Nahida & Wanderer In HXH

Future Preparations

Nahida blinked awake. Her eyes sight gently focused on the dark, brick ceiling. This wasn't the one she saw before falling asleep with Gon and Killua...

Her eyes moved around this new place.

The brick walls with candlelight offered a warm glow to the dark and somber surroundings.

There by the front, their presence unmoving, was a figure. Kneeling like a lifeless doll, their back turned to Nahida.

Pale white hair long enough to reach the ground. It barely covered the man's lean, scar littered body.

The figure was unmistakably... Kite...?

She frowned and reached out, just when her hand got closer- Kite fell to the side and his head hit the ground hard enough to bounce.

Then he laid flat on his face. Motionless, his hair moved more than any of his limbs... Until it also landed over his back.

Nahida's eyes widened. Her soft call echoed with another's voice.

"Kite...?"

She gasped and turned to the voice. There, right beside her. Was Gon. Elbows on his thighs, hands between them, kneeling, shoulders dropped and his gaze on Kite.

The tears built and escaped fluidly down his cheeks. His usually bright, brown eyes now dazed. Nahida watched these walls disappear, leaving behind an empty, black screen with only two focus points.

Kite, and Gon.

"It's my fault that... Kite is..."

Nahida inhaled sharply at Gon's soft, choked tone. He could barely speak. But she heard the sob he held back.

What?

"NO!" Nahida flinched and covered her ears, but Gon's shouts still reached her eardrums.

"It's not my fault! Pitou is the one that killed him! Not me!"

Killed...?

"But..." Gon's anger deflated abruptly, replaced with a deep sorrow Nahida felt deep in her heart. In the way it clenched painfully at his soft, broken tone.

"It was me... I killed Kite..."

Nahida watched him. The tears that gathered beneath Gon's chin until drops fell on the ground.

"It's my fault..."

It's easier to blame yourself than others. To believe we still have control over the situation and ourselves, had we done something differently...

"It's really my fault..."

Nahida had spent so long believing it as well. That it was all her fault the Sages wanted another Archon. Her weakness, her stature, how easily she was kept in check, and the small escapes through people's dreams and the Akasha...

It would seem there's no person that's truly unique, only different.

"... Kite is dead..."

People are like puzzle pieces.

"Kite is dead..."

The more you find, the more sense they make.

"Kite is dead..."

Nahida softly accepted the harsh abundant feelings she knew were Gon's. Anger, resentment, regret, unfairness, confusion, realization.

Humans can feel so much in a matter of seconds.

"Kite is dead!"

Their mind does anything it can to survive. To keep them stable until nothing works.

"Help..."