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Ever since Killua was very little, there was the man.
Whenever Killua was suffering through his training, or making others suffer by ending their life, the man was there, his cloak-like garments moving in an invisible wind. And his golden eyes watched him silently. Then when it was over, Killua covered in blood, he vanished.
Killua didn’t see him during his free time.
And yet, one day, something changed. When Killua had been writhing on the cold stone floor from a dose of new deadly poison, he couldn’t remember which, the man sat with him. He didn’t say anything. Just watched. And when Killua had slumped against the floor, feeling weak, faint, cold, oddly peaceful, the man brushed his bangs away from his sweaty forehead.
The next time Killua opened his eyes, he was gone.
It didn’t stop there. In a dark dungeon, as he was starved and forbidden from sleeping, the man sat with him. Killua didn’t have the strength to ask Why? or What’s your name? or Can you stay? but the man seemed to hear the unspoken questions anyway. He had smiled sadly, and shook his head. Killua didn’t know which question he was answering. But when the dungeon’s door was opened and he was told to get up, the spot beside him had been illuminated, empty.
Still, without fail, when Killua had ever thought Maybe this is it, the man was there. Mostly silent, but sometimes he hummed. A tune Killua didn’t know, echoing, but cheerful enough that he was comforted. Ready to go. But it never happened.
Poison, blood loss, fatal wounds, starvation, dehydration, any form of torture you could imagine, he always came out on top. The man had watched him at his weakest, and Killua killed masses in response to his faith. He was a monster. Undeserving of the man’s strange kindness. Deserving of whatever his family did to him.
When Killua killed, he tried to make it quick. Painless. The man watched.
Then Killua had run away, and didn’t see the man again.
Gon had soothed the pain. A cool balm over his open wounds. And soon, Killua had felt almost like he was worth the man’s time. The time he spent watching Killua step closer to death’s doorstep, delivering others to where he had been so many times, but forcing them to knock and enter. It was cruel, selfish, but the man had never judged, never looked disgusted. Gon hadn’t either.
It wasn’t until Killua was bathing in a pool of his own blood, gluing his body to dirty stone floor, the water next to him mocking, that he learned his name. The man was crouched, watching the life drain from his eyes, always watching, silent, and then—
Thanatos. Death.
It was never spoken aloud. Killua had stepped foot into the doorway of death’s home, closer than he ever had before, and the name revealed itself to him like he had always known, but had just remembered.
Death.
The idea was absurd. But when Killua felt his soul waiting to tear from his body, he couldn’t deny it. The man who had wasted his time on Killua was Death. And it made sense.
He didn’t die that day. But he remembered. And he wondered.
Was he still watching?