Chapter Text
When you're wearing all black with a cowl and weapons attached to your legs, it does look sketchy. The strange looks you get all over the harbor are exactly what you would imagine. Fear, disgust, malice, anger… excitement. That feeling leaves your thoughts stopping in their tracks. Who would be feeling that? As you boarded the ship, you looked for the source, and then it dawned on you when your eyes found a small boy. He was excited, but why?
"Bye, Aunt Mito! I'll be back after the Hunter's Exam!" A small smile falls onto your face. He's going to become a Hunter, good for him.
You find an empty spot on the deck and take a seat for the long ride to come. After we had left the port, the small boy commented on the storm coming. Sure enough, it did rain, no, it poured. The waves began coming overboard, adding to the already soaked clothing you were in, which was annoying, so you made your way down to the cabin, where the others were already in. The cabin didn't seem any better.
In all honesty, the grown 'big and strong' men were puking their guts out. Hmm, only three other people down here seem not to mind or even notice the storm. You take a seat amongst the chaotic cabin and begin to warm back up from the cold water.
"Hey, Y/n! You should come up with a fake name, so no one knows who you are!" You look up to see a transparent apparition, real or made up, they're still annoying.
"Quit following me and go make some friends in the afterlife." You whisper out, gaining a couple of looks but assuming they didn't hear what was said.
As you looked around, you began to notice more apparitions appearing or maybe standing out more. Apparently, a lot of people have died on this ship. Before the apparition in front of you could continue, the door popped open, showing the Captain of the ship.
The four people seemingly unaffected by the sea storm were summoned to the Captain's Quarters. He was talking about something you didn't care to listen to before the small boy from earlier started to introduce himself.
"I'm Gon, and I want to become a Hunter because I want to find my Dad!" His excitement gives you hope for the future.
The next man goes, and the only thing you learned about him is that he is called Leorio and he wants money. He didn't really stick out with potential. The next boy goes, and you get a vision, but it doesn't give a lot of information. Pain, scarlet eyes, and chains, that's all you could see. You worry for this young boy. When you look up, you see the Captain's eyes on yourself.
"Well, son, are you going to share?" You nod and keep your voice steady to keep up the 'son' routine.
"I am Cosmos, and I wish to become a Hunter for research purposes." You decided on a fake name as the apparition had suggested; it just makes things easier.
"Hey, you were the one mumbling to yourself down in the cabin. Are you sure your research shouldn't be done in the loony bin?" The one called Leorio questioned you.
The younger boy, whose name you missed, answered snarkily for you. You only sigh and leave the Captain's Quarters before a fight breaks out. The rest of the ship ride seemed to go smoothly. Once we hit land, the Captain advised us to go to the top of some mountain, it's there that we can continue to the Hunter Exam.
Leorio decided that he would go catch a bus, which left you with Gon and the other boy. The walk was silent, but in a good way… until the groaning and huffing and puffing of Leorio could be heard behind us.
"I thought you were taking the bus?" The boy said, and you couldn't agree more.
"I decided against it. That's all." Was his only retort in the matter.
The walk was quiet again. Step after step, rock after rock, breath after breath. All of the peace stops again when a voice begins to speak up. No, it's not any of the three still walking. Your eyes move in the direction of the voice. Yes, the apparition is back, who could have guessed.
"Hey, Y/n! What say we ditch these losers so you don't look coo-coo talking to me, yeah." If he wasn't already dead, you would kill him again.
However, all you can do right now is ignore him and hope he goes away… or not.
"Y/n, I'm talking to you. You can still hear me, right? At least acknowledge me! Hey! I'm getting tired of talking to myself, you know!" He's shouting at this point.
"Be quiet." You say, your voice barely below a whisper.
"Oh, so you can hear me. I have so much that I need to talk with you about. Starting with that name change, why'd you choose it?"
Oh my, he's annoying. You suppose there's no one else to blame except yourself. You ended up in this predicament because you just had to read a book about the seven deadly sins, as a kid, just as you were becoming accustomed to your power. You had never interacted with the apparitions you saw as a kid, more or less out of fear, but you also couldn't tell the difference between living and dead, so you kept your head down and talked to no one.
However, because of this, you made up the deadly sins to talk to since you were so alone. Now, they follow you everywhere. Mammon, the personification of greed, follows you around the most. He's like a clingy cat that follows at your heels, screaming for something all the time.
"Could you be less annoying?" You whisper out, trying to get him to shut up.
You hear an aggravated grunt come from behind you, which is probably Leorio, still mad about my whispers.
"So, Cosmos. Is there anything specific you want to research?" The boy turns to you, making small talk.
"Tell him about the treasure!" Mammon chirps.
You only sigh before answering, "I want to do research in the dark continent." You say flatly.
"Isn't that like really dangerous?!" Leorio comments. You only nodded, but it may have been hard to tell with your cowl covering your head and face.
When we finally reached our destination, more like we were stopped by people blocking the path, an old woman was there to ask us a question. A boy who was following us came up to answer her question, which was no doubt wrong, but she let him pass anyway.
"Hey, what do you think the answer to the question is? Are you even going to help them? Y/n!" Mammon was back to being an annoyance.
Little did he know that you were giving him the answer with silence, along with the other boy. Gon looked like he was thinking hard about the situation, while Leorio looked like he was gearing up to fight the woman. When time was up, Leorio charged at the old woman. You honestly didn't think he had it in him to attack someone like that. However, the other boy stepped in, informing the latter that we got the question right.
"I don't get it? Who would we save?" Gon looked stressed from the thoughtful thinking he did. As the other explained things to him, you started on the path the old woman told us to go down. It didn't take them long to catch up, especially Gon.
"Hey, Cosmos!" Gon yelled in the distance. You stopped walking, allowing him to catch up, then continued. "Did you know the answer? It was hard to figure out. Glad we had you and Kurapika there to help." Ah, so that's his name.
"Yes, I knew." You respond to Gon, and you find yourself actually becoming quite fond of this kid.
You continue walking in silence as the conversations around you go forth, until we all finally reach the top of the mountain. We're supposed to meet a family here, but no one is around. How very odd, we enter the house to be met with a staged crime scene. The others don't seem to realize it, though. You suppose that you'll play along. Kurapika, Gon, and you all go after the beast carrying the girl as Leorio stays back to provide medical assistance.
Gon is fast. You give him that, while you only stay a few feet ahead of Kurapika at all times so as not to pose a threat.
"Why are you running so slowly? You can easily catch up and defeat that beast." It was Lucifer, the personification of pride, speaking this time.
You roll your eyes and slowly pick up your pace as you notice out of the corner of your eye another beast following beside you through the trees. If it's keeping an eye on you, then it wouldn't notice if you were to stray off the path until it's too late. As you begin running silently through the forest, the beast stops, looking around, confused. You knew it was watching, you passed it on foot before taking to the trees ahead and stopping on a branch to wait for its arrival.
You pull the blowgun from the strap on your pants and ready it with a poisonous dart. The noises of rustling branches are coming closer, and right on time, the beast appears in front of you. Your hand brings the front of your cowl, which covers your mouth, down, and your other hand brings the blowgun up, readying it before a voice can be heard.
"Hunny, get over here! This boy can tell us apart!" You've never heard that voice before, but it must be the beast.
Did Gon catch up to the one he was chasing? The beast in front of you retreats, and you follow slowly behind. Sure enough, Gon is there with another beast. We are all taken back to the house to be congratulated that we passed the test, and they will escort us to the place where the Exam is being held. After a trip of flying, we finally make it to the building when our guide orders a special meal for us and we're taken to a back room.
"Thank goodness, I'm starved." Who would've guessed the personification of gluttony, Beelzebub, would show up now of all times.
You could agree that you were a bit hungry, but that can wait. When the elevator reaches the bottom floor, there's someone there to greet us and give us our placement numbers. You received number 406, the last number. You don't really want to put it on cause it'll ruin your clothes, so you put it in your knife pouch that's strapped to your thigh. It's not going anywhere any time soon.
"You're not going to wear your number, Cosmos? Gon asks you.
"No, I can remember it," You said back to him.
A man walks up to our group and decides that we're friends or something. "Let's celebrate with a drink." He is all too happy to be handing out these drinks.
"Take it, drink it, I'm so hungry right now, Y/n," Beelzebub whines about his hunger beside you.
You take the drink from him and crack it open. It smells bad. You lower your cowl to drink it, but it tastes so bad, too.
"No offense, Mr. Tonpa, but I think your drinks have gone bad," Gon says, spitting it out.
Leorio and Kurapika follow suit. However, you keep drinking it to hopefully satiate Beelzebub's and your own hunger.
"Uh, Cosmos, you don't have to drink that. It might not turn out well for you." Gon says, trying to get you to stop.
You don't respond until you have emptied the can and pulled your cowl back up.
"I'll be fine." You say, throwing the now-empty can at the one called Tonpa.
"Ow!" He shouts, rubbing his head.
With a sigh, you walk into the crowd to escape the people you came here with. Even if he did put something in the drink, it's not like it will affect you too much. You grew up in Meteor City. You dug through the garbage for food or any scraps you could find. You were drugged more times than you can remember, but eventually your body grew accustomed to the foreign substances forced inside you. You find a space by the wall and take a seat, awaiting the Exam to start.