Whispers of the Sky (Hunter X Hunter)

Judgement (Rhode's PoV)

Who are we to judge on who lives or dies?
Only a madman dares to play the role of 'god'
-*-

The air is thick with tension.

"I'm sorry to have to drag you into this, Kurapika..." I apologize to him, the hairs on my skin rising as the blood lust leaks from Hisoka like a wildfire. Leorio falls to the ground as the jester drops him, Kurapika slowly sliding next to me to make sure we aren't separated.

"You needn't have to apologize. I was going to join in anyway. I just didn't think we'd be facing him this soon."

"I know what you mean. Just when I was making sure we weren't drawing any attention to us." I click my tongue before inwardly cringing when Hisoka licked his lips as if relishing at the sight of our weak forms.

To say that I could go toe-to-toe against him even with Kurapika is impossible. His unparalleled strength could be felt even without him having to move an inch. It was suicide to begin with the moment we dared to attack him but if there was a small chance we could make it out alive and save Leorio- then what was there to lose?

Yllina's grief-stricken face when I sent her away with Killua and Gon broke me. It's not like I wanted to leave her but I had no choice. Gon barely had any combat experience and Killua looked like a deer caught in headlights. They wouldn't survive the first onslaught. As powerless as we were, Kurapika and I were the only one who might be able to pull off a rescue mission. There was no assurance that both of us would survive with Leorio. As much as it was painful to say, there had to be at least one who has to distract the jester to give the other the time to escape.

"Just so you know, there's a huge percent that one of us may have to distract him to get to Leorio." I finally say, Kurapika's sigh echoing in the now frighteningly quiet forest.

"I should have known. Tell me when you're ready and I'll do what I can to gain his attention."

Kurapika's words take me by surprise. For him to have easily volunteered for the role of the scapegoat... Was he out of his mind? As he unpacks his two bokken from his bag, his back facing me as if in anticipation of my command, I can't help but be thrown once again into the pit of the fire of war.

The sound of metal against metal, the screams of dying men left and right echoes in the past to haunt me. There were already few of us as it was and yet they would willingly send us into the fray to kill villagers who couldn't even wield a blade. Villagers who only wanted the cycle to end and yet couldn't because of fear. The idealogies and beliefs were torn between those who wanted to live and those who wanted to end it.

My hands that have long since been soaked in blood are once again forced to take up arms. The dao blades in my hands are heavy but I know that once I shut it down- I might not be able to stop.

As the youngest general of Soevenia, I must once again enter a war.

"Mhhhmmmm... Those eyes, the eyes of a killer. It makes me shiver with such ecstasy~" He coos to us to which I give Kurapika no time to retaliate before my feet leave the muddy grass and leap into the air.

"Rhode!" Kurapika's protest is too distant to recognize, the urge to finish this fight pumping my instincts into overdrive. Too many deaths upon my command had made me too reckless, that I admit. But the weight of losing many lives because of me than giving up my own was something I could no longer live with.

The elders have taught us that those in command must show leadership that can move the hearts of people. To move them to kill for the sake of both mine and the family? It was messed up and selfish. No one deserved such a fate... It was because of such an ideal that I questioned the war, the war that led us here only to once again take up our blades.