Draftxxx

The first sensation was pain—sharp, clinical, and absolute. As consciousness slowly returned, the sterile smell of antiseptic filled my nostrils, accompanied by the metallic tang of blood. This wasn't the comfortable hospital room I'd expected after death. This was something else entirely.

Through blurred vision, I made out the stone walls of what appeared to be an underground chamber. Medical equipment hummed softly in the background, their displays casting an eerie blue glow across the room. A woman's voice cut through the haze—sharp, controlled, yet tinged with something that might have been pride.

"He's perfect, Silva. Look at those eyes—so alert already."

Kikyo Zoldyck. The realization hit me like a physical blow. Those words, that voice... I knew them from another life, from countless hours spent watching and reading Hunter x Hunter. But this wasn't fiction anymore. The pain was too real, the sensations too vivid.

I was a Zoldyck now. Born into a family of assassins.

The next few months passed in a blur of sensations and revelations. Every moment was a struggle between my adult consciousness and the limitations of an infant body. I couldn't move as I wanted, couldn't speak the thoughts racing through my mind. All I could do was observe, learn, and plan.

The Zoldyck estate was both grander and more terrifying than any anime or manga could capture. The stone walls seemed to pulse with centuries of accumulated power, and the very air crackled with the presence of Nen—though I wouldn't learn its name for years to come. Every shadow held potential threats, every corner concealed deadly traps. This was a place designed to forge killers, and I was its newest project.

By the time I could walk, the training began. It started subtly at first—exercises disguised as games, poisons introduced in minute doses to build resistance, weights added to my clothes gram by gram. Kikyo watched my progress with an intensity that bordered on obsession, while Silva observed from a distance, his massive presence a constant reminder of the power I would be expected to achieve.

"Again," Silva would command, his voice echoing through the training hall as I attempted to dodge automated darts for the hundredth time. My tiny body, barely three years old, moved with growing precision, but never quite fast enough to avoid all the projectiles. Each sting was a reminder: in this world, weakness meant death.

The truth became clearer with each passing day—this wasn't just about surviving until the canon timeline. The Zoldyck family's expectations were absolute, and my foreknowledge was both a blessing and a curse. I knew what was coming, yes, but that knowledge only highlighted how unprepared I truly was.

When Illumi was introduced to my training at age four, I understood the true meaning of fear. His blank eyes held no warmth, no recognition of our supposed brotherhood. To him, I was simply another tool to be sharpened, another weapon in the family arsenal.

"Pain is how we learn, little brother," he would say, his needles finding their mark with surgical precision. "Each wound makes you stronger. Each failure brings you closer to perfection."

But I had one advantage they couldn't take away: perspective. While my body learned their techniques, my mind worked on a different problem altogether. How could I survive this world without losing myself? How could I gain the strength I needed while preserving some shred of humanity?

The answer came during my sixth year, in the form of a seemingly routine training exercise. Silva had ordered me to track a target through the forest surrounding the estate. Hours into the hunt, I found myself face-to-face not with the expected training dummy, but with a wounded mountain cat and her cubs.

In that moment, watching the mother cat stand her ground despite her injuries, I saw a reflection of my own situation. Survival wasn't just about strength or skill—it was about adaptation, about finding one's own path through impossible circumstances.

That night, as I nursed my wounds from the day's training, I made a decision. I would learn their techniques, master their arts, but I would do it my way. The knowledge from my past life wasn't just trivia anymore—it was a roadmap to survival.

"You're progressing well," Silva noted during one of our rare moments alone. "But remember, Solis—a Zoldyck's power comes from absolute commitment to our way of life."

I met his gaze and nodded, keeping my face carefully neutral. Let him think I was just another obedient heir. Inside, my mind was already racing ahead, planning, adapting. I would need every advantage, every scrap of knowledge to survive what was coming.

Because I knew something they didn't: this was just the beginning. The real challenges—the Hunter Exam, the Phantom Troupe, the Chimera Ants—lay ahead. And I intended to face them on my own terms, not as a puppet of the Zoldyck family.

The weight of that knowledge kept me awake at night, staring at the stone ceiling of my chambers, my small hands tracing the fresh scars from the day's training. In this world of hunters and killers, of Nen and impossible challenges, survival would require more than just strength.

It would require something the Zoldycks had never expected from their children: hope.

My seventh year brought the first true test of my resolve. The Zoldyck estate's third underground level became my new training ground—a maze of darkness where the air itself seemed to weigh tons. Each step was a battle against crushing pressure, each breath a conscious effort.

"Today," Silva announced, his voice carrying effortlessly through the oppressive atmosphere, "you'll learn about the weight of darkness."

The training changed then, becoming something beyond mere physical conditioning. In that perpetual twilight, I discovered something that would change everything—the faintest whisper of aura around my father's massive frame.

Nen. The power system I'd once analyzed through a screen was now tantalizingly real, yet frustratingly out of reach. I could sense it, like seeing shadows move in peripheral vision, but couldn't grasp it. Not yet.

"Focus, Solis," Silva's voice cut through my observations. "A Zoldyck must master darkness before they can wield it."

He was right, but not in the way he intended. Each day in that crushing darkness, I learned to separate my mind from my body's suffering. While my muscles screamed and my lungs burned, I analyzed, planned, remembered. Every detail from my past life about Nen, about the Zoldycks, about what was to come—I cataloged it all.

The breakthrough came during a particularly brutal session. Illumi had been tasked with testing my resistance to his needles, each one carrying a different poison. As the toxins burned through my system, something clicked.

"Interesting," Illumi noted, his dead eyes showing a flicker of curiosity. "Your aura responded differently that time."

I hadn't even realized I was doing it—my body had instinctively wrapped itself in a thin shield of aura, a crude approximation of Ten. It wasn't real Nen mastery, not yet, but it was a start. A secret advantage I'd gained through understanding rather than pure conditioning.

That night, nursing my wounds in the privacy of my quarters, I made another discovery. The mountain cat I'd encountered a year ago had left more than just memories—it had left inspiration. As I focused on my fledgling aura, it responded not with the cold precision expected of a Zoldyck, but with something wild and adaptive.

"Your progress is adequate," Silva said during our next assessment, "but you lack the natural talent of your siblings."

He wasn't wrong. Unlike Killua's lightning-fast reflexes or Illumi's perfect control, my abilities developed slowly, painfully. But what my family saw as weakness was actually my strength—I was building something different, something uniquely mine.

The turning point came just before my eighth birthday. During a routine training session, Milluki's robots had cornered me in the seventh underground level. Exhausted, poisoned, and running out of options, I felt something shift inside me.

The aura that had been barely noticeable before suddenly surged, taking on a form that reflected both my desperation and my determination. For a split second, in the darkness between heartbeats, I saw it—the shadowy outline of a great cat, its eyes gleaming with the same defiant spirit I'd seen in that wounded mother so long ago.

Milluki's robots didn't stand a chance. When the dust settled, Silva stood in the doorway, his expression unreadable.

"You've been holding back," he said finally. It wasn't a question.

"No, father," I replied carefully. "I've been growing."

His laugh was unexpected—a sharp, brief sound that echoed through the chamber. "Perhaps there's hope for you yet, Solis. Tomorrow, you begin real training."

I nodded, keeping my face neutral even as my mind raced. Tomorrow would bring new challenges, new pain, new opportunities. But for the first time since my rebirth into this world of shadows and killers, I felt truly ready.

Because now I understood—in this world of Hunters and assassins, the most dangerous power isn't the one you're given. It's the one you build for yourself, piece by piece, failure by failure, secret by secret.

The real question wasn't whether I could survive the Zoldyck training. It was whether the Zoldycks were ready for what their reincarnated son would become.

As I followed Silva out of the training room, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in a shattered robot's surface. Behind me, just for a moment, I saw it again—the shadow of a great cat, its eyes holding secrets from two lifetimes.

The path ahead was clear now. To survive in this world, I would need more than just the Zoldyck's techniques. I would need to become something entirely new—a hunter in assassin's clothing, a shadow with a soul, a weapon that chose its own targets.

The game had begun, and I was playing for keeps.

The true meaning of power revealed itself three days before my eighth birthday.

I stood in the mansion's central courtyard, rain pelting my skin like ice needles, while Illumi demonstrated what he called "the art of precise death." My brother moved with inhuman grace, each needle finding its mark on a series of training dummies with surgical accuracy.

"Watch carefully, Solis," he instructed, his voice as empty as his eyes. "The difference between an amateur and a master isn't in the kill—it's in the method."

But I was watching something else entirely. Behind Illumi's fluid movements, I could finally see it clearly—the complex dance of his aura, the way it extended through his needles like invisible threads of fate. My growing sensitivity to Nen was both a blessing and a curse; I could sense the overwhelming power gap between us, yet couldn't reveal that I could perceive it at all.

Later that night, in the privacy of my quarters, I practiced my own movements. Not Illumi's perfect needle work—that would take decades to master—but something different. Something uniquely mine.

"Control through adaptation," I whispered, remembering the mountain cat's fluid grace. My amateur attempts at manipulating aura responded not with Illumi's precision, but with something wilder, more instinctive.

The breakthrough came unexpectedly. As I moved through the forms I'd created—a hybrid of Zoldyck techniques and the natural movements I'd observed in predators—my shadow seemed to ripple. For a split second, it took on a life of its own, stretching and shifting like dark water.

A knock at my door shattered my concentration. "Tomorrow," came Silva's voice, "you'll take your first life."

The words hung in the air like physical things. I'd known this moment was coming—had prepared for it mentally since my rebirth—but the reality still hit like a punch to the gut.

"Yes, father," I responded, keeping my voice steady.

That night, sleep eluded me. I lay awake, staring at my hands—hands that would soon be stained with blood. In my past life, I'd analyzed countless anime battles, debated moral philosophies from the safety of a screen. Now, theory was about to become reality.

Morning came too quickly. Silva led me to a holding cell deep within the estate. Inside, a man sat bound and blindfolded—a former butler who had betrayed family secrets.

"Make it quick," Silva instructed. "But make it count."

Time seemed to slow as I approached the target. My training screamed for efficiency—a quick strike to the heart or a precise blow to the neck. But something else stirred within me—that wild, adaptive energy that had been growing alongside my Zoldyck teachings.

The man sensed my approach. "Please," he whispered, "I have a fam—"

I didn't let him finish. Not out of cruelty, but mercy. My strike was neither as precise as Illumi's nor as powerful as Silva's, but it was uniquely mine—swift, silent, and guided by that strange, shadowy energy that had become my secret ally.

He died instantly, without pain. My first kill.

Silva's hand fell heavy on my shoulder. "Unconventional," he noted, "but effective. You truly are surprising, Solis."

That evening, as I washed the blood from my hands, I caught my reflection in the basin. Behind me, just for a moment, I saw it again—the shadow of the great cat, its eyes holding a wisdom that seemed to span lifetimes.

"I choose my own path," I whispered to my reflection. "Even in darkness."

Because that's what this world had taught me—true power isn't just about technique or talent. It's about finding your own way through the shadows, about turning every challenge into an opportunity for growth.

The Zoldycks wanted an assassin. They were creating a weapon. But I was becoming something else entirely—a hunter in the darkest sense of the word, guided by knowledge from another life and driven by a purpose all my own.

As I closed my eyes that night, I could feel it—the first real stirrings of Nen, responding not to the Zoldyck's rigid training, but to my own understanding of what power could be. In the space between heartbeats, in the shadows between moments, something new was taking shape.

The game had truly begun. And I was writing my own rules.