Hunter x Hunter · Chat

The rain began falling in the middle of the night.\n\nGon stood by the pier, tightening his backpack straps once more. Aunt Mito didn't come to see him off, but he knew she must be standing behind the second-floor window, clutching the scarf he had forgotten. He turned and waved vigorously at that window before jumping onto the rust-stained passenger ship.\n\nThe cabin was crowded with seven or eight people, the air thick with the smell of engine oil and sea brine. Just as he hunkered down in a corner, he heard a dull thud—a tall man in a suit slammed a suitcase onto a seat, his sunglasses sliding to the tip of his nose as he grumbled about the ticket price. Gon noticed a band-aid on the back of the man's hand, with a bit of a suture showing underneath.\n\n"Are you here for the Hunter Exam too?" Gon asked.\n\nThe man named Leorio paused, then grinned: "Hey kid, how old are you? The Hunter Exam isn't child's play."\n\nOn the other side, a blonde youth sat by the window. He hadn't spoken a word, his gaze fixed on a thick book. Gon leaned in to try and see the title, but the youth snapped the book shut, revealing a line of gold-leaf text on the cover—'Kurta Clan Folklore.' He looked up, his pupils a very pale blue, like a frozen lake.\n\n"The ship is going to sink," he said.\n\nLeorio was about to curse him for being a jinx, but the ship listed sharply—a wave crested over the railing and flooded the cabin, sending cargo crates tumbling. Before he could even steady himself, Gon dashed toward the wheelhouse. The rudder was jammed, and a fishing net was tangled in the propeller. Leorio stripped off his suit jacket to plug a leak, while the blonde youth quickly disassembled the dashboard, rewiring it by hand to create a temporary steering fix.\n\nThe three of them didn't consult each other, nor did they even ask for names, yet they moved in perfect sync within the seawater-filled cabin. Gon leaned halfway out of a porthole, using his fishing rod to untangle the net from the rudder; Leorio shouldered a sliding container; and the blonde youth finally tightened the last screw. The dashboard light flickered on with a 'ding'.\n\nThe ship slowly leveled out. The waves were still crashing, but the vessel was moving again.\n\nLeorio collapsed on the deck, panting, and yelled to the blonde youth, "Hey, what's your name?"\n\n"Kurapika."\n\n"I'm Leorio. What about the kid with the fishing rod?"\n\nGon poked his head out from the stern, still clutching a piece of the fishing net, grinning through a face full of muddy water. "Gon! Gon Freecss!"\n\nThe rain stopped just then. Sunlight cut through the clouds, illuminating the approaching coastline and a third person standing by the railing—he had come up from another hatch unnoticed. With white hair and blue eyes, a lollipop in his mouth, he was watching the three of them with interest. He said nothing, only curled his lips into a smirk and crunched the candy loudly.\n\nWhen the ship docked, the mist on the pier hadn't yet dispersed. In the distance stood a massive stone gate, a hot, briny wind blowing through the gap.\n\nThe four of them jumped off the deck one by one, stepping onto the same muddy path. No one looked back.\n\nThat gate was waiting for them.\n\n<choice_group>\n <choice id=\"1\">Change the conversation topic</choice>\n <choice id=\"2\">Observe current details</choice>\n <choice id=\"3\">Advance the current plot</choice>\n</choice_group>