Chapter Text
Hello Kil.
By the time you receive this letter, I have probably long disappeared from the Manor. And you are probably confused. That is alright. Confusion is natural. Do not bother searching my bedroom. It is locked. Barricaded. Destroyed. And you will not like what you find inside of it.
Nevertheless, there are several duties I hope you remember to fulfill in my absence, however long or permanent that may be.
***
Let’s start here, in the training dungeon.
“Now,” I say to you, tracing my thumb down the length of your chin, giving it a slight tug, “tell me Father’s three rules again.”
“But Aniki,” you tell me, “we’ve gone over them a million times already.”
“Yes,” I say. “And we will do it again.”
Do you remember now, Killua? How annoyed I become when you shake your chains and bemoan our training sessions like a petulant child. When you recoil from my touch, and throw your head back toward the fortress doors, where your eyes, and Father’s eyes, and Grandfather’s eyes, and all the eyes in our family seem to linger.
You do not yet understand the great kindness I am showing you, little brother.
When you move this way, you expose your jugular. Don’t you remember an animal’s first instinct is to lurch for the jugular? Out in the field, such an error would constitute death.
This is why I pull Mother aside after dinner, and report that you are not yet ready.
“Father’s rules are very important,” I tell you again, flicking the riding crop down on your lower back. “They will save your life one day.”
Or one day, they might just ruin it.
***
Let’s begin again with Father’s first law:
I. To understand a foreign body, you must first sniff out its weakest point.
Humans like to pretend they are not objects or slaves to their instincts. But this is patently false. Every human, every association, city, and edifice has both a physical and conceptual weakness. And all weaknesses double as openings.
Many years ago, Father assigned me to my first level-6 solo job at the high-security penitentiary in the northeast of Kakan’yu Kingdom. One of the wardens there had reneged on some backdoor contraband smuggle, and I suppose this ticked off one of the Dons’ jailbird contacts.
The target himself, Alfonso Abbandandodo, was a pissant. Forgettable as a cockroach. It took less effort to snap his neck than it took to walk from the doorway to his desk. The job was a level-6 only by necessity of its location. Anyone who wasn’t a Zoldyck might wonder how someone could break into the cannibal ward of a high-security prison, and commit murder.
But the answer was comedically simple: love.
The warden had a nephew, and I had my Needles. And impersonation really wasn’t all that difficult once you’ve learned that human interaction is always underlaid by some kind of motive.
This is exactly why Father and I tell you that friendships and emotional attachments are far too exploitable.
This is also why I, myself, do not form any attachments at all.
II. Always have a backup plan.
It is storming the morning I arrive in Kakan’yu Kingdom. The air is damp and gray, with clouds like Grandfather's hair swirling across the sky.
This particular penitentiary is a tower stacked over another tower, and requires me to maneuver through an impressive series of gates and loops without any mishaps. It is not unlike the days we played Chutes and Ladders together on the floor of Milluki’s bedroom.
And I have memorized the entire layout flawlessly. Every camera, every turn, every guardpost. I have Milluki scheduled to kill the security camera system at exactly 10:43 AM. I need only one moment alone with the target. Not a second more.
Each warden’s office is built as an off-shoot wing, one per floor. To my misfortune, Alfonso whatever-his-name-is has just been relocated to the top floor, the cannibal ward. Which, as of one week prior to my assignment, also requires a special access code.
I have no access code.
This is why backup plans are essential. Not just weapons or plan Bs, but planned escapes, too.
On account of this being my first level-6 solo assignment, I am eager to impress Father – to a fault. I am eager to demonstrate that even at thirteen years old, I am capable of cold murder, and capable of inheriting the family business. But as I stare down at the blinking keypad knowing I have no access code or backup plan, this self-confidence begins to dwindle. There is a time stipulation, and witnesses. And while I am not particularly prone to panic, I sense agitation rising in my throat like hot steam.
Later, I learn that this special keypad was installed as an added precaution, on account of the penitentiary’s newest prisoner, number 44. The guards whisper about him as I pass their stations, tremors rocking through their bodies, an added air of breathlessness, “that one’s sociopathic,” “a complete monster,” “sexually deviant,” “don’t look directly at him or worse: DON’T – under any circumstances – approach the glass. ”
As I become further entrenched in cell-block E of the cannibal ward, I do my best to heed these warnings. Not because I am even remotely afraid, but simply because curiosity is not a vice of mine. And I have crossed enough cellblocks to know I’m not particularly impressed by these slumpy, tattooed men jangling cups against the steel bars, or the emaciated ones rolling around in their own excrement. I find Mother considerably more frightening before her morning cup of coffee.
As I approach the tail end of the wing, I have already deemed the new prisoner, wherever he is, as forgettable as any other cockroach. Of course, hindsight wastes no time playing me the fool, and not a moment later, I find myself stopped dead in the tracks by a sudden chill, a bolt of lightning, eyes that are skating down the length of my body, sizing me up. It is a dangerous Aura, a predatory one that is both incredibly uncomfortable and incredibly familiar at the same time.
And I know it is him – the maximum-security prisoner. I sense he is taking inventory of me from his cell. But in keeping with my disguise and character, I avoid his gaze and pass quickly, catching only the faint sparkle of glass and a swatch of pink in my periphery.
Now back to the warden’s door: it is 10:38 AM, and I am staring down at the keypad just outside the door, running scenarios through my head. If I attempt to break or recircuit the electrical wiring, I might trip up the alarm system and put the prison on lockdown. Alternatively, I could stick a guard with a Nen needle, but this will require me to travel to-and-from the guardpost again, running the very-high risk of missing my short window at 10:43 AM. Still, the latter is the most optimal plan of action, I decide. Though it isn’t very optimal at all.
Just as I am resigning myself to inevitable failure, a voice runs through me like honey and poison.
“Oh, no… ” he purrs, muddled slightly by the glass. “You don’t have the code? How very unfortunate. The warden only gives it to people he trusts.”
I am not exactly sure why I take the bait and turn – maybe I am just that eager for any crumbs of information he might have, or maybe somewhere deep down, I am intrigued by how familiar his bloodlust smells to my own, but for whatever reason, I do.
And I instantly regret it.
***
Killua, as your big brother, there are things I have always hidden from you. And things I wanted to hide you from. Some of them involve this very special thing called pleasure.
Let me explain.
In life, pain is a given. The first thing a baby does when it enters the world is cry. In fact, you screamed almost as loud as Milluki when you were born. And that is because, intuitively, you sensed you’d entered a world that is dark and sick, stenched with blood, illness, hunger, and death. Anyone who denies this fact is deluding themselves. Like your friend Gon, for instance. He is far too sheltered.
In life, pain is a given. But pleasure is not. Pleasure is the rug that’s pulled out from under your feet. It is the fool’s gold, the elusive dragon all Hunters chase and can never touch.
This is why our family is superior. We’re realists. We know that satisfaction and joy can only be experienced in the act of murder – that split-second moment where, in giving pain, we finally escape our own.
Murder is not personal. Really, it is the most impersonal, organic part of nature.
This brings me to Father’s last and most important rule:
III. On the field, you are not a human being. You are a Zoldyck, and nothing more.
Remember this one when you are slipping your claws through a target’s ribcage and ripping out their heart, Killua. You are nameless. There is no Killua. And there is no Illumi. We are all Zoldycks, and nothing more.
Only when you forfeit yourself to human emotion do you forfeit power.
***
I am staring into the eyes of a cannibal named Hisoka Morrow. There are things I will eventually learn about him, like how he only wears earrings made of white gold, and prefers the Stafford Gambit (the most absurd opening in all of chess), and how his favorite kinds of flowers are the ones that grow only in the desert or the arctic. But for now, all I see is a teenage boy a few years older than me standing behind a glass cage.
His jaw is sharp enough to skin a person alive, and his eyes are like melted ore. His hair is pink, with an Ivy-League cut. And there are yellow music notes painted between the black and white stripes of his prison jumpsuit, which is unbuttoned so low, I can see half his chest, and tied neatly at the calves like some piece of fashionable streetwear you’d skim by in a catalog.
When he smiles, it looks like he’s shoved a banana between his lips. And I am caught between being disarmed and wanting to crawl out of my own skin.
There’s no doubt he’s inviting. But only in the same way a predator is – the way you might ogle at a colorful spider until it injects you with its poison.
“Do you need it?” he asks. “The code?”
In any other circumstance, I would not engage with a person so unnerving. But time is quickly slipping away.
I nod slowly back and say, “yes.” And as I do, I see he is trying to study my micro-expressions. The way I often do to other people. This is how I know his efforts will yield no results. My affect presents very flat, or so I’m told.
“Do you need it…” his eyes go wide as two moons, “... desperately?”
It’s 10:40 AM now.
So again, I give another slow nod, sensing all the power shift from my meticulous plans and into his hands.
“Then tell me something…” He moves like a drop of water as he slinks closer to the glass, indicating that I should do the same.
At first, I pause. A symphony of guards is playing out in my head. “That one’s sociopathic,” “a complete monster,” “sexually deviant,” “don’t look directly at him.”
“Or worse: DON’T – under any circumstances – approach the glass.”
I approach the glass. Close enough to measure our height difference, a good half foot. He’s much taller and older. I am close enough to see his breath fog like ice on the glass.
“That’s not your real face, is it?” he whispers with a conspiratorial smile. Looking at me as if I’m the one behind the cage.
“Don’t worry,” he adds, winking. “I won’t tell a soul.”
Well I don’t have a soul, or so I hear.
So I keep quiet and look at my watch. It’s 10:41 AM.
In response to my lack of response, the boy draws a surprised breath, almost as if silence is an admission of guilt, which, for the record, it is not .
Then he brings his hands above his head and rests them against the glass. I feel towered over, even with a barrier separating us. “My name is Hisoka Morrow. Tell me your name.”
It’s not so much a request as it is an order.
I think of Rule Number 3: On the field, you are not a human being. You are a Zoldyck, and nothing more.
He’s tall. Very tall. I watch him crack his knuckles over my head, and a shudder almost rolls through me.
“My name is Illumi.”
Hisoka smiles victoriously – a smile so wide in diameter, I begin to wonder if his cheeks have been surgically altered to accommodate the enormous size of his mouth.
“That’s a very nice name.” His tongue darts out, and slides over his lips. I imagine this gesture makes most people shrink away. It does not work on me.
“Yes.”
“Dear Illumi,” he says, “I’d be happy to give you the code, but I want something in return.”
Of course he does.
“I want to see what you really look like.” His eyes narrow into slits, going inordinately dark.
“No. There are cameras everywhere.” And it’s 10:42 AM. At this point, I’m ready to forgo the assignment and recoup my losses tomorrow.
“There aren’t any cameras by the door. If you go there and look over your shoulder, I’ll be able to see you.”
I frown, unsure of whether this is true. The blueprints Father gave me and Milluki do corroborate this, but if they installed a keypad, who’s to say they didn’t install another camera?
“Illuuumi,” he makes it sound like a song. “I’ve been in here so long, it’s been ages since I saw another boy. Just a little peek?”
Ages? The guards said he was arrested last week.
At this point, Hisoka Morrow is lucky there’s a sheet of glass between us. I’ve already readied four Needles between my knuckles.
"Please?”
***
Killua, when I tell you that Father was angry, it is an understatement.
I was escorted to his private room, where I found him picking at a bowl of baby carrots – the color of which had turned nude in the blue light. As Father chomped down, I wondered if he was imagining my neck crunching between his teeth.
Behind us, you were babbling to Mike as he licked the full length of your back and nudged you in my direction. You were one. And capable of walking, but incapable of exercising sound judgment. Even as I wielded knives, swords, and Needles in my hands, you would totter over, grab hold of my calves, and gaze up at me with the bluest eyes, going, “Lu-lu, Lu-lu.” You repeated this incessantly until I dropped my weapons and took you in my arms. You could not yet pronounce my name correctly. But by the time you could, Father had already instructed me to begin your training regimen, and the days of you asking to be held by “Lu-lu” were long gone.
“You’re going to have to kill that clown, you know,” Father said, frowning deeply.
“I know.”
“I cannot believe you told him your name. I am in shock that my own son is capable of such irreparable oversight! This is a business, Illumi!”
“I know.”
“Lu-lu, Lu-lu!”
I had you sitting on my lap, combing my fingers through the tangles of your white curls while you absently hummed the theme-song from Milluki’s video game. I noticed that you hummed whenever there was fighting.
Which brings me to yet another secret I’ve kept from you, though technically, I suppose it is Mother and Father’s secret.
Six months after you were born, Mother disappeared. Her bedroom was emptied. There was no note. Nothing. She did not return for a year. Father once alluded to her “unfinished business in Meteor City.” But I am skeptical that he had any indication regarding her whereabouts at all. He was… forlorn. The quality of his work deteriorated completely, and so did his temper.
During that period, with Mother gone, Grandfather on a project with Netero, and Father indisposed, the responsibilities of raising both you and Milluki seemed, naturally, to fall on my shoulders. As well as the grunt-work for our family business.
In every sense of the word, we were short-staffed. The days were long, and nights were longer. You were prone to crying. I dislike the sound of crying. In moments that were most grueling, I would repeat Father’s Third Rule: You are not a human being. You are a Zoldyck, and nothing more.
***
It is 30 seconds to 10:43 AM. Admittedly, it is feasible for me to remove my disguise just as Milluki cuts off the camera system. Dangerous. But feasible.
With this fact considered and also my general disdain toward delaying jobs considered, I roll my eyes at Hisoka Morrow and growl, “fine.”
“Then here’s my little clue,” Hisoka hinges at the hips, and dips ever closer. There’s a purple star on his left cheek, and a teardrop on his right. I can discern every stroke of paint, that he’s left-handed, and surprisingly skilled with a brush. “Alfonso Abbandandodo has such a pathetic sense of self-preservation that his access code is a very obvious number. Very sentimental, and very, very exploitable.” The tingling sensation of his breath tickles the shell of my ear, even through glass.
“Can you think of what that number might be, Illumi?"
Without hesitation, I am back at the warden’s door.
The code is obviously Alfonso’s birthday. I had suspected, but I can’t go punching numbers into a prison keypad without absolute certainty.
I look up at Hisoka, who waves back with a smug grin.
A suspicion strikes me: what if he's lying?
People lie all the time.
Hisoka continues to wave and smile. Behind him, there’s a tornado of newspaper clippings, whimsical murals, and yellow smiley faces. This person is not reliable. This person is a maniac.
And for the life of me, I cannot pinpoint what drives him, like I typically can with most people.
It is 10:43 AM.
I do not make deals with the devil without guarantees. So I try the code first before removing my horrid disguise as the nephew of Alfonso whatever-his-name-is.
When the little bulb on the switchboard flashes green and the door buzzes open, I am pleased. Admittedly, I flirt with the idea of running off, and welshing on my deal with Hisoka. But I have a niggling sense we will run into each other again someday. So just as promised, I dutifully pluck the pins from my neck. And once the familiar sweep of hair hits my shoulders, I turn back toward Hisoka.
He is laying on the floor at the very edge of his cage. Knees bent, arms leant back. His eyes are yellow and ravenous, like a coyote. When we make eye-contact, he tosses his head back, ruts his hips, and moans. Then laughs. Then moans again, vacillating deliriously between the two.
One of the guards’ warnings resurfaces: “Sexually deviant.”
Without another word, I abandon the freak.
And then I cross the room and snap Alfonso’s neck in half. All before the camera system can even blink. Afterward, I descend the tower feeling satisfied but vaguely concerned about the identifying information I had to exchange with a madman in order to complete the assignment. I am halfway through the tower when I hear alarms blaring from the top levels and working their way down like a wave of water. I assume someone has stumbled upon Alfonso’s dead body before I can make a clean escape. But I am proven wrong and utterly dumbfounded when I overhear the reports on the police radios.
A cell is emptied. Maximum-security. Cannibal ward. Hunters are being dispatched as we speak. Be on the lookout.
When I first met Hisoka, I mistook him for a caged bird. As I leave the penitentiary, I realize he was only a caged bird by choice. Until it no longer suited him.
This is because Hisoka Morrow likes to vanish into thin air, the same place he seems to come from.