Kurapika was still wearing the same smile and was not freaked out by her creepy comment. She nodded quickly. "Shichi-oneesan is family. My family is really important to me."

"I see," the blonde hummed gently. There was a sort of tired, faraway underlining to it that did not seem to be because of the lack of sleep. Melancholy? Nostalgia, maybe? Rukei doubted she could pin it down. He repeated the two words, placing the book away and leaning back in the chair with his eyes closed. "I see."

Oh. She knew.

Loneliness.

。。。

Wow, everything Kurapika I write turns out much more dark and dramatic... Though then again he does have a very dark background.

The actual reason why I named Shichi, 'Shichi' was because 'Nana-oneesan' had a bit too much... I don't know would 'assonance' be the right word for it? It kinda had a bouncy sound to it and 'Shichi' seemed to fit her character (that you will get to see quite a bit of later) better.

Rukei's name legitimately took me forever to decide. I switched it up a lot, then tried variating very slightly, but I ended up scrapping them completely and taking her name from 'Rubik' and working with it from there. *puffs up chest proudly* I'm actually very satisfied with her current name. Ah speaking of Rukei, the picture at the beginning of the chapter is supposed to be of her near the end of the Zakuya's existence so she's about ten. She looks almost exactly the same as she does when she's twelve though... ^^;

Edit: I remastered the art for this chapter, and I think it looks pretty good!

Also, I know that the 'experiment' thing is used quite a bit in HxH fanfictions and I tried to see what I could do to make sure Rukei wasn't a recycle of it but I don't know... With that said, how did she turn out?