Itsy Bitsy Spider

25. Instinct and Intent

Killua stood in the rain, Kurapika's comrade—Senritsu—next to him and listening to the conversation he was having.  "Senritsu and I are outside the station," he informed Kurapika. "The Troupe is heading westward—"

"I know," Kurapika cut him off. The phone buzzed with his voice when he spoke. "I'm pursuing them now."

Killua blanked. Kurapika was not this impulsive and stupid. Gon, maybe, but not the Kurta. "By yourself? Against all of them? Slow down and think, you're going to get yourself kill—" The line went dead, the low beeping tone mocking his very soul. "Tch. That idiot hung up on me!" he growled, but soon his gut twisted with dread. If he was doing such a reckless thing, was Gon...? Furiously typing away on his phone, he brought it once again to his ear. "Hey, Leorio," Killua barked as soon as his friend picked up. "Where's Gon?"

"He ran after Kurapika, and Rein followed." The honking of a horn. "I'm trying to catch up, but the car can't move anywhere in this traffic!" Leorio honked the horn again, and Killua could hear the frustrated scream clawing in his throat.

Killua hung up. Why did his instinct always have to be right?

"That idiot," Killua muttered again to himself as he and Senritsu started to run west, after the Spiders and his friends. "That Kurapika's gonna get himself killed, and didn't even think it through that far. And he pulled Gon into it too! Great, now they're both in danger, and some random girl we just met yesterday is all mixed up in that. I can't believe the nerve of that guy." He just hoped Gon would be alright. Running after the Troupe alone... they'd been extremely dumb. "These people just do whatever the heck they want!" he continued to rant, surging on ahead with an exasperated yet protective determination.

Despite the inappropriate and dire circumstances, Senritsu smiled at the boy.

Many city blocks ahead, Kurapika's feet pounded the earth as he ran with Gon and Rein. Gon tried to reason with him at first, but he was hearing none of it. Eventually, they ran alongside him, giving up trying to dissuade him from his goal and decided to follow the Troupe.

The Spiders were so close. They were so, so close. Kurapika felt his eyes start to burn, but he blinked the feeling away. His mind was almost always teeming with his thoughts; factual, analyzing, rational. It came as a shock now that the only thing he could think of was catching up to the Troupe. That's all he needed to do. He could act from there. He wasn't planning ahead, and that was why all of them protested as soon as he raced out of the car. He knew he was not his normal self, but that's what he needed to be. He could think, he should think, but he didn't. All Kurapika could think of was catching up to the goal that had been so far out of reach only half a year ago. Catch up. He could handle it from there.

A loud, metallic creak and snap filled the air, a thin blur of grey falling in between him and the two younger kids with a ear-grating crack. He leapt back to avoid being hit while the two surged on ahead. In a cloud of cement dust and flying specks of sidewalk, he lost sight of both of them.

Kurapika's lip curled at the obstacle. A lamppost?

His chains clinked together as he tightened his fist. His jaw set, the tenseness of the air he was giving off frightening civilians around him.

These few seconds lost would cost him dearly at the speed the others were moving at. They must have been blocks away from him now, perhaps even more if the Troupe sped up at the sudden destruction from behind them. He had to catch up, and fast. He wasn't going to risk having Gon or Rein fall into the hands of the Troupe. Not when he'd finally made such a good friend. Not when he'd finally found someone who was like him, one of him.