Silence so intense it rang saturated floor two hundred. These levels homed only those who completed their one-hundred and ninetieth fight and ranged from where Violet vigilantly crept along to floor two-hundred and fifty-one.

No one was permitted entry except with tickets to access key areas where fights were held. Hisoka's bout was taking place on a higher level, and the time to enter had long passed. She knew the danger of hazing. Many fighters above floor two hundred were victims of hazing and missed arms, legs, and whole pieces of themselves. The act aimed to ensure they belonged and force a person's Nen to activate. Most died in the process, and those awakened would never have the power she did since it wasn't a natural process.

However, Violet didn't want to entangle with anyone and thanked her luck that the floor remained barren.

They must all be watching or attending Hisoka's fight. I guess he's not completely useless after all. Casting her gaze once more, she noted the extravagance that surrounded from ceiling to floor. God, these fighters live like Kings.

A short exploration later, she had yet to sense the scent again.

Maybe it was nothing. A fleeting memory best forgotten. Violet sighed. Although, her instincts had never failed in these situations before. She bit the end of her thumbnail. Leave or keep checking?

Seconds ticked past, and pressure forced a faster pace in her heart. The road is paved with dead animals that couldn't make a decision, Violet. Choose.

Pursed lips coloured her expression before a sigh led to her turning towards the large alcove housing the elevators. Descending from the danger zone was best. Pressing the button, she awaited the door's dinging indication that they would open.

It hit like a cold wall of death, and the chill coursed through her veins—a split second of that scent, one associated with so much suffering. Spinning back to the two-hundredth floor, the doors sang and opened wide at her back. But she could not ignore the potent yet fleeting waft of sulphur and brimstone.

Thus, the search continued. Without any leads or idea where to start, she determined a methodical approach as the best option. Walking the grid that was the upper floors, Violet commenced the game of hide and seek.

****

Sometime later, the scent reappeared for split seconds on three more occasions, but there was nothing more substantial. It became frustrating and infuriating long ago. Violet was finding little of anything but enough to prevent her from relaxing about it.

Tapping her foot, she waited with pursed lips and crossed arms as the elevator she rode within sounded. Violet walked onto the two-hundred and forty-fifth level. "Hisoka's floor," she whispered but ignored the knowledge in place of her current task. Glancing to the right, she scowled in the direction of the magician's room.

A lingering scent of vanilla, the sweet aroma always accompanying Hisoka, which she still couldn't place, and his enticing, natural musk met her nose. Sweat amplified the musk, and she growled at herself for falling into lust over the psychopath once more. More aggravating, his intoxicating aromas were mixed with another person's scent. It was floral and combined with cleanliness, possibly medication, but distinctly female. She swallowed as her chest tightened.

Stop it! You don't have time for this or to be focusing on that bi-sexual man whore! If he's found a new female playmate, all the better for us both.

But a small pit opened in her gut, and her frown deepened. Growling, she shook her head. "Why do I even care or feel this way? He's toxic as all hell! None of this makes any sense."

Truly, Violet wanted nothing to do with Hisoka, and there was a far more pressing matter. What she knew to be deadly accurate, out-of-control emotions would put anyone partaking in the task she did at serious risk.

I need to get a handle on myself. This is very serious. If what I'm hunting is actually here, there is no room for that clown or any of his associated drama.

Once her physical state calmed, she moved left away from the elevators. An instinct that drove her. Turning down the next hallway, every second to third light flickered and threatened to fail. The air chilled and was spiced with a thick foreboding haze. Everything about this narrow space screamed for her to turn back.

These floors are too well maintained. There is no way they would allow even one light to flicker, let alone this many.

It wasn't the first time she'd witnessed such events. She wasn't enjoying how things were progressing. Turning down the last part of the zig-zagging tetromino-like hallway, she found most lights dark at the terminal end, with only a few dim ones weakly holding onto the last of their life.

Logic pressed Violet to continue the grid walk despite the way self-preservation fought against it. A gentle squeak sounded from the last door on her right side. It opened to reveal an upper-floor fighter. Departing his room, the short, coarsely trimmed black-haired man with brown eyes and a square jaw started walking in the opposite direction. He gave Violet a quick nod and smiled as they passed one another.

On the crossing, it hit Violet like a toxic cloud. The overwhelming smell of brimstone, sulfur, blood, and death nearly knocked her out. She turned wide-eyed to the source in time to see the man's dark eyes as he swung his arm around like an axe to shatter the back of her skull.

Violet spun to face him, simultaneously dipping down enough to slip under his arm. Instantly he adjusted, swinging his arm down towards her face, which forced her to alter directions and rush back diagonally into the opposite wall. The fighter leered with sinister intent, which caused her body to war with itself between freezing and fleeing. His eyes bled copious black ooze, which stuck to his skin. When he released a breath, it came out tinted green and formed a cloud as the cold air mixed with the heat of the hallway.

Demon.

Before Violet could process the situation, two people walked out from the shadowed back of the hallway. Both were Heaven's Arena employees—a female receptionist with short purple curls and a male referee with military-shaved brown locks. They reeked of the same odour as the upper floor fighter. Panic riddled her body, which reverberated within the demon's expressions, plastered in fruitful malice as if the battle was already won.

Three? Working together?! I've never even heard of daemons being cooperative in that number. And I'm alone in a tight as shit space! Fuck!

The more she assessed her situation, the worse her prospects became. Full strength was beyond her reach as her toughest fighting style relied on open spaces to build momentum and strength. Her muscles tensed into a defensive stance as her pupils constricted, and her heart raced. The smell waving off her prey burned her nose, and her eyes wept.

This is bad!

The purple-haired receptionist and fighter rushed Violet from either side. Years of muscle memory saved her while her brain recovered from its glacier state. Forcing Ko into her legs, she flipped onto the wall and scaled it before landing across the corridor out of their attack range. It wasn't entirely by choice, as the Ko control faltered on her end. There wasn't a split second to fret over it as the referee rushed her like a charging bull.

Violet sprung off the ground to use the opposite wall, running along it for a few steps fighting to distance herself. The drumming of her pounding heart kept perfect pace with the fight, flawlessly in tune with the rhythm of the battle's death tango. There was no opportunity to think or counter, the demons dominating the movements of the dance as they pleased.

She was forced to drop to the ground and repeat her diagonal escape as yet another destructive advance aimed to disable and rip through her soft, defenceless flesh. The death ballet continued for what felt like hours but only amounted to a matter of minutes. Caught in a cycle of constant evasion and ever-present assaults, she knew her fragile body could not withstand even blocking their devastating attacks. She would surely buckle and shatter if a hit landed.

Mastery of Ken, the technique Toyama had used where Nen is pushed to ten times the thickness surrounding a body, creating a strong shield was required. Hisoka gave her the basics after her last fight, and she practised but struggled with it. To make matters worse, her control of Ko, moving aura into her arms and legs to strengthen the attacks, was unreliable. It devoured Violet's survival chances. The only advantage was her agility and speed, but those skills merely matched her playmate's abilities. She kept no more than a hair's breadth ahead of them using her maximum skills.

Violet determined that the human host bodies were likely dead. The female receptionist's body sizzled, and steam rose as the demon rode her hard, pushing well beyond the physiological capabilities of human flesh.

The muscles are roasting themselves with the heat they're generating.

The visiting hell residents hadn't laid a single physical hit; Violet's body was still a macabre art piece of slashes, markings, and abuse over her cheeks, neck and arms. They weren't critical but stark reminders of the desolation any single well-aimed strike would have on her life.

The non-stop battle pace was detrimental to Violet's comparatively limited stamina. She was very aware of how rapidly her limits approached. The demons weren't experiencing a leisurely park stroll either. Their anger swelled and caused sloppy movements.

Lower demons kill in seconds, less than that for stronger varieties. Their frustration is understandable. This is likely the most they've ever had to work for prey.

It didn't bode well for Violet. When they finally did catch her, they would tear her apart like frenzied sharks. For an added touch of cruelty, they could leave her alive and aware as they did it, to die in agony, seeing her insides decorating the pristine and rich upper floor walls.

Dodging another set of blows, Violet's breath came heavy and laced with iron. Worst. This is the perfect hunting ground! They can leave my remains, and everyone will assume I was hazed to death. It's a demon's paradise.

The inevitable happened in an instant.

The demon possessing the fighter caught Violet's left arm with his extended claws as she was driven into a tight space to avoid the other two. Their claws were pitch black and long, with a slight curve at the end. They receded when unnecessary, making it hard to gauge how far to keep from them. Violet's high pain threshold and adrenaline played no small role in keeping her upright and moving. He cut clean through her superficial deltoid muscle group and the wall behind her back.

The huntress turned to face his outstretched arm freeing herself from the claws. She spun to land a kick to his head and thanked her good luck; she could control her Ko, preventing the leg bones from shattering. He stepped back only half a step.

Using the momentum from the kick, Violet bounced off him and gained distance to get to an open area. Hot, red blood covered her upper arm and dripped off her elbow. As her chances dwindled, her determination swelled.

The hallway remained open for seconds as the other two surged forward with powerful attacks. They don't attack within a certain distance from the over-taken fighter. Is it a red demon controlling two lower yellow demons? Lack of respect would lead to him killing them. Not as cooperative as they appear at face value then.

Violet's arm screamed with pain, but she assessed it wasn't fatal. That didn't change that it signalled the inevitable. She needed space to fight and increase her hits to full power.

As the demon's frustration grew, the hallway lights flickered ominously. If they went out, their potential attacks would grow. They had powers that could only be utilised in pitch black and were setting the hallway up to overwhelm her.

Violet gritted her teeth and sweated harder at the prospects. Gyo enhanced the eyes but didn't replace the need for light to bounce off the lends in her eye for them to work.

Seeing in the dark won't stop the demons, either. It's better to escape.

The demon triplets kept Violet jumping, flipping, running, rushing, and moving at max skill and speed. She decided to use a technique received in early hunter training. It was a skill she never fully mastered. It was rare for anyone to master it beyond a top-level spy. However, the creatures blocked all exits and played with her like a pack of wolves hunting an injured, panicked rabbit. As they tired of the repetitive and tedious hunt, they would end it in gore, anguish, and bleak, unavoidable death.

Violet split her personality as best she could while avoiding attacks. She didn't have time to prepare, so she kept it simple; same her, but one person chose to fight to the death, the other to seek an escape. She forced the escape version of herself out as if she were watching from a third person's view. It was an incredible technique when applied skillfully. In every other mental facility, she focused on the fight, accepting death, but with the goal to inflict as much damage as possible.

The style didn't change drastically, but it was enough. After thirty seconds, which felt like three hours, the possessed fighter left a small exit. The demons read her moves and knew she wasn't looking to run. The minor drop in their guard changed how they corralled her in the fight.

A drastic personality switch saw Violet force all her energy into the escape. She flipped over the outstretched arm of the black-haired fighter and rushed full speed down the hallway. She was thankful her Ko decided to behave and threw all of it into her legs, allowing a faster escape.

No novice to fighting a demon, Violet took a varied retreat path. She used every inch of floor, walls, and ceiling to make her evasion as random as possible. It used up copious extra energy but made landing a hit near impossible.

Violet glanced back only once. The possessed people revealed the demons in their eyes. The fighter was a high-level black demon, the woman was a yellow demon, and a red demon possessed the male referee. Her chest and stomach tightened disturbingly with fear as she pushed greater effort into her withdrawal.