A/N: [WARNING] Fighting, gore, cutting, death, and the occult. Read at your own discretion.

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Cold stone chilled Violet's back. A perfect contrast to the burning along her broken right forearm that continued to heal. Hints of fresh air met her senses, carrying the smell of ocean water and heat-tolerant birch trees. The breeze teased her with freedom, a hair's breadth beyond reach.

With great effort, she peeled her eyelids apart. The swollen right limb stabilised within her vision first. It was improved and only half the natural size, but pain still wrecked her whole system. The cold of her body was dangerously uncomfortable.

I'm exposed... I need to get it together. I have to escape.

"Please, Mother," Sammy begged. "Let me sedate her deeper. There is no need for her to feel the sacrifice. We can still get what we nee—"

"Mercy? For a sacrificial lamb?" Xanque!tesh questioned. "Now, where is the amusement in that? This is the best part. Particularly the begging. She acted strong. Let's put it to the test."

Stars twinkled in a nightly display of brilliance. They danced their light show as if the numbers matched the possibilities in a person's life. Violet wondered about the choices she had made. Would things have turned out differently if she had connected the dots of a different set of stars? Walked a different path?

But philosophy needed to wait, possibly permanently.

The crumbling stones of the ruins she was housed within were designed to show the sky. They once stood in such beauty, but time beckoned the structure back to the earth as it did everything. Violet was under moonlight as well as the veil of lit torches. The dew-soaked cobblestone of a decorated circular floor met her searching gaze, complete with at least twenty witches scattered around. A platform level overlooked where Violet lay frozen. The rusted railing and barriers were rotted away in several locations, with many pieces fallen to waste on the floor.

A bright white crystal the size of a toro shone directly onto Violet from a shelf across the room from her position. Only her neck and head could shift under the crystal's watchful focus. Inside it lay the artefact she had risked her limb and life to free from the in-between portal world. She gasped and fought to move without success.

"It's not just the crystal and blade that keep you frozen," Xanque!tesh answered the question Violet never asked. "The circular hex carved into the floor is doing most of that work and is necessary for this to be successful. But everything from our power to the sacrifice we take from you will be amplified with this arrangement. It's perfect."

Violet clamped her eyes shut and cried, trying to move any piece of her body, to no avail. Xanque!tesh stepped away from Violet, and she was momentarily thankful. 

"The blade handle will create part of the key needed to open the lock. But first, we need to break the barriers to access the keyhole. We're close."

Once the sound of Xanque!tesh boots returning echoed against the stone, Violet's heart picked a new dangerous pace. But she couldn't fault it. Fear saturated every cell in her body.

"I don't see why you need me for your bank heist! Find another Nen user or call a professional!" Violet threw rage into her voice. It did little to cover the fear she knew her face displayed.

"Bold." Xanque!tesh knelt, and Violet felt the cold kiss of a metal blade at her neck. "They said you grew into a young woman of great fire."

"I'm twenty-six, nearly twenty-seven! Hardly young and not a child. Stop treating me as one." Violet snarled.

"Twenty is but a child. Thirty is young. Only once humans reach forty do they start to gain any semblance of self-awareness and understanding of their experiences," Xanque!tesh responded. "It's why I like to remove your kind before they reach useful years, forty and higher. Youths think they know everything and are in the best years of their lives, but it's an illusion. Even so, I'm several thousand years your elder."

A flick of her hand saw the blade bite over the bruising Jason left. Blood trickled down unabated to the stone.

"You'll show respect," instructed Xanque!tesh.

"My reaper may take my life, but you'll never earn my respect."

"Then perhaps I'll take your fighting spirit." Xanque!tesh leaned closer to Violet's face. "That blade handle is an ancient God weapon. And only your kind could retrieve it. We knew the whereabouts but not how to get it out. Samantha arranged everything and set you on the path to its retrieval. It's the only reason she still breathes," she explained and spared a glance at Sammy. "This is the very weapon and key that will kill you. In fact, she was the one who planted Jason on your team to drive you from the hunters making it easier for us to collect you. She knew his history with women and the likely outcome."

Violet's lips quivered faster than she could stop them. As her pathetic features reflected through Xanque!tesh frigid blue eyes, she turned away, unable to stomach the sight of her weakness.

"Despite her affection for you, she still took these initiatives," Xanque!tesh whispered. "Not a single friend in your entire life, Violet. Such a sad existence indeed."

"Shut up!" Violet bellowed with more strength than she possessed. "You're all monsters! Nothing surprises me about your mental tortures of any human!"

Xanque!tesh straightened. "Poor, child. No idea what you are at all. Going through life completely oblivious to the truth around you and no idea of the power you possess. How sad it must be to lack complete understanding of your purpose in this world when it's so essential to every living thing," she taunted. "Don't fret, little budding would-be God-Slayer; we'll put your blood and bones to good use, releasing the God your predecessors locked away so long ago."

What? What did she call me?! She's insane!

"But I'll need visuals to know it's working."

The blade struck Violet's forearms in several locations. It seared as if acid bit into her flesh. Iron filled her mouth as she bit on her cheek to prevent the wails.

"I-it's not clotting..."

"No, little God-Slayer. There is an anti-coagulant on the blade and a nasty additive to ensure ample pain." Xanque!tesh ginned in an unnatural way that unnerved even Violet.

Red painted the skin of her upper arms, spreading below her and into the grooves of the stone sacrificial altar. As the liquid rushed away, she realised it was a collection vessel. When the witch moved into the circle to station herself by Violet's side, awareness struck that only her undergarments remained. Stripped to give easier access to the skin, dread weighed heavy on her mind. The options for escape dwindled to near nothing.

"A touch more flow first, then we should be able to begin the activation," Xanque!tesh said more to herself.

The cold blade cut slowly and painfully across Violet's sides, one at a time. A cry muffled against her closed mouth as Xanque!tesh watched, keen for a pain reaction. The witch smiled, clearly enjoying the task of breaking Violet.

It was undeniable how harsh the pain was, but she had endured worse. I can only control how I respond now, and I will not give this hag what she wants.

"Wonderful. That is a good start." Xanque!tesh left the circle allowing Violet to fight the pain as much as the writhing her body fought to do on instinct alone. "The bottle, Samantha."

Tears clouded the edges of Violet's vision as she watched Sammy hand a black glass vile to Xanque!tesh. It was the only option remaining, so she swallowed her pride and sent a beseeching look of desperation into Sammy's olive eyes. When Sammy turned away and refused to watch the torture or meet her eyes, heartbreak burst through her chest all over again. The friend and would-be lover sunk halfway into the shadows deeper within the room. She hid most of herself beneath the overhead balcony covering the room's outer edge.

The soft padding approach of Xanque!tesh boots brought Violet back to her predicament. She turned her head away in defiance; the only movement she was afforded the choice to make. It was a short-lived battle as the ancient witch forced her nose under the open vile.

Violet squeezed her eyes shut and refused to breathe. Another bite of the blade across her cheek forced her to gasp. Putrid was a vast underestimation of the smell within the vile. It seeped well past her sense of smell. The chemicals so vile and evil soaked into her blood and passed through her organs with malice. The depth of the invasion sunk deep into the cortex of her bones.

Shrieks like none she had ever made called from her vocal cords. Anguish beyond any Violet would ever wish on her worst advisory racked through her system. She screeched to no avail. Not the slightest bit of relief rushed to her side. But a feminine voice echoed from a distance in her mind.

Fight it, Violet! Fight it! It's pushing me back! Fight until I can gain ground!

A product of her insanity from the burning pain, no doubt. Her body was moving on its own. She could feel every single cell in her form. That awareness was agony alone, but the torture within the cells only amplified it. Violet knew it was her; an instinct said as much. She was changing and churning in a way a human body never should. Every time she reached a plateau of torture, a new one would open and devour her further.

"Hisoka! Help me!" Wet tears stained her cheeks and mixed with the blood that ever-flowed from her open wounds. "Please, I need help. Please, Hisoka!"

Cackles of laughter escaped Xanque!tesh before she jeered, "Yes! Perfect!" The blade dug into her stomach skin. "But shall we speed up this process and add to the pain? You kept me running for years, and I must repay the inconvenience."

The blade ripped a superficial wound from above her naval to the base of her chest. More screams elicited from Violet.

"You had me running my resources across countries and dimensions alike, you little shit! I even had to alter demons to retrieve you with no success! You'll pay that debt forward one-hundred fold!" Xanque!tesh screamed. "And your psychotic dark knight is not coming! Even he knows when to cut ties. If he doesn't, the witch's traps will kill him! Perhaps he's already dead in one of the corridors! Imagine that for your final waking thoughts."

Dangerous blackness invaded the edges of Violet's vision but didn't stop her from realising the danger as Xanque!tesh raised the knife high. She drove it down hard, aimed at Violet's shoulder.

The venomous bite never landed.

Violet and Xanque!tesh locked wide eyes before devastating cries of torture resumed from the burning huntress. The witch turned to look at her severed right wrist, handing by two threads of flesh. Blood rushed onto Violet's chest, spurting in a rhythm that matched Xanque!tesh's heart rate. Feet from Violet's head, the sacrificial knife lay broken in two pieces along with the edge of the stone altar circle. A black joker Shu-filled playing card embedded deep in the cobblestone, disrupting the altar.

The sound of a second card leaving the shadows passed through the room. Witches gasped and called in horror, unprepared for the attack. Xanque!tesh rolled for the blade and sent it flying into the path of the second long-range attack.

The five of spade's path was altered by the last-second movements of the witch. The card buried deep in the wall, half a centimetre from the crystal. The item rocked but stabilised.

Soft steps from Hisoka's reasonable pink flats sounded as he emerged from the darkness. Sammy Walker's head dripped copious amounts of blood from her torn neck. His fingers dug deep into her skull, where he had torn it from her shoulders.

His eyes were dark and eerily wide, psychosis on the verge of overtaking the magician. White shone as bright as the black dilated pupil within his orbs. Nearly nothing of the golden irises Violet adored so much remained. Shattering skull sounded as he pushed hard into Sammy's head, freeing pieces of brain from its encasing and allowing it to explode outward with his anger.

"I'm very bored with you targeting my kitten at every opportunity!"

Any relief Violet may have experienced was overshadowed by the next wave of heat-based agony that blazed through her body. Wails filled the tense air around the circular room.

"H-Hisoka!" Violet cried, desperate to feel any semblance of safety. And there it was, mere feet from her, laid out in psychotic glory. But she hadn't the power to even see straight, let alone rise and rush towards the magician.

"Well, if it isn't the knight in shining armour. Are you coming to save the damsel?" Xanque!tesh taunted.

"I'm no knight, black or red suit. I'm her wild card."

A wide nightmare-nourishing smile burst onto Hisoka's face and matched the eyes perfectly as he snapped. Violet had never been so terrified. Excruciating torment riddled her body, and a blood-thirsty witch stood between her and the would-be rescuer who seemed as likely to murder as protect. Overwhelmed looked at Violet from the distance as the situation veered her further into insanity.

But none of it changed how she felt for the murderous magician. He rushed Xanque!tesh and was blocked by two witches. One worked close range while the other tried to subdue him by casting. A third skid in front of Violet's line of sight, taking up the mantle of bodyguard as Xanque!tesh chanted and worked a spell over her wrist. The repair of her severed hand was slow and forced an ugly snarl and wrinkled nose onto her face.

Screams reached their ears and the guard witch clad in brown with a mixture of black and grey hair, rushed to meet the enraged Hisoka on his path to Xanque!tesh. Not once had he called to or looked at Violet. All his attention was on her captor.

Violet watched as the witch frayed with him, cutting through his Nen. It wasn't instant, but with enough swings, she could overwhelm him. The knife cut a superficial wound against his cheek as he ripped her throat into pieces. She fell hard, guts spilling like the sack of rotten apples she now embodied.

It was terrifying to watch him use raw strength alone to overcome women that were feared with such good reason. However, his agility was limited. One thing Hisoka possessed that Violet kept great awe and respect for was his ability to assess an opponent within minutes for all strengths and weaknesses. From that, he could formulate a perfect battle plan and overwhelm every adversary mid-battle. He had never lost a battle in his life since childhood. Pride had swelled when he explained this to her and even demonstrated it in battle at Heaven's Arena.

In retrospect, Violet understood it was a peacock fanning his feathers for his choice peahen. But she didn't mind. She would have smiled at the thought if given a choice and gladly accepted Hisoka's version of show-and-tell. If only the pain subdued. However, it continued in unrelenting waves. She was beginning to conquer it. But not soon enough.

Hisoka and Xanque!tesh collided. The witch had already realised what dawned at that moment on Violet—the magician couldn't access his battle intelligence. She wasn't even certain he could think at all. He was wild like a frenzied shark. And Xanque!tesh was about to fin him as cruelly as every poaching fisherman.

Only bloodlust drove the magician. It locked away his intelligence, agility, subtlety, and any chances of success. Violet was terrified for greater reasons than her safety. She feared Hisoka was about to be slain.

The coven Mother shied away from direct impacts. She could handle a hit, but her behaviour meant his raw power outmatched even that of the ancient witch. But her skills, malice, drives and mind were stronger, at least as long as Hisoka ran wild.

In a flurry of action, the pair of fighting killers met mid-air and Xanque!tesh was forced back. She slid along the stone on her back for a moment before hitting an uneven patch and tumbling unlady-like, landing near Violet. The huntress braced and turned her head to protect against the impact.

It never came. Xanque!tesh stopped herself, screamed and rushed back into the fray with Hisoka.

Violet tried to call to him, to wake him. Please! Let my voice reach him! He has to wake up!

"Hiso—"

Chaos surrounded Violet breaking her words into death-like coughing. Her lungs and throat filled with heat, and thick black ooze sprayed from her mouth. She gasped and fought against the effects, with her vision going in and out of focus.

Then, she spotted the black glass vile. It landed next to Violet in the last toss of Xanque!tesh. Poison in the air blocked her ability to scream. The waves of pain driven by her body's horrendous, unnatural changes shifted into a continuous supply of black agony.

"Shit!" Xanque!tesh screamed. "Someone close the vile before it kills her! If it happens too fast, we won't get the necessary pieces!"

When Violet turned back to find her lover, he was being overcome by Xanque!tesh, her fingers reaching into his neck, already beneath the skin. Hot tears burned Violet's cheeks as she saw the brilliant golden hue return to his eyes, and they locked gazes. He was waking, but all she could do was give one last wish to the universe that he would survive because she knew it was too late for herself.

Black poison invaded the edges of Violet's vision, and the last thing she saw before it took over was Hisoka mouthing her name. Then, nothing. Nothing but deaf, blind and mute agony.