HxH : Threads of Ash (Hunter X Hunter FF)

Trash heaps rose around him, towers of blackened plastic and rusted iron, sharp as the teeth of a dead giant. Meteor City was always loud at night, but tonight it crackled tension in the air, like the whole world holding its breath.

Kaito's stomach rumbled as he crouched low beside a collapsed refrigerator, searching for scraps someone else might've missed. He found half a can of oily beans, scooped out the cold paste with a finger, and forced it down. He didn't savor it. Survival never tasted sweet.

He sensed them before he saw them. Gangs. Their auras were raw and angry, leaking into the air hot, ugly waves that pressed on Kaito's skin, making his hairs stand on end. He crept closer, keeping to the shadows, eyes narrow, ears straining for the rhythm of boots and shouts.

Something was wrong. The air vibrated with more than hunger. Something was about to break.

He tried to slip away, but luck turned sour. A sharp voice cut through the smoke "You! Rat!" and Kaito froze. He was spotted. A group of older kids, faces hard with old bruises, fanned out to block the alley. Behind them, another group swarmed up, their leader a short, squat boy with a broken bottle glinting in his hand. Rival colors. Rival faces.

They met in the middle, Kaito trapped between. Someone shoved him hard. Another snatched at his wrist, yanking him forward.

"Who's this? Your new scout?"

"He's mine get lost!"

"He's nothing. Don't bleed on my boots, brat."

Kaito's head spun as voices overlapped, threats snapped, hands shoved and grabbed. In the press of bodies, knives flashed. Rage surged, an old and familiar friend in these parts.

He reached for Ten out of reflex, but the aura felt thin, trembling. Too many bodies. Too many eyes.

He was going to die if he didn't move.

The first punch landed on his jaw hot, dizzying pain. The world blurred as he staggered sideways, nearly going down. A blade whistled past his ribs, catching nothing but air.

Time slowed.

In the chaos, Kaito saw openings, moments a shifting foot, a loose grip, a shadow arcing toward him.

He pulled aura to his fingertips, desperate, and let his mind go blank except for one command: bend.

Threads shimmered from his hands, so faint he could barely see them in the dim firelight. But he could feel them: trembling with possibility, vibrating at the edge of chance.

He snapped a thread at the nearest attacker.

The boy lunged and slipped on a patch of grease, knife swinging wide, missing Kaito's neck by an inch. He crashed into another gang member, the two collapsing in a tangle of limbs.

Kaito ducked. Another fist came he nudged the thread, and the boy's foot caught on a buried wire. He sprawled, cursing, and Kaito slid past, scraping his shin on a chunk of metal.

A broken bottle flashed Kaito twisted his fingers, and the bottle cracked against the wall instead of his skull, raining glass on his arm instead of splitting it open.

His heart pounded. His breath was smoke and blood. He was moving by feel, barely thinking. The threads seemed to catch the world by its strings, pulling just enough, just in time.

But every time he used the threads, a piece of him burned away.

His aura drained, sweat poured from his brow, the edges of his vision grew gray. His fingers shook as he wove another thread, this one barely visible a last desperate hope.

A bigger boy barreled at him, roaring, blade raised high.

Kaito yanked the thread felt it snap with effort.

The boy tripped on a shattered pipe, fell hard. His knife spun away, skittering across concrete to vanish in the dark.

Kaito tried to stand, but his knees buckled. He gasped for air, aura shuddering, cold seeping into his bones. He felt like a candle burning down to its wick, flickering in a hurricane.

A hand seized his collar. Someone hauled him up, fist drawn back.

Kaito had nothing left.

He threw the last of his aura into the thread.

The fist missed only just and Kaito twisted out of the grip, stumbled, half-crawled, half-staggered away as the two gangs roared and crashed together. Someone screamed. A bottle shattered. The air turned to chaos.

He didn't look back. He couldn't. He just ran.

He ran until his legs folded, collapsing in a narrow gap behind a mountain of broken pallets. He curled up, chest heaving, hands scraped and bleeding, shoulder bruised black.

His threads flickered out. His aura was gone, hollowed, empty.

But he was alive.

He blinked at the stars blurred by tears and exhaustion and let the pain crash over him, wave after wave, until it dulled into numbness.

He felt like he was floating between worlds. No longer just a rat in the trash. Not yet a monster or a hunter. Something in between a blade forged out of chance, luck, and the stubborn refusal to die.

As dawn clawed its way over Meteor City, Kaito sat up slowly, head throbbing, eyes raw. He flexed his hands.

He remembered every moment each thread, each narrow escape, each spark of power that saved him.

It had worked. His power was real.

But so was the cost.

He grinned, crooked and wild, tasting iron on his tongue. He was done being a victim of fate. From now on, fate would answer to him.

Even if it broke him.