บท 7: Teaching x Departure x Determination

Jett opened his eyes, waking up from a long sleep. As soon as he did, an intense pain flared in his back and arms. His arm felt like it had been broken, while his back felt like it was on fire. He had received the hits from that strange lizard creature in those two spots. He had used his arms to guard himself against the tail, and his back hurt from where he crashed and landed on the ground. While he had used Nen to protect himself, it didn't mean he had not received any damage. When he first opened his eyes and saw the familiar room, he questioned when he had gotten there; he knew that he had fainted again.

You could go ahead and call him weak for fainting; he didn't care; if it hadn't been because of his constant practice of Nen and his flash step, including the timely activation of his Hatsu, he would be dead by now. As the memories of last night started returning, the joy he felt temporarily overwhelmed the pain. His heart was thumping again, thinking of the fight. He had to outplay his enemy and find a way to kill him first, or he would be the one to die. He made many mistakes, like finishing moves right out as he started. He couldn't help it, though; he had to go all out with his most significant moves and had no fighting experience, so he had to go with raw power.

He also wondered what had happened after; he had no idea when he had fainted. All he could recall was shouting enthusiastically to that kid, after that nothing.

Jett had indeed fallen abruptly, one moment he had been shouting about how exciting everything was, and the next second all the strength left his body and dropped like a sack of potatoes. The change had been so sudden that it had startled Gon, who had been looking at Jett. One moment, he had him in his view. The next, he vanished. Gon had thought he had made that swift move he had seen, but the next, he heard a dull thud; he looked down only to find Jett planted on the ground, his face in the grass.

As to what happened after Gon had taken Jett home. The townspeople who had heard the commotion had come running. Jett's grandmother had also arrived, only to see the destroyed forest. She also saw Gon carrying an injured Jett. She had been angry at first, but Gon, unable to lie, had described the whole situation. The townspeople were also skeptical when they heard the story as they were near. How could a small child fight a monster like that? There was no one besides the two boys, and the only one injured was Jett.

The townspeople, afraid that there might be another creature, hurriedly call for a town meeting to call a hunter to inspect the forest. No one knew that the hunter that had come had been a charlatan. He said that Gon's story was a lie. He had found evidence of a fox bear attacking the lizard creature. The charlatan hunter wanted the body of the new species he had never seen before. There were hunters out there who were zoologies; their job mainly consisted of searching for new species and recording them. They paid handsomely for any new species that could be found. Of course, not wanting to be discovered, he gave the wrong location of where the creature had been found. The hunter assured them that no other such creature had been found on the island and that they had returned to their peaceful normality.

Jett spends a day in bed resting while also getting berated by his grandmother for being stupid. She didn't question the credibility of what Jett had done; she was simply happy he was okay. She also told him how Gon had carried him back to the house and that he shouldn't be ungrateful. She ordered him to go look for Gon and say thank you.

Jett was able to get up and walk around by the next day, although his back and hands still hurt. Deciding to take a day off to recover, he decided it was a good time to thank Gon as his grandmother had ordered him. Crossing town, Jett arrives at the top of a small hill, where a two-story house is visible. After saying hi to a light brown-haired woman and an older woman who had introduced themselves as Gon's aunt Mito and his great-grandmother, they told him where Gon would usually be around noon.

Walking into the forest, Jett found the pond that Gon's aunt had described. The water was a bit murky, and it was hard to see the bottom. In the middle was a tree where Jett could see fishing rot angling. He could see the line, but he couldn't see Gon anywhere. Jett was about to try searching a forest when a presence suddenly made itself known.

"Hey! Jett over here," Gon shouted from the top of the three.

Jett was startled. He hadn't detected Gon; he could see the fishing line hanging from the rot, thinking he would spot Gon at the other end. Gon had blended with the tree and erased his presence. It startled Jett, and slowly Jett activated his Gyo, he had slowly been practicing the advanced techniques for Nen. Jett noticed that when that strange mark on his shoulder, which he had discovered just recently, activated, his control and flow of nen became much smoother than when it wasn't active. It was like it was giving him a jump start on his concentration.

Jett looked at Gon, who was waving at him from the tree. His aura seemed normal, just like any of the townspeople's. He had yet to see anyone with awakened nen, but he could deduce that they would differ from regular people. He saw Gon use zetsu, the technique that conceals aura. Yet Gon wasn't a Nen user, so he had naturally learned to hide his presence while fishing.

"Hold on, I'll come down!" Gon yelled from the tree in the middle of the pond.

"Don't bother, I'll come to you!." Jett yelled back. Wanting to show off himself, Jett did a voluntary flash step; Gon watched as Jett disappeared from the edge of the pound and suddenly landed on the tree next to him, making it shake slightly.

"I still need more practice," Jett whispered, although Gon had heard him.

"Were you looking for me?" Gon question.

"Yeah, I wanted to say thank you for carrying me home the day before yesterday," Jett said.

"No problem. In return, you can teach me how to move fast like you," Gon said shamelessly. Jett looked at Gon with a blank, idiot look on his face. Unable to hold it, he burst out laughing. Gon smiled as well while looking at Jett. He could see the expression of joy on Jett's face, but he could also see that the emotion never reached his eyes. No, he had seen it once when his dark eyes shone with emotion briefly.

"You're shameless. I heard that you also wanted to become a hunter?" Jett said, calming down after laughing.

"Yeah, I want to go and find my dad; he's the best hunter," Gon said.

"You want to be a hunter just for that?" Jett asked. If he wanted to find his dad, he could do it without becoming a hunter.

"Not just for that, I want to know why he left when I was a baby, why becoming a hunter was so important," Gon said, looking at the distance in the horizon. Jett stays quiet for a minute.

"You, want to understand huh, yeah, I had that same problem until recently," Jett said, Gon raised his eyes to look at Jett. He saw the same smile he saw that night, that indescribable smile. Again, his heart thumped and squeezed, an emotion he hadn't had before the surface. He was inclined to act on that emotion, but he had a vague feeling as to what that feeling was. His aunt Mito had described it to him once, yet Jett's following words drowned them and solidified his other emotions.

"You're right, Gon; you won't understand until you see him yourself. But I think I understand what your father could have been thinking. Before, I wanted to become a hunter just because I could. But that night, when I fought that lizard creature, I found something to drive me to become a hunter. I want to become a hunter to find that same thing that ignited that flame in my heart. The unknown adventure that awaits me as soon as I set out on my journey. I won't stop until I reach it; if I die along the way, that's fine, too." Jett gave his cringe speech, but those were the only words he could use to describe that feeling.

Gon, who had been listening, also realized something. He realized that his feelings were right, but he would not act. He also had a path to walk, and he needed to reach there before anything else. He would bury that feeling deep and forget he ever had it. His drive wasn't as strong as Jetts', but he couldn't get in the way, so he would simply let it go.

Gon would indeed forget, but later on, he would discover that it was harder to forget than he thought. It was harder because the person who caused that emotion was making it resurface repeatedly. He would realize that while he had those emotions, he couldn't act on them, not in those moments along their journey. It wasn't until later, when they were older that he would confess them in full, only to discover that those feelings were returned, but that was a story for another time.

"So, will you teach me how to move fast?" Gon asks again, already returning to his usual self.

"Why not? The training is going to be hard. Are you sure you can handle it?" Jett said.

"Bring it on!" Gon yelled.

That said, Jett began training Gon on what he needed to perform a flash step. At first, Gon was upset that he wouldn't teach him right away. Jett told him that he would never perfect the technique if he did not learn the fundamentals. It took Jett to show him the method a few times so that Gon could believe him. Gon, of course, wanted to first see if he really couldn't do it, which ended with him eating dirt.

Both Gon and Jett quickly become close friends. Jett trains while Gon tries to catch the master of the pond, as the people like to call it. Eventually, the days passed and soon became two years, and the hunter exam was two weeks away. Gon had failed to catch the pond master; the fishing rots he had used kept breaking. It wasn't until the last two weeks, when Gon's aunt gave him his dad's old fishing rot, that Gon finally managed to catch the master of the pond. The thing was ugly, it looked like a fish that had mated with a centipede, Jett stood as far away as he could from that thing.

Finally catching the master, Gon's aunt had finally agreed to let Gon participate in the hunter exam. He and Gon sent their entry pass electronically after Jett suggested it. A few days later, a reply came, telling them to reach Dolle Harbor. Jett has chosen not to do any training in the next week before they depart. He relaxed; Gon, on the other hand, practiced his flash step; it had finally taken him nine months to use his feet. When he finally did learn he practiced nonstop, he could now perform the flash step, but he still had a long way to go because he was still picking up a lot of dust while performing it. Jett too was still practicing it, since he had started earlier than Gon he was a lot more proficient. He too still needed more time to master it, he still picked up small clouds of dust when doing his flash step.

The day had finally come; it was time to depart. Gon and Jett had decided to meet at the port on the day of departure. Their start to becoming a hunter had begun. There was one thing that was not mentioned: while Jett became close friends with Gon, he never questioned if Gon was the main character.

If he still had his memories he wouldn't blame himself, Gon wasn't like those showy main characters in other anime. He was simple; he didn't have a solid or outright weird character. Even his hair, while slightly green, was normal.