𝐓𝐇𝐄𝐎𝐑𝐈𝐙𝐄 | ʰˣʰ

chapter iv.

"BULLSHIT," YOU snap, the minute Hisoka (you've only just learned his name) sets his card face-down on the pile. He asked if you wanted to play, and this airship is taking several hours longer to reach its destination than you all were told it would, so you figured, What the hell.

Hisoka turns the card over, and you swear it isn't possible for there have to been another Queen in the deck, but there it is. You'd use Gyo to see if the deck is just fucked or if his nen ability to not only strengthen cards, but change them, too—But it's excessive in such a competitive environment to use nen for something so small.

"Attention, passengers," an automated voice says, before you can collect the accumulated deck of cards on the floor and guarantee your loss, "We will be landing at our destination in approximately ten minutes. Please gather near the boarding deck and keep in mind that lost belongings will not be accounted for. Repeating, we are landing in ten minutes. Please ready yourselves."

You hand the cards back to Hisoka and there is a great battle for patience, perhaps harder than you've ever fought in a while, against cursing after you see the amount of cards he's been sitting on.

+

ALL APPLICANTS await the landing in the hall next to the boarding deck. The shades on the windows only roll up upon landing. showing you a view with no visible ground upon which the vehicle has landed. You overlook a forest from at least a kilometer above it, and the only thing outside at eye level is several large flying creatures flying in the distance.

So the airship has landed on either a small elevated platform, or the edge of a larger one.

The beasts, if you squint, have faces somewhat resembling human babies, and small torsos with at six legs. Those must be Six-Legged Flying Beasts—You'd love to argue that the name is inaccurate because it's only six limbs: four arms and two legs, but that is a pointless debate right now—and this must be Trick Tower.

You've heard from here and there stories about the prison: built for containing criminals that are incapable of nen whose sentences will not allow them to reenter society before death.

Here's what you do know:
1. Trick Tower was built intentionally in an area chock-full of these beasts, high enough for them to pluck their prey right from the tower's ceiling and walls.

2. Prisoners enter somewhere near the top of the tower, so they are given the impression that this is the only entry and exit point in the building (the fact reminds vaguely of a fairytale you once heard).

3. Thus, when prisoners attempt escape, they head upwards and come out on top of the tower, where the beasts will pick them off.

Quite a creative method of damage control, if you do say so yourself.

Meanwhile, many of the participants are mumbling in confusion, choosing to scope out the exit dock rather than peer out the window. The Flying Beasts have dipped out of sight, perhaps diving into the large forested expanse below for some new prey. Most who didn't see them the moment you did would suspect nothing when they emerge into open air.

"I've heard tell of this place," Hisoka purrs beside you, shuffling a deck in his hands. If he knows where you are, he must have seen the Beasts too. "The founders were a pair of Hunters who specialized in A-grade criminal investigation and apprehension. Marvelous place they chose to build it ♡."

A-grade makes them sound a lot more dangerous to the general public than they actually are.

There are, of course, facilities for S-grades, real threats to most. They are fewer, further-between, built specifically to contain criminals that can use nen, but majority of nen users are Hunters and thus cannot be contained anyway.