Hunter X Hunter

Yorknew City doesn't sleep. It pulses.

Neon bleeds across wet asphalt as you step off the train platform and into the crowd of Yorknew Central Station. Thousands of bodies moving — salarymen, tourists, hustlers, pickpockets, women in fur coats, men in suits that cost more than your old apartment. The air tastes of exhaust, street food, and money. Towering glass buildings scrape a sky the color of old bruises — purple-black, heavy, threatening rain that never quite falls.

You adjust your bag on your shoulder. Your Hunter license sits in your inside jacket pocket — a small piece of plastic that makes you worth more than most people in this station. You can feel its weight even though it weighs nothing. It's been three months since you passed the exam. Three months of odd jobs, small bounties, building a name that doesn't exist yet.

You came to Yorknew because Yorknew is where the money is. And right now, you need money.

The Hunter Association bulletin board at the station's east exit lists jobs — escort work, artifact retrieval, creature capture. Most pay decent. None pay enough to matter. But one — pinned to the corner, hand-written, no return address — catches your eye:

"LICENSED HUNTER WANTED. DISCREET. DANGEROUS. NO QUESTIONS ASKED. CONTACT: GUILDHALL AVE, ROOM 4B. ASK FOR TENSA."

Dangerous and discreet. No questions. You've done worse for less.

The meeting is short. Tensa is a thin man in an expensive suit with fingers that smell like cigars and a voice that never rises above a murmur. He sits behind a desk in a windowless room that smells like leather and old cologne. Two bodyguards flank the door — big men with bulges under their jackets that aren't subtlety.

"I represent one of the Ten," Tensa says. He doesn't say which one. "The Spiders hit the Underground Auction three days ago. Our inventory — gone. Our security — dead. We sent the Shadow Beasts to handle it."

He pauses. Pours himself a drink. Offers you none.

"All four are dead. Killed by one Spider. Uvogin. Enhancer. Big. Loud. He walked through the Shadow Beasts like they were made of paper."

Tensa slides a photograph across the desk. A blurry surveillance shot — a massive figure, easily over seven feet, wild dark hair, broad shoulders straining against a torn coat. He's grinning in the photo. Even in a still image, the grin makes your skin crawl. Not because it's cruel. Because it's genuine. He enjoyed killing them.

"Track him. Follow him. Engage if you can — kill if you're able. But primarily, we need information. Where the Troupe is based. How many are active. Their abilities. Uvogin is our way in. He's loud, he's reckless, and he doesn't hide."

Tensa names a number. It's more than you've made in your life.

"Do we have a deal, Hunter?"

You take the job.

Four days of tracking.

Uvogin isn't hard to find — he leaves a trail. A gas station attendant who saw a giant man buying cigarettes. A homeless camp scattered after he walked through it looking for "someone worth killing." A building with a hole in the shape of a person punched clean through the brick wall. No stealth. No subtlety. He moves through Yorknew like a predator that's never needed to hide.

You follow at a distance. You use En sparingly — short pulses, ten-meter radius, just enough to keep track without broadcasting your position. You're not an Enhancer. Going head-to-head with this man in a fistfight would be suicide. You know that. You've planned around it.

The trail leads northeast. Toward the industrial district. Warehouses. Empty streets. Fewer witnesses.

He's heading for the old cement factory on Lambert Street. Abandoned. Isolated. Perfect for an ambush — or a trap.

You keep your distance. Two hundred meters. You suppress your aura to a whisper. You move between buildings, using cover, controlling your breathing. The sky finally makes good on its threat — light rain begins to fall, pattering on metal rooftops and turning the ground dark. It masks your footsteps. Good.

You round the corner onto Lambert Street. The cement factory looms ahead — a hulking concrete silhouette against the grey sky. Broken windows. Rusted fencing. The kind of place that smells like rust and piss and bad decisions.

And then —

Uvogin stops.

Not gradually. Not a slow-down. He just stops walking. Mid-stride. His back to you. Two hundred meters of empty wet street between you and him.

Silence. Rain. Your heartbeat in your ears.

His shoulders move. Once. A low rumbling sound — a laugh? A growl? It builds, rolling out from his chest like distant thunder, and then he turns.

He turns.

Even at two hundred meters, he's enormous. The rain soaks his hair flat against his skull, runs down the planes of his face, drips from the jut of his jaw. His eyes find you — not searching, not guessing, finding — like he's known exactly where you were for the last four days. Like he let you follow him. Like this was his idea.

The grin splits his face wide open. Teeth. Wild. Hungry.

"Heh."

His voice carries across the empty street like a physical force. Deep. Bass. The kind of voice that vibrates in your sternum.

"Show yourself!"

He spreads his arms wide — palms open, inviting. The rain hits his bare forearms and splashes. His aura flares — and your blood goes cold. Even at this distance, you feel it. A wall of bloodlust so dense it has texture. Enhancer aura. Raw. Unrefined. Unstoppable. It presses against your skin like standing in front of a furnace.

"I know you've been following me for days." He rolls his neck — crack. Crack. — vertebrae popping like gunfire. "Who sent you? The Dons? The Mafia? Some pathetic little Hunter looking to make a name?"

He doesn't advance. Not yet. He's waiting. The way a cat waits for the mouse to decide which direction to run — because either way, the outcome is the same to him.

"Come on." His fists clench. Knuckles crack. The grin widens until it looks like it might split his face in half. "Let me see how I can play you."

He drops into a fighting stance — wide, low, primal. No form. No technique. Just raw readiness. Aura spirals around his right fist, condensing, building, the air itself warping around the density of his Nen.

"Don't make this boring."

The rain falls between you. Two hundred meters of wet concrete. His grin. His aura. His absolute certainty that this is going to be fun.

The border checkpoint is a wooden building with a thatched roof. No metal. No glass. Two NGL border guards in rough-spun clothing search your bag by hand — no electronic devices, no synthetic fabrics, no firearms. They find your Hunter license. They don't know what it means. They don't care. NGL's rules supersede everything.

A small jeep — animal-drawn, wooden wheels, a stubborn mule between the shafts — carries you from the checkpoint along a dirt road that threads into green nothing. The driver doesn't speak. He doesn't look at you. He drives for three hours through farmland and forest edge, stops at a wooden marker post beside a narrow trail, and gestures for you to get out.

You do. He turns the jeep around without a word and disappears back the way he came.

Silence.

Not peaceful silence. Heavy silence. The kind that presses against your eardrums. The forest ahead is old growth — massive trees with trunks wider than a car, canopy so thick the sky vanishes into a ceiling of dark green. Ferns grow waist-high. Vines drape between branches like nooses. The air is warm, humid, and thick with the smell of wet earth and rotting vegetation. Alive. The forest is alive in a way that makes the back of your neck prickle.

You adjust your pack. Whatever Nen you know — whatever aura training you have — you keep it close. Suppressed. Tight. This is unknown territory. Broadcasting your presence in a place that feels like this would be stupid. You rely on your eyes. Your ears. Your gut. The old way.

You start walking.

Hours pass.

The trail narrows. Then disappears entirely, swallowed by undergrowth. You push through ferns and fallen branches, navigating by sun position through the canopy gaps. The terrain slopes downward. You're moving into a valley. The humidity thickens. Your clothes stick to your skin. Sweat runs down your spine.

The birds stop.

You notice it gradually — not a sudden absence but a fading. Birdsong that was constant at the trailhead is gone. No calls. No wingbeats. No chattering insects. The forest has gone quiet in a way that triggers something ancient in your brainstem. Something that remembers what it meant to be prey.

You stop walking.

Then you hear it.

Screaming.

High-pitched. Female. Desperate. Coming from the northeast — two hundred meters, maybe less. It cuts through the forest silence like a blade. And underneath it, carried on the warm humid air, a smell hits you.

Copper.

Not faint. Not a trace. Thick, heavy, unmistakable. Blood. A lot of it. The smell coats the inside of your nose and mouth and you can taste it on your tongue — metallic, warm, wrong. Your stomach clenches. Your hands tighten on your pack straps.

The air itself changes. The humidity that was uncomfortable becomes oppressive — like the forest is breathing on you. Your skin crawls. Every fine hair on your arms stands upright. Something in your biology recognizes what's nearby. Not a predator you've faced before. Something other. Something your body understands before your mind does — the way a mouse understands a snake is in the grass before it sees anything at all.

You move toward the sound. Fast. Low. Careful. You weave between trunks, ferns brushing your legs, feet finding silent placement on the mossy ground. The screaming has stopped. That's worse. Silence after screaming is always worse.

You crest a small ridge. Below you — a clearing. Natural, maybe thirty meters across, sunlight breaking through the canopy in golden shafts. Ferns. Wildflowers. Almost beautiful.

Almost.

The ground is dark. Wet. Pooled. Three bodies — NGL villagers, based on their rough clothing. Or what's left of them. One is torn open from sternum to pelvis, ribs splayed outward like broken wings, organs missing — eaten or removed. The second is missing its head and both arms. The third is just a torso. Flies buzz around the remains in thick black clouds. The copper smell is overwhelming here — it fills your sinuses, your lungs, your throat. You breathe through your mouth and taste it worse.

And in the center of the clearing —

A thing.

It stands upright. Bipedal. Roughly human-shaped but wrong in every proportion. Its skin is a mottled grey-green, rough and plated like an insect's carapace softened into flesh. Its head is oversized, skull jutting forward into a blunt ridge, eyes set wide and yellow with horizontal pupils — goat eyes, almost, but the intelligence behind them is fully human. Its mouth splits wider than a human mouth should, filled with flat teeth and sharp ones mixed together, and it's grinning.

In one clawed hand — three fingers and a thumb, each digit too long — it holds a pistol. A standard semi-automatic. It shouldn't know what a gun is. It shouldn't know how to hold one. But it does. It holds the weapon with the casual ease of someone who's eaten a person who knew how to use it and kept the knowledge.

It's looking down.

On the ground, sprawled on her back in the ferns, is a girl. Young. Maybe late teens. She's wearing a salmon-colored blouse, torn and bloodied at the shoulder. Pale yellow baggy pants, mud-stained. Orange flat shoes — one lost, one still on. And on her head, somehow still on, that hat. Big. Yellow. White side flaps. Distinctive and absurd in the middle of a massacre.

She's alive. Her chest heaves. One hand is outstretched — reaching for something. A small hole in the side of her hat. Bees crawl out. Lethargic. Dying. She's trying to use them. She's too injured. Her bees are too few.

The chimera ant tilts its head. Slowly. The way a dog tilts its head when it hears a new sound. Its grin widens. It raises the pistol. Points it at her face.

And laughs.

Not a human laugh. Something between a bark and a cackle — high, broken, delighted. It's enjoying this. The gun. The girl. The fear. It learned cruelty from the humans it ate and it wears that cruelty like a second skin.

"Strange bugs," it says. Its voice is guttural, malformed, but the words are clear. It speaks. Human words from an inhuman throat. "They sting. Little stings. Like little needles." It waves the pistol at the dying bees. "Not enough. Not enough to stop me."

The girl — you don't know her name — turns her head. Her eyes find you on the ridge. Wide. Brown. Terrified. Blood on her face. Her mouth opens. No sound comes out. Her hand twitches toward you. Not reaching for rescue — reaching for anyone. Anyone at all.

The chimera ant's ear twitches. Its head snaps toward you. The yellow eyes lock on. The grin doesn't falter — it grows.

"Oh." The pistol swings from the girl to you. Back to her. Back to you. It's deciding. Choosing its toy. "Another one. Another human."

Its tongue — long, dark, pointed — slides out and licks its lower lip.

"Which one first?"

The girl's bees buzz weakly. The bodies behind the ant leak into the ferns. The copper smell thickens. The forest holds its breath. The gun wavers between two targets — the girl on the ground, and you on the ridge.

The ant's finger rests on the trigger.

Your post is on the fourth floor. A folding chair, a thermos of cold coffee, and a corridor that connects the main auction hall to the VIP elevators. Boring duty. The kind of assignment that makes you question why you took the job. The pay was good. The Nostrade family pays well. But sitting in an empty hallway listening to the muffled hum of the auction below isn't what you got your Hunter license for.

You eat. A convenience store bento — rice, pickled plum, cold egg. You chew slowly. Check your watch. The auction started two hours ago. Everything below you is quiet. Too quiet for an event that's supposed to be packed with screaming bidders and frantic staff. But you're security, not a guest. You weren't told the details. You were told to sit. Watch the corridor. Report anything unusual.

Nothing is unusual. That's what bothers you.

No footsteps. No voices. No elevator chimes. The building has gone silent in a way that feels wrong — not peaceful, but vacated. Like a theater after the audience leaves and the stagehands haven't arrived yet. Empty in a way that suggests everyone left in a hurry. Or was made to leave.

You set down your chopsticks. Stand. The corridor stretches in both directions — paneled in dark wood, carpeted in burgundy, lit by wall sconces that cast warm amber light. Expensive. Tasteful. The kind of corridor designed to make wealthy people feel safe.

The auction hall door is ahead. Heavy. Oak. Slightly ajar.

You walk toward it. Your footsteps are the only sound in the building. No — not the only sound. Something else. A faint, rhythmic noise. Wet. Mechanical. Like a vacuum cleaner running over something damp. Shhhhhhk. Shhhhhhk.

You push the door open.

The auction hall is enormous — a cathedral of commerce. Vaulted ceiling. Crystal chandeliers. Rows of padded chairs arranged in a semicircle around a raised stage where the auctioneer's podium stands empty. Focused spotlights make the stage glow like a theater set. The carpet is thick and burgundy and very, very good at absorbing liquid.

Which is fortunate, because there is a lot of liquid.

The first thing you register is the smell. Fresh blood — copper and iron and something saltier underneath, like raw steak left in the sun. It floods your nostrils before your eyes even finish processing the room. Your stomach drops. Your bento threatens to come back up.

The second thing you register is the absence. No guests. No staff. No bodyguards. The chairs are empty — not just unoccupied but disturbed, knocked sideways, cushions slashed, some overturned entirely. Personal effects scattered. A woman's shoe. A broken champagne flute. A man's watch, face cracked, hands stopped at 8:47.

The third thing you register is Shizuku.

She stands center-stage, under the brightest spotlight, humming to herself. Young. Slim. Short black hair with a single long strand curling down the right side of her face. Round glasses. She wears a black turtleneck, a chain necklace with a pendant, and a short skirt over knee-high socks. Her expression is — blank. Pleasant but blank. The expression of someone watering plants.

In her right hand she grips the handle of a yellow vacuum cleaner.

Blinky.

It has cartoon eyes painted on its body. A silly face. A vacuum cleaner that looks like a children's toy. Its hose is pressed against the carpet, sucking up something dark and wet and red. The shhhhhhk sound you heard is Blinky consuming blood from the burgundy carpet like it's a spill on a kitchen floor. The liquid disappears into the hose. No stain left behind. The carpet behind Shizuku is clean. Immaculate. Like nothing ever happened there.

On the floor beside her — a body. Male. Nostrade bodyguard, based on the suit. His head is bent at an angle that means his neck was broken. One arm is missing. Not torn off — removed. The detachment is clean. Surgical. Blinky's work, probably. The arm is already gone. The blood from the stump is what Shizuku is vacuuming.

She hums a melody. Light. Cheerful. A pop song.

Then her head turns. She sees you.

"Ah." She blinks behind her glasses. The humming stops. She tilts her head — birdlike, curious. "I missed one."

She lifts Blinky. Points the hose at the body on the floor. The vacuum hums. The body slides — slides — across the carpet toward the hose, clothes first, flesh compressing, bones collapsing inward, the whole body folding and compressing and vanishing into the nozzle of a vacuum cleaner with a cartoon face. Gone. Not a trace. Not even a stain.

She cleans the last spot of blood with a practiced swipe. Clicks Blinky off. Hangs it over her shoulder like a purse.

"There." She sounds satisfied. "All clean."

Then her eyes drift back to you. She studies you for a moment — not with hostility but with the mild curiosity of someone who found an unexpected item while tidying.

"Hmm. You weren't here before." She taps her chin. "Did I forget to clean you too?"

From the left side of the stage, a voice. Deep. Bass. Laughing.

"HAHAHA! Shizuku, you're talking to the trash again!"

Uvogin sits on the edge of the stage, legs dangling, feet not touching the floor because they're too short for the drop. He's enormous — seven feet of muscle and wild dark hair, shirtless, a torn coat hanging off his shoulders. His feet kick idly like a child on a park bench. In one hand he holds a bottle of whiskey — stolen, obviously, because the label is from a collection that was going to be auctioned for six figures. He takes a long swig. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.

His eyes find you. The grin — that grin — splits his face.

"Oh." He sets the bottle down. "Now this is interesting."

From the shadow of the VIP seating section, a figure unfolds from the dark. Franklin. Massive. Broad. His face is scarred and stitched — bolts in his skin, metal studs along his jaw. He looks like something built in a garage rather than born. His hands — oversized, fingers blunt and metallic — hang at his sides. Each fingertip is a barrel. His aura is thick, heavy, oppressive, the ambient pressure of someone who could level the room without moving from where he stands.

His voice is low and gravel-sand.

"Another bodyguard. Late to the party." He doesn't sound angry. He doesn't sound pleased. He sounds like a man describing weather. "The others died quick. Some screamed. Most didn't get the chance."

He studies you with dull, patient eyes. "You should've stayed upstairs."

In the corner of the room — a chair pulled from the seating row, placed against the wall — sits Feitan. Small. Hunched. His face is hidden behind a high collar and a bandana. Only his eyes are visible — dark, sharp, glinting in the amber light like wet stones. He doesn't look up. He reads a book — a paperback, dog-eared, something in a foreign language. He turns a page. The sound is deafening in the silence.

Without lifting his head, he speaks.

"More." One word. Flat. "More coming. Or just this one." His eyes flick up. Just for a second. Then back to his book. "Doesn't matter. Either way."

And behind you — the door you entered through — a cheerful voice.

"Hey, hey!~ Don't close that, the air circulation in here is terrible!"

You turn. Shalnark leans against the doorframe, arms crossed, smiling. Young. Blonde hair. Round face. He looks like a college student on vacation. His phone — an old model, physical buttons — rests in his palm. His thumb rests on a number pad.

He gives you a little wave. Cheerful. Warm. The smile of someone who's genuinely happy to see you.

"Hi! You're not on the guest list." His head tilts. The smile doesn't change. "Shizuku, did you leave the back door open again?"

Shizuku frowns. "I don't think so... did I? I can't remember."

"You probably did."

"Maybe."

"Anyway!" Shalnark straightens up. His thumb taps his phone. "You should know — the thing you were hired to protect? It's already gone. Moved before we got here. Very annoying." He pouts. Comically. Like a child denied dessert. "We came all this way for nothing. Well — not nothing."

He gestures at the empty room. The clean carpet. The stage where the auctioneer's podium has a fist-shaped hole punched clean through it — Uvogin's work, obviously.

"Gave the mafia a message though. Right, Uvo?"

Uvogin laughs again — that booming, chest-rattling laugh. He slaps his thigh. "Damn right! You should've seen the big guy — the one with the stamps. Thought his little army of Nen soldiers could stop me." He mimes a punch. "One hit. One. His whole squad went down. Then him. Then his friends." He picks up his whiskey. Takes another swig. "They kept saying 'you can't do this' and 'the Dons will—'" He breaks into laughter. "The Dons! Like I give a shit about some old men in suits!"

Franklin grunts. "We crippled their security infrastructure tonight. Every Nostrade bodyguard in this building — dead. The rest will scatter. The Dons lost their grip on the auction." His voice carries no pride. Just fact. "That's the message. Anyone who picks up what they dropped will remember it."

Feitan turns another page. Doesn't look up. "Rumors. Spiders. People talk." He almost smiles. Almost. "Good. Let them talk. Makes the next job easier."

Five of them. In a room that should have been full of people. Five people standing in a massacre site like it's a living room. Casual. Bored. Chatting.

Uvogin cracks his neck. Crack. Crack. He looks at you with those burning, battle-hungry eyes — the same eyes from Lambert Street, if you survived that encounter. Or the same eyes that will haunt your dreams if you didn't.

"Shalnark. This one a fighter?"

Shalnark tilts his head. Studies you with that eerily cheerful gaze. He looks at you the way a child looks at a bug — not cruel, just curious. Interested.

"Hmm. Aura's suppressed. Tight. They're choosing not to use it." His eyebrows rise slightly. "Either they're smart or they're stupid. Can't tell yet."

Shizuku wanders closer. Blinky bounces against her hip. She peers at you through her round glasses with an expression of genuine, innocent curiosity.

"You smell like rice." A pause. "And pickled plum. Were you eating?"

The five Spiders stand between you and every exit. Uvogin on the stage. Franklin in the aisle. Feitan in the corner, still reading. Shizuku in front of you with her vacuum. Shalnark behind you at the door.

Nobody has attacked.

Nobody has threatened.

They're just... looking. Deciding. The way a family decides what to do with an unexpected guest who showed up to dinner uninvited.

Uvogin's grin widens. "So." He sets down the whiskey bottle. Flexes his fingers. "You gonna make this interesting?"