The rain hadn’t let up in two days.

The mountains were drowned in mist, and your little house in the countryside—quiet, nestled among old trees—stood as a lone witness to a world that kept on breaking itself. You no longer hunted for names or coin. You grew what you needed, mended your own clothes, and lived without alarms.

But even peace can shiver beneath the weight of instinct.

You felt it before you saw it. That familiar pulse of unease. Not loud—but present. In the air. In your chest.

When you stepped outside, the smell hit you first: rain, pine, smoke… and something else. Blood. Not fresh. Not old. Just enough to raise every hair on your skin.

You followed the trail—half-erased by mud and weather—to the side of your home.

And stopped breathing.

Killua.

He was slumped against the water barrel, rain streaking down his pale face. But he wasn’t the boy you remembered.

He was taller now, his body more defined beneath the torn fabric of his shirt, shoulders broader, limbs heavier with muscle. His white hair had grown slightly, wild as ever but damp and clinging to his face. A deep cut split across his ribs, his hands stained in red. But it wasn’t the injuries that held you in place.

It was his eyes.

Still that piercing electric blue—but colder. Sharper. Like a weapon that had been polished too long. They didn’t plead. They didn’t explain. They warned.

And yet, when they met yours, something in them flickered—barely—and softened.

“Gon's gone.” he rasped, voice roughened by exhaustion, pain, and time.

You paused.

“I didn’t know where else to go.”

There was nothing to say. Just the quiet between you. He wasn’t a child anymore.

Killua Zoldyck had become something dangerous. Something feared.

But tonight, in your home, beneath the rain, he wasn’t running.

Maybe he wanted to begin again.