Hunters X and X Heroes

Duty X and X Departure

For some reason, Rukei seemed very far away.

They were wrapped in the thick, repulsive smell of the bus' exhaust, and though it was a form of heat in the face of the bare winter, it left a unpleasant and filthy sensation to crawl across the skin. Their surroundings were dimly lit; the street light above them was living out its last moments, and both the moon and the stars remained hidden behind sleepy clouds.

"Nervous?" Was the woman's question, though it sounded more like a sneer because of the sarcastic, cutting rise in her voice.

The girl knew it was not one. Sardonic, discourteous: the woman's words always came out like that. "No."

The girl's answer was almost lost, but the woman was used to the quiet, near silent, monotonous patterns in her speech. One side of the woman's mouth tilted into a dry smile after letting a short huff and the girl's lie go. "Don't fall asleep on the bus. They won't wake you up."

The girl nodded dully without breaking her gaze with the woman as she never did with anyone. To a certain point, it was unnerving to receive that sort of blank, empty gaze from a child- from a human. Yet at the same, it was very focused. When the woman spoke to the girl, the girl's eyes showed clear, defined comprehension. They studied the slightest movement carefully.

"I know," she replied simply.

They were running out of things to say, and the man behind the wheel was running out of patience. He tried to rub away the sleep from his eyes, but it only seemed to make the redness in them and the shadows underneath them more evident. Bogged down by exhaustion, his words came out slow and slurred. "Are you gettin' on or not?"

"Yes," the girl replied quickly, faster than she had said anything in the duration of their conversation. She then knew it was obvious that she had been trying to drag it out. She turned back around to face the woman, and suddenly the pace of her words slowed again. She had to think of what she wanted to say. "I will... pass," she ended abruptly.

So much for thinking.

The woman's wry one-sided smile burst into a full grin with a short, sharp chortle at the best farewell the girl could muster. "Yeah. You better. I didn't train you this whole month for nothing."

The girl seemed to copy the woman, mirroring the woman's smirk with a small smile that betrayed confidence and excitement, like a little crack of sunlight beaming through stone walls. "Of course."

"Listen, little miss, I don't have all night," the driver drawled, one hand dropping over the lever to close the bus doors, to emphasize his point.

"Yes," the girl responded hurriedly, with a sort of regretful nod, "Just a minute."

He held the girl's impassive stare for a few moments. He slumped further into his seat exasperatedly with a relenting huff, and he dragged his faded cap over his eyes, "Just one more minute. One. Nothing more."

"Rukei," the woman called. The girl whirled around to meet an outstretched hand and the woman's crooked grin, "You better come back as a Hunter."

She felt stupid and impractical thinking it, but Rukei had always felt smaller than the woman.

Perhaps it was the height difference; after all a girl of the age of twelve and a woman of the age of eighteen look very different.