Itsy Bitsy Spider

16. Sleepless

To be Shalnark, one simply had to shut down his or her emotional responses for about five minutes to take a step back and observe the situation from a neutral point of view. Doing this allowed for an individual to grasp the true picture and stay calm and rational in a stressful environment.

So that's exactly what Rein did.

When Gon said the Phantom Troupe was dead, she panicked for a split second before she took a deep breath and tried to enter into the mindset of Shalnark.

This was most likely a trick. The Phantom Troupe had gone up against groups far more skilled and great in number. There was no way they could lose to the mafia, of all people. But then why did Gon...? Though she was sure Shalnark could have come up with thousands of possibilities, Rein could only think they had left bodies of some sort. Kortopi could copy anything but he couldn't transfer life into something else. So he'd made a copy of some of the Spider's bodies as fakes. That had to be it.

The others were repeating things such as "I can't believe the Phantom Troupe is dead!" "Is it true?" "How did Kurapika know?" and so on, as if they were unable to process, unable to move forward in time.

Rein was planning on saying something to break the pattern, but Gon beat her to it. He turned to her. "This is great, isn't it? They can't bother you anymore!"

Rein raised an eyebrow. "What?" she echoed.

"Well, now that the Troupe is gone, they won't be able to keep bothering you anymore. You can live your life! Find a goal, you know, normal things." Gon smiled straight at her, and the image of Uvogin flashed in her thoughts. "Maybe you could become a Hunter, like us."

Rein allowed her eyes to prickle. "A Hunter," she repeated, a slight jump of laughter creeping into her tone. "That's not a bad idea."

Killua sighed. "Why are you crying again?"

She bought a few seconds by reaching for a tissue to quickly rehearse her answer in her head. Brushing away mere droplets, she met his eyes for a brief moment. An icy ocean. "I'm just... relieved, I guess. Really relieved. Like Gon said, they won't be able to bother me anymore."

Killua resisted the urge to roll his eyes at her response. How could she say that like it was the truth? She was good at lying, but he could still tell what she'd said wasn't the entire story. He also couldn't detect what was wrong with her lie. Was it the lie itself that had a hiccup in it that caught his attention? Or maybe her acting was off? But if he observed carefully, he was unable to find anything that supported his theory. How could he tell she was lying? He didn't know. He didn't know, and that realization sent a prickly shiver up his spine and to the tips of his hair. Why could he not tell?

This confused him, and Killua didn't like it one bit.

Zepile started to collect the cigarettes and remaining cups. A trickle of ash trailed through the air before drifting and fading into the hairs of the carpet. "We should all probably head to sleep. It's already 2:00 am. Me and Leorio are gonna hit the auctions in the morning, but what are you guys going to do? Do you want to come with?"

"Wish we could, but—"

Gon cut in with a resolve in his eyes, clearly unaware he'd just interrupted his friend. "I'm going to try to get in contact with Kurapika. If we can't, we can all meet up later after you're done and search fo-"

Killua's hand slapped over Gon's mouth, muffling his startled cries. "And I'm going to check what really happened to the Phantom Troupe, try to get as much of the real story as possible." As Gon continued to struggle, Killua snatched a pillow off the bed and proceeded to muffle him with that. He turned to Rein, amusement still dancing in his eyes. "What are you going to do?"