HxH : Threads of Ash (Hunter X Hunter FF)

Every step was borrowed.

Kaito stumbled through Meteor City's gray morning with the numb, uncertain gait of a sleepwalker. His legs wouldn't obey; his vision blurred at the edges. The world spun, trash heaps looming and receding, voices slurring into one long, low threat.

His body was hollow. It ached with the cold and the bruises from last night's brawl. But worse was the empty place inside, the raw ache where his aura had burned down to the wick.

He tried to keep Ten up, but it flickered out after a heartbeat. Even Zetsu was impossible he couldn't muster the strength to silence himself, to hide. He was a walking signal fire to every predator on these streets, and it terrified him.

But he kept moving.

The memory of the probability threads haunted him how they had danced between danger and doom, sparing him again and again. How each one had cost him something, how each success left him a little weaker.

Now, his fingers shook. His mouth was dry as old cloth. He needed water, food, sleep. There was none of it.

He collapsed in a gap between two storage tanks, skin scraping concrete. The sun overhead was barely more than a smear behind the smoky sky.

Shouts echoed somewhere far away. A dog barked, its voice distant and flat.

Kaito pressed his palm to the ground, willing himself to stand, but his limbs refused. He curled on his side, sweat cold on his forehead, stomach twisted in hunger.

And the fever set in.

He shivered, muscles spasming. Images flickered behind his eyes: flashes of the fight, knives glinting, faces contorted with hate and fear, his own hands flickering with impossible light.

Probability threads. So thin, so bright, so fragile. The memory of them was feverish, beautiful, dangerous.

He drifted in and out of sleep. In the dark, in the heat, the world spun.

In dreams, the threads returned, weaving through the air, tugging at moments pulling a blade away from his neck, tilting a fist just wide, snapping a shoe string so an enemy fell instead of running him through.

Each thread felt right, righteous, a perfect tool.

Each thread also felt hungry.

The more he conjured, the more the world pulled at him, draining strength he barely had, leaving nothing behind but aches and a fear of emptiness.

He woke to a burning thirst. His lips were cracked, tongue swollen. He dragged himself upright, using the tank wall for balance, and found a tin cup half-buried in the dirt. He scraped the inside, found a film of water probably filthy, but he drank it all the same.

He spat blood, then wiped his mouth with the back of his shaking hand.

I can't keep living like this, he thought. The city would swallow him if he did.

He tried to conjure a thread. Forced his mind to the memory, the feel of the aura twisting outward, becoming that shimmering line but nothing came. No flicker. No shimmer. His aura was spent, not even a spark left to coax.

Kaito let his head hang, panting, vision swimming. For the first time, doubt scraped at him. What if his body simply gave out? What if power alone, raw and wild, wasn't enough?

He crawled toward the nearest alley, half on his knees, half on his stomach. Metal scraped his skin, old bruises flaring up with every movement. He found shelter under a rusted cart, the ground damp and cold. There, with breath shuddering and eyes squeezed shut, he let pain and exhaustion crash through him.

The truth was simple, ugly, and inescapable:

He'd nearly died using his power.

He would die if he didn't learn to master it.

Not just the threads. Not just Nen. His own body his limits. He needed food, sleep, practice. He needed discipline, not just raw need and desperate luck.

Night came. Meteor City's shadows lengthened. The alleyway filled with the smell of smoke and the distant sound of fighting.

Kaito sat up, propped himself against the cart's wheel, and stared into the dark.

His chest felt heavy, full of regrets and fear, but also something stubborn. He remembered the threads their shine, their promise. The feeling of bending fate, of not just surviving, but shaping the fight.

But that power had nearly killed him. And the cost had been more than just pain.

He flexed his fingers. No trembling now. Just exhaustion.

In the silence, he swore a vow not out loud, but deep inside, burned into the fabric of his being.

I will not be ruled by luck. I will not be a slave to wild power. I will master the cost, and the weapon. I will rise, no matter how many times I fall.

His eyes burned, and for a moment, he thought he saw a faint thread glimmer between his hands thin as hope, bright as hunger.

He let the world fade, sleep rising up to claim him, the city's distant violence nothing but a hum in his ears.

But the vow remained.

He would rise.