"Fuck you, Mom."

~1~

Killua stared suspiciously at the letter pinned to his door by a needle, a very familiar one indeed. Do I even want to open that? He thought, grumpily. It had been four whole years since Killua had run away from his home, yet his family just kept nagging him to come back home. He rolled his eyes, plucking the note from its place on the door and opening it to examine its contents. It was the same old bullshit. A long detailed letter about how Killua was wasting his potential, about how he was being childish, a few threats to his loved ones with a sprinkle of guilt tripping on top. Killua had moved residency approximately eight times in the last two years after the war and yet Illumi still managed to find his location.

He, Leorio, Gon, and Kurapika all shared a place so it was a pain in the ass for everyone. Because Gon refused to let Killua move without him, and Kurapika refused to let Killua and Gon go off on their own claiming the two boys couldn't live a stable life on their own. Leorio just tagged along because they had been together for years already, and there wasn't any point in splitting them up. At least, that's what he'd told Killua.

So long story short, the other three had to constantly deal with his family issues and they were getting fed up with it as much as he was. "Again? Are you kidding me?" Leorio said loudly from behind him. Killua glanced over his shoulder with a scowl. "Uhuh, guess we have to move again." he grumbled, sharpening his hand into long sharp claws to shred the paper. Leorio walked back inside the house, grumbling under his breath with a sour expression. Why won't they just give up?

He was about to follow Leorio when he noticed an envelope also taped to the door. Doesn't look like someone trying to sell me something... Killua impulsively snatched that up as well as he left, he'd read it later. As he entered the threshold, he noticed Kurapika and Gon packing their things already. It was a miracle that all four of them were in the house at the same time actually. Kurapika was rarely ever in the house except to sleep, Leorio was in med school still, and Killua constantly got bored and sometimes went on week long excursions to try to put some excitement into his life.

Killua sat cross legged on the couch and decided to slowly open the envelope. His eyes shot open when he saw the insignia on the front. It's from the hunter's association! Gon peered over his shoulder curiously as he opened it. 'Hunters, please log into Hunter's Tavern with the below code, and your Hunter's License. Do not worry about payment.' It read. Gon's eyes shined. "Can we do that right now? It looks super important!" Gon's words caught Kurapika's attention pretty quickly, causing him to wander over. "do what? Are you boys up to something?" Gon excitedly showed Kurapika the envelope, causing Killua to let out a soft chuckle.

Still the same old Gon, despite...the changes. It had taken Gon a while to get stable footing after he lost his Nen, but he'd eventually gotten back to pretty much his normal self. There was that and the new height difference between the two. Killua had gotten a massive growth spurt approximately ten months ago whereas Gon hadn't really grown all that much. Not only that, but Gon had started keeping his hair down. He had to admit it made the raven haired teen look a tad bit more mature. It was pretty cute...

Killua's face flushed and he stood up, shaking his head to clear it. He had no idea where that thought came from, although now that he thought about it he'd been getting thoughts like that pretty frequently. Kurapika's words broke him out of his thoughts. "Well, let's go check it out then."

A short while later, the four were standing in front of the computer in a public library. Since Killua had found the envelope, he decided that he was going to access the site. He slipped his license in the card reader machine and typed in his license number. Upon doing so they were surrounded by an illusion of sorts, the Hunter's Tavern. Killua quickly typed the code into the website, causing the bartender to glitch out, and the screen changed as well. The code hadn't been executed very well, but there seemed to be news articles and little factettes floating around them. "Someone's definitely getting fired," Leorio said dryly. Gon's eyes shined as he looked around at the chaos. "I think it's cool!"

Killua read as many of the articles as he could, but none of them made sense. The word 'quirk' kept coming up, in a strange context. And most of them seemed to be some sort of weird fake article made from a comic book. All at once, the coding seemed to fix itself. A projection of some woman was standing in front of them. "Hello Hunters, listen carefully for this message will only be relayed once per license." Gon was unable to contain his excitement, he kept tapping killua's shoulder to try to get his attention but the white haired boy slapped his hand away. "Shush."

"A once in a lifetime opportunity to explore terrify uncharted by hunters has come within your grasp. The Hunter Association has discovered a route across the Dark Continent and to the other side, however there's only one slot. The hunter being entrusted to this duty will be chosen at random and will have the chance to explore and document the new lands"

Killua's interest was piqued, however before he could say anything Gon shook him enthusiastically, shouting some nonsense. Killua smacked him on the back of the head. "CALM DOWN, MORON!" Gon managed to stop jumping around for a moment and stared at him with wild excited eyes. "Killua, did you see it tell me you saw it.'' he blurted. Kurapika glanced at Gon with curiosity. "saw what?" Gon's face was filled with so much excitement, it was almost too much for killua. "one of those article things said there were heroes like superheroes this new place has superheroes that's so cool I want to go so bad-" Suddenly he deflated with a whine. "but I don't have my Nen back yet, damn it..."

Killua's eyes narrowed slightly as he thought. Heroes? A sly catlike smirk went across his face. "Oh this'll be perfect." Leorio raised an eyebrow at him, leaning on the chair as the illusion faded. "What is?" Killua's eyes sparkled with mischief. "I'm going to become a hero." There was a beat of silence. "You?" Leorio asked, doubtfully. Killua dismissively waved his hand. "I bet it'll be easier than the hunter exam, just something fun to do. And meanwhile it'll piss my parents off since I'm pretty much doing the opposite of what they want. All around it's a win-win situation, don't you think?"

1171 words

To be continued...

this chapter was mainly storybuilding and setting up the plot, but the next chapter will be a lot more fun!

i was going to withhold posting this book but i decided against it, as im too excited.