ᴀʟᴇxɪᴛʜʏᴍɪᴀ ➳ 𝘐𝘭𝘭𝘶𝘮𝘪 𝘡𝘰𝘭𝘥𝘺𝘤𝘬 𝘹 𝘖𝘊

Part Six

After those words, Illumi let his Nen spike. The blonde felt her own aura respond, as if it was an automatic. That surprised the oldest Zoldyck child. He hadn't expected her to even know the concept of Nen, let alone be able to use it herself, since he hadn't sensed anything but a regular persons life energy with her.

"You are incompetent. You are not strategically skilled, you can't even open two of our gates, you have trouble with even making your way through this house. You are unworthy."

He threw those words at her with a tone as deadly as poison would be.

Lucky me that Zeno's ruthless training made me immune to poison.

Suddenly, Illumi moved. Rei didn't even see where he got them from, but one moment he had a pair of long needles with a golden handle in his hand and the other the needles were rushing towards her with an incredible speed.

Her reflexes just responded in time. She turned hot body sideways, her eyes widening as one of his needles barely missed her nose. Not giving her the time to recover, Illumi already threw another set of needles at her.

Rei felt the change of air pressure and heard the sweeping noise of the needles coming towards her, but this time she was prepared. She avoided a hit by jumping back, resting her feet on the wall and prying loose some of the needles that were stuck.

She swifted from one the back wall to the side and lunged for him with his own needles as her weapon. Illumi couldn't believe how stupid this girl was. He just threw another set of needles at her while she was flying through the air.

But Rei knew he would do that. It was a logic reaction in this situation, no one would be really that dumb to go straight towards an opponent with needles through the air, a place where you can't dodge properly.

His needles seemed to approach her in slow motion. One would hit her right under her collarbone, another in the middle of her nose bridge, another one was going to pierce her ear and the rest would miss. Her hands intensified her grip on the two needles she had pried out of the wall.

Almost. Almost. Just another seven centimetres.

Right before his attack was going to hit her, the blonde used his own needles to smack the one going for her nose bridge and the one going for under her collarbone down, careful to not get hit by any other needles while doing so and making them hit the ground with a tinkling sound.

The third one pierced her ear and got stuck. The stinging pain was washed away almost completely by the adrenaline rushing through Rei's veins.

Instead of attempting to stab him with his own needles, like she originally intended to do, she rotated in the air and kicked to his head.

While Rei was actually feeling in pretty good shape, she was getting a tiny bit on Illumi's nerve. She didn't seem strong, she didn't feel special, she didn't look smart. So why was she a more capable fighter than he had given her credit for?

He had never been wrong before when predicting someone's strength, but somehow he had underestimated this girl a little. The lowest of the low, that was what he'd thought. Yet here she was, actually managing to attack him.

He was just in time to block her kick and grabbed her foot. Rei felt his hand closing around her ankle and immediately relaxed her muscles so she was going to hang upside down, held up by him. While doing that, she attacked his stomach with the needles she still had.

Illumi realised what she was doing and pulled her up, chopping her hands harshly with his free one. Rei dropped his needles and went for another kick instead. She used her free leg to rotate her body, with the intention of kicking his head on the same side she'd tried it before.

He let go of her leg, to defend himself against another one of her kicks, doing exactly as Rei planned. She prepared herself to drop to the ground, but the black-haired bastard had grabbed her other leg. She cursed under her breath, this was not what she had planned.

He pulled her up again, so her face was at the same height as his was, but upside down. She didn't know why exactly, but Rei panicked. It was like her hand reacted on its own, and before she realised what she was doing, she'd done it. She had given him a slap on his cheek, like a mother punishing her child for saying something out of line.

Illumi didn't even blink, but his black orbs widened almost unnoticeable. He paused for a second, his eyes staring into hers. Then he moved, his arm rushing towards her face, closer and closer, his hand transformed into Claw Hands-

"Enough."

A deep, sudden voice echoed through the room, to which Illumi immediately froze his action. He kept looking into her eyes and Rei couldn't bring herself to look away. His gaze was intimidating and dark, as if death awaited those who stared to long, yet Rei couldn't even blink.

Then, he dropped her.

Zeno was standing in the doorway with his hands behind his back and a stern look on his feet. Illumi didn't even look at Rei, but just walked out of the room. His grandfather gave him a sideway glare when he passed him.

Zeno waited a couple of minutes to make sure Illumi was out of hearing distance, meanwhile Rei got back on her two feet and calmed herself.

"I didn't know you already knew how to use Nen."

It wasn't a question, it was a statement. He questioned why she didn't mention that earlier.

"Who thought you?"

"Raaja."

Raaja wasn't that of a well known name. Even Rei didn't know much about her, except from her being a Pro Hunter, her appearance and that she was rather skilled. Zeno rubbed his moustache.
"Tell me about her."

"She was tall, with a figure as a branch, but really strong. It had only been three days since the Hunter Exam when she approached me. I thought she was some kind of creep at first, but she trained me to manually open my Aura Nodes to control the flow of my Aura, until perfection. Afterwards, she learned me how to use the Nen of the Flame. And then, suddenly, she disappeared over night. Haven't heard from her since then.

Oh, we also used to play all types of games, like chess and stuff."

Still rubbing his beard, Zeno frowned. He had no idea who this woman could have been, but if she'd insisted on drilling her Aura Nodes first like Rei claimed, he agreed with her methods.

"Good. We will begin from that tomorrow."

"Chess?"

Zeno hold back a chuckle. "Controlling your Aura Nodes"

Rei groaned internally.