Speak of the Devil // COMPLETED ✔

Define "Conscience" For Me

Summary: Killua, Gon, Zeno, and Hisoka play chess while Illumi throws up in the bathroom.

Illumi was sick in the bathroom when Killua visited him at a distance. With Gon beside him, Killua didn't have much interest in seeing Illumi. He just wanted to go back to eating pancakes.

Illumi coughed over the lip of a bucket full of damp, greenish-black muck. It reminded Killua of the time one of Illumi's friends had alcohol poisoning and had their stomach pumped.

As he slumped back in the tub, one knee sloping to the side and the other thrown over the edge. There was something vacant in his red-tinged eyes that barely registered them.

"He can't recognize you," Chrollo said. "He's probably hallucinating from the fever."

"Fever?" Killua repeated.

Chrollo's sleeves were rolled up. He looked like an average human now, albeit an exhausted, more emo version of Steve Jobs. Killua noted that the backs of his palms were blacked out more than Gon's smudged tattoos, each ring darker than the last.

He walked past them to deliver a fresh empty bucket and took the one from Illumi's limp arms. He raised it. Killua tried not to breathe. "Good fertilizer for the garden," he said, and left them to dump Illumi's earthy innards in the compost.

"It's September and I already have new tomato plants from the waste," his grandfather said from the top of the stairs. He stepped aside so Chrollo could pass before approaching the bathroom. He addressed Gon as he said, "Your friend has him starting a strict diet today to purge the rest."

Gon shrugged. "I don't really care," he said. "Illumi made Killua upset."

His grandfather looked to him then, and Killua couldn't deny it. He had been upset when Gon helped him last night. Help was often good, wasn't it?

"Alright..." his grandfather said, and shut the bathroom door. He looked to Gon, "Killua informed me that you're trying to restore his conscience."

Gon blinked. "Yes. He lost it last night," he said, like it was a wallet. "I like when he tells me I'm wrong. I think it's very useful for adapting to human society."

His grandfather rubbed at his beard in the way Killua recognized as barefaced, amazed, bewilderment. Gon had just said something absurd, Killua knew then, because it was often what his grandfather did in reaction to his other brother. Not Illumi. Killua could only remember the face—round and soft like putty.

"I think you're approaching this wrong," his grandfather said. "A conscience has three elements: what one ought to do; self-approval when we do it; and regret when we don't. I take it you've broken the latter two, correct?"

Gon considered this, and Killua's grandfather allowed him to think in silence as they walked. The french doors at the end of the hall opened to a room Killua loved—the library. It contained a conglomeration of mismatched shelves and bookcases packed with stacks of books, manuals, pamphlets.

His grandfather propped open the bay window overlooking the backyard. Only then did Gon make his decision.

"I think you're right. But what does that got to do with Killua not recognizing right and wrong if he knows what he should do?" Gon asked.

"The things you've done since bringing Killua to me don't appeal to logic. If we're starting from the basics, you should be testing him on something that doesn't appeal to feelings and emotion but on fact," he said. He lowered himself onto the bay window bench with a sigh and patted the seat beside him. "Killua, observe us for a moment, if you will."