A Hunter Chronicle – 13

"Woot, finally got good cards."

The blond boy called out cheerfully while holding up several cards in his hand.

A joker-attired man with a tear drop mark on his face sat directly across of Naruto. He was holding the same numbers of cards.

Hisoka managed to reach the bottom floor first at six hours and a bit.

Naruto arrived second at around eight-hour mark, which was terrible for the young Sage.

The blond would reach the bottom level first and within an hour if he didn't decide to take a nap and a detour into the monitor room just to annoy the hell out of Lippo, the current round examiner and also a well-known blacklist hunter.

Lippo had decided to show the blond the door to the bottom floor to save what remained of his towers and salvaged the rest of the exam.

If he didn't, Naruto would cut through the entire tower, allowing other candidates to reach the bottom floor with ease.

"Hmm?"

Hisoka muttered and shifted his card around before looking at Naruto's hands and smirked.

The blond noticed his and narrowed his eyes at the clown.

"What's so funny?"

Naruto asked, quirking an eyebrow at the clown.

The boy hadn't managed to win a single poker game the whole time for some strange reason as if the deck was cursed and in favor of Hisoka.

He finally drawn a good hand this round. He determined to remove the smug on that Joker's face.

There were only two of them in the room as everyone else was still doing their third exam.

"Naruto, look like I won this round as well."

Hisoka said before pointing at each of Naruto's card and called out what they were before showing his own.

"HOW ARE YOU DOING THAT!? CAN YOU SEE THROUGH THE CARDS?"

The enraged blond slammed his cards down on the floor.

He had a full house while Hisoka had four of a kind.

"I still surprised you hasn't figured it out yet."

Hisoka said with a smirk before pointing at his eyes.

He was trying to imply something.

The charka user raised one eyebrow in confusion. And he still didn't understand.

"I had thought that your ability was Nen's based, but it's not. It seems like you lack in-depth knowledge of NEN and training. Or maybe you never trained in it at all."

Hisoka analyzed with a wide grin as Naruto slapped himself.

It wasn't like he could hide his ability forever, not after he tried to beat up the chairman of the hunter association since his ego didn't want to lose, and he really wanted to grab that ball.

"Whatever the energy you have, it's not NEN, although it is similar. Try covering your eyes with your energy and see what on my hands."

Hisoka suggested.

The smile was still on his face as he held up his hands for the blond to see.

The joker was interested in the boy's abilities and still trying to figure out ways to defeat them.

It had kept his mind occupied so his bloodlust wasn't intoxicating right now.

The energy in the boy seemed to function like NEN, but more potent and enable its user to do some strange feat.

Naruto coated his eyes in charka and saw some faint pink gooey substance on every single card with a thin string connected them to Hisoka's finger.

Each energy string has different strength and depth, implying that Hisoka could use his ability to paint each of the cards and know exactly which card Naruto held in his hand.

"YOU BASTARD! SO, YOU CHEATED AFTER ALL!"

Naruto shouted before noticing several of the strands were attached to his cloth and limbs.

'When did that happened?'

The blond immediately undressed as some of the stone doors along the wall retreated upward, allowing several candidates to walk out.

They finally reached the bottom level through the labyrinth.

They saw Hisoka was looking at the half naked boy, who was still undressing.

They all were stunned at the duo in the room before waving apologetically and tried to move back through the corridor they came out off, wanting to leave the two alone so they could continue to do whatever they were doing.

"Sorry for intruding, carry on…"

Several of them said, trying to get the stone door behind them to open again.

"STOP MISINTERPRETING!"

Naruto shouted at them while Hisoka had a stoic look on his face before shuffling his card in his hand, ignoring the boy's outburst.

As time went by, more contestants managed to reach the bottom floor.

Several of them took the shortcut from the top half of the towers, thanks to the hole in the floor of their level.

It was left there by a certain someone.

Three minutes remains on the timer as many of them looked at the clock.

It was counting down slowly.

"One minute remains…"

the voice in the speaker announced.

Hisoka faced Naruto who was having a meal.

The clown was unsure where the boy got his food from as there wasn't anything in the room.

"Hmm."

Hisoka said while Naruto returned the look. He knew what Hisoka was concerned about.

The Sage could feel a charka source coming closer to the room.

"They're here."

Naruto said, slurping up his noodles as the one of the exits opened up to reveal Kurapika, Gon and Killua.

Kurama was snoozing on top of Gon's head as usual.

Naruto and Kurama could sense where each other are.

It just got a lot easier now since this world lack charka.

'Three?'

Naruto and Hisoka thought as Leorio and Tompa finally exited and rubbing their weary hands.

All five have dirt on their faces, and their clothes were ragged, badly need of cleaning.

It looked like they had a lot more fun than the blond.

"When did you get here?"

Killua asked as he sat down next to Naruto and joined the blond by leaning back against the wall.

"I was second to arrive, like two days ago. Hisoka was first though. Did you have fun?"

Naruto asked as Killua sighed and explained that they have to break through one of the walls to enter the quicker path.

Naruto just chuckled at the story.

"Yep, it was really fun."

Gon said as Kurama yawned on his head.

He told Naruto the same story.

"Why didn't you ask Kurama to do it for you? He would able to break through the wall in a jiffy."

Naruto pointed out as Gon and Killua looked at each other.

The two never had thought of asking Kurama.

And they completely forgot about that the fox was powerful.

Kurama looked down at Gon before smirking.

The kid did sometimes feel like Naruto when he was younger.

"END OF THE ROUND, THIRD ROUND HAD COMPLETED! CONGRATULATION TO THOSE THAT PASSED!"

The speaker called out, stopping the growing chatter.

The door to outside opened as Naruto and the gang exited.

They saw the bright daylight for the first time in three days.

"Congratulation to those that pass… although some of you had cheated and went off your level."

Lippo greeted them and accusingly eyed at a few candidates before settle on the blond.

"Why was there a hole in the floor then if it wasn't meant for us to go through?"

One of the contestants defended.

Lippo dismissed him.

They all have passed so it was pointless to argue about that.

He told them there are two rounds left and they needed to draw from a closed-off box for the next round.

Naruto went to do his business again since he was the only one that ate in those three days.

Plus, he had a bladder of a child now and required to go often.

"The lottery will allow us to determine the hunters and the prey. Inside this box there are…"

Lippo explained the rule of the game and allowed everyone to draw from the box starting with Hisoka since he was first person to complete the previous round.

"NARUTO?"

Lippo called out, but the blond was nowhere to be seen so he moved on to the next one.

Lippo came back to the blond's name after everyone was done.

They then have to wait for the tardy candidate and looked at him in annoyance once he returned.

"What? I was just doing my business… unless you want me to do it in front you, I thought only Hisoka was that kinky."

Naruto said as everyone immediately averted their eyes.

Hisoka on the other hand was completely expressionless, shuffling his deck of cards and probably thinking of who he should behead in the next round.

Naruto took out a number from the box and saw it was 407.