MOVE, AND YOU'LL GET CUT.

      His hand slowly turned to mirror hers, their fingers loosely interlacing. She felt much warmer in comparison, and he wondered if his conflicting iciness were uncomfortable. 

      After his captors stranded him in the badlands, Chrollo spent several nights wandering and reflecting. Uvogin’s passing had already been confirmed at that point, but Pakunoda, who endured identical conditions dictated by the Chain User’s ability, could still be alive. 

      “Stable.” he answered, looking ahead. Her death was unexpected. 

      “And yourself?” 

The sudden chill of his hand soothed her, and distantly she registered a desire to place his palm on her cheek. Never would she make so bold of a move, but she recognised it. She hoped her warmth, increased by his close presence did not irritate him in return. 

“Coping,” she replied calmly. His words didn’t surprise her; as a leader it benefitted him to remain in control at all times, even if he had mourned (and she was sure he had) in private. Would he ever reveal that to her?

“Thank you. For being here.”

      “Machi…” 

      Multiple individuals affiliated with their kind had become periodically removed from the sort of raw sentiment which threatened vulnerable impulses. The austere figure accompanying him, who so many respected and even owed their lives, was no exception. They hardly underwent such tragedy, instead devastating outsiders with little regard for loss of life, and almost never the reverse. 

      “Understood.” he murmured, shifting to sit beside her. They remained that way for some time, neither seeming particularly willing to offer good word spoken in Pakunoda’s memory. Now, he thought to himself, wasn’t the correct setting for fond remembrances. 

      “I wish…I could have been there for you.” Presiding circumstances forced him to remain at a large distance as his loved ones grieved. “And I hope what she shared that day lives on.”  

She was grateful for his company, and that he came with her to mourn. She hadn’t expected a tagalong, believing the rest of the troupe would see no meaning in it, would shame her for her sentimental desire. Pakunoda was nothing more than a corpse decomposing into the ground, now. 

She will miss her. 

Wordlessly, she allowed herself this moment of weakness, taking Chrollo’s hand in hers.

“You couldn’t have been. We had something more important to do, something we could fix.” Chrollo had lost his nen, that had rendered everything else obsolete. Paku couldn’t have been brought back anyway. At least then, she hadn’t dwelled too much on her absence. 

“It has. You live.” 

Because he lived, Pakunoda died.

Because he lived, Pakunoda was content with her death. 

      Feitan smelled blood before it dripped onto their porch. Lines appeared between furrowed brows as he wrenched aside heavy curtains to peer outside. What he recognized instantly drew him downstairs with new questions swarming his mind. 

      “…You look like shit.” 

      Night air crept into their living space alongside Machi’s bloodied scent. Whatever. “Get in.” Even his roommate, who was missing at the moment, could figure out what had occurred; with those injuries, she couldn’t sew herself back together without risking near fatal blood loss. 

      He soon opted for carrying Machi to the basement, unwilling to watch her stagger around like a dying drunk. She required immediate surgery for her abdomen, along with blood transfusions, and a rather painful repositioning procedure to right her arm. 

      “This is the last of my strong anesthetic.” A metal syringe pierced smooth skin with little warning. “Hope your stupid tolerance doesn’t make using it a waste.” Her organs were already out in the open. What was the point? Perhaps he felt…guilty. Or another irrelevant emotion. “So.” He spoke up amid preparing surgical tools and slipping on gloves. “Who managed to cut a vicious bitch like you?” 

He was home, the subtle heat of his nen growing as she tread closer. That was good... probably, a darker part of her mind whispered, and she blinked stubbornly. No, it was good. He could help. He was one of the few others with anatomical skills, and the closest. She wouldn’t have to threaten some naive surgeon this way. 

She didn’t even have the time to will herself to raise her hand before a piercing bright light is shone from his dwelling, and she almost staggers back, snapping her eyes shut. 

She laughed, a small, bitter sound at his words. He always was one to comment on the obvious. “No kidding.”

He lets her in, and so in she does stumble. She clicks her teeth at herself, knowing her weakness is a result of the blood she has lost already, and unfortunately not something she can control. “You open for business?” She questioned, already heading towards his basement, where she knew he kept his supplies. But her walk is weak, and her vision is blurring. She takes too long to move, and Feitan scooped her into his arms. She’s too weak to protest physically, so instead she does it verbally. “You don’t need to carry me,” she insisted. “I can walk.”

But he ignored her, and she is lain on his cold table when they reach the bottom. His work room appeared empty, which was lucky for her. She hated being in this state in front of him. It wasn’t rational, but she kept waiting for the moment he decided to make good on his words. He couldn’t be called her killer if she died of something like blood loss, could he?  Well, he’d find out if he moved slower. 

She kept her eyes closed, unwilling to look into his eyes, but also to avoid the lighting in his room. It would pierce through her sight and leave her head aching if she let it. 

Why was he wasting his anaesthetic on her, she wondered. He knew of her ability to ignore pain, to ignore injury and continue fighting. It was what made her valuable, it was what she’d trained so hard to attain. What was the point?

She’d fucked up. 

Her mission, a total success. Chrollo would be pleased, she was certain of it. He’d asked for something particular of her in confidence, and she was delighted to have found it for him so quickly, considering the circumstances. It would be ready for him by the time he would recover.

However, her personal failure was dripping down her stomach, hot, wet and crimson. Her right arm lay numb at her side, the stark white of her bones poking clean through her skin. She had really done it now. 

She counted three breaks, and the hole in her stomach wouldn’t heal without proper attention. If she concentrated, she knew she could pinpoint how much of her liver she’d lost, but it was all she could do for the moment. The ache of her shattered fingers only served to piss her off more. If she hadn’t been so foolish, she could’ve just fixed herself up easily. 

What was there to do? She could try setting her arm, but in her state, it was likely to be shitty work, and would need to be re-broken again anyway. 

She clenched her jaw, her steps the only sound in the dark street. 

There had to be another way. Her blood was soaking her clothes, staining it red. There was someone with a base close by, she knew, but... 

“Machi and Pakunoda were injured.” “So?”

She didn’t want to go to him. Their torturer hadn’t spoken a word to her since their altercation, and the air between them was still tense. He’d be more likely to laugh at her condition and slam his door, but what other choice did she have?

“If that’s your form of kindness, remind me to never see your... hatred.”  The more she spoke, the more Machi was reminded of a short, sullen, angry man she knew too well. His methods of torture were not the same, she didn’t think, but then again, she was never in the room when Feitan started to work. Could he employ the same thing?

The medic takes a long sip of her cold drink, feeling the chill travel down her throat while she swirls the remaining contents. “It can make a big difference,” she answers, the clinking of her the ice hitting the glass creating an almost lighthearted air to their conversation. Perhaps passersby could confuse the two for simple women trying to earn their affections of their beloved.

A derisive snort sounds from her end. She chooses to not glance his way, won’t give him the satisfaction of a real response to his provocative words. She isn’t unintelligent, neither is he - she knows who exactly he was meaning.  Red hair, painted lips, a firm body- 

As if his words would earn a response from her, because as far as she is concerned, her private life was none of his fucking business.