Chapter Text
Timeline - 1
The cathedral had been abandoned for decades.
Kurapika could see it in the warped pews, wood swelling and splitting from years of moisture. In the shattered remnants of stained glass crunching beneath his shoes, saints and sinners ground to colored dust. In the altar cloth rotting to grey threads, the silence pressing against his ears like held breath.
Moonlight fell through broken windows in pale shafts. Dust drifted like snow. The air smelled of stone and age and something faintly sweet: old incense, or the memory of it.
A place that had once meant something to someone. Now just bones.
Kurapika moved through the nave without hurry. His footsteps echoed in the vaulted space, each sound returning multiplied. The Judgment Chain rested dormant around his right arm. Five years he'd carried it. Five years of preparation, of training, of hunting the Spider that had destroyed his clan.
It all came down to this.
Chrollo Lucilfer stood at the altar.
Not hiding. Not preparing. Just standing with his back to the entrance, looking up at the ruined rose window: a saint's face fractured into abstract shapes, one painted eye still staring down with serene indifference.
Kurapika stopped at the edge of the nave.
Watched.
Chrollo was taller than the photographs suggested. Broader through the shoulders, his dark coat hanging open over clothes that fit him like armor. Even motionless, even with his back turned, there was something in the line of his spine that spoke of contained force. A predator choosing stillness. The kind of calm that could shatter into violence between one breath and the next.
"The rose window survived better than I expected."
Chrollo's voice carried easily through the empty space. Conversational. As if they were acquaintances meeting by chance, as if this were ordinary.
Kurapika said nothing.
"Fifteenth century, if the records are accurate. The craftsmen who made it are long dead. Their names forgotten." A pause. "But the glass remains. There's a lesson in that."
Silence.
Chrollo turned.
Slowly. Without urgency. And Kurapika got his first clear look at the man who had ordered the massacre.
Dark hair swept back from a face too pale, like something that lived underground. The cross tattoo stark on his forehead. And his eyes—
Dark grey. The color of storm clouds. The color of ash.
They moved over Kurapika with clinical interest. Assessing. Cataloguing. The gaze of a collector examining a potential acquisition.
"You're quieter than I expected." Chrollo's head tilted slightly. "The reports described someone more volatile. The chain user who killed Uvogin." His voice didn't change on the name. His expression didn't shift. But something tightened almost imperceptibly around his eyes. "Emotional. Driven by rage."
Kurapika caught it. The microexpression. The fraction of a second where the mask flickered.
Uvogin.
This was recent for Chrollo. Days, maybe. His friend, his family, dead, and Kurapika was the one who'd done it.
"You don't look like rage," Chrollo continued, and his voice was pleasant again, smooth again, the crack sealed over. But now Kurapika knew to look for the seams.
"What do I look like?"
"Patience." Chrollo's lips curved. Not quite a smile. "The dangerous kind."
They stood thirty feet apart. Moonlight fell between them like a veil. Kurapika was acutely aware of the physical difference: Chrollo had several inches on him, the kind of build that came from years of violence, shoulders broad beneath his coat. His hands hung loose at his sides, but there was tension in his forearms. Readiness.
The posture of a man who could move very quickly if he chose to.
It didn't matter. Size wasn't everything. Speed wasn't everything.
Will was everything.
"You know who I am," Kurapika said. Not a question.
"Kurapika of the Kurta clan. Last survivor." Chrollo began walking, not toward him, but along the perimeter of the nave, a slow circuit. His footsteps echoed against stone. "Hunter License obtained four years ago. Specialization in Conjuration with something else underneath. Something you hide."
"You've done your research."
"I research everyone who kills my people."
The words landed differently than Chrollo probably intended. My people. Kurapika thought of thirty six bodies. Thought of empty sockets where eyes had been. Thought of his people, and what this man had done to them.
His vision flickered. Red at the edges.
He breathed. Controlled it. Held.
Chrollo had stopped walking. He was watching Kurapika with something that looked like curiosity but felt like a scalpel.
"Uvogin was with us from the beginning," Chrollo said quietly. "Twelve years."
The name again. And this time Kurapika saw it clearly: the way Chrollo's jaw tightened for just a moment before smoothing. The way his shoulders drew back almost imperceptibly. The grief was there, running beneath the calm like a river under ice.
"You ended him in a single night," Chrollo continued. His voice hadn't changed. His posture hadn't changed. But his eyes—
His eyes had gone flat. Dead. The grey of them suddenly cold in a way that had nothing to do with color.
"He earned his death," Kurapika said.
"Did he?" Chrollo took a step closer. Just one. "By your morality, or some objective standard?"
"By the morality of the thirty six people he helped murder."
Chrollo stopped.
For a moment, neither of them moved. The dust drifted between them. Somewhere outside, wind moved through broken windows, making the cathedral breathe.
"Thirty six," Chrollo repeated. His voice was soft. Thoughtful. "You remember the exact number."
"I remember all of them."
Something shifted in Chrollo's expression. Not guilt; Kurapika doubted he was capable of that. But recognition, perhaps. One collector of the dead acknowledging another.
"So do I," Chrollo said.
Kurapika felt his hands want to tremble. Didn't let them.
"Five years." He kept his voice level. Clinical. Matching Chrollo's tone, refusing to give him the satisfaction of visible rage. "That's how long it's been since your Troupe came to my village. Since you killed everyone I'd ever known and cut out their eyes while they were still alive." He paused. Let the words settle into the space between them. "The scarlet is brighter during fear. That's why you do it that way."
"Yes."
Just that. No justification. No philosophy.
Yes.
Kurapika's control cracked. Just a fraction. Just enough for his eyes to flare scarlet for one heartbeat before he forced them back to blue.
Chrollo's expression flickered. Interest, sharp and sudden, before it smoothed away.
He'd seen.
"You're stalling," Kurapika said, redirecting. "Waiting for your Troupe."
"The Troupe won't come." Chrollo's voice was mild again, but there was an edge beneath it now. Something that hadn't been there before. "Hisoka saw to that, I assume. He's been waiting for this opportunity for some time." A pause. "As, apparently, have you."
"For five years."
"Then you've been more patient than Hisoka. That's saying something."
Chrollo resumed his slow circuit. But his movements were different now: tighter, more controlled. The predator was closer to the surface.
"I'm curious," he said. "You've clearly planned this carefully. Isolated me. Armed yourself." His grey eyes dropped to the chain around Kurapika's arm. "That's not a simple weapon. It took years to forge something like that. Every link deliberate. Every restriction precise." He looked up again. Met Kurapika's gaze. "But you haven't attacked. You're talking."
"And?"
"And you want something. Not just my death; you could have attempted that already." Chrollo stopped walking. Faced him fully. "What is it? Information? The eyes we took? Or is it something else?"
"I want you to suffer."
The words came out flat. Cold. Without heat or passion, just fact.
Chrollo went very still.
"Death is quick," Kurapika continued. "You don't learn anything from death. You don't understand what you've done. I want you to live long enough to comprehend exactly what you took from me. From all of us."
Silence stretched between them.
Then Chrollo laughed.
It was a soft sound. Almost surprised. And beneath it, something that might have been appreciation.
"You want to make me understand," he said. "The last survivor of a destroyed clan wants to make me feel what I did to them." His head tilted. "That's ambitious."
"I'm patient."
"You've said that." Chrollo's hand moved toward his coat, slow, deliberate, showing Kurapika exactly what he was doing. He withdrew a book. Dark leather, unmarked.
Kurapika recognized it. "Skill Hunter."
"You know it."
"I know everything about you. Including what that book does, and how to prevent you from using it."
Chrollo's expression shifted, just slightly, just for a moment. Reassessment. He was recalculating.
Good. Let him.
"You need to touch the book to access your stolen abilities," Kurapika said. "You need both hands free. And you need time to find the right page." He let his own chain stir, links chiming softly against each other. "I don't intend to give you any of those things."
"Then stop talking," Chrollo said quietly, "and show me what five years of hatred built."
Kurapika moved.
The first chain shot toward the pillar behind Chrollo, wrapping around stone, pulling tight. Kurapika used it as an anchor, launching himself forward.
Chrollo was already moving. Book opening, pages flipping, grey eyes tracking Kurapika's trajectory with predatory focus.
The second chain caught his wrist.
The book fell.
Chrollo hissed, a sharp intake of breath, the first sound Kurapika had surprised out of him, and twisted, trying to break free. His movements were fast, precise, trained. But the chain contracted with a thought, faster than muscle could respond, and then the third chain was wrapping around his other wrist, and the fourth around his torso, pinning his arms.
Six seconds.
Chrollo stood restrained in the center of the cathedral, chains wound around his body like silver vines. Moonlight turned his grey eyes to pale mirrors. His chest was rising and falling faster than before, not quite panting, but close.
Kurapika approached.
Slowly. No need to rush now.
"Your book is out of reach," he said. "Your hands are restrained. Without Skill Hunter, you're limited to physical combat and your base Nen." He stopped two feet away, looking up at Chrollo. Even chained, the height difference was notable. "You're not helpless. But you're close."
Chrollo's jaw was tight. A muscle jumped in his cheek.
"You're faster than I anticipated," he said. His voice was steady, but there was something beneath it now. Something that hadn't been there before. "I underestimated you."
"Most people do."
"I won't again."
Kurapika raised his right hand. The chain around his arm began to glow, faint blue white luminescence that seemed to come from within the metal.
The Judgment Chain.
"This is going into your heart," he said. "Once it's there, you die if you use Nen to harm anyone. You die if you try to remove it. You die if you contact the Phantom Troupe. You die if you try to escape my custody."
Chrollo's eyes had fixed on the glowing chain. His expression was strange. Not fear, but something more complicated. Interest and wariness and something almost like hunger.
"A conditional curse," he said softly. "Self-reinforcing. The restrictions power the binding." His gaze lifted to Kurapika's face. "You built this for me. Specifically."
"Yes."
"How long?"
"Five years."
Chrollo was quiet for a moment. When he spoke again, his voice was different. Softer.
"You've thought about me for five years."
Kurapika felt his jaw tighten. "I've hated you for five years."
"Is there a difference?"
The words landed like a blow. Kurapika refused to let it show.
"There will be," he said. "When you understand what you took. When you've lived with the loss long enough to feel it properly. Then you'll know the difference."
"Uvogin knew."
Kurapika went still.
"Before he died," Chrollo continued. His voice was quiet now. Almost intimate. "He faced you. Fought you. Lost." A pause. "Did he understand, at the end? What you wanted him to feel?"
Kurapika thought of Uvogin's final moments. The defiance. The refusal to break.
"No," he admitted. "He didn't."
"No." Chrollo's lips curved. Not a smile. Something harder. "And neither will I."
Kurapika stepped forward. His hand pressed against Chrollo's chest.
Chrollo's breath caught. His body went rigid against the chains. Up close, Kurapika could see the pulse jumping in his throat. Could see the slight dilation of his pupils.
Not fear. But awareness. Finally, fully aware of what was about to happen.
"Judgment Chain," Kurapika said quietly.
The chain didn't pierce flesh. It passed through cloth and skin and muscle like light through glass, leaving no wound, no blood, no mark. Kurapika felt the moment it reached Chrollo's heart: a soft resistance, then acceptance.
Chrollo made a sound. Low, involuntary. His eyes went wide.
"Rules as follows." Kurapika's voice was steady. Ritualistic. "You cannot use Nen to harm any living person. You cannot attempt to remove this chain or allow another to remove it. You cannot contact the Phantom Troupe directly or indirectly. You cannot attempt to escape my custody."
The chain pulsed. Once. Twice. Three times. Syncing with Chrollo's heartbeat.
Through his palm, Kurapika could feel that rhythm. Strong despite everything. Defiant.
"Violation of any rule results in immediate cardiac arrest." He met Chrollo's eyes. Grey, still. But different now. Something shifting behind them. "Do you understand?"
"Yes." The word came out rough. Strained. "I understand."
"Then we're—"
Heat.
It erupted from the point of contact without warning, a wave of warmth that had nothing to do with body temperature, nothing to do with Nen as Kurapika understood it. It crashed through his chest, wrapped around his heart, raced up his spine.
His hand wouldn't move.
He tried to pull back. Couldn't. His palm was sealed to Chrollo's chest as if fused there, and the heat was building, intensifying, becoming something that bordered on pain—
Chrollo made a choked sound. His body convulsed against the chains. And through the contact, through whatever was forming between them, Kurapika felt it—
Chrollo's panic.
Genuine. Uncontrolled. The mask completely gone for the first time since they'd started speaking.
What—
The thought wasn't entirely his own.
Visions crashed through him.
—a city of garbage and forgotten children, a boy with grey eyes learning violence before kindness—
—Uvogin's face, laughing, alive, the way he'd been before Kurapika ended him—
—grief, vast and dark and carefully contained, a river running beneath ice that never breaks—
—the Kurta village burning not with guilt but with something stranger, a hollow ache where guilt should be, and wonder, terrible wonder at the color of their eyes—
Kurapika tore himself away with a gasp.
He staggered backward. His hand was shaking. His whole body was shaking. The heat was still there, not fading, not intensifying, just present. A warmth behind his ribs that felt like it had always been there.
Chrollo had fallen to his knees. The chains had loosened when Kurapika's concentration broke, and he knelt on the cathedral floor with one hand pressed over his heart, breathing in harsh, ragged gasps.
His composure was gone. Completely. His grey eyes were wide, pupils blown, and through something, Kurapika could feel his shock, his confusion, his fear.
And beneath it all, buried deep:
Grief.
Grief for Uvogin, held so tight it had become part of him. Grief that never showed on his face because he'd learned long ago that showing weakness in Meteor City meant death.
Kurapika hadn't known he would feel this. Hadn't known he would understand.
He didn't want to understand.
"What did you do?" His voice came out wrong. Breathless.
"Nothing." Chrollo's answer was ragged. "I didn't—that wasn't me—"
"The chain shouldn't—"
"This isn't the chain." Chrollo raised his head. His face was pale, shaken in a way Kurapika hadn't thought possible. "The chain is still there. I can feel it. This is something else."
They stared at each other.
The cathedral was silent except for their breathing. The dust continued to drift. The moonlight continued to fall. The world continued as if nothing had changed.
But something had changed.
Kurapika could feel Chrollo's heartbeat. Not through his palm anymore, but through something inside him. A rhythm that echoed his own, slightly offset, the two pulses tangled together like crossed threads.
"Can you feel it," Chrollo said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"You feel—" Chrollo stopped. Swallowed. "You feel what I feel."
Kurapika's hands clenched at his sides. Through the connection, through whatever this was, he felt Chrollo's realization mirror his own. The dawning horror of intimacy neither of them had chosen.
"This wasn't supposed to happen," Kurapika said.
"No."
"I planned everything. Every contingency. Every outcome."
"Yes."
"I didn't plan for this."
Chrollo laughed.
It was a broken sound. Nothing like his earlier composure. Raw in a way that made something in Kurapika's chest twist.
"Neither did I," Chrollo said. He pushed himself to his feet, movements unsteady. One hand remained pressed over his heart, where the Judgment Chain now lived alongside this new, impossible connection. "In twelve years of leading the Troupe, I've never—" He stopped. Breathed. "I don't know what this is."
"Then we find out."
Chrollo's grey eyes met his. Through the bond, Kurapika felt the weight of his attention, the collector's focus turned inward, examining this new acquisition.
"Together," Chrollo said quietly.
The word hung in the air.
Kurapika wanted to reject it. Wanted to say that they weren't partners, weren't allies, weren't anything except enemy and victim. But the warmth in his chest pulsed in time with Chrollo's heartbeat, and he couldn't pretend he didn't feel it.
"The conditions still apply," he said instead. "The Judgment Chain is still active."
"I know."
"You're still my prisoner."
"I know that too."
"And when I find out what this connection is, I'm going to sever it. Whatever it takes."
Chrollo was quiet for a long moment. His expression had smoothed again, the mask rebuilding itself piece by piece, but it was different now. Kurapika could feel the effort it cost him. Could feel the emotions still churning beneath.
"You felt it," Chrollo said finally. "When we touched. You felt what I feel."
Kurapika didn't answer.
"Uvogin." Chrollo's voice was soft. "You felt what I feel about Uvogin."
The grief. The vast, dark river of it, running beneath the ice.
"Yes," Kurapika said.
"Then you know." Chrollo's eyes held his. "You know I'm not what you thought I was."
"I know you're capable of grief." Kurapika's voice was cold. Precise. Refusing to give him more than that. "That doesn't make you human. Monsters grieve too, when you kill what belongs to them."
Something flickered across Chrollo's face. Pain, maybe. Or recognition.
"Yes," he said quietly. "They do."
The cathedral was growing darker. The moon had shifted, the angle of light changing, shadows spreading across the broken saints and shattered glass.
"We need to move," Kurapika said. "Hisoka's distraction won't last forever."
"No." Chrollo straightened. The mask was fully in place now: calm, composed, impenetrable. But Kurapika could feel what lay beneath it. "It won't."
He turned toward the entrance. Toward the darkness outside. Toward whatever came next.
Behind him, Chrollo's footsteps followed.
And in Kurapika's chest, the warmth settled deeper, tangling itself with his heartbeat, making itself at home in a place that had been cold for five years.
He didn't know what it was.
He didn't know how to destroy it.
But he would find out.
Whatever it took. Even if it means having the monster around him, by his side.