USEFUL ➴ Illumi x Reader

LXVI. Pain

Her screechy laughter filled the room, echoing on the walls, it took all my self-control to not wince in pain and to only shrug it off.

"Oh Y/N..." I saw the large yellow and pink dot get larger, "I'm wearing it because we'll go outside sometime soon."

Would I survive this day? I was starting to question myself. "Fresh air sure is what I need right now."

"Oh, not yet." Of course not, was she going to drown me next? Oh my goodness, she was going to drown me next. I gently pull the hair off my face, I had broken into a cold sweat, probably during the electrocution part of this test. "You are handling this fairly well."

"Well, I didn't have Zoldyck training, but these do seem like important skills." I joke, but it pains my heart knowing that little kids, every Zoldyck kid ever has been through this since birth.

My vision was becoming clearer, and I could finally make out a large container with liquid moving inside. Well that would surely wake up my dormant twitchy brain. Cold water I hoped.

Still feeling incredibly nauseous, I peaked at Madame Kikyo, she was leaving the splotch phase her silhouette becoming slightly more distinct.

I moved my legs, could I hold my own weight? Probably not. That was a big problem. My belly grumbled, clearly unsatisfied without any food. I closed my eyes and when I opened them there the water was closer to me, in an unfocused white table.

"But you always wear it... Even if you're not going out-" My hair was yanked back with an insane strength, and suddenly my head was being pulled down. I gasped for air before sinking into the water, my hands gripping the table until my knuckles hurt, trying to keep myself up after the shackles left my hands no longer holding me up.

Holding my breath was alright, Feitan made sure that I knew how to swim in any kind of situation and not die breathing water. My eyes closed, my lips curled a cold-water splash would help a lot waking me up, I felt my leg and arm trembling still strained from the electrocution.

I tried to remain calm, which was hard because I couldn't take a deep breath, as time slowly passed. This was tedious, soon I'd feel the need for oxygen and the primitive urges of survival would try to kick in. It would be a pain to control myself.

I was yanked out of the cold water rather quickly, I took the nick of time to exhale and pull a deep breath, the cold hair filling my lungs before my head was underwater again. This could be doable, what else could she throw at me?

I kept repeating that as the tested my reaction time by throwing me knifes, my adaptation skills by throwing me into a freezer and then follow that by a sauna visit, along with many other weird tests made specifically so I could go through some pain slowly building it up to an excruciating level. Currently, my endurance was based on Mrs Zoldyck dragging me outside, calling Mike as she chimed "Fetch boy, tear her apart.", with the most glacial look one could possibly give with their face covered in bandages and their eyes hidden under her visor.

I was a gasping mess, sore all over, sitting on a tree, thinking about how I could end up running from Mike again! This time was worse, mostly because I had been driven to the limit all day long. They were humane enough to have a lunch break before they released the hounds on me.

I sat on a tree branch, taking deep breaths, my legs were making themselves heard, they were sore, burning and bleeding as some cuts from the first test of the day, the whipping session opened after their short lived closure. Some of them were leaking a yellow liquid and that was concerning, my arms didn't even had time to create crusts every time I moved it felt like daggers were piercing all over my poor excuse of a body.

As I stared into Mike's soulless eyes, so dark with glints of light looking like stars. A mesmerizing yet terrifying view, the animal that was so tamed it wouldn't listen to any commands if they did not sprout from the lips of his master.

I wished I was a manipulator like Illumi, I'd just throw a needle and make this gorgeous dog not want to shred me to pieces, and feed off of what I could assume was badly seasoned meat.

"Mike, I don't want to kill you. But you're putting me on the spot right here. It's my life or yours." My E/C eyes fall over his luscious white fur, if only he wasn't a soulless killing machine, I'd love to pet him and whisper 'good boy'. My patience was running thin, the tree was whining under Mike's attacks and claws, threatening to break.

"You don't have to kill Mike, Y/N." I heard an old man's voice from afar. He then showed himself, leaving the shadow of the large trees and snapping his fingers making the hound stop. "Kikyo said your exam ended hours ago, she just didn't feel like calling off Mike and seeing if you were alive."

"Sounds cruel and twisted, but I guess that's her specialty." My anger boiling up, thinking about all the things the monster put me through. "So..." I cleared my throat. "I passed?"

"The physical exam. We'll give you plenty of time to heal until the final exam." His eyes sparkled, what could be the last exam? I wondered, as soon as Zeno disappeared and Mike decided to go chase a butterfly away, so he was a good boy when he wasn't trying to kill me.

The Zoldycks... All of them professional assassins, a test to become part of the family, to marry Illumi. I winced as I slowly made my way down the tree and walked up the mountain, now that the adrenaline was leaving me, the excruciating pain was settling in, ready to drive me mad. What anguished me the most was the fact that the final exam would involve me killing people for money...

Art By: ADONISZAF (adoniszaf.tumblr.com)

Author's Note: Hello lovelies I'm truly sorry! (Some hours ago I accidentally pressed publish but the chapter was unfinished, so I assume some of you got a notification and no chapter :'c)

Here is the chapter, hope you enjoy it, I didn't want to take long with the test so I skipped over some parts, did you think it was a right choice?