We arrive at a structure that's more rubble than building. This dump is the Phantom Troupe's hideout? Guess it's inconspicuous. From the looks of the stained glass window panes it used to be a church. All the spiders sit among the wreckage. Streams of light shine down on us, so bright it radiates through my body. Everything is warm and gray. Pakunoda and Machi walk ahead with the boys while Nobunaga and Phinks stand by me. I can feel Nobunaga's eyes on me, seeping through my clothes, hair, skin. Whenever I can, I keep my eyes lowered hoping he'll grow bored or Phinks will distract him with conversation, but he hasn't stopped staring since before the car ride over here.

"Do I know you?" he asked with me sitting in the middle of them in the car.

Of all the questions he asked about a chain user, my involvement with them, why I was following them, do I know you is the hardest.

"I don't think so," I lied. But I remember his face perfectly from the night he and Uvo came to the strip joint. A place called Sapphires. He liked his women cheap so there I was posing as one of the dancers. It was a rank place that always smelled like smoke and meat, bass vibrated through the walls and floor, everything was covered in blue light. Back then I wasn't strong enough to fight Uvo, or bring him in as my bounty single-handed, and even if I was, Nobunaga was there. He was so drunk it was comical, stumbling over women, climbing on stage, laughing at everything even a punch to the face. Yet Nobu kept his samurai sword on him at all times as if he could snap into kill mode at any minute.

So I took a different approach and practiced pole and aerial dancing for weeks so I could stand out. I was already a pretty good acrobat when it came to dance, but that kind of focused seduction—mid split, twerk, butterfly—was new to me. I remember crawling towards Uvo on stage in a navy blue teddy, arch in my back, glitter on my cheekbones and thighs, my skin the color of midnight, eyes like stars. Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison" played in the background. I was so arrogant, I just knew he didn't stand a chance. Looking back I was definitely too direct, obvious enough to warrant suspicion. And Uvo should've known he wasn't that special. Maybe he did know and just didn't care. When I laid in front of him, Nobu tried to touch me, a few singles in his hand, but Uvo pushed him away. I've only seen men have a This is mine look, and that look never left Uvo's face that night.

It was so many years ago, I'm surprised I remember this well. Between the drunkenness, bar fight, obscure lighting, other women, and erasure of time, I shouldn't be more than a shadow in Nobu's memory.

The other spiders stare down at us: Franklin, Shizuku, Feitan, Bonolenov, Shalnark, Kortopi...and of course Hisoka, who looks away from me like we're strangers passing each other by. It would be suspicious if we admitted knowing each other.

"Hey!" Gon shouts, bright eyes batting towards Hisoka.

Idiot. Thankfully Killua covers for him, noting an arm wrestling match with Shizuku a few days ago. But it backfires when Nobu challenges Gon to arm wrestle with him. I'm glad his eyes are finally off me, but I hope he doesn't rough Gon up too much. Match after match Gon loses, his right hand bruised by a stone slab, eventually trickling blood. What's the point of this? Nobu must be trying to break him. Or take his frustrations from Uvo's death out on him. I know they were close, maybe the closest thing to best friends and brothers that each other had. But this has got to stop somewhere. Then out of nowhere Gon's nen kicks up, a clear flame engulfs his body and finally he manages to slam Nobu's hand down. Though Nobu seems impressed, Feitan , a short pale weasel of a man slams Gon down, threatening to break his hand. Killua gets ready to help, but Hisoka comes up behind him with a card cutting into his neck.

"Leave him alone, he did what you asked," I pipe up.

Everyone looks up at me. Phinks grips my arms so hard I can already feel bruises forming.

Feitan's eyes narrow. "You look familiar."

"She looks familiar to me too," Shizuku says.

"Ditto," Nobu chimes in.

I can almost hear Hisoka's grin growing. Here we go.

Feitan points at me. "You're the ballerina from the auction. The one that nicked my neck, shot Franklin, and knocked out Shizuku."

"She did?" Shizuku asked.

"Hmmph. I've never seen a ballerina with thighs that heavy before," Machi says crossing her arms.

"But they're obviously all muscle," Shizuku responds.

"You've got a lot of guts coming here," Feitan says.

Shikuzu shakes her head. " But I swear I've seen you somewhere else."

"How were you able to use my own nen bullets against me?" Franklin asks.

Shizuku's eyes widen as her jaw drops. "Oh my gosh! You're that dancer Oby Nwaike! I follow you on Bingstagram and FunTube!"

Shalnark shakes his head. "Guys we really should be focused on finding the chain user that killed Uvo and if any of them are working with him."

Kurapika's the chain user? I never saw any chains on his hands. Wonder if he's a Conjurer. But would that have been enough to take Uvo down? The chains must have some special abilities...

Shizuku's feet swing as she gets all giddy over me. "You specialize in Afro-Caribbean, latin dance, and ballet, right?"

Shalnark sighs and looks at his phone. "I'm just going to look her up so we can put this to bed and move on."

"Everybody shut up!" Nobu says before walking up to me. He grabs my hair and tips my head back. "I don't care about how you shake your ass on stage. Who the hell are you and where is Uvo?"

"I'm no one."

He inhales, looks me up and down then strokes the side of my body from my crop top to my shorts.

"What the hell are you doing?" Machi asks.

"This blue looks familiar..." he mutters. It takes him a few seconds, but he finally puts things together. "You're that stripper Uvo was screwing a few years back." Unfortunately I don't have time to be tickled by the troupe's commentary or offended by Nobu's fondling because I need to think my way out of where this is going. They're going to beat me and there's no way I can win unless I miraculously get to another window, but there are too many Spiders near me. There's an off chance the Gon and Killua would try to help me, but we're all outmatched, and Hisoka will just stand back to watch the chaos erupt. Fight to the death? Maybe. Perhaps one or two of the spiders will take mercy on me. I could earn their respect if I put up a good fight.

"Where is Uvo?" Nobu repeats.

"Buried in the Gordeau Desert." I feel everyone's eyes on me again. Even the air around us stops moving.

"Did you kill him?"

"No."

"Do you know who did?"

"That's all I have for y—."

Nobu socks me in my stomach, knocking the air out of my body. Phinks is the only thing holding me up. "You're going to tell me everything you know and every time you hold back I'm going to break something, starting with your fingers."

"There is a quicker way to handle this," Pakunoda steps forward, "I can just scan her memory to see what she knows." I didn't realize how close she is to me. Within two steps her fingers brush my shoulders and images flood to the surface before I even know what's going on. A drop of water in a pond. My lips on Uvo's. The night we met. My fight with some of the Phantom Troupe members at the auction. A coin flipping through the air. The wrinkles in my mother's face as she cries over my father dead in our hut. The gleam of my childhood machete in the sun after I slice into the killer's throat. Sugarcane wilting beneath my feet. Dancing the bachata and kizomba on a patch of wooden floor board.

She sees my poverty, my escape. I want her out of my head. I can tell she's trying to focus her search to the present. The only way I can fight her is to concentrate on past memories. An image of Uvo and I naked in bed appears. I'm laying on his back while he shows me a picture of the Phantom Troupe and tells me stories about their escapades. The only family he's known. An image of fish roasting over a fire appears, then is replaced by the flashing lights in Heaven's Arena. Black lipstick kisses on my fans' faces. My dance for Hisoka, the gleam of his eyes in the dark. Our fight in the abandoned amusement park. A hand hitting Uvo's face while he's strapped to a table.

She's getting closer. There must be a way I can protect his identity. I grab Pakunoda's arm and try refocus the energy. Her power slowly becomes mine. The surge that hit me now travels backwards, the drop of water flies out of the pond. I see a group of dirty kids playing in a hill of garbage. One cuts his pudgy foot on a tin can, gets sick, loses his vision. An oily haired girl cries for him. She has gawky limbs, a hook nose, and gets pushed around by a group of boys. She falls to the ground and they burn off her hair in a shape similar to Pakunoda's bob now. Everyone calls her Cut. From a compost pile she grabs a rotting apple and scoops out the maggots so she can eat it. I see the metal she tries to scrap with countless other children searching through heaps of detritus. A large baobab tree appears in the distance, a hand is held out to her, it belongs to a pale young man with gray eyes and short black hair. She calls him Chrollo. The girl is now a young woman reborn clean and molded to kill, her pistol in hand. I see a bullet go through a row of heads, all which have crimson eyes.

It feels like a shot through my own head burning, burrowing further, so I let go and so does Pakunoda. Her eyes shimmer like glass threatening to break. Fear is etched in her face. We both got too close, seeing several of our lifetimes in mere seconds. At least none of what she saw put Kurapika at risk.

"So, what happened?" Nobu asks.

Pakunoda looks down. "I couldn't find anything. She locked me out of her memories and then entered mine. But it appears she may have a thing for men in our troupe."

"What? How's that possible?" Feitan asks.

"We're going to have to handle this my way," Nobu unsheathes his sword and holds it to my neck, "You know something. I don't care how long I have to fight it out of you—"

I flip over taking Phinks with me, everything's in slow motion. I had to catch them off guard. What better time than when he's puffing himself up trying to intimidate me? As Phinks begins to fall to the ground, I kick Nobunaga in the face narrowly missing his blade. His body spirals, first his head, spit and blood flying out his mouth, then his torso and the sword follows. Rather than coming down to get cut, I flip over his head. When I hit the ground in a cloud of dust I know I only have a second before other spiders are on me.

Since mostly everyone's on the ground I jump up on the rocks to give myself space to see where I can go, what I can use to help me fight. Bonolenov, the mummified mute in boxing gloves approaches me, but I punch him down and hear him tumble down the pile. When I'm at the top I look down and see all the spiders looking up at me. Machi takes out her nen needle and thread. "You can't stay up there forever."

Feitain's hands sharpen to blades, Franklin's fingers unlock his hand guns, and Shizuku's vacuum appears. Gon and Killua fire up their nen and get in defensive positions, but I won't have them in harm's way. I turn to look at them. "This isn't your fight so don't get involved." Hisoka leans against a wall on the far side of the room, arms folded, cheeky grin. His eyes glimmer like he knows a secret I don't. I can tell he's already entertained. All that's missing is him eating a bag of popcorn while he watches me. I take my hair down and place a foot behind a sizable piece of rubble. "You might want to get out of the way, boys."

When Killua looks at the rocks for a moment his eyes widen and he grabs Gon's hand and quickly jumps towards the wall. Once I see they're out of the way, I kick the rock down, then another and another until the rubble gives way and turns into an avalanche. Fuck, this is going to hurt.

Note: Hello beautiful people! The Phantom Troupe finale (possibly 2 parts) is on the horizon and we'll soon enter Greed Island. Final face off with the spiders, secrets revealed by Oby about Gon's father, and of course Hisoka will be his normal, sexy self... maybe moreso as he and Oby begin to work more closely together. ★—_—🌢 Votes n comments welcome. xoxox