Canon Fodder

CHAPTER 205 THE SWAMP

We gasped, taking in huge lungfuls of air as we came out from the tunnel. I pretended to at least. I had forgotten how obsessed Hisoka was with fighting strong people, especially if they were young men. Like myself. I had to stay off of his radar. Pretend to struggle a little. 

When I felt enough time had passed I grabbed Jill by the waist and carried her out of the path of others finishing the run. She didn’t fight it as we moved to the perimeter of the large group. Some stragglers came in as people gasped for more air. Long minutes passed. Jill slowly catching herself. 

“We have more running to do,” I whispered.

“Goddamn,” she grumbled, wiping her face. “I need water.” I could make water, but it was from chakra, or salty from my Seastone Jitte. But there was always water in the air. I could accumulate it. I didn’t want these people to see my abilities though. She would have to wait. 

“There will be some ahead. Catch your breath. Get ready, alright?” I asked. 

“How are you still fine?” She grumbled.

“Training,” I said. “Stop talking. Focus.” She shot me a look but quieted. 

“And that is all,” Satotz said after a few more minutes. Hitting a switch by the hallway exit the doors began to shut. 

“Wait no! I’m almost there!” A man yelled as the doors shut. Struggling to make it through. He didn’t make it…He didn’t die or anything. We could still hear him yelling from the other side of the door. He would simply have to turn around and exit somewhere else. Satotz was unaffected by the man’s pleading as he walked to stand in front of the group. Jill groaned but got up. 

“Welcome to the Numelle Marsh,” Satotz said. “Also known as the Crook’s Nest.” Ahead of us was a vast foggy swamp. The fog was thick, some random trees stuck out sporadically in the distance. “We have finished the first half of the first round. This will be the stage for the second half. The rare animals found inside this swamp, prefer the flesh of humans for meals. Follow me at all times. Losing sight of me will spell certain death.” 

He let a long silence follow. No one asked questions, but he continued. “This place is called the Crooks Nest, because the animals in this area have evolved to use trickery to trap their prey. Do not trust anyone or anything once we step foot inside. Unlike in the first part, messing up here could mean death. There will be no one watching to come save you. If you lose sight of me, you are on your own.”

The silence from the others was broken up after that. Some mumbling to one another, feeling the real danger once again. But we had just run for over 5 hours straight. I doubted anyone would give up currently. 

“He’s lying to you!” A voice yelled from behind. Everyone turned to see a beat up man dragging a monkey behind him. “He’s an impostor! He isn’t the judge. I am the real judge.” The stranger lifted up a beat up monkey that had a face that resembled Satotz. “He is like this monkey man. They live in Numelle’s Marsh. They love the flesh of men. They know our language. Tricking people to enter the marsh and ambushing them!” 

“What the hell,” Jill mumbled. 

“Ignore him,” I said as the card flew through the air. I had missed them completely. The playing cards had passed through my range of Observation Haki, but they were invisible to my sense of spiritual energy. The cards stabbed into the yelling man’s face. More cards were shot at Satotz, but the experienced hunter caught them easily. 

The man that had been pretending to be hurt dropped dead. But the monkey he was dragging jumped up and scampered away. 

“That’s all cleared up,” Hisoka said. “He really is the judge. Since he is a Hunter, Satotz stopped my attack easily.” The mustached examiner tossed the playing cards, annoyed. 

“I will take that as a compliment,” Satotz said. “But the next time you use such intervention against me, you will be disqualified. Am I understood?” 

“Yes yes,” Hisoka said in a bored tone. 

“I am curious how many of you would have believed him,” Satotz said. “Let this be a warning to you. This place will try to trick you. There are 311 left of the 404 people we started with. I expect less than half of you to make it to the next phase.” The words sunk in for everyone. We had only begun but 25% were eliminated. “Be sure to keep your eyes on me.” 

With that Satotz turned around and headed into the foggy marsh. Jill stood up but stumbled. Cursing as she fell. “Fucking cramp,” she cursed as she began rubbing her leg. 

“Move it,” I said, pushing her hands out of the way. I began kneading the tight muscle as people passed. 

“Weston, you gonna be okay?” Gon asked dutifully. 

“Yeah, we will catch up. Don’t lose sight of the instructor,” I said. The young protagonist hesitated but ran on.

“What the hell are you doing?” Jill mumbled, blushed as people moved on by. “You should move. I can catch up.” 

“Hey, we are a team, alright?” I asked. The muscle slowly loosened. She stumbled up and began running after others. Moving down a hill the fog started at the bottom of it. We stepped in and nearly lost one another. The fog was so thick that we could barely see a few feet ahead. I reached out grabbing Jill’s hand. 

“How the hell are we supposed to keep an eye on the instructor in this!?” Jill yelled. 

“Quiet,” I hissed. “Monsters everywhere. I will lead us. Don’t worry about it,” I said. I could feel Satotz already far ahead. I had no idea how to gauge how far though. He had veered to the left. I made a correction to our course as we continued to run. The marsh at our feet was mostly moss. Unsteady ground it was much harder to run in than the flat tunnel. Jill kept on though. 

“I need water,” she rasped through ragged breath. I nodded. Extending my hand I pulled some to us. It felt clean enough. “How the hell are you doing that?!” She yelled as the screaming began. 

“Questions later. Drink, and we keep going,” I hissed. Satotz was getting further away. I felt a spike of intense bloodlust ahead. Turning I made us skip around it. I was sure Hisoka or someone was going on a rampage. I didn’t want any part of it. People yelled and screamed. We heard the voice of the instructor at least 3 times. Just ahead or behind us. Jill almost fell for it every time, but I pulled her along with me. 

Feeling huge monsters with my Haki, they laid in wait. I skirted around them. Ignoring the traps as best I could. I let a couple trigger, showing Jill the dangers of the swamp. She shut up and continued running after that. Not questioning where I was going anymore. 

I went through the people I had met, practicing my new quirk. Killua was far ahead, closer to Satotz. Leorio was closer, but felt…weak for some reason. Kurapika and Gon were behind, but I knew they could make it. Running through the list in my mind I found Tonpa far ahead, and settled on Kiri. She was far to the right for some reason. No longer moving anymore. 

Grinding my teeth I was a sucker for women in need. I moved Jill and my path to meet up with her. Jill focused on her breathing as we ran. A few bloody marks here and there showed where people had died, but the swamp’s inhabitants had already swallowed them up. Taking their share of the spoils from the examinees. 

“Why are you doing this?!” A voice yelled from ahead. I thought it was Kiri. It felt about right from where my Search Quirk was telling me she was. Jill and I instinctively slowed down, making less noise as we approached the sound of fighting. 

“Because, being a Hunter is sacred,” a man’s voice said. It was a gruff voice that cut through the fog. “It should not be tainted by the fairer sex.”

“So what? You purge the female candidates?!” Kiri yelled. 

“Something like that,” the voice said. “There is always a stage like this, where the Hunters aren’t watching. Letting us fend for ourselves. My brethren and I use that time to have a little fun.”

“And you’re fine not becoming Hunters?!” Another woman’s voice yelled as the sound of fighting died down. Jill and I kept moving forward. Slowly shadows began to appear ahead. I was starting to get the gist of what was going on. As men appeared in front of us, they held the women at knifepoint. Only Kiri and a couple of others were loose as the male leader of the other group stared them down. The men were obviously molesting the women. Implying that this was more of a fun weekend for these guys. 

Once a year they would have fun with some unsuspecting women, eliminating them from the competition. It told me all I needed to know on why so few hunters were women. I wondered if maybe they had some sort of backing. I doubted this started up on a whim or recently. If all the women I had met were 1st timers, that meant this was going on for a while. I was starting to suspect that these women wouldn’t see another hunter exam if this continued on. 

“Enough of this. Put them to sleep,” the main man said. A shorter guy in a white robe raised his hand. I expected some sort of powder to be used. But how he was raising his hands I suspected that he was using Nen. His own special ability to put people to sleep. I coalesced the fog around me into a water bullet. Freezing it I sent it into the man’s skull. 

“Sooprise, sooprise, sooprise,” I said as I walked up. Bringing more of the fog together the area cleared up as I made many more bullets. Jill hung back a little, shocked silence was all she could manage. 

“Who are you?” The leading man said.

“Just a pissed off test taker,” I said. At the center of the group, by Kiri, I sent ice bullets into the heads of the other 20 or so men holding the girls. They died without a fight. Letting the women go as the girl’s gasped or yelled. Coming closer to us as the main bad guy stepped away. I pulled out my Chikyugi Necklace. The fog less dense now he stared at it wide eyed and was soon strapped to my wall.

It took time but it wasn’t terribly long until I was out and an ice bullet was piercing through his skull. The man died, tears on his cheeks, happy to be put out of his misery. “Well, that was weird,” I said. “No time to waste. Let’s go, Jill,” I said. The brown haired girl jumped and ran back to me. “The instructor is this way,” I told the women that were left. They were caught in a daze, but it wasn’t long until they rallied up and were chasing after us. 

“What the fuck was that!?” Jill yelled. No longer following my advice of staying quiet. Kiri and a few of the stronger women had caught up. Recovering from the ordeal that could have turned ugly, very fast. 

“Apparently he was part of some secret society,” I explained. “A higher up in the Hunter Association received a prophecy years ago that a woman would bring the downfall of the Hunters. He has been recruiting men for decades to ensure that as few women as possible pass the exam.” 

“What!?” Kiri yelled. “How can you know that?”

“I have skills,” I said bluntly. “Let’s leave it at that.”

“But-but that can’t be legal!” Kiri yelled. 

“Shh, there are still monsters all around us,” I said. The women had caught up and were forming a long line behind us as I felt Satotz far ahead. He had slowed down, but not stopped. I sped us up.

“Who cares about legality?” I asked as I turned us to miss a large snake coiled around a tree. “Hunters do what they want. Like the Rookie Crusher. It was easy for the head honcho to find a group of interested men that had free reign to rape and kill a bunch of women.”

“You can’t be serious,” Jill said. Her hand covering her mouth as if she was going to throw up. 

“I am. Might need to warn the higher ups about it. But who knows who is in on it. Just count yourselves lucky. The test is only going to get harder from here,” I said. We moved along nicely. I yelled at a few girls that were distracted by this or that. The place was still full of monsters trying to kill us. We eventually passed through the fog. People letting out a sigh of relief as the animals disappeared. 

A firm dirt path under our feet I noticed a large building on a hill ahead, right where I felt Satotz. “That was fucking scary,” Jill let out as we continued to move in a group. 

“It was,” I admitted. The fog made the stage very eerie. I couldn’t imagine what it would have been like without my Haki telling me everything around us. 

“You uh, killed those men,” Kiri noted. Her breath even as we continued to move. 

“Oh yeah, guess I did,” I said. I had kind of forgotten about it. I’d killed over 20 men without breaking a sweat. It helped that they turned out to be sickos, but still, when did I become so callous. 

“Thanks,” Kiri said. 

“Anytime,” I said as we noticed the large group just ahead. We quieted down as we came up to the rest of the examinees. Gon and Kurapika were just ahead of us. Satotz was waiting patiently. Giving us nods as he walked by. 

“What are we going to do?” One of the women whispered to Kiri.

“Ignore it. Take the test. Tell people after this is all said and done,” I said without hesitation. “Their bodies are probably already gone. There will be no proof that anything happened.” The women gave me a hard stare. “Damn I’m starving,” I said grabbing Jill’s shoulder. “Think anyone has any food?”

“I could eat a horse,” she said.

“Funny you mention that. I have an idea what the next phase of the exam will be,” I said as we found Killua, Leorio, Kurapika, and Gon. 

“Glad you made it. Anything fun happen?” Gon asked innocently. 

“Not really. What was all that screaming at the start there?”

“Oh man. That Hisoka guy started killing people,” Gon whispered. “He threw these cards and…”