New Family Member?

(Oemitsu POV)

"What... The... Fuck?..." I opened my eyes and saw that I was facing the sky.

There was a horrible sensation around my body. It seems that I'm feeling sick over the fight with Hisoka. Looking around, I noticed that there was no one near us. Hisoka disappeared and Illumi must be sleeping underground. I tried to get up but I felt a really strong pain on my stomach.

'Nyarlathotep, what the hell happened?' I asked her.

(You went berserk after you awakened you Conqueror's Haki.) She explained.

Suddenly, I remembered that it was indeed this. 'I went berserk after I saw Vergo's almost lifeless body...'After remembering this, I widened my eyes before asking. 'Where's Vergo?' While I tried to look around.

(Calm down. Vergo is fine. Badly hurt but fine. But, he is sure pretty resistant, if it was a normal 9 years old that took such a beating, he would have died.) She said in an amused voice.

'Huff.' I sighed before I tried to get up again, but felt that strong pain again.

(You should rest... No, you need to rest. But let me say, burrying your plates was a smart idea. If you didn't do that, you would have lost your plates by now.) She complimented me.

This made me smile before I tried to rest as much as possible while using my Basic Healing Magic to heal my somewhat grievous wounds. For the next 2 hours, I continued doing this until I finally managed to get up.

Afterwards, I went near Vergo and used the rest of my magic to heal him as much as possible. Then I grabbed his body the best could and tried to find a place to hide. I may have hidden our plates but that doesn't mean that I want to be found just because I hid them.

If some of the other contestants found us they might want torture us to find out the location of our plates, after all, why not do that to your opponents. I would do the same thing. After wandering for a few minutes, I found a place to rest under a tree. There, I lied Vergo down before I sat on one of the corners of the tree, I was always making sure that no one was following us.

I may not be in position to fight someone physically but I can get them off guard with the Doom Bringer or, at the very least, I could use myself as a bait to distract the enemies. Well, that is all a big if. Hopefully no one will find us.

10 hours later.

After a few hours, Vergo suddenly woke up.

"It is already morning." I told him.

"Mitsu, why did we lose so hard? We trained so much. But even after all this, we still lost. This is so frustrating." He began to complain.

Smiling at his words, I said. "Vergo, we still need to become stronger. Our journey just started and this world is really amazing. We got strong but this world got us good and placed us back on the ground while reminding us that even if we got stronger, we are way too weak." Right after I said that, he nodded and said. "Yeah, we need to become stronger or else, everything we built will be destroyed."

Then, he tried to get up but I did not let him. "Stay down, you got beaten up pretty bad."

"Mitsu, you are quite lucky. You don't look that bad." He said while lying on the ground again.

"Well, unfortunately, I can't move. I used the rest of my strength to carry you to this cave and I'm trying to put my ribs back in place with my healing magic while also trying to heal you. All of this is draining me. So I'd sat that I am in a worse state than you." I smiled at such truth.

"If you are so bad like this, focus on healing yourself first, I can wait." He proposed.

"Not happening. My job as the founder of the family is to take care of everyone. I may be weak, however, I'm not weak to the point that I cannot heal myself and one of my family members." I told him.

My smile widened when he tried to complain but I simply shaked my head, indicating that I would not change my mind.

(Onee-chan loves when you put up a strong front.) I heard Nyarlathotep's teasing voice.

Ignoring her, I stood against the wall for the next hours.

10 hours later.

'We are back to a decent fighting form. It took us 5 minutes to get destroyed in a fight, but 20 hours to recover from it. Well we are still not completely healed. I have just reattached my ribs, if someone punches me in the right place, I will break like glass but at least Vergo is back to his top form.' I thought while we digged up our plates and recovered them.

"All of our objectives have been met. Should we rest and not do anything for the rest of the phase?" Vergo suddenly asked.

I closed my eyes and thought for a few seconds before answering him. "I still have a secondary objective that I wanted to fullfil."

"What is this objective?" He asked again.

"I want a new family member. Inside this forest there is a huge opportunity to get one easily."

"Is it worth to take the risk? After all, you still haven't completely recovered." He said while he looked around, he was ready to attack anyone who came near us.

"If we can get her on board, we will get a valuable member on our family. She will be crucial for our future business." I smiled.

"How much are you thinking into the future?" He got confused.

"You must always be ahead when it comes to decisions. Life is like chess. If you are 2 moves ahead of your opponent you will lose. If you are 10 moves ahead of your opponent you will still lose. If you are 30 moves ahead of your opponent you will dominate the board completely." I pointed at my head. "This is my most important weapon you should train it too." Then I began to walk in front. "Follow me, it is time for us to find our new family member." I told him before we searched for a cave thay had the smell of chemicals.

'Since me and vergo were one of the first ones to arrive on the island, we tried to map it out as much as possible. While we had the initial advantage, I also marked all of the caves that we spotted, since they could be used as our hiding spots if needed.' I thought while walking around and doing our search, then I turned to Vergo and said. "Okay, there's 20 potential caves that we already know of. It will take quite a while to check each and every single one of them, however, if we get her, it will be worth the effort." I saw him nodding after I finished talking.

In the end, we had to explore 14 caves, when suddenly, we found something rather different about one of the caves. There was the smell of chemicals right outside the cave. After I entered inside it, I turned to Vergo and said. "Stay outside."

To which he protested again. "I can't accept that."

"Fufufufufufufu. Don't worry, I will be fine. Besides, the negotiations will be better if I am alone. And it is not like she is a threat." I shrugged.

"It still is dangerous. Especially considering that you are not completely healed yet." It seems like he was not going to back down from his decision.

"Vergo, as I said. You don't have to worry. You should focus on defending the cave and not letting anyone enter inside of it." I told him before I turned around and ignored anything that Vergo tried to say.

Then, I entered deeply inside the tunnela and saw a light at the end of the cave. Approaching this light, I saw a dead Bourbon and Ponzu resting against one of the walls of the cave.

"Am I your target?" She asked.

"Fufufufufufufu. No, you aren't." I answered.

"Then why would you enter inside this cave? If you are trying to hide then this is a terrible place to do so." She shrugged.

"Fufufufufufu. I did not came her to hide. I came here for you." When I said that, she looked at me and said. "So you are indeed here for my plate."

"No, I'm not interested in such thing. I am after your abilities. I will help you in leaving the cave and in exchange, you will join my family." I proposed.

"You want me to work for you and you will help me in return." She said.

"You are surprisingly fast to catch things." I compliemented her.

"I refuse. There's a tracker on my plate. As soon as the Hunter Exam ends, an examiner will come and help me." She shaked her head before she leaned on the wall.

"Fufufufufufu. It is funny how you think that you have a choice." I pulled my gun out and aimed it at her head. "You can choose to join me or choose death." I warned her.

When she heard my threat, many bees began to come out of her hat.

"Fufufufufu. It seems that you don't have a sence of humor. In case you don't know, I'm just joking. There is no need for you to be that serious." I guarded my weapon before I proposed. " how about a deal?"

"A deal?" She asked.

"Yeah, you are going to join my family for a year and after that, if you still want to quit, you can.

"Huff. What a good deal. If I say no, you are going to kill me." She said in a sarcastic tone.

"I never said that."

"The look on your face betrays your words." She said.

"Shhhhh. Now, tell me, what is it gonna be?" I waved my hands before asking.